Once Аgain on Slavic *gluxъ, *glupъ and *glumъ
Once Аgain on Slavic *gluxъ, *glupъ and *glumъ

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the Slavic words *gluxъ ‘deaf’, *glupъ ‘stupide’ and *glumъ, *gluma ‘idle talk, mockery; noise; amusement’. It is well known that the notions of ‘dumb’/‘deaf’ and ‘stupid’ are related in many languages. The author follows St. Mladenov’s view that these lexemes go back to IE *ghlew- ‘joy, frolic, joke, play’, but reconsiders it from the semantic point of view. According to her opinion the basic meaning of the root is ‘noise, rumble, rumbling sound’. This assumption is supported by OIcel. glymja ‘to resonate’ and MHG glumen ‘to resound, boom, rumble’. The root *ghlew- has undergone a specific semantic evolution in Slavic: ‘rumbling sound’ > ‘loud and incomprehensible speech; prattle, gibberish’ > ‘inability to speak, dumbness, dumb’. The primary sense of Common Slavic *gluma, *glumъ < IE *ghlow-m- is not ‘joke’ or ‘idle talk, vaunting’, but ‘incomprehensible speech, stammering’ from which evolved the meaning ‘unable to speak, dumb’, cf. S.Cr. glȗm, glúma, glúmo which signifies ‘deaf-and-dumb’.

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