# Rim - Slavic version of Rome



## AndrasBP

Hello,

Can anyone explain why the vowel /o/ in the name of the city *Rome *changed to /i/ in Slavic languages, resulting in *Rim *or similar forms?


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## Zec

What seems to have happened (this is the standard, non-controversial explanation), is that when the name was borrowed, Latin /oː/ was replaced by Proto-Slavic *uː, because Proto-Slavic at the time had no /oː/, and /uː/ was the closest approximation. Later this *uː fronted to become the sound written as *y (whose exact pronunciation is debated), which merged with /i/ in most modern South Slavic idioms. This is a regular change in Proto-Slavic (the shift *uː > *y, not the merger).

This change can be also seen in many place-names along the Dalmatian coast, where the contact between Latin and Slavic was the most intensive: Lat. _Albona_ > Cro. _Labin_, Lat. _Aenona_ > Cro. _Nin_, Lat. _Scardona_ > Cro. _Skradin_, Lat. _Salona_ > Cro. _Solin_.

That /oː/ was first replaced by *uː is proven by other loanwords such as Lat. _murus _> Cro. _mir_ "wall", in which we can see the same development *uː > *y > /i/. In some other names, such as Lat. _Pola_ > Slov. _Pulj_, /oː/ was preserved and developed into modern /u/.

The standard explanation is that some names were borrowed before, and some after the appearance of Proto-Slavic *oː, which influenced the way they were adapted. An alternate explanation is that the change /oː/ > /uː/ happened before the borrowing, in the local Vulgar Latin dialect -as it can be clearly seen, all the examples I have mentioned have the sound /oː/ followed by a nasal consonant, which is a common environment for such a change. The only way to decide between the two options would be to find a word which shows the change /oː/ > /i/ when not followed by a nasal, but I can't remember any such words at the moment.

That's the best explanation I can give.

Edit: Fixed some spelling mistakes.


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## AndrasBP

Thank you for your detailed and insightful reply.



Zec said:


> This change can be also seen in many place-names along the Dalmatian coast, where the contact between Latin and Slavic was the most intensive: lat. _Albona_ > cro. _Labin_, lat. _Aenona_ > cro. _Nin_, cro. _Scardona_ > cro. _Skradin_, lat. _Salona_ > cro. _Solin_.


I was wondering if there are any other examples for the same sound shift.


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## berndf

Zec said:


> That's the best explanation I can give.


And its a good one. /u/>/y/ (or something similar)>/i/ Is nothing uncommon. See, e.g., the modern pronunciation of ypsilon in Greek.


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## ahvalj

This theory doesn't explain the Church Slavonic Rimŭ (i instead of y).


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## Zec

YYYYY said:


> This theory doesn't explain the Church Slavonic Rimŭ (i instead of y).



This fact is indeed news to me - after a quick look at the wiktionary, not only Church Slavonic, but every single Slavic language has to derive from a proto-word with *i instead of the *y that would be expected if the development was exactly as in the other names I mentioned.

That does not mean we have to dismiss the theory completely -afterall, it is only the last step required (replacing *y with *i) that is irregular and unexpected. There are many reasons to believe that the /o/ of _Rōma_ wasn't just replaced by /i/ immediately (other than the principle of sticking to regular sound change unless it's obviously impossible)! 

One of these is Gothic, with which Slavic had close contact during the migration period, and which is thought to have mediated the borrowing of many Latin words into Slavic. The Gothic name for Rome is _Rūma_. If the name of Rome was borrowed into Slavic at an early point, it almost certainly happened through Gothic, and in Gothic we have a direct proof of the theoretically supposed replacement of /oː/ by /uː/.

As I've said, one only has to explain why we find an obviously very early *Rimъ for the expected **Rymъ. Now, it's always hard to explain irregular changes, so the following are just guesses:

a) It may have been the result of a folk etymology.

b) It may have been borrowed through an unknown intermediary language, which had replaced the Latin /o/ or Gothic /u/ by something ressembling Proto-Slavic *i than Proto-Slavic *y.

c) That intermediary language may have been an early Western South Slavic dialect, where *y merged with *i very early. Being the closest to Rome geographically, it's pronunciation of the name may have influenced other early Slavic dialects.

To be completely fair, I don't know.


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## ahvalj

This again implies that this word was new in Slavic, but there is little doubt that Slavs knew about the existence of Rome long before the Migration Period and of course they had a name for it.


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## Zec

If the word was borrowed before the migration period (which I agree is likely), then it must have been through an intermediary language, which makes option b) very possible. Anyway, that the city was known to early Slavs doesn't preclude that it's name was re-borrowed or went through an influence of the original at a later date - consider how in English, Peking has been largely replaced by Beijing. Or, the very English name _Rome_ itself, which replaced earlier Old English _Rūm_ or _Rōm_ (they would have given Modern English *_Roum_ and*_Room_.)

The real issue here is that there is an *i in the name, while considering all we know it should have been a *y. What is your explanation for this fact?


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## ahvalj

I have seen no plausible etymology.


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## Zec

I've done some more research and reviewed my suggestions. Suggestions a) is a complete speculation, while suggestion c) is improbable - when a foreign place-name is reformed, such as in the examples I mentioned, it is always to make it closer to the form it has in it's original language.

If the name was borrowed before the migration period (which I agree is likely), it had to pass through an intermediary language . The most likely candidate is Gothic, which was spoken in between the Slavic and Roman areas and had contact with both. As I've said, the Gothic form of "Rome" is _Rūma_. The fact that this word gave *Rimъ instead of *Rymъ in Common Slavic means it can't have been borrowed from Gothic to Proto-Slavic without transformations.

What these transformations were is of course speculative - when speculating, we should limit ourselves to plausible phonetic changes. One likely possibility is that the dialect of Gothic that Proto-Slavic got the name from had a more or less fronted /u/ - this is a feature of multiple languages which, since there is no fully back u to contrast with, is not visible in the orthography. In Russian and Japanese, this sound is heard as /ju/, and it may have already been the case in Proto-Slavic. If that was the case when Gothic _Rūma_ was borrowed into Slavic, the borrowed form would have been *Rjūmu (accounting for the change of gender and ending, since "town, city" is masculine in Slavic), which gives all the attested Slavic forms by regular sound change.

Of course, we cannot know how /u/ was pronounced in Gothic (or any other possible intermediary language), but the rest of this theory sticks to well known facts.


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## ahvalj

There seem to be no other examples of such a development in early Germanic loans into Slavic. Besides, the Gothic word is an a-stem, so why not 'Rima' or 'Rimo' (as in mota>myto)? Otherwise, this word may have entered into Slavic through some Balkanic language (as ū>y/i and ō>e in Albanian) or via merchants.

Rome was a country first of all. Gradŭ Solunĭ is feminine.


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## rushalaim

AndrasBP said:


> Thank you for your detailed and insightful reply.I was wondering if there are any other examples for the same sound shift.


Russian [k*o*t] _"cat"_ and the Southern dialect of Kiev [k*i*t] _"whale"_ ))


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## ahvalj

There is one more word of this type, namely "cross": crucem>*krọdže>*križĭ>kříž, krzyż.

1. It comes from a Gallo-Romance language (voicing of č, and therefore also u>ọ) and not through Germanic (*dž was impossible there) or Balkanic (č remained unvoiced in Balkanic Latin).
2. It is confined to the catholic Slavic areal (West Slavic + western South Slavic + loans from there).

Two problems remain:
1. The origin of i is not more clear.
2. Modern Gallo-Romance languages seem to retain the voiceless outcome in this word.


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## ahvalj

YYYYY said:


> There is one more word of this type, namely "cross": crucem>*krọdže>*križĭ>kříž, krzyż.
> 
> 1. It comes from a Gallo-Romance language (voicing of č, and therefore also u>ọ) and not through Germanic (*dž was impossible there) or Balkanic (č remained unvoiced in Balkanic Latin).
> 2. It is confined to the catholic Slavic areal (West Slavic + western South Slavic + loans from there).
> 
> Two problems remain:
> 1. The origin of i is not more clear.
> 2. Modern Gallo-Romance languages seem to retain the voiceless outcome in this word.


This scenario is also mentioned here: The Entry of the Slavs Into Christendom (did Dalmatian voice intervocalic consonants as the author writes?).


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## Zec

The change of gender is the least of our problems here: yes, there are exceptions, and thank you for mentioning them, but the vast majority of Latin feminine town names, including all of them on the Dalmatian coast that I mentioned, changed the gender, and its corresponding ending, to masculine. That "Rome" did as well should not confuse anyone - when borrowing words, stranger things can happen!

As for cross, thank you for this example! It shows a word where the change /o/ > /i/ happened when not in front of a nasal, which makes the theory of borrowing-induced sound substitutions (that is, a direct change from Romance *ọ to Slavic *ū) more probable. 

1. Yes, it is certainly a Gallo-Romance word directly borrowed into Slavic. Dalmatian is not Gallo-Romance: it neither voices intervocalic consonants, nor it has palatalization of Latin velars, as numerous other loanwords show. For these reasons, it is probable that the word "cross" came with missionaries from Aquileia, who were one of the earliest to try and convert the Slavs.

2. Being confined to Catholic Slavs, a dialectal spread from a Western South Slavic dialect, where *y merged with *i early, might be more likely than in the case of "Rome", where I admit it is a big stretch?

As for problem n. 2, I can confirm that the voiceless reflex in modern Gallo-Romance is not a retention, but a product of word-final devoicing - which obviously happened later than the loaning in to Slavic, and in different Gallo-Romance dialects at that!

As for why there is an *i in these two words... we have to keep in mind that sound changes are usually not completely regular. There might have just happened a merger of *y and *i in these two words where it usually didn't happen - and now we're discussing things we can't prove 

I did notice, however, that in both words, there is an /r/ before the vowel in question. I've listened to multiple languages, including french, and my own local Kajkavian dialect (speaking of which, it also has a shift of o > i, probably by the way of o > *ø > e > i), and came to the conclusion that /r/ can cause an umlaut-like effect on a nearby vowel (there's in fact an r-umlaut in Old Norse). Might this have helped the confusion of *y and *i ?


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> Russian [k*o*t] _"cat"_ and the Southern dialect of Kiev [k*i*t] _"whale"_ ))


Ukrainian ikavism has pretty much nothing to do with "Rim". That's the result of compensatory lengthening (and frontening) of /o/ before syllables with weak reduced vowels. Hence O.Rus. /kotŭ/ ("котъ") > Ukr. /kit/, Rus. /kot/; cf. O.Rus /kota/ ("кота", gen.sg.) > Rus., Ukr. /kota/.
In that process /o/ initially merged with /ě/ ("ѣ"), which subsequently gave /i/ in Ukrainian (by which moment etymologycal /*i/ had already merged with /y/, resulting in the non-palatalizing /ɪ/ - Ukr. "и").


berndf said:


> And its a good one. /u/>/y/ (or something similar)>/i/ Is nothing uncommon. See, e.g., the modern pronunciation of ypsilon in Greek.


I'm afraid there is a bit of misunderstanding. In traditional Slavic notation "y" means an unrounded close central vowel [ɨ] (much like Polish "y"), which in proto-Slavic might have been more backward ([ɯ]; etymologically it comes from proto-Balto-Salvic short /u/). Greek Ypsilon, originally [ u], early shifted to [y] (IPA ) and, in the Middle Ages, was unrounded to produce to the modern day [ i].





Zec said:


> Latin /oː/ was replaced by Proto-Slavic *uː, because Proto-Slavic at the time had no /oː/.


As far as I understand, that's more likely about quality of Early Slavic /o/ than its very existance. Early loans from and into Old Russian also point at something like [ɒ] or [ʌ], which is still traditionally written as /o/ (anyway, this phoneme was and is represented by the same Cyrillic letter "o"). Early Baltic Finns didn't recognize their /o/ (short or long) in Old Russian /o/ at all, adopting it as /a/ in the loanwords (cf. akkuna, tappara). It may be necessary to note that Slavic /o/ originates from proto-Balto-Slavic short /a/ (while /a/ originates from long /a:/).


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## berndf

Awwal12 said:


> I'm afraid there is a bit of misunderstanding. In traditional Slavic notation "y" means an unrounded close central vowel [ɨ] (much like Polish "y"), which in proto-Slavic might have been more backward ([ɯ]; etymologically it comes from proto-Balto-Salvic short /u/). Greek Ypsilon, originally [ u], early shifted to [y] (IPA ) and, in the Middle Ages, was unrounded to produce to the modern day [ i].


It is still a similar development: Gradual fronting combined with unrounding. Just the sequence was a bit different. Btw, classical Greek ypsilon was in all likelihood still further back, i.e. [ʉ], a bit like many modern British speakers pronounce the vowel in _food_. The fronting was a gradual process there as well.


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## Zec

Awwal12 said:


> As far as I understand, that's more likely about quality of Early Slavic /o/ than its very existance. Early loans from and into Old Russian also point at something like [ɒ] or [ʌ], which is still traditionally written as /o/ (anyway, this phoneme was and is represented by the same Cyrillic letter "o"). Early Baltic Finns didn't recognize their /o/ (short or long) in Old Russian /o/ at all, adopting it as /a/ in the loanwords (cf. akkuna, tappara). It may be necessary to note that Slavic /o/ originates from proto-Balto-Slavic short /a/ (while /a/ originates from long /a:/).



Yes, this is my understanding as well, but it seems I didn't state it clearly enough: what I write between slashes, is supposed to be a rather close phonetic transcription - when I said that at the time of borrowing certain words, Proto-Slavic didn't have an /oː/, I meant specifically a long, closed vowel, which appeared in those Latin words.

When a Latin word which contained a short /a/ was borrowed into Slavic, the same correspondence appears as in your Finnish examples (even if the loaning happened the other way): it ended up as an *o, eg. Latin _Massarum_, the name of a mountain in Dalmatia, ended up as _Mosor_.

Technically, this loaning might have happened while Slavic short *o was still a short *a. There's one example that suggests that it was indeed the case - the name of the river Cro. _Kupa_, Slov._ Kolpa_, which comes from Lat. _Colapis. _The correspondance of "u" - "ol" implies a former syllabic "l", which implies a former yer - likely the back yer, or its predecessor a short *u which substituted Latin short /o/ in this name. This implies that, despite Latin short /o/ producing an open sound in all romance languages, Proto-Slavic *u/ > *ŭ was still a closer approximation that Proto-Slavic *a > *o, at the time when this name was loaned.

Update: I've found a few additionnal examples of the substitution of Lat. short /o/ > Slav. short *u > *ŭ. I've limited myself to stressed syllables, where Latin short /o/ is known to have become open. Examples of unstressed, closed short /o/ are even more numerous. Lat. _Corvus_ > Slav. _krb_, Lat. _hortus_ > Slav. _vrt_ "garden"


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## francisgranada

Zec said:


> The change of gender is the least of our problems here ...


 I'm not so sure. The change of gender (hypothetically) could be the consequence of the lack of the final _-a_  already in the language from which the Slavic variants of _Rim _were borrowed. If so, then perhaps also the explanation of the vowel _-i-_ lies in this language.

Btw, I don't see any need to change the gender of a borrowed place name as there are many Slavic toponyms ending in _-a _(e.g. _Moskva, Warszawa, Praha ..._). 





> This change can be also seen in many place-names along the Dalmatian coast, where the contact between Latin and Slavic was the most intensive: Lat. _Albona_ > Cro. _Labin_, Lat. _Aenona_ > Cro. _Nin_, Lat. _Scardona_ > Cro. _Skradin_, Lat. _Salona_ > Cro. _Solin_.


The place-names like _Labin_, _Skradin_, _Solin, etc_., can be explained by the replacement of the ending -_ona _with the existing Slavic ending_ -in_. See for example _Varaždin, Budin _and _Segedin,_ the Slavic correspondents of the Hungarian names of the towns _Varasd_, _Buda _and _Szeged_. They surely do not derive from a former **_Varasdona_, _**Budona_  and _**Segedona_...

I don't know if it has been already mentioned: in Czech and Polish the intial "r" underwent a kind of palatalisation (> Czech _*Ř*ím, _Polish _*Rz*ym_) which phenomenon unambiguously supposes the vowel _-i-_ in the "protoform" (not _-y_-, etc.).


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## ahvalj

To add perspective to the Gallo-Romance theory: before the Slavic invasion, Gaulish Latin was spoken in Noricum and Pannonia, so we don't have to go as far as to Aquileia.

Moskva seems to be the former ū-stem (accusative singular Moskŭvĭ etc.).


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## francisgranada

YYYYY said:


> Moskva seems to be the former ū-stem (accusative singular Moskŭvĭ etc.).


This is interesting and new to me (of course, it doesn't change the fact that there _are _Slavic place-names ending in _-a_).


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## Zec

I've said the change of gender is the least of our problems because we have numerous examples which show that in borrowing a Romance placename into Western South Slavic at least, it happens _more often than not_, however unexpected and inexplicable from our perspective it may be. In fact, nearly every single name of a town or an island on the Adriatic coast which in Latin ended in -a, replaced that ending with the o-stem masculine ending -ŭ, instead of the neuter ending -o or the a-stem ending -a, which from a phonetic perspective are closer. I don't know what the exact reason for that change is (I even think that, if the theory that Pie. *-os gives Psl. *-o by regular sound change is correct, *-a might have been the shape of the o-stem masculine ending at one point), but the point is that as far as gender change is concerned, _Rōma_ > *Rimŭ is not an outlier, it in fact shows the typical development.

Concerning those other names, I too have noticed that they all contain the ending -ona. It is easily conceivable that this suffix was regularily replaced by Slavic *-inŭ. I don't think, however, that your Hungarian examples prove that it was the same with Romance - multiple centuries passed between the first contact of Slavs and Romans and the first contact between Slavs and Magyars in the regions of Pannonia and Dalmatia, and during that time the Slavic language changed greatly, which must have influenced the way these names were borrowed.

When discussing historical linguistics (or history in general), it is easy to imagine many possible scenarios - and the standard explanation of course may not be the correct one. I personally prefer to limit my speculation by explaining as many things as possible with regular, predictable (sound) changes. I know my idea of what is regular may be wrong (it is formed by reading books and papers on historical linguistics and discussions on forums such as this one), but I will gladly change my opinion when provided with enough counterexamples.

To summarize: From a large sample of placenames along the Adriatic coast, two regular correspondances in the earliest layer of loanwords between Latin and Western South Slavic can be seen: 1. Latin ending -a in names of towns and islands is replaced by -ŭ, changing the gender to masculine, 2. Latin long closed /o/ results in modern Western South Slavic /i/. This correspondance can be explained by regular sound changes from /o/ >> *u > *y > /i/, which works perfectly for Western South Slavic. It is, however, put in doubt because of the words "Rome" and "cross", which show the correspondance of Latin "o" and Common Slavic *i, which _cannot_ be explained by regular sound changes as we know them, since there is no early merger of *y with *i outside of Western South Slavic, and when there is a merger, there is palatalization, as in these very words, which shows which vowel was the original one.

This is my current opinion on the topic. I still can't explain the last problem (which is, in fact, the topic of this discussion), and would like any ideas you can give.


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## francisgranada

Zec said:


> Concerning those other names, I too have noticed that they all contain the ending -ona. It is easily conceivable that this suffix was regularily replaced by Slavic *-inŭ. I don't think, however, that your Hungarian examples prove that it was the same with Romance - multiple centuries passed between the first contact of Slavs and Romans and the first contact between Slavs and Magyars in the regions of Pannonia and Dalmatia, and during that time the Slavic language changed greatly, which must have influenced the way these names were borrowed.


I wanted to say that the ending _-in_ does exist in Slavic place-names (not only in South Slavic), thus the simplest explanation is to suppose its usage in case of place-names (also) of foreign origin to render these place-names "more Slavic/more naturally sounding" for the Slavic speaking people. From this point of view, my examples (_Varaždin, Budin, Segedin_) may be quite illustrative (of course, not a prove). 





Zec said:


> I've said the change of gender is the least of our problems because we have numerous examples which show that in borrowing a Romance placename into Western South Slavic at least, it happens _more often than not_, however unexpected and inexplicable from our perspective it may be..


Can you give some examples, others than  those ending in _-in_?  (I believe you, I only would like to understand better your stand-point)

You have to take in consideration that _Rim _(and variants) are present in all the  Slavic languages (as far as I know), thus there has to exist a common source (perhaps the Old Church Slavonic, but I am not sure.) In other words, the explanation on Southern Slavic basis does not necessarily "fit" the phonetic requirements for all the Slavic languages.

As tu _*križ *_(cross, Lat. crux): at the moment I am not able to give an exact explanation, however it seems to me a different case. The sound _*ž*_ exists in Northern Italian dialects/languages (it's early existence is documented e.g. also in old Hungarian borrowings of some ecclesiastical terms). The sound_ *ü*_ also existed and in some North Italian dialects exists even today (like in modern French), thus I can imagine an evolution like this: Lat._ crux >_ Romance _*cruce > ... > *kruš > *krüž > _Slavic_ *križ. _ I.e. in the time of borrowing, the North Italian_ *ü*_ was percieved as _*i*_ by the Slavs. Thus here we have _*u>ü>i*,_ which is not the same as *o>?>i *(in case of _Roma>Rimŭ_). This is only an idea, or an approximation to a possible explanation ....


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## Zec

Thank you for your response, francisgranada. I apologise, because I have difficulties with expressing myself clearly when writing messages like this - I understood what you wanted to say about the suffix -in, but I rushed my response so it isn't clear. I agree that it is a possible alternative explanation.

I also understand very well how "Rome" and "cross" are problematic - when I mentioned Western South Slavic, it was to contrast it with the rest of Slavic, because these words _seem_ regular for Western South Slavic but not for the rest.

As for the change of ending, some examples without the suffix -ona are: Lat. _Arba_ > Cro. _Rab_, Lat. _Pola_ > Slov. _Pulj_, Lat. _Brattia_ > Cro. _Brač_, Lat. _Ad portulam_ > Cro. _Oprtalj_, Lat. _Ursaria_ > Cro. _Vrsar_, Lat. _Corcyra_ > Cro. _Krkar_, Lat. _Liciniana_ > Cro. _Lakljan_. These are all names of towns and islands. In names of rivers, we see the _opposite_: Lat. _Colapis_ > Cro. _Kupa_, Slov. _Kolpa_, Lat. _Savus_ > Cro. _Sava_, Lat. _Dravus_ > Cro. _Drava_.

For all these examples there exist counterexamples, but I believe I have shown that a change of gender when borrowing a name is not as rare as one would think.

I know many people have stated their disbelief that this change is because _grad_ "town", _otok_ "island" are masculine, and _rijeka_ "river" is feminine, but to me it is suggestive. To explain counterexamples, I suggest the following hypothesis: names borrowed earlier, when Slavs had less experience with Romans, were nativized more thoroughly, sometimes including a change of suffix, while names borrowed later, after some time of coexistence between Slavs and Romans, preserved their foreign form better: these are largely limited to dialects of Dalmatia.

One idea which I got about the unusual substitution of o > i in *Rimŭ and *Križĭ is that it may have something to do with the r, in whatever language it happened. The best would be to find more examples of this substitution. If we have only these two words, we can't ever be sure what is regular and what isn't.


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## francisgranada

Zec said:


> I apologise ...


No need to apologize, this is a discussion ...


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## Zec

It's a more fruitful discussion if I clearly express myself, and I often don't.


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## rushalaim

YYYYY said:


> To add perspective to the Gallo-Romance theory: before the Slavic invasion, Gaulish Latin was spoken in Noricum and Pannonia, so we don't have to go as far as to Aquileia.
> 
> Moskva seems to be the former ū-stem (accusative singular Moskŭvĭ etc.).


I assume there wasn't any v-sound, but w-sound. English kept it for us: Mosco*w*, Warsa*w*.


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> I assume there wasn't any v-sound, but w-sound.


[v] is a comparatively late development in Russian indeed (which doesn't exist in Belarusian, in Ukrainian and in a half of Russian rural dialects), even though the spelling of "Moscow" hardly has much to do with that. Anyway, [v] and [w] aren't phonologically opposed in any Slavic language.


francisgranada said:


> Btw, I don't see any need to change the gender of a borrowed place name as there are many Slavic toponyms ending in _-a _(e.g. _Moskva, Warszawa, Praha ..._).


"Moskva" is originally a river name anyway (and for them ending in -a is pretty much expected; let alone it well may be an adaptation of a Baltic hydronym - the amount of rivers ending in -va in the North-Eastern Europe is suspiciously high, and many of them certainly don't have Slavic etymologies).


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## rushalaim

Awwal12 said:


> [v] is a comparatively late development in Russian indeed (which doesn't exist in Belarusian, in Ukrainian and in a half of Russian rural dialects), even though the spelling of "Moscow" hardly has much to do with that. Anyway, [v] and [w] aren't phonologically opposed in any Slavic language.
> "Moskva" is originally a river name anyway (and for them ending in -a is pretty much expected; let alone it well may be an adaptation of a Baltic hydronym - the amount of rivers ending in -va in the North-Eastern Europe is suspiciously high).


North-Eastern of Germany Rügen have many towns with -*ow* ending, and Western towns of Poland have -*owo* ending too. And those endings have nothing to do with any rivers at all, as Mosc*ow* either.


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> North-Eastern of Germany Rügen have many towns with -*ow* ending, and Western towns of Poland have -*owo* ending too. And those endings have nothing to do with any rivers at all, as Mosc*ow* either.


We were talking about the place names ending in the feminine -a, remember?..


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## ahvalj

rushalaim said:


> North-Eastern of Germany Rügen have many towns with -*ow* ending, and Western towns of Poland have -*owo* ending too. And those endings have nothing to do with any rivers at all, as Mosc*ow* either.


These are actually two different suffixes, which look similar in modern Russian because of the merger of Old East Slavic ъ/ŭ and o. In Ukrainian (and in most other Slavic languages) they are still distinct: as for example in this poster — https://pp.userapi.com/c618223/v618223201/1b090/BBJW77zPBu8.jpg — where we find ŭ>o versus o>i in a syllable before a former reduced vowel; likewise in Polish we'll find moskiewski but żydowski.


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## francisgranada

Awwal12 said:


> ..."Moskva" is originally a river name anyway (and for them ending in -a is pretty much expected; let alone it well may be an adaptation of a Baltic hydronym - the amount of rivers ending in -va in the North-Eastern Europe is suspiciously high, and many of them certainly don't have Slavic etymologies).


Only for curiosity: I've read once in an etymology dictionary of geographic names  that the origin of the name of the river _Moskva _is of finno-ugric origin. However, it is not really important from the point of view of our discussion.

Yes, in case of Slavic river names the ending _-a_, especially _- ava_, is frequent enough. See e.g. _Vltava_, _Morava_, _Ondava_, _Moldava_, _Nitrava _(today _Nitra_) , etc. (these examples are from the Czech republic and Slovakia). But there are also names of towns/settlements/villages ending in _-a_,  not derivable from river names, e.g. _Praga_, _Warszawa_, etc.  However, whatever be the origin or the etymology of Slavic place-names ending in _-a_, they do exist.

It would be  interesting to know, when  and where (in wich written document) the name  _Rimъ _appears the first time and if  the form _Roma _is absolutely not attested in old Slavic written douments.


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## ahvalj

These toponyms with -v- are characteristic of both Slavic and Baltic, e. g. numerous Lithuanian villages:
-uva (Slavic -ŭva) — Paštuva – Vikipedija
-ava (Slavic -ova) — Šlienava – Vikipedija
-ovė (Slavic -ava, or a more exact phonetic counterpart -avlja) — Ringovė – Vikipedija

Lithuanian lands:
Jotva — Dainava (baltų žemė) – Vikipedija
Lietuva (Slavic Litŭva) — Lietuva – Vikipedija
Dainava — Dainava (baltų žemė) – Vikipedija

The largest Latvian river (with a Baltic, not Finnic, name):
Daugava — Daugava — Vikipēdija, Dauguva in Lithuanian — Dauguva – Vikipedija (Lithuanian daug, Latvian daudz "much, many" — daudz - Wiktionary)

Thus, various Finnic toponyms in -va in what has become Central Russia were simply adapted to this old and widespread Balto-Slavic pattern.

