# Meanings of IE roots



## ThomasK

I am simply wondering... I can safely say, I suppose, that IE roots are based on a hypothesis, subtantiated of course by phonetic/etymological rules, but how about the meanings of those roots: also based on a hypothesis? 

Is that hypothesis considered to be fairly or quite reliable or... ? Reference to websites is very welcome!


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## ahvalj

As far as I imagine, there is no way to learn the meanings of reconstructed roots, so semantics remains — and will remain forever — the weakest part of historical linguistics. The basic procedure is that one finds two words in related languages, say the English _become_ and Dutch _bekomen_, and then tries to speculate what their original meaning could have been. This hasn't seriously changed since the dawn of science. I have never seen any strict rules presented anywhere: it's all more or less intuitive.


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## ThomasK

Quite so. Just wanted to be sure how it worked, but you confirm what I had guessed. Thanks!

_*Become/ bekom(m)en*_ is an excellent example of a strange semantic shift indeed [btw: I suppose the fact that in West Flemish we use _komen_ to convey the idea of becoming (I become old,_ ik komme oud_) can be considered an ingweonism]...


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## entangledbank

A classic example is Latin _flavus_ "yellow" cognate with _blue_. Did Germanic innovate, and if so, how did it drift? Did the PIE word originally mean blue, or yellow, or green, or cover all or part of those? I think old historical linguists tended to duck out of this by positing a lot of words meaning "bright, shining", when really it had a more definite meaning but we can't tell what.


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## berndf

ThomasK said:


> _*Become/ bekom(m)en*_ is an excellent example of a strange semantic shift indeed [btw: I suppose the fact that in West Flemish we use _komen_ to convey the idea of becoming (I become old,_ ik komme oud_) can be considered an ingweonism]...


_Become _is common Germanic. In this case the original meaning is reasonably clear, viz. _to come close/arrive_ ("bij komen"). The different meanings is different modern languages (_turn into, grow something, being proper/becoming for, receive_) are all semantic shifts from this original meaning. In English the meaning _to arrive at a place_ is attested up to early modern English.


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## ThomasK

I had not checked the original meaning, but this is very interesting. My only point was this striking resemblance in form and use between _become _and _kom(m)en_ in West Flemish.


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## berndf

Well, it is obviously the same base verb, with and without the _be-_ prefix. The meaning _turn into_ is rooted in the base verb itself. Cf. uses like _How comes?_ which works in English, German und Dutch alike.


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## Sobakus

entangledbank said:


> A classic example is Latin _flavus_ "yellow" cognate with _blue_. Did Germanic innovate, and if so, how did it drift? Did the PIE word originally mean blue, or yellow, or green, or cover all or part of those? I think old historical linguists tended to duck out of this by positing a lot of words meaning "bright, shining", when really it had a more definite meaning but we can't tell what.


What if the old historical linguists simply considered more evidence, such as Latin _fulgēre_ "to shine", _flagrāre_ "to be ablaze"_, flamma_ "flame", AGr. _φλέγμα "_heat" and _φλέγω_ "I burn", Sanskrit भ्रज _(bhrája)_ "shining; a fire", Russian _бе́лый (belyj)_ and Lithuanian _bãlas "_white", Old Norse bál "fire", English _bale(-fire)_?


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## entangledbank

Okay, perhaps not the best example if you take off the stem extensions and look at everything from the root. But the particular stem giving _flavus_ and _blue_ was probably a colour, and it's not obvious what.

And in fact, going back and 'researching' this, I was amused by the confusion in Wiktionary, which under 'blue' has:

from Proto-Germanic _*blēwaz_ (“blue, dark blue”), from Proto-Indo-European _*bʰlēw-_ (“yellow, blond, grey”) 

But if you click into the Proto-Germanic it glosses it as:

blue
a dark bluish or grey colour, black
and 'related terms' include _*blakaz_ meaning "black" and _*blaikaz_ meaning "pale, white". Meanwhile, if you click into the PIE . . . bleat, blow? I have no idea whether those are supposed to be coincidental homophones of the same root, or semantic developments of a single one.


