Albanian edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

Uncertain. There are various possibilities.

  1. 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 from one of the many neighbors, invaders or directly from PIE)
  2. a substrate word cognate to Old Armenian երկաթ (erkatʻ), via a proto-form with metathesis *herku
  3. 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'.
  4. an irregular cognate of Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ánkura, anchor).
  5. from *soikros (Gustav Meyer), akin to Sanskrit सिञ्चति (siñcáti, to pour out, discharge, emit, shed)

Noun edit

hekur m (plural hekura, definite hekuri, definite plural hekurat)

  1. iron (the metal)
  2. clothes iron

Declension edit

Related terms edit

References edit

  • Schrader, Otto (1890) Frank Byron Jevons, transl., Prehistoric antiquities of the Aryan peoples: a manual of comparative philology and the earliest culture, London: Charles Griffin and Company, page 210