# In which IE branches did the merger of short o and a happen?



## folowerofzaros

I know it's an areal IE sound change but in which branches did it actually happen? can not find that information on google.


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## ahvalj

Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Indo-Iranic, Anatolian (except probably Lydian), Albanian, Dacian?, Messapian?

Update. In Baltic this merger occured after Winter's law, so that *_a_>_ā_ (_obuolys, ābols_) and *_o_>_ō_ (_nuogas_).

Update 2. Finnish has a word _morsian_ (Gen. Sg. _morsiamen_) "bride" that appears to be a Baltic borrowing from the same word as the Lithuanian _marti_, in which case it preserves _o_ and the final -_m_ of the Acc. Sg. *_mortiam_ (>_marčią_).


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> Update 2. Finnish has a word _morsian_ (Gen. Sg. _morsiamen_) "bride" that appears to be a Baltic borrowing from the same word as the Lithuanian _marti_, in which case it preserves _o_ and the final -_m_ of the Acc. Sg. *_mortiam_ (>_marčią_).



Are we sure that -_o_- of _morsian_ is a retention of the original IE vowel? It seems to me that it could simply be a coloring effect of the *_mVr- _environment; the same could be said of Finnish _porsas_ "piglet" (from the same source as Latin _porcus_, etc.), which like _morsian_ has a labial onset and an _r_-coda.


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> Are we sure that -_o_- of _morsian_ is a retention of the original IE vowel? It seems to me that it could simply be a coloring effect of the *_mVr- _environment; the same could be said of Finnish _porsas_ "piglet" (from the same source Latin _porcus_, etc.), which like _morsian_ has a labial onset and an _r_-coda.


Everything is possible. On the other hand, _porsas_ and several other ancient borrowings (some probably from the Early Indo-Iranic) show _e_ and _o_ in the place of the later _a_. Burrow (in his book about Sanskrit) has a list of such words.


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## ahvalj

By the way, _porsas_ must be a non-Baltic borrowing, since _š/ž_ produces _h_ in Finnish (_žambas>hammas_) and _š>s _in Latvian must be late.

Update. I don't have a Finnish thesaurus right now, but I have an impression that Finnish has much more words on marC-, parC- and varC- than on morC- etc.: _parhas_, _varsi_, _parvi_, _varvi_, _varta_... 
_
Parta_ and _marras_ (_martaan, marrasta_), both IE borrowings, preserve _a_.

Finnish also has _orpo_ "orphan", which is considered an IE borrowing.


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## fdb

In Indo-Iranian IE *o becomes long ā in open syllables (Brugmann’s law).


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> Update. I don't have a Finnish thesaurus right now, but I have an impression that Finnish has much more words on marC-, parC- and varC- than on morC- etc.: _parhas_, _varsi_, _parvi_, _varvi_, _varta_...



Finnish does have a number of words with _par_-/_var_-, but the vowel -_o- _in _porsas_/_morsian_/_orpo_/etc. doesn't imply that speakers of Finnic (or pre-Finnic) could not have pronounced the vowel -_a_- in this environment. It could simply be that, in the IE dialect(s) from which these words came, the vowel was colored in this environment to something other than -_a_- (or lengthened, as Fdb just mentioned).

If I recall correctly, _parta_ is thought to come from Germanic (and therefore probably came at a later time than Baltic loans such as _morsian_), and _marras _comes from a word with syllabic _r_ (Indo-Iranian *_mr.tas_ "dead") rather than _a_ or _o_.


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## ahvalj

I agree, but all this leaves a possibility that _morsian_ and _porsas_ and _orpo_ were borrowed from a stage when the Early Indo-Iranic (or Baltic for _morsian_) still had not completed the shift _o_>_a_. The -_m_ in _morsiame- _leaves an impression of a great antiquity as well.

_Parta_ could have been borrowed from any IE language (*_bardhā_): there is absolutely nothing specifically Germanic in it. If it was ancient, it might suggest that the donor language still opposed _o_ and _a_. 

The Indo-Iranic _o>ō>ā_ requires an open syllable (Sanskrit Perfect Sg. 3 _cakāra_<_kwekwore_ vs. Sg. 1 _cakara_<_kwekworHa_).


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## ahvalj

Three additional examples from the literature of Finnic _o_ vs. Baltic _a_:
_lohi_ — _lašiša_
_toke_ (_toe, tokeen_) — _takišys_
_oinas_ — _avinas_


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> ... Finnish also has _orpo_ "orphan", which is considered an IE borrowing.


This word is present in other Finno-Ugric languages as well, e.g. Hungarian _árva_. The supposed Finno-Ugric form is *_orpa _or *_or__βa _and it is probably an Old Iranian loanword. If so, then the borrowing happend in the common FU period.

I don't know if this information helps in the present discussion ...


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## fdb

francisgranada said:


> The supposed Finno-Ugric form is *_orpa _or *_or__βa _and it is probably an Old Iranian loanword. If so, then the borrowing happend in the common FU period.
> 
> I don't know if this information helps in the present discussion ...



The shift of IE *o to Indo-Iranian *a or *ā is complete already in  proto-Indo-Iranian. So I do not see how *orpa can be "an Old Iranian  loanword". If it is a loan, then it must be from proto-IE.


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> The shift of IE *o to Indo-Iranian *a or *ā is complete already in  proto-Indo-Iranian. So I do not see how *orpa can be "an Old Iranian  loanword". If it is a loan, then it must be from proto-IE.


The oldest IE borrowings in Finno-Ugric combine satemization with incomplete merger of _e, o_ and _a_ (_porsas_ being a good example). Since there are no other candidates, this layer is usually ascribed to the earliest Indo-Iranic.


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## fdb

"Earliest Indo-Iranic" is not the same as "Old Iranian".


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## ahvalj

fdb said:


> "Earliest Indo-Iranic" is not the same as "Old Iranian".


Agree.


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> "Earliest Indo-Iranic" is not the same as "Old Iranian".


I also agree. Sorry, I've used "Old Iranian" as I couldn't find an exact English equivalent for the Hungarian "ősiráni" (_ős_ means something like prime, primal, original, ancestor ...). 





> So I do not see how *orpa can be "an Old Iranian loanword". If it is a loan, then it must be from proto-IE.


 *_Orpa _or *_orβa _is the supposed FU protoform, not necessarily the exact form in the source language (as far as I understand).


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> I also agree. Sorry, I've used "Old Iranian" as I couldn't find an exact English equivalent for the Hungarian "ősiráni" (_ős_ means something like prime, primal, original, ancestor ...).  *_Orpa _or *_orβa _is the supposed FU protoform, not necessarily the exact form in the source language (as far as I understand).



In Finnish, a commonly-used term for the Proto-Indo-Iranian language is _kanta-arja_, literally "Proto-Aryan". The Proto-Indo-Aryan language is called _kantaindoarja_.


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## francisgranada

I see. I didn't want to translate "ősiráni" directly as "Proto-Indo-Iranian". The reason is that the term (prefix) _Proto-_ somehow suggests a "supposed/reconstructed stage before ...", while in the Hungarian word _ős _I do not feel this aspect. Maybe "earliest Indo-Iranic" (used by Ahvalj in his post #12) corresponds better to the term _ősiráni._ (But perhaps I exaggerate a bit, practically they may mean the same ...)


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## Wolverine9

francisgranada said:


> I see. I didn't want to translate "ősiráni" directly as "Proto-Indo-Iranian".



The Hungarian _ősiráni_ would mean Old (or maybe Proto) Iranian since _iráni _means Iranian. The term for Indo-Iranian should be something else in Hungarian.


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## francisgranada

Yes, but whether we call a proto-language e.g. _Proto-Indo-European/Proto-Indo-Germanisch, Prot-Indo-Iranian/Proto-Iranian/Proto-Indian, Proto-Uralic/Proto-Uralian ..._it is generally a question of convention/tradition, as in fact there were no real languanges with these names. 

Finally, _iráni _may mean both _Iranian _and _Iranic_, it depends on our definition, not on the "natural" meaning of these words. However, I agree with you in the sense that e.g. "indo-iráni *" would be the exact term for  "Indo-Iranian", to avoid whatever ambiguity. 

* From the linguistical point of view, the word_ indo-iráni_ is not correct because _indo-_ is a non-existent word (prefix?...) in Hungarian. The linguistacally "correct" version would be "indiai-iráni", but this term would have rather a geographical meaning.


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## fdb

There is no such word as "Iranic". And if there were, it would not mean "Indo-Iranian". Indo-Iranian encompasses (at least) two sub-families: Indo-Aryan and Iranian (to which some add Nuristani as a third sub-branch).

PS. I mean "no such word in established English scholarly usage". Please do not tell us about google-n-grams....


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## francisgranada

fdb said:


> There is no such word as "Iranic"...


I agree, neverthless I can see this term in the posts #12,13, 14 (in combination with _Indo-_). Well, this is not a provocation from my side, but an observation ... (there are no generally/internationally  accepted exact rules how to call the supposed proto-languages, languages of earlier stages, etc ... [I should appreciate them] )


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> Are we sure that -_o_- of _morsian_ is a retention of the original IE vowel? It seems to me that it could simply be a coloring effect of the *_mVr- _environment; the same could be said of Finnish _porsas_ "piglet" (from the same source as Latin _porcus_, etc.), which like _morsian_ has a labial onset and an _r_-coda.


There is another important loanword I had forgotten, namely _orja_ "slave", obviously related to Indo-Iranic _arya_-/_ārya_- "Aryan" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orja). The etymology of the latter isn't clear: in particular it is unknown whether the vowel in IE was _o_ or _hₐe_ or even _a_, yet we see here no labializing environment. I agree though, especially in connection with _sisare-/tyttäre-_ we had discussed elsewhere, that the Finnish reflexation of vowels in the earliest IE borrowings looks somewhat disorganized and so far unreliable.


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## Erkattäññe

Technically Indoiranian merges PIE /a/ and /o/ only in closed syllabes as far I can tell and that distinction in open syllabes it's not one of quantity only but quality a/o >  ə/ɑː
Although this holds for Indoaryan I'm not sure if this colour distinction holds for Iranian. Iranian short a tends to get coloured or umlauted vert easily btw


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## ahvalj

Erkattäññe said:


> Technically Indoiranian merges PIE /a/ and /o/ only in closed syllabes as far I can tell and that distinction in open syllabes it's not one of quantity only but quality a/o >  ə/ɑː
> Although this holds for Indoaryan I'm not sure if this colour distinction holds for Iranian. Iranian short a tends to get coloured or umlauted vert easily btw


*_potis_>_patiḥ_ like *_hₐeti_>_ati_.

_ə/ā_ is the modern Indic opposition: I don't know any reason why it should be postulated for the Old Indic stage.

Iranic coloring is first of all an Avestan phenomenon. Scythian *_a_ is usually borrowed into Greek as_ α_.


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## Erkattäññe

ahvalj said:


> *_potis_>_patiḥ_ like *_hₐeti_>_ati_.
> 
> _ə/ā_ is the modern Indic opposition: I don't know any reason why it should be postulated for the Old Indic stage.
> 
> Iranic coloring is first of all an Avestan phenomenon. Scythian *_a_ is usually borrowed into Greek as_ α_.



Brugmann law applies only to "ablauting" /o/
The actual pronunciation of short Indic /a/ since the vedic times is a matter of dispute still today but anyway, we're sure about the length distinction.
Regarding to *potis, latin _hospes, -itis `(*ghosti-pots `Gastherr'); _shows /e/ grade and that may be the case for Indoiranian.


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## ahvalj

Erkattäññe said:


> Regarding to *potis, latin _hospes, -itis `(*ghosti-pots `Gastherr'); _shows /e/ grade and that may be the case for Indoiranian.


Nom. Sg. _eques_ — Gen. Sg. _equitis_ vs. _ἱππότης
_Slavic has _gospodь_ with _o_.
_prōdis<*prōdas; cornicen<*kornikan(s); artifex<*artifaks
iste<*isto; _Pass. Sg. 2 _-re<*-so_


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> There is another important loanword I had forgotten, namely _orja_ "slave", obviously related to Indo-Iranic _arya_-/_ārya_- "Aryan" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orja). The etymology of the latter isn't clear: in particular it is unknown whether the vowel in IE was _o_ or _hₐe_ or even _a_, yet we see here no labializing environment. I agree though, especially in connection with _sisare-/tyttäre-_ we had discussed elsewhere, that the Finnish reflexation of vowels in the earliest IE borrowings looks somewhat disorganized and so far unreliable.



Other etymologies have been proposed for _orja_, e.g. some propose that it comes from *_worg_- (from the same root as _work_, etc.), which begins with a labial.


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> Other etymologies have been proposed for _orja_, e.g. some propose that it comes from *_worg_- (from the same root as _work_, etc.), which begins with a labial.


Semantically, using the ethnonym of an enemy is not an infrequent development, cp. the Early Medieval _slave_ and also http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wealh .
_Orja_ from *_arı̯a-_ requires less changes than from *_u̯arʥa-_, though of course nobody knows for sure.


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