Hungarian Historical Phonology vár

vár 'wait'

First attestation/Old Hungarian data

? 1184 Warov (see EWUng)

Important dialectal forms

[coming]

Uralic/Ugric/Pre-Hungarian reconstruction

*wara-

UEW; MSzFE: 672-673, s.v. vár:

PUg *warɜ- ‘guard, wait; hüten, warten‘

Status of the Ugric etymology

Plausible

Loan etymology

None suggested so far

Cognates suggested in earlier research

UEW:

Mansi: South (TJ) ōr- 'warten', East (KM) wūr- 'warten; sich hüten', West (P) der. wurlǟt- 'ein wenig warten', North (So) So ūr- 'warten' < Proto-Mansi *wūr-

Aikio (manuscript, 2019):

? Nganasan barə- ’wait’

Commentary

The Ugric etymology is regular and convincing: Hungarian vár and Mansi *ūr- can be regularly derived from an Ugric/Uralic *a-a -stem.

Aikio (in a manuscript published online) has noted that Nganasan barə- ’wait’ (< Proto-Samoyed *warə- or *we̮rə-) might be a cognate of the Ugric words, although the correspondence is not completely regular.

Conclusion

A regular Ugric etymology with a possible Samoyed cognate.

References

Aikio (manuscript, 2019): ? PU

EWUng 1606, s.v. vár¹: Proto-Ugric

MSzFE 672-673, s.v. vár: Proto-Ugric

UEW s.v. warɜ-: Proto-Ugric Uralonet