The traditional constellation and star
names are no doubt loans and calques from Middle-Eastern languages. On
the other hand, I find it hard to imagine that conspicuous configurations of
stars like the Plough, Orion, Cassiopeia or the Pleiades, bright stars like
Syrius and spectacular objects like Venus (as the evening/morning star) or the
Milky Way should have been quite nameless in PIE. (The question is only if any
of those early terms survive anywhere -- I don't think they do.)
Nor can I believe that a "star" word had to
be borrowed, though the replacement of an original native term by a learned
Middle-Easternism is a possibility. Tantalising as this possibility is, one
could object that:
(a) It's hard to tell how old the
association of `Athtar with Venus really is.
(b) The Semitic name refers to Venus only,
not to any other individual star or to stars in general.
(c) IE *xster- (*h2ster-) does not refer
specifically to Venus; the latter is often called "Morning/Evening" (Us.ana-,
Hesperos, etc.), but not "the Star".
(d) There is a possible native etymology
for *xster-, the root *xah- 'burn' (Palaic ha:- 'burn', Avestan a:tar- 'fire'),
usually with an -s extension, as in the noun *xahs/*xaho:s 'ashes' (English
"ash" is closely related, by the way), Latin a:ra 'altar' (< *xahs-ax-),
a:ridus 'parched, dry', ardeo (< *xahs-dHh-). If *xster- is
a realisation of *xhs-tér-, then stars are "embers" in the
sky.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 10:15 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] PIE constellations
Afterall, a word exists for "star", *xster- (*H2ster-).
Interestingly, some linguists like to tease their reader with aggravatingly
vague mentions of similarities in vocabulary between IE and Semitic. Many have
noted the similarity between IE *xster- "star" and Semitic *`aTtar-
"Venus".
This gets people like me to concluding that if there is anything
to say about IndoEuropean knowledge of stars and constellations, it probably was
all adopted ultimately from the Middle East at a very early date, during the
spread of agriculture into Europe along with the other connectable terms that
will never go away, like *woinos (Semitic *wayn-) and *septm (Semitic
*seb`itum).