Ancient masculine noun ending in the Polish language

Everyone in the field of linguistics cites the Lithuanian language as the most ancient language in Europe[1][2]. It indeed kept some ancient aspects but it also shows signs of evolution and for example the Lithuanian language lost all nasal vowels, while Polish kept them, the Lithuanian language has no neuter gender and Polish does. But from the ancient aspects of the Polish language the most important one is a masculine noun ending -AK comparable to Lithuanian -AS, Proto-Norse -AZ, Greek -OS and Latin -US.

For example a Lithuanian word vilkas (meaning "wolf") in Polish exists as wilk but also as wilczak (wilk-ak). What is even more interesting is that the K in this ending is a Centum form in a Satem language!

In general many words portrayed to be unique Lithuanian cognates to the Sanskrit language often appear in many other Indo-European languages that are not so "ancient" or "old".

A list of words with an ancient masculine noun ending -ak in the Polish language is as follows:

1. rodak – "countryman", from ród "tribe, family", also in Czech
2. niemowlak – "infant", from nie + mow + lak "one who can not speak"
3. wijak – "a tool used to keep the thread", from wić "writhe"
4. pijak – "drunkard", from pić "to drink"
5. czereśniak – "villager", from czereśnie "cherries"
6. chlebak – "a shelf where you keep your bread", from chleb "bread"
7. plecak – "backpack", from plecy "back"
8. źrebak – "young horse", from źrebać "foal"
9. ziemniak – "potato", from ziemia "soil"
10. czerniak – "skin cancer", from czarny "black"
11. śluzak – "Ralstonia solanacearum; cancer of kidneys", from śluz "slime", compare Lithuanian: šliužas meaning "slug, snail, slime"
12. drożdżak – "candida", from drożdże "yeast"
13. chromak – "ill sheep", from chromy "ill"
14. szulak – "hawk, sparrow hawk", from szulać "to go around"
15. tatarak – "Acorus calamus, sweet flag"
16. zwierzyniak – "a type of vehicle for carrying dead game and animals", from zwierz "wild animal"
17. gruszniak – "peer wine" from gruszka "peer"
18. gałęziak – "Eucladium verticillatum" from gałąź "branch"
19. zaskórniak – "blackhead", from za + skóra "behind skin"
20. mięsak – "muscle cancer", from mięso "meat"
21. cielak – "calf", neutrum form cielę
22. ponurak – "grim man", from ponury "grim"
23. chłopak – "boyfriend, young boy", from chłop "male peasant"
24. biedak – "poor person, beggar", from bieda "poverty", here with female ending "-a"
25. zielak – "herb, grass, weeds", from ziele "herb"
26. kurak – "hen" from kur "hen"
27. Warszawiak – "a man from Warsaw"
28. Krakowiak – "a man from Kraków, type of dance"
29. Krzyżak – "Knight of the Cross", from krzyż "cross"
30. Polak – "Pole, Polish man", from pole "field"
31. Diablak – It is a name of a mountain's peak, from Diabeł "the Devil"

Surnames

1. Sokolak – from sokół "falcon", compare Lithuanian: sakalas, change of | o => a | k => s |
2. Bielak – from biały "white", Tatar family
3. Krychniak – maybe from Christopher
4. Bosak – from bosy "barefoot"
5. Chrobak – "a worm; a small animal, especially an insect and caterpillars; a creeping animal"
6. Klemczak – from klęcz "kneel" or kłącze "rhizome"
7. Korzeniak – from korzeń "root"
8. Mostowiak – from most "bridge"
9. Śliwiak – from śliwa "prunus, plum tree"
10. Nowak – "New guy" from nowy "new", compare Lithuanian: naujas or Latin: novum
11. Grochowiak – from groch "pea"
12. Miodziak – from miód "honey"
13. Owsiak – from owies "oat"
14. Michalak – from Michał "Michael"
15. Grzybak – from grzyb "mushroom", compare Lithuanian: grybas
16. Sumiak – from sum "catfish"

Other ancient aspects

A famous Polish word "gżegżułka" meaning a cuckoo is an evenement in Slavic languages because it kept next to eachother the initial "G" that in other Slavic languages later transformed to "Ż". It is a word closest to the Lithuanian "gegužė", which in Slavic would later transform to "żeżula" and as expected it did to "zezula, ziezula, zieziula, zazula, zazulka, zozula" in Polish and in Ukrainian to "зозу́ля (zozúlja)". This bird appears everywhere in Europe so there would be no need to borrow such a word.

