Re: [tied] Danaans [was Poseidon]

From: Mark Odegard
Message: 3366
Date: 2000-08-23

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
 
I've been contemplating something like that since Glen suggested *potis + Gen.pl. of *da:nu (an idea I genuinely liked, especially because of the parallel Skt. phrase apa:m patis. The phonological problems look insurmountable, but a lot depends on how we analyse the stem *da:nu-. <speculation> Is it = *dax-nu-? A noun-forming *-n(e/o)u- suffix is rare, functionally obscure and nonproductive, but not quite nonexistent -- after all, *suHnús, Gen. *suHnóus (~ *suHnéus) is generally believed to derive from *suH- 'give birth to', which allows us to analyse the word as *suH-n(o)u-. A root like *dax- would be a godsend, since there would be more than one way of deriving *da:o:n from it, but where is it attested and what does it mean? Supposing it's something to do with flowing water, why don't we find in river-names except in combination with *-nu-? </speculation>
 
Piotr
 

 
Mark wrote:
 
From another article in the current JIES, this by A.L. Katona, "Proto-Greeks and the Kurgan Theory". This is a review of the work of the Greek archaeologist Michael B. Sakellariou.
 
If the second part of this compound name could be connected to the IE root *da-/dan (c.f. Mycenaean po-se-da-o-ni do-so-mo without the digamma) one might ask if the Danaans, or any other ethnic component later to become Greeks, brought this deity with them as especially theirs. [p. 70]
 
Just as a thought, Poseidon might perhaps be better analyzed as 'Lord of the Danaans', 'Lord of the Flowing-Water-People' rather than 'Lord of the Water'.
 
As for the Danaans, the da-/dan- root is certainly the river-word. They were the people of flowing water. The article I mentioned suggests this is probably the oldest ethnonym for Greeks that we have, one they applied to themselves. It is probably too much to say the Danaans were the proto-Greeks, much as it is too much to say just the Angles were the proto-English.
 
The Danaans certainly contributed a distinct component to Greek mythology, one that does not completely agree with the usual Olympian version. The river-god stories are mostly *their* stories. The Egyptian motifs in this cycle of myths is suggested to be something late, a re-association and relocation of certain elements after the 800-1000 year old North Pontic origin had been utterly forgotten; but it's *still* the marriage of the river god and his children. The article leans to North Pontic origin origin for the Danaans.


Again quoting the article in the current JIES by A.L. Katona, "Proto-Greeks and the Kurgan Theory", p. 91.

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The dictionary of Walde-Pokorney .. has only the root *dā- and *dē- without explaining either the quantity or the o-vocalism of "Don" (or the quantity of its o-vocalism). But since there is an initial dā-na for Sanskrit, isn't it possible that the root had a final laryngeal originally? The Greek word δημός  ('fat', 'fodder', 'nourishment for beasts') could possibly be attached to "-dan ". Then, being analyzed further as *dā-m-, it would remind of *dā-n-. Nevertheless, I think that the most plausible explanation is given by W.P. Schmid. He interprets the difference in quantity between dā-nu and Δαναοι  with quantitative ablaut relations, *danos being the outcome of the zero grade (Schwundstufe). He also brings the forms with -o- with those with -u- together, dan/dun- as in Latvian danava, dunava /'pool, puddle'/. The vowel gradation has then several parallels, e.g., nox - νύξ , also calix - κύλιξ, Lithuanian nagas /'nail'/ - óνυξ, etc. It is clear, he writes, that the Δαναοι must have had their homeland in the region which had the zero grade form dan-, not that of dā-nu.
--end quote--

Mark.