# Etymology: Eyes in Slavic languages - borrowed from Latin?



## Outsider

_Moderator edit: I abused this post by Outsider. It now contains all relevant information copied from another thread that could not be split without being destroyed. I hope it is not too confusing. Chronological order has been preserved. Thanks for your understanding. _



			
				Cecoll said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> I want to add two words that I have noticed while watching some Romanian advertisements:
> 
> ochi (eyes)
> Those are 100 % match to our language and to other slavic languages i think! I wonder if the first one have a Latin equivalent too? By the way the very fact those words are used in romanian language means that they are used to describe something that Latin words cant express...correct me if I`m wrong.  There's gotta be a reason why one word is prefered to be used instead of another?! I hope some romanian guy will explain that to us!  Do they just sound nice or are they just some old words that romanian people want to get rid of?





			
				Outsider said:
			
		

> _Ochi_ is actually very similar to the words of other Romance languages, for example Italian _occhio_.





			
				robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> The reason why *ochi *is similar to all the Romance languages is because it derives from Latin
> 
> How Slavic languages have obtained it, I really don't know!
> 
> ochi = eye _from Latin *oc(u)lus*_
> 
> (*fr*. oeil, *it*. occhio, *sp*. ojo etc...)





			
				übermönch said:
			
		

> You cannot say for sure. The latin and slavic word for eyes are quite similar, since both languages have the same roots.
> EDIT: whoops, Aldin already told it.


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## robbie_SWE

übermönch said:
			
		

> You cannot say for sure. The latin and slavic word for eyes are quite similar, since both languages have the same roots.


 
If you were to compare which individual language is oldest, Latin would without a doubt win. Keeping this in mind, I could say that *occulus* is the original word that *ochi* derives from. Ask any specialist who works in this field. Slavic languages have most probably done the same as the other Latin languages, in other words borrowed it!


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## werrr

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> If you were to compare which individual language is oldest, Latin would without a doubt win.


Without a doubt? No!!!
Maybe Latin is older than any known Slavic language but there is no evidence that Latin is older than family of Slavic languages.



			
				robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Keeping this in mind, I could say that *occulus* is the original word that *ochi* derives from. Ask any specialist who works in this field. Slavic languages have most probably done the same as the other Latin languages, in other words borrowed it!


That's wrong argumentation. By using this you can state that all Indoeuropean languages are derived from Latin.

And btw, how do you explain that this Pan-Slavic word was used before *all* Slavs come in contact with Latin culture?


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## robbie_SWE

werrr said:
			
		

> Without a doubt? No!!!
> Maybe Latin is older than any known slavic language but there is no evidenence that Latin is older than family of Slavic languages.
> 
> 
> That's wrong argumentation. By using this you can state that all Indoeuropean languages are derived from Latin.
> 
> And btw, how do you explain that this panslavic word was used before *all* Slavs come in contact with Latin culture?


 
The Proto-slavic language (which is the mother of all slavonic languages) started breaking up into smaller languages appr. during the 7th century A.D. It was during this time that "real" slavic languages emerged. Latin dates back to the 8th century B.C, and was spoken thorughout the Dark Ages. 

And I would like to question your statement that *ochi* was a panslavic word used before any contact with Latin countries. What sources confirm this?? Last but not least, I never stated that all Indoeuropean languages derive from Latin, but you must agree that Latin has had a huge influence on *all* Indoeuropean languages!


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## werrr

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> The Proto-slavic language (which is the mother of all slavonic languages) started breaking up into smaller languages appr. during the 7th century A.D. It was during this time that "real" slavic languages emerged. Latin dates back to the 8th century B.C, and was spoken thorughout the Dark Ages.


And?
Do you think that Proto-Slavic language arised from "nothing" or is fully derived from Latin?
No, there is no evidence that Latin is older than Slavic languages (that Latin words are older than Slavic words).



			
				robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> And I would like to question your statement that *ochi* was a panslavic word used before any contact with Latin countries. What sources confirm this??


That is'nt only about "ochi". That's about big part of *BASIC* vocabulary and grammar. It is very unusual to replace the most frequented words with loanwords, is'nt?



			
				robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Last but not least, I never stated that all Indoeuropean languages derive from Latin, but you must agree that Latin has had a huge influence on *all* Indoeuropean languages!


I didn't said you said it. I attacked only your line of reasoning.
Yes, Latin has big influence on all modern languages but, usualy, basic vocabulary is minimally affected.


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## übermönch

It is ridiculous to say slavic languages borrowed the word for "eye" from latin. They had eyes even before they first met Romans! All indoeuropean languages have approx. the same word for "eye", wether they are Germanic, Slavic, Italic or Arian.
There is no need for sources to confirm that it was used before contact with Romans - because there was no need to adopt a new word for something they already had. This word was/is used even by slavic people who had no contact to Romans.



> you must agree that Latin has had a huge influence on *all* Indoeuropean languages!


 Indeed, wether it's Sanskrit, Tajik, Persian or Gaellic, all have taken the Roman word for "eye". They, just like you Robbie, knew that Italic languages are faaar superior and made this vital decission. No, wait, they didn't even know how to speak - Romans taught them.

EDIT:Robbie, what's the Romanian singular form of "Eye"?


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## übermönch

I've started a topic on "eye" in all indoeuropean languages here:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=169756

let me quote *vince *from there:


> Other Romance:
> Portuguese: olho
> Catalan: Ull
> 
> Germanic:
> Danish: Øje
> Icelandic: Auga
> English: Eye
> Luxembourish: A
> Swedish: Öga
> 
> Perhaps it comes from a proto-Indo-European root?
> 
> I mean although proto-Slavic dates from after Latin was spoken, proto-Germanic also has similarities with the Latin one, and proto-Germanic dates from at least 500 BC, back to when Latin was just another Italic dialect.
> 
> You see the similarity: Latin had oculo, some romance languages don't have the middle k-sound but preserve the "L" (e.g. oeil, ull, olho)
> Slavic languages seem to preserve the "k" (e.g. "oko")
> Germanic languages don't have the "L" but preserve the "k" or convert it to "g" or "y" (the k --> g --> y is not an uncommon linguistic shift)
> 
> Here are some non-IE words for eye for comparison:
> Turkish: Göz
> Vietnamese: Mắt
> Finnish: Silmä
> Estonian: Silm
> Mandarin (Chinese): Yan-jing
> Minnan (a Chinese "dialect"): Bak-Chiu


and* whodunit*_:_


> Indo-European root: *ok


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## robbie_SWE

Sorry if the tone of this thread has become a bit "hostile". 

To answer your question übermönch, the singular form of the Romanian word for eye is: 

*un ochi* = an eye 
*mai multi ochii* = many eyes 

or even an older way of saying it is _ochiuri_ (never used it myself). 

I'm not saying that the Proto-slavic language didn't have a word for "eye". It could very well be so, that an ancient Indoeuropean language has founded this word and exists in most European languages today. But my etymology dictionary in the Romanian language, tells me that the word "ochi" derives from the Latin _oculus_. 

This brings me to ask another question: what is the Slavic word (Serbian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian etc.) for eyeglasses?? 

/robbie


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## pjay

Well there is a way to answer these questions scientifically, but without looking into the specifics of sound shifts and morphological changes it is hard to tell whether a word was borrowed from another language (i.e. latin) or derived from some underlying proto-language (i.e. Indoeuropean).

In the case of Romanian we can safely assume that we are dealing with a latin root (and to some lesser extent a slavic adstratum). In the case of Russian I would assume an Indoeuropean root, but that is guesswork. 

There seems to be some confusion about chronology. Latin is older than any other currently spoken slavic language. But that's only because Latin is no longer in use. The earliest records for slavic languages are written in old Bulgarian, and are not nearly as old as latin. BUT that certainly doesn't mean that slavic languages derive from latin. It just means that we don't have any written records that go any further back in history. Russian does not derive from latin, just as German or Lithuanian don't derive from Latin. Latin has just had much linguistic influence on neighbouring speech communities, which is what linguists call an adstratum.


