Numerous lexemes that are reconstructable for Proto-Slavic have been identified as borrowings from the languages of various tribes that Proto-Slavic speakers interacted with in either prehistoric times or during their expansion when they first appeared in history in the sixth century (the Common Slavic period).Language abbreviations used in this article: Av. Avestan; Sr-Cr. Serbo-Croatian; Goth. Gothic; Lat. Latin; OCS Old Church Slavonic; OE Old English; OHG Old High German; OIr. Old Irish; ON Old Norse; PGm. Proto-Germanic; Pol. Polish; PSl. Proto-Slavic; Russ. Russian Most of the loanwords come from Germanic languages, with other contributors being Iranian, Greek, and Vulgar Latin. Slavic loanwords sparked numerous debates in the 20th century, some of which persist today.
Note on sources Linguists Max Vasmer and Oleg Trubachyov compiled and published academic dictionaries on Slavic languages that are used worldwide in academia and are considered the most accurate sources for Slavic etymology. Another etymological dictionary written by G.P. Cyganenko takes a more modern look at the theories presented by Vasmer and others, and mostly explains origins for words that are most common and is not as extensive as the works of Vasmer or Trubachev.
Slavic and Iranian Slavs in the Proto-Slavic era came into contact with various Iranian tribes, namely Scythians, Sarmatians, and Alans, who were present in vast regions of eastern and southeastern Europe in the first centuries CE. The names of two large rivers in the centre of Slavic expansion, Dnieper and Dniester, are of Iranian origin, and Iranian toponyms are found as far west as modern-day Romania.Matasović 2008:47
For a long time there have been investigators who believe that the number of loanwords from Iranian languages in Proto-Slavic is substantial. Zbigniew Gołąb, for instance, argued that a vast majority of Proto-Slavic words beginning with the voiceless velar fricative *x- (where the etymology was otherwise unclear, as in *xotěti and *xovati) were actually borrowed from Iranian sources. However, other Slavists claimed that confirmed Iranianisms in Slavic are few in number. One of the least ambigious Iranian-Slavic lexical isoglosses (possibly explained as a Slavic borrowing from Iranianradi in Rick Derksen's "Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon" (Leiden, 2008).) is a lone adposition: Old Persian rādiy, OCS radi.
Antoine Meillet and André Vaillant explain the alleged lack of Iranianisms in Slavic: "the civilization of warrior and partially nomadic tribes, like Scythian and Sarmatian, could have exerted only a cursory influence on the patriarchal civilization of Slavs".Meillet & Vaillant 1934:508 Meillet and Vaillant reject the outright borrowing of the Proto-Slavic word for god from Iranian, but considered that the semasiological development of the term was an Iranianism: in both Slavic and Indo-Iranian, the root that denotes deity also denotes wealth, share (Proto-Slavic *bagu > Common Slavic *bogъ, Old Persian baga, Sanskrit bhága).Compare Old Church Slavonic (OCS) bogatъ, rich, to ubogъ, poor.
Ranko Matasović has raised broad objections to the body of past Iranianist research. He criticizes Gołąb's approach as "methodologically unacceptable", emphasizing that initial *x- in Slavic has several sources, some of which have been ascertained (like PIE *#ks-)By the RUKI law: *#ks- > *#kš- > *#kx- > *#x-. and others which have not.Sometimes PIE *#sk- metathesizes into *#ks- which then regularly yields Proto-Slavic initial *x-. This is not, however, a regular sound change. There are several other sandhi environments (some of which were analogically leveled out in Proto-Slavic) that also yield initial *#x-. Matasović recommends that instances of initial *x- in Slavic should first be explained by recourse to regular Slavic sound laws, and that Iranian should be proposed as a source if and only if the etymon has been attested in Iranian, and if and only if there is additional phonetic evidence to support the proposal.
Slavic and Germanic It is uncertain when Proto-Slavic speakers first came into contact with Germanic tribes: among Common Balto-Slavic words that have centum reflexes, none of them have typical Germanic sound-features. As for Baltic languages, all their prehistoric Germanic loanwords either come from Slavic or are borrowed from Old Norse or Proto-Norse; i.e., borrowed during a period well after Slavic prehistory (which ended 600 CE). The conclusion is that the Proto-Germanic speakers must have lived far from the area of the subsequent spread of speakers of Proto-Balto-Slavic.Matasović 2008: 49 Gothic loanwords into Slavic (as opposed to Baltic) occur much more frequently.
There follows a list of words which are generally held to be Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic:Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff, The Germanic Loanwords in Proto-Slavic. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. PSl. *asilu, donkey (OCS osьlъ) < Goth. asil- (< Lat. asellus); PSl. *bjōda, bowl (OCS bljudo) < Goth. biuda; PSl. *bōkū, letter (OCS buky) < Goth. bōkō; PSl. *ganeznantej, to grow healthy (OCS goneznǫti) < Goth. ganisan; PSl. *kōpīti, to buy (OCS kupiti) < Goth. kaupjan (< Lat. caupo) (cf. German kaufen); PSl. *kōsīti, to test, taste (OCS kusiti) < Goth. kausjan (semantically and phonetically close to the native Slavic word *kǫsati, meaning "to bite"); PSl. *kuningu, duke (OCS kъnędzь) < Germanic *kuningaz (cf. OE cyning, OHG chuning); PSl. *lēku, cure (OCS lěkъ) < Germanic *lēka (cf. Gothic lēkareis, doctor); PSl. *lōku, onion, leek (OCS lukъ) < Germanic *lauka- (cf. OHG lauh, OIcel. laukr); PSl. *nōta, cattle (OCS nuta) < Germanic *nauta; PSl. *ōseringu, ear-ring (OESl. userjazъ) < Goth. ausihriggs; PSl. *pulku, folk (OCS plъkъ) < Germanic *fulkan (cf. OE, OHG folc); PSl. *skulingu,The expected form *skilingu is incompatible with Proto-Slavic phonotactics, compare *činda, not *kinda, hence the conversion of the *i to *u after *k. small money (OCS skъlędzь) < Goth. skilling; PSl. *skatu, cattle (OCS skotъ) < Germanic *skatta (cf. German Schatz, treasure); PSl. *smakū, fig (OCS smoky) < Goth. smakka; PSl. *šelmu, helmet (OCS šlěmъ) < Germanic *helma- (cf. OHG helm); PSl. *tūnu, fence (OCS tynъ) < Germanic *tūnaz < Celtic *dūno, fortification (cf. OIr dún); PSl. *xlaiwu, pigsty (OCS xlěvъ) < Germanic *hlaiwan; PSl. *xlajbu, bread (OCS xlěbъ) < Germanic *hlaibaz; PSl. *xulmu, hummock (OCS xъlmъ) < Germanic *hulma-; PSl. *xūzu, xūsu, house (OCS xyzъ) < Germanic *hūsan, *hūzan; PSl. *želdān, to compensate damage (OCS žlěsti)First-person present singular is žlědǫ; in the infinitive -dt- is dissimilated to -st-, this being a common Balto-Slavic process still operable in Proto-Slavic. < Germanic *geldan, to buy out.
This set of loanwords covers diverse semantic fields, fields from which languages readily borrow words: buildings (*xūzu,*tūnu); terrain features (*xulmu); social interaction and societal structure (*pulku, *želdān, *kōpīti); animals and cattle (*asilu, *skatu).
Pronk-Tiethoff (2013) lists among possible Germanic borrowings quite a few words whose Germanic origin is generally considered refuted, including the following:
PSl. *bergu, hill (OCS brěgъ) < Germanic *bergaz (cf. German Berg).Vasmer, among most other post-WWII linguists, opposes the Germanic origin of the Slavic root: PSl. *činda, child, infant (OCS čędo) < Germanic *kinda (cf. German Kind).Vasmer, among most other post-WWII linguists, opposes the Germanic origin of the Slavic root: PSl. *gardu, enclosed space (OCS gradъ) < Goth. gards, court.Vasmer, among most other post-WWII linguists, opposes the Germanic origin of the Slavic root:
Slavic and Celtic By the time Slavs start to appear in historical records, Celtic languages were already limited to the British Isles and modern-day France. However, during the age of classical antiquity, Celts populated the regions of Central Europe in which Slavs spread in the 6th and the 7th century, there may have been Celtic languages speakers in the regions of Slavic expansion.Matasović 2008:52 In the early 20th century, Shakhmatov (1912) and others proposed Celtic etymologies for many Slavic words,Шахматов А. А. К вопросу о древнейших славяно-кельтских отношениях. Казань, 1912. but they have mostly been refuted. Actually, there is no single undisputed borrowing from Celtic into Proto-Slavic.See Rick Derksen's "Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon" (Leiden, 2008).
