Kuppama ja kupatama
"Kuppama" and "Kupatama"

Summary/Abstract: So far, neither the Estonian verb kuppama : kupata ’to boil (of a liquid or sth immersed in boiling liquid)’ nor its derivative kupatama ’to boil foodstuff in abundant water for a short time’ have been offered a plausible etymology. The article investigates the areal distribution of the verb stem, its derivation network and semantics, as well as its possible etymological relation with Latvian. The existing suggestion that the Estonian verbs have been derived from the noun kupp : kupu ’air bubble, bump, knob’ is not valid for failing to provide a full story to capture the emergence and development of the semantic network of the words in question. The article provides the Estonian verb stem with a Latvian etymology, considering etymologically different loan stems such as kupa- and kūpa- with its dialectal variant kupa-, which are all closely intertwined in the Baltic languages, both phonetically and semantically: Latv kupêt ’to boil (intrans.)’, kupināt ’to scald sth (e.g. mushrooms) with boiling water, wash over (e.g. offal), stew’, which belong to the same word family as Latv kûpêt ’to smoke, emit smoke, fume, steam etc.’, kûpt ’to smoke, steam, emit thick smoke, fume etc.’. The stem variant with a short vowel (u pro ū) is secondary, born under the influence of a phonetically and conceptually close Baltic word family represented, for example, by Latv kupât ’to congeal, rise, heave etc.’. This word family is the source for the Courland Livonian words kup̀ pə̑ : kup̆pùb ’to congeal (intrans.)’ and kup̆pànt̆ tə̑ ’to congeal (trans.)’. The comparison of the Livonian verbs with the Estonian verb kupatama ’to boil foodstuff in abundant water for a short time’ sometimes found in literature, is misleading.

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