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These three words are very similar in English, Russian and Kazakh. At least the Russian set is considered inherited from PIE.

English - Russian - Kazakh

crush - крушить (krushitь) - қырш (qyrsh)

plash - плескать (pleskatь) - былш (bylsh)

slap - шлёпать (shlёpatь) - шылп (shylp)

Noticable is that the second word in Kazakh looks more similar to English than Russian.

Some people explain it via onomatopoieia but at least the Russian set comes to PIE roots.

  • крушить is from PIE kreu- "crush"
  • плескать is from PIE plea̯- "flat", "wide", from pel- "full"
  • шлёпать is from PIE leip- "sticky"

Deriving all these words from one proto-source seems impossible though (especially the Turkic ones). So I wonder whether Kazakh etymology of these words has been ever explained through borrowing?

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  • But what do those Kazakh words mean? I doubt they mean the same as the English ones, қырш (qyrsh) means 'crunch, creak'. – Yellow Sky Oct 6 '15 at 16:40
  • @Yellow Sky crunch, crackle, bite hard, bite through, chew. – Anixx Oct 6 '15 at 17:00
  • There's an Old Turkic root qїr- 'to scratch, to scrape' with lots of derivatives, p. 445 here. Maybe it's more probable that the onomatopoeic word 'qyrsh' is derived from that Old Turkic root than that it is borrowed from Russian? – Yellow Sky Oct 6 '15 at 17:08
  • @Yellow Sky may be... But the Turkic root may also be connected with PIE (s)ker- "cut off" – Anixx Oct 6 '15 at 17:28
  • If you had read what's there behind my link, you'd have noticed that the qїr- entry there quotes the Old Turkic dictionary by Mahmud al-Kashgari written in the 11th century and containing quotes from the Turkic folk songs and fairy-tales. IE-Turkic connections before the 11th century? I see no sense in commenting or answering here. – Yellow Sky Oct 6 '15 at 17:41

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