The Finnic-Mordvinic lepp
Abstrak
The noun leppä (or one of its phonetic variants) is used as a name for âalder (Alnus)â in Finnic, Mordvinic and Lapp. The same word denotes âbleedingâ as well as âblood of a killed animalâ or â as in some dialects â just âfish or seal bloodâ. On the Western Estonian islands the word is also used to refer to a reddish colour. In addition, the stem has produced several names for âladybirdâ used in Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, Votic and Estonian. Some linguists tend to consider âalderâ as the primary sense of the lexeme in Finnic, while some others hold that the original sense is âbloodâ. With some hesitation the word has been suggested to be a Baltic loan. Here a new hypothesis is advanced: the Finnic lepp(ä) could possibly be an early Indo-European loan originally meaning âpaintâ.
Topik & Kata Kunci
Penulis (1)
Vilja Oja
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2022
- Sumber Database
- DOAJ
- DOI
- 10.3176/lu.2004.2.02
- Akses
- Open Access ✓