Etymology of Prague?

[Marc L. Greenberg]

Paul, I assume you are no longer discussing Prague, as the assumption with
regard to the p- in Praha is that is was borrowed from some archaic and
unknown I.E. dialect. As for the Slavic *breg-, Germanic berg
correspondence, I confess I fail to see the problem. Germanic
brother/Bruder, bear correspond to Slavic *bratr- 'brother', *brati 'take',
both of which had I.E. *bh-.
Marc

> Paul B. Gallagher wrote:

The problem I'm having with it is that Slavic *b corresponds to Germanic
*p, not the other way around. So Slavic *breg could (but doesn't)
correspond to Germanic *perg if it came from PIE *breg, but Germanic
*berg could not correspond to Slavic *preg. The only places Slavic can
get a *p- are 1) through normal inheritance from PIE, corresponding to
Germanic *f-, 2) through borrowing. Now, of course, if Slavic borrowed
from Germanic after the consonant shift, it should have *p- via Germanic
*p- corresponding to Slavic *b- directly from PIE -- in other words, it
should have doublets with both consonants. Such a situation has occurred
with glava/golova etc., where one reflex has been borrowed back into
Russian from South Slavic and the other has been inherited directly. Do
we know of any *p-/*b- doublets *within* Slavic? This is critical for
the dating, because if the word entered PIE before Slavic and Germanic
split, it should follow the normal rules of development.

Marc L. Greenberg
Chair and Professor
Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Kansas
Wescoe Hall
1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 2134
Lawrence, KS 66045-7590
USA
Tel.:(785) 864-2349
Fax: (785) 864-4298

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