Hungarian Historical Phonology sajt

sajt 'cheese'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

[coming]

Important dialectal forms

[coming]

Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

? *čaγtV or *če̮γtV

Loan etymology

1. Hu ← Turkic, cf. Armeno-Kipchak čïġït ‘cheese’

2. Hu ← Iranian, cf. Khwarezmian caxat, Ossetic cyxt ‘cheese’

Cognates suggested in earlier research

See Honti 2017

Commentary

Both Turkic and Iranian loan etymologies have been suggested, and formally both are possible. WOT assumes that the word is originally from Iranian but transmitted to Hungarian through Turkic. Christol (2019) assumes that the Hungarian word is borrowed from Iranian.

However, there is one phonological argument that might make the Turkic etymology more convincing: there are many parallels to the correspondence Hu a ~ Turkic *ï, whereas a loan from a form akin to Ossetic cyxt would be problematic regarding the vowel substitution, as no exact parallels to Hu a ~ Ossetic y (< PIr *i) are known.

It is unclear what is the relationship of the Turkic and the Iranian words, and further research is needed. The connection of Ossetic cyxt 'cheese' and cyrg 'sharp' (< PIr *tiγra-) has been doubted by Christol (2019: 26).

Conclusion

Hungarian sajt is probably borrowed from Turkic, although the Iranian origin cannot be ruled out.

References

Abaev 1958–1989: I: 328

Christol 2019: 25–26: Hu ← Iranian

EWUng

Holopainen & Czentnár 2021 (handout): Hu probably ← Iranian [presentation]

Honti 2017: 50

Sköld 1925: 80

Ligeti 1986: 129, 185, 542

Róna-Tas 2017: 52: Hu ← Turkic or ← Iranian (ultimately ← Iranian)

WOT: 688–689, 1335: Hu ← Turkic or ← Iranian (ultimately ← Iranian)