hekur
Albanian
Alternative forms
- hekun (Gheq)
- ekur
Etymology
Uncertain. There are various possibilities.
- a substrate pre-Indo-European word with no recorded or surviving cognates (words for technologies are retained, otherwise we would have expected Albanian to have borrowed the word for iron by one of the many neighbors, invaders or directly from PIE)
- a substrate word cognate to Old Armenian երկաթ (erkatʿ), via a proto-form with metathesis *herku
- related to hekë, from Proto-Indo-European *skek- 'to jump, be agile', thus 'to tremble, shiver', literally 'that which trembles, jingles', with a semantic development similar to kërcej, meaning both 'to jump, dance' and 'to make a cracking sound'.
- an irregular cognate of Greek ἄγκυρα 'anchor'.
Noun
hekur m (indefinite plural hekura, definite singular hekuri, definite plural hekurat)
- iron (the metal)
Related terms
- hekë
References
- Schrader, Otto (1890) Prehistoric antiquities of the Aryan peoples: a manual of comparative philology and the earliest culture, translated from the 2nd German edition by Frank Byron Jevons, London: Charles Griffin and Company, page 210