# Iranian x (not in cluster) is from what PIE consonant?



## CyrusSH

There are numerous words in the Iranian languages which have _x_, I want to know what PIE consonant has been changed to Iranian _x_? Like in Persian _xood_ "helmet".


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## fdb

/k/ > /x/ no. 18.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> /k/ > /x/ no. 18.



I mean those ones which are not in cluster which are certainly in absolute majority, I can list several Persian verbs, such as _xazidan_ "to crawl", _xamidan_ "to bend", _xalidan_ " to pierce", _xaridan_ "to buy", ...


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## Treaty

You have before cited Cheung's _Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb_. So, I assume you have access to it (for your examples check pp. 439, 442, 444, 446). You can find a dozen other Persian verbs with _x_- there as well.


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> You have before cited Cheung's _Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb_. So, I assume you have access to it (for your examples check pp. 439, 442, 444, 446). You can find a dozen other Persian verbs with _x_- there as well.



This book doesn't really help me much to find the proto-IE origins of Persian verbs, anyway I looked at it, about the first one _xazidan_, it says: "The IE  origin  of  this  root  cannot be ascertained:  exclusively  Iranian  ?" I have actually the same question too.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> about the first one _xazidan_, it says: "The IE origin of this root cannot be ascertained: exclusively Iranian ?"


That is the answer to your question then. Sometimes we have to accept that "We don't know" is the only answer.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> That is the answer to your question then. Sometimes we have to accept that "We don't know" is the only answer.



Do you mean we don't know about the origin of _x_ sound which is not in cluster in the Iranian languages?


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Do you mean we don't know about the origin of _x_ sound which is not in cluster in the Iranian languages?


Not in this case.

For the example in @fdb's post he referred to:


fdb said:


> Iranian x is normally either from IE *kh or from IE *k before a consonant, e.g. Avestan xratu- (New Persian xirad) versus Sanskrit kratu- “spiritual power”. Otherwise, IE *k is Iranian k, with a very small number of exceptions.


The answer is seems to be that the New Persian  vowel between x an r is not original and at the time of the shift it was in a cluster. That is at least my reading of his reply.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Not in this case.
> 
> For the example in @fdb's post he referred to:
> 
> The answer is seems to be that the New Persian  vowel between x an r is not original and at the time of the shift it was in a cluster. That is at least my reading of his reply.



It can be probably true about some Persian words that after _x_ there is _r_, like the verb _xaridan_ that I mentioned, but was there also proto-IE *_kg_ or *_kz_ clusters?!! Or *_km_, ...?


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> It can be probably true about some Persian words that after _x_ there is _r_, like the verb _xaridan_ that I mentioned, but was there also proto-IE *_kg_ or *_kz_ clusters?!! Or *_km_, ...?


There are many other possibilities, loans, other sound shifts, ...

You have to look the examples up. This forum cannot replace a dictionary.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> There are many other possibilities, loans, other sound shifts, ...



May I know loans from which language or languages and what other sound shifts?


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> May I know loans from which language or languages and what other sound shifts?


As I said, you have to look them up. Each word has its own story to tell.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> As I said, you have to look them up. Each word has its own story to tell.



I have already mentioned some words, I can add thousand other words but I think for almost all of them you will say: Sometimes we have to accept that "We don't know"!


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I have already mentioned some words, I can add thousand other words but I think for almost all of them you will say: Sometimes we have to accept that "We don't know"!


Look them up and you find out. That's what books are for.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Look them up and you find out. That's what books are for.



Of course if authors of books themselves don't ask the readers about them, like Cheung!


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Of course if authors of books themselves don't ask the readers about them, like Cheung!


Listen, Google, Wikipedia/Wiktionary and forums are great inventions. But if you want to do do serious scientific research, there is no way around diving deep into proper academic literature. We cannot do that for you. @fdb told you how far simple sound laws can take you and that is how far we can go here. Maybe he can give you a few more hints where to look, as he is our resident expert on Iranian languages.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Listen, Google, Wikipedia/Wiktionary and forums are great inventions. But if you want to do do serious scientific research, there is no way around diving deep into proper academic literature. We cannot do that for you. @fdb told you how far simple sound laws can take you and that is how far we can go here. Maybe he can give you a few more hints where to look, as he is our resident expert on Iranian languages.



The main problem is that there are some strict sound laws and a strong belief that there were no contacts between most of IE languages, so fdb and other linguists can't solve many problems. When no IE sound is changed to _x_ in Iranian and there can't be any loanword from languages that _x_ sound exists in them, linguists can say nothing except that "We don't know".


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> The main problem is that there are some strict sound laws and a strong belief that there were no contacts between most of IE languages, so fdb and other linguists can't solve many problems. When no IE sound is changed to _x_ in Iranian and there can't be any loanword from languages that _x_ sound exists in them, linguists can say nothing except that "We don't know".


If you believe you know things so much better than virtually everybody else in the scientific community then this is fine with we. But that cannot be an excuse for ignoring proper scientific procedure. You cannot hope to revolutionise history of history of language with some reader's digest knowledge of the relevant scientific theories and methodologies from Wikipedia and amateur web site. You have to learn these things and we can't do your homework for you. That can't be and isn't the purpose of this forum.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> If you believe you know things so much better than virtually everybody else in the scientific community then this is fine with we. But that cannot be an excuse for ignoring proper scientific procedure. You cannot hope to revolutionise history of history of language with some reader's digest knowledge of the relevant scientific theories and methodologies from Wikipedia and amateur web site. You have to learn these things and we can't do your homework for you. That can't be and isn't the purpose of this forum.



