On areal variations in semantics in the history of the vocabulary of East Iranian languages

The historical Indo-Iranian lexicon of the Central Asian linguistic area reveals interesting semantic facts that force us to re-consider the etymological sources of words derived from a single Indo-European root. The present article examines a group of East Iranian words that go back to a single Proto-Iranian root, but at the same time exhibit meanings in the Central Asian area that allow for a new se‑ mantic interpretation of this root. Under consideration is the Proto-Iranian root *u̯ arź-, tentatively reconstructed as meaning ‘to act, to do; to work; to make efforts; to be strong, active’. The article investigates the semantic development of this root in later Iranian words (both East Iranian and West Iranian), as well as in Indo-European words, with special attention to the lan‑ guages of the Pamir-Hindu Kush region. The etymologies of the areally diffused words under examination may indicate that the semantics of this Proto-Iranian root included a previously unnoticed additional meaning of ‘weave, knit’. This specific meaning may have been inherited from deep antiquity, possibly even from the protolanguage that birthed the Indo-European dialects. These semantic elements in the Proto-Iranian root under investi‑ gation coincide with similar elements in the Old Russian verb вьрзати (vьrzati). This is an indicator of an additional link in the system of Slavic-Iranian isoglosses.