Editing Lox (section)

==Etymology==
The American English word ''lox'' is a borrowing of [[Yiddish]] {{Transliteration|yi|laks}} ({{Lang|yi|לאַקס}}), itself derived from [[Middle High German]] {{Lang|gmh|lahs}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dwds.de/wb/Lachs|title=Lachs – Schreibung, Definition, Bedeutung, Etymologie, Beispiele|website=DWDS|date=20 September 2022 }}</ref> (modern German form: {{Lang|de|Lachs}}) stemming from Proto-Germanic ''[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/lahsaz|*lahsaz]]'' and ultimately [[Proto-Indo-European]] (PIE) ''*laks''. ''Lax'', chiefly a British English word for salmon, is a [[Doublet (linguistics)|doublet]] of the word inherited from [[Middle English]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lox |title=lox (n.) |work=[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]}}</ref> The word has various [[cognate]]s in various Indo-European languages. For example, cured salmon in Scandinavian countries is known by different versions of the name [[gravlax]] or gravad laks, with ''lax'' meaning salmon. The word is so remarkably widespread and stable across IE languages that it probably existed in its current form in the PIE language itself.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Nurkiyazova |first1=Sevind J |title=The English Word That Hasn't Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years |url=https://nautil.us/the-english-word-that-hasnt-changed-in-sound-or-meaning-in-8000-years-237395/ |access-date=13 May 2019 |work=[[Nautilus (science magazine)|Nautilus]] |date=13 May 2019}}</ref> This wide distribution of the term was in the past used by linguists to argue for a placement of the PIE [[Urheimat]] in the [[Drainage divide|watershed]] of the [[Baltic Sea]] before more modern linguistics determined that the original term likely referred to a different species of fish. This line of argument – called the [[Lachsargument]] – was common especially in German-speaking linguistics for almost a century.{{Cn|date=December 2024}}