The most widely circulated theory about
Zamolxis (it requires Zalmoxis to be a metathetically garbled variant) is indeed
the one Torsten refers to: Zamol-ksi- = 'earth-lord (Iranian *xs^aya-)', not
unlike Lithuanian Z^eme-patis. BTW, Zamolxis was a Dacian (Getic) god, not a
Thracian one, but the whole point is that his name appears to be mixed,
Daco-Iranian. There are some formal problems here: to get the Dacian vocalism
right, the "Zamol-" part should be reconstructed as *g^He:m-ol- (?), with rather
strange vowel grades. Albanian, which I believe to be an offshoot of Dacian, has
<dhe> [ðe] 'earth', derivable from *(dH)g^Ho:m, an entirely
uncontroversial form. Secondly, it is not clear to me how Iranian *xs^aya- is
supposed to have become Dacian ksi-, but then we do not know very much about the
fine details of Dacian phonetics.
Anyway, in addition to the possibilities
listed by Torsten, there are at least two others: (1) that the analysis of
Zamolxis = 'earth-lord' is partly or completely wrong, (2) that the first
element is Iranian as well. The Iranian 'earth' stem is *zam-, after
all.
Thanks for checking the Herodotean
spelling. There's no need to rule out short *i, which is fine.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 6:04 PM
Subject: [tied] The Scythian brothers
Hello Piotr,
The Greek text of Herodotus in the Loeb
edition has
LIPOKSAIN (acc.) and LIPOKSAIOS (nom.) in the
relevant
contexts.
BTW what do you think of Torsten's idea about the
-XIS
in Zalmoxis?