Let's now compare Old Prussian "gelso" and Polish "żelazo", two words both meaning iron. It also appears in Old Church Slavonic "желѣзо (želězo)", Slovak "železo", Lithuanian "geležis", Latvian "dzelzs". In Slavic languages that word is in neutrum form without any gender and in the Baltic languages its gender switched to masculine. Oldest expected reconstructed version would then be "*gelezo" just like in the Old Prussian language.

As a side note, the French scientist Albert Jambon proved that all iron in the Bronze Age came from the meteorites not from the mountain ores.

In Sanskrit there is a word "गिरिसार (girisara)" that means iron but also tin[3]. It could come from "gilisara" or even earlier "gelesara". Other word for iron is exactly "आर (ara)"[4]. Another word "गिरिज (girija)" maybe from "geleja", would indicate a short "E" in this original word but here it rather means "mountain-born" because iron ore in the Iron Age started to be mined in the mountains[5][6].

There is no word for a very tall mountain in the Baltic languages simply because such mountains do not appear in that region of Europe. In all Slavic languages that name is "gora" and "hora". In Sanskrit it is "गिरि (giri)", in Avestan "gairi" and in Pashto "غر‎ (ğar)". Interestingly that word in the non Indo-European Georgian is also "გორა (gora)".

Ancestral to the Sintashta Culture was the Fatyanovo-Balanovo Culture and according to a new study from 2021, Fatyanovo can be modeled as 60% to 63% Yamnaya Samara + 33% to 34% Globular Amphora + 3% to 6% Hunter-Gatherer. Those genetic results could mean that all those words above that begin with G could be present already in the territory of modern day Poland at the times of the Globular Amphora Culture and Corded Ware Culture (3100 BC - 2800 BC) when their R1a brothers departed to create the separate culture and then their Y-chromosome mutated to R1a-Z93 that later on went to South Asia.

The Y-chromosome branch from Koszyce, Poland (professionally called I2-L801) is 10000 years old and it barely survived its bottleneck around 3000 BC and was almost wiped out. That branch resurfaced only around 2000 BC and from those survivers came all Polish people who have this Y-chromose nowadays. The percentage of Poles originating directly from the Globular Amphora Culture today is around 4%. A word associated with this culture could be "ogon" because it is a unique Polish word that does not appear in any other language except for Czech "ohon" and Lower Sorbian "wogon", it means "tail", Latin "cauda".

Silingae (Silingians) are mentioned by Ptolemeus as living in the territory of what is now Dolny Śląsk in Poland near the mountain Ślęża. Let's write the name of this mountain phonetically now: Silenzha, we have here the soft "S" so called "SI" or "Ś" and a nasal vowel "Ę" pronounced as "EN", but for example in English language "E" is very similar to "I" and short "E" also has this phonetic value. By turning "E" to "I", the Silinzha could be created. As it was shown above the initial modern Slavic "Ż" used to be "G" in many words and going back to 200 AD that would be the case. That mountain was a religious center of the Silingi, situated South-East of modern day Wrocław, although the religious importance of the location dates back to the sun-worshipping people of the Lusatian Culture, as early as 1300 BC.

The proven genetic continuity from the times of the Corded Ware Culture and even earlier cultures can not disprove this by the migration theory because there were still many people left in the same territory. Around 2nd century AD, the name Silingae (Silingai) could be pronounced as Ślingi, Ślengi (Ślęgi) but not Ślężi, Ślinżi because that "Ż" evovled from "G" to form the name Ślężanie only later in history. The vowels "G" and "Ż" are often interchangeable in the Polish language today, for example from "droga" to "dróżka" (diminiutive), from "księga" to "książka", "noga" to "nóżka", "śnieg" and "śnieżyca" (snowstorm). Another example is Polish "bagno" (swamp, bog) and Czech "bažina", both cognate to Irish "bogach" (swamp) and Sanskrit "पङ्क paGka" (morass, mud).

Other words ending with -ak can be found here. The theory presetned above is the sole concept of the Indo-European Connection and if you did not hear about this previously then you can cite my article as a source, especially in your scientific work.

Article published on the 14th of February 2021, theory coined in September 2018.