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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 with Unicode^® support, but fonts for only the Unicode 2.0 character set (including combining diacritics). Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 3 and ISO-8859-1) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: 1. bhel-, Balto-Slavic also bhelə- 'glittering white'

Semantic Fields: to Shine, Glisten; White

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	bǣl	n.neut	flame, pyre	GED/IEW
	pōl	n.masc	pool	IEW/ASD
	pyll	n.masc	pill	IEW/ASD
Middle English:	balled/balde/belde	adj	bald	IEW/CDC
	pool	n	pool	W7
English:	bald	adj	bare, shorn, lacking hair/feathers	IEW
	beluga	n	cetacean	AHD/W7
	effulgent	adj	re: brilliance, radiant splendor	AHD/W7
	foudroyant	adj	awesome, dazzling, thundering, overwhelming	AHD/W7
	pill	n.dial	pool, (small tidal) creek	IEW/OED
	pool	n	small deep body of water	IEW
	refulgent	adj	resplendent, shining radiantly	AHD
W-Germanic
Old High German:	pelihha	n.str.fem	bald coot	GED/IEW
	pfuol	n	pool	IEW
Middle High German:	belche	n.str.fem	bald coot	GED
German:	Beluga	n.masc	beluga	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	bál	n.neut	fire, flame	LRC
Old Icelandic:	bāl	n.neut	fire, flame	GED/IEW
	blesi	prop.n.masc	Blesi (nickname)	GED
Danish:	bældet	adj	bald	IEW
E-Germanic
Gothic:	*bala-	adj	gray, shining	GED/IEW
Italic
Latin:	fulica	n.fem	bald coot	GED/IEW
French:	foudroyant	adj	foudroyant, lightning-like	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	balà	n.masc	marsh	GED/IEW
	bãlas/báltas	adj	white	RPN
	bálti	vb	to be white, become pale	GED/IEW
Latvian:	balināt, balinu, balināju	vb	to bleach	LRC
	balti	adv	white	LRC
	balts	adj	white	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	bělъ	adj	white	GED/IEW
Russian:	beluga/bieluga	n	beluga; sturgeon, white fish	W7/CDC
	belyĭ/bieluiĭ	adj	white	W7/CDC
Albanian
Albanian:	ballë	n	forehead	GED/IEW
Hellenic
Hesychius' Greek Lexicon:	φαληρός	adj	shining	GED/IEW
	φαλ(ι)ός	adj	shining	GED/IEW
Greek:	phainein	vb	to show	W7
	φαλός	adj	white, shining	RPN
Indic
Sanskrit:	bhā́lam	n.neut	forehead; splendor, radiance	GED/IEW

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
dial	=	dialectal
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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