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## werrr

Hi Robbie

No, it wasn't hostile, that was vital disputation .

I agree that Romanian "ochi" is of Latin (or Romanic ?) origin. I only defended non-Romanic origin of Slavic equivalent.

Czech word for eyeglasses is "brýle". You understand German - so, for you is no problem to reveal the origin of this word, correct?


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## Jana337

This thread should be of interest: How old are languages? 

Jana


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## robbie_SWE

Hi Werrr, 

I do understand the origin of the word "brýle".  The reason for me asking is because I wanted to see if there was any connection between the word for "eye" and "eyeglasses". If the word actually did exist independent from other languages from the start, ""eyeglasses" would in that case be linked to eyes. _Ex:_ 

Romanian: 
*ochi* = eye 
*ochelari* = eyeglasses

French:
*oeil* = eye
*monocle/lunettes* = eyeglasses 

Italian:
*occhio* = eye 
*oculare* = eyeglasses

Spanish:
*ojo* = eye 
*anteojos/gafas* = eyeglasses 

Portuguese:
*olho* = eye 
*óculos* = eyeglasses

I would like to know if similar tendecies can be seen in Slavic languages?


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## übermönch

"Eye" in slavic languages:

Church slavonic, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Polish, Czech, Slovak,  Russian, Ukrainian: Oko. Does that fit for all other slavic languages?

Russian also has glaz, which is more common, what about the others?

Here are different old indoeuropean languages:
Latin: o*c*ulus
Classical Greek: ofthalmós
 Sanskrit:  akshi, chakshu, netra
Persian: Cheshm
Old Irish: Enech
Old High German: ouga
Gothic: augō
Old English: Eage
Old Norse & Icelandic: Auga

Germanic seem to be close to the slavic & italic word. Theoretically they both could have borrowed the word from the Romans and passed it Old slavs (which probably originate from western Ukraine/eastern Poland), that's however questionable.



			
				robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> This brings me to ask another question: what is the Slavic word (Serbian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian etc.) for eyeglasses??


 Russian form's "*Ochki*", probably an archaic diminutative form of "eyes". The russian plural form of Oko, eye, is Ochi, just like the Romanian singular.

what are the other slavic plural forms?


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## werrr

Robbie,
only loanwords are used for "eyeglasses" in Slavic languages I know (Czech/Slovak/Polish...brýle/okuliare/okulary; Slovak and Polish words are from Latin or Italian).

Übermönch,
you can add Slovak to your list of Slavic languages using "oko".

In Czech we have two different plural forms of "oko" with different usage. Regular plural is "oka" and another plural originated in dual number is "oči".


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## robbie_SWE

Thank you Werr  , I appreciate it a lot. 
 
The reason why I asked, is because languages that have a word from the beginning (e.g. "eye") tend to create all the other words that have to do with the original word from it. 
 
E.g. 
 
Swedish: 
ögon (eye) = glassögon (eyeglasses)
 
English 
eye = eyeglasses 
 
The South Germanic languages  tend to use a form of "Brille", but it derives from another word instead of "Augen". 
 
If the word "ochi" existed before the Romans, the logical word for eyeglasses would have come from the word for "eye". This is though apparently missing in most Slavic languages.


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## cyanista

Robbie, your argument doesn't sound that convincing to me. I don't think there is a connection. A new subject that was brought from afar would very often bring its name with it. I suppose that was what happened in Slovak and Polish - and in Belarusian as well.
Eyes - вочы (vochy). 
Eyeglasses - акуляры (akuljary).


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## übermönch

@robbie, indeed, the high german word derrives from Beryl, the middle high German word for "rock crystall". And, well, even if it was derrived - in all the slavic languages where it's okkul*- from their, originally latin, word it would be strange if they suddently remembered the correct root once glasse where brought to europe. Words like monocle or binocle also are derrived from the _*latin *_word for "eye".

