Some Balto-Slavic Terms of Acoustic Perceptions

Abstract

The idea 'to hear' is expressed in Slavic with the proper representatives of the Indo-European root */lu-, */lewe-, which often appears here also in its extended forms: *klu-s-, *flou-sand *1low-e-s-. In all its forms the root is well represented in most Indo-European languages with the basic force of sound-perceptions, passing, occasionally, also into the terminology of emotions and mental abstractions.' Through the semantic growth of this root we obtain a related group of terms, such as: 'to hear, listen; mind, obey; word, sound; ear; fame, glory; honor, praise', etc. If the Baltic forms for 'to hear' also belong to the same Indo-European root, its semantic range will widen out with such notable additions as 'to ask, grant, satisfy; quiet, still; deaf'. This wide scattering of ideas, projected from their acoustic source, points to a process of continuous semantic shading, in the course of which the basic idea 'sound' was considered under the various aspects of its reception. Excluding for the moment the Lithuanian klaus'ti and its cognates, we shall consider here the etymological group Lith. slovJ, Lett. slave, ChSl. etc. slava 'glory, fame, praise, honor', as related to Skt. grnTomi, OIr. cluinim 'I hear' and the participial forms such as Skt. gruta-, Av. sruta-, Gk. KXvr~s, Lat. inclutus 'famous', Ir., Welsh cloth 'fame', OHG, etc. Hlot'fame, famous', etc. If they are not new formations, as maintained by Trautman (BS1 Wtb. 307), here belong also ChSl. sluti 'be called, famed', Russ. etc. slytb 'be reputed, pass for', and ChSl.