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Words for insects and other invertebrates are well-known to be etymologically unstable: they are easily replaced, and also susceptible to divergent developments such as irregular sound changes and folk-etymological distortions. Despite of this, a few such words in the Uralic langauges … Continue reading →

My attention was recently caught by this word shared by Selkup and Kamas, but lacking any further etymology so far: SlkTa ɛ̄ti̮ ‘camp’, Ty ēd ‘village, dwelling site, house, yurt’, K ētǝ ‘village’ (< PSlk *ētǝ) ~ Kam jada ‘village’. … Continue reading →

In this post I will present a new etymology for the Mari word for ‘sky’ and ‘god’, which can be reconstructed as PMari *jŭmǝ on the basis of MariE jumo, MariNw jŏmŏ and MariW jǝ̑mǝ̑. In present-day usage the meaning … Continue reading →

In etymological research it is a standard procedure to group words in the languages studied into ‘cognate sets’, i.e., sets of words that are considered historically related to each other by descent from the same form in the common proto-language. … Continue reading →

The North Saami word luohti denotes ‘yoik’, i.e., a traditional Saami song typically characterized by a chanting singing style, pentatonic and anhemitonic melody, and lyrics usually consisting of a few phrases attributed to a particular person, place, or the like, … Continue reading →

The impetus for this etymological case study was provided by the paper Wie alt sind die Kontakte zwischen Finnisch-Ugrisch und Balto-Slavisch? by Jorma Koivulehto (2006). One of the ideas argued for in that paper is that the Saami languages possess … Continue reading →