Indo-European vocabulary

The following is a table of many of the most fundamental Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) words and roots, with their cognates in all of the major families of descendants.

Notes

The following conventions are used:
* Cognates are in general given in the oldest well-documented language of each family, although forms in modern languages are given for families in which the older stages of the languages are poorly documented or do not differ significantly from the modern languages. In addition, modern English forms are given for comparison purposes.
* Nouns are given in their nominative case, with the genitive case supplied in parentheses when its stem differs from that of the nominative. (For some languages, especially Sanskrit, the basic stem is given in place of the nominative.)
* Verbs are given in their "dictionary form". The exact form given depends on the specific language:
** For the Germanic languages and for Welsh, the infinitive is given.
** For Latin, the Baltic languages, and the Slavic languages, the first-person singular present indicative is given, with the infinitive supplied in parentheses.
** For Greek, Old Irish, Armenian and Albanian (modern), only the first-person singular present indicative is given.
** For Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian, Parthian, the third-person singular present indicative is given. Where useful Sanskrit root forms are provided using the symbol ''√''.
** For Tocharian, the stem is given.
** For Hittite, either the third-person singular present indicative or the stem is given.
* In place of Latin, an Oscan or Umbrian cognate is occasionally given when no corresponding Latin cognate exists. Similarly, a cognate from another Anatolian language (e.g. Luvian, Lycian) may occasionally be given in place of or in addition to Hittite.
* For Tocharian, both the Tocharian A and Tocharian B cognates are given whenever possible.
* For the Celtic languages, both Old Irish and Welsh cognates are given when possible. For Welsh, normally the modern form is given, but occasionally the form from Old Welsh is supplied when it is known and displays important features lost in the modern form. A Middle Irish cognate is given when the Old Irish form is unknown, and Gaulish, Cornish and/or Breton (modern) cognates may occasionally be given in place of or in addition to Welsh.
* For the Baltic languages, Lithuanian (modern) and Old Prussian cognates are given when possible. (Both Lithuanian and Old Prussian are included because Lithuanian often includes information missing in Old Prussian, e.g. due to lack of written accent marks in the latter.) Similarly to the Celtic situation, Old Lithuanian forms may occasionally be given in place of modern Lithuanian; Latvian (modern) may occasionally be given in place of or in addition to Lithuanian.
* For the Slavic languages, Old Church Slavonic cognates are given when possible. Forms from modern Slavic languages or other Church Slavic dialects may occasionally be given in place of Old Church Slavonic.
* For English, a modern English cognate is given when it exists, along with the corresponding Old English form; otherwise, only an Old English form is given.
* For Gothic, a form in another Germanic language (Old Norse; Old High German; or Middle High German) is sometimes given in its place or in addition, when it reveals important features.

Kinship

People

Pronouns and particles

Numbers

Body

Animals

Food and farming

Bodily functions and states

Mental functions and states

General conditions and states

Natural features

Directions

Basic adjectives

Light and color

Positive qualities

Construction, fabrication

Self-motion, rest

Object motion

Time

Ideas and rituals

Unclassified

Derivatives

Footnotes

Tabular notes

References

Bibliography

*
* Dnghu. ''Proto-Indo-European Etymological Dictionary''. (A revised edition of Julius Pokorny's Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch
CCA
GNU)
*
*
*
* Delamarre, Xavier. ''Le Vocabulaire Indo-Européen''. Paris: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient. 1984.
* Delamarre, Xavier (2003). ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental. Errance''. .
* Kloekhorst, Alwin. ''Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon''. Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 5. Leiden, The Netherlands; Boston, 2008. https://hdl.handle.net/1887/11996
* Matasovic, Ranko. ''Etymological Dictionary Of Proto Celtic''. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. 2009.
*

Further reading

On numerals:
*
*
*
*

On nature and the passage of time:
* Blažek, Václav.
Astronomická terminologie v indoevropských jazycích
stronomic terminology in Indo-European languages In: ''Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské univerzity''. A, Řada jazykovědná = Linguistica Brunensia. 2005, vol. 54, iss. A53, pp. 149. .
*
*

On animals:
*
*
*
* Huard, Athanaric. "On Tocharian B kents* and PIE *g̑hans- ‘goose’". In: ''wékwos: Revue d'études indo-européennes''. Volume 5. Les Cent Chemins. 2019. .
*
*

On kinship and family:
* Blažek, Václav. "Indo-European ''*suHnu-'' 'son' and his relatives". In: ''Indogermanistik und Linguistik im Dialog''. Akten der XIII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft von 21. bis 27. September 2008 in Salzburg, hrg. Thomas Krisch & Thomas Lindner. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2011. pp. 79–89.
* Cooper, Brian. "The Lexicology and Etymology of Russian Family Relationships". In: ''Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia'' Vol. 14. Issue 1. Kraków: 2009. pp. 153–176.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

On agriculture and produce:
* Blažek, Václav.
On Indo-European ‘barley’
. In: Simmelkjaer Sandgaard Hansen, Bjarne; Nielsen Whitehead, Benedicte; Olander, Thomas; Olsen, Birgit Anette. ''Etymology and the European Lexicon''. Proceedings of the 14th Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft (17-22 September 2012, Copenhagen). Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2016. pp. 53–68.
*
*
*
*
*

On colors:
*

On verbs related to action and motion:
*

On bodily functions:
* n PIE roots for ''sleep'' and ''dream''

External links

Query Julius Pokorny's landmark ''Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch''
, the standard reference for Indo-European vocabulary. Complete coverage of cognates of each root (although Hittite and Tocharian coverage is spotty), highly accurate forms. Beware, roots are given in pre- laryngeal form and glosses are in German.

American Heritage Indo-European Roots Index

Database query to the online version of Pokorny's PIE dictionary


* Jonathan Slocum
Indo-European Lexicon
from the University of Texas Linguistic Research Center
* Dougas Harper'
Etymonline

{{Proto-Indo-European language

Vocabulary
Indo-European linguistics

Lexis (linguistics)
Vocabulary