Re: [tied] Etymology of Slavonic kurva?

On Sun, 05 Jun 2005 23:16:32 +0000 (UTC), Christopher Culver
<crculver@...> wrote:

>I had wondered about the etymology of the common Slavonic vulgar term
>kurva "whore". Recently learning that Greek kore "girl" was once
>written with digamma after the rho, it seems likely that these words
>are descended from a common ancestor. It wouldn't be unlikely for a
>neutral word to get a pejorative meaning in one language but not
>another. For example, the Romanian word (of Dacian origin?) copil
>"child" has a cognate in Bulgarian kopele "bastard".
>
>Is my supposition correct or is there no way for Slavonic kurva to be
>cognate with Gr. korwa?

Not by regular sound change (kurva < *kury, *kurUve <
*kouru:; ko(u)re: < *korwa: c.q. *koru:).

Another possible link is with Germanic E. whore, OHG huora,
but that is usually derived from *ka:r-a: ("beloved"), which
doesn't fit the Slavic word.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...