The Polish pasierb is often a key name and starting point in native Slav origin advocacies. HPT writes: The former most often point to the Polish name pasierb (also widespread in Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Russian dialects). The root -sierb-derived from this appellation denotes, according to some who associate the name with the Ukrainian pryserbytyja, 'to join with, to side with someone—he who has joined with the clan, the tribe, i.e. ally'; according to others, it is connected with the root *srb-, *srb- contained in the Slavic verb *srbati, denoting the sucking or drawing of fluids through the mouth—he who has sucked the same mother's milk, i.e. a person of the same family or tribal community.
SOCIAL TERM
One finds the same idea well stated in slightly different terms by a noted Russian linguist not included in HPT's review, namely G. Ilinskij, who explains that the ethnonym Serb was originally a social rather than an ethnic term: But the South Slavic people, which is the primary bearer of this name, has preserved in its way of life the insti-tution of the zadruga which, as is well known, represents only one of the many types of family union in general. And if this is so, then it is natural to suggest that StrbL originally meant 'member of the zadruga,' 'zadrugar', collectively StrbLJa (compare Upper Lusatian, Serbja 'Serbs') -'the sum of people living in a zadruga way of life', and Pa-strbbja -'a person not fully legally entered into membership in the zadruga.' In this way we come to the less than surprising conclusion that Strbfc was initially not so much a 'national' notion as a 'social' one. The ethnic meaning of this name came about afterward when, in the consciousness of its carriers, and also in the eyes of fellow tribe members, the zadruga way of life preserved by the first members became a distinctive characteristic of their nationality. In other words, this means that Serb is 'zadrugar, ' a 'zadruga member' (za drugar) 'par excellence' (G. Ilinskij, Ketymologii imeni serb, JuZXII, 1933).
PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN *kerH
Next, HPT introduces a new etymology proposed by Z. Golab, an always inter-esting and important contributor to the discussion. A new etymology -was proposed
by Z. Golab, who derived the Proto-Slavic appellative preserved in the Polish pasierb and in the Ukrainian pryserbytysja from the Proto-Indo-European *kerH 'to grow' with the suffix -bho and ascribes to it the primary meaning 'affiliate, member of the clan.'
*SIRBU,
*KER(H)-In a 1982 article, Golab states his case in greater detail (About the Connection Between Kinship Terms and Some Ethnica in Slavic: The Case of*Srbi and Slovene). Proto-Slavic sirbu 'member of a kinship group (extended family or kin)' can be retrieved from *pa-sirbu 'step-son' attested by Polish pasierb, East Slavic paserb and by the Ukrainian denominal verb pryserbytysja 'to join somebody's company' (the primary meaning undoubt-edly was 'to be adopted'). The ethnikon Srbi 'Serbians' and Serbja 'Lusatian Serbs' is obviously identical with this social term ... These phonetic facts, somehow ne-glected in the previous etymologies of the ethnikon Srbi and of the noun -sirbu, are crucial for the reconstruction of the Indo-European source of our word: they clearly point out that we must start from an Indo-European root with laryngeal, something like *CerH-. A root which formally and semantically qualifies as the source of Proto-Slavic *sirbu is Indo-European *ker(h)- 'grow'... Thus, nothing seems to prohibit the derivation of PSL *siru from PIE *krH-bho- with the basic meaning 'adolescent, stripling ... In view of the above *sirbu (IE *krhbhos) would mean primarily 'one who has grown (in the kin), kinsman—'a natural, regular member of the kin' i.e. 'born wih the same parent as others', whereas *pa-sirbu, with its prefix of depreciation, would mean 'adopted, irregular member of a kin'—
'stepson' (c.f. the same formal and semantic relationship in Russ. Syn: pasynok).
Parenthetically, pastorak is the Serbo-Croat word for stepson, pastorka, stepdaughter, pastorce, stepchild, pastorcad, stepchildren, pasanac, brother-in-law.
WIDER INDO-EUROPEAN PLANE
Turning to advocates of a wider Indo-European language plane, HPT writes:
O.N. Trubacev perceives the genesis of the name on a wider Indo-European plane, deriving the Slavic ethnonym from the Indo-European *servo- 'the whole, every.' Trubacev suggests a semantic analogue in the Germanic ethnonym Aleman 'all men.' K. Moszynski attributes the Slavic root *Srb- to the Indo-European *servo-'to carefully protect'. S. Respond derives the name from the Proto-Indo-European base *serv- 'to flow' (*ser-bh-), noting that in the Indo-European, especially cen-tral Satem languages fluvial and tribal names were formed from this base.
FORTUITOUS CONCORDANCE
HPT continues her review with an important and key point: advocates of a Slavic genesis believe that the name Serb in Asia and elsewhere is more often a matter of coincidence than confirmation. HPT writes: Advocates of the Slavic genesis of the name in the element Serb- and in similar elements appearing in the onomastics of different countries of the world of antiquity (i.e. the Serbs mentioned by Ptolemy among the tribes between the Caucasus and the Volga in Asiatic Sarmatia) see a fortuitous concordance.
42
SEMANTIC PROBLEMS
HPT continues by noting certain semantic problems relating to a Slavic genesis.
HPT writes: The lack of accepted solutions on Slavic grounds is rooted primarily in the semantic sphere of the word. Assignment of the primary meaning 'ally' arises from the direct connection with the Ukrainian pryserbytsja, 'to join with, to side with someone'. However, there is evidence to suggest that the Ukrainian form is a secondary one on Slavic terrain, and that its present form arises from sound and semantic confusion of the root *srb- (*srb-) and *sebr-. For the meaning of the Ukrainian pryserbytsyja is the meaning of the earlier Slavic root *sebr-, widespread in the names of comrades and kinsmen. Confusion of the continuants *srb- (*srb) with this root does not seem impossible (especially the distinction in the clusters -rb and -br- could easily be missed).
*SEBRU
At this point mention should also be made of Golab's ideas on Proto-Slavic
*sebru. In the article cited above, Golab writes: There is, however, another Proto-Slavic term which should be discussed in this connection: *sebru; it is attested by Old Russian sjabru 'neighbor, a member of the same community', Russian dialect sjaber, Gen. sjabra 'neighbor, companion; partner etc; Old Serbian sebri 'partici-pant, companion, partner'; Serbo-Croatian sebar, Gen. sebra 'farmer' (in Dubrovnik); Slovenian srebar, Gen. srebra 'peasant'; borrowed from the Slavic:
Alb. (Tosk) sember 'partner, co-owner of cattle'; Modern Greek ... partner; Hun-garian cimbora 'companion, friend'; Romanian simbra f. 'society, community'.
According to Trubacev, who derives this word from *sem-ro, i.e. from the basis of fsem-lja 'family', the primary meaning of*sebru was 'member of a "co-habitation"
group'; thus this meaning would carry the oldest, primary Indo-European seman-tics of *koimo- = *semo- as 'lair, camp', earlier than the meaning 'extended family' attested for semlja. I do not think that such a distinction is necessary. If the etymology of *sebru as derived from *sem-ro (or rather from an earlier *soim-ro-or *sim-ro-) is c*soim-ro-orrect, then we are dealing here with a really very old Indo-Euro-pean term, namely: "koim-ro" or *kim-ro-, representing two apophonic grades of
the root (On the subject of Slavic sebar and Lithuanian sebras:J. Kalima, Slav. *sebr 'Nachbar, Kamerad'und bait,
"sebras, ZsP 17, 1941).
YUGOSLAV SCHOLARSHIP
Two distinguished Yugoslav scholars, Petar Skok (1881-1956) and Milan Budimir (1891-1976), who individually and collaboratively added greatly to our knowledge of the early history and Slavic settlement of the Yugoslav lands, give the following infor-mation on serb/sebar/srebar. P. Skok offers a brief review of linguistic/etymological scholarship on the Subject (Etimologijski rjecnik hrvatskoga Hi srpskoga. jezika, I-IV, 1971-73).1 Sebar, gen. -bra, Starosrbski sebfcr ... (14. i 15. v.) = slov. seber = sreber, starocrkvenoslovenski sebrT> = sember "rusticus, kmet, u 14. i 15. v. stanovnici Srbije, stanovnici Srbije osim plemica i pripadnika klera", f (nepravilno) prema prezimenu u Dubrovniku. Bogusa kci Mathase Sebrica. Nalazi se jos u ruskom sjabrb "susjed". Prema Vuku govori se u Dubrovniku tezak ... Pridjev na -ov sebrov (Dusanov zakonik); na -ski sebarski. Apstrakt isto tako: sebrost = sebroca (Stulic) = sebarstvo (1520) "villainie, prostotat". Deminiutiv na ic sebric. Na
-njak sebr-njak (ogulinski kotar) "drug u oranju kroz cijelo Iheto" jedina je potvrda iz danasnjeg narodnog govora. Varijanta s utnetnutim m Setnber tn (Vuk) "covjek iz Semberije (dio rvornicke nahije)", s pridjevom semberski. Upor. u brodskom kotaru brijeg Sember ... Ne postoji jedinstvena etimologija. U lit. i lot. posudeno iz ruskog jezika. Rus. sjabrB = sjaber, gen. sjabra kao i posudjenica arb. sember, rum. simbra, madz cimbora dokazuju da je e u sebar nastao iz palatlnog nazala e...
Pretna Joklu potjece öd istocno-germ. *sem-bar "Jalbzinsmann", stp Budmani s pravom otklanja. Prema Sobolevskom, Vaillantu i Mladenovicu stoji u vezi s rus.
sem'ja"obijelj", to. haims "village"... <Ind-European *koim-ro. Prema Uhlenbecku i Schulzu u srodstva je sä germ. Sippe < sibja, Sanskrit sabha "Versammlung der Dorrgemeinde" ... Prema J. M. Rozwadowskom identicna je s imenom naroda Cimbri itd, a prema Budimiru bila bi pelasticka (M. Budimir, Dva drustvena termina dubrwacka.
1. Lada, II. Sebar, Anali Historijskog instituta u Dubrovniku, IV-V, 1956). M. Budimir, the leading Yugoslav authority on the ethnonym Serb, places the subject in its proper context when he notes that most of the names of the Slavic nations remain without convincing ety-mologies, that the interpretation of the names is questionable in most instances. Budimir's own words on the subject are by far the most informed and provocative in a positive sense. However, Budimir's immense contributions are set in the highly technical and complex philological-linguistic terms that tend to place the subject beyond the reach and critical judgment of all but professional linguists. Selective excerpts from one of Budimirs key articles on the subject (Ostarimpomenimasrpskogimena, Glas, SANCCXXXVI, 1959) are the basis of an attempt to capture the thrust and direction of his stimulating thoughts on the subject, with minimal references to high-powered linguistic-etymological dy-namics, in a note (*M. Budimir) at the end of the chapter.2
H. BRUCKNER
Next, HPT calls our attention to an interesting and related hypothesis proposed by the eminent Polish scholar, H. Bruckner: Worthy of a second look in this context is the hypothesis of Bruckner, who links the Polish pasierba and the Slavic ethnonyms with the root contained in the Slavic verbs designating the sucking or drawing of fluids through the mouth. The fact of the existence of the Slavic appellative *srbfc is confirmed by the Czech place name Mlekosrby, etymologically entirely transparent, in which the second member in Czech is homonymous with the ethnonym of interest to us. The name of the Slavic ethnonym Serbs is also connected almost certainly with its original meaning 'to suck, to lap'. Undoubt-edly this ethnonym originally referred to those who sucked the milk of the same mother, and thus became the term for family kinship, which was secondarily ex-panded to the tribal community. In accordance with this etymology the appellative preserved as a relic, *pa-srbt, would signify 'the one who did not suck the milk of the same mother, i.e. the child of another mother'. At what moment *srbb (*srbb) from the appellative denoting 'relative' or 'countryman' transformed itself into a personal name is of course difficult to ascertain. However, if we establish that it was, at the outset, an everyday Slavic name, far-reaching conclusions on the wan-derings and migrations of the representatives of this same tribal community can-not be drawn from the fact of its recurrence in different parts of Slavdom. This statement does not negate the possibility of the existence of a genetic connection between, for example, the Southern and Northern Serbs, yet from the mere
conver-44
gence of ethnic names one should not draw conclusions about this connection.
For, if names with the element *srb- (*srb-) could once belong to the stock of Slavic appellatives, the possibility arose of the independent emergence of these names in different parts of Slavdom.
MLEKOSRBY
Mlekosrby's recorded history is profiled in Profous' register of Czech place names: Mlekosrby, near Chlumce; Jan de Mlekosirb/1343; Sdenco Luawecz de Mlekosirb/1373; Siestak de Mlekosrb/1375; w Mlekosrbiech/1429; Vanek Rezek z Mlekosrb/1454; zamek Chlumecz ... Nepolysy, Wliko srby, Kosycze ... Mlykosrbech/
1548; zpraviti zamkem a rnestem Chlumczem ... Nepolysy, Mlikosrby/1559; Mlikosrby ves/1654 (A. Profous, J. Svoboda, Mistni jmena v Cechach, 1957). Two other place names with the prefix mleko- are recorded in Proufbus' register. Mlekojedy, near Brandys: in villa Mlekoged/1235; super villa Mlekoged/1390; z Mlekoje/1534; Mylkogedy/1654. Per-haps of greater interest is the prefix with an ethnic qualifier, Nemecke Mlekojedy, near Litomerice: Mlekovicz/1369; in Mlecovid/1374; Mlekowid/1408; Mlekogedy/1623;
Mlikogedi/1787; Mlikoged/1833.
SRKAT, STREBAT, SRB
Although there does not appear to be any supportive ethnographic or folkloric material, the same source derives -srby from the Czech words srkati and strebati, from Proto-Slav and Slavic roots srb (sipping, sucking) in purely etymological terms: Jm.
Ml. = ves mlekosrbu, to jest lidi, kteri mleko srbi n. srbaji, v. srbiti, srbati (otud strebati, srovnej sorbeo) = srkaje piti, 'schlurfen', srbiti mleko, to jest jisti, Milch essen, Staroslovenski sr'bati 'sorbere' (F. Miklosic, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der slavischen Sprachen, 1886). Standard Czech etymological dictionaries add the following information. Srkati:
slovensky srkat; osrkat vzllykati, vzdychati, zachvivati se, postv. osrkvzlyk; zasrkat zachveti se, zavzdychati. Sem i slovenski cmrket, smerkat srkati. Polski sarkac, slovinsky srbocharvatsky srkati, bulharsky sarkam. Zvukomalebne: vzeslo ze srs priponovym k.
Strebati: csl. srBbati, starocesky strebati z praslovansky *sBrb-, starorusky *serb-, v cesky t vkl). Rusky serbat, Polski sarbac, Slovinsky srbati, Praslovansky *sbrb- dochov. v mist, jm. Mleko-srby. Srk, srkanje, srkati, srknuti are Serbo-Croat words for sipping, licking, lapping, drinking slowly; Sisasti, suck, suckle; Dojiti, nursing, feeding a baby; Lizati, for lick, lap (J. Holub, E Kopecny, Etymologicky slovnik jazyka ceskeho, 1952; V. Machek, Etymologicky Slovnik Jazyka Ceskkeho a Slovenskeho, 1957).
H. SCHUSTER-SEWC
One of Germany's foremost linguists and authorities on Serb/Slavic languages and dialects, H. Schuster-Sewc, finds substantial merit in Bruckner's theory.3 He writes:
The root *srb- which is found in the words Srb(in) and Serb we can agree is easy to recognize in such onomatopoetic words such as the Slovenian srbati, Old Church Slavic srbrati, Bulgarian srbam, Russian serbat, Ukrainian serbaty, White Russian serbac, Polish sarbac, serbac amd sierbac, siorbac 'srkati'. In other Slavic languages we also have the form with the apophonic root -er- (*serbati), compare with Slovenian srebati, Upper Luzica srebac, Lower Luzica srjebas, Old Russian serbati-Czech strebati and Slovak strebati. In opposition, Russian serbat: Polish sarbac at the same time tell us that the root *sib)r- can appear in two variants, one withs the
frontal palatal *rbr, the other, with the hack nonpalatal *rbr. Moreover, Schuster-Sewc writes, Buckner's hypothesis is consistent with the historical-social record. The notion that in the first instance Srb(in)/Serb connotes 'brother by mother's milk, brothers nursed by the same breasts' makes good sense in terms of the matriarchal order believed to prevail in early Indo-European society, on kinship and commu-nity based on maternal lineage.
SEREV, SEVERb
Next, HPT deals with a contending interpretation relating to the East Slavic Sever. HPT writes: The attempts presented above to explain the names of the Slavs and Serbs directly upon Slavic linguistic grounds collide, however, with the inter-pretation accepted by some scholars of the East Slavic name Severb, having to do with the peoples situated at the basin of the Desna, Sejm and Sula rivers, and also with the interpretation of the terms Severi, Severci, appearing in the Balkans. In-deed, K. Moszynski sees in the East Slavic Severb, Severa, Severjane and earlier form *Serev - (< —*Serv), which was contaminated under the influence of the term severB 'north' and linked with the Slavic ethnonym Serb, yet is is difficult not to perceive the unmistakable connection between the East Slavic and South Slavic names, and thus a convincing interpretation must be based on premises that em-brace both these Slavic groups. Z. Golab proposes such an interpretation, viewing the etymology of the Slavic ethnonyms Slovene, Sbrbi // Sbrbi and Severb on Indo-European grounds. Deriving the Slavic Sev(-er) from the Proto-Indo-Indo-European koi«o-,*kei«o, the Slavic Svob-en- (secondarily Sloven-) from the Proto-Indo-Eu-ropean suoho- and the Slavic Sbrb-, Skrb- from the Proto-Indo-EuProto-Indo-Eu-ropean *ker-bho, Golab ascribes the same original meaning 'kinsman, member of the clan' to all of these Proto-Indo-European roots, a meaning further supported by numer-ous examples drawn from other Indo-European languages. In his opinion, this meaning lay at the foundation of the Proto-Indo-European system of ethnic names at a time when the mobility of individual ethnic units didn't allow for self-identifi-cation by reference to concrete territories.
Continuing the course of reasoning of Z. Golab, HPT writes: We ought to consider that all these names serving as appellatives with the meaning 'relative, member of the clan' on Proto-Indo-European grounds were already functioning on Slavic grounds as ethnonyms without perception of this original meaning by its speakers. In this formulation, the fact of the recurrence of the Slavic names formed from the roots *Sever- *Sloven, *Sbrb-, Sbrb- in North- and South- Slavdom must have for the scholar another significance: Since they were already concrete names, and not appellatives, from their recurrence in different spheres of Slavdom one can draw conclusions about the wanderings and migrations of the Slavic tribes—and these very suggestions are contained in the further deliberations of Z. Golab. So, once again it has been shown how strongly the methods adopted by scholars for determining the etymology of particular ethnonyms bear upon extra-linguistic conclusions.