Wolf

These maps show the etymological family tree of the Proto-Indo-European word *wĺ̥kʷos (wolf), which developed into the English word wolf, and *ḱwṓ (dog), which developed into hound and the Finnish word susi (wolf). Finnish belongs to the Uralic languages which have throughout their history had close contacts with the Indo-European languages of which English is one.

Note that not all the words are in common use. In some languages another word may have superseded the one previously used. This is especially true of the word for 'dog' in the Ibero-Romance languages. For example, in Spanish the common word for dog is perro instead of the Latin-derived can. Likewise, in Swedish the wolf is usually referred to as varg instead of ulv.

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*wĺ̥kʷos

The word means 'wolf' in all the languages except Lydian and Luwian (*walwe- and *walwa-) where it means 'lion'.

*ḱwṓ

The word means 'dog' in all the Indo-European languages. It was borrowed into the Finnic languages in the meaning 'wolf'.

Estonian has two words for wolf: susi and hunt. The former is the Finnic word also found in Finnish and Votic, which was borrowed probably from a pre-Germanic language. This is shown on the map as *ḱu̯n̥tó‑. The latter word was borrowed from Middle Low German hund, but is shown as coming from Proto-Germanic, because there's not enough space for Low German on the map.

The Karelian word susi was likely borrowed from Finnish, and is used only in fairy tales and poems and such.

The North Sami word šūvon means a 'well-trained dog' and was borrowed into Proto-Samic probably from the Proto-Balto-Slavic word for 'dog'.

Uralic

This map shows the various words used in the Uralic languages to mean 'wolf'.

Legend