EDIT: I correct myself, the russian Ochki, the word for glasses, is actually the plural of ochko, Russian for ring(?) or point.


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## robbie_SWE

übermönch said:
			
		

> @robbie, indeed, the high german word derrives from Beryl, the middle high German word for "rock crystall". And, well, even if it was derrived - in all the slavic languages where it's okkul*- from their, originally latin, word it would be strange if they suddently remembered the correct root once glasse where brought to





			
				übermönch said:
			
		

> europe. Words like monocle or binocle also are derrived from the *latin *word for "eye".
> 
> EDIT: I correct myself, the russian Ochki, the word for glasses, is actually the plural of ochko, Russian for ring(?) or point.




I didn’t know that the word Brille derives from the Beryl, but it actually makes sence  . But I still firmly believe that there is something missing. Is there really nobody out there who thinks that my way of approaching this matter seems reasonable? 

Übermönch's explanation only intensifies my assumption that "ochi" actually does come from Latin.


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## robbie_SWE

Nicely put Outsider, even if you took it away  . 

It seems that the word "ochi" does derive from an archaic form of a word from an ancient Indo-European language. The "ochi" in Romanian is not a loanword from its Slavic neighbours, but a word that has come from Latin languages. 

/robbie


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## diegodbs

Proto Indo European roots "Eye".

Tocharian:

ak, _ek_ - an eye (IE **okw-* - an eye)

Sanskrit *aks.i* (an eye), 
Gypsy *yak*, Lahnda *ekh*, Nepali *akho*, Kashmiri *achi*, Hindi & Gujarati *akh*, Khaskura *ankha*, Punjabi *ekkh*


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## Nineu

Another non-IE word for eye for comparison:
In Basque:  Begi


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## Maja

In Serbian: 
eye - oko (око)
eyes - oči (очи)
the pair of eyes - par očiju (пар очију)
eyeglasses - naočare (наочаре) f. pl.


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## cajzl

*naočare* or *naočale*?


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## Maja

cajzl said:
			
		

> *naočare* or *naočale*?



*Naočare!*
I think that Croats say *naočale.*


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## cajzl

I remember that one guy from Prijedor who worked in our company used to say *naočale*.

-------------

In Proto-Slavic the word *oko* was the *s*-stem word:

Sing. N. oko G. očese D. očesi ...
Dual  N. očesě ...
Plur.  N. očesa ...

Similarly: slovo (gen. slovese), kolo (kolese), nebo (nebese), tělo (tělese), uxo (ušese), etc.

It seems that the stem očes- (and ušes-) is lost in the modern Slavic languages (unlike the stems sloves-, koles-, těles-, nebes-).


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## übermönch

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Swedish:
> ögon (eye) = glassögon (eyeglasses)


Sorry if that is off-topic, but what's the swedish word for glass eyes?


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## robbie_SWE

übermönch said:
			
		

> Sorry if that is off-topic, but what's the swedish word for glass eyes?


 
Actually I have been waiting for such a question!  

In Swedish we say* "porslinsöga(-on)", *meaning an eye made of porslin. But you can also say "*ett öga av glas*". 

Hope this cleared things up!


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## Aldin

In BHS(Bosnian,Croatian,Serbian) eyeglasses=naočale


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## ServusEtSclavus

Serbian/Croat/Bosnian/Montenegrin/Herzegovinian word for eyeglasses is _naočari_, meaning roughly "a thing that one puts onto one's eyes", but I don't see what difference does it make?!?!?

and yes, in Croat variant of the language more common form is naočale, with the same meaning. In Dalmatia and some parts of Montenegrin coast, common word for eyeglasses is oćali (I remember my grandma saying so), obviously translitterated Italian "occhiali"


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## JGreco

Spanish:
*ojo* = eye 
*anteojos/gafas* = eyeglasses


Ummm... I thought "eyeglasses in Spanish was "lentes". I have never heard anybody say "anteojos". I might have heard "gafas" once but no more than that.


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## OBrasilo

In Slovenian, _eye_ is _oko_ (dual _očesi_, plural _oči_). And the _-s_ in inflections is still present in some cases, eye-glasses are either _očala_ or _naočniki_, but the latter is archaic.

In Italian, _eye_ is _occhio_ (plural _occhi_), and eye-glasses are _occhiali_.


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## OldAvatar

robbie_SWE said:


> To answer your question übermönch, the singular form of the Romanian word for eye is:
> 
> *un ochi* = an eye
> *mai multi ochii* = many eyes



A little correction. Both singular and plural forms are identical: *ochi*. Only the articulated forms are different: _the eye_ = *ochiul*; _the eyes_ = *ochii*.


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## ThomasK

Just wondering: anyone who knows why the Latin has a diminutive form (as -ulus is a diminutive, as far as I know) ? What would/could the 'big eye' have been ?


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## Lugubert

übermönch said:


> @robbie, indeed, the high german word derrives from Beryl, the middle high German word for "rock crystall".


It's much more complicated. 

"At the end of the eighteenth century several chemists were interested in the chemical composition of emerald and beryl, two very similar gems.

The beryl mineral was named beryllia, after Βηρυλλος [bèryllos], Greek for beryl." 

Also, "The name of this mineral, from the Persian _belur, _Latin _beryllus, ..." _

and "The name Beryl is from the Ancient Greek “Beryllos” for the precious blue-green color of sea water. This was originally applied to all green gemstones, but later used only for Beryl. Some scholars believe the world Beryl is related to the ancient trading city of Belur or perhaps come from the world pearl known as “Velurya” in old Hindi and “Vaidurya” in Sanskrit."

(Indian Belur, in Hassan district (222 kms from Bangalore and 38 kms from Hassan), is also famous for its magnificent Hoysala Temple Complex.)


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## Christo Tamarin

cajzl said:


> ..
> In Proto-Slavic the word *oko* was the *s*-stem word:
> 
> Sing. N. oko G. očese D. očesi ...
> Dual N. očesě ...
> Plur. N. očesa ...


 
The s-stem of the Slavic *oko* eliminates the hypothesis "Slavic *oko - *a word borrowed from Latin".

In concern with the Romanian *ochi*, the latter may come either from Latin *oculus* or from Slavic *ochi*. In my opinion, the form _ochiuri_ gives support to the Slavic version.


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## OldAvatar

Possible. But the pronunciation of Romanian *ochi *is similar with Italian _occhi _and it is not like in Slavic languages. More than that, the articulated form is identical when it comes to pronunciation (*ochii*).


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## robbie_SWE

Christo Tamarin said:


> The s-stem of the Slavic *oko* eliminates the hypothesis "Slavic *oko - *a word borrowed from Latin".
> 
> In concern with the Romanian *ochi*, the latter may come either from Latin *oculus* or from Slavic *ochi*. In my opinion, the form _ochiuri_ gives support to the Slavic version.


 
The plural form of "*ochi*" (m.) is "*ochii*" (like OldAvatar kindely pointed out). In my opinion, this proves that the Romanian word is derived from Latin. 

 robbie


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## dave55

It is incorrect to say that the Russian word transliterated _ochi _'comes from' Latin _oculi_. Rather, Russian and Latin have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European, so there was almost certainly a word in PIE from which both _ochi _and _oculi_ have come.

There are a number of other instances where Latin and Russian clearly demonstrate their common origin, as in the following two sentences that I have concocted:

Latin: _Fur videt novam domum. Mater sedet tres noctes._
Russian: _Vor vidit novy dom. Mat' sidit tri nochi._
English: The thief sees the _new _house. The _mother sits_ for _three nights_.

The words italicised in the English translation are of course also cognate with their Latin and Russian counterparts, but not nearly as obviously.

dave55


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