THE ORIGIN OF ROMANIAN NOUN PLUG ‘PLOW’

It is unanimously believed that Romanian plug is a loan from OCS plugъ ‘plough’ (Miklosich, Slaw. Elem., 36; Cihac, 2, 267; Pascu, 2, 205; Cioranescu, 6535; DAR); cf. Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Russian plug, Czech pluh, Albanian plug, Lithuanian plugas.

Vasmer (1, 974) argues the Slavs took the plow from Germans. The first attestation of the term among Slavs can be dated in 981, AD, in Nestor’s Chronicle (cf. Vasmer). Vasmer (2, 376) believes in a Celtic origin of this term, referring to Latin plaumoratum (cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist.., 18, 172) and Germanic tribes borrowed it from the Celts, after the transition of PIE *p to f in the Germanic languages (Grimm’s law). No reliable etymological explanation has been found for the term plaumoratum. Among Germanic peoples, Goths were nomads when they came to Dacia and then settled in various places in Dacia. They lived alongside the native population for about a century, until the arrival of the Huns in 375 A.D., who drove them across the Danube. Moreover, in Gothic the plow was called hōha, a derivative of PIE *k’ak-, *k’ank– ‘twig, branch’ (cf. Lehmann, H88). Therefore, the Slavs did not borrow it from Goths, for the simple reason that this term is not attested in Gothic language. From the same root, it is derived Old Irish cecht, Irish ceachta ‘plough’, cognates of OCS socha ‘stick, wooden plough’. Other forms for plow (and ploughing) in Indo-European languages are derived from PIE *ar-, *arə– ‘to plow’ (W-P, 55); cf. Greek αρόω ‘to plow (I, sg.)’, Middle Irish airim ‘to plow, to work’ (I, sg.), Welsh arddu ‘to plow’, Lithuanian ariu id., arimas ‘plowing, plowed place’, Gothic arjan ‘to plow’, OHG erran id., OCS orjo, oratь id., Albanian arë ‘field, arable place’, arar ‘ploughman’, Burushaski hǝrki ‘to plough, cultivate, sow’, hǝrš ‘plough’, har ‘plough’.

In other words, the Indo-European forms derived from these two roots are older and go back to Neolithic times, while the form plug is more recent and defines the plow with an iron (plough) share which is a much later invention, appearing sometime in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Caesar shows that in the first century B.C., Germanic tribes, those who lived east of the Rhine, did not do much farming: ‘The Germans, Caesar says, are not attracted to agriculture and most of their food consists of milk, cheese and meat. No one has a particular piece of land that is his; their judges and leaders appoint every year as much as they need and force them to pass to another place every year. They bring different arguments for this practice: the fear that they could be tempted, through continuous association with the respective land, to replace their warrior zeal with agriculture…’ (De bello…, 6, 22). This does not mean Germans did not use a plough, but less than other peoples in Europe at that time. Barnhart (807) states that in German the term is of unknown origin, and Kluge (697) quotes Pliny, who writes that in Galic Rhaetia a new type of plow with two wheels called plaumoratum appeared, a term invoked, as we have seen, by Vasmer as well. W-H (2, 319) believes that plaumoratum may be a derivative from ‘ploum Raeti’, which would suggest it is a word of Raetic or Celtic origin. The Celtic hypothesis is not sustainable, since, of the four Celtic languages that still exist today, no cognate of the plow form appears in any of them; Modern Irish céachta ‘plough’, Scottish crann id., Welsh aradr id., Breton arar id., forms which, as we have shown, come from other Proto-Indo-European older roots.

On the other hand, Alinei (2, 568) also believes that plow is of Celtic origin and derives it from PIE *pleu– ‘to flow, swim, float’, but the hypothesis cannot be correct. Archaeological evidence attests that the plow with an iron share was used in Dacia since the 3rd century BC. Therefore, long before it appeared in Rhaetia when it was first mentioned by Pliny. In fact, the term cannot be of Celtic origin since initial PIE *p was lost in Proto-Celtic, unless this p is derived from PIE *k^w in Continental Celtic, but it is not the case. Before the term plough appeared in Germanic and Slavic languages, the terms for ‘plough’ were derived from a few Proto-Indo-European roots: Old English sulh (cognates with Latin sulcus ‘furrow’), OHG medela, geiza, houhili(n) (the last a cognate of Gothic hōha ‘plough’), Old Norse arðr (Swedish årder). Old Norse plógr and the other related forms appeared relatively late in Germanic languages (it is not attested in Gothic) or it is considered to be a loan from a north Italic language.

