Proto-Indo-European Roots
| Root/Stem: | *lei- |
| Meanings: | to pour, to flow |
| Cognates: | |
| Hellenic | Greek aleison (a wine vessel), leibó (I pour, I drop) |
| Italic | Latin libáre (to pour, to libate) |
| Celtic | Common Celtic *leja- (to flow), > Welsh lliant (a stream, a sea), llifo (to flow), Old Irish lie (a flood), Breton livad (inundation), Gaelic lighe (a flood, overflow) |
| Indic | Sanskrit riyati (to let run) |
| Dardic | |
| Iranian | |
| Anatolian | Common Anatolian *lohai- (to pour); > Hittite lilái- (to let go) |
| Armenian | |
| Albanian lise", lyse" (a stream) | |
| Germanic | Germanic *lei-; > Gothic leithu (accusative; fruit wine) |
| Baltic | Common Baltic *lí- (to pour); > Lithuanian lieti (to pour), lyja (it is raining), Latvian leju (to pour), Old Prussian pralieiton (spilled), isliuns (poured out), Sudovian leit (to pour) |
| Slavic | Common Slavic *liti (to pour), *lïjo.
(I pour); > Ukrainian liti, llyu, Belorussian lits (to pour), Old Church Slavonic liti, lêju, Bulgarian leja (I pour), Serbo-Croatian & Slovene liti, lijem, Czech liti, leji, Slovak liat', lejem, Old Polish lic' (to pour), Polish lac', leje., Upper Sorbian liju (I pour), Lower Sorbian las' (to pour), Russian lit', lju |
| Notes: | A typical thematic root the first meaning of which was for sure 'to pour', often in ritual, religious purposes (like English libation). It is interesting that some parallels can be seen in verbs like 'to pour' and 'to drink': PIE *lei- and *poi-, Latin libo and pibo (though the latter reflects the root reduplication), Slavic liti and piti, etc. This makes us think of a sort of verb type in Proto-Indo-European. |