Etymologically opaque Votic words

For later reference, here’s a collection of etymologically opaque (to me) Eastern Votic words harvested from my new dictionary. I will not attempt any detailed analysis yet. (Presumably some investigation into Russian, Ingrian, Estonian, maybe even Latvian & German could turn up known cognates for many of these.)
[Edit 2016-03-16: several comparisons have been provided in the comments, and these words have now been struck out.]

  • aimo ‘carbon monoxide’
  • alëtsë ‘mitten’
  • hilkeä ‘ugly’ — if this is not a hypercorrect cognate of Finnish ilkeä ‘evil’.
  • hulkkuag ‘to travel’
  • hülpeä ‘disobedient’
  • ikolookka ‘rainbow’ — a compound based on lookka ‘bow, curve’, but the 1st element is unclear.
  • jahsaag ‘to take off shoes’ — does not seem related to Finnish jaksaa ‘to have energy for’.
  • kaaliag ‘to lick’
  • kaputta ‘sock’
  • kineri ‘melted fat’
  • koltši ‘old-fashioned ladle’
  • kosma ‘hair’
  • lainatag ‘to swallow’ — does not seem related to Finnish lainata ‘to borrow’.
  • lautta ‘cowshed’ — does not seem related to Finnish lautta ‘raft’.
  • liblo ‘oat awn’
  • linnaasëd ‘malt’
  • lohko ‘soup’
  • lühtši : lühdže- ‘pail’
  • läntü ‘milk’
  • mauttši ‘intestine’
  • naka ‘cask spigot’
  • nakliska ‘some part in a sleigh’ (“the informant is unable to explain what exactly”)
  • nëikko ‘rockable cradle’
  • nättšelikko ‘burdock’
  • nätši ‘uncooked (of bread)’
  • nättü ‘rag’
  • ootava ‘cheap’
  • pallo ‘pigeon’
  • pelssimed ‘loom’
  • peltta ‘leftovers of threshing’
  • pihta ‘shoulder’
  • pilpa ‘dandruff’
  • pärähmä ‘fathom, armful’
  • raaka ‘twig’
  • ramitsaag ‘to limp’
  • ratiz ‘granary’
  • rehnüüz ‘entrance hall’
  • rehtilä ‘griddle’
  • ringuttaag ‘to stretch’
  • ripa ‘footwraps’
  • ripila ‘fireplace poker’
  • rooppa ‘porridge’
  • rootšiag ‘to dig, to rummage’
  • ruttaag ‘to hurry’
  • śalko ‘foal’
  • servä ‘edge’
  • sippelikko ‘ant’
  • sisava ‘nightingale’
  • sultsiag ‘to wash’
  • surmukaz ‘relative’ — probably not derived from surma ‘death’?
  • säblä ‘kitchen hook’
  • šitinka ‘bristle’
  • šlotta ‘slush’
  • taari ‘ale’
  • tahtši : tahdžë- (!) ‘chaff’
  • tauttaag ‘to take’
  • tiheh ‘mosquito’
  • turvaz : turpaa- ‘ladder’
  • tuutikko ‘washbundle’
  • türü ‘food comprising breadcrumbs mixed with milk or water’
  • tšiutarë ‘coldroom’
  • tšiutto ‘shirt’
  • tšäppeä ‘beautiful’
  • uhër ‘auger’
  • unka ‘wooden cup’
  • upa ‘bean’ = Est. uba.
  • ursi : urtë- ‘bed curtain’
  • vaattaag ‘to look’
  • valo ‘dung’
  • varo ‘hoop’
  • veelatag ‘to soak’ — compound with vete- : vee- ‘water’?
  • vokki ‘spindle’
  • väitšiäg ‘to call’
  • ördžähtäässäg ‘to wake’
Advertisement
Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Etymology
4 comments on “Etymologically opaque Votic words
  1. A couple of quick notes:

    aimo ‘carbon monoxide’ Old Norse eimi, eimur ‘smoke, steam, fire’, Icelandic eimur ‘steam’

    jahsaag ‘to take off shoes’ < PU *jaksa- 'take off' (UEW 630; note also Skolt Saami jä´hssed 'take off', a loan from Finnic *jaksa-)

    ootava ‘cheap’ ~ Fi dial. huotava
    rehtilä 'griddle' ~ Fi riehtilä
    śalko ‘foal’ ~ Fi sälkö (but this is a weird vowel correspondence)
    vaattaag ‘to look' < Est vaata-, which in turn irregularly from PFi *valvatta-

  2. David Marjanović says:

    I can’t find any German ones in there; šlotta looks German, but isn’t. But of course I might have failed to see through simplified consonant clusters.

  3. Some Russian loanwords:
    kosma ‘hair’ < космы (pl.) 'mane, dishevelled locks'
    ramitsaag ‘to limp’ < ? хромать 'to limp' (an early borrowing, judging by a Russ.o)
    rooppa ‘porridge’ < крупа 'groats' (an early borrowing, judging by oo < PSlav. *oo ( Russ. у)
    rootšiag ‘to dig, to rummage’ < ? рыться 'to dig, to rummage'
    šitinka ‘bristle’ < щетинка 'bristle'
    šlotta ‘slush’ < слота 'slush' (a dialect word with cognates in other Slavic languages)
    türü ‘food comprising breadcrumbs mixed with milk or water’ < тюря 'id.'

  4. In Finnish dialects we can find:
    taari ‘rapakalja’
    vokki ‘rukki’
    hilkeä & hylpeä < Fi. ilkeä & ylpeä — hypercorrect borrowings.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: