Festschri{t in Hanar olAndras J. E.

Bodragligeti
İstanbul 2007 , edited by Kurtuluş Öztopçu

Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 17 (2007): 99- ı 02

Arpad Berta
(Szeged)

i would like to express my aprıreciation

for Prof. Andras Bodrogligeti by
subınitting the following etymolOgy, which İs to be published in the
upcoming book The Early Turkie Loan-Words in Hungarian, written by
Prof. Andras R6na-Tas and myself (see Berta-R6na-Tas 2002). i specially
selected this etyınologic proposal from among those i have written as it
discusses a Hungarian word which was earlier regarded to be of unknown
origin.
Hungarian serleg is, however, a word of Western Old Turkic (WOT)
origin showing a very İlnportant phonetic feature: Cmilinon Turkic s- ~
WOT s- ~ Hungarian s- [S]. This phonetic feature as it is well known comes
up before original and secondary vowel -1-. it is represented İn genuine
Chuvash words (cf. e.g. sapar 'metla, ınetelka; yenik; golik (razg.)' ~ cf.
EOT sipir- 'to sweep', sal!am 'moj ınladsij brat, bratiska; bratniki, bratiskin;
bratiska, bratok (obrascenie k mladsemu po vozrastu)' ~ cf. EOT sini!
'younger sister', sur (sura) 'belizna; belyj, svetlyj' < OldChuv *siariğ ~ cf.
EOT siiriğ 'yellow'). The exact chronology of the conditioned WOT sound
change *s- > *s- is doubtful, however, the OT loan words of the Hungarian
show it very dearly, that it ınust be occurred before the 10ıh c.
Hungarian serleg [serleg] is first documented İn the H wrİtten sources in
the 15 th c. it occurs as serıik (1413/1418) and sirlegh (1440). Barczİ (1941:
269b), then Benkö (1967-/3:524b-525a) considered the H word to be of
unknown origin. According to Mollay (1982:493-496) the H word can be of
Gennan origin and the word can go back to a Middle High German
compound seh iure 'Becher' + lue 'Deckel', but this compound is not attested

* This artiele was completed within the [ramewark of the Turkology Reseaı'ch Group
warkshop of the Hlll1gaı'ian Academy of Sciences and the University of Szeged.

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100 ARPADBERTA

in the Gennan sources. Benkö (1993-/2:1321-1322) refused Mollay's

etymology. Ligeti (1986) did not mention serleg among the T loans of the H
19.
According to our investigation H serleg can go back either to WOT
*sirlig (?si'rli'g) < *sIr+IXg (A) or *sirla-g (*si'rla-g) < *sIr+IA-(X)g (B).
The base of the above reconstructed WOT forms is sIr which has the
Eastern O Id Turkic corresponding fonn si'r as it is documented in Kashgari' s
compendium: si'r 'lacquer; a paste with which Şını bowls are smeared, then
painted upon'. The T word si'r 'lacquer' (see Rasanen 1969 :418a; Clauson
1972:842b-843a) is a Chinese loan. Doerfer (1967: 238-239) called our
attention that in Kashgari the word si'r was used only for porcelain objects.
Porcelain (chinaware) and lacquer are the products of China, cf. also Arabic-
Persian şfnf 'porcelain; chinaware' < 'Chinese'. The Chinese word via T
ınediation was borrowed into Mo (cf sir n. 'varnish, lacquer' (Lessing)), see
als o Scerbak 1997: 166). it appeared also in some Caucasian languages as
borrowing from the T languages.
The T word si'r is documented iri the Old and Middle Turkic sources only
sporadically, cf. however si'r 'Lack' (UCiv-WP03:6,8.10), si'rla- 'schnitzen'
(LCCG). The word coınes up in some conteınporary T languages with the
ıneanings 'lacquer; glaze (on pottery); silvering (on mİrrors)' and the like
(cf. Dybo (ed.) 2003:409). In TatKRsi'rıneans 'rezlba; Schnitzwerk'.
A. In Kashgari's coınpendium one can find the adjectival construction
sh'liğ ayiiq 'A bowl so smeared and painted'. Such an adjectival construction
could have been the base of the proposed T etymon (WOT *sirliğ ~ EOT
sirliğ). In this case the copied form was a back-fonnation. Froın
morphologic point of view the word is an adjective formed with the suffix
+IXg (on the derivation see Erdal 1991: 139-155).
B. The T etyınon of the H word, however, can also be the deriyatiye of
the T verb sirla- 'to colour, glaze' in the fonn sirlağ or sirlak 'lacquered'.
The T verb sirla- is transitiye (cf. ayiiqci' ayiiq sirliidr 'The bowl-maker
lacquered the bowl (to paint it)' (Kashgari), thus the suffixes -(X)g or ~(O)k
can form from it the object of the action denoted by sirla-.
H serleg 'cup, goblet' belongs to that category of the OT loans where the
H 19 preserved a WOT word whith a characteristic phonetic feauture. In
conteınporary Chuvash one can find sadi, sar 'kraska i kraski; kraska (na
lice), rumjanec' which is not a WOT lexİcal element, but a Tat loan.

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 ON THE ORIGIN OF HUNGARIAN SERLEG 'CUP, GOBLET' 101

Abbreviations and references

Barczi, G. (1941): Magyar sz6fejto sz6tar. Budapest.

Benko L. (Ed.) (1967-1984): Amagyar nyelv törteneti-etimol6giai szotara.
Vol. 1-4. [VoL. 1. 1967; vol. 2. 1970; vol. 3. 1976; vol. 4.
(Index), 1984.] Budapest.
Benko, L. (Ed.) (1993-1997): Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Ungarischen.
Vol. 1-3. [VoL. ı. 1993; voL. 2. 1995; vol. 3. (Index), 1997.]
Budapest.
Berta, A. - Rona-Tas, A. (2002): Old Turkic loan words in Hungarian. Acta
Orientalia Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae Vol. 55. 43-
67.
Chuvash see Skvorcov
Clauson, (Sir) G. (1972): An etymological dictionary of pre-thirteenth-
century Turkish. Oxford.
D ankoff, R. - Kelly, 1. (1982-1985). Mahmüd al-Kiisgarf: Compendium of
the Turktc Dialects. Vol. 1-3. Duxbury.
Doerfer, G. (1963-1975): Türkische und mongolische Elemente im
Neupersischen. Vol. 1-4. [VoL. 1. 1963; vol. 2. 1965; vol. 3.
1967; vol. 4. 1975.] Wiesbaden.
Dybo, A. V. (Ed.) (2003) Etimologiceskij slovar' tjurkskih jazykov. Vol. 7.
Moskva.
EOT Eastern Old Turlde
Erdal, M. (1991): Old Turkic wordformation. Vol. 1-2. Wiesbaden.
Gr0nbech, K. (1942): Komanisches Wörterbuch. Türkischer Wortindex zu
Codex Cumanicus. K0benhavn.
H Hungarian
Kashgari see Dankoff-Kelly
LCCG the Gennan part of the Codex Cumanicus, see Gr0nbech
Lessing, F. D. (1960): Mongolian-English dictionary. Berkeley - Los
Angeles.
Mo Mongohan
Mollay K. (1982): Neınet-ınagyar nyelvi erintkezesek a XVI. szazad vegeig.
Budapest.
OT Old Turkic
Radloff, W. (1893-1911): Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte.
Vol. 1-4. [VoL. 1. 1893; vol. 2. 1899; vol. 3. 1905; vol. 4.
1911.] Sanktpeterburg.

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102 ARPADBERTA

Rasanen, M. (1969): Versuch eines etymologischen Wörterbuches der

Türksprachen. Helsinki.
Skvorcov, M. ı. (Ed.) (1982): Cuvassko-russkij slovar'. Moskva.
Scerbak, A.M. (1997): Rannie tjurksko-mongol'skie jazykovye svjazi (VIII-
XIV vv.). Sankt-Peterburg.
UCiv see Yamada
T Turkic
Tat Kazan-Tatar
TatKR Kazan-Tatar data in Radloff
WAT Western Old Turkic
Yamada, N. (1993): Sammlung uigurischer Kontrakte I-III, Herausgegeben
von J. Oda, H. UıTIeıTIura, P. Zieme, T. Moriyasu. Asaka.

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