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The unclear verse "Three Quarks for Muster Mark!", introduced by James Joyce (1882--1941) to his novel entitled Finnegans Wake (first published in 1939), was a literary source for the English word quark denoting 'an elementary particle with a fractional electric charge that is part of a proton, neutron or other interacting elementary particle'. The American physicist Murray Gell-Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969, was the first researcher to introduce the English word quark into scientific terminology as early as in 1964. After accepting his hypothesis of quarks in the world science, most physicists adopted the English term quark as standard in the physical terminology of most international languages (e.g. French quark, German Quark, Italian quark, Polish kwark, Portugal quark, Russian ..., Spanish cuark, Turkish kuark, Ukrainian ... 'an elementary particle') and it quickly became a widely recognized internationalism. It is not commonly known that Joyce's verse facetiously imitated loud cries of German dairy women: Drei Mark für muster Quark! (literally "Three Marks for an excellent curd!"). In other words, E. quark 'an elementary particle' is motivated by the German term Quark m. 'weiser Käse / curd, white cheese', metaphorically 'trifle, nonsense, trash, worthless thing', which -- according to most German and Slavic etymologists -- represents an obvious Slavic borrowing (especially a Polish or Lower Sorbian loanword), cf. Pol. twaróg, dial. kwaruk m. 'curd, white cheese' (< Proto-Slavic *tvarogъ m. 'id.'). It is suggested that the specialized term kwark represents the so called back-borrowing in the Polish language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Prace Jezykoznawcze is the property of University of Warmia & Mazury in Olsztyn and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses the origin of the Proto-Slavic ornithonym *čižь / *čižьkъ / *čižikъ m. 'common siskin, Spinus spinus L.'. The Eurasian siskin is a well known and easily recognizable songbird whose characteristic voice sounds like the repetitive chirp of čí-čí [ʧi:-ʧi:]. The onomatopoeic explanation, which was adopted many times in the literature on the subject, can only be justified after the first palatalization of the guttural consonants in the Proto-Slavic language, dated to the middle of the first millennium BCE. Thus, the Proto-Slavic term for 'siskin' is innovative from the point of view of the Balto-Slavic phonology. We cannot decide whether the ancestors of the Slavs themselves created the ornithonym *čižь / *čižьkъ / *čižikъ on the onomatopoeic basis in the late phase of the development of the Proto-Slavic language, or rather borrowed it from a foreign source. The voiced phoneme *-ž-, disturbing the native "onomatopoeic" origin, seems to support the hypothesis of foreign-language borrowing. In this article it is suggested that the source of the alleged loanword was probably the Proto-Uralic term *čičä(-kä) ~ *činčä(-kä) denoting 'little songbird' (clearly preserved in Saami, Permian, Ugric and Samoyed languages), presumably already functioning at the time of the collapse of the Uralic community (i.e. in the fourth millennium BCE), and therefore several millennia older than the Proto-Slavic term for 'siskin'. The author assumes that (in all probability) the Proto-Slavs took over this Uralism through an unidentified Finno-Ugric substrate that left various traces in the Proto-Slavic vocabulary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the origin of the names of two Polish villages: Swolszewice Duże and Swolszewice Małe (near Wolbórz, central Poland), attested as Swodziszewice (maior and minor) in the 15th and 16th centuries. The development of the form Swodziszewice to Swolszewice should not be treated as an onomastic enigma. The following series of phonological processes may be posited: Swodziszewicze > (1) *Swodźszewice > (2) *Swoćszewice > (3) *Swojszewice > (4) Swolszewice [sfolʃeˈv́ iʦe]. The article explains all the changes which have occurred in the place name under discussion, namely (1) a syncope of the vowel [i] caused by a change of the Old Polish stress; (2) a loss of voiced character of phoneme dź [ʥ] before the voiceless sibilant sz [ʃ]); (3) an anticipation of softness, motivating the change of ć [ʨ] to j [j] before a sibilant; (4) a regional (folk) assimilation of [j] to [ľ] > [l] in the dialect of the Wolbórz area (cf. Old Polish place name Wojboŕ, now Wolbórz). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Slavistična Revija is the property of Slavisticno Drustvo Slovenije and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of the paper is to review the Proto-Indo-European origin of neuter collective nouns in *-iiom. This type of collectives was highly productive in most Slavic languages, whereas its attestation in other Indo-European languages is generally residual. Some traces of collective nouns in *-iio̯ m are to be distinguished in Indo-Aryan languages (especially in Vedic), Germanic (especially in Old Nordic), Baltic (especially in Old Prussian), Tocharian, Ancient Greek and probably in Armenian. The archaic character of these neuter collectives can additionally be confirmed by a number of corresponding feminine collective nouns, e.g. PIE. *bhreh2tri̯ó m n. coll. 'group of brothers; brotherhood, fraternity' (attested in Indo-Aryan, Slavic and Tocharian) and PIE. *bhréh2tri̯e h2 f. coll. 'id.' (registered in Greek, Baltic and Slavic); PIE. *gu̯ou̯i̯ó m n. coll. 'herd of cows' (in Vedic and Belorussian) vs. PIE. *guóuiie h2 f. coll. 'id.' (attested in Vedic, East Baltic and Laconian Greek). The variation between the neuter and feminine collective nouns is well observed on the basis of Indo-Aryan, Germanic and Slavic lexical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]