Sent me to Claude to see if it could answer a question I’ve had for a while.
Me:
A lot of European languages word for father seem to be traceable to Latin. Where did the Russian отец come from?
Claude:
Russian “отец” (otets) doesn’t come from Latin “pater” like many other European words for “father.” Instead, it has a different etymology within the Slavic language family.
The Russian “отец” derives from Proto-Slavic *otьcь, which is itself derived from an earlier form related to Proto-Slavic *ata (a child’s word for father, similar to “daddy”). The suffix -ьcь was added to create a more formal term. This Proto-Slavic root is cognate with words in other Slavic languages like Polish “ojciec,” Czech “otec,” and Bulgarian “отец.”
The ultimate origin traces back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂étteh₂ or *h₂atta, which was likely originally a nursery word (baby talk for father). This same root also gave rise to words like Hittite “atta” and some other Indo-European languages’ informal words for father.
So while Latin “pater” (from PIE *ph₂tḗr) spread to give us father words in Romance languages and some borrowings elsewhere, the Slavic languages preserved their own ancient Indo-European root for father that was originally more informal or affectionate in nature. This is why Russian “отец” sounds so different from “father,” “père,” “padre,” “Vater,” etc. - it comes from a completely different branch of the Indo-European family tree.
I majored in CSci, minored in Linguistics and studied Russian in college so this has been on my mind for a while. I suppose I should have known that Slavic words have much different etymologies than Western European languages.
I feel like among the words for close relatives отец is the exception actually. Consider:
Сын <-> Son
Брат <-> Brother
Дочь <-> Daughter
Сестра <-> Sister
(And you mentioned мать yourself)
Now the interesting question (and the one I'm too lazy to look up) is where does the link comes from. Is it Latin or is it just the common PIE heritage? I feel like these connections have nothing to do with Latin specifically. Russian and English words for brother and sister are related to frater/soror, but they sound more similar to each other. And then there are words for son and daughter which sound almost the same when the Latin would be just anything but that.
I’ll defer to actual experts here. I’m an amateur flailing around.
Claude agrees that the root predates the Latin
Claude:
“The Russian word мать (mat’) meaning “mother” has ancient Indo-European roots. It derives from Proto-Slavic *mati, which itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *méh₂tēr.
This same ancient root gave rise to the word for “mother” across many Indo-European languages - you can see the similarity in Latin mater, Greek μήτηρ (mētēr), Sanskrit mātṛ, and even English “mother” (through Germanic mōdēr).”
Indeed, it’s the same root, which is still amazing to see. It blows my mind when a word is nearly the same in two languages that diverged thousands of years ago!
An interesting corollary—the slang term “man” - as in the Sixties “Hey, man, what’s up?” - derived from African-American disgust with the “boy” insult.
I found it interesting that you had the root *bo- along with baby-talk. We often put an -ee/-y sound on the end of pet names , especially as children. Could boy be an abbreviated version of bo-ee, maybe slurred together through use and accent?
Irish often refer to young men as "boy-o," which sounds similar to "buck-o" (or "buckaroo"). When I'be heard or read these terms, they are used to remind the young man that he is inexperienced and has much left to learn about life.
Very interesting piece.
Sent me to Claude to see if it could answer a question I’ve had for a while.
Me:
A lot of European languages word for father seem to be traceable to Latin. Where did the Russian отец come from?
Claude:
Russian “отец” (otets) doesn’t come from Latin “pater” like many other European words for “father.” Instead, it has a different etymology within the Slavic language family.
The Russian “отец” derives from Proto-Slavic *otьcь, which is itself derived from an earlier form related to Proto-Slavic *ata (a child’s word for father, similar to “daddy”). The suffix -ьcь was added to create a more formal term. This Proto-Slavic root is cognate with words in other Slavic languages like Polish “ojciec,” Czech “otec,” and Bulgarian “отец.”
The ultimate origin traces back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂étteh₂ or *h₂atta, which was likely originally a nursery word (baby talk for father). This same root also gave rise to words like Hittite “atta” and some other Indo-European languages’ informal words for father.
