Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/melzti

This Proto-Slavic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *melźtei, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂melǵ-.

This Indo-European root also gave rise to the Germanic form *meluks (“milk”), which was possibly later borrowed into Slavic as *melko (“milk”). Other Indo-European cognates of the same root include Latin mulgeō, Ancient Greek ἀμέλγω (amélgō), Lithuanian mélžti / mìlžti, 3sg. mélžia, Welsh blith, Tocharian A malke.

*melzti impf^[1][2]

1. (transitive, intransitive) to milk

• *melko (“milk”)

• Church Slavonic: млѣсти (mlěsti), мельзити (melĭziti) (Russian)

• South Slavic:
  • Bulgarian: мълзя (mǎlzja) (dialectal)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: му̏сти

    Latin script: mȕsti

  • Slovene: mlẹ́sti, mólsti (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Slovak: mĺzť (dialectal)

• Trubachyov, Oleg, editor (1992), “*melzti”, in Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages] (in Russian), numbers 18 (*matoga – *mękyšьka), Moscow: Nauka, →ISBN, page 95