--- tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> >
> > Again, the limited geographical distribution of
> the word makes me
> prefer
> > the Finnic loan hypothesis to any of those
> fanciful PIE etymologies,
> > which, needless to say, can't all be true.
> >
>
> Why would the Russians borrow a Finnic word for
> "thief"?
*****GK: The Slavic idiom(s) which eventually became
Russian interacted for centuries with various
Finno-Ugrian dialects, eventually assimilating the
carriers of the latter. Just possibly, subject to
verification, that is where "vor" came from? The
Novgorodians had tribes such as Vod' and Izhora on
their territory (to mention but these), the Suzdalians
had the Merya (and others). There is an interesting
book by O.B. Tkachenko ("Ocherki teorii iazikovogo
substrata" (Kyiv: Naukova Dumka 1989), part of which
(pp. 98-180) analyzes the presence of a good many
"Meryan" lexical elements in the rural dialects of
Yaroslav, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Kalinin, Moscow, and
Vladimir provinces (as these existed in the 1980's).
"Vor" isn't mentioned, since that is part of the
"national" language I suppose.*******
> Torsten
>
>
>
>
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