# Proto-Germanic *slaiwō "sloe" and Proto-Slavic *sliva "plum" from Hurro-Urartian?



## CyrusSH

We actually don't know what this Hurro-Urartian word was, probably _*slowre_, Old Armenian _slor_ "plum", Akkadian _šallūru_ "plum" and Persian _šalil_ "peach" are believed to be from this Hurro-Urartian word.

It is good to mention that European plums are native to western Asia in the Caucasus Mountains.


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## Treaty

The PGrm. word is *_slai*x*w_- presumably coming from the meaning "blue" (<PIE *_sloi/slei_ "blueish" + *_ko_) considering the fruit is blueish or blackish. It's also worth mentioning that sloe is also native to Europe. An HU etymology would require a loss of [r] and addition of [x] while an IE etymology is easier to explain.


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## fdb

Treaty said:


> The PGrm. word is *_slai*x*w_- presumably coming from the meaning "blue" (<PIE *_sloi/slei_ "blueish" + *_ko_) considering the fruit is blueish or blackish. It's also worth mentioning that sloe is also native to Europe. An HU etymology would require a loss of [r] and addition of [x] while an IE etymology is easier to explain.



The *-ko suffix is not a problem; the loss of the -r- is.

The (hypothetical) Hurrian and Urartian words are discussed in a (for my taste) somewhat daring article by Diakonoff pirated here: http://www.azargoshnasp.net/history/Hurrian/diaokonoff_hurro_armenian_borrowing.pdf, no. 12


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## ahvalj

Etymological dictionaries agree in reconstructing the PIE _(s)lihₓ-u̯/kʷ-os_ "blueish", from where come Slavic _sliva_ "plum" (with the acute _i_ pointing to a PIE _i_+laryngeal), Latin _līvidus_ "of a dull or greyish-blue color", Celtic _*lī̆wos_ "color" and Germanic _*slaı̯xʷōn~slaı̯xʷaz_ "sloe". If the Germanic form is the result of Cowgill's law (Cowgill's law - Wikipedia), like in _*kʷikʷaz<*gʷihₒu̯os_ "alive", the single _*(s)lihₓu̯os_ (with ablaut forms of _i_) is enough to explain all the attested forms.


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## CyrusSH

It seems to be clear that the meaning of livid (dark bluish grey color) was derived from the color of plum in Celto-Italic languages, it can't be said that there was a word for this color and then proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic words for plum were created.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> It seems to be clear that the meaning of livid (dark bluish grey color) was derived from the color of plum in Celto-Italic


The other way round makes more sense in every respect.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> The other way round makes more sense in every respect.



How? In almost all cultures the words for colors are usually derived from natural things they resemble.


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## berndf

Or the name of fruits from their colours, _blackberry, blueberry_.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Or the name of fruits from their colours, _blackberry, blueberry_.



In those words _black_ and _blue_ are adjectives, compare to _orange_.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> In those words _black_ and _blue_ are adjectives


Why would that be a problem?


CyrusSH said:


> compare to _orange_.


In that case the colour is named after the fruit.


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## Treaty

The discussion about whether color or the fruit name came first is irrelevant. The Germanic word has PIE origins, which means it predates Hurrian by 3000 years and Urartuan by around 4000 years. So, a HU origin of the word is chronologically impossible, unless we are talking a possible proto-HU people who were in some contact with PIE people somewhere around or before 4000BC. But this would be a fancy broad guess because we have zero knowledge about where this proto-HU speakers lived or what their word for plum/blue sounded like at that time.


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> The discussion about whether color or the fruit name came first is irrelevant. The Germanic word has PIE origins, which means it predates Hurrian by 3000 years and Urartuan by around 4000 years. So, a HU origin of the word is chronologically impossible, unless we are talking a possible proto-HU people who were in some contact with PIE people somewhere around or before 4000BC. But this would be a fancy broad guess because we have zero knowledge about where this proto-HU speakers lived or what their word for plum/blue sounded like at that time.



PIE origins?!! We have just a few words in some European languages that none of them existed 3,000 years ago.


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## berndf

Treaty said:


> So, a HU origin of the word is chronologically impossible,


Here I have for a change to side with Cyrus. This is not a valid counter argument because whether or not the is a common IE source is precisely the contentious issue.

But of course the idea of a Hurrian origin of the Slavic and Germanic words remains an unsubstantiated guess.


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## Treaty

We began discussing the meaning "blue" because of a proposed PIE root to begin with. If we don't consider an etymological relationship between Celto-Latin meanings (blue, color) and German/Slavic meanings (plum, sloe) then there is not much reason to consider the meaning "blue" for the Germanic *_slaixwaz_. It didn't mean "blue" (explicitly) in attested Germanic, Baltic and Slavic (or did it?). Otherwise, a common root between Latin and Germanic would give us - if not PIE itself - an early date which still would be older than Hurrian. 

P.S. There is further suggestion by Hyllested (2004) of a relation with Indian _nīl_- (<_līl_-) and Greek _lotos (*ljo-tos_)_. _If there is a chance of this relationship, then we can be more certain of a PIE root.


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## berndf

Treaty said:


> We began discussing the meaning "blue" because of a proposed PIE root to begin with. If we don't consider an etymological relationship between Celto-Latin meanings (blue, color) and German/Slavic meanings (plum, sloe) then there is not much reason to consider the meaning "blue" for the Germanic *_slaixwaz_. It didn't mean "blue" (explicitly) in attested Germanic, Baltic and Slavic (or did it?). Otherwise, a common root between Latin and Germanic would give us - if not PIE itself - an early date which still would be older than Hurrian.


That is correct and therefore he tried to undermine the idea of any an original meaning "blue". I also reject his theory for the reson I mentioned but you can't crack his argument by exposing internal inconsistencies because there are none.


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## Treaty

When he said (#5) that Latin development was *plum>blue not reverse, he is accepting a *plum meaning for a common root of Latin and Germanic words (and also Celtic and Slavic). So, basically he admits the existence of a common root between them. My comment was that it doesn't matter what this root meant in the context of his claim of Hurrian origin, because it would have likely predated Hurrian's attestation.


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## berndf

Treaty said:


> When he said (#5) that Latin development was *plum>blue not reverse, he is accepting a *plum meaning for a common root of Latin and Germanic words (and also Celtic and Slavic). So, basically he admits the existence of a common root between them. My comment was that it doesn't matter what this root meant in the context of his claim of Hurrian origin, because it would have likely predated Hurrian's attestation.


I understood #5 as an attempt of a reductio ad absurdum, not brilliantly formulated but his basic argument was that the PIE etymological explanation would require the name of the thing to be derived from its colour and that can't be because these things invariably work the other way round. Again, not a terribly convincing argument but with some minor rectification of the wording not inconsistent.


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## CyrusSH

If we consider *_s_>_h_ sound shift in Iranian then we have Persian _holu_ / _xalu_ / _alu_ "plum" (Compare to Iranian words from PIE *_slak_ "to slay"), it is possible that this word existed in PIE but it meant "plum", not "blue".


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