macedon - Slavic ethnogenesis by Mario Alinei 05

Slavic ethnogenesis by Mario Alinei 05

Thursday, 14. September 2006, 07:18:12

Interdisciplinary and linguistic evidence for Palaeolithic continuity of Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic populations in Eurasia, with an excursus on Slavic ethnogenesis
by Mario Alinei
Expanded version of a paper read at the Conference Ancient Settlers in Europe, Kobarid, 29-30 May
2003. – Forthcoming in “Quaderni di semantica”, 26.

7.5The Slavic ethnogenesis in the PCT

7.5.1Palaeolitic and Mesolitihc
I omit an illustration of human settlements in Eastern Europe in the Upper Palaeolitic,
as well as in the last phases of Würm glaciation and at the beginning of the Post-glacial
(ca. 11000-7000 b.C.) (Tringham 1971, 36), and I begin with Mesolithic: the first period
in which the archaeological record permits to reconstruct an adequate global picture of
Europe.
According to the majority of archaeologists, the different lithic industries of East-European Mesolthic can be attributed to two different human populations (e.g. Tringham 1971, 36-7), corresponding to the two basic cultures of Eastern Europe: the South-West of Eastern Europe, characterized by the microlithic industry (sometimes improperly called tardenoisian), common to the rest of Europe, and the Northern part of Eastern Europe, characterized by the Swiderian industry (e.g. Sulimirski 1970, 30 ff.).
As I have recalled above, Uralic specialists, both archaeologists and linguists, see the Swiderian culture as coinciding with the definitive settlements of the Uralic groups in Northern Europe, so that – if we take this as a solid assumption (which it seems to be, given the uninterrupted continuity of this area with later cultures which have been attributed with certainty to the different Uralic groups) – the microlithic culture, common to the rest of Europe, could only be considered as corresponding to the sphere
of IE influence in Mesolithic. Naturally, both in Palaeolithic and in Mesolithic it is necessary to consider the consequences that the glaciations first and the deglaciation later must have had on the distribution of populations. When the glacial cap covered North-Eastern Europe, the Northern frontier of the Uralic as well as of the Balto-Slavic groups of the North must have been somewhere in Middle Eastern Europe (see fig. 6 above); their Southern frontier, however, would have still be formed by the Black Sea, the Greek peninsula and the Adriatic. In this more restricted area, Balto-Slavs and Uralic people would have been side to side, the former in the West, the latter in the East. Within the Balto-Slavic area, the Balts would have occupied the Northern part, by definition more isolated and conservative. If we then project Proto-Greeks on the Greek peninsula (given the certainty of the Greek presence in the Mycenean Greece of the 2nd millennium b.C, the numerous stratigraphies showing continuity from Neolithic to Bronze, the stability of the Greek Neolithic shown by the formation of tells, and the uninterrupted continuity, from Upper Palaeolithic to the Final Neolithic, shown by the recently discovered Franchthi stratigraphy); and if we recognize also in the tells of the Southern Slavic area a guarantee of uninterrupted continuity from Neolithic on (s. further), we must then necessarily see only the Northern frontier of the Balto-Slavic area as fluctuating, as it would be conditioned by the glacial cap and by the mobile character of Mesolithic hunting and gathering populations.
In the postglacial scenario (that of human populations following the retreat of the ice, already admitted for Uralic people), we could immagine the Balts settling on the shores of the now formed Baltic Sea, with the Slavs behind them, and the Uralic people ahead of them proceding north-eastwards.
The Slavic postglacial area would then form a kind of triangle, the Southern corner
of which would correspond to Macedonia, the western frontier of which would pass along the Italid Dalmatia, and delimit the rest of ex-Yugoslavia, Hungary, ex- Czechoslovakia, and Southern Poland, and the Eastern frontier of which would delimit Bulgaria, Romania, Western Ukraine, Belorussia and parts of Middle Russia.
Northern neighbors of the Slavs would be Balts and Uralic people, South-Western neighbors the Italids of Dalmatia, of the Eastern Alps and of a Po Valley much larger than now, emerging from Northern Adriatic. North-Western neighbors would be Germans, while on the Eastern side their neighbors would be Altaic and, much later, Iranian elites (parts of the Scythians).

