Words for Metals
In the Languages of the World

History  of Metals : Background Material

The prehistoric and historic periods of Man
are first divided into "stone ages", the so-called
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and Neolithic (New Stone Age).
The Stone Ages are followed by the Ages of Metal.

The first metal period is the "Bronze Age", the beginning of which
is sometimes called the Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone) Age:

"Copper was known in east Anatolia by 6500 BC
[some researchers point to a possible origin in the Vinca Culture]
... by the middle of the 4th millenium ... in Mesopotamia....
by 3000 BC the use of copper was well-known in the Middle East,
had extended westward into the Mediterranean area,
and was beginning to infiltrate the Neolithic cultures of Europe ...."
(Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Bronze Age").

The ancient terms for the metals are discussed by Armas Salonen
"Alte Substrata- und Kulturwoerter im Arabischen",
Studia Orientalia, Vol. XVII, Helsinki, 1952).

Below, to Salonen's lists of the ancient terms for the metals in the
Fertile Crescent, LexiLine has added the Baltic comparables
based on P. Schmidt's observation that:

"The ancient indigenous Baltic word for copper
(Latvian vars, Lithuanian varias, Old Prussian wargien)
indicates that it was inherited from some ancient period,
since it is not borrowed either from the
Slavic or Germanic peoples...."

The word vars was not "inherited" at all,
but is indigenous to Baltic viz. Indo-European peoples.
 

Words for Metals
According to Salonen
Baltic Terms added by LexiLine

COPPER

LEAD

TIN

IRON

LANGUAGE ANALYSIS
Two Basic Language Roots for the Metals

1.  BAR - VAR  - PAR

2.  DZEL-