After these years I have also learnt some things about linguistics and as Treaty also mentioned, when I want to ask about the etymology of a Persian verb, first I look at Cheung's Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb, not Wiktionary. But what should I do when all available sources say "We don't know"? I have to believe that except some words, thousands other Iranian words which have _x_, have unknown origin?


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## berndf

First read and than talk big. You want to revolutionise the field and with such a lazy attitude you cannot make such claims. You sound like a 10 year old who is looking for lame excuses not to do his homework.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> First read and than talk big. You want to revolutionise the field and with such a lazy attitude you cannot make such claims. You sound like a 10 year old who is looking for lame excuses not to do his homework.



Would you please tell me what I should read? What linguists mean by IE sound laws? Does it mean there can be other sound shifts too? Like _n>x_ or _p>x_?! I have just a simple question in this thread and I myself have no theory about it, I even don't think all of these words could be related to a possible contact between Iranian and Germanic people.


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## ahvalj

Unless somebody has already done such an analysis, you'll have to find the answer by yourself. In your place, I would do the following:
make a list of all roots with _x _(there will be dozens, in the worst case the first hundreds of them)
eliminate those with good Indo-European etymology (i. e. with the regular development from _*khₓ_ and _*kC>xC>xVC_)
eliminate those with good foreign etymology
for the rest the following possibilities are imaginable:
some roots will remain etymologically obscure, being:
loans from unknown languages (as the Iranic speech was brought less than three millennia ago by an invasion into a densely populated land where a number of languages were most probably spoken, among which only Elamite is attested)
new formations in the course of the development of Persian or other Iranic languages of the country​some roots will represent identifiable deviating continuations of Old Persian words, e. g.
_h>x_ in_ ʰuška>xošk _(خشک - Wiktionary), _*hūkā>xuk _(خوک - Wiktionary)
_∅>x_ in _*arša->xers_ (خرس - Wiktionary), _išti>xešt _(خشت - Wiktionary)​finally, what remains may indeed turn out to contain examples of Indo-European roots with the Germanic-type development. If you manage to reach this stage and compile this list, it can be published in a/this forum or in a scientific journal for a discussion on a per-word basis.​


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## CyrusSH

Thank ahvalj, that is really a good analysis, I will reply soon.


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## CyrusSH

ahvalj said:


> loans from unknown languages (as the Iranic speech was brought less than three millennia ago by an invasion into a densely populated land where a number of languages were most probably spoken, among which only Elamite is attested)



I think we should exclude languages which didn't have _x_ sound, so these loans couldn't be from Elamite.



ahvalj said:


> _h>x_ in_ ʰuška>xošk _(خشک - Wiktionary), _*hūkā>xuk _(خوک - Wiktionary)
> _∅>x_ in _*arša->xers_ (خرس - Wiktionary), _išti>xešt _(خشت - Wiktionary)[/INDENT]
> finally, what remains may indeed turn out to contain examples of Indo-European roots with the Germanic-type development.



I have a question, we know Indo-Iranian _s_ was changed to _h_ in Iranian and as you mentioned we see _h>x_ in Iranian too, this sound change happened in some loans from Indian too, like _Sindhu_>_Hindu_, is it possible that in many Iranian words, Iranian _s_ which was from proto-IE *_ḱ_, was also changed to _h/x_? Of course I don't think that Indo-Iranian _s_ and Iranian _s_ were the same sounds, compare to Arabic ص and س.


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## ahvalj

_*kʲ>ϑ>h_ is regular in Middle Persian after vowels: _daϑa>dah _(ده - Wiktionary), _*paϑu>pah _(Reconstruction:Proto-Iranian/páĉu - Wiktionary). I have seen no instances of this shift mentioned in the literature for the word-initial position. In any case, this change is late, postdating the Old Persian stage.

The change _s>h_ is very ancient in Iranic as it is found in all languages, so _Hindu_ is probably an inherited Iranic form of a common Indo-Iranic word.

There are some instances of inconsistent assibilation _*kʰ>x~k _attested, e. g. "foam, phlegm" (Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/kapʰas - Wiktionary): Old Indic _kaphaḥ, _Avestan _kafa-, _Persian _käf_ but Ossetic _xæf(æ),_ Wakhi _xuf _etc.


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## CyrusSH

The fact is that _x_ exists in some of the most important words in the Persian culture, such as _xāk_ "earth, soil", _xāna_ "house, home", _xun_ "blood", _xodā_ "god", ... and if we don't want to consider an exact Indo-Eruopean origin for it then I think we should search for a substratum or superstrate language, I know I shouldn't talk about Germanic but could it be an Altaic language? For example compare to Korean _xuk_ "earth, soil, dirt" or Tungus-Manchu _xun_ "blood".


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## fdb

Indo-Iranian sw > Iranian hw > Persian xw

xudā(y) is from xwa- “self”
xūn “blood” is from *xwōn < *hwaun < *wahuni- (metathesis) (Avestan vohuni-)


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## CyrusSH

So we already have *_kC>xC_, *_kh>x_, *_kʰ>x_, *_hₓ>x_, _∅>x_, *_s>x_, *_sw>xw_ and probably *_ḱ>x_ in Persian but what about _k>x_? For example Persian _xaz_ "marten" seems to be from proto-IE *_kek̑-_ "weasel, polecat": خز - Wiktionary Cognate with Sanskrit _káśa-_ and _kaśīkā́_ "weasel". Or Persian _xaraš_ (_xarš_) "scratch" from proto-IE *_(s)kars_ "scratch", cognate with Russian _korósta_ "scabies", lithuanian _korys_ "comb", Sanskrit _kaṣati_ "scratch", English _harsh_ and German _scharren_.


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