Latin and Slavonic for `moon'

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>'Moon' in Polish is most often 'ksiezyc' (sans accents) - a fascinating word.
>Words like 'ksiezy' (priest), 'ksie-stwo' (principality), 'ksiezna'
>(princess) and 'ksie-g' (cashbook, register, tally) suggest a rather complex
>relationship in the old days involving the moon or the lunar cycle perhaps.

C.D. Buck's dictionary says:

Pol. <ksie,z.yc>, displacing <miesia,c> in the sense of "moon"
[<miesia,c> is still "month"], dim. of <ksia,dz> in its older
meaning of "prince" [now "priest", "prince" is <ksia,z.e,>].  As
the sun was the lord of the day, the moon of the night, the
latter was the lesser "prince". Brueckner 277.

The origin of ksia,dz "prince", like Russian knjaz' etc. is
Germanic *kuning(az) (> *kUne~gI > *kUne~dzI) "king".

<Ksie,ga> "book" is unrelated, at least it cannot be separated
from general Slavic *k(U)n(j)iga "book" (formerly plural, OCS
<kUnigy>), despite the nasal vowel (we would expect Pol. *ksiga,
and the phonetics probably were influenced by ksia,dz, ksie,z.yc,
etc.).  The origin of *kUnjiga is uncertain.  It may be derived
from a Slavic *kUnU (only Pol. kien(') "stump", cf. book/bukva
from "beech"), which is itself of uncertain etymology.  More it
is a borrowing, and according to Dobrovskij somehow connected
with Armenian k`nik "pechat'"("seal, stamp", not "printing press"
I suppose), Ossetian k`i:nyg "book" (unless that was borrowed
from Russian) maybe ultimately from Chinese shih-king
(shih-ching) "Classic of poetry" (compiled by Confucius, it
seems).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam