What Do You Know About Loan Words In Languages?

Linguist, maybe you can answer this question for me. What is the origin of the Russian word "sobaka" (for those who don't know, it means dog and is pronounced "sabaka")? Someone in Russia told me he thinks it's an early loan word and doesn't sound Slavic to him.

I found one answer to my question, in the Online Etymology Dictionary, which says that "sobaka" is "apparently from an Iranian source". But I'd like to know whether there are other theories.

'sobaka' is a Slavic word. Its origin is the Indo-European (reconstructed) word Svaka meaning 'wolf'.
Russian sobaka
Ukrainian sobaka
Byelorussian sabaka
However other Slavic languages have different words:
Bulgarian kuche or pes
Serb-croatian pas
Czech pes
Polish pies

Cheers,

the evil nerd

Brennus - meat patties in Macedonian is "kjofta" and I think in Serbian it is "cufte" (with a diacritic on "c" so it is a hard "ch"). I have an Indian cookbook and it has recipes for meat patties and they are called "kofta". It must be a word that is common to the Eurasian area - one of those words that is transmitted from culture to culture; much like how tea in Chinese, Indian and Balkans is "chaj".

Deborah - "soba" in Serbian is room, "pas" is doc, "kuce" is puppy and "kuca" is house. Interesting parallels between houses and canines.

Wolf is "vuk" in Maced/Serb and "pas" is dog

Deborah,

The Russian word for "dog" (sobaka) is of foreign origin. I have read that it has an Iranian (i.e. Scythian) origin and is related to Persian sagh and Kurdish seg "dog". However, sometime etymologists just don't know for sure.

The most commonly used Russian word for "horse (loshad') is also a loan, from Tartar, and is related to Hungarian ló and Chuvash lasha both meaning "horse". The native Slavic Russian word for the animal is kon'.

well, it s difficult to speak about old loans because they can simply be commmon indo-european words, Iranian language Pharsi is an indo-european one just like east slavic languages. The slavic word for "dog" also exists in russian, it s "pyos", but it means "big, angry dog" . And "loshad' and kon' arent the same thing also

>>I have an Indian cookbook and it has recipes for meat patties and they are called "kofta<<

its very interesting as russian "kofta" means "jacket", unexpected meaning hehe

Serbian and Macedonian - konj for horse

Linguist - zaket (pronounced zhaket) in our tongue - a loan word in itself?
Its strange how different words have different meanings in different languages. I don't mean to sound rude but I always funny how the word sounding like the English "foot" means f*** in Romanian and in Romanian, the word that sounds "f***" means "make" in English.

Romanian, are you around to verify this?

All this "dog" stuff is quite fascinating. The English word "dog" is a bit of an etymological mystery as well, successfully forcing out "hund."

It's interesting that "dog," which apparently originally referred to a particular large breed,* has become the general term while "hound," which was the general term, has become a more specific term for certain breeds.

And of course, Spanish has "perro" in contrast to the "canis" words used by the other Romance languages.

Oops! Posting in this forum doesn't really allow for editing or correction.

My * in the last posting was meant to refer you to a footnote:

* "dogue" is still used in French to describe a certain type of large dog or mastiff.

Bulgarian:

dog - kuche or pes (the latter not as frequently used)
wolf - vu'lk
horse - kon
house - ku'shta
room - staia. Soba is an archaism and no one uses that anymore. I think it's a Turkish loanword.

>>Linguist - zaket (pronounced zhaket) in our tongue - a loan word in itself? <<

yes, it s a loan word from french, actually "zhaket" exists in russian as well, just its not so used now

some funny false freinds of translator:

durak - station (turkish)
durak - dump, fool (russian)

kulla - bird (finnish) - it s a very popular sirname as well;)
kulla - male sex organ - estonian

herr - mister (german)
her - male sex organ - (russian)

pozorishte - theater - sebian
pozor - shame - russian

....to be continued:)

Linguist,

<< her - male sex organ - (russian) >>

I thought it was "khui" (or "hui"). Or is that slang?

Deborah...
"Hui" is a very dirty word in both Russian, and Bulgarian.

I like the word "budala" which means in Maced/Serb "idiot". I like the fact that there is a cheese brand in Australia called "Bodalla", whose pronounciation is similar to budala. I like to call it budala cheese. Is budala a loan word?

Room - staja (Maced), house - kukja (Maced)

Shame is "sramota" (Maced/Serb), but my Serbian dictionary also says "postiden" (where "d" is pronounced as English "j") which I have never heard been used. However it sounds like Russian "pozor" a bit.

Dog - my trusty Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary has no derivation for the word, save and except "[E]".

Kulla - English "Cock" - a surname, male chicken, male sexual organ

Male sexual organ in "kuro" (Maced/Serb) - very similar to "kulla", must derive from a common word. Except "kouros" is a Greek, male worrior statue which sounds very similar to the male organ word I mentioned above. It also makes me laugh when I hear the "Kouros" the Yve St Laurent perfume for obvious reasons.