Hungarian Historical Phonology szik

szik 'Alkaliboden, Sodaboden, Sodaerde'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

[coming]

Important dialectal forms

szík

szejke

Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

(Obsolete:)

UEW: ? Proto-Ugric *ćȣ̈kkɜ 'salt; Salz'

Status of the Ugric etymology

Implausible

Loan etymology

A loan from an Iranian form akin to Ossetic (Iron ) cæχχ, (Digor) cænχ 'salt' (see Korenchy 1972: 77-78 with references)

Cognates suggested in earlier research

Mansi: South (TJ) ćik, East (KU) śäχ, West (P) śäχ 'Salz'

Commentary

The connection of the Hungarian and Mansi words has been doubted for long, and neither Korenchy (1972), UEW nor EWUng take the etymology for granted. It is noted in the UEW and EWUng that the consonant correspondence (Hu sz ~ Ms *ć) in Anlaut is irregular: this is correct, but it should be added that also Mansi word-internal χ does not correspont to Hungarian k regularly, as one would expect *k in Mansi from Proto-Ugric/Proto-Uralic *kk. It is clear that these words cannot be cognates and no Proto-Ugric word can be reconstructed.

The loan etymology is uncertain: Korenchy (1972: 77–78) and Abaev (I: 310) note that Ossetic cæχχ, cænχ is isolated within Iranian (Korenchy reconstructs Middle Iranian *čäχ but this reconstruction is only based on the Iron word). Abaev notes that the Ossetic word might have a Caucasian etymology. The Mansi word could perhaps be explained as an Alanic loan if we assume that the word existed in the Alanic variant that was in contact with Mansi (the Proto-Mansi palatal affricate corresponds to Iranian *č in Mansi (North śak < Proto-Mansi *ćǟk ← Ir *čakuš- 'Hammer', see Korenchy 1972: 78, so if the Alanic word had *č, it would show a similar substitution). Deriving the Hungarian word from Alanic is more unlikely, as the í vocalism would be unexpected, and no parallels for Hu sz ~ Ossetic c exist.

Conclusion

The Hungarian and Mansi cognates are irregular and no Proto-Ugric word can be reconstructed. The Iranian loan etymology requires more research (the loan etymology is more probable for the Mansi word than the Hungarian one).

References

EWUng: 1431-1432, s.v. szik: ? PUg ? ← Ir

Korenchy 1972: 77-78: ? PUg ? ← Ir

UEW s.v. ćȣ̈kkɜ: ? PUg ? ← Ir Uralonet