Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/cěsařь

Vocalism of the initial syllable is uncertain. Attested forms point to the reconstructions *cěsařь, *cesařь and *cьsařь. The first two are attested in OCS and CS. CS additionally contains attestations for cьsarь and carь in Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian Church Slavonic. The form *cьsařь has been explained as a common shortening of a form of address for persons; compare English king from Germanic *kuningaz, English miss from mistress.

Reflexes of *cěsařь are attested in the NW parts of Slavdom. The form *cesařь underpins the Western South Slavic forms, whereas the Bulgarian and Russian CS forms reflect *cьsařь.

This variation could come from two reasons:

• the term was borrowed late, when Common Slavic had already begun disintegrating into different dialects
• the term was borrowed multiple times

Ultimately from Latin Caesar, the name of Julius Caesar, whose name became part of the Roman emperor's title. The name was borrowed into Germanic separately as Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌰𐍂 (kaisar) and as Northwest Germanic *kaisaraz. Slavic in turn borrowed the word from Germanic, although the precise donor language is difficult to ascertain.

The most commonly regarded etymon cited in the literature is Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌰𐍂 (kaisar), though such assignment is problematic. Old High German and Old Saxon forms with the suffix -ur are less plausible etymons. Formal mismatches with Gothic form include:

• Germanic short */a/ regularly yields */o/ in Common Slavic, and the reconstructions for the vowel suffix point to a short */a/. The regular suffix from the Gothic form would have been **-or.
• Even if we are dealing with analogical leveling to the productive agentive suffix *-āřь, this still doesn't fully explain the short vowel. The Slovene form points to a short suffixal vowel, since the accent retracted from short final vowels.
• If the short suffixal */-a-/ represents a late borrowing, after the Common Slavic rephonemicization of qualitative oppositions into quantitative ones, then this would exclude Gothic as the donor languages because the Goths lost their dominance in the Pontic region around the fifth century, well before such a process took place.
• the C sound has been palatalized.

*cěsãřь m[1][2]

1. emperor, king

• *cesařь
• *cьsařь (unaccented *e reduced to *ь)
• *carь (unaccented *ь dropped from *cьsařь)

• *cěsařevьskъ, *cěsařьskъ (“imperial”)
• *cěsařevьstvo, *cěsařьstvьje (“empire”)
• *cěsařica (“empress”)

For forms *cěsařь and *cesařь:

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: цѣсарь (cěsarĭ), цесарь (cesarĭ)
    • Belarusian: цэ́сар (césar)
    • Russian: це́сарь (césarʹ), царь (carʹ) (see there for further descendants)
      • → Ukrainian: цар (car)
    • Ukrainian: цісар (cisar), цесар (cesar)
• South Slavic:
  • Old Church Slavonic:

    Old Cyrillic script: цѣсар҄ь (cěsarʹĭ), цар҄ь (carʹĭ)

    Glagolitic script: ⱌⱑⱄⰰⱃ҄ⱐ, ⱌⰰⱃ҄ⱐ

  • Bulgarian: цар (car)
  • Macedonian: цар (car), цесар (cesar) (literary)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: це̏сар, ца̏р

    Latin script: cȅsar, cȁr

    • → Slovene: cār (tonal orthography)
  • Slovene: césar (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Kashubian: césôrz, cysôrz, cesôrz
  • Old Czech: ciesař
    • Czech: císař
      • → Slovak: cisár
  • Old Polish: cesarz
    • Polish: cesarz
    • Silesian: cysŏrz

• → Hungarian: császár

• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “царь”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress
• Pronk-Tiethoff, Saskia E. (2013) The Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic‎, Amsterdam - New York: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 99ff
• Gluhak, Alemko (1993) “Proto-Slavic/cěsařь”, in Hrvatski etimološki rječnik [Croatian Etymology Dictionary] (in Serbo-Croatian), Zagreb: August Cesarec, →ISBN, page 159
• Skok, Petar (1971) “Proto-Slavic/cěsařь”, in Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika [Etymological Dictionary of the Croatian or Serbian Language] (in Serbo-Croatian), volumes 1 (A – J), Zagreb: JAZU, page 258
• Sławski, Franciszek, editor (1976), “*cěsařь”, in Słownik prasłowiański [Proto-Slavic Dictionary] (in Polish), volumes 2 (caca – davьnota), Wrocław: Ossolineum, page 82
• Vykypěl, Bohumil (2011) Studie k šlechtickým titulům v germánských, slovanských a baltských jazycíc, Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, pages 117ff