Hungarian Historical Phonology ár

ár 'price; Preis'

áru 'Ware'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

? 1138 Aruhdí

? 1211 Arud (derivative, personal name)

See EWUng; 51, s.v. áru

Important dialectal forms

[coming]

Uralic/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

? *arγa

Loan etymology

Iranian *arγa- 'price' < Proto-Indo-Iranian *(H)arghá-, cf. OI arghá- ‘price’, Ossetic arγ, Sogdian ’rγ, Bactrian αργο ‘value’ (EWAia I: 114, s.v. arghá ; Sims-Williams 2000: 180)

Cognates suggested in earlier research

Finnish arvo, *arva- < Proto-Finnic *arvo, *arva-

Commentary

The Indo-Iranian origin of Hungarian ár and its alleged cognates is an old idea (see Joki 1973; Holopainen 2019). UEW mentions vaguely that the loan is possible from "ieur." but only Indo-Iranian can come into question. The etymology is accepted by all sources, but recently it has been suggested (Aikio: UED draft) that the Hungarian and Finnic words are parallel loanwords.

The Uralic explanation is formally possible (the relationship of Finnic arvo/arva- and Hu ár is regular and could be derived from PU *arwa), but the Iranian form points to a relatively late (Old Iranian) donor; as the form with a spirant γ in the cluster *rγ has to postdate the Proto-Iranian stage, we can assume that this loan belongs to the same layer as the typically “old Iranian” loans such as arany ‘gold’.

The loan into Hungarian has to be, nevertheless, quite old : traces of the Iranian cluster *rγ have disappeared in the Hungarian side, so the word is borrowed before Proto-Hungarian times.

Conclusion

A convincing loan from Iranian. Hungarian ár and Finnic arva- are probably parallel loans.

References

[See also]

EWUng; 51, s.v. áru: PFU ← Ir

Munkácsi 1901: 136–137

Jokl 1921

FUV: 129

KESK: 34

Katz 1971: 145

Joki 1973: 251–252

Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1984: 925, footnote 1

UEW: PFU ← ? IE Uralonet

Katz 1985: 287

Katz 2003: 229

SSA s.v. arvo

Lushnikova 1990: 31

Parpola 2012: 161

Parpola 2015: 66

Holopainen, Junttila & Kuokkala 2017: 116

Aikio UED draft

Holopainen 2019