7.5.2The slight differentiation of Slavic languages and the demographic increase of Slavic people as consequences of the stability and the success of South-Eastern European Neolithic cultures
In contradiction with Renfrew’s main thesis, prehistorians of South-Eastern Europe never miss to underline that in most cases it is possible to ascertain the continuity of Neolithic cultures from Mesolithic (see further). Moreover, they remark that for a long time the two economies could have coexisted in the same area, as Mesolithic hunters and gatherers lived on the river and the lakes shores, on sand dunes or at the foot of mountains, avoiding precisely the löss plains that were chosen by farmers (Tringham
1971, 35). The synchronism and the complementarity of the two economies enhances thus the thesis of the linguistic unity of the area, and of its continuity from Mesolithic.
In the light of this consideraton we can then address the most conspicuous problems of the Slavic ethnogenesis, represented by the enormous span of their area, by the demographic density underlying it, and by the little differentiation of their languages. And we have already seen that it is impossible, without falling into flagrant contradictions, to attribute these aspects to a historical migration of the Slavs.
Within the PCT framework this problems, in all of its complexity, can easily be solved in total harmony with the archaeological record, simply by recalling the main features of Neolithic cultures of South-Eastern Europe. First of all, as it is known, the process of the neolithization of Europe began precisely in the Balkanic peninsula, first
in the Aegean area and then inland, in the middle of the 7th millennium. From here, in the course of about 2500 years, the new economy spread along the Danube, to reach Eastern and Central Europe by the 5th millennium b.C. But the first, great Neolithic cultural complex of the Balkans, with all its subsequent developments, is usually subdivided in three main groups (see e.g. Lichardus and Lichardus 1985, 242, 253, 311 ff.), which can be identified, with greater or lesser ease, with as many linguistic groups:

(1) The Thessalian and Southern Macedonian culture of Proto-Sesklo, followed by Sesklo and Dimini, identifiable with the Greek group;
(2) The ‘Painted Ware’ cultures of Anzabegovo-Vršnik in Northern Macedonia, Starčevo in Serbia, Körös/Criş in Hungary and Romania, and Karanovo I in Bulgaria; followed later by Vinča (Serbia, Hungary and Romania), Veselinovo (Bulgaria), Dudeşti e Boian (Romania), identifiable with Southern Slavic;
(3) The Albanian ‘Painted Ware’ cultures of Vashtemi-Podgornie e Kolsh, followed by those of Čakran and the more recent Maliq, to the last of which Albanian prehistorians themselves attribute the origins of Illyrian.
The fact that these three cultural facies originally formed a unitary block, far
from representing an objection to the identification of three different language groups, provides, rather, a further argument in its favour. Since this original block, in fact, represents the earliest neolithized area of Europe, where the impact of the new economy introduced by the Asiatic farmers must have been the greatest, the new Balkanic culture would have first submerged the pre-existing ethnolinguistic frontiers; and in a second phase, by the time the indigenous Mesolithic populations began to actively participate
in the adoption of the new economy, the old ethnolinguistic frontiers would emerge again with the succcessive cultures. Which would of course reflect the original frontiers between Greeks, Slavs and Illyrians. More over, as we shall see shortly, the original homogeneity of this Neolithic Balkanic block can also explain the formation of the so called Balkanic Sprachbund, characterized by a number of peculiar Geek, Albanian, Southern Slavic and Rumanian isoglosses, until now without any satisfactory explanation. These isoglosses can be much more rationally placed in this Neolithic complex rather than in a modern context, and their coming into existence could be connected with the first wave of foreign migrants from the Middle East.
Returning now to the strikingly low degree of differentiation of Slavic languages, let us recall that one of the most conspicuous phenomenon of the Balkanic Neolithic is the formation of the so called tells. As is known, tells are artificial hills, typical of the Arab (whence the name) and Iranian (called then tepe) areas, produced by the agglomeration of debris of prehistorical and proto-historical villages on the same site. In the South-Eastern area, these formation are called, locally or as place names, magulaortumbainGreece,mogilainBulgaria,gòmila/mògilainSerbia, gamúle/mágule in Albania. But the word, with the meaning of ‘tumulus’, ‘tumb’, is diffused also in the rest of the Slavic area slava (Russ. mogíla, Ukr. mohýła, Slovn. gomíla, Czec. Slovk. mohyla, Pol. mogiła) and in Romania (Rum. măgură). Unfortunately, its etymology is not certain. But given its areal distribution, Vasmer’s proposal to connect it with Proto-Slavic *mogo, in the sense of ‘dominating site’, seems quite plausible. Tell are, of corse, prehistoric sites of exceptional importance, not only for the significance of theior stratigraphies, but also as signs of an uninterrupted continuity, both cultural and ethnic (Lichardus-Lichardus 1985, 229). Continuity, of course, that must have been also linguistic! While tells are very common in the Near and Middle East, where Neolithic cultures have an extraordinary and well-known duration and stability, in Europe they appear only in the Balkans, and only to the South
of the Danube (DP, s.v. tell), and thus only in the Greek, Albanian and Southern Slavic area. In the last one, the tells are primarily Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and Bosnian, but that does not imply that in the contiguous areas within the same cultural orbit the situation would be different. Here then lies the reason for the little differentiation of Slavic languages (and mutatis mutandis for Greek):
the culturalstability and continuity from Mesolithic and Neolithic to the proto-history of the populations of these areas.
At the same time, the enormous success of what we can now call the ‘Slavic Neolithic’, which includes not only the tells cultures of the Balkanic area, but also the extremely rich Neolithic cultures of the Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern Middle European plains (for example Tripolye, see above and below), provides for the first time in the history of research an adequate explanation for the demographic explosion
of the Slavic populations, implied by both the size of their area and the little differentiation of their languages.

7.5.3The two Northern Slavic areas: Western and Eastern

In the Northern area which is now Slavic Neolithic has been introduced by two different
(Southern Slavic) groups of the Painted Ware culture: • (A) in the present Ukraine and Moldova, coming from the lower Danube and from the Balkans, farming groups have created the Neolithic cultures of Bug-Dnestr and successively of Tripolye (Telegin
1994, 376), which we have illustrated in an earlier section as ‘frontier Slavic cultures’,
facing the Altaic ones of Crimea and to the East of the Dneper, quite different ethnically and culturally (Chernykh 1992, 37-42); • (B) in the Carpatian basin, farming has been introduced by (Southern Slavic) groups of the Körös/Criş culture, coming from Hungary and Romania (Telegin 1994, 376). The new culture that emerges in this area is that of Lengyel. From the Carpatian basin this culture spread to Southern Slovakia, lower Austria, Southern Moravia, Southern Poland, Slesia, Bohemia, Southern Germany.
This initial difference in the origin of the two new cultural areas (two different
branches of the (Southern Slavic) Balkanic complex, plus the differences that come from their separate development, provide a perfectly adequate explanation, in my opinion, for the coming to exist of the two Northern Slavic groups. As we have seen, Western and Eastern Slavic are not branchings of one and the same ‘Northern Slavic’, but two language groups each with a different connection with Southern Slavic.

7.5.4The Metal Ages

Also for the birth of metallurgy the Slavic Balkanic area must have played a fundamental role. Recent archaeological research has demonstrated that the most ancient European metallurgy – which in itself begins in Anatolia – comes from the area that the Russiam archaeologist Evgenij N.Chernykh, the main specialists on this topic, has called ‘the Balkano-Carpatian metallurgic province’. The most ancient mines are found in Serbia and Bulgaria. Within the same cultural area we also see, earlier than in any other European area and with greater evidence, the first appearance of the formation
of super-regional élite (Lichardus-Lichardus 1985, 497). Precisely as it had happened for the Neolithic innovations, and along the same routes followed by the new farming economy, from this Balkanic focus area metallurgy spread to the North, i.e. to the Carpatian basin and to the Ukrainian area of Tripolye. Tripolye, in turn, introduced metallurgy among the Asiatic nomadic pastoralists, who developed it in profoundly original manners, achieving that unmistakeable metallurgical production of high artistic value which is typical of them, in contrast with the much more functional and industrial-like European metallurgy.
In a context of geographical contiguity and mutual exchange, the (Altaic, as we now know) pastoral warlike cultures of Asiatic steppes, in particolar the Yamnaya or kurgan culture, in turn introduced into Eastern Europe their own fundamental innovations: horse-riding and a patriarcal and warlike ideology that also European late- Neolithic societies were now ready to adopt.
The European re-interpretation of these economic and ideological elements, which manifests itself with the Corded Ware and Battle Axe cultures, has nothing to do with the earliest appearance and early differentiaton of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, as Gimbutas claimed, but simply represents the emerging of new élites among already differentiated IE groups, in which pastoralism, horse-riding and patriarcal and warlike ideology are integrated in that original form of ‘mixed farming’, typical of Europe, which will eventually lead to the birth of Greek, Etruscan and Latin urban civilizations.
And in this new context, the most ancient metallurgical cultures of Europe, that
of the Balkanic area, must be seen as Southern Slavic; while Western Slavic will be the Czech metallurgical cultures, and Eastern Slavic Tripolye, which introduces metallurgy into the Altaic area.
Summarizing, the linguistic Slavic area coincides first with the Painted Ware culture (excluding the Albanian one) and with its subsequent extensions to North-West and North-East, and later with the whole ‘Balkano-Carpatian Chalcolithic metallurgical Province’, to which also the Ukrainian culture of Tripolye participates.
Later, not only Tripolye but the entire ‘metallurgical province’ undergo the influence of the Yamnaya/kurgan culture, the expansion of which in the whole of Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe – one of the main aspects of the Metal Age in Europe – does not bring IE influences, but Turkic ones.
In fact, all Balkanic cultures – Karanovo 6- Gulmeniţa in Bulgaria and Romania (famous for its tells); Salcuţa, Gradesnica- Krivodol, Vinča-Pločnik 2 and Bubanj-Hum 1 in central Balkans; Sopot-Lengyel and Lasinja between Slovenia and Hungary (Lichardus and Lichardus 1985, 367); followed by Cernavoda 3, 2 and Ezero in Bulgaria, and by Cotofeni, Baden, Kostolac e Vučedol in the Eastern, Central and North-Western Balkans, and in the Carpatian basin (idem,394), although they were differentiated enough to represent Slavic ‘dialects’, towards the end of Chalcolithic they were united again owing to the general influence of the Yamnaya/kurgan steppe culture (idem, 384, 398, 405), shown by the new common features: pit graves and mounds (kurgan), horse raising and horse riding, patriarcal ideology, formation of an aristocratic elite of warriors, battle axes, corded decorations. Cultural traits that have their linguistic parallel in the enormous number of Turkic loanwords in horse terminology and in other semantic spheres, as we shall see shortly.

7.5.5The problem of the Thracians: a new hypothesis

The reconstruction of the prehistoric context in which the Thracians slowly emerge has been attempted several times, and lastly by Hoddinott (1981), but in my opinion without noticeable novelties. Even the most recent discoveries, in fact, confirm what we alread know: the Thracian power is just one of the many manifestations of the new stratified societies and of the new elites of a military and superegional type which characterize Chalcolithic and Bronze, and the formation of which was triggered by the incursions of the kurgan groups and their successors, coming from the Asiatic steppes. In the new PCT vision, this twofold, but in itself meager result produces the following commentary: (A) we must keep in consideration that the immediate neighbors of the Thracians ancestors – whoever they were – were these intrusive kurgan groups; and (B)
in the light of the equation of the kurgan people with the Turkic group, the existence of the Turkic Thrace of historical times, the Turkic original character of the Bulgarians, and the so many aspects of the close relationship bwetween Anatolia, the Agean Sea and the Balkans become much more relevant than we have suspected until now (see chapter III of Alinei 2000).
A single example: the typical shape of the sica, the national weapon of the Thracians (a knife with a curved blade and a sharp point, similar to a zanna di cinghiale (cp. Plinius H.N. XII 1: “apri dentium sicas”, and see the illustration in Rich 1869), used by Thracian gladiators in Rome, is typical of centro-Asiatic metallurgy.
Another commentary is triggered by Hoddinott’s conclusion, which identifies the earliest sure manifestation of the Thracians in the Bronze Age Carpatian culture of Otomani-Wietenberg (in Transylvania, Hungary, Eastern Slovakia). According to the most recent research, this culture represents a continuation of the Baden and Vučedol cultures, and through the latter, is connected to the steppe cultures (see above and cp. for example DP s.v. Vučedol). In the light of the preceding remarks, then, on one hand we could conclude that also Thracians underwent the same Turkic influences as most other Southern Slavic languages; on the other – as both Baden and Vučedol in the framework of the PCT can be read as Slavophone cultures, we could advance the hypothesis that the Thacianas were a Slavic group, which would have been subject to stronger Turkic influences than the other Slavic languages, and eventually extinguished.
A final remark: Herodotus, as is known, describes the Thracians as the most numerous people after the Indians. Mallory comments that it is a “sad irony” they “have left no modern descendant of their language” (Mallory 1989, 72). But is it really so? First of all, if it is hard to admit that a numerous people might completely extinguish, it
is even less likely that this pre-existing people would have left no traces in the archaeological record. And since, as we have seen, the demographic explosion of the Slavs must be placed in Neolithic, we could then advance the hypothesis that Thracians was the name that Herodotus gave to the Slavs, owing to the fact the Thracians were one of the most powerful and representative elites of Slavic speaking Eastern Europe, seen with Herodotus’ inevitably colonialist eyes. In a first approximation, then, the Thracians would appear to be a Southern Slavic geo-variational group, out of which came a Bronze age elite, first dominating then extinguished.
This hypothesis could be further developed and refined in the light of the results
of research on the Thracian language which, with the caution due to the scarcity of materials, can be so summarized:
(1) Thracian is an IE satem language, like Baltic and Slavic;
(2) as discovered by Trubačev (see above), Thracian place names show a surprising similarity with the Baltic ones;
(3) in some cases, however, Thracian affinities seem stronger with Slavic: the Thr. place-name suffix -dizos e -diza, for example, to which the meaning of ‘fortress’ has been attributed on the basis of the comparison with Gr. teĩkhos ‘wall’ (IEW 244), has a much closer counterpart in the metathetic forms of OSl. ziždo, zydati ‘to build’ zydŭ, zidŭ ‘wall’, than in the Baltic ones (also methatetic), meaning ‘to form’. And the vocalism of the Thr. river name Strymōn and place name Strymē seems closer to Pol. strumień ‘brook’ and OSlav. struja ‘stream’ than to Latv stràume ‘stream’ (IEW 1003). The most plausible hypothesis would be then that Thracian was a conservative type of Slavic, still preserving Baltic features and spoken by a peripheral group of Southern Slavs, somehow parallel to the Northern peripheral Balts (following the geolinguistic well-known rule, according to which the center innovates, and the periphery preserves).

7.6Slavic archaeolinguistics: an outline

7.6.1Palaeolitihc: the Slavic lexicon shared by the other IE languages
Within the framework of the PCT, the common IE or Proto-IE lexicon must go back to the origins of Homo loquens, and therefore – assuming the now current theory – to Middle Palaeolithic. It will include terms which have cognates in all or almost all IE languages, such as the following ones:

The grammatical part of IE lexicon:
(1) 1st pers. sing. Pron. : Russ. Ukr. BRu. Slovk. Pol. Sorb. ja, OSlav. jazŭ, Bulg. az jaz, Serb. Cr. jâ, Slovn. jàz, Czech já, Polab. joz jo;
(2) 2nd pers. sing. pron.: Russ. BRu. OSlav. Czech Pol. Ukr. ty, Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovn. ti;
(3) 2nd pers. pl. pron.: Russ. Ukr. OSlav. vy, Bulg. vi, Serb. Cr. Slovn. vî, Pol. wy;
refl. pron.: Russ. Ukr. sja, Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovn. Czech Sorb. se, Slovk. sa, Pol. się;
prepositions: Russ. Ukr. BRu. OSlav. Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovn. Czech Slovk. Pol. Sorb. po
(cp. Lat. pono, Gr. apó);
(4) Russ. Ukr. OSlav. Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovn. iz, Czech Slovk. Pol. Sorb. z (cp. Lat. ex);
(5) Verb ‘I am’, ‘you are’ ‘he/she/it is’: Russ. esm’, OSlav. jesmĭ;, Bulg. săm, Serb. Cr. jesam, Slovn. sem, Czech jsem, Slovk. som etc.; Russ. esí, OSlav. jesi, etc.; Russ. est’, Ukr. jest’, BRu. jość, OSlav. jestŭ, Serb. Cr. Czech Pol. jest, etc.

Lexical part:
(1) ‘two’: Russ. Ukr. Bulg. Czech Slovk. dva, OSlav. dŭva, Serb. Cr. Slovn. dvâ, Pol. Sorb. dwa;
(2) ‘both’: Russ. Bulg. óba, Ukr. obá, BRu. obádva, OSlav. Serb. Cr. Czech Slovk. Pol.
oba, Slovn. obâ, Sorb. hoběj dwa;
(3) ‘name’: Russ. ímja, Ukr. im’já, BRu. imjá, Bulg. íme, Serb. Cr. imē, Slovn. imê, Czech jméno, Slovk. meno, Pol. imię , Sorb. mě, Polab. jeima;
(4) ‘water’: Russ. Ukr. BRu. Bulg. vodá, Serb. Cr. vòda, Slovn. vóda, Czech Slovk.
voda, Pol. Sorb. woda;
(5) ‘sun’: Russ. sólnce, Ukr. sónce, Bulg. slănce, Serb. Cr. sûnce, Slovn. slônce, Czech
slunce, Slovk. slnce, Pol. słońce, Sorb. słyńco;
(6) ‘wind’: Russ. véter, Ukr. víter, OSlav. vetrŭ, Bulg. vétăr, Serb. Cr. vjetar, Slovn.
vêter, Czech vítr, Slovk. vietor, Pol. wiatr, Sorb. wjetš;
(7) ‘month’: Russ. mésjac, Ukr. mísac, OSlav. mesęcĭ, Bulg. mésec, Serb. Cr. mjesec, Czech měsíc, Slovk. mesiac, Pol. miesiąc, Sorb. mjasec;
(8) ‘woman’: Russ. Bulg. žená, Ukr. BRu. žoná, OSlav. Czech Slovk. žena, Serb. Cr.
žèna, Slovn. žéna, Pol. żona, Sorb. žona;
(9) ‘to sit’: Russ. sidét’, Ukr. sydáty, BRuss. sidzéc’, OSlav. sěděti, Bulg. sedjá, Serb. Cr. dial. sjèditi, Slovn. sedéti, Czech seděti, Slovk. sediet’, Pol. siedzieć, Sorb. sejźeś;
(10) ‘pedere’: Russ. bzdet’, Ukr. pezdíty, Bulg. păzdjá, Serb. Cr. bázdjeti, Slovn.
p\zdéti, Czech bzdíti, Pol. bzdzieć;
(11) ‘to stay’: Russ. stoját’, Ukr. stojáty, OSlav. stojati, Bulg. stàjati, Slovn. Czech
státi, Slovk. stát’, Pol. stać, Sorb. stojaś;
(12) ‘to sew’: Russ. šit’, Ukr. šýty, BRu. šyc’, Bulg. šija (‘cucio’), Serb. Cr. šiti, Slovn. Czech Slovk. šit’, Pol. szyć, Sorb. šyś, Polab. sait;
(13) ‘live’: Russ. živój, Ukr. žyvýj, OSlav. živŭ, Bulg. Czech Slovk. živ, Serb. Cr. Slov.
žîv, Pol. żywy, Sorb. žywy;
(14) ‘new’: Russ. Ukr. novyj, OSlav. novŭ, Bulg. nov, Serb. Cr. nôv, Slovn. nòv, Czech
nový, Pol. Sorb. nowy;
(15) ‘sister’: Russ. BRu. Bulg. sestrá, Ukr. OSlav. Czech Slovk. Polab. sestra, Serb. Cr.
sèstra, Slovn. séstra, Pol. siostra, Sorb. sotša.
Needless to say this list is purely indicative, and could be easily extended.

7.6.2Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic: the Slavic lexicon appears to be already differentiated
On the basis of the following words, the differentiation of Slavic (sometime still Balto- Slavic) from the other IE groups can be dated to a period preceding the beginning of Mesolithic:

(1) ‘magic’: Russ. BRu. čary (čarováty ‘to bewitch, to charm’), Ukr. čará (čaruvaty), OSlav. čarŭ, Serb. Cr. čâr, Slovn. čára ‘witchcraft’, Czech čár m., čára f. ‘idem’, Slovk. čary (pl.), Pol. czar; Lith. kẽras ‘magic’. It is a pan-Slavic and Baltic specialization of an IE word, which could be dated to the Upper Palaeolithic, when magic rituals probably began.
(2) ‘bear’ (literally ‘honey-eater’)’: Russ. medvéd’, Ukr. medvíd’, OSlav medvědĭ, Bulg. medvéd, Serb. Cr. mèdvjed, Slovn. médved, Czech medvěd, dial Pol. miedźwiedź, Sorb. mjadwjeź. As we have seen in a preceding section, this noa name of the bear, replacing the PIE tabooed one (cp. Lat. ursus), is exclusively Slavic. This name, as well as the Baltic one (prob. ‘hairy’) and the Germaic one (the ‘brown’), can only have been created after the beginning of religious-magic thinking;
(3) ‘snake, dragon’ (literally ‘earthling’): Russ. Ukr. Bulg. zmijá, OSlav. zmĭja, Serb. Cr. zmìja, Slovn. zmíja, Czech zmije, Slovk. Sorb. zmija, Pol. żmija. This noa name of the snake is also exclusively Slavic, and proves that Slavic detached itself from the other IE languages when religious thinking began. Probably akin to this (cp. Vasmer) is the name of ‘dragon’ in fairy tales: Russ. BRu. Bulg. (‘slowworm’) Pol. smok, Slovn. smòk, Czech zmok, Slovk. zmok ‘kobold’;
(4) ‘bird’: Russ. ptíca, Ukr. ptýca, OSlav. pŭtica, Bulg. ptíca, Serb. Cr. ptica, Slovn. ptíca, Czech pták, Slovk. vták, Pol. Sorb. ptak. Here too we are probably dealing with a noa name of the bird, and with a later Palaeolithic specialization of the common PIE word for ‘flying’, which involves Baltic as well;
(5) ‘dog’: Russ. pës, Ukr. BRu. Czech Slovk. pes, OSlav. pĭsŭ, Bulg. păs, Serb. Cr. pas, Slovn. p\s, Pol. pies, Sorb. pjas. Whatever the origin of this pan-Slavic word (see Vasmer s.v. for the various hypotheses), current knowledge on the Mesolithic origin of dog domestication allow us to date it to Mesolithic;
(6) ‘hawk goshawk’: Russ. jástreb, Ukr. jástrib, Serb. Cr. jastrijeb, Slovn. jâstreb,
Czech jastřab, Slovk. jastrab, Pol. jastrząb, Sorb. jastśeb’. Exclusively Slavic name of
IE origin (Vasmer);
(7) ‘net’: Russ. sét’, Ukr. sit’, BRu. seć Czech sít’, Slovk. siet’, Pol. sieć, Sorb. seś. Fishing is first attested in Upper Palaeolithic, and reaches a higl level in Mesolithic The Slavic name of the fishing ‘net’ is different from the Baltic one, which seems to indicate
a pre-Mesolithic differentiation of Slavic from Baltic;
(8) ‘weir’: Russ. Ukr. BRu. Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovk. Pol. jaz, Czech jez, Polab. jaz
‘canal’. Since the earliest records of weirs are Mesolithic, and the meaning of the Baltic cognate terms is different, this example tends to confirm that by Mesolithic times Baltic and Slavic were already differentiated;
(9) ‘berry’: Russ. Bulg. Slovn. jágoda, Ukr. BRu. jáhoda, Serb. Cr. Pol. jagoda, Czech Slovk. jahoda, Polab. jagödói (pl.). Cp. Lith. úoga, Latv. uôga ‘idem’; the Balto-Slavic exclusivity points to an Upper Paleolithic dating (gathering);
(10) ‘wood’: Russ. lés, Ukr. lis, BRu. Czech Slovk. les, OSlav. lěsŭ, Bulg. les, Serb. Cr. lijes, Slovn. lês, Pol. las, Sorb. lěso, Polab. l’os (Vasmer s.v., Buck 1.41). This family does not have convincing connections with Baltic, and the semantic development from
‘wood’ in the sense of ‘group of trees’ to ‘building material’ is a typical result of the beinning of forest exploitation in Mesolithic;
(11) ‘limit, border’, dial. ‘thicket, grove’ (from the notion of ‘half, middle’): Russ. Ukr. BRu. mežá, OSlav. mežda, Bulg. meždá, Serb. Cr. mèđa, Slovn. méja, Czech meze, Slovk. medza, Pol. miedza, Sorb. mjaza. The passage from the PIE notion of ‘half, middle’ (cp. Lat. medius) to that of ‘wood’ is characteristic of Baltic; the subsequent one to ‘border’, of Slavic;
(12) ‘near, nearby’ (from a verb meaning ‘press, squeeze’, cp. It. presso ‘near’ < premere ‘press’): Russ. bliz, bliz’, Ukr. blyz’, Bulg. blízo, blízu, Serb. Cr. blízu, Slovn. blìz, blízi, blízu, dial. Pol. blizo;
(13) ‘family, stock, offspring; to generate, birth’: Russ. rod, Ukr. rid, BRu. Bulg. Serb. Cr. Slovn. Czech Slovk. Sorb. rod; Russ. rodína ‘fatherland’, Ukr. rodýna ‘family’, BRu. ródzina ‘idem’, Bulg. rodína ‘native place’; Russ. rodíty ‘to generate’, rodýty, OSlav. roditi, Bulg. rodjá, Serb. Cr. ròditi, Slovn. rodíti, Czech roditi, Slovk. rodit’, Pol. rodzić, Sorb. roźiś, Slovn. redíti ‘to feed, to raise’. It also becomes the name of Christmas (Russ. roždestvó and cognates), an obvious Christianization of the (Neolithic)
‘winter solstice celebration for the sun’s (re)birth’ (Alinei 1997). Its attestation in Baltic can be explained as result of cultural diffusion. Neolithic or slightly later is probably also the personification of the rodovize as ‘goddesses of procreation and destiny’
(Alinei 1997c);
(14) ‘daughter in law, wife, bride’: Russ. nevésta (-tka ‘daughter in law’), Ukr. nevísta
‘woman, wife, bride’, BRu. nevésta, Bulg. névjesta ‘wife, bride, daughter in law, sister
in law’, Slovn. nevésta ‘idem’, Czech nevěsta ‘wife, daughter in law’, Slovk. nevesta, Pol. niewiasta ‘woman, female’ (Vasmer s.v.). This name appears to be a noa name for the daughter in law, replacing the PIE name (cp. Lat. nurus), and must reflect a magico- religious conception of the role of the daughter in law for the husband’s family, which,
to my knowledge, has not yet been adequately studied;
(15) ‘old’: Russ. stáryj, Ukr. starýj, OSlav. starŭ, Bulg. Serb. Cr. star, Slovn. stàr, Czech Slovk. starý, Pol. Sorb. stary. This meaning is exclusively Slavic, as the same adjective in other IE languages means ‘big, strong’.