“Proto-Uralic” *waśke ‘metal, (? copper); decoration’ and Its “Derivatives” in the Permian and Ugrian Languages

• Published in: Izvestia of the Ural federal university. Series 2. Humanities and Arts
• Main Author: Vladimir Vladimirovich Napolskikh
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural Federal University Press 2022
• Subjects: этимология; названия металлов; серебро; свинец; олово; уральские языки; пермские языки; угорские языки; мансийский язык; индоевропейско-финно-угорские языковые контакты; предыстория; History (General) and history of Europe; D; Language and Literature; P; Kama; khanty; mansi; taiga; Mansi
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.15826/izv2.2022.24.3.045; https://doaj.org/article/e877a294feb54b4a94e749fabb98118d

The traditional etymology of the PU *waśke ‘metal, (? copper)’ is of great importance for the reconstruction of Proto-Uralic culture and the time of the disintegration of Proto-Uralic. Continuing some older works and considering the results of the latest research, this etymology is considered as fictitious, breaking up into at least three etymological nests: Finnic-Mordv. *vaśa-kive ‘axe-stone’ (etymology of T.-R. Viitso, where *vaśa- denotes ‘axe, adze’, a borrowing from Aryan + PU *kive ‘stone’), Proto-Perm. *veś ‘non-ferrous metal; metal decoration’, Proto-Sam. *wesä ‘metal, metal decoration’. The last two words can be independent borrowings from a language close to Tocharian (*wəsa ‘gold’ PIE). It is impossible to restore a Proto-Ugric word for metal associated with these etymologies, since Hung. vas ‘iron’ (s [љ] *č), Khanty *waχ ‘metal; iron’ and Mansi *wes in *ǟϑ-wes ‘lead’ cannot be phonetically related to each other in any way. Mari βaћ ‘ore’ also cannot be considered a normal reflex of *waśke but is rather a semantic development of Mar. βaћ ‘root’ ( PFU). The names of silver in the Permian (Perm *özüś Udm. azveś, Komi eziś) and Hungarian (ezьst) languages have a special history, they are in no way related to other Finno-Ugric names of metals and are loans from Alanian *жzvestж ( Osset. жvzīst ‘silver’), which can be dated to the second half of the I millennium BC — the first half of the I millennium AD. The names of tin / lead in the Permian and Mansi languages (Perm *os-veś ~ Mansi *ǟϑ-wes) are also etymologically unrelated to either the fictitious PU *waśke or the Permian-Hungarian name of silver, but represent a common innovation, where the second component is Proto-Perm *veś ‘non-ferrous metal; metal decoration’, and the first component is a color designation (? ‘grey metal’ cf. Hung. ősz ‘gray-haired’). The composite emerged in the second half of the I millennium BC — I millennium AD, in the region from the middle and lower Kama region in the west to the southern Trans-Uralian taiga forests in the ...