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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 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: lak̑- 'to spot, sprinkle'

Semantic Field: to Strew, Spread Out

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	le(a)x/læx	n.masc	lox, salmon	ASD
English:	gravlax	n	salmon cured in salt/sugar/dill	AHD
	lox	n	smoked salmon	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old High German:	lahs	n	lox, salmon	W7
German:	Lachs	n	lox, salmon	ASD
Yiddish:	laks	n	lox	W7
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	lax	n.masc	lox, salmon	LRC
Icelandic:	graflax	n	gravlax	LRC
	lax	n	lox, salmon	ASD
Norwegian:	gravlaks	n	gravlax	LRC
Danish:	gravlaks	n	gravlax	LRC
	laks	n	lox, salmon	TLL
Swedish:	lax	n	lox, salmon	TLL
Baltic
Old Prussian:	lasasso	n	lox, salmon	LRC
Lithuanian:	lašišà	n.fem	lox, salmon	LRC
Latvian:	lasis	n.masc	lox, salmon	LRC
Armenian
Armenian:	losdi	n	lox, salmon	LRC
Iranian
Persian:	raxsh	adj	spotted red/white	LRC
Ossetic:	läsäg	n	lox, salmon	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	lākṣā	n	red lacquer	LRC
Tocharian
Tocharian B:	laks	n	fish	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun

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)

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