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(Disclaimer: I am not a linguist.)

I am learning Norwegian now, and they have some verb form when you attach -s to the end. It is often called passive voice (used in Present tense and in infinitive only, I guess). For example:

  • å møte 'to meet': vi møter 'we meet (someone else)', vi møtes 'we meet (each other)'
  • å kalle 'to call (by name)': jeg kaller 'I call (someone or something)', jeg kalles 'I am called'

I know that similar construction exists in Swedish.

I am a native Slavic speaker and we have the verbs ending with -ся (się in Polish) which have almost the same meaning. In Slavic languages, the origin of this kind of endings is clear, it means 'oneself'. For example, учиться 'to study' literally means учить себя 'to teach oneself'. So I started thinking that Norwegian and Swedish verbs maybe have some similar origins.

But does anyone know for sure?

imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
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Yauhen Yakimenka
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    Indeed the same: "self" (seg). – user6726 Dec 21 '19 at 02:30
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    @user6726 but do you know some kind of trusted reference? Or, better, some article with more discussion of this? – Yauhen Yakimenka Dec 21 '19 at 02:57
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    Well, that's what people say, but people say more than they really know. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scandinavian-languages/Phonology, http://members.unine.ch/martin.hilpert/GIGL.pdf, but I guess after looking for hard text evidence, it might just be a story. There is apparently a semantic story about medio-passives, but I haven't seen any hard evidence like old texts. I guess I'm agnostic at this point, given how hard it is to find solid evidence. – user6726 Dec 21 '19 at 05:49
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    Old Norse had a passive in -sk, which lends credence to the theory. – Colin Fine Dec 21 '19 at 11:11
  • in Lithuanian as well – vectory Dec 21 '19 at 12:46
  • "For example, учиться (to study) literally means учить себя (to teach oneself)" ← somewhat interestingly, Swedish has the same, "att lära sig", although this is more recent than the -s forms so it doesn't prove or disprove anything about them. – LjL Dec 21 '19 at 20:58
  • @LjL it's the translation that's funny, not the word. I'd rather compare Ger lehren "to teach", lernen "to learn" for analogy--one could wonder by the way about the n-infix in light of this question; also cp lesen "to read"; "study" was also a good hint, study together is kind of reflexive, even (and n can be 2nd p pl, eg. Lat nos; and to-gether, compares analoguously to lesen, ver-sammeln, summarize, lego or ligo). The given root is spurious for utshiti, I find, given the different semantics of the cognates. Hm, if -iti reflects *-yeti perhaps -ja reflect *-ye? – vectory Dec 22 '19 at 01:19
  • @LjL I had missed you mention "att lära sig"; I'm not sure what that translates to, regardless I suppose it might have been privative, not self-reflective, cp Ger sicher from "Proto-West-Germanic *sikur, from Latin securus", as well as solus, all ultimately reflecting *swe-; thus: "learn by myself", eventually "all on my own". I mean, it's a considerable possibility. The idiom of the infantil autodidact is notable, "look mom, no hands". If there was a pathway for Greek into Germanic, I'd even compare auto (from *swe-) to ausdenken "think up, invent", herausfinden "find out", etc – vectory Dec 22 '19 at 16:55
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    "Att lära sig" is very literally "to teach (one)self", there aren't other murkier possibilities about what the sig may come from, since it changes depending on the actual person: jag lär dig svenska (I teach you Swedish), jag lär mig svenska (I learn Swedish, lit. I teach me/myself Swedish). – LjL Dec 22 '19 at 20:58
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    @LjL it's an anglo-saxon or low-german loan, where it was likely exclusively privative, "sick sülwst" (for himself), according to W. Schulz, Gotica, 1909, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiet der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 42. Bd, 3/4 H. (cf p 319, footnote 1). There's also laisjan sik in the Gothic bible translating AGr manthenein. Hence I found the above reference. I also found doubt about Pokorny's etymology to *leys. – vectory Dec 23 '19 at 03:37
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    @user6726 IMO there is no PIE sigmatic mediopassive, so -s < -sk < -sik < sik looks fairly plausible and attested in other languages. – Eleshar Dec 23 '19 at 12:27
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    (As ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾᚨᛉ's answer alludes to, the -s form also works in Danish. Never thought about it until now!) – nsandersen Jan 22 '20 at 16:22

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Well, my guess is that it comes from the -sk ending in Old Norse (modern Icelandic -st ending). As found in the famous Vǫlospá verses:

Brœðr munu BERJASK (Modern Icelandic: Bræður munu BERJAST),

Meanining "Brothers will fight EACH OTHER".

Indeed, Swedish and Norwegian are related, both come from Old Norse, which divided itself in two branches:

• Old West Norse (Icelandic, faroese, norwegian);

• and Old East Norse (Swedish, Danish);

Norwegian, however, was very influenced by Denmark for a long time, leading the language to become more similar to its East Norse cousins.

I hope it answer you well! :)

Ergative Man
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    I think OP asks about the relation to Slavic (and Baltic) reflexive suffixes -ся, -сь, -się, -s. Not just Scandinavian ones. – J-mster Dec 22 '19 at 18:45
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    @J-mster I think they're making a comparison and a (widely held, actually) hypothesis that both may come from an original reflexive pronoun, but I don't think they're wondering whether they're actually related to the Slavic equivalents. – LjL Dec 22 '19 at 21:00