Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/soja

@Bezimenen how does the word for "jay" semantically shift from "to shine"? More likely that PBSL *śájˀas meant "shade, shadow; blue-gray" as seen in various descendants of PIE *(s)ḱeh₃-. See PII *kapáwtas for a similar derivation of the word for "pigeon, dove".

Sanskrit श्येन (śyena, “hawk, bird of pray”) is said to be from *tḱyéH-ino-s ~ *tḱiH-íno-s, cognate with Ancient Greek ἴκτινος (íktinos, “kite”), Old Armenian ցին (cʻin, “vulture”). --{{victar|talk}} 16:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Victar: It's just traditionally associated with *sijati (to shine), as per Vasmer, Trubachev, Snoj, BER (Bulg Etym Dict), etc. All authors admit that there is no absolute certainty in this connection, however, over time the association has stuck. A traditional attempt for justification is along the lines of:

to shine, to glimmer → variegated or faint, pale → gray/murky.

In a discussion, which I had with someone regarding Proto-Slavic *osojь (I forget with whom and where), they pointed out the association to shine → to reflect → shadiness. Neither are particularly convincing. My guess is that since Slavic lacks verbs from *(s)ḱeh₃-, older authors simply connected Proto-Slavic *sěnь, Proto-Slavic *sojь, etc. to the next closest root with related meaning, which is *sijati. I see that a similar confusion occurs with Proto-Indo-Iranian *ćyaHwás, *ĉyaHmás, which Lubotsky and others reconstruct as *ḱyeh₁- (likely in view of the root for shining).

PS I'm following BER (which is mostly based on works by Russian and Polish linguists) regarding the link between Proto-Slavic *sojь, *siňь (“glaucus”), etc. and the Indo-Iranian words for bird of pray. If this comparison is not well-received in the Indo-Iranian literature, just remove the root from the descendants of *(s)ḱeh₃-. I was going to ask you about it, but other things arose meanwhile. Bezimenen (talk) 19:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Bezimenen: Pokorny and Vasmer, and works based on theirs, should always be subject to high scrutiny. They're notorious for perpetuating century old folk etymologies and false cognates. I have no problem mentioning them, but I don't think it should be worded at the primary etymology, despite their ubiquity. --{{victar|talk}} 20:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

sоjа

sоjа seems to contain Cyrillic letters 83.142.57.33 08:26, 12 May 2024 (UTC)