Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/bъrkъ

Probably from a 0-grade of Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to bore, to drill”) + *-kъ (u-stem). Possibly related to Proto-Germanic *burstiz (“bristle”), *bruskaz (“brush”) and less likely to Latin furca (“fork”) (usually viewed as a Germanic loanword).

*bъ̑rkъ m^[1]

1. whisker, barbel (in South Slavic)
2. quill of a feather (in West, East Slavic)

• *bъrkovъ
• *bъrkati (“to trim, to crop”)

• *borъ (“pine tree”)
• *bъrъ, *bъrica (“foxtail millet”)
• *borda (“beard”)

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: боркъ (borkŭ) (Old Ukrainian)
    • Russian: борк (bork) (dialectal)
    • Ukrainian: бо́рки pl (bórky) (fossilized dual)
• South Slavic:
  • Bulgarian: бърк (bǎrk)
  • Macedonian: брк (brk)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: бр̑к

    Latin script: bȓk

  • Slovene: bȓk (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Czech: brk
  • Old Polish: bark
    • Polish: bark
  • Slovak: brko, brk (dialectal)

• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “боркать”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress
• Trubachyov, Oleg, editor (1976), “*bъrkъ”, in Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages] (in Russian), numbers 3 (*bratrьcь – *cьrky), Moscow: Nauka, page 128
• Georgiev, Vladimir I., editor (1971), “бърк, мн. бърке”, in Български етимологичен речник [Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary] (in Bulgarian), volume 1 (А – З), Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Pubg. House, →ISBN, page 102