Re: [tied] The Scythian Brothers

Skt. lip- (limpati) 'smear, anoint, pollute' might perhaps work. One would expect Proto-Iranian *rip- (I don't know if it's attested in Iranian), with *ri-

> *li- in the lambdicising dialect in question. The underlying IE root is

*leip- 'stick, adhere; fat' (as in Slavic *le^piti), with fairly general and varied semantics. Even Eng. life, live (< *li:b- < *leip-) are thought by many authors to belong here, via something like 'stick' > 'stay, remain' [Goth. bi-leiban, Germ. b-leiben] > 'live'. Somewhat paradoxically, Eng. leave is a family member as well, being derived from the causative *laibjan- < *loip-(e)je- 'cause to remain, leave behind'. I'm digressing, but my purpose is to show the possible extent of semantic drift for such a root.

_Very_ hypothetically (using possible but purely conjectural forms is hardly a sound method), one could imagine *ripa- (Skt. lipa- 'smearing', Greek lipos 'fat, tallow') with the derived meaning 'soil' (via 'dirt, clay, sticky substance'. On the other hand, Herodotus writes the name Lipoxais with <ei>, which suggests [i:] in the Scythian prototype and I have no idea how to justify a long vowel here.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: george knysh

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2001 3:57 AM

Subject: [tied] Skolota

BTW as to Leipoxais. I would be pleasantly surprised if you found a way to link the chap to the "oldest brother" of later legends. But even if you can't find the evidence, two out of three is not bad at all. The mythogenic continuity was certainly broken with the re-(?)establishment of the older brother's significance. So if "thunder, lightning, hammer etc." don't work for old Leipo- alternatives more in line with the specifics of the Scythian legend might. Something to do with agriculture, fields, earth, soil, in other words an "Aukhata" orientation (since Leipo- was their ancestor). Might one of the meanings of Sanskrit LIP- be at all relevant here?