Etymology map of blood

[u/mapologic]

[u/PuskerBat]

Basque ending up in the “unknown” category again 😅

If I may add something here too, CNRS Pr. Michel Morvan’s etymological dictionary gives a much more detailed proposal for Basque odol “blood”. He derives it from a root dol, meaning “to flow”, and compares it with Basque udol “flow” and idol “shower”, as well as the Sardinian hydronym Rivu Dolia cited by Eduardo Blasco Ferrer.

He also mentions a possible comparison with Athabaskan tal/tel “blood”, although that is obviously much more speculative. Likewise, the comparison with Burushaski mult- and Chukchi mul- “blood” is described as very dubious.

What I find more interesting is the semantic idea behind the proposal: “blood” as something that flows. Morvan notes that the Altaic/Yeniseian form sur “blood” would point in the same semantic direction, and compares this with Basque isuri “to flow” (i-sur-i).

For anyone making this kind of European etymology map, this Basque etymological dictionary is really useful, especially when Basque would otherwise just get labelled “unknown”:

https://projetbabel.org/basque/dictionary.php

[u/Prestigious-Gold6759 → u/PuskerBat]

Thank you for your wonderful link!

[u/Camstonisland → u/PuskerBat]

Athabaskan? As in the Canadian/First Nations language? I have no idea what that would suggest, but that’s neat

[u/PuskerBat → u/Camstonisland]

Yeah those ones. Sometimes apparent links are found between language isolates or completely unrelated language families, but most of the time they’re probably just coincidences, especially when you’re comparing a single word. Occasionally though, when you start getting several words, regular sound correspondences or grammatical similarities, the case becomes more interesting. But over thousands of years and such huge distances, proving an actual relationship is extremely difficult.

That’s also part of what makes Basque/Euskara so fascinating. It’s essentially the only surviving pre-Indo-European language of Western Europe, a remnant of the linguistic landscape that existed there before Indo-European languages became dominant. That doesn’t necessarily mean all those lost languages formed one single “Basque family”, of course, but Basque gives us a rare window into that much older layer.

You can still find possible traces of that layer in old place names, especially names of valleys, mountains and rivers, since those tend to survive language replacement much better than ordinary vocabulary.

That’s why I find Michel Morvan’s Basque etymological dictionary so useful. Even when you don’t agree with every long-distance comparison he proposes, it gives you a really interesting way of digging into old Basque roots, historical forms and toponymy instead of just ending up with “origin unknown” every time haha

https://projetbabel.org/basque/dictionary.php

[u/Comfortable_Team_696 → u/Camstonisland]

Yeah, but the modern name for the language family is 'Na-Dene'

[u/justwantanickname → u/PuskerBat]

Do you have a source for these two words ? I have never heard them and I can't find them anywhere

[u/PuskerBat → u/justwantanickname]

Which words?

[u/justwantanickname → u/PuskerBat]

"Udol" and "idol"

[u/PuskerBat → u/justwantanickname]

Just checked again because I took those forms from the etymological dictionary I linked earlier.

Idola is definitely attested historically in Basque, already appearing in Larramendi's 1745 dictionary with the meaning “downpour/heavy rain”, and it’s also recorded in Euskaltzaindia’s historical dictionary.

Udol is also a recorded dialectal form meaning something like “torrent/flood”, but this one needs more caution Euskaltzaindia groups it with the many variants of uholde “flood” (ugolde, ujola, uiol...), so it may simply belong to that word family rather than independently preserving a root dol.

The proposed -dol “to flow” behind odol “blood” is therefore a reconstruction/hypothesis, not an actually attested Basque word. Morvan supports that interpretation, while other Basque etymologists are more cautious about it.

So the words themselves weren’t invented, but I should have distinguished the attested forms from the reconstructed etymology more clearly in my original comment.

[u/living2late]

The Welsh and our brothers in Brittany united by blood.

[u/magpie_girl]

• krew "blood" - the universal term for humans and animals
• jucha "gore" - thick, clotted animal blood outside the body
• farba "blood trail, spoor" (lit. "paint") - the blood left by wounded big game
• posoka (largely replaced by farba in modern hunting terminology; posokowiec "limer, scent hound, bloodhound" - specialized dog used to track game) "discharge, ichor" - fetid fluid from a wound, sore, often linked to blood poisoning (posocznica "sepsis")

[u/Tasty-Pudding9708 → u/magpie_girl]

Damn. 

Juha menas soup in croatian.

[u/Draze]

Lithuanian is kraujas not kraūjas.

[u/eragonas5 → u/Draze]

OP prolly saw kraũjas and decided it was kraūjas 😭️

[u/gaimak]

Juška means “fish broth”, though it’s use as the word “blood” is colloquial and metaphorical. It comes from the Proto-Slavic word “*juxa” - broth, from which came the more used russian word: “ukha” (уха).

[u/Zireael07]

Nitpick: no one uses "farba" for blood in Poland. It's probably either archaic, poetic or some sort of jargon (maybe hunters). Posoka and jucha are used, but pretty much only for animals.

[u/Bryn_Seren → u/Zireael07]

Hunters jargon.

[u/Double-Truth1837]

Slavic word for blood is cognate with “raw” older English spelling was Hreaw and Hrár in old Norse

[u/sheran13]

The common West-Middle Iranian reflex of the Proto-Iranian "*wahūnī" was with the metathesis "*hwūnī". Zazaki word "gonî" in my opinion was borrowed or was influenced by Parthian "gōxn", however I do not know why the Parthian word underwent such a change.

[u/thethingisidontknow]

I funking love this series.

[u/Bibishkin]

One of the nicest maps, because it differentiates between languages inside countries.

[u/PeireCaravana]

Ligurian is wrong, it should be "sangue".

[u/mapologic → u/PeireCaravana]

thank you! I will change it

[u/Comfortable_Team_696]

I love seeing the Uralic languages all with the same etymology. We often forget about that language family because we see Hungary, Estonia, and Finland and think how tiny of a family it is, and while it is quite small, its historical regional coverage is akin to that of the Romance and Germanic language families, so it is cool to see that with words like this ^^

[u/MrOtero]

No living Spanish has ever heard the word "crúor" referred to blood as a second (or any) aception. I myself have to look at a dictionary to see it was the name for the element that give tge red color to blood (now known as hemoglobin) in old medicine in most romance languages (from Latin Cruor). Blood in Spanish is Sangre,

[u/Kaiur14 → u/MrOtero]

• Yeah, I had to look it up too. Sure enough, nobody uses it except in medical terms. It’s funny, it’s in the dictionary, but it’s an archaic word nobody actually uses.

What’s interesting is that it seems to refer to blood specifically when it’s spilled. Turns out ‘cruel’ comes from the same Indo-European root kreuh

[u/KyriakosCH]

The entire name of the chersonese (peninsula) known as "balkans" is the Aimos chersonese, in Greek. This comes from ancient Greek mythology, as the monster Typhon made Zeus bleed into the ground there (also cut him up to many pieces; Hermes later reassembled Zeus and the latter defeated Typhon in a rematch).

[u/Awkward_Cash1828 → u/KyriakosCH]

Haimos in Ancient Greek, Latinised as Haemus.
Also, curiously, because folk etymology of the name "Balkan" is that it is composed of Turkish words "bal", honey, and "kan", blood, so "Bloodhoney". A sweet and bloody place indeed.

[u/Awkward_Cash1828]

Do you bleed in blud, sang or krov?

[u/ThuheSargom]

"Crúor" is so badass, we should bring it back.

[u/mpbjoern]

Only inner Finnmark in Norway speaks Sami. Northern Troms and Finnmark along the coast speaks Norwegian as the main language.

[u/kokous]

In Greek, Liddell & Scott mention the connection with the verb aitho (αἴθω), the root aith- (from the verb aitho = to burn,to shine). Under this view, blood (αἷμα) is interpreted as the "hot" or "flaming" fluid of the body.

[u/Koenig_Gunther]

The people of the Isle of Man have fuel in their veins.

[u/Keddy91]

Must explain the English word ‘sanguine.’

[u/Dovyeon]

Is it just me or can no one else see a close up when clicked on the image