The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (commonly abbreviated IEED) is a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others. It is financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities and Centre for Linguistics of Leiden University, Brill Publishers, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. [1]
The IEED project is supervised by Alexander Lubotsky. [2] It aims to accomplish the following goals:
The project has so far resulted in the following printed works:
The ruki sound law, also known as the ruki rule or iurk rule, is a historical sound change that took place in the satem branches of the Indo-European language family, namely in Balto-Slavic, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian. According to this sound law, an original *s changed to *š after the consonants *r, *k, *g, *gʰ and the semi-vowels *w (*u̯) and *y (*i̯), as well as the syllabic allophones *r̥, *i, and *u:
*Dyḗus, also *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr, is the reconstructed name of the daylight-sky god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. *Dyēus was conceived as a divine personification of the bright sky of the day and the seat of the gods, the *deywṓs. Associated with the vast diurnal sky and with the fertile rains, *Dyēus was often paired with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth Mother, in a relationship of union and contrast.
*H₂éwsōs or *Haéusōs is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the dawn goddess in the Proto-Indo-European mythology.
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
Robert Stephen Paul Beekes was a Dutch linguist who was emeritus professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University and an author of many monographs on the Proto-Indo-European language.
*Perkʷūnos is the reconstructed name of the weather god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. The deity was connected with fructifying rains, and his name was probably invoked in times of drought. In a widespread Indo-European myth, the thunder-deity fights a multi-headed water-serpent during an epic battle in order to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up. The name of his weapon, *mel-d-(n)-, which denoted both "lightning" and "hammer", can be reconstructed from the attested traditions.
Proto-Indo-European nominals include nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. Their grammatical forms and meanings have been reconstructed by modern linguists, based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages. This article discusses nouns and adjectives; Proto-Indo-European pronouns are treated elsewhere.
Leiden Studies in Indo-European is an academic book series on Indo-European studies.
The series was founded in 1991 and is published by Rodopi.
Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism was the beliefs of the speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian and includes topics such as the mythology, legendry, folk tales, and folk beliefs of early Indo-Iranian culture. By way of the comparative method, Indo-Iranian philologists, a variety of historical linguist, have proposed reconstructions of entities, locations, and concepts with various levels of security in early Indo-Iranian folklore and mythology. The present article includes both reconstructed forms and proposed motifs from the Proto-Indo-Iranian period, generally associated with the Sintashta culture.
Numerous lexemes that are reconstructable for Proto-Slavic have been identified as borrowings from the languages of various tribes that Proto-Slavic speakers interacted with in either prehistoric times or during their expansion when they first appeared in history in the sixth century. Most of the loanwords come from Germanic languages, with other contributors being Iranian, Celtic, and Turkic. Slavic loanwords sparked numerous debates in the 20th century, some of which persist today.
Rick Derksen is a Dutch linguist and Indo-Europeanist at the University of Leiden who specializes in Balto-Slavic historical linguistics with an emphasis on accentology and etymology.
Alwin Kloekhorst is a Dutch linguist, Indo-Europeanist and Hittitologist. He was appointed a full professor in Anatolian Linguistics at Leiden University in November 2023.
Michiel Arnoud Cor de Vaan is a Dutch linguist and Indo-Europeanist. He taught comparative Indo-European linguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology at the University of Leiden until 2014, when he moved to the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. De Vaan had been at the University of Leiden since 1991, first as a student and later as a teacher.
The boukólos rule is a phonological rule of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). It states that a labiovelar stop dissimilates to an ordinary velar stop next to the vowel *u or its corresponding glide *w.
Cowgill's law says that a PIE laryngeal, and possibly, turns into in Proto-Germanic when directly preceded by a sonorant and followed by. This law is named after Indo-Europeanist Warren Cowgill.
Bardhyl Demiraj is an Albanian linguist and Albanologist. He is considered one of the leading experts in the study of Albanian etymology.
Alexander Markovich Lubotsky, also known as Sasha Lubotsky, is a Russian-Dutch linguist and Indologist who specializes in the study of Indo-Iranian languages. He is the editor-in-chief of the Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary project.
Proto-Germanic paganism was the beliefs of the speakers of Proto-Germanic and includes topics such as the Germanic mythology, legendry, and folk beliefs of early Germanic culture. By way of the comparative method, Germanic philologists, a variety of historical linguist, have proposed reconstructions of entities, locations, and concepts with various levels of security in early Germanic folklore. The present article includes both reconstructed forms and proposed motifs from the early Germanic period.
*H₁n̥gʷnis is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the fire god in Proto-Indo-European mythology.
In historical linguistics, Weise's law describes the loss of palatal quality that some consonants undergo in specific contexts in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Specifically, when the palatovelar consonants *ḱ*ǵ*ǵʰ are followed by *r, they lose their palatal quality, leading to a loss in distinction between them and the plain velar consonants *k*g*gʰ. Some exceptions exist, such as when the *r is followed by *i or when the palatal form is restored by analogy with related words. Although this sound change is most prominent in the satem languages, the change probably occurred prior to the centum–satem division, based on an earlier sound change which affected the distribution of PIE *u and *r.