Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/biba

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

Onomatopoeic, from the call bi-bi + *-a.

Noun

*biba f

1. type of bird (fowl, game bird) or bird's bill

Declension

Declension of *biba (hard a-stem)

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	*biba	*bibě	*biby
genitive	*biby	*bibu	*bibъ
dative	*bibě	*bibama	*bibamъ
accusative	*bibǫ	*bibě	*biby
instrumental	*bibojǫ, *bibǫ**	*bibama	*bibami
locative	*bibě	*bibu	*bibasъ, *bibaxъ*
vocative	*bibo	*bibě	*biby

^* -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).

Derived terms

• *bibę (“chick”)
• *bibъka f, *bibica f, *bibьcь m

Descendants

• South Slavic:
  • Bulgarian: би́ба (bíba, “duck's bill”), би́бка (bíbka, “duck, fowl”) (dialectal)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: бѝба (“fowl”) (dialectal, Serbian)

    ⇒ Latin script: bíbac (“turkey”) (Bosnian)

  • ⇒ Serbo-Croatian: bíbati (“to gather around water, to cause commotion”)
    • ⇒ Serbo-Croatian: bȋba (“place where waterfowl gather”) (dialectal, Croatian)
    • → Slovene: bíba (“buzzer, insect”), bíbavicа (“tidal wave”) (18 cent.)
• West Slavic:
  • ⇒ Slovak: bibic (“common chaffinch”)

Further reading

• Georgiev, Vladimir I., editor (1971), “биба”, in Български етимологичен речник [Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary] (in Bulgarian), volumes 1 (А – З), Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Pubg. House, →ISBN, page 45
• Skok, Petar (1971) “Proto-Slavic/biba”, in Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika [Etymological Dictionary of the Croatian or Serbian Language] (in Serbo-Croatian), volumes 1 (A – J), Zagreb: JAZU, page 144
• Snoj, Marko (2016) “biba”, in Slovenski etimološki slovar [Slovenian Etymology Dictionary] (in Slovene), 3rd edition, https://fran.si