Sinitic for "iron" in Balto-Slavic

[This is a guest post by Chris Button]

There are a couple of brief suggestions in Mallory & Adams' Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (1997:314;379) that the Lithuanian word geležis and Old Church Slavonic word želežo for "iron", which following Derksen (2008:555) may be derived from Balto-Slavic *geleź-/*gelēź- (ź being the IPA palatal sibilant ʑ), could possibly have a Proto-Sino-Tibetan association.

The Old Chinese word for 鐵 "iron" may be reconstructed as *ɬə́c which certainly looks promising in that regard. Since the Balto-Slavic form appears to be an isolate in Indo-European, whereas 鐵 *ɬə́c belongs to an extensive word family connected to shininess, most directly in this case with 錫 *sɬác "tin" following a proposal by Schuessler (note the ə/a ablaut), the direction of the putative loan must be into Balto-Slavic rather than into Chinese.

Readings

• “Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions” (3/8/16)
• “Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 2” (3/12/16)
• “Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 3” (3/16/16)
• “Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 4” (3/24/16)
• "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 5" (3/28/16)
• "Of armaments and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 6" (12/23/17)
• "Of shumai and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (7/19/16)
• "Of felt hats, feathers, macaroni, and weasels" (3/13/16)
• "GA" (8/6/17)
• "Of dogs and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (3/17/18)
• "Of ganders, geese, and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (10/29/18)
• "Eurasian eureka" (9/12/16)
• "Of knots, pimples, and Sinitic reconstructions" (11/12/18)
• "Of jackal and hide and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/16/18)
• "Of reindeer and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/23/18)
• "Galactic glimmers: of milk and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (1/8/19)
• "An early fourth century AD historical puzzle involving a Caucasian people in North China" (12/25/19)
• "Thai 'khwan' ('soul') and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (1/28/19)