DICTIONARY OF REVIVED PRUSSIAN:

common Baltic-Slavic level, but with other Indoeuropean languages on the Common
IE level).
Let us compare the etymology of OPr. enterpen (ka ast enterpen stawîds îdis
‘was nuetzt... solch Essen’ III) by V. Toporov 9 with that of V. Maþiulis 10 .
Unable to understand the form, V. Toporov follows J. Endzelins, who takes an
analogous phrase in the 3 rd Catechism with the word enterpo and regards the latter as
corresponding to the German verb nutzet in the original text. On that basis, enterpo
is corrected to *enterpa and is declared to be the verb ‘to profit’, i.e. the 3 rd pers.
praes. ‘profits’. After that this verb is compared to Lithuanian tarpti ‘thrive’ (by the
way, the latter is a sta-suffixed verb in the presence, not any praes. o tarpa or o terpa!),
as well as to a great number of words taken from various IE languages. This is a
good example of useless volitional etymology.
V. Maþiulis, on the other hand, first cites all analogous phrases, among which
are found not only the forms enterpen, enterpo, but also the form enterpon. Further,
on the basis of the whole character of spelling endings in the Catechisms, Maþiulis
compares the spellings (enterp)-en, (enterp)-on with analogous spellings e.g. of the
accusative singular -en, -on, which reflect nothing else but the unstressed -an. Thus
an analysis of spelling precedes all other etymological procedures. Against this
background, the spelling enterpo appears to be a misprint for usual enterpon
[enterpan]. In this instance, all cited phrases may be translated with the adverb
‘useful’, ‘profitable’, Germ, ‘nützlich’ = ‘was nützt’. Then if the word enterpan appears
to be an adverb (the Prussian an-adverbs are equal to Lith. gera, baisu, Polish dobro),
its nearest source is found in the combination *en terpan. The combination *en terpan,
in turn, immediately appears to be comparable to OPr. emnen... ny anterpinsquan
menentwei ‘den namen... vnnützlich füren’ III, i.e. ‘name (of God)... useless to mention
(Germ.: ‘to carry, to bring’)’. Thus the meaning ‘use, profit’ is easily extracted from
ny anterpinsquan ‘useless’ as a combination of ny ‘not’ + adv. anterpinsquan ‘useful’.
The latter is a compound of en ‘in’ and the acc. sg. fem. (ending in -quan adapted to
the nom. fem. -kw` /-kû < -k` with -` > -û after the guttural!) terpiniskan, i.e. ‘in
(for) the profitability’. Thus the word with the abstract meaning, fem. *terpinisk`
‘profitability’, is reconstructed, which is a derivative with the suffix -isk- from the
adjective OPr. *terpin(a)s ‘profitable’. The latter can be derived (by means of the
suffix -in-) only from the substantive OPr. *terp` ‘use, profit’. Such a word
9 Ïðóññêèé ÿçûê. Ñëîâàðü, E-H. Ìîñêâà, Íàóêà 1979, p. 55 t.
10 PEÞ, Vol. 1, A–H, p. 277 f., PKP, p. 69.
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