Talk:σπήλαιον
Latest comment: 13 years ago by 77.40.23.37 in topic Tea room discussion
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What if any is the relationship between Greek (deprecated template usage) σπηλιά and (deprecated template usage) σπήλαιον, Albanian (deprecated template usage) shpellë, and English spelunk? It seems they all ultimately come from Slavic. — hippietrail 12:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
- Are you sure spelunk ultimately is from a Slavic language? I don’t know what Slavic language it would be. Russian has спелеология (speleologija), but that’s borrowed from Greek. I think English spelunk is from Ancient Greek σπήλυγξ (spḗlunx), related to σπéος (spéos) and to σπήλαιον (spḗlaion). —Stephen 09:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
- It's the other way around: Serbian spilja is directly derived from Greek σπηλιά, since no other Slavic languages have it, and Serbian dialects are located near Greek dialects (maybe via Bulgaria ones, don't know). -η- ~ -i- suggests a very late time of borrowing, whereas ancient Greek authors had -e- instead. 77.40.23.37 11:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)