# Etymology of root mil- in Slavic and Baltic languages



## libraet

Hi.

This is my first post. I was wondering about the Balto-slavic root -mil. I believe it can be found in the Baltic words for love, Latvian _mila,_ Lithuanian _meilè_, but also in some slavic names such as _Miloslav_, _Mila_, and other words meaning compassion, favour, esteem.
Is there any convincing etymologycal theory which can explain this? A common PIE root maybe? Are the Baltic words independent formations or borrowings from Slavic?

Thank you very much.


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## LilianaB

We would have to know what it was in the Proto-Indo European: I would think they are borrowings because they sound more Slavic to me but I do not know for sure.

Apparently myleti _to love_ in Lithuanian can come from _mynia_ in Proto-Indo-European. _Mynelic_ is desirable in Old English.


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## libraet

LilianaB said:


> Apparently myleti _to love_ in Lithuanian can come from _mynia_ in Proto-Indo-European. _Mynelic_ is desirable in Old English.




Are you sure? Wiktionary says OE mynelic comes from myne (mine) + lic (like), so it's supposed to mean "my like".


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## LilianaB

I found a source which says it comes from desire in Proto-Indo-European. I have to look for it. It makes sense to me, but I don't know, there may be other theories. It comes from Studies in Baltic and Indo-European Linguistics.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8j...lcWCAw&ved=0CGEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Proto-Indo european love&f=false


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## LilianaB

In Old Prussian love is milan as a noun, one that is loved is milingi, to love is milet.


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## itreius

I checked a local website that contains BCS word etymologies and it claims the PIE root to be **meyl-*. A Greek cognate word is also listed - *meília*.


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## LilianaB

OK, what does it mean, the root itself?


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## ahvalj

Pokorny's dictionary seems to have no such word (http://indo-european.info/pokorny-etymological-dictionary/index.htm), so it may be a Balto-Slavic innovation (which are in general pretty numerous — leipā, rånkā, stålås, etc.). I usually disagree to what LilianaB writes, and so is in this case: I can think of no way to prove that this root is borrowed in either Slavic or Baltic. Since the sound reflexes in the ancient Slavic are identical to the Baltic ones, we can distinguish between inherited and borrowed words in Baltic only in the latest 13-15 centuries, when the Slavic sounds evolved and no more corresponded to what we could expect from an inherited Baltic word. Since there are diphthongs in the Baltic forms of this root («meilė»), this is definitely not a later Slavic borrowing, and that's the only possible conclusion.


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## LilianaB

No, Ahvalj. I do not think it was borrowed from Slavic languages. This was my first impression because the word sounds Slavic and there are many names, even first names with this root in Slavic languages. It was  my first choice where it came from. I provided other dictionary and linguistic studies to  show the origin of this word. I am convinced it comes from the PIE root. Maybe I did not make it clear. Besides, I do not think any language would borrow such essential words as mother or love.


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## ahvalj

The truth is inbetween: "meil-" is indeed Balto-Slavic, but the simpler root "mei-" is IE: http://mirslovarei.com/content_fasmer/milyj-4311.html


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## LilianaB

Hi, Ahvalj. Which PIE root does it come from in your opinion. In fact it is one of the most Slavic sounding words in Baltic languages, but I do not think it is a borrowing, after I have analyzed certain things.


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## sotos

If this helps, there are two (?) similar Greek roots. The one means _care, love, darling _http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*m%3Aentry+group%3D32%3Aentry%3Dme%2Flhma

The other (if they are unrelated) means _honey_. Surely, under certain circumstances you cannot tell the difference between the two.


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## ahvalj

sotos said:


> If this helps, there are two (?) similar Greek roots. The one means _care, love, darling _http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*m%3Aentry+group%3D32%3Aentry%3Dme%2Flhma
> 
> The other (if they are unrelated) means _honey_. Surely, under certain circumstances you cannot tell the difference between the two.


The Greek mel- cannot be related to the IE root mei-l-.


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Hi, Ahvalj. Which PIE root does it come from in your opinion. In fact it is one of the most Slavic sounding words in Baltic languages, but I do not think it is a borrowing, after I have analyzed certain things.


I have no opinion. Please, check the references in the post #10.


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## Explorer41

LilianaB said:


> Besides, I do not think any language would borrow such essential words as mother or love.


Finnish? Romanian? (the latter case was early discussed here). And by the way, is the word for love really so essential and often used? (Though it all depends on a concrete culture; and I don't know what factors really cause borrowings from neighbouring languages, can only guess).


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## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> Finnish? Romanian? (the latter case was early discussed here). And by the way, is the word for love really so essential and often used? (Though it all depends on a concrete culture; and I don't know what factors really cause borrowings from neighbouring languages, can only guess).


You're right with both languages. Though, Finnish preserves the native "rakastaa" as the main word for "love". The other question is that it is such an ugly word...


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## LilianaB

Where was the Finnish word borrowed from? I like rakastaa, it sounds mysterious. Yes, I think words related to mother or love are one of the first words in language. Language probably originated from sounds related to grooming and emotions, in general.


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Where was the Finnish word borrowed from?


http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=tykätä&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tykätä
I'd like to emphasize that this is the very first occurrence in the Google search. Try it, it's easy.


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## Explorer41

Funny. No, I meant only the Finnish word for mother, taken from the Wikipedia's title article about the Finnish language. And of course that famous Romanian word "dragostea" taken from the song "Dragostea din tei" ("Nu ma iei"). ;-)


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## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> Funny. No, I meant only the Finnish word for mother, taken from the Wikipedia's title article about the Finnish language. And of course that famous Romanian word "dragostea" taken from the song "Dragostea din tei" ("Nu ma iei"). ;-)


Ah, and I meant the Romanian "a iubi" from «любити». What a coincidence with both languages. By the way, this old Gothic etymology of "äiti" is not that clear: (1) why is this word Gothic? — Baltic Finns never had contacts with proper Goths, neither when these lived in Eastern Europe, not still in southern Sweden (2) in the Germanic vocabulary this word itself sounds alien.


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## LilianaB

I think Baltic Finns may well have had contacts with Goths. Old Prussian has a lot of Gothic elements, structure, words. Why wouldn't Finnish have. I do not know exactly when they moved to the territories where they are now, the Finns.


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> I think Baltic Finns may well have had contacts with Goths.


I can hardly imagine where, especially to exchange such a word as "mother". Anyway, they for sure had contacts with the Germanic tribes in Scandinavia, and since Goths themselves came from what is now southern Sweden (no, don't ask me about this — you can easily find the further info in the net), it seems much more probable that the borrowings in either direction were made not directly to/from Gothic, but to/from the dialects of central Sweden.


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## LilianaB

What exactly is their word for mother? Is there an older one? Thank you. I found the answer. It is aiti in Finnish from ai ei in Gothic. I think the Finnish word could still come from Finno-Ugric. What it is in Komi, for example would be good to know. There is also olen in Finnish.


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## kirahvi

_Olen_ means I am. What does this have to do with the topic?

Mother is _äiti_ in Finnish. There is an older word for mother, _emä_, which is found in many other Finno-Ugric languages. The word _emo_ is still used in modern Finnish, meaning a mother of an animal, dam. The word _emä_ can be seen in _emäntä_, hostess. Sometimes it is used to refer to wife, mostly humorously.

Mother in Komi is _en_.

I remember hearing a theory that the Finnish word _rakkaus_ (love) would come from the word _rakka_, which in the olden times way back when meant a board or a piece of wood, which was used to attach two boats together. The name for this action, attaching two boats together with a board, was _rakkaus_. I don't know, if this is the correct etymology, but something I've heard a couple of times.

In modern Finnish, there is still the word _rakka_, but it's now a loan from Sami and means something completely different than the board connecting boats. The original word _rakka_ meaning the board has disappeared.

But I have a feeling this is completely off-topic now.


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## francisgranada

kirahvi said:


> ... There is an older word for mother, _emä_, which is found in many other Finno-Ugric languages. The word _emo_ is still used in modern Finnish, meaning a mother of an animal, dam...



Such word existed also in Hungarian, with the meaning of the Finnish _emo,_ and also in the sense of "nursing mother". It survives today in the female names _Emese_, _Emőke_. 



> But I have a feeling this is completely off-topic now.



You are right ...


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## bibax

According to V. Machek (and also Rasmus Rask) it is possible that Slavic *milъ is related to Greek φίλος (philos) of the same meaning, from PIE *bhilos. The labial b was replaced by another labial - m.


> [Махек (ZfS, 1, 1956, стр.37) считает возможным отстаивать выдвинутое еще Раском сближение слав. milъ : греч. φίλος (*bhilos). – Т.]


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## LilianaB

Thank you, Kirakhvi. This has been very interesting. I do not speak Finnish so I probably mixed something up, probably the sentence was she is my mother, or something like that and I took the verb for the word mother.Do you think aiti is related to the Komi word? Emo would be related, I know. It sounds nice. The etymology of rakkaus is also very interesting.


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## LilianaB

Going back to the subject of this tread, I think mil is related to the Old English _myne_ - love, which is derived from the PIE.


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## ahvalj

bibax said:


> According to V. Machek (and also Rasmus Rask) it is possible that Slavic *milъ is related to Greek φίλος (philos) of the same meaning, from PIE *bhilos. The labial b was replaced by another labial - m.


Since there seems to be no other example of such a substitution, this etymology needs additional substantiation. The Slavic consonants in general were pretty regular, and the roots like "zven-" instead of the expected "sven-" ("to sound") or "geg-" instead if "deg-" ("to burn") are not especially frequent and in any case are etymologically transparent.


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## ahvalj

The etymology of "aiþei" is discussed here: http://turuz.info/Sozluk/0349-A Handbook of Germanic Etymology.pdf
The derivation from "*aiþaz" seems satisfactory, so this word does not look isolated anymore — before having read this, I could not recall any similar lexeme in other IE languages. So, indeed, it could be a Germanic borrowing in Finnish, not a borrowing from some pre-IE and pre-Finnic aboriginal language of Scandinavia. However, it appears that "aiþei" was originally a special term (see the reference), not even the children's word (like "atta" instead of "fadar"), and it is funny that it has become the standard word for "mother" in Finnish.


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## Explorer41

ahvalj said:


> The etymology of "aiþei" is discussed here: http://turuz.info/Sozluk/0349-A Handbook of Germanic Etymology.pdf
> The derivation from "*aiþaz" seems satisfactory, so this word does not look isolated anymore — before having read this, I could not recall any similar lexeme in other IE languages. So, indeed, it could be a Germanic borrowing in Finnish, not a borrowing from some pre-IE and pre-Finnic aboriginal language of Scandinavia. However, it appears that "aiþei" was originally a special term (see the reference), not even the children's word (like "atta" instead of "fadar"), and it is funny that it has become the standard word for "mother" in Finnish.


I'd say, it's not. Look, they preserved the original word for animal moms; therefore they most likely borrowed this word as some special term used for institutional relations (OK, a legally acknowledged motherhood in this case), and, as the majority of human mothers are legally acknowledged, and a man is normally likely to emphasize his mother is legally acknowledged, the word became universal for all Finnish human mothers. On the contrary, it would be strange if they borrowed a non-institutional term, referring to such a basic concept (I think, it's basic in all cultures, or at least in the vast majority). They probably endured a strong cultural influence from Goth-speaking tribes (maybe invasion, I don't know the Finnish history).


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## ahvalj

Explorer41 said:


> I'd say, it's not. Look, they preserved the original word for animal moms; therefore they most likely borrowed this word as some special term used for institutional relations (OK, a legally acknoweledged mother in this case), and, as the majority of human mothers are legally acknowledged, and a man is normally likely to emphasize his mother is legally acknowledged, the word became universal for all Finnish human mothers. On the contrary, it would be strange if they borrowed a non-institutional term, referring to such a basic concept (I think, it's basic in all cultures, or at least in the vast majority). They probably endured a strong cultural influence from Goth-speaking tribes (maybe invasion, I don't know the Finnish history).


Well, I don't believe it was a Gothic borrowing for the reasons explained above. That people ascribe this to Gothic for two centuries is most probably due to the lack of imagination. If the German has "Quark" and the Russian has «творог», it does not mean that "Quark" should to be regarded as a Russian, and not West Slavic, borrowing in German.

As to the rest, I should confess I never fully understand your detailed explanations. Anyway, such things are explainable retrospectively, but, as LilianaB had pointed, it is such a strange borrowing in general.


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## LilianaB

Why Germanic: mother is en in Komi. Can't it come from Finno-Ugric?


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Why Germanic: mother is en in Komi. Can't it come from Finno-Ugric?


I am afraid I don't understand why "en" has ever appeared in this topic...


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## LilianaB

Finnish is a Finno-Urgic language, and so is Komi. It would be more reasonable to look for the origin of the word mother in another language from the same family, especially that it seems plausible. Mother is ai ei in Gothic and it is en in Komi. I do not believe that the Komi speakers borrowed it from the Goths as well.


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> I am afraid I don't understand why "en" has ever appeared in this topic...



I agree. As I find this theme quite interesting, I've started a new thread about the word "mother" in the Finno-Ugric languages.


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## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Where was the Finnish word borrowed from? I like rakastaa, it sounds mysterious. Yes, I think words related to mother or love are one of the first words in language. Language probably originated from sounds related to grooming and emotions, in general.


Liliana, I am sorry, when suggesting you to google the word "tykätä" I was sure I had mentioned it. Sorry again.


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## aeneas dardanus

It's a pre-Greek root, which runs from Bee, to Honey and Militia.


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## Dhira Simha

In my view this ancient root is inherited in both Slavonic and Baltic (I support Trubachev  against positing a common "Balto-Slavonic"). The Greek philo- may well be related here but its primordial meaning is best preserved in Sanskrit:


1012милетьmilyety
milमिल् milet'to become dear or pleasant (to smb.)to meet, encounter, join, fall in withThe connection of the SA root mil मिल्   with the RU meaning 'to become dear, pleasant'  becomes  more visible   if we look at the cognate word milana मिलन 'coming together, meeting,  contact, union' and compare it with the RU милая milaya 'dear, darling'  which is a common way of a husband addressing  his wife. It is easy to  see the connection between the intimate union of a couple ( cp. मेल   mela m. {mil} meeting, union, intercourse) with being dear,  pleasure,  joy and love. Vasmer supports the link to the SA mayas मयस्  'refreshment, enjoyment, pleasure, delight' (VAS, II, 564) which is  doubtful phonetically since   a - i  and  l - y  interchanges are  uncommon between Sanskrit and Slavonic. See миловаться milovat'sja BG  милея; SRB омилити; CZ milovat; SK   milovať; PL miłować '; LT mylėti;   LV mīlēt N 4


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## Perseas

aeneas dardanus said:
			
		

> It's a pre-Greek root, which runs from Bee, to Honey and Militia.


Some source for that would be appreciated.



Dhira Simha said:


> In my view this ancient root is inherited in both Slavonic and Baltic (I support Trubachev  against positing a common "Balto-Slavonic"). The Greek philo- may well be related here but its primordial meaning is best preserved in Sanskrit:


There's another Greek element <noun: ο*μιλ*ία, noun: ό*μιλ*ος, verb:ο*μιλ*ώ> with similar meanings to those provided in the table. I wonder if there is any connection.


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## Dhira Simha

Perseas said:


> Some source for that would be appreciated.
> 
> 
> There's another Greek element <noun: ο*μιλ*ία, noun: ό*μιλ*ος, verb:ο*μιλ*ώ> with similar meanings to those provided in the table. I wonder if there is any connection.



This is my own etymology from  work in progress.  Thank you for directing me to ο*μιλ*ία !  There is no reason not to consider it a  cognate  of Skr. mil, melana and mela. The initial /o/ may be prosthetic.


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## neonrider

Yeah, and tell me why Hungarian "Lengyel(orszag) and Lithuanian Lenkija mean the same - POLAND.


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## neonrider

http://translate.google.com/#lt/en/myletti

vs. 

http://translate.google.com/#lt/en/myleti

Weird.


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