On the other hand, G. Kroonen (2013, 398) argues that the term for ‘plough’ is derived from Proto-Germanic *ploga, from a verb *plehan/*plekan ‘to take responsibility’ (cf. NHG pflegen ‘to look after, nurse’), but such a hypothesis is flimsy at the best. On the other hand, Vladimir Orel (292) considers a Proto-Germanic *plōʒuz/*plōʒaz as the source of terms for ‘plough’, of uncertain origin. He goes further saying ‘If [it] continues *bloko could be compared, rather shakingly, to Armenian pelem ‘to dig’, Welsh bwlch ‘crack’ < Celt. *bolko’. As one may see Orel is not convincing either. In other words, none of these two hypotheses can solve the problem of the origin of terms for ‘plow’. In fact, it is a derivative of PIE *peh₂l– ‘to turn, to wind’, with the nominal form *polk’.

IE cognates: Gaulish olca ‘plowed-land’ (< Proto-Celtic *polca), Albanian përlinë ‘uncultivated land, eroded land’, Old English fealg, OHG felga ‘harrow’, East Frisian falge ‘fallow’, falgen ‘to break up ground’ id., MHG falgen ‘to plow’, OHG, Old Norse felga ‘harrow’, Old English fielg NHG Felge ‘plowed-up fallow land’, English fallow, Russian polosá ‘stripe, furrow’.

It has close cognates in other IE languages, especially in Germanic languages, in Gaulish and in Russian, but the term cannot be derived from any Germanic or Celtic languages, for obvious reasons I have mentioned already. Furthermore, PIE *k’ > k: the fact shows once again Thraco-Dacian is a centum language. From the Thraco-Dacians, the object as well as the term were borrowed by the Germanic tribes and Continental Celts, and, much later, by the Slavs. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the term appeared in the Balkan region and spread in central and western Europe from the Thraco-Dacians, who in ancient times bordered the Greeks to the southeast, and the Celts and the Germans to the northwest. In Romanian it is a cognate of pârloagă ‘fallow’ and polog ‘swath, windrow’ (see these entries). Tracho-Dacian origin.

Derivatives: a plugări, plugărit, plugărie, plugărime, plugar, plugăraş, plugărel, plugăresc, pluguleţ, pluguşor, plugăriță, plugniță, plugoșniță.

Selected bibliography

Alinei, M., Origini delle lingue de l’Europa, Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna, 1996-2000.

Barnhart, R., A Dictionary of Etymology, H.W. Wilson, New York, 1988.

Caesar, J., De bello gallico, English, Penguin Books, New York, Harmondsworth, England, 1982.

Cihac, A., Dictionnaire d’étymologie daco–roumaine, Frankfurt (2 vol.), 1870-1879.

Cioranescu, A., Diccionario etimologico rumano, Madrid, 1958.

DAR: Dicţionarul Limbii Române (1913-2000), Editura Academiei Române, București, 2010

Kroonen, G., Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Brill, Leiden, Boston, 2013

Lehmann, W. P., A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1986.

Miklosich, F., Die Slawischen Elemente in Rumänischen, în „Denkschriften”, XII, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Viena, 1862

Orel, V., A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Brill, Leiden, Boston, 2003.

Pascu, G., Etimologii româneşti, Iaşi, 1910.

Pliny, G. S., Natural History, Penguin Classics, Penguin Publishing Group, 1991

Vasmer, M., Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, 1953-1955.

Vinereanu, M., Originea traco–dacă a limbii române, Pontos, Chişinău, 2003.

Vinereanu, M., Dicționar etimologic al limbii române, Editura Alcor-Edimpex, București, 2008.

Vinereaau, M., Rădăcini nostratice în limba română (Nostratic Roots in Romanian Language), Editura Alcor-Edimpex, București, 2010.

Vinereanu, M., Adevăruri incomode despre limba română, Editura Uranus, București, 2018.

Vinereanu, M., Fondul lexical principal al limbii române, Editura Uranus, București, 2020.

Vinereanu, M., Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, Editura Uranus, București, 2023.

W-H: Walde, A., Hoffmann J.B., Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (vol. I+II), Winter Verlag, Heidelberg

W-P: Walde, A., Pokorny, J., Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, München, 1959.