Talk:беседа

The etymology doesn't tell us much about this word. "From Proto-Slavic *besěda", as if it had no history.

A little digging turns up this very probable root, сидеть, "to sit". It makes perfect sense that a conference would be derived from a session. But being a novice in Slavic languages, I am hesitant to edit this etymology as I might in western languages. To go from "сидеть" to "беседа" requires only a vowel softening and a "be-" prefix, which is de rigeur for Germanic languages, as in "beset and besieged".

Any comments? ProudPrimate (talk) 20:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * A recent paper on it (, in Serbo-Croatian only, sorry :) explains it as *besěda "a meeting(-place) in the open" (thus also "conference, session") < originally "a speech in public" < *bez-sěda "sitting outside", a compound matched in Sanskrit bahiḥ-sád "one who sits outside". Both roots are of well-known Indo-European origin (*bez < PIE *bʰeǵʰ-, *sed- < PIE *sed-), though I'm not so sure that the former is cognate to English be- of your examples. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Many thanks — a big help. Much to think about and channels to pursue.  Fascinating looking over the Southern Slavic page. Your general summary makes even this useful to me.ProudPrimate (talk) 02:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)