Re: [tied] Bakkhos etymology

It is so nice to know that someone actually critically reads what I post.

Thank you for your corrections. I rarely deal with Greek and had forgetten the long genitive -*ojo > -ou.

Well, what I meant was they heard onus, remodeled it to onos, and analyzed it as a regular -os nominative for the word "ass".

For Dionysus, they probably heard Dionus, added their nominative ending -os: Dionusos.

Yes, I meant root rather than stem. Guess I should not write so late at night.

For all IE *u deriving from*w, some would accept it, some would not.

Well, the Greeks treated on- as a root/stem in error, I believe, as Dionus-s strongly suggests.

Pokorny lists it as a root (no hyphen s). Some IEists do not believe in the CVC rule, to their misfortune, I think.

Kumiss is preferable to the spelling koumiss - unless you're French.

In Mesopotamia. But the people are definitely earlier from the Caucasus.

The Sumerians were up to their asses in asses. Of course they would ferment jenny's milk if they knew it coud be done.

----- Original Message -----

From: david_russell_watson

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 8:00 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Bakkhos etymology

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@......>
wrote:
> I will try to explain my position.
>
> For the Greek, it is a loanword through how many (?) languages
> from Sumerian ansu/e/i (or perhaps from some unidentified
> Anatolian language that provided it to both). It was heard by
> the Greeks as /onus/, and misanalyzed as onu-s, nominative;

You mean that is was misanalyzed as 'ono-s', right? The
Greek word for "ass" is 'on-os', and whose stem is 'on-'.
The '-os' in its citation form isn't part of the stem but
only the regular nominative ending of masculine o-stems.
You might instead be thinking of the Latin word 'onus
(oner-)', but which means "burden" not "ass", and whose
main stem is 'oner-'. Unlike the Greek 'onos', the '-us'
ending in the citation form of 'onus' is indeed part of
the stem, and not part of the nominative ending (which in
this case is actually zero), as you can see from looking
at its genitive, 'oner-is' < *onez-is < *ones-is.

> regularized as ón-os, but had the odd genitive ónou.

If 'onos' was in Greek a regular o-stem, regardless of
whatever supposed origin, then there's nothing odd about
that genitive.

It should decline like this:

Sing.
nom. on-os
acc. on-on
gen. on-ou
dat. on-o:i

Plur.
nom. on-oi
acc. on-ous
gen. on-o:n
dat. on-ois

While we're at it, the Latin 'onus' declines like this:

Sing.
nom. onus-0
acc. onus-0
gen. oner-is
dat. oner-i
abl. oner-e

Plur.
nom. oner-a
acc. oner-a
gen. oner-um
dat. oner-ibus
abl. oner-ibus

> But in Diónusos, the s-stem was accepted: Di-onus-os. However
> -onus- cannt reflect an IE stem because

You mean that it can't reflect an I.E. *root*, don't you?
Surely it can be an I.E. stem?

> all IE *u derives from zero-grades of *w (CVCVC).

I didn't know that. Are you sure that that's true?

> For Greek, we are left with the conclusion that it is a loanword.

As we now know though, the Greek stem in question is 'on-'.
I guess the only question is whether *H3enos- truly need
necessarily be a loanword or not.

> Pokorny lists a root *onos-, 'burden', however no such root is
> possible in IE which has almost exclusively CVC.

Does Pokorny actually call it a root, or does he not just
list it as a stem reconstructable for P.I.E?

> Of course, there is PIE *H2ensa:, *H2ensi, 'transport sling'. This
> is probably the source of Latin asinus (metathesis from *ansi-us
> with assimilation *as(s)sinus).

I'm surprised that you don't try to connect 'asinus' with
the Sumerian 'ansu/e/i' that you mention above. What does
'ansu/e/i' mean, by the way?

> As *a(:)nsu, loaned into an Anatolian language that metasthesized
> it into *anus; and that language further modified it into *onus,
> combined it with Di, 'god', where the Greeks heard Di-onus to
> which they added nominative -o-s.

I would think that if the Greeks misanalyzed an Anatolian
*on-us, with a 'u', that they would decline it like their
own -u- stems, giving *on-ys instead of 'on-os', but who
knows just how these people would have heard each other's
vowels.

> By the way, probably kumiss is preferable (< Russian kumys < Tatar
> kumyz).

Preferable to what?

> As for your other questions, who knows? We do know that the
> Sumerians were there at a very early date.

In the Caucasus?

> Would they have fermented jenny's milk in the absence of horses?
> Yes, if they had known of fermented mare's milk.

Well that's just it. You represented the use of koumiss
from ass' milk in Dionysus' supposed homeland as a fact,
and thus as a legitimate support for your idea that he
could be named after asses, when it is by no means certain
that they knew of such a thing as koumiss, much less of
koumiss from ass' milk.

PCR:

Who is "they"?

I am merely saying that the name originated in a moutainous region which had little native grain, and what they had, needed to be eaten. Before horses were introduced, asses substituted, and since most men seem to need some kind of an intoxicant, they fermented jenny's milk. One doubts they had grapes either.

The Greeks would not have gotten the name from the Caucasus but probably from Anatolia after grapes were known. old name, same game.

Many, in fact most of those cultures with a very long
history of using dairy foods, including even those who
use a number of fermented dairy foods, don't know of
anything like koumiss. So we can't assume that koumiss
will necessarily be known and used in every time and
place that animals are milked.

It seems to me, based upon all that we know, that the
most likely intoxicant of a supposed Caucasian Dionysus
would be wine.

PCR:

Is wine then a 'burden'? Would you revere a god name Divine Pin-in-the-Back?

Pish.

> That is a pretty sketchy outline. Does it make any sense?

The only point with which I can honestly sympathize is
your desire to connect a word meaning "ass" with a similar
sounding word meaning "burden", and I'm not personally
qualified to comment on whether *H3enos- need necessarily
be a loan into Indo-European or not. I don't find the
argument for some special connection between Dionysus and
asses very convincing though, much less the etymology
based thereupon.

PCR:

I did not say (I hope) that *H3enos- was a loan into IE.

What I was trying to say is that *H3enos-, 'burden', and Sumerian ansu, 'ass', are distantly cognate.

> What do you prefer? Jen and tonic? Or a wine-cooler? Or a Bloody
Marey?

I prefer kefir, which is a lot like koumiss, only much lower
in alcohol. We want to keep our minds clear, don't we? :^)

PCR:

I can only find it as a kind of cottage cheese.

David

P.S. Now aren't you glad that I didn't make any