PIE *peh2ur ’fire’. Two Slavic etymologies

Abstract

This study investigates two traditional Proto-Slavic etyma. (1.a) PS *netopyŕĭ, *netŭpyŕĭ ‘bat’. The former has widespread descendants in East and West Slavic and Western South Slavic; the latter, attested in Middle Russian, has no known modern reflexes. (1.b) PS *netopyŕĭ, *netŭpyŕĭ ‘moth > butterfly’. The former is attested as Pb. netüpar ‘butterfly’; the latter as SC lȅptīr, lȅpīr, Mn lȅper ‘butterfly’. Comparison with PS *noťĭlegŭ ‘night lodging’ points to a PPS *[nekt-i+pūr]-ja- ‘[night-time fire] one’, a juxtaposition of PPS *nekt-i (cf. OR nočĭ adv. ‘at night’) and *pūr ‘fire’. Moths and bats naurally occur around an out-door fire at night. (2) PS *ǫpyŕĭ ‘revenant, monster’ is resolved as PPS *[un-pūr]-ja- ‘one without fire’. The socio-cultural context for the word’s creation is the ancient Slavic cremation culture, in which the untimely dead were thought to be tools of evil forces. The remarkable archaisms in these words are commented on in the Conclusion.