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## Sobakus

entangledbank said:


> Okay, perhaps not the best example if you take off the stem extensions and look at everything from the root. But the particular stem giving _flavus_ and _blue_ was probably a colour, and it's not obvious what.


Taking off the stem extensions is precisely what makes it obvious - it's like determining the common element in _trickster, tricky, trickery, trick-or-treat_ if you've never met the word "trick" before. The relevant reconstructions are found under *bʰel- and *bʰleyǵ-.


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## j.Constantine

I found this
*bhel-1*

To shine, flash, burn; shining white and various bright colors.
▲ Derivatives include blue, bleach, blind, blond, blanket, black, flagrant, flame.
*I. *Suffixed full-grade form _*bhel-o-_.
*1. a. *beluga from Russian _belyĭ_, white; *b. *Beltane from Scottish Gaelic _bealltainn_, from Old Irish _beltaine_, "fire of Bel" (_ten, tene_, fire; see *tep-*) , from _Bel_, name of a pagan Irish deity akin to the Gaulish divine name _Belenos_, from Celtic _*bel-o-_.
*2. *phalarope from Greek _phalaros_, having a white spot.
*3. *phalaenopsis from Greek _phallaina_, moth (< *"white creature").
*II. *Extended root _*bhleə1-_, contracted to _*bhlē-_.
*1. *Suffixed form _*bhlē-wo-_. blue from Old French _bleu_, blue, from Germanic _*blēwaz_, blue.
*2. *Suffixed zero-grade form _*bhl̥ə-wo-_. flavescent, flavo-; flavin, flavone, flavoprotein from Latin _flāvus_, golden or reddish yellow.
*III. *Various extended Germanic forms.
*1. *bleach from Old English _blǣcan_, to bleach, from Germanic _*blaikjan_, to make white.
*2. *bleak1 from Old Norse _bleikr_, shining, white, from Germanic _*blaikaz_, shining, white.
Is related,maybe


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## fdb

berndf said:


> _Become _is common Germanic. In this case the original meaning is reasonably clear, viz. _to come close/arrive_ ("bij komen"). The different meanings is different modern languages (_turn into, grow something, being proper/becoming for, receive_) are all semantic shifts from this original meaning. In English the meaning _to arrive at a place_ is attested up to early modern English.



There is a nearly identical semantic shift with French de-venir. Also Persian šudan, still “go” in Early New Persian, then “become” in Modern Persian.


​


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## ThomasK

j.Constantine said:


> I found this
> *bhel-1*
> 
> To shine, flash, burn; shining white and various bright colors.
> ▲ Derivatives include blue, bleach, blind, blond, blanket, black, flagrant, flame.
> 
> *I. *Suffixed full-grade form _*bhel-o-_.
> *1. a. *beluga from Russian _belyĭ_, white; *b. *Beltane from Scottish Gaelic _bealltainn_, from Old Irish _beltaine_, "fire of Bel" (_ten, tene_, fire; see *tep-*) , from _Bel_, name of a pagan Irish deity akin to the Gaulish divine name _Belenos_, from Celtic _*bel-o-_.
> *2. *phalarope from Greek _phalaros_, having a white spot.
> *3. *phalaenopsis from Greek _phallaina_, moth (< *"white creature").
> 
> *II. *Extended root _*bhleə1-_, contracted to _*bhlē-_.
> *1. *Suffixed form _*bhlē-wo-_. blue from Old French _bleu_, blue, from Germanic _*blēwaz_, blue.
> *2. *Suffixed zero-grade form _*bhl̥ə-wo-_. flavescent, flavo-; flavin, flavone, flavoprotein from Latin _flāvus_, golden or reddish yellow.
> 
> *III. *Various extended Germanic forms.
> *1. *bleach from Old English _blǣcan_, to bleach, from Germanic _*blaikjan_, to make white.
> *2. *bleak1 from Old Norse _bleikr_, shining, white, from Germanic _*blaikaz_, shining, white.
> Is related,maybe


 Hope I have not missed an answer to this question, but: Is there any plausibility in connecting all those words/ meanings? What is the [methodological?] basis for that? Is it based on phonetic rules connecting roots and then exploring/... the various concrete meanings and then trying to distil some abstract underlying meaning...


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## Vojvoda

entangledbank said:


> A classic example is Latin _flavus_ "yellow" cognate with _blue_. Did Germanic innovate, and if so, how did it drift? Did the PIE word originally mean blue, or yellow, or green, or cover all or part of those? I think old historical linguists tended to duck out of this by positing a lot of words meaning "bright, shining", when really it had a more definite meaning but we can't tell what.


Serbian word for blue color may indicate that the original meaning referred to blue and not yellow. I am not an expert in languages, but as far as I know, in many languages the word for blue is descriptive, so the Serbian word _*plav*_ ("blue") is semantically related to water.
_plav_  "blue"
_plaviti_ "flooding", "bluish"
_splav_ "raft"
_plovak_ "float"
_plivati_ "to swim"
_ploviti_ "to sail"
_pljuje _"spit"
_pljusak_ "heavy rain"
The last two words are probably related to French pluie "rain".


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## Vojvoda

I forgot to mention that during antiquity there was a process of spirantization, so in some languages there was a shift from P to F, so *plav* ("blue", "blonde") became *flav + us* ("yellow", "blonde").


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> Serbian word for blue color may indicate that the original meaning referred to blue and not yellow. I am not an expert in languages, but as far as I know, in many languages the word for blue is descriptive, so the Serbian word _*plav*_ ("blue") is semantically related to water.
> _plav_  "blue"
> _plaviti_ "flooding", "bluish"
> _splav_ "raft"
> _plovak_ "float"
> _plivati_ "to swim"
> _ploviti_ "to sail"
> _pljuje _"spit"
> _pljusak_ "heavy rain"
> The last two words are probably related to French pluie "rain".


That is unlikely. If we look at other Slavic languages, the original meanings seems to be _pale blond, pale yellow_. In other related language families we have English _pale _from Latin _pallidius _and in German we have _fahl_, all meaning _pale_. The likely PIE original meaning is _pale_. The similarity with the root _pla- = swim, float_ seems to be accidental or if there is a relation it is so distant in the past that it can't be reconstructed.


Vojvoda said:


> I forgot to mention that during antiquity there was a process of spirantization, so in some languages there was a shift from P to F, so *plav* ("blue", "blonde") became *flav + us* ("yellow", "blonde").


Slavic _p-_ corresponds to Italic _p-_ and Germanic _f-_. Latin _f-_ usually corresponds to Slavic and Germanic _b-_. Compare Latin _frater _and English _brother _and Russian _брат._


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> In other related language families we have English _pale _from Latin _pallidius ..._


Serbian _bled_ ("pale") from _bela_ ("white", "beautiful") related to Latin bella ("beautiful").


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## berndf

Balto-Slavic _bal-/bel-/bol-_ is related to Latin _fla-_ as in _flavus_. Germanic cognates are e.g. English _blue_ and German _blau_.
Latin_ bellus/-a/-um_ is etymologically a diminutive of _bonus/-a/-um_, which is from earlier _dwenos/-a/-om_.


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## Vojvoda

Latin _bonus _("good", "right", "valid")_ from duenos _("good")_ from PIE *dew- (“to show favor, revere”), _i can't see any relation to bellus ("beautiful", "pretty").


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> diminutive of _bonus/-a/-um_,


Diminutive of _good, right _


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> Latin _bonus _("good", "right", "valid")_ from duenos _("good")_ from PIE *dew- (“to show favor, revere”), _i can't see any relation to bellus ("beautiful", "pretty").





Vojvoda said:


> i can't see any relation to bellus


_-l- _diminuive of _dwenos_ giving _dwenelos_, out of which _bellus_ developed.


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## Sobakus

Vojvoda said:


> Latin _bonus _("good", "right", "valid")_ from duenos _("good")_ from PIE *dew- (“to show favor, revere”), _i can't see any relation to bellus ("beautiful", "pretty").


Even accounting for you lack of knowledge of Latin sound changes, don't you have anything like Es. _*bonito*, _Ru._ *хоро́шенький*,_ Bel._ *прыго́жы*, _Pl._ *ładny*, _En. _*fine*_ in Serbian??


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> The similarity with the root _pla- = swim, float_ seems to be accidental


I don't think so. In ancient times there was no need for a word referring to the color blue because in nature there are only a few blue things like the sky, water, bruises, eyes, gemstones and some birds. I think that the Slavic languages are a good example.
Polish _niebieski _("blue") / _niebo _("sky"), Russian _голубой, синий _("blue") / _голубь _("pigeon"), _синяк _("bruise")...I don't see why it would be an exception in the Serbian language. I think the problem arose with the settlers associating yellow hair with blue eyes in the natives.


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> I don't think so. In ancient times there was no need for a word referring to the color blue because in nature there are only a few blue things like the sky, water, bruises, eyes, gemstones and some birds. I think that the Slavic languages are a good example.
> Polish _niebieski _("blue") / _niebo _("sky"), Russian _голубой, синий _("blue") / _голубь _("pigeon"), _синяк _("bruise")...I don't see why it would be an exception in the Serbian language. I think the problem arose with the settlers associating yellow hair with blue eyes in the natives.


The semantic context _pale_ out of which the Serbian word for blue has been discussed. For the words you mentioned connect with water are derived from the base meaning _flow_ (_PIE *plew-_). Among cognates in other language groups are English _flow_ and Greek _πλέω_.

Your explanation of the semantic shift from pale blond to blue in some Slavic languages by the association of blond hair and blue eyes seems plausible but I have no information to confirm it. I can't see a need or plausibility to invoke any like to _swim_ or _navigate_ given the underlying notion of _flow_.

Polish _niebieski is _indeed from_ niebo_. But this is a different story.


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> Polish _niebieski is _indeed from_ niebo_. But this is a different story.


_Błękit pruski _("Prussian blue")?


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## berndf

What about it?


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> What about it?


Forget about it.

I wanted to say that the only way to express color in words is to make a connection with something in the environment, so when we are looking for the original meaning, we should pay special attention to it. e.g Serbian _siva _("gray") / _sova_ ("owl") ; Russian _соловой _(solovoj, “yellowish-grey”) / _солове́й_ (solovéj, "nightingale") ; Old High German _salwo_ (“dirty yellow”) English _sallow_ ...


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> I wanted to say that the only way to express color in words is to make a connection with something in the environment


True. The only thing is that you would have to know in what environment the meaning evolved. _Silva = grey_ is rather old (there are Baltic cognates with the same meaning suggesting the meaning is older than Proto-Slavic) and it is not clear where and when the meaning developed. In the case of _соловой - солове́й_, the relationship is undisputed but there the assumption is that the bird is named after the colour and not the other way round.


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> In the case of _соловой - солове́й_, the relationship is undisputed but there the assumption is that the bird is named after the colour and not the other way round.


In that case, our ancestor should have a word for the color that was created accident by mixing sounds used for ??? and  the unnamed bird that he listens every single morning.


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## berndf

It is just that the word for the colour was probably older than that for the bird and the the bird was named after its colour. It is not uncommon to name plants or animals after its colour, e.g. _blackbird_, _blueberry_ or _blackberry_. Nightingales have very different names in Slavic, Germanic and Italic and in each of these groups there is an obvious etymology within that group (_the cream-coloured one _in Slavic, _the one-eyed singer_ in Latin and _the night singer_ in Germanic). Whatever name the bird might have had in PIE (if any), it had probably been lost when the modern names were created. If the youngest common ancestors of these three language groups was spoken somewhere around the border triangle of modern Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as some people think, then this wouldn't be too implausible as this area is outside of the habitat of the nightingale. Who knows what happened.


