Three pre-Balto-Slavic bird names, or: a more austere take on Oštir

ENTo the strict Neogrammarian, a phonological “near miss” is as good as useless, and therefore better left unmentioned. The kinds of irregular comparisons which could point to independent loanwords from lost languages are ignored by those working within the canonical framework for the study of Indo-European. In the context of this volume, the exploration of works situated outside of the Neogram marian framework can yield unexpected fruits. In this study, I will turn to the works of the Slovene linguist Karel Oštir. [...] In the following, I would like to revisit some of the irregular comparisons taken as Alarodian by Oštir and present them in a slightly different context. I will forego any discussion of the supposed genetic connections between the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe and other at tested non-IE languages. Such theories, despite continued debate (e.g. Schrijver 2018: 361–363), are unlikely ever to be proven in a satisfactory, empirical manner purely due to the dearth of evidence. In the remainder of this study, I will assess three “Alarodian” bird names in Balto-Slavic. In doing so, I will follow a modified version of Oštir’s methodology, cataloguing irregularities as potential indications of borrowing and seeking out parallels for any suggested alternation. [p. 29-31].