User:Victar/Sandbox14

Of uncertain kinship. Relatable to Lithuanian balánda and Latvian balodene (“goosefoot (Chenopodium); orach (Atriplex gen. et spp.)”), and even a distant relationship to German Melde (“Atriplex gen. et spp.”) and its Germanic family cannot be excluded. A derivation from Proto-Indo-European *albʰós (“white”) begs the semantical question whether there are characteristic white parts with the orach or chenopod, any more relevantly than to artificially find the name Chenopodium album. Ancient Greek λάπαθον (lápathon, “sorrel”, a meaning also present in Turkish) may be related by being borrowed from an Indo-European language close to Balto-Slavic as Dacian, Thracian, or Illyrian, connected to Albanian lëpjetë (“sorrel”), wheras Ancient Greek βλῐ́τον (blíton, “purple amaranth”) might be an inherited cognate.

• Early Middle Chinese 萊 (ləj, “goosefoot, Chenopodium album”), Early Middle Chinese 萊菔 (ləj-buwk, “radish”)

• from Proto-Indo-European *h₁l̥-pód-eh₂, from *h₁el- (“a type of bird, waterfowl”) +‎ *pedés (“foot”) +‎ *eh₂, compare χήν (khḗn, “goose”) +‎ πούς (poús, “foot”)

• from Uralic, compare Hungarian láb (“foot, leg”)

Cihac suggests that the word is interrelated with Hungarian láb (“foot, leg”) and thus derives from Uralic, comparing Romanian laba gâștei (“chenopod”, literally “goose paw”), syn. talpa gâștei (“goose sole”), and the botanical Chenopodium from χήν (khḗn, “goose”) +‎ πούς (poús, “foot”) (but most of such like German Gänsefuß (“chenopod”) and English goosefoot are calqued from the taxonomic; instead compare Middle Armenian բազուկ (bazuk, “beet”, literally “arm”)). Nonetheless Georg Holzer ascribes the word to the Indo-European substrate he calls “Temematic”, deriving in it as a bahúvrīhi compound of Proto-Indo-European *h₁el- (“goose”, according to him) and *pṓds (“foot”).

Of the same origin is a Common Turkic term *alabuda everywhere meaning plants of the Atripliceae syn. Chenopodieae tribe that is not found in Chuvash or Yakut.

Descendance from Proto-Iranian *(h)rabā́š ~ *(h)rabacáh (“rhubarb”) (see there for more) may explain this geographical picture, rhubarb (Rheum) and sorrel (Rumex) anciently being confusables of the same botanical tribe, compare the concept of monk's rhubarb (Rumex alpinus and Rumex patientia), which is also a meaning of Ancient Greek λάπαθον (lápathon), with superficial similarity to the orach (Atriplex) and goosefoot (Chenopodium) vegetable plants.