Matasović still defends the possibility of two direct borrowings from Celtic (mainly due to the impossibility of deriving them by regular sound laws, which require the satemization of the first sound): PSl. *karwā ‘cow’ (Pol. krowa, Russ. koróva, SCr. krȁva), postulated by some to be a feminine derivative of a lost masculine noun supposedly borrowed from Proto-Celtic *karwos ‘deer’ (Welsh carw, Breton karv, Cornish karow), which would in turn be a regular Celtic centum reflex of PIE . is a zero-grade derivative of PIE ~ ‘horn’; cf. Avestan sruuā- ‘horn’, Ancient Greek , ‘horned’, Lat. cervus ‘deer’, etc. Lithuanian kárvė, whose accentuation matches that of the Slavic etymons, points to prehistorical Balto-Slavic borrowing, but this hypothesis does not take into account Old Prussian curwis ‘ox’, and the Slavic protoform is usually reconstructed as PSl. *kòrva, inherited with incomplete satemization from an o-grade PIE variant .Rick Derksen, Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 236.Nicholas Zair, The Reflexes of Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 94-5. PSl. *krawu ‘roof’ (OCS krovъ, Czech/Russ. krov) is traced by some to Germanic etymons with the same meaning (OE hrōf, ON hróf etc.); if Celtic mediation is assumed, from dialectal PIE *ḱrōpo- > Proto-Celtic *krāfo-Ranko Matasović, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 221. (cf. MIr cró ‘enclosure’, Welsh crau ‘hovel, pigsty’). However, the Slavic preform is usually reconstructed as PSl. *kròvъ and considered a derivative of *krỳti ‘to cover, hide’.Rick Derksen, EDSIL, 250. Furthermore, the Celtic words are unrelated to Germanic (< *hrōfa- < *ḱrōpo-), stemming instead from Proto-Celtic *krewo- ~ kruwo-,Nicholas Zair, Reflexes of PIE Laryngeals, 170-1. presumably from PIE ‘to hide’.Ranko Matasović, Addenda et corrigenda to Ranko Matasović’s Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Brill, Leiden 2009). Published online (Zagreb, 2011), 23.
Borrowings from unknown languages There is an alternative possibility that the Proto-Slavic words refusing satemization (*karwā, *krawu, etc.) were borrowed into Pre-Proto-Slavic or perhaps even Pro-Balto-Slavic from some unknown kentum language rather than from Celtic specifically. In 1989, Georg Holzer suggested the existence of a in Proto-Slavic, comprising at least 45 words borrowed from an unknown (undocumented) Indo-European language and sharing some irregular features.Holzer G. Entlehnungen aus einer bisher unbekannten indogermanischen Sprache im Urslavischen und Urbaltischen. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989. In these 45 words, the standard Indo-European voiceless stops (tenues, like p, t, k) inexplicably became voiced (mediae, like b, d, g), and vice versa — a systematic irregularity that points to a specific, undocumented substrate language.
Responding to Holzer's arguments, Matasović and Kassian later compiled their own lists of possible archaic substrate words in Proto-Slavic (with Kassian doubting the Indo-European character of the substrate language).Kassian A. S. Cultural lexical borrowings in Proto-Slavic from a local variety of the West European substrate (preprint 2026)Matasović R. Substratum words in Balto-Slavic // Filologija. — Zagreb, 2013. — Т. 60. — С. 75-102.
Slavic and Greek