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## Vojvoda

In Serbian, there is no word for color that is related to _slavuj _("nightingale") that color iz  _*smeđa*_ from **medvě̀dь *("bear") from _**medъ*_ (“honey”) +‎ _**(j)ěsti*_ (“to eat”) and *slavuj* is probablu related to *slava *("glory", "fame"), *slovo* (“word”)*, slušati *(“to hear”)*...*


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> In Serbian, there is no word for color that is related to _slavuj_


Sometimes words get lost over time, as e.g. the Old High German _salwo_ you mentioned that is also lost in modern German.

It can be very misleading to try to reconstruct the etymology of words only by looking at a single language and only in its modern form. The power of Indo-European etymology is that we have so many descendant languages with different attested development stages we can compare. In the case of Russian _соловой_ there apparently is an attested OCS form (if the etymology here is right) as well as a likely Germanic cognate. This should be sufficient to assume that the word is rather old and the fact that is does not exist in modern South and West Slavic languages does not change much.


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## Vojvoda

*slušati *(“to hear”, "to listen") / _*sluh*_ (“hearing”) / PIE _**ḱlew-*_ (“to hear”) / *slavuj*


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> *slušati *(“to hear”, "to listen") / _*sluh*_ (“hearing”) / PIE _**ḱlew-*_ (“to hear”) / *slavuj*


What about it?


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> In the case of Russian _соловой_ there apparently is an attested OCS form (if the etymology here is right) as well as a likely Germanic cognate.


"Per Derksen from Proto-Indo-European _*sal-wo-_. Per Schrijver from Proto-Indo-European _*solH-wo-_. Indo-European cognates include Old High German _salwo_ (“dirty yellow”)"

Missing here


Vojvoda said:


> the only way to express color in words is to make a connection with something in the environment


The only candidates we have for now are _солове́й_ (“nightingale”) or _соло́вый _
("pale yellow horse with light tail and mane"). Most likely the horse is named after a bird as in the case _vranac_ ("black horse") _vrana_ ("crow") and bird _солове́й / slavuj  probably has roots in PIE *ḱlew- (“to hear”)_


berndf said:


> True. The only thing is that you would have to know in what environment the meaning evolved.


Somewhere where the nightingale's natural habitat is.


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## ThomasK

Can an IE /kl/ turn into an /sl/?


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## berndf

PIE  _*ḱ_ becomes /k/ in _centum_ languages and /s/ in _satem _languages. (Centum and satem languages)


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## ThomasK

Of course, you are quite right. Thanks for refreshing my mind.


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## berndf

Vojvoda said:


> The only candidates we have for now are _солове́й_ (“nightingale”) or _соло́вый _
> ("pale yellow horse with light tail and mane"). Most likely the horse is named after a bird as in the case _vranac_ ("black horse") _vrana_ ("crow") and bird _солове́й / slavuj probably has roots in PIE *ḱlew- (“to hear”)_


That is not how things work. You don't reconstruct a language that was spoken many thousand years ago by making wild associations left, right end cenre in your own language and your own environment in the 21th century. This is just meaningless guesswork based and has nothing to do with serious linguistic analysis.


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## Vojvoda

berndf said:


> I think you can do better than that.


PIE _*gʰneydʰ _(“to gnaw, chew, scratch, rub”) > Proto-Germanic _*gnīdaną_ (“to rub, crush”) > English gnide ("to rub")

PIE_ *ḱ(o)nid-_ ("louse egg") > Proto-Germanic _*hnits_ ("louse egg") > English _nit _("louse egg")

PIE _*gʰen-_ (“to gnaw; bite; scratch; grind”) > Proto-Germanic _*gnattaz_ > English  _gnat_ ("any small insect of the order Diptera"), Danish _gnid_ (“gnat”), Swedish _gnet_ (“nit”), Norwegian _gnit_ (“gnat”), Icelandic _gnit_, _nitur_ (“gnat”)

PIE ??? > Proto-Balto-Slavic _*gnī́ˀdāˀ_  ("nit", "louse egg") _> _Proto-Slavic _*gňìda_ ("nit", "louse egg") > Czech _hnida_, Polish _gnida_ > BCS _gnjida_ ("nit", "louse egg")

@berndf Better?


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