On the etymology of the Turkic verb söylä- ‘to speak, to say'

Abstract

In Middle Turkic, there appears the verb söylä- ‘to speak, to say’, which partially (but not entirely) supplants the older variant sözlä-. Therefore, some scholars are inclined to either believe the idea that the latter is actually a phonological variant of the former or seek a root like *sög, a hypothetical base on which they can establish their interpretations. In fact, the latter form descends from another verb appearing in the late times of the Old Turkic period, which is savla- ‘to talk, to tell’. © 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.