< Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic

Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/bair

This Proto-West Germanic entry contains reconstructed words and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-West Germanic

Alternative reconstructions
  • *baiʀ

Etymology

Unknown. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *baizaz (compare Old Norse bassi (“boar”)). Likely related to Proto-Brythonic *basio- ~ *baðio- (modern Welsh baedd, which compare for possible cognates), but solid Indo-European cognates outside of West Germanic and Celtic are lacking. The word could have been borrowed from a pre-Indo-European (substrate) population of the area by Germanic and/or Celtic-speaking populations.[1]

Noun

*bair m[1]

  1. boar

Inflection
Masculine a-stem
Singular
Nominative *bair
Genitive *bairas
Singular Plural
Nominative *bair *bairō, *bairōs
Accusative *bair *bairā
Genitive *bairas *bairō
Dative *bairē *bairum
Instrumental *bairu *bairum

Hyponyms

Descendants
  • Old English: bār
    • Middle English: bar, bor
      • Scots: bair
      • English: boar
  • Old Frisian: *bār
  • Old Saxon: bēr
    • Middle Low German: bêr
      • Low German: Behr (Osnabrückisch)
  • Old Dutch: *bēr; bēro
  • Old High German: bēr, pēr, pair
    • Middle High German: bēr
      • German: Bär (“boar”) (dialectal, obsolete outside compounds)

Further reading
  • Albertas Steponavičius, Diachronic Linguistics and Etymology (2006), page 111:
    Etymologies of the names for 'wild boar'
    […]
    ModE boar < OE bar < WGmc *bairaz; cf. OHG per, Du. beer.

References
  1. Kroonen, Guus (2013) , “*baira-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 48
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