Dear Alvin,
I'll have to respond to your comments one
by one. Let me deal with the rest in a separate posting.
The starting-point of any etymology must be
the examination of what is already known about the words in question. It's no
use reinventing the wheel or starting from scratch if there is a lot of earlier
scholarship on the subject in hand. Incidentally, Athene is a goddess, not a
god.
The Greek root <the:-/the-> in
<thesis> is the same as in the verb tithe:mi 'place, put, lay down'. The
IE form of that root is *dHeh1- (*h1 was a very weak consonant that dropped out
in prehistoric times, and the vowel was lengthened to compensate for the
loss). The words <theatron> and <theo:ria> are of different origin;
they are related to the verb theaomai < *tha:w-a-o-mai 'gaze at' (cf.
<thauma> 'wonder, marvel'). Etymologically, they have to do
with "laying out" (= "explaining") or "watching" something, but not with
"speaking".
The most archaic documented form of
Athene's name is Atha:naia: (a: > e: in the Attic dialect of Greek, hence
Atha:n(ai)a: > Athe:ne:). Its etymology is anything but clear, but for
reasons that have to do with the internal history of Greek it cannot be
connected etymologically with *the:- or *tha:u-. Of course if you refuse
to obey the normal methods of historical linguistics you can connect
Athe:ne:/Atha:naia: with whatever seems to resemble it in any language, but you
will do so at your peril: such impressionistic comparison has no scientific
value whatsoever.
Albanian words related to <thom> will
not do anyway, since <thom> derives from PIE *k^eh1s-mi 'announce,
recommend' via regular phonetic processes (*k^- > Albanian th-, *eh1 > *e:
> Albanian o, etc.). The roots *k^eh1s- and *dHeh1- have nothing to do with
each other. <thom> is a native Albanian word, not borrowed but inherited
from the protolanguage. Likewise, Greek <thesis> < the-ti-s
< *dHh1-ti-s 'laying down' -- this is also a native formation within Greek,
not borrowed from an external source (note that -si- comes from earlier -ti- and
has nothing to do with Albanian -zë). <Atha:naia:> is obscure and possibly
borrowed from a non-Indo-European language of the Aegean region, but an
absurd etymology is not better than none (it's more salutary to know that you
don't know something than to fool yourself with wishful thinking).
The sound represented as <th> (= a
dental fricative [T]) is indeed as old as written Albanian, but this is no great
feat, as the earliest substantial attestation of Albanian comes from the 15th
century. We know that <th> derives ultimately from the palatalised
*k^ sound in PIE. Whatever the actual intermediate stages (most probably the
palatal stop changed into an affricate that finaly turned into a fricative),
[tH] (aspirated [t]) isn't likely to have been one of them if the assumed
development is to be natural.
When I say it is a methodological error to
compare Albanian directly with ancient languages as if nothing has happened in
the meantime, I mean that even the oldest stage of Albanian known to us is very
different from whatever Proto-Albanian looked like two or three millennia ago.
Historically known Albanian shows traces of very far-reaching changes even since
Roman, let alone PIE, times. Unstressed syllables have been lost, some
intervocalic consonants have disappeared, etc. The modern Albanian versions
of Illyrian placenames are difficult to recognise, e.g. Aulona > Tosk
Vlorë.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:14 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Albanian connection
Well, it might be an accidental phonetic similarity. But I would ask: -
Do we have a better explanation (or an explanation at all) of <Athena> as
a God of Speech ?
- How often do "phonetic similarities" have to occur in
order not to be "accidental" anymore, and we could try to digg, and probably
find the connections ?
I would like to bring some other similatiries
which seems to have <the> = <spoken> as root: thesis, theater,
theory.
All these words have to do with the "spoken word".
Now, if you have defined something in some words, what you have done is
<thezë> in Albanian, where <-zë>, <-z> is been added to mark
that what we are talking about is smaller than the meaning of the root. In our
case it is not a long meaning, or a speech but only a small meaning
<thezë>. I will not dare to say that it might be the same as
<thesis>, but there is anotheraccidental similarity.
You can find a
lot of such "accidental similarities" even in the (some times still undeciphred)
names of ancient Greek Gods, or Greek Mithology.
Coming back to
<the>, <tha>, <e thena>, <e thana> - in a script
of Aurel Marcelini (Dardanian, brought as kid to Constantinopel) found in
Constantiponels Library is included an old song about a female God - belonging
to Illyrians - whose name was Thana.
Could it be the same God as Athene
?
"Thana" in Albanian is also the name of a tree, which old Albanians
considered as a God of healthiness, and for which they payed a lot
respect.
...
Again, <the>, <tha> is tought to be as old as the language
which later is called Albanian is. The time gap might instead bring closer the
Albanian pronounciation of "th" to the old Greek one.