w-h-wir-chri-wri This progression of consonants is attested to by the comparative Indo-European studies that trace the development of words such as "who, what, where, when," through several languages. Cf. Beck for "question words." Bely's contribution is his association of this fact with the additional poetic sound association that may be random and coincidental.

or. . .ra Indo-European has two developments for words related to work: one is related to Latin opus, labor, opera, the other to the Greek ergon. Found in Arbeit German "work, labor"; labor English; rabota Russian "labor, work"; robot Czech "labor, work" from which the English "robot." Cf. Preobrazhensky's discussion of Russian [rab] meaning "slave."