Talk:σπήλαιον

Tea room discussion
What if any is the relationship between Greek σπηλιά: and σπήλαιον:, Albanian shpellë:, and English ? It seems they all ultimately come from Slavic. &mdash; hippietrail 12:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you sure spelunk ultimately is from a Slavic language? I don’t know what Slavic language it would be. Russian has, but that’s borrowed from Greek. I think English spelunk is from Ancient Greek , related to and to . —Stephen 09:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It's the other way around: Serbian spilja is directly derived from Greek σπηλιά, since no other Slavic languages have it, and Serbian dialects are located near Greek dialects (maybe via Bulgaria ones, don't know). -η- ~ -i- suggests a very late time of borrowing, whereas ancient Greek authors had -e- instead. 77.40.23.37 11:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)