+++++++

'Moscow' is attested in the oldest texts in the following forms:
genitive: Moskŭve, Moskvě, Moskvy
accusative: Moskovŭ, Moskvu, Moskovĭ
locative: Moskvě, Mos'kvi

Of these, Moskŭve and Moskovĭ are unambiguous forms of ū-stems, and Mos'kvi is most probably so. Overall, it looks that the name was unusual for the chroniclers and officials living elsewhere so they tended to adapt it to widespread patterns (ā-stems: Moskvu or o-stems: Moskovŭ). Ū-stems and wā-stems are phonetic variants of the same origin (Proto-Indo-European weh₂-stems), compare Slavic svekry (ū-stem) and Lithuanian švašva (wā-stem) "mother-in-law".

Place names derived from the same stem *moskŭv- exist in Poland:
Moskiewce (<*Moskŭvĭce) — Mapa Moskiewc, mapa Moskiewce, plan Moskiewc, map Moskiewce
Moskwin (<*Moskŭvinŭ) — Mapa Moskwina, mapa Moskwin, plan Moskwina, map Moskwin

+++++++

Back to the thread topic. 'Rimŭ' is of course present in the Old Church Slavonic texts preserved as manuscripts of the 10th century. The expected Slavic continuation of Rōma should have been 'Rum-' or 'Rym-' + -a, -o or -ŭ.


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## Awwal12

francisgranada said:


> Only for curiosity: I've read once in an etymology dictionary of geographic names  that the origin of the name of the river _Moskva _is of finno-ugric origin.


There is no consistent Finnic etymology for "Москва", I am afraid. The Komi one (which is the least problematic) cannot be accepted due to the fact that other Permian toponymics doesn't exist anywhere near Moscow. The word must be originially Slavic or probably Baltic, with essentially the same root (if Baltic, it also contains the formant *ava/*uva; cf. Daugava, Iecava etc.).


francisgranada said:


> Yes, in case of Slavic river names the ending _-a_, especially _- ava_, is frequent enough. See e.g. _Vltava_, _Morava_, _Ondava_, _Moldava_, _Nitrava_


Yes. No one meant that all river names ending in -va must have non-Slavic origin.


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## rushalaim

For example, Russian [s*y*n](the son) or s*i*n < s*o*n < s*u*nus 
Maybe, Rim < Rome < Rum ? (Russians are naming [r*u*mynija] for R*o*mania)
Maybe, that vowel was changed in Russian through Greek? For example, Russian [r*u*s'](the Russia) was Greek Ρ*ω*σία but modern [r*o*ssija] (by the way, English again kept the old name "R*u*ssia"). Or Greek Ρ*ώ*μη of later R*o*ma and later South-Slavic [r*i*m].

Mosc*ow*.. There was Swedish "Pill*au*" fortress (now Russian Baltiysk). Look, how many -*ow* endings of towns in Eastern Germany!


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## Awwal12

rushalaim said:


> For example, Russian [s*y*n](the son) or s*i*n < s*o*n < s*u*nus


You're mixing something up. That's actually *sunus (proto-Balto-Slavic) > *synŭ (proto-Slavic; cf. O.C.Sl. "сынъ") > syn (Rus.). And "y" isn't "i" (see the notes above), even though in most languages (not in Russian) their reflexes have fully merged by now in one way or another.


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## danielstan

rushalaim said:


> ...
> Maybe, Rim < Rome < Rum ? (Russians are naming [r*u*mynija] for R*o*mania)
> ...


Romania's historical name is _Rumânia_ [rumynija] (in your notation) and the ethnonim is _rumân_.

There is a regular phonetic change _u > o_ in unstressed syllables for Latin inherited words:
lat. _cognatus_ > rom. _cumnat_
lat. (_dies_) _domenica_ > rom. _duminica_
etc.

The oldest surviving Romanian document, written in 1521, attests the country name _Țeara Rumânească_ (Rumanian Land) (Neacșu's letter - Wikipedia)
The change to _România/român _was made during 19th century by a 'Latinist' current in Romanian literature.

That's why in English they preferred _Rumania_ (before 1918), then _Roumania_ (in parallel with _Rumania_) and finally _Romania_ (I guess this was after 1945).
Rumania definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary


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## aefrizzo

Fascinating this thread, even for non-knowledgeable people.




francisgranada said:


> I don't know if it has been already mentioned: in Czech and Polish the intial "r" underwent a kind of palatalisation (> Czech _*Ř*ím, _Polish _*Rz*ym_) which phenomenon unambiguously supposes the vowel _-i-_ in the "protoform" (not _-y_-, etc.).




What about the Polish proper name Kata*rzy*na ?


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## Awwal12

aefrizzo said:


> What about the Polish proper name Kata*rzy*na ?


In Polish /i/ cannot follow a hard consonant other than /m/ (which in that case also becomes palatalized, but it just doesn't form a separate soft phoneme), at least historically; /i/ and /y/ used to be in complementary distribution with soft and hard consonants respectively (much like it was in Old Russian and on some level remains the same in Russian, even though the phonological status of /*y/ in Russian is doubtful). But in Polish soft /*r'/ has early hardened, ultimately resulting in the unpaired hard /ʑ/ ("rz") and making /i/ after it impossible. However, any case of "rz" signifies that originally there was the soft /r'/, and "rzy" ([ʑɨ], with possible positional changes) invariably originates from /r'i/ ([rʲi]).


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## francisgranada

Awwal12 said:


> No one meant that all river names ending in -va must have non-Slavic origin.


Of course , I've only written: "whatever be the origin or the etymology of Slavic place-names ending in _-a_, they do exist".





aefrizzo said:


> What about the Polish proper name Kata*rzy*na ?


Awwal12 has just answered you question, I only want to add that _rzy_ in _Katarzyna _is exactly the same as in case of _Rzym_. The difference is that in case of  _Kata*rzy*na _it is expected (see the Medieval Latin _Cate*ri*na_, Engl. _Cathe*ri*ne_, etc... and also the supposed final sourse: the Greek _Aikate*ri*ne_), but not in case of _*Rz*ym_ (the final source is _*Ro*ma, _neither_ **Ri*m_ nor **Ri*_ma)_


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## aefrizzo

Grazie, Awwal12.
Grazie, Francis.


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## ahvalj

A perhaps related case is East Germanic *urtiγarδaz (Gothic aurtigards  — aurtigards - Wiktionary) > Russian Church Slavonic vĭrtogradŭ "garden", where we find the front jer but with a prothetic v as before a back one (it has been suggested that the vowel was altered after vǐrtĭpŭ "cave", though this is not that evident semantically).

Another word being mentioned in this context is the Germanic *βurδan (Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/burdą - Wiktionary) > Slavic *birda (> Finnish pirta) > Old East Slavic bĭrdo (Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/bьrdo - Wiktionary), but the latter can perfectly be inherited.

By the way, it turns out that the regular forms are attested since the very beginning as well: Sava's book (11th century) and Codex Suprasliensis (10th century) have rumĭskŭ "Roman" (adjective), and Codex Suprasliensis also ruminŭ "Roman" (noun). They can be newer though, as stressed and thus long ο/ω>u in Greek loans: Solomunŭ, episkupŭ, ikuna.


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> By the way, it turns out that the regular forms are attested since the very beginning as well: Sava's book (11th century) and Codex Suprasliensis (10th century) have rumĭskŭ "Roman" (adjective), and Codex Suprasliensis also ruminŭ "Roman" (noun). They can be newer though, as stressed and thus long ο/ω>u in Greek loans: Solomunŭ, episkupŭ, ikuna.


A similar pattern can be found in the name of Thessaloniki: in Old Church Slavonic it is normally _Солѹнъ ~ Селѹн҄ь_ with the adjective _солѹньскъ ~ селѹньскъ,_ but the variant _солиньскъ_ is also attested, so we perhaps get a newer _*ō_ (stressed Byzantine o) > _u_ (also _икѹна, Соломѹнъ_) in _солѹн-_ and _рѹм-_ and an older _*ō > … > *ī > i_ in _солин-_ and _рим-_.


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## Christo Tamarin

Anyway. I fell myself free to suppose that an unattested form *Ръимъ existed in Proto-Slavic (or Old Common Slavic).

The too early change *Ръимъ => *Римъ remains still unexplained. Please note that there was actually a diphthong in the hypothetical *Ръи-мъ.


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## Zec

Christo Tamarin said:


> Anyway. I fell myself free to suppose that an unattested form *Ръимъ existed in Proto-Slavic (or Old Common Slavic).
> 
> The too early change *Ръимъ => *Римъ remains still unexplained. Please note that there was actually a diphthong in the hypothetical *Ръи-мъ.



Yes, this is what the discussion actually is about. From the point of view of Western South Slavic, where *y > *i early, the development of _Rim_, _križ_ and the like is perfectly normal - but not in other Slavic languages, where *y is preserved much longer!


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## ahvalj

A similar relationship _ry : ri_ is found in the verb _rygati__,_ where West Slavic has _i_ instead of _y_ (_říhat__, __rzygać_). This can be normally explained as reflecting an old _e_-grade of the root, yet who knows if it is not related to the topic question.


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