Bread, loaves and circles

Language quiz image

In most Slavic languages the word for bread is chleb or something similar: Czech & Polish: chleb, Slovak: chlieb, Russian & Belarusian: хлеб, Ukrainian: хліб, Bulgarian: хляб, Macedonian: леб.

These words all comes from the Proto-Slavic *xlěbъ (bread), from the Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz (bread). [source]. *hlaibaz is also the root of the English word loaf, the German Laib (loaf), and words for loaf in other Germanic languages [source].

However, in Slovenian the word for bread is kruh, which means circle or ring in Czech, although the Czech word probably comes from a different root [source]. It comes from the Proto-Slavic *kruxъ (chunk, bread), which comes from *krews (crush, break) [source].

The bread in the photo is a type of Slovenian potato bread known as krompirjev kruh. You can find recipes here (in Slovenian) and here (in English).

3 thoughts on “Bread, loaves and circles

  1. Finnish and Estonian have leipä and leib, respectively, for ‘braead’. These are presumably loans, ultimately from the same I.E. source, but loaned from Germanic or Slavic?

  2. ^’bread’. Reminds me of the old wholefood joke:

    “This is spelt bread.”

    “Oh… How is it pronounced, then?”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *