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43-679: The etymology of the name "Severian" is uncertain. The name of the Severia region originated from the Slavic tribes. One theory proposes derivation from the Slavic word for "north" ( sěver ; men of the north), but the Severians never were the northernmost tribe of Slavs. Another theory proposes an Iranic derivation, from the name of the Sarmatian Seuer tribe ( seu meaning "black"). Some scholars have argued that Jews called this tribe

86-419: A derivative . A derivative is one of the words which have their source in a root word, and were at some time created from the root word using morphological constructs such as suffixes, prefixes, and slight changes to the vowels or to the consonants of the root word. For example unhappy , happily , and unhappily are all derivatives of the root word happy . The terms root and derivative are used in

129-475: A suffixed etymon that was once meaningful, Latin castrum ' fort ' . Reflex is the name given to a descendant word in a daughter language, descended from an earlier language. For example, Modern English heat is the reflex of the Old English hǣtu. Rarely, this word is used in reverse, and the 'reflex' is actually the root word rather than the descendant word. However, this usage is usually filled by

172-476: A comprehensive and chronological catalogue of all meanings and changes that a word (and its related parts) carries throughout its history. The origin of any particular word is also known as its etymology . For languages with a long written history , etymologists make use of texts, particularly texts about the language itself, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in meaning and form , or when and how they entered

215-955: A high standard with the German Dictionary of the Brothers Grimm . The successes of the comparative approach culminated in the Neogrammarian school of the late 19th century. Still in the 19th century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used etymological strategies (principally and most famously in On the Genealogy of Morals , but also elsewhere) to argue that moral values have definite historical (specifically, cultural) origins where modulations in meaning regarding certain concepts (such as "good" and "evil") show how these ideas had changed over time—according to which value-system appropriated them. This strategy gained popularity in

258-498: A truth ' , and the suffix -logia , denoting ' the study or logic of ' . The etymon refers to the predicate (i.e. stem or root ) from which a later word or morpheme derives. For example, the Latin word candidus , which means ' white ' , is the etymon of English candid . Relationships are often less transparent, however. English place names such as Winchester , Gloucester , Tadcaster share in different modern forms

301-434: Is considered that trade was not very developed, and they offered honey , wax , furs , and slaves . According to Constantine VII, they provided not only tribute but also transport via boats dug out from single hollowed trees . The Severians were a patriarchial culture ruled by clan or tribal leaders, who held political authority in the commune ( zadruga ) and convened tribal councils. The centers of political power were

344-616: Is known. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in Vedic literature in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and Upanishads . The analyses of Sanskrit grammar done by the previously mentioned linguists involved extensive studies on the etymology (called Nirukta or Vyutpatti in Sanskrit) of Sanskrit words, because the ancient Indians considered sound and speech itself to be sacred and, for them,

387-478: Is not readily obvious that the English word set is related to the word sit (the former is originally a causative formation of the latter). It is even less obvious that bless is related to blood (the former was originally a derivative with the meaning "to mark with blood"). Semantic change may also occur. For example, the English word bead originally meant "prayer". It acquired its modern meaning through

430-528: Is often traced to Sir William Jones , a Welsh philologist living in India , who in 1782 observed the genetic relationship between Sanskrit , Greek and Latin . Jones published his The Sanscrit Language in 1786, laying the foundation for the field of Indo-European linguistics . The study of etymology in Germanic philology was introduced by Rasmus Christian Rask in the early 19th century and elevated to

473-552: Is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. Isidore of Seville compiled a volume of etymologies to illuminate the triumph of religion. Each saint's legend in Jacobus de Varagine 's Legenda Aurea begins with an etymological discourse on

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516-435: Is the study of the origin and evolution of words, including their constituent units of sound and of meaning , across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics , etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. Most directly tied to historical linguistics , philology , and semiotics , it additionally draws upon comparative semantics , morphology , pragmatics , and phonetics in order to attempt

559-601: The Oleg's campaign against Constantinople in 907. In the 10th century, in his De Administrando Imperio , Constantine VII wrote that in winter, the Rus princes ( archontes ) moved to and were maintained in the lands of their Severian and Krivich tributaries. Eventually, Severian territory became part of the Grand Principality of Chernigov , and the last reference to them is from 1024, when they are mentioned as part of

602-715: The Sawarta, based on the Kievan Letter (c. 930), written in Hebrew as SWRTH (read either as Sur'ata or Sever'ata ), derived from Slavic sirota (" orphan "; in the letter, possibly meaning "convert"); or that the name "Severian" comes from the Magyar Savarti ("black"; possibly borrowed from Proto-Germanic swartaz ) . Based on the writings of the Bavarian Geographer , some scholars connect

645-560: The 20th century, and philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida , have used etymologies to indicate former meanings of words to de-center the "violent hierarchies" of Western philosophy . Rus%27-Byzantine War (907) According to the Primary Chronicle , the fleet of Rus' under Oleg of Kiev carried out a military strike against Byzantium in 907, landing a huge army landed in Thrace and beginning to plunder it, following which

688-572: The 860s. In one of his letters, Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus threatened to unleash a Rus' invasion of Bulgaria . Historians infer from his account that the Byzantines were able to manipulate the Rus' of Oleg's time for their own political ends. Furthermore, substantial contingents of the Rus' joined the imperial service and took part in the Byzantine naval expeditions throughout the 10th century. A squadron of 700 Rus' mercenaries participated in

731-503: The Byzantines offered peace to the Rus'. The chronicle describes the raid of 907 in considerable detail. The memory of the campaign seems to have been transmitted orally among several generations of the Rus'. This may account for the abundance of colorful details that belong to folklore rather than to history. We are told that, at first, Byzantine envoys attempted to poison Oleg before he could approach Constantinople . The Rus' leader, renowned for his oracular powers, refused to drink from

774-747: The Severians in the historical sources inhabited both the Dnieper valley and a part of the Danube valley, and as the Zeriuani realm was said to be so great that all Slavs traced their origins to it, Henryk Łowmiański believed that the Ruthenian Severians were the Slavic mother tribe. Professor Traian Stoianovich described the Severian Slavs as mix of Slavs and Slavicized formerly Turkic speaking Huns . Some Severians settled in

817-651: The Severians paid tribute to the Rus and not the Khazars c. 950. The Severians eventually came to be known as the Chernihovians and gave their name to the region of Severia . Archaeologists have found numerous rural settlements associated with the Severians, including burial mounds with cremated bodies, from the 8th–10th centuries. Like other East Slavs , the Severians were mostly engaged in agriculture ; cattle breeding ; hunting ; and different handicrafts such as pottery , weaving , and metalworking . It

860-402: The adoption of " loanwords " from other languages); word formation such as derivation and compounding ; and onomatopoeia and sound symbolism (i.e., the creation of imitative words such as "click" or "grunt"). While the origin of newly emerged words is often more or less transparent, it tends to become obscured through time due to sound change or semantic change. Due to sound change , it

903-423: The analysis of morphological derivation within a language in studies that are not concerned with historical linguistics and that do not cross the language barrier. Etymologists apply a number of methods to study the origins of words, some of which are: Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are language change , borrowing (i.e.,

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946-751: The ethnonym to the Zuierani , Zeriuani , or Sebbirozi (most probably the Sabirs ). The Severians are believed to have continued the East Slavic tribal union along the middle Dnieper valley, after the political disappearance of the Antae and Dulebes , either independently or under Khazar policy. It is presumed they inhabited the lower Desna and upper Sejm and Sula rivers. They were thought to have been centered in Chernihiv ("black city"). However, as

989-448: The first to make a comprehensive analysis of linguistics and etymology. The study of Sanskrit etymology has provided Western scholars with the basis of historical linguistics and modern etymology. Four of the most famous Sanskrit linguists are: These linguists were not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians, however. They followed a line of ancient grammarians of Sanskrit who lived several centuries earlier like Sakatayana of whom very little

1032-568: The fortified grady , which were built in forests or on elevations, around which villages developed. Some Saltovo-Mayaki forts were situated on Severian land. In the Primary Chronicle , it is recorded that the Drevlians , Radimichs , Vyatichi , and Severians all lived violent lifestyles, and they did not enter monogamous marriages but practiced polygamy , specifically polygyny , instead. Etymology Etymology ( / ˌ ɛ t ɪ ˈ m ɒ l ə dʒ i / , ET -im- OL -ə-jee )

1075-567: The gates of the Imperial capital. The threat to Constantinople was ultimately relieved by peace negotiations which bore fruit in the Russo-Byzantine Treaty of 907 . Pursuant to the treaty, the Byzantines paid a tribute of twelve grivnas for each Rus' boat. That Oleg's campaign is not fiction is clear from the authentic text of the peace treaty , which was incorporated into the chronicle. Current scholarship tends to explain

1118-437: The language. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about forms that are too old for any direct information to be available. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method , linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots in many European languages, for example, can be traced back to

1161-426: The obvious, and actual "bridge-builder": The priests, called Pontifices.... have the name of Pontifices from potens , powerful because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command overall. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible; if anything lays beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled. The most common opinion

1204-580: The origin of the Indo-European language family . Even though etymological research originated from the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian . The word etymology is derived from the Ancient Greek word ἐτυμολογία ( ἐτυμολογία ), itself from ἔτυμον ( ἔτυμον ), meaning ' true sense or sense of

1247-771: The other six tribes were resettled in the southern and western regions, as far the boundary with the Pannonian Avars . In 767, the Byzantines kidnapped the Severian prince Slavun, who had made trouble in Thrace , indicating they retained a tributary relationship with the Bulgars. The other Severians had as neighbors the Radimichs , Krivichs , and Vyatichs in the north and the Derevlians and Polianians in

1290-487: The poisoned cup. When his navy was within sight of Constantinople, he found the city gate closed and the entry into the Golden Horn barred with iron chains. At this point, Oleg resorted to subterfuge: he effected a landing on the shore and had some 2,000 dugout boats ( monoxyla ) equipped with wheels. After his boats were thus transformed into vehicles, he led them to the walls of Constantinople and fixed his shield to

1333-433: The practice of counting the recitation of prayers by using beads. The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, which began no earlier than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from Pāṇini to Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne , etymology had been a form of witty wordplay, in which

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1376-460: The relationship between two languages on the basis of similarity of grammar and lexicon was made in 1770 by the Hungarian, János Sajnovics , when he attempted to demonstrate the relationship between Sami and Hungarian (work that was later extended to the whole Finno-Ugric language family in 1799 by his fellow countryman, Samuel Gyarmathi ). The origin of modern historical linguistics

1419-510: The saint's name: Lucy is said of light, and light is beauty in beholding, after that S. Ambrose saith: The nature of light is such, she is gracious in beholding, she spreadeth over all without lying down, she passeth in going right without crooking by right long line; and it is without dilation of tarrying, and therefore it is showed the blessed Lucy hath beauty of virginity without any corruption; essence of charity without disordinate love; rightful going and devotion to God, without squaring out of

1462-402: The same language. Although they have the same etymological root, they tend to have different phonological forms, and to have entered the language through different routes. A root is the source of related words within a single language (no language barrier is crossed). Similar to the distinction between etymon and root , a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between a descendant and

1505-499: The silence of Greek sources with regard to Oleg's campaign by the inaccurate chronology of the Primary Chronicle. Some assume that the raid actually took place in 904, when the Byzantines were at war with Leo of Tripoli . Despite recurrent military conflicts, the relations between the Rus' and Byzantium seem to have been predominantly peaceful. The First Christianization of the Rus' was reported by Patriarch Photius in

1548-408: The sixteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea , as written by Jacobus de Varagine , begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology. The Sanskrit linguists and grammarians of ancient India were

1591-543: The supposed origins of words were creatively imagined to satisfy contemporary requirements; for example, the Greek poet Pindar (born in approximately 522 BCE) employed inventive etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds . Isidore of Seville 's Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of "first things" that remained uncritically in use in Europe until

1634-427: The term etymon instead. A reflex will sometimes be described simply as a descendant , derivative or derived from an etymon (but see below). Cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Doublets or etymological twins or twinlings (or possibly triplets, and so forth) are specifically cognates within

1677-694: The territory of present-day northeastern Bulgaria , ( Moesia Inferior , and Scythia Minor ). According to Theophanes the Confessor , the Bulgars subjugated the so-called Seven Slavic tribes . One of these tribes, the Severeis , were resettled in the east "from the klisuras before Veregava" ( ἀπό τῆς ἔμπροσθεν κλεισȣ́ρας Βερεγάβων ), most likely the Rish Pass of the Balkan Mountains ; while

1720-592: The troops recruited by Mstislav of Chernigov for his druzhina . They had a significant impact on the victory at the Battle of Listven (1024), especially against the Varangians . Scholars disagree about the abovementioned dates. Some place Oleg's conquest in the 920–930s; the Khazar ruler Joseph (c. 955) mentioned that his empire ruled over the " Sever , Slaviun , and Ventit "; while Constantine VII wrote that

1763-464: The way; right long line by continual work without negligence of slothful tarrying. In Lucy is said, the way of light. Etymology in the modern sense emerged in the late 18th-century European academia, within the context of the wider " Age of Enlightenment ", although preceded by 17th century pioneers such as Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn , Gerardus Vossius , Stephen Skinner , Elisha Coles , and William Wotton . The first known systematic attempt to prove

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1806-645: The west. Those tribes had to pay tribute to the Khazars in 859 in the form of squirrel and beaver skins, which suggests they lived in or near the northern forests. In 884, Oleg of Novgorod annexed their territory to the Kievan Rus' . The Severians had to pay a "light tribute." According to Oleg, he had acted not against the Severians but against the Khazars. It is possible that the Severians accepted Oleg's rule because he imposed lower taxes on them. Together with other East Slavic tribes, Severians participated in

1849-691: The words of the sacred Vedas contained deep encoding of the mysteries of the soul and God. One of the earliest philosophical texts of the Classical Greek period to address etymology was the Socratic dialogue Cratylus ( c.  360 BCE ) by Plato . During much of the dialogue, Socrates makes guesses as to the origins of many words, including the names of the gods. In his Odes Pindar spins complimentary etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch ( Life of Numa Pompilius ) spins an etymology for pontifex , while explicitly dismissing

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