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From: "Paul J. Kriha" <kriha_p@actrix.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Is there a doctor in the house?
Message-ID: <D1IrCC.1uz@actrix.gen.nz>
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Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 11:45:47 GMT
References:  <3dptc6$nul@gordon.enea.se>
Lines: 63

sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) wrote:
>
[...]
> The Swedish word f|r "doctor" (beside "doktor") is "l{kare"
> which goes back on the verb "l{ka" (heal). -are is as we've 
> discussed some times ago a very old common Germanic loan
> from Latin. Danish and Icelandic have words similar to the 
> Swedish ones.
> 
> In Finnish "doctor" is "l{{keri" and "heal" is "l{{kit{" with
> the reservation I might be wrong on the details after "l{{k".
> On the other and Estonian doesn't seem to have anything similar.
> 
> In Polish the words are "lekarz" and "leczyc'". I haven't found
> a Russian cognate to "lekarz", but we have "medicine" = "lekarstvo".
> And "heal" is "lechit'". And another poster was kind to provide
> several related glosses from Croatian and Slovene with "lek-".

Similarly in Czech.
  "le'kar^" or "doktor" = "the doctor"
  "le'k" = "the medicine"
  "le'ka'rna" = "the pharmacy"
  "le'karni'k" = "the pharmacist"
  "le'kar^stvi'" = "medical science"
  "le'c^it" = "to heal"
  "lektvar" = "a healing potion"
  "le'kor^ice" = "liquorice" ???
     etc.
Another poster mentioned possible Celtic origins of "lek-"
or "l{k-". I have no evidence at hand to support that theory,
but, it sounds to me quite plausible. The great Celtic nations
resided in Central Europe, e.g. Boii in the area of today's 
Bohemia - Czech Republic. They probably mostly assimilated
with Germanic and Slavic invaders leaving some of their words
and placenames (such as Elbe/Labe/Albion, Jizera/Yzerre) behind.

I'd expect "lek-" to have been borrowed independently by 
Germanic and Slavic speakers directly from Celtic in the
areas of Continental Celtic influence.

> Now is the question: do we have the same word here, or do we
> have a coincidence? If they are the same, how come North-
> Germanic, Slavic and Finnish share a word? OK, Finnish may
> have borrowed verb and noun from Swedish, but if it is a
> common Slavic-Germanic verb, wouldn't we expect it in the
> West-Germanic languages? Or have they lost it?
> 
> Another question is the Polish -arz, this seems to be related
> to the Swedish -are or more generally the Latin -arium. Is
> that so? And if, which way did Polish get it? German? But how
> come it is applied on a few non-loanwords as "pisac'" and
> "leczyc'"?

Both -a'r and -a'r^ are common Czech/Slavic noun suffixies.
I don't think it likely for them to be late imports from
Latin and certainly not German. Perhaps they have common
roots in the older I.E.language(s).

> -- 
> Erland Sommarskog, sommar@enea.se, Stockholm
> "Person-person - a politically correct designation of 'mail-man'"
> Wiley's Dictionary

