Appendix talk:Proto-Slavic nouns/People

The Dictionnaire Étymologique of Peter Skok describes the South Slavic words as having Arabic origin (no mention about Russian толмач) and that the Turkic is from Arabic. However, the Etymology of толмач claims Turkic origin. Skok again explains that the origin of the Arabic word in its turn is derived from either Akkadian or Hittite (i. e. ultimately IE origin), whence is to infer that in no way is the word Turkic. Thence, the South Slavic words are not Turkic. But is this enough to confute the claim about Turkic origin in толмач#Etymology? Bogorm 17:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

The word is definitely Common Slavic, whence it was borrowed to Old High German, Romanian, and Hungarian (and not from Hungarian, as Common Slavic existed a few centuries before the arrival of Magyars to Pannonia). Interestingly, it was re-reborroved from Pannonian Slavic into tanács.

This Common Slavic lexeme is in all the books I saw cited as one of the examples of prehistoric Turkic borrowings into Common Slavic, and Skok does not try to refute that. When he is saying (Volume 3, p. 522, col 1): "Balkanski je turcizam arapskoga podrijetla (ar. tergeman > tur. tercüman, terziman iz turske uredske terminologije terdžuman bug. terdžumanjitar-, rum. terginan, terziman " he is obviously referring to the later "Balkanic Turkishism", which was borrowed from Ottoman Turkish into various Balkan languages (and to Ottoman Turkish from Arabic), not the original Common Slavic form which the Slavic languages, beside that much later borrowing, inherited.

His further connection of Turkic form with Arabic, Mitanni (Indo-Aryan? :D), Akkadian and Hittite sources looks very interesting, and this might be one of those Wanderwörter!! There is another one very probable in Slavic (saw it in Vasmer, but Skok mentions it in the last sentence too: Common Slavic *kъniga 'book' < Turkic kūinig < Old Chinese küen 'scroll' (Mandarin juǎn?) < Sumero-Babylonian source.

So I say that we should keep the Turkic origin (and since it's a prehistorical borrowing when there we still no individual Turkic languages, we should use {{etyl|trk}}) which is the usual explanation in the books, and the extended discussion that Skok mentions we put to the appendix page for Proto-Slavic *tъlmačь. What do you say? --Ivan Štambuk 22:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

The claim about книга is forsooth far-fetched - here I already quoted Цыганенко and his Etymology dictionary about three possible origins - two of them surmise a Germanic origin, the last - Akkadian, but in no way Turkic. I pray you not to juxtapose книга and Turkic origin, this is deprived of any veracity and cogency. Chinese I do not know, perhaps, but please, no Turkic. Bogorm 09:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

LOL. Well, Turkic-originating theory is just a hypothesis, just like all the others are, and quite popular for this etymon methinks.. Moreover, Turkic *kūinig is thought by Vasmer et al of just as mediator of Old Chinese, whence ultimately from Akkadian kunukku. The closely related form you can find in Hungarian, Armenain, Uyghur, Korean...i.e. all Across Eurasia, so it might as well be one of the most important words in cultural prehistory ^_^. Now that you mention alternative theories, the only thing that is 100% sure at this moment is that the word is Common Slavic, and we'll leave speculations of pre-historical source of it to the Appendix page.. --Ivan Štambuk 10:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Then толмач is ultimately from ترجمان, like dragoman and Dolmetscher. —Stephen 12:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

According to Skok only the later Balkanic Turhishism (and its European equivalents truchman, dragoman) is ultimately derived from Arabic - толмач and its cognates are inherited from Proto-Slavic, whence they were borrowed pre-historically from Turkic, and before that everything is a big mistery (possibly connected with the source of Arabic word, if it's not Common Semitic, but who knows, Skok cites Hittite, Akkadian..) OTOH, the OHG tolmetsche (the source of Dolmetscher) is borrowed from Proto-Slavic *tъlmačь, and so is Hungarian tolmács and also in Romanian where it's preserved only in derived forms.. --Ivan Štambuk 13:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

This theory about the Turkic origin of the Proto-Slavic word is forsooth dubitable. How did it end up in Proto-Slavic, when the first Turks in Europe arrived in the 11th century(Pechenegs, Kumans) and the Slavs had never left Europe before Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Grozny)? Any connecting points? Old Church Slavonic formed in the 9th century, i. e. Proto-Slavic must have been dissolved as a Common language in the 7th or 8th century or before. Bogorm 19:21, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I forgot Khazars (7th century), but they were only around the Caucasus and in no way connected to West or Soutch Slavic people... Bogorm 19:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Is there a Proto-Slavic word for vnuk/wnuk/unuk/внук? Maro 17:47, 9 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

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Appendix talk:List of Proto-Slavic nouns/People

Quite often people leaving their comments about origin of some words do not really have enough information about the subject. Very unfortunately such opinions appear without review and comments from experts' side and stay there for months or even years and some people use them as references. For example considering origination of the word "tolmach" from the word "terchuman" or "terguman" (arabic origination) is wrond. It is really of Turkic origin, but not of Tukic from Ottoman but much earlier times. The source word is "dilmanch" (shown slovenian versions actually maintain almost the original prononciation - telmach or tolmach), from the root word "dil" or "tel" - literrally meaning "language/tong". "Dilmanch" - literally means "knowing language/tong".