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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: 2. ner- 'below, under'

Semantic Fields: Low; Deep

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	norð	adv	north(wards)	LRC
	norðan	adv	from the north	LRC
	Norð-hymbre	prop.n.masc.pl	Northumbrians, Northumbria	LRC
	Norð-mann	prop.n.masc	Norwegian, lit. north-man	LRC
	norð-weard	adj	northward	LRC
	Norðweg	prop.n.neut	Norway, lit. way (leading) north	LRC
Middle English:	north	adj/adv	north	W7
	northerne	adj	northern	W7
English:	Norbury	prop.n	town a.k.a. Fornost in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Nordic	adj	re: Scandinavia	LRC
	Norse	prop.n	ancient Scandinavian language spoken by Vikings	LRC
	north	adv/adj	northward; re: the north	AHD/W7
	north	n	direction to left when facing east	W9
	Northerland	prop.n	lands north of Rohan in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	northern	adj	re: region to/toward/in the north	AHD/W7
	Northfarthing	prop.n	Shire quadrant in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	northward	adv	to/toward the north
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	north	adv	north(wards)	ASD
Dutch:	noord	adv	north	W7
	noorden	n	north	TLL
	noordsch	adj	northern	W7
	noorsch	adj	Norse, Norwegian, Scandinavian	W7
Old Saxon:	norð	adv	north(wards)	ASD
Old High German:	nord	adv	north	W7
	nord-man	n	Norwegian, lit. north-man	ASD
	nordroni	adj	northern	W7
German:	Norden	n.masc	north	LRC
	nordisch	adj	Nordic	LRC
	nördlich	adj	northern	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	norðr	n	north	W7
Icelandic:	norðarr	adv.comp	further north	ASD
	norðast	adv.sup	furthest north	ASD
	norð-maðr	n	Norwegian, lit. north-man	ASD
	norðr-vegar	n.pl	Norway, lit. way (leading) north	ASD
Danish:	nord	n	north	TLL
Swedish:	norr	n	north	TLL
Italic
French:	nord	adj/n.masc	northern; north	W7
	nordique	adj	Nordic, re: the north	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	nerteros	adj	lower, infernal	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
comp	=	comparative
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
prop	=	proper
sup	=	superlative

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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)
W9	=	Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983)

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