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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 with Unicode^® support and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to Indo-European languages. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 2 and ISO-8859-1) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: 5. bher- 'shining; bright brown'

Semantic Fields: to Shine, Glisten; Bright; Dark in Color

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Gaelic:	beabhar	n	beaver	CDC
Cornish:	befr	n	beaver	CDC
English
Old English:	beofor/befer	n	beaver	RPN/CDC
	beorn/birn	n.masc	man, prince, hero, warrior	ASD
	bera	adj	brown	GED
	bera	n.masc	bear	RPN/ASD
	brūn	adj	brown, dark	RPN
Middle English:	bere	n	bear	W7
	bever	n	beaver	W7
	broun(e)/browne	adj	brown	W7/MEV
	burnet	n	burnet	W7
	burnischen	vb	to burnish	W7
English:	bear	n	large heavy mammal with long shaggy hair	AHD/W7
	beaver	n	large semiaquatic rodent with broad flat tail	AHD/W7
	Beorn	prop.n	heroic bear-man in Tolkien: The Hobbit	LRC
	berserk(er)	n	(Norse) warrior frenzied in battle	AHD/W7
	brown	adj	very dull dark reddish color	AHD/W7
	bruin	n	bear (large mammal)	AHD/W7
	brunet	adj	(with hair) of dark brown color	AHD/W7
	burnet	n	herb with stipulate odd-pinnate leaves	AHD/W7
	burnish	vb.trans	to polish, make shiny/lustrous by rubbing	AHD/W7
	Grimbeorn	prop.n	Beorn's son in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	brun	adj	brown	ASD
Frisian:	brun	adj	brown	ASD
Middle Dutch:	bere	adj	brown	GED
Dutch:	beer	n.masc	bear	ASD
	bever	n	beaver	CDC
	bruin	adj	brown	ASD
	bruin	n	bruin	W7
Low German:	baar	n	bear	CDC
	bever	n	beaver	CDC
Old High German:	bero/pero	n	bear	RPN/ASD
	bero	adj	brown	GED/IEW
	bibar	n	beaver	RPN
	brūn	adj	brown	RPN
Middle High German:	ber	n	bear	ASD
	biber	n	beaver	CDC
	brūn	adj	brown	ASD
German:	Bär	n.masc	bear	ASD
	Bieber	n.masc	beaver	LRC
	braun	adj	brown	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	ber-serkr	n.masc	giant, lit. bear-sark (bear-shirt)	ICE
	björn	n.masc	bear	RPN/ASD
Old Icelandic:	bjórr	n	beaver	RPN
	bjǫrn	adj	brown	GED/IEW
	brúnn	adj	brown	RPN
Icelandic:	berserkr	n	berserk	CDC
	bjōrr	n	beaver	CDC
	björn	n.masc	bear	ASD
	brūnn	adj	brown	ASD
Danish:	bjørn	n.masc	bear	TLL
	bruun	adj	brown	ASD
	bæver	n	beaver	CDC
Swedish:	björn	n.masc	bear	ASD
	brun	adj	brown	ASD
	bäfver	n	beaver	CDC
Italic
Old Latin:	biber	n	beaver	CDC
Latin:	fiber	n	beaver	RPN
Spanish:	bibaro	n	beaver	CDC
Old French:	brun	adj	brown	W7
	brunette	n.fem	dark brown fabric	W7
	burnete	n.fem	(genus of) herb	W7
Middle French:	brun	adj	brown	W7
	brunir, brunissé	vb	to make brown	W7
French:	bièvre	n	beaver	CDC
	brun	adj	brown	TLL
	brunet, brunette	adj	brown(ish)	W7
Old Occitan:	vibre	n	beaver	CDC
Italian:	bevero	n	beaver	CDC
Baltic
Old Prussian:	bebrus	n	beaver	CDC
Lithuanian:	bebrùs	n	beaver	RPN
	bėras	adj	brown	GED/IEW
Latvian:	bebris	n	beaver	CDC
Slavic
Polish:	bóbr	n	beaver	RPN
Czech:	bobr	n	beaver	CDC
Old Church Slavonic:	*bebrъ	n	beaver	RPN
	bĭbrŭ/bŏbrŭ	n	beaver	CDC
Russian:	bobr	n	beaver	RPN
	bobrŭ	n	beaver	CDC
Hellenic
Greek:	φρῦνος, φρύνη	n	toad	RPN
Indic
Sanskrit:	babhrú-ḥ	adj	ruddy, brown	RPN
	bhallas	n	bear	GED/IEW
	bhallū́kas	n	bear	GED/IEW

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
trans	=	transitive
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)
ICE	=	Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
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)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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