Hungarian Historical Phonology hív

hív 'call; rufen; nennen, heißen'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

[coming]

Important dialectal forms

Notable variants include hé, héj (ÚMTSz II: 966-967, s.v. hív)

Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

? Pre-Hu *ke̮wi- (see below)

Obsolete:

UEW: ? PU *kanɜ- (*kaŋɜ-)

Loan etymology

Hu ← Ir *gawH- 'call upon, invoke' (a new idea)

Cognates suggested in earlier research

MSzFE, UEW:

? Samoyed: Tundra Nenets χāŋādmʔ ‘ich bitte’, Enets kaŋa- ‘bitten, rufen’, Selkup (Taz) k͔uera- ‘rufen’ and Mator кагнамъ ‘прошу’

Commentary

Ir *gawH- 'call upon, invoke' (a new idea) Cheung 2007: 115

In the Uralonet database, the word is erroneously listed as "Ug ?U", but the etymology of hív is not found in the part of the UEW where the Ugric lexicon is listed. Both UEW and MSzFE list the uncertain Uralic etymology, however. It is obvious that this etymology is incorrect: the Proto-Samoyed word *kåŋ- (Helimski 1997: 267; SW: 56) cannot correspond to the Hungarian word as the vocalism would be completely irregular.

An Iranian loan etymology is suggested by Holopainen (manuscript): several different Pre-Hungarian reconstructions for hív are possible, but if the word goes back to earlier *ke̮wi-, the word might be explained as a loan from Proto-Iranian *gawH- ‘to call upon, invoke’ (Cheung 2007: 115; > Chwarezmian γwy- ‘praise’ etc.), with the substitution *e̮ ← *a found in some early Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic.

Conclusion

The Proto-Uralic etymology is completely irregular. A new Iranian loan etymology for Hungarian hív is presented here.

References

MSzFE: 286, s.v. hív: ? Proto-Uralic

UEW s.v. kanɜ- (*kaŋɜ-) : ? Proto-Uralic Uralonet