So while Latin “pater” (from PIE *ph₂tḗr) spread to give us father words in Romance languages and some borrowings elsewhere, the Slavic languages preserved their own ancient Indo-European root for father that was originally more informal or affectionate in nature. This is why Russian “отец” sounds so different from “father,” “père,” “padre,” “Vater,” etc. - it comes from a completely different branch of the Indo-European family tree.
Claude is right! This *atta is the same root I wrote about in an earlier article: https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/the-king-named-little-daddy?utm_source=publication-search
I majored in CSci, minored in Linguistics and studied Russian in college so this has been on my mind for a while. I suppose I should have known that Slavic words have much different etymologies than Western European languages.
I feel like among the words for close relatives отец is the exception actually. Consider:
Сын <-> Son
Брат <-> Brother
Дочь <-> Daughter
Сестра <-> Sister
(And you mentioned мать yourself)
Now the interesting question (and the one I'm too lazy to look up) is where does the link comes from. Is it Latin or is it just the common PIE heritage? I feel like these connections have nothing to do with Latin specifically. Russian and English words for brother and sister are related to frater/soror, but they sound more similar to each other. And then there are words for son and daughter which sound almost the same when the Latin would be just anything but that.
I looked up the etymology of отец recently as well, thinking the same thing. Same as English "dad"!
The kicker here is that Russian uses a Latin influenced word ‘мать’ for ‘mother’.
Hmm that's not Latin influenced, it's just the same root in PIE, *méh₂tēr
I’ll defer to actual experts here. I’m an amateur flailing around.
Claude agrees that the root predates the Latin
Claude:
“The Russian word мать (mat’) meaning “mother” has ancient Indo-European roots. It derives from Proto-Slavic *mati, which itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *méh₂tēr.
This same ancient root gave rise to the word for “mother” across many Indo-European languages - you can see the similarity in Latin mater, Greek μήτηρ (mētēr), Sanskrit mātṛ, and even English “mother” (through Germanic mōdēr).”
Indeed, it’s the same root, which is still amazing to see. It blows my mind when a word is nearly the same in two languages that diverged thousands of years ago!
Pulling my copy of The Major World Languages (edited by Bernard Cormier) off my shelf now.
Chapter 15 Russian
An interesting corollary—the slang term “man” - as in the Sixties “Hey, man, what’s up?” - derived from African-American disgust with the “boy” insult.
Boy, am I confused! 🥸
I found it interesting that you had the root *bo- along with baby-talk. We often put an -ee/-y sound on the end of pet names , especially as children. Could boy be an abbreviated version of bo-ee, maybe slurred together through use and accent?
On that baby-talk theory of "boy", it'd be a similar concept, just transposed back in time, when the nickname suffix was something like -ia.
Oh cool! I was just wondering, as I’ve no clue really. It was just what hit me from reading your article. Nice to know I followed along ok. 😁
Irish often refer to young men as "boy-o," which sounds similar to "buck-o" (or "buckaroo"). When I'be heard or read these terms, they are used to remind the young man that he is inexperienced and has much left to learn about life.
The Latin 'puer' also has a secondary meaning of 'slave.'
It seems hard to find a word for "boy" in an ancient language that doesn't also mean "slave" or "servant"!
Fascinating. Thank you. When I saw Horn approach the gate, I thought, "Yay! Another story to animate how a word came to life!"
Writing those has become my favourite part!
When are we getting Colin Gorrie's original fiction ? Either historical fiction or fantasy that feels immersive and authentic 🙂↕️
Don't tempt me! 😉
it's really quite maddening that we don't seem to have any good etymology for either "boy" or "girl" (and probably won't any time soon...)
Yeah... but at least it gives me something to write about!
The mention of Scots made me wonder what sorts of investigations people might have made about a Celtic connection-slash-origin
Thank you!
Thanks for reading, Fred!
To add to the complications, there are dialects in which "boy" means "bachelor."
This in part reflects medieval views that youngsters work for someone else and are unwed. When they grow up, they work for themselves and get married.