< Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic
Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/bair
Proto-West Germanic
Alternative reconstructions
- *baiʀ
Etymology
Unknown. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *baizaz (compare Old Norse bassi (“boar”)). Likely related to Proto-Brythonic *basio- ~ *baðio- (modern Welsh baedd, which compare for possible cognates), but solid Indo-European cognates outside of West Germanic and Celtic are lacking. The word could have been borrowed from a pre-Indo-European (substrate) population of the area by Germanic and/or Celtic-speaking populations.[1]
Noun
*bair m[1]
- boar
Inflection
Masculine a-stem | ||
---|---|---|
Singular | ||
Nominative | *bair | |
Genitive | *bairas | |
Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | *bair | *bairō, *bairōs |
Accusative | *bair | *bairā |
Genitive | *bairas | *bairō |
Dative | *bairē | *bairum |
Instrumental | *bairu | *bairum |
Hyponyms
- *ebur (“wild boar”)
Descendants
- Old English: bār
- Middle English: bar, bor
- Scots: bair
- English: boar
- Middle English: bar, bor
- Old Frisian: *bār
- West Frisian: bear
- Old Saxon: bēr
- Middle Low German: bêr
- Low German: Behr
- Middle Low German: bêr
- Old Dutch: *bēr; bēro
- Middle Dutch: bere, beer
- Dutch: beer (“boar”)
- Middle Dutch: bere, beer
- Old High German: bēr, pēr, pair
- Middle High German: bēr
- Central Franconian: Bier
- Luxembourgish: Béier
- German: Bär (“boar”) (obsolete)
- Central Franconian: Bier
- Middle High German: bēr
Further reading
- Albertas Steponavičius, Diachronic Linguistics and Etymology (2006), page 111:
- Etymologies of the names for 'wild boar'
- […]
- ModE boar < OE bar < WGmc *bairaz; cf. OHG per, Du. beer.
References
- Kroonen, Guus (2013), “*baira-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 48