# All Slavic: Irregular changes of words across languages



## Karton Realista

Hello
What I mean by the thread title is difference between the same (or similar in their etymology) words in two languages that's not regular in it's nature, for example:

Non-corresponding consonants or vovels
Different consonant order
1. Like in words grzbiet (pl) - chrbát (sk). Polish g and h (pronounced as ch, exists in loans) correlate with Slovak (and Czech, Sorbian) h (examples: vrah - wróg, hlava - głowa, etc.) But in this word it's for some reason ch, which is pronounced differently than h.

Róża (pl) - ruža (sk). Those words are identical when it comes to pronounciation (even the stress in on the same syllable), but they shouldn't be - Polish ó correlates with weird Czech u with circle above it and Slovak letters a, e, o and their longer versions. I saw that the name ruža exists also in some Southern Slavic languages.

2. Hmla (sk) - mgła (pl) - mlha (cz). This word also exists in Latvian as migla and in many Slavic languages, with m-gl- structure ('-' meaning vowel/s or nothing).
I don't really know what to think about this. It looks to me like Czechs and Slovaks just misspelled the word and it caught on.

Do you have another examples of such irregular change?


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## bragpipes

Yeah, that "fog, mist" one really takes the cake with variation.  An imperfect examples:

Kashubian "rust" - dredza from (rъd-ja), not really a rearrangement of consonants (r*d = d*r*d), more of a gaining a new d at the start.

Some better ones:

From lьsk, lьšč (CS, OSC: lьšč-ati, etc): lesk, lesku, leskot, laštiti se, leščati se, etc.  Polish: ślnić.

From lъž (spoon) - lъžica, ložka, lažica, etc.  Czech: (dial) žlíce, Croatian: žlica.

mъg-ur (blink, flicker, eyelid) - miža, migla, etc.  Slovak: žmúriť, BCS: žmuriti, Slovene: žmrkati, žmurka, 

Fly: mucha, moucha, muva, etc.  Upper Sorbian: šmica, Lower Sorbian: šmyca.

Heart, core, essential: strьža, srьdьce:  srce, strýžeń, etc.  Upper Sorbian: žro, Polish (arch) drzeń. 

This one, I'm not sure of.  It's the name of a plant, but it means different things in different languages (different plants)

Upper Sorbian: drost, Lower Sorbian: drest, Slovene: dresen, Belorussian: draśon, Ukrainian: dŕasen, Russian, Polish: rdest.

(The source I have does not show the words in Belorussian or Ukrainian.  I don't know what ś or ŕ are in Cyrillic).

That last example is a word related to rust/red, so etymologically, r comes before d (rd, rьd), so this is one of the rare examples of a widespread "verlan."


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## Karton Realista

bragpipes said:


> Polish (arch) drzeń.


I would associate that rather with current one, rdzeń. 


bragpipes said:


> From lьsk, lьšč (CS, OSC: lьšč-ati, etc): lesk, lesku, leskot, laštiti se, leščati se, etc. Polish: ślnić.


A similar change łza (pl) - slza (sk)


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## Panceltic

Polish *żebro* vs Slovene *rebro*. The root is *rebro.

If the Polish form were *rzebro*, everything would be perfect (pronounced the same anyway), but why "ż"?


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## bragpipes

Panceltic said:


> Polish *żebro* vs Slovene *rebro*. The root is *rebro.
> 
> If the Polish form were *rzebro*, everything would be perfect (pronounced the same anyway), but why "ż"?



That's interesting.  What's more curious is how Czech has žebro.  I can only assume that it's borrowed from Polish.  (Slovak has it as rebro).


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## ilocas2

Karton Realista said:


> 2. Hmla (sk) - mgła (pl) - mlha (cz). This word also exists in Latvian as migla and in many Slavic languages, with m-gl- structure ('-' meaning vowel/s or nothing).
> I don't really know what to think about this. It looks to me like Czechs and Slovaks just misspelled the word and it caught on.



In Czech there is also *mha*


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## Panceltic

Karton Realista said:


> It looks to me like Czechs and Slovaks just misspelled the word and it caught on.
> 
> Do you have another examples of such irregular change?



I don't think that misspelling can be the reason. Words existed in their forms long before they were written down - and I daresay the majority of Slavic speakers were illiterate well into the 18th century.

Another example of such change is *mohyla/mogyła/могила* vs *gomila*.


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## Karton Realista

I





Panceltic said:


> I don't think that misspelling can be the reason. Words existed in their forms long before they were written down - and I daresay the majority of Slavic speakers were illiterate well into the 18th century.
> 
> Another example of such change is *mohyla/mogyła/могила* vs *gomila*.


I meant to say misspronouced.
*mogiła, not mogyła I assume it's Polish, after the latter ł has been used


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## Panceltic

*Mogiła* of course, my apologies.


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## Karton Realista

bragpipes said:


> (The source I have does not show the words in Belorussian or Ukrainian. I don't know what ś or ŕ are in Cyrillic).


In Russian it is consonant + mjagkij znak сь, рь. I assume it's identical in Belorussian and Ukrainian.


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## Panceltic

Karton Realista said:


> In Russian it is consonant + mjagkij znak сь, рь. I assume it's identical in Belorussian and Ukrainian.



Yes, it is consonant + ь *or* "iotated" vowel.

It is the same for Russian, Belorusian and Ukrainian (except that there is no soft "r" phoneme in Belorusian).


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## Karton Realista

Panceltic said:


> Yes, it is consonant + ь *or* "iotated" vowel.


Yep, didn't look at those words very close:


bragpipes said:


> Belorussian: draśon, Ukrainian: dŕasen


Драсён, дрясен


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## bragpipes

I wasn't sure when (or if) Belorussian and Ukrainian would (ever) use: 
1. сьа ся сья 
2. сьо сё сьё 
3. рьа ря рья

I think рьа and сьа are never used, but I did not know that seventh in Ukrainian is сьо́мий (Russian would use ё instead of ьо́) and I've seen the reflexive "сья" sometimes.


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## Panceltic

bragpipes said:


> I think рьа and сьа are never used



Correct. ря and ся fulfill this need.



bragpipes said:


> сьо сё сьё



In Russian, both сьо and сё are possible (e.g. компаньон and нёс). Ukrainian doesn't use ё, so their only option is ьо [same in Bulgarian]. Belarusian only uses ё, even in loanwords (e.g. Russian район vs Belarusian раён)



bragpipes said:


> рьа ря рья



The same as above, except Belarusian has no need to use this combinations because their "r" is always hard.



bragpipes said:


> I've seen the reflexive "сья" sometimes



Can you provide an example?


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## bragpipes

Panceltic said:


> Correct. ря and ся fulfill this need.
> 
> 
> 
> In Russian, both сьо and сё are possible (e.g. компаньон and нёс). Ukrainian doesn't use ё, so their only option is ьо [same in Bulgarian]. Belarusian only uses ё, even in loanwords (e.g. Russian район vs Belarusian раён)
> 
> 
> 
> The same as above, except Belarusian has no need to use this combinations because their "r" is always hard.
> 
> 
> 
> Can you provide an example?



Thank you for the explanation.  

I just google-searched "сья" but that finds it if it's a standalone word, and does not show partial matches (inside a word).  I found this, which made me suspicious, because wiktionary says Ukrainian uses "ся".  I should've looked more closely (it said it in the URL) - it's not standard Ukrainian, but Lemko.   I don't know if Lemko makes a distinction between сья and ся in sound, or if it's just an orthographic convention.  I know that phonetically, there can be levels of palatalization, but I don't know if any language in the world makes a distinction between soft (сь) and very soft (сьь?).

Russian has examples of this, I wouldn't call it redundancy (let's say the alphabet is less-phonetic than a purely phonetic one), but in a word like "варенья" (gen. sing)  doesn't я already make the н > нь in pronunciation?


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## Karton Realista

bragpipes said:


> word like "варенья" (gen. sing) doesn't я already make the н > нь in pronunciation?


варенья - Szukaj w Google
Варенье — Википедия


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## Panceltic

Ah, right, it may be something dialectal (Lemko). Not standard language, surely.

Well the difference between ся and сья is in the [j] sound. ся is pronounced [s'a] (that is, palatalized s + a), while сья is pronounced [s'ja] (palatalized s + j + a).

The third option [sja] is achieved with the hard sign: съя. Compare сесть [s'est'] = to sit down vs. съесть [sjest'] = to eat up.


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## Karton Realista

Panceltic said:


> Well the difference between ся and сья is in the [j] sound. ся is pronounced [s'a] (that is, palatalized s + a), while сья is pronounced [s'ja] (palatalized s + j + a).


