# Proto-Slavic: Hypothetical names for ancient military units



## zombieflanders

I'm trying to make a modification for the PC game _Attila:Total War _(set at the turn of the 5th century), which is releasing a "Slavic Cultures Pack" soon. It's probably pretty ahistorical in a lot of ways, but I want to make at least a little dent in that by coming up with some reasonably accurate endonyms for the units. Basically, I want to have a core set of terms to use: spearmen, swordsmen, axemen, archers/bowmen/hunters, javelin throwers/skirmishers, and horsemen. Some of them would have modifiers: levy/light, heavy, elite/noble, and raiders. Browsing through Wiktionary, I've come up with a basic list of Proto-Slavic terms, but I'm not sure what cases or suffixes I should use:

*tęžьkъ->heavy
*lьgъkъ->light
*kopьje->javelin, spear
*mьčь->sword
*ščitъ->shield
*toporъ, sekyra->axe
*lokъ->bow
*voji, voje->army
*vojikъ->soldier, warrior
*konjь->horse(s)
*lajatь->to ambush, lie in wait for
Now, I know that Proto-Slavic is an entirely reconstructed language (on advice from another member, I've marked all the terms with an asterisk to denote that), largely from Old Church Slavonic, and that we can't know for sure what they would have been. However, I'm not going to be a huge stickler on accuracy here, given that the historicity of these units is itself extremely unclear. So my questions are: how do I change some of these into plurals (like soldier->soldier*s*), make the cases and suffixes work, and use the proper grammatical structure? For example, how would I say "Light Spearmen," or "Heavy Axemen"? Is there a way to transform a verb like lajatь into a noun ending in -er? How would I format "Perun's Warriors"/"Warriors of Perun"? Is there a Proto-Slavic word for "noble," or should I use something like _gospodin_? 

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you might have.


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## Ben Jamin

zombieflanders said:


> I'm trying to make a modification for the PC game _Attila:Total War _(set at the turn of the 5th century), which is releasing a "Slavic Cultures Pack" soon. It's probably pretty ahistorical in a lot of ways, but I want to make at least a little dent in that by coming up with some reasonably accurate endonyms for the units. Basically, I want to have a core set of terms to use: spearmen, swordsmen, axemen, archers/bowmen/hunters, javelin throwers/skirmishers, and horsemen. Some of them would have modifiers: levy/light, heavy, elite/noble, and raiders. Browsing through Wiktionary, I've come up with a basic list of Proto-Slavic terms, but I'm not sure what cases or suffixes I should use:
> 
> *tęžьkъ->heavy
> *lьgъkъ->light
> *kopьje->javelin, spear
> *mьčь->sword
> *ščitъ->shield
> *toporъ, sekyra->axe
> *lokъ->bow
> *voji, voje->army
> *vojikъ->soldier, warrior
> *konjь->horse(s)
> *lajatь->to ambush, lie in wait for
> Now, I know that Proto-Slavic is an entirely reconstructed language (on advice from another member, I've marked all the terms with an asterisk to denote that), largely from Old Church Slavonic, and that we can't know for sure what they would have been. However, I'm not going to be a huge stickler on accuracy here, given that the historicity of these units is itself extremely unclear. So my questions are: how do I change some of these into plurals (like soldier->soldier*s*), make the cases and suffixes work, and use the proper grammatical structure? For example, how would I say "Light Spearmen," or "Heavy Axemen"? Is there a way to transform a verb like lajatь into a noun ending in -er? How would I format "Perun's Warriors"/"Warriors of Perun"? Is there a Proto-Slavic word for "noble," or should I use something like _gospodin_?
> 
> Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you might have.


I would like to comment that most of the terms you wish to create have probably never existed in any Slavic language, and when you wish to form new terms using combining old words the result can be quite hilarious. I doubt seriously if there ever existed a counterpart of an "axe man" in any Slavic language. I hope also that you know that you can't create compound words in Slavic the same way as it is done in English. Adding an adjective (like heavy) can additionally mess up the creation (*!težki sekyra muž).  
What are you, by the way, going to do with the yers in spelling?


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## zombieflanders

Ben Jamin said:


> I would like to comment that most of the terms you wish to create have probably never existed in any Slavic language, and when you wish to form new terms using combining old words the result can be quite hilarious.


Yes, I'm aware of this. Like I said, I'm not particularly concerned about it, this is all just for entertainment. I just want something that at least looks like it would hypothetically match the way the game works.


> I doubt seriously if there ever existed a counterpart of an "axe man" in any Slavic language. I hope also that you know that you can't create compound words in Slavic the same way as it is done in English. Adding an adjective (like heavy) can additionally mess up the creation (*!težki sekyra muž).


Again, that's fine. I doubt any of the units that the developers came up with existed, either. As far as I can tell, Slavs had swords or spears or axes or bows (and often multiple weapons), and they fought, that's it. But the way the game works is based on recruitment of different units with different weapons, so I'm trying to come up with something that works within that framework. I'd even take a certain level of anachronism by "back-forming" (if that's a thing) words from later terms. Do we know that the Proto-Slavic tribes had "Družyna" like the Kievan Rus'? No, but that kind of works as something you would call a general's bodyguard in a game.


> What are you, by the way, going to do with the yers in spelling?


I was planning to do a simple replacement: front yers become "i" and back yers become "u." I know it's probably not very accurate, but for simplicity's sake that's what I think works. I'd be open to other suggestions, though.


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## Christo Tamarin

Just for fun.

axe man -> топоръчи

By the way, I do not like mixing Roman and Cyrillic scripts.


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## Christo Tamarin

By the way, the language with open syllables and 2nd palatalization is just Slavic, or Slavonic, why Proto-Slavic?


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## zombieflanders

Christo Tamarin said:


> By the way, the language with open syllables and 2nd palatalization is just Slavic, or Slavonic, why Proto-Slavic?


The game starts in 395CE, which I understand to be before any unreconstructed Slavic/Slavonic language had emerged.


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## Karton Realista

zombieflanders said:


> mьčь


From that you could derrive mьčьnik, although that would (probably) be polonisation of the ending. Christo's топоръчи sounds also pretty natural


zombieflanders said:


> *kopьje


But that causes a problem. kopьjči?


zombieflanders said:


> lokъ


Ločъnik?


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## ahvalj

People, you're trying to suggest 11–12th century looking words for the language of the 5th century. In particular, _топоръчи_ is not even Old Church Slavonic (where we find _-чии_), not to mention that the suffix itself was surely borrowed much later than in the 5th century, when Slavs met Turkic speakers (as participants of the Hun invasion) for the first time. To illustrate the problems with this request: "spearman" was _копииникъ/kopьjьnikъ_ in Old Church Slavonic (the attested word) of the 11th century, but in the 5th century, six centuries earlier, before the majority of late Common Slavic sound changes, it should have looked as somehow like _*kapijinīk-_ with some ending, the nature of which remains unknown (still _-as_ or something more derived), so, let's say *_kapijinīkə _(_ə_ appears in the reconstruction because to the time of the first texts of the 10–11th centuries it produces the plain _e_ in north-western East Slavic and _ъ_ elsewhere, so it definitely wasn't a high back vowel in Common Slavic)_._

On the other hand, I can convert the requested list into something 5th-century-like, but, aside of purely linguistic matters, the gamers simply won't recognize in these words anything Slavic. As an example: the Viking name _Óláfr_ should have looked like _*Anulaiƀaz_ in 5th century Norse, and the anglicized Irish name _Connor_ (Old Irish _Conchobar_) as something like _*Cunoxubras_ in coeval Primitive Irish (both reconstructions are based on the attested runic and oghamic variants of other words): if the game developers try to introduce something like this, all the spirit associated in the mass culture with the respective nations will be lost. So, a kind of balance between the linguistic reality and the expectations of the target audience should be found here. I would have suggested to use the Old Church Slavonic forms, but these, too, will be unfamiliar to the buyers: for example, the average Russian speaker isn't ready to acknowledge that the Varangian prince he knows as _Oleg_ (Oleg of Novgorod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) was actually _Ольгъ/Olьgъ_ in the texts of the 11–12th centuries and something like _Ålĭge _(or perhaps even _Ælĭge_) in reality in the Novgorod dialect of the 9th century. So, again, where is the balance between the authenticity and the recognizability?


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## Angelo di fuoco

I just write down the words I know from contemporary usage.
Miecznik actually does (did) exist in Polish: Miecznik (urząd) – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
Лучник does exist in Russian, so the derivation doesn't look ridiculous to me. Мечник also is / was a word for a swordsman
Копейщик, копьеносец (spear bearer)
Лёгкая / тяжёлая конница (light / heavy cavallery), всадник (rider; neutral), наездник (rider -> mostly a very skilled and brave one, so not very recommendable for a unit)
There is no traditional word for axeman, so you may use секирщик, секироносец, топорщик, топороносец - all of them sound somewhat awkward, but you can find them in video games.


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## ahvalj

A question to the topic starter: could you give us some examples of these terms as found in the other culture packs, especially in the Germanic and Celtic ones? I think it would be wiser just to copy the approach, i. e. if e. g. the Norse terms have been modernized for the Viking period, it would be OK to do the same with their Slavic counterparts.


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## zombieflanders

ahvalj said:


> A question to the topic starter: could you give us some examples of these terms as found in the other culture packs, especially in the Germanic and Celtic ones? I think it would be wiser just to copy the approach, i. e. if e. g. the Norse terms have been modernized for the Viking period, it would be OK to do the same with their Slavic counterparts.


Quick note: this is for an end-user modification of the game, not the game itself. I don't want anybody thinking I'm a developer representing the company.

That being said, there aren't really any Germanic or Celtic equivalents yet. Many of the Germanic factions just use Latin to represent their _foederati_ status. There is some use of Ge'ez for Axumite/Ethiopian units, Arabic for units from the Arabian peninsula, and flavors of Proto-Turkic for East European/West Asian nomads like the Huns (all of which are transliterated into the Latin alphabet due to game limitations). All of which doesn't really help answer the question, I know. Honestly, I think the players themselves are fine with it because the modification provides English names in unit descriptions, and so using a sort of pre-OCS version of names wouldn't be a deal-breaker. The only people who would complain would already be as well-researched as the contributors here, in which case any corrections they'd be willing to provide would be welcome. IMO, using examples like _*kapijinīkə_ should be workable, and I'd feel OK offering it as a possible naming scheme. 

BTW, once again, thanks to everybody who's contributed, even if it sounds like a goofy idea. I'm learning a bit about linguistics with just the little bit of research I've done, and it's opened my eyes about a lot of how we describe things.


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## ahvalj

OK, then in the next week I will try to check the words you requested in the Old Church Slavonic dictionaries and then will try to convert the results into what I imagine they could have looked like in the 5th century. I guess, since the game most probably has _-us_ etc. for the 5th century Rome, the proto-Slavic _-as_ endings won't scare too many people. The expected results will look like e. g. _lankas_ "bow" or _lankinīkas_ "bowman": the Lithuanian gamers will be delighted (these words are _lankas _and _lankininkas_ in modern Lithuanian and the latter word is still this same _lankinīkas_ dialectally).

A question about the transliteration: at that period the language had the sounds _ʨ_ (approximately the English _ch_), _ʥ_ (approximately the English _j_), _ɕ_ (approximately the English _sh_), _x_ (approximately the German _ch_) and _j_ (approximately the English _y_ in _yes_): how do you think it would be better to write them for the gamers to understand the pronunciation? E. g. if _j_ stands for _y_ then how to write _ʥ,_ the same with _ʨ_ and _x? _I suggest it should be closer to the modern English system, so _ch, j, sh, kh_ and _y_.


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## zombieflanders

ahvalj said:


> A question about the transliteration: at that period the language had the sounds _ʨ_ (approximately the English _ch_), _ʥ_ (approximately the English _j_), _ɕ_ (approximately the English _sh_), _x_ (approximately the German _ch_) and _j_ (approximately the English _y_ in _yes_): how do you think it would be better to write them for the gamers to understand the pronunciation? E. g. if _j_ stands for _y_ then how to write _ʥ,_ the same with _ʨ_ and _x? _I suggest it should be closer to the modern English system, so _ch, j, sh, kh_ and _y_.


Those last suggestions sounds really good to me. Big thanks for having so much patience for my oddball questions.


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## ahvalj

I failed to find publications dedicated specifically to the Common Slavic military terminology, so I relied on your list as well as on the terms mentioned in _Супрун АЕ · 1989 · Введение в славянскую филологию: _165-166 which I then evaluated through the etymological and Old Church Slavonic dictionaries.



zombieflanders said:


> *tęžьkъ->heavy


_ tinjyukas_ (masculine)_ — _Nominative Plural _tinjyukay_ (masculine)
The root vowel may be _i_ or _e:_ following _Derksen R · 2008 · Etymological dictionary of the Slavic inherited lexicon:_ 494, I prefer the zero grade since it is found in the Lithuanian _tingus_ and Old Norse _þungr_.
The second syllable may contain either _ı̯u_ or _i,_ but other adjectives with the unstable _-k-_ all point to _-uk-_ (the majority) or _*-ak-_ (OCS _vysokъ, širokъ, glǫbokъ_), the _ı̯_ being present in OCS _daļekъ _(*<_dālı̯akas_).



zombieflanders said:


> *lьgъkъ->light


_ligukas _— Pl._ ligukay _(both masculine)



zombieflanders said:


> *kopьje->javelin, spear


_kapiya _— Pl. _kapiyā_
Balto-Slavic apparently had two classes of thematic neuter nouns: those ending on _-an_ and those ending on _-a._ The former are attested in a part of Prussian texts, the latter (indirectly) in Lithuanian and overall in the Baltic loanwords to Baltic-Finnnic (e. g. Finnish _silta_ "bridge" < _*tilta_). Slavic may possess traces of both: a class of neuter nouns had shifted to the masculine gender to the time of the first Slavic texts, while preserving accentual peculiarities (the so called accentual paradigm _b_ vs. the accentual paradigm _d_ in the original masculina), whereas another class persisted as neutra in the attested Slavic — this is sometimes interpreted as if the former had the ending _*-an_ (_>ъ_ in OCS, hence merging with _*-as>ъ_), while the latter had the ending _*-a_ (>_-o_ in OCS). Other scenarios can be suggested as well, but I will follow this one.



zombieflanders said:


> *mьčь->sword


_mechyan_ or _michyan_ — Pl. _mechyā _or _michyā_
The attested Slavic languages had either variant, e. g. OCS _mečь_ vs. Serbo-Croatian _mač<*mьčь._ The word is borrowed, perhaps from the Caucasus (the Gothic _meki_ must be borrowed as well, in any case it would have produced _**měčь_). The accentual paradigm _b_ in Old East Slavic (_Зализняк АА · 1985 · От праславянской акцентуации к русской: _134; _Дыбо ВА · 2000 · Морфологизированные парадигматические акцентные системы. Типология и генезис. Том I: _78) suggests the former neutrum.



zombieflanders said:


> *ščitъ->shield


_shcheytan_ — Pl. _shcheytā_
Again, the former neutrum (accentual paradigm _b_ + Prussian _staytan _and Latin_ scūtum_).



zombieflanders said:


> *toporъ, sekyra->axe


_taparas, sekūrā, bardū_ — Pl. _taparay, sekūrās, barduwes_



zombieflanders said:


> *lokъ->bow


_lankas_ — Pl. _lankay_
The accentual paradigm _c_ (_Зализняк АА · 1985 · От праславянской акцентуации к русской:_ 137) suggests the former masculine.



zombieflanders said:


> *voji, voje->army


_artis_ — Pl. _arteyes _or already _artiyes_
(> OCS _ratь_ "host, array, army, force")
_
wayiska_ — Pl. _wayiskā_
(> OCS _vojьsko _"army, forces")



zombieflanders said:


> *vojikъ->soldier, warrior


_wayas_ — Pl. _wayay_
(> OCS _vojь_)
_
wayīnas_ — Pl. _wayes_
(> OCS_ vojinъ_)

_wayinīkas_ — Pl. _wayinīkay_
(> OCS _vojьnikъ_)

_wayākas_ — Pl. _wayākay_
(> OCS _vojakъ_)

_bayikas_ — Pl. _bayikay_
(> OCS _bojьcь_ "fighter")

_barikas_ — Pl. _barikay_
(> OCS _borьcь_ "fighter, wrestler")

_artinīkas_ — Pl. _artinīkay_
(> OCS _ratьnikъ_)

_abyudmīnas_ — Pl. _abyudmes_
(> OCS _ojьminъ_ "soldier"), cognate to the Sanskrit _yudhmaḥ_ "warrior" and Old Lithuanian _judus_ "cocky, pert, irritable, short-tempered" (_Derksen R · 2008 · Etymological dictionary of the Slavic inherited lexicon: _365)

_abyudmas_ — Pl. _abyudmay_
(> OCS _ojьmъ_)



zombieflanders said:


> *konjь->horse(s)


_kamnyas _— Pl. _kamnyay_



zombieflanders said:


> *lajatь->to ambush, lie in wait for.


_lāyātēy_



zombieflanders said:


> spearmen


_kapiyinīkas_ — Pl. _kapiyinīkay_
(> OCS _kopьjьnikъ: Этимологический словарь славянских языков. Праславянский лексический фонд. Выпуск 11 (*konьcь–*kotьna(ja)) · 1984 · _41–42)



zombieflanders said:


> swordsmen


_mechinīkas _or _michinīkas_ — Pl. _mechinīkay _or _michinīkay_
(for the root vowels see above; _Этимологический словарь славянских языков. Праславянский лексический фонд. Выпуск 18 (*matoga–*mękyšьka) · 1993: _42)



zombieflanders said:


> axemen


Couldn't find anything.



zombieflanders said:


> archers/bowmen


_lanchinīkas_ — Pl. _lanchinīkay_
(> OCS _lǫčinikъ;_ _Этимологический словарь славянских языков. Праславянский лексический фонд. Выпуск 16 (*lokadlo–*lъživьcь) · 1990: _136; Lithuanian _lankininkas_)

_strēlikas_ — Pl. _strēlikay_
(> OCS _strělьcь_)

_strēlukas_ — Pl. _strēlukay_
(> Russian _стрелок_)



zombieflanders said:


> hunters


Don't understand the meaning here.



zombieflanders said:


> javelin throwers/skirmishers


Don't know.



zombieflanders said:


> horsemen


_kamninīkas_ — Pl. _kamninīkay_
(> OCS _koņьnikъ:_ _Этимологический словарь славянских языков. Праславянский лексический фонд. Выпуск 11 (*konьcь–*kotьna(ja)· 1984: _9)

_unsādinīkas _or _unsēdinīkas_ — Pl. _unsādinīkay_ or _unsēdinīkay_
(> OCS _vъsādinikъ, vъsědьnikъ_)



zombieflanders said:


> levy/light, heavy, elite/noble, and raiders


Should have been special terms, I guess, but I can't find them.



zombieflanders said:


> "Light Spearmen"


_ligukay kapiyinīkay_



zombieflanders said:


> Is there a way to transform a verb like lajatь into a noun ending in -er?


A calque should look like _lāyinīkas,_ though I am sure this word is not attested (perhaps because _lāyina_ meant "shit").



zombieflanders said:


> How would I format "Perun's Warriors"/"Warriors of Perun"?


_Perawnaway wayay_



zombieflanders said:


> Is there a Proto-Slavic word for "noble," or should I use something like _gospodin_?


_waldūkā_ "lord, ruler"
_wadyus_ "leader, chieftain"
_wayawadā_ "military leader, duke"

Don't know what was the noun for "noble". "Nobility" was perhaps _znātis,_ "noble" as adjective was _znātinas_. The semantic development is the same as in Latin "the one who is known" (Latin _gnō-_ = Slavic _znā-_).


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## zombieflanders

Wow, *ahvalj*, that's impressive! Thanks so much for all the effort you put in.


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