ŠUSS 4.2, junij 2007

Ključne besede: slovenščina, izvor besed, blago, kruh

URL:[http://www2.arnes.si/~lmarus/suss/arhiv/suss-arhiv-000432.html]

I'm trying yo find any traces of dialect meaning "bread" for slavic root *bolg- (blag, blagva, blago, blagota, blagost, blagovati etc). I've only one mention in old-serbian Pateric (14 cent.), cited by Sreznevskij - in the meaning "host" (relig.), and the same meaning in a north-russian hoodoo-text. Some siberian russian dialects have BLAGO in the meaning "bread generally", and probably also some slovenian dialects -- at least I've such reference: /old-slovenian BLAVA "bread generally" (< *blagъva) - M. Kos. S kmečkih domačij v Hrastovljah iz dobe okoli 1300. - "Slovenski etnograf", XVI--XVII, 1963--1964, 104/ in Trubachev's ESSJA. I've looked up the words with this root (*blag-o, *blag-ota, *blag-ostь etc) for "livestock" and also for "something sweet", "milk", "fat" in south-slavic literary dictionaries, but no "bread". Could you recommend me any dialect source?

I am not sure we can help you. The Slovenian word 'blago' meaning "goods, fabric" is related to the Protoslavic '*bolgo' which is supposedly a nominalized neuter form of the adjective '*bolg-' with the meaning "good, gentle" (this is from Snoj, Marko. 1997. Slovenski Etimološki slovar. Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana.).

I am not sure there is a dialectal use of the word 'blago' meaning "bread" nor do I know where you could find such information. Probably the best source for dialectal information is work by Tine Logar, e.g.:
- Logar, Tine. 1975. Slovenska narečja: besedila. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
- Logar, Tine (ed.). 1993. Slovenska narečja. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
- Logar, Tine. 1996. Slovenska narečja. In Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave. Ljubljana : ZRC SAZU.

The department of Slovenian at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana has a nice collection of wordlists from different Slovenian dialects in its library, but in order to search them you would need to be in Ljubljana.

It might be worth checking also the Etimološki slovar slovenskega jezika by France Bezljaj since it contains a number of details including dialectal data. I am not sure what it says on the word 'blago', but i would guess it would not say much more than what Snoj (cited above) says.

(marec 2006)

Glej tudi: Pobuda o pridevniškosti I.