With the exception of - ся at the end of the word,  when it means something like się /sa/se etc. And is pronounced in many ways
This conversation is off-topic, please move it to pms /another thread


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## Panceltic

варенья is thus pronounced [-n'ja]. *вареня would be [-n'a]. I believe East Slavic speakers would immediately hear the difference, others maybe less so. 

About different levels of pronunciation, there is the "semisoft sign" Ҍ ҍ used in Kildin Sami language "where it indicates palatalization (sometimes also called "half-palatalization") of a preceding stop, /nʲ/, /tʲ/, or /dʲ/." (wikipedia) [Looks suspiciously similar to Old Slavic yat vowel Ѣ ѣ.]

Sorry for straying off-topic, will shut up now.


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## Lubella

bragpipes said:


> I wasn't sure when (or if) Belorussian and Ukrainian would (ever) use:
> 1. сьа ся сья
> 2. сьо сё сьё
> 3. рьа ря рья
> 
> I think рьа and сьа are never used, but I did not know that seventh in Ukrainian is сьо́мий (Russian would use ё instead of ьо́) and I've seen the reflexive "сья" sometimes.


in Ukrainian ся, сьо, ря
волосся [- s'a]
варення [- n'a]
сьогодні [-s'o]
рябий [-r'a]


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## francisgranada

Karton Realista said:


> ... 1. Like in words grzbiet (pl) - chrbát (sk). Polish g and h (pronounced as ch, exists in loans) correlate with Slovak (and Czech, Sorbian) h (examples: vrah - wróg, hlava - głowa, etc.) But in this word it's for some reason ch, which is pronounced differently than h.


I think this phenomenon occurs especially in case of clusters _h+r/rz+consonant_, especially at the beginning of some words (that might be difficult to pronounce "correctly/exactly"). In case of  _grzbiet/chrbát _probably the Slovak version is unetymological, as in Slovak there is a verb _*h*rbiť sa_ (to bow/cringe/crouch) that seems to be etymologically related to _chrbát_. Plus, in some Eastern Slovak dialects _*ch*rbát _is _*h*ribet_. But see also e.g. the Slovak _*h*rdza _and Polish _rdza _ (Czech _rez_) meaning _"_rust" - another kind of non-correspondence between _g_ and _h_.



> Róża (pl) - ruža (sk).


The spelling of the Polish _róża _and the Czech _růže _seem to me perfectly etymological, even if loanwords (supposing they are "quite old"). In my opinion, this spelling cannot be compared directly with that of the (standard) Slovak without knowing when and from which languages were these words _directly _borrowed into the respective languages.


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## Karton Realista

francisgranada said:


> In my opinion, this spelling cannot be compared directly with that of the (standard) Slovak without knowing when and from which languages were these words _directly _borrowed into the respective languages.


Well, I suspected something like that, the Slovak version being loaned from language that already had "u" pronounced in that word. The phenomenon is wider, it encompases Southern Slavic languages and non-Slavic languages. It seems pretty complicated, with a lot of factors in a lot of different places.


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## Lisintin

The first of all I appreciate for using word "similar etymology" and not only the same etymology because I think the latter is rather connected (according to some data) with the regular sound changes. Still according to some the other data Historical and  Comparative Linguistics deals with sounds rather than with characters in defining any regular and irregular sound changes. These changes indicate (according to some Western linguists) that the some of the something similar words may be:
1)loanword; 2) Some words have no direct origin from the same ancestor of the same language ancestor in the same time as the others came from it; 3) Some words had strongly changed their structure under influence of these irregular sound changes in the roots or in affixes. The Eastern Slavic languages are rich of these irregularities. Here are some examples:

1) Loanwords - Russian colloquial or obsolete завсегда (always) and Ukrainian standart завжди (distant cognate which was borrowed from  Polish

2) Not direct origin - Russian свет (light) on one side Ukrainian світло and Belarussian святла on the other side

3) a) Irregular changes in roots. Russian быть (to be) and  Ukrainian бути (influenced by the future form буду). All words for "he" in three languages - Ru он Bel ён (influenced by genitive яго ) Ukr він (despite there are not small number words with irregular change between Russian and Belarussian "о" to Ukrainian "ві" in the roots (in the preffixes  even more) this change is probably considered as irregular by the Ukrainian scientist Kostiantyn Tyshchenko.
    b)Irregular changes in affixes. The words for lungs: Ru легкие Bel лёгкія but Ukr. легені. All words in three languages with irregular changes:
the words for possible:  Ru возможный Bel магчымы Ukr можливий.


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## Awwal12

Rus. ladо́n' (ладонь) "palm (of hand)" - cf. Ukr. dolо́n' (долонь), Bg. dlan (длан), Pol. dłoń etc. (an irregular metathesis, plus akanye invading the spelling)


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## jasio

Someone revived this old thread, and I came across your interesting question:


Panceltic said:


> Polish *żebro* vs Slovene *rebro*. The root is *rebro.
> 
> If the Polish form were *rzebro*, everything would be perfect (pronounced the same anyway), but why "ż"?


Originally, I thought it was an arbitrary decision of a normalization body quite some time ago - I found this information in a book about the history of the Polish language. However, when I started digging, I found a few additional pieces of information:

PWN dictionary explains that it was a non-typical consonant development, bringing a dialectal form "ziobro" as an evidence. Dlaczego żebro, a nie rzebro? - Poradnia językowa PWN. I found the word in a dictionary of a dialect from nowadays' Eastern Poland (https://repozytorium.uwb.edu.pl/jsp...gwarowe_z_Polski_polnocno_wschodniej_cz_2.pdf), but it must have been quite spread as it's commonly used for artistic purposes in literature and cinema.
Another form, 'ziebro', is also quoted by dictionaries
Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego/ziobro - Wikiźródła, wolna biblioteka (actually, etymological dictionary by Brueckner, 1927) seems to blame the mazovian pronunciation for the consonant change
In "Pisownia Polska" from 1869 the "ż" spelling is criticized as non-etymological (Pisownia polska), along with quite many other spelling conventions which we use till this day. Anyway, apparently:
the 'ź' spelling is older than 1869,
around that time there was a debate on this topic.

So, apparently, the exact pronunciation differed in various regions, and by the time the spelling was decided, the 'rz' had already lost the trill anyway - at least in the dialects which were the foundation of the official pronunciation and spelling.


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## pimlicodude

In Russian "bear" is медведь. In Ukrainian, it is ведмiдь, although I understand in some Ukrainian dialects it it медвiдь. (The derivation is "honey eater" with a provective medial v, so the Russian is closer to the etymology.)


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## dihydrogen monoxide

pimlicodude said:


> In Russian "bear" is медведь. In Ukrainian, it is ведмiдь, although I understand in some Ukrainian dialects it it медвiдь. (The derivation is "honey eater" with a provective medial v, so the Russian is closer to the etymology.)



There is a folk etymology for bear in Slovene (medved), someone who knows where the honey is.


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## Awwal12

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> There is a folk etymology for bear in Slovene (medved), someone who knows where the honey is.


Sure, it was re-analyzed in Russian in the same manner.


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## pimlicodude

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> There is a folk etymology for bear in Slovene (medved), someone who knows where the honey is.


yes, there is the same folk etymology in Russian, but it is believed to be an incorrect folk theory. The original (presumed) etymology was from med+ed


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## dihydrogen monoxide

And then it is interesting in Montenegran variant where in medvjed, v-dropping occurs and then you have medjed and palatilization occurs and we have međed. V-dropping is most interesting here.


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## Sobakus

francisgranada said:


> In case of  _grzbiet/chrbát _probably the Slovak version is unetymological, as in Slovak there is a verb _*h*rbiť sa_ (to bow/cringe/crouch) that seems to be etymologically related to _chrbát_. Plus, in some Eastern Slovak dialects _*ch*rbát _is _*h*ribet_.


This one is via confusion of the roots gъrb-  "hump" (Ru. горб) and xrъb-, xrьb- "spine" (Ru. _хребе́т_). Czech and Polish took the consonant from "hump", while it appears that Western Slovak associated _xrьbьtъ_ "spine" with _gъrbatъ_ "humped, hump-backed" (Cz. _hrbatý,_ Ru. _горба́тый_) to arrive at _chrbát._

Those Eastern Slovak dialects seem to have gone the Czech and Polish way, only I'm not sure whether the -i- in those is regular or indicates more weirdness. It looks like _hríb_ "mushroom"  , but actually must be related to BCS _hrȋb_ and Slovene _hríb_ "hillock"... unless it's originally the same word!


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