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Indo-European Lexicon

PIE Etymon and IE Reflexes

Below we display: a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etymon adapted from Pokorny, with our own English gloss; our Semantic Field assignment(s) for the etymon, linked to information about the field(s); an optional Comment; and Reflexes (derived words) in various Indo-European languages, organized by family/group in west-to-east order where Germanic is split into West/North/East families and English, our language of primary emphasis, is artificially separated from West Germanic. IE Reflexes appear most often as single words with any optional letter(s) enclosed in parentheses; but alternative full spellings are separated by '/' and "principal parts" appear in a standard order (e.g. masculine, feminine, and neuter forms) separated by commas.

Reflexes are annotated with: Part-of-Speech and/or other Grammatical feature(s); a short Gloss which, especially for modern English reflexes, may be confined to the oldest sense; and some Source citation(s) with 'LRC' always understood as editor. Keys to PoS/Gram feature abbreviations and Source codes appear below the reflexes; at the end are links to the previous/next etyma [in Pokorny's alphabetic order] that have reflexes.

All reflex pages are currently under active construction; as time goes on, corrections may be made and/or more etyma & reflexes may be added.

Note: this page is for systems/browsers lacking Unicode^® support, or having less than full Unicode 2.0 font support. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 3 and Unicode 2) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: bherug-, bhreg- 'to shine; bright, white'

Semantic Fields: to Shine, Glisten; Bright; White

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	bergann	n	list of runes (?)	GED
Welsh:	berth	adj	beautiful	RPN
English
Old English:	be(o)rc	n.str.fem	birch; (name for) B-rune	GED
	be(o)rht/byrht/bryht	adj	bright	W7/ASD
	bi(e)rce/byrc(e)	n.str.fem	birch	GED/ASD
Middle English:	birch/birk(e)	n	birch	W7/CDC
	bri(g)ht/bryght(e)	adj	bright	W7/MEV
English:	birch	n	monoecious deciduous tree/shrub	AHD/W7
	birk	n	birch	AHD/W7
	bright	adj	shining, reflecting/radiating light	AHD/W7
	Camembert	prop.n	(village in Basse-Normandie famous for) a cheese	LRC
	fraxinella	n	Eurasian perennial herb	AHD/W7
Scots English:	birk	n	birch	CDC
W-Germanic
Middle Dutch:	berck	n.str.fem	birch	CDC
Dutch:	berk	n.str.fem	birch	CDC
Old Saxon:	ber(a)ht	adj	bright	ASD
Old High German:	beraht/peraht	adj	bright	W7/ASD
	bircha/birihha	n.str.fem	birch	GED
	birka	n	birch	W7
	piricha	n.wk.fem	birch	CDC
Middle High German:	berht	adj	bright	ASD
	birke/birche	n.fem	birch	ASD
German:	Birke	n.fem	birch	ASD
N-Germanic
Runic:	*berkanan	n	birch; (name for) B-rune	LRC
Old Norse:	biartr	adj	bright	ASD
Old Icelandic:	birti	n	brightness	RPN
	bjarkan	n	birch; (name for) B-rune	GED
	bjartr	adj	bright, shining	RPN
	bjork	n.str.fem	birch	GED
Icelandic:	biörk	n.str.fem	birch	CDC
Danish:	birk	n.str.fem	birch	CDC
Swedish:	björk	n.str.fem	birch	CDC
E-Germanic
Gothic:	bairhtei	n	brightness	RPN
	bairhts	adj	bright, manifest	RPN
	bercna	n	birch; (name for) B-rune	GED
Italic
Latin:	fraxinus	n.fem	ash (tree)	GED/ELD
New Latin:	fraxinella	n.dim	fraxinella	W7
French:	Camembert	n.fem	city in Normandy, France	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	bérzas	n	birch	GED
	breksti	vb	to dawn	RPN
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	breza	n	birch	CDC
Russian:	berëza	n	birch	GED
Albanian
Albanian:	bredh	n	fir, pine	GED
Hellenic
Greek:	bráthu	n	(species of) juniper	GED
Anatolian
Hittite:	pár-ku-us	adj	pure, clean	RPN
Palaic:	pa-ar-ku-i-ti	vb	to clean, to purify	RPN
Iranian
Avestan:	braza-	n	shimmering; radiance	RPN
	brazaiti	vb	to beam	RPN
Ossetic:	bærz	n	birch	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	bhargas	n	splendor, brightness	ASD
	bhurjás	n	(species of) birch	GED
	bhrajate	vb	to shine, gleam, glitter	RPN

Key to Part-of-Speech/Grammatical feature abbreviations:

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dim	=	diminutive
fem	=	feminine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
str	=	strong (inflection)
vb	=	verb
wk	=	weak (inflection)

Key to information Source codes (always with 'LRC' as editor):

Code		Citation
AHD	=	Calvert Watkins: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd ed. (2000)
ASD	=	Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller: An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
ELD	=	Charlton T. Lewis: An Elementary Latin Dictionary (1999)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
MEV	=	J.R.R. Tolkien: A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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