чувто

Erzya

Чувто.

Etymology

From Proto-Mordvinic *šuvtə, from Proto-Finno-Permic *šukta (“tree species”). Cognate with Moksha шуфта (šufta), Finnish huhta and Estonian uht. The Finno-Volgaic word was probably borrowed from Proto-Iranian [Term?]; compare Persian سوختن (sôxtan, “to burn”).

More

Nicolaes Witsen in his work Noord en оost Tartarye notes an archaic word pu meaning “male genitalia”, so *šuvtə possibly replaced the hypothetical Proto-Mordvinic *pu (“tree”) due to the new, offensive meaning of the native word.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ɕuvto/
• Rhymes: -uvto
• Hyphenation: чув‧то

Noun

чувто • (čuvto)

1. tree
   • 1865, Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann, Das Evangelium des Matthäus ersamordwinisch, page 21:

     Isťa eŕva paro tšuvto paro raštamotgak kandy, i beŕan tšuvto beŕan raštamot kandy.

     Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Declension

This entry needs an inflection-table template.

Related terms

• чувтомомс (čuvtomoms)
• чувтонь (čuvtoń)

References

• V. I. Ščankina (2011) Russko-mokšansko-erzjanskij slovarʹ [Russian-Moksha-Erzya Dictionary], Saransk, →ISBN
• Entry #1623 in Uralonet, online Uralic etymological database of the Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics.