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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.

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings may appreciate the source & meaning tips that pop up when the mouse pointer hovers over a non-obvious word or name that he coined from Indo-European (usually Old English or Old Norse) stock. But only reflexes of PIE etyma can be included, and these tend to concentrate in the vocabulary of Rohan and the Shire.

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: kerdho-, kerdha 'line, row, herd'

Semantic Fields: Line; Crowd, Multitude

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Middle Welsh:	cordd	n	crowd	GED
English
Old English:	heord	n.str.fem	herd	GED
	hi(e)rde/heorde/hyrde	n.str.masc	shepherd, herdsman	GED/ASD
	sceaphyrde	n.str.masc	shepherd	W7/GED
Middle English:	herd	n	herd	W7
	sheepherde	n	shepherd	W7
English:	herd	n	animals of one kind (together)	AHD/W7
	herd	vb	to move/assemble in herd	W7
	herdsman	n	livestock tender/breeder/manager	W7
	shepherd	n	one who tends/guards sheep	W7
	tree-herd	n	Ent description in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Low Franconian:	herda	n.str.fem	herd	GED
Old Saxon:	hirdi	n.str.masc	shepherd	GED
Old High German:	herta	n.str.fem	herd	GED
	hirti	n.str.masc	shepherd	GED
German:	Herde	n.fem	herd, flock	LRC
	Hirte	n	shepherd	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	hjorð	n.str.fem	herd, flock	LRC
Old Icelandic:	hirðir	n.str.masc	shepherd	GED
Icelandic:	hirðir	n	shepherd	ASD
	hjörð	n	herd	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	hairda	n.str.fem	herd	LRC
	hairdeis	n.str.masc	herdsman	LRC
Baltic
Old Prussian:	kerdan	n	time	GED
Lithuanian:	(s)kerdzius	n	senior shepherd	GED
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	creda	n	herd, series, daily order	GED
Hellenic
Greek:	kórthus	n.fem	sheaf, heap (of wheat)	GED
Iranian
Avestan:	saruða-	n	type, kind	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	sardha-	n	crowd; might	GED

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
str	=	strong (inflection)
vb	=	verb

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)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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