Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/bolto

Is the removed Belarusian боло́то (bolóto) that Vasmer mentions an error? (I couldn't find it anywhere BTW). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I haven't seen the Vasmer's page yet but this spelling is impossible in Belarusian. Unstressed "о" becomes "а" even in foreign personal names, let alone native words - there are rare exceptions where there are two stresses. There are other things I have been correcting, which contradict the spelling rules. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I've made a correction in ru:Шаблон:этимология:болото (etymology template in the Russian Wiktionary) as well. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Some things about Belarusian orthography:

• о and ё are almost always stressed and there should be just one of them in a word. There are ten loanwords where "о" is unstressed.
• р, ж, ш, д, т are never followed by е, і, ь, ю and я. When д and т are palatalised they become дз and ц.
• ь between consonant is considered archaic сьвет -> свет, каханьне -> каханне, песьня -> песня.
• Currently unstressed не and без are written unchanged despite the pronunciation, older orthography allowed "ня" and "бяз"
• Words with "ф" (as in Russian) are mainly loanwords. Previously the letter was replaced with п, хв, х and т. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank for correcting it. I thought it was some dialectal form that was listed for some particular reason. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. It's very hard to talk about Belarusian, since written Belarusian is obviously underdeveloped for political, historical and social reasons. There are prescribed linguistic norms by the same government, which is trying to stifle its development. Colloquial Belarusian uses various spellings, including mixture of Russian and Belarusian (w:Trasyanka - трася́нка (trasjánka) (same name in Russian)) and many Polish borrowings or barbarianisms. I think it's best to stick to the official and modern spelling in etymological sections, which I'm going to pay attention to. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:52, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Conection with Germ. *pōlaz

I think that a probable connection with the proto-Germanic *pōlaz (“pool, pond”) should be mentioned, despite the difference in the grade (the Germanic term has a long grade in the root). The Balto-Slavic word is even added as a cognate in the etymology of the Germanic word, so there is no reason to omit this relation in the Slavic one... What do you think?

I think you summarised quite well why there isn't a connection. —Rua (mew) 15:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

initial consonant of the indoeuropean root

If this is cognate to to Germanic *polaz, the initial consonant must be plain voiced, not aspirated. Only one of those connections can be right.