Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/ryba

This Proto-Slavic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Slavic

Etymology

Of uncertain origin.

The central Indo-European word for "fish" *dʰǵʰu- (“fish”) (yielding Ancient Greek ἰχθύς (ikhthús), Lithuanian žuvìs, Old Armenian ձուկն (jukn)) would have given Proto-Slavic v-stem **zy (genitive **zъve, accusative **zъvь), and was, as the theory goes, avoided by fishermen due to taboo, or because it would've sounded too similar to the verb *zъvati (“to call”).

Some of the proposed etymologies include:

• From Early Proto-Slavic *rų̄bā, which is then comparable to *rębъ (“speckled, motley, variegated”), with fish scales being the semantic connection. For a similar development compare *pьstry (“salmonid fish”), originally "the colorful/variegated one" < *pьstrъ (“variegated”).
• From the Early Proto-Slavic root *ūr- (“water, swamp, pond”) which is attested in Baltic languages, with a rare metathesis and the suffix *-ba for forming abstract nouns.

Noun

*rỳba f

1. fish

Inflection

Declension of *rỳba (hard a-stem, accent paradigm a)

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	*rỳba	*rỳbě	*rỳby
genitive	*rỳby	*rỳbu	*rỳbъ
dative	*rỳbě	*rỳbama	*rỳbamъ
accusative	*rỳbǫ	*rỳbě	*rỳby
instrumental	*rỳbojǫ, *rỳbǭ**	*rỳbama	*rỳbamī
locative	*rỳbě	*rỳbu	*rỳbasъ, *rỳbaxъ*
vocative	*rỳbo	*rỳbě	*rỳby

^* -asъ is the expected Balto-Slavic form but is found only in some Old Czech documents; -axъ is found everywhere else and is formed by analogy with other locative plurals in -xъ.
^** The second form occurs in languages that contract early across /j/ (e.g. Czech), while the first form occurs in languages that do not (e.g. Russian).

Descendants

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: рꙑба (ryba)
    • Belarusian: ры́ба (rýba)
    • Russian: ры́ба (rýba)
    • Carpathian Rusyn: рыба (rŷba)
    • Ukrainian: ри́ба (rýba)
• South Slavic:
  • Old Church Slavonic:

    Cyrillic: рꙑба (ryba)

    Glagolitic: ⱃⱏⰺⰱⰰ (ryba)

  • Bulgarian: ри́ба (ríba)
  • Macedonian: ри́ба (ríba)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic: ри̏ба

    Latin: rȉba

  • Slovene: ríba (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Czech: ryba
  • Kashubian: rëba
  • Polabian: roibó
  • Polish: ryba
  • Slovak: ryba
  • Sorbian:
    • Lower Sorbian: ryba
    • Upper Sorbian: ryba

References

• Gluhak, Alemko (1993) “Proto-Slavic/ryba”, in Hrvatski etimološki rječnik [Croatian Etymology Dictionary] (in Serbo-Croatian), Zagreb: August Cesarec, →ISBN
• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “рыба”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress