Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

"łuna, 'blask', »łuna księżycowa*
1537 r., »łuna od pożaru«; pra-
słowo; przed n wypadło ch z ks,
prus. lauksnos, 'gwiazdy', staro-
baktr. raoksnd, 'światło', łac. luna
(w narzeczach losna), 'księżyc', grec,
z inną samogłoską, lychnos,
'światło'. Od 14. do 16. wieku, od
psałterza flor. do Paprockiego, znacho-
dzimy łunę, lunę łacińską, 'księżyc*
(jest i w cerk. i na Rusi), ale to
pożyczka półuczona, nie ludowe,
chociaż i na Bałkanie do dziś się
szerzy. Pokrewne więc z łuczywem,
łac. lux, luceo, 'świecę', lucerna, itd."

That's my Etymological Dictionary of Polish.

And what I've found in another one. It all comes from the PIE root - LEUK-, meaning light. English 'light' is of course a derivative. Funny that "lucipher" is one as well :)

More precisely, 'luna' comes from *leuk-sna. In the fragment I've quoted, it's said that 'ks' was deleted and only 'n' remained.

Is etymology so exciting or am I crazy? ;)

Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

no problem! I was happy to help, and it was interesting as well.

The problem about this dictionary is that it was written long time ago and the Polish is so funny in here, sometimes it's really hard to understand!

I had to check "w narzeczach losna" myself! "narzecze" apparently means a dialect. So it was a variant in Latin - 'losna'. (I think)

About the other fragment - it's what I've already written - before [n], [ch] was deleted. As [ks] was in the original 'leuk-sna' it was probably like this: [ks]>[ch]> 0 and only [n] remained in the Latin form.

In the Greek form it's lychnos, where [ch] is present.

:)

Language / Etymologia łuny [8]

well, the fragment from the dictionary says it is a borrowing. The second half is very confusing, but still, that's what it says.


I try to refrain from saying anything bad about this dictionary, because it's the only one I've managed to find :D