Russ. сбагрить and багор in Slavic environment

Abstract

The existence of formally and semantically corresponding words in cognate languages is very important for etymologisation of each Russian word. Russian colloquial and dialectal verb сбáгрить ‘remove something, somebody; get rid of something, somebody’ has such formal correspondings only in Bulgarian сбàгря, сбàгрям ‘make, arrange’. These correspondings were not analysed earlier. Bulgarian verbs сбàгря, сбàгрям are thought to be derivatives of Bulgarian dialectal verb багòря ‘make slowly’, known along the borderline with the Rumanian language and derived from borrowed Rumanian verb băgáre ‘thrusting, placing’. Russian сбáгрить is known mostly in northern dialects. Thus mutual borrowing of either Bulgarian verb or Russian verb seems to be inconceivable. Russian verb сбáгрить is concidered to be a derivative from the substantive багóр. Slavic багóр / bahor is known with different meanings: in Russian and Ukrainian ‘pole with crooked end’ and in Slovak ‘part of felloe; upper (moving) millstone’. These two meanings allow to presuppose different origin. The derivation from Common Slavonic *bag- ‘run’ is probable for Slovak word bahor. Semantics of Russian, Ukrainian багор does not allow the same. The most probable origin for Russian and Ukrainian багор is a German borrowing Baggert ‘subsidiary port worker’ that is a derivative from Dutch borrowing baggeren ‘clean bottom, deepen waterway’. The population of Russian North could borrow Baggert as the name of instrument by contacts with sailors of German merchant ships. Compare Arkhangelsk dialectal бáгрень ‘channel for ships cut through ice’. Everything said about the origin of Bulgarian сбàгря and Russian сбáгрить allows to define this correspondence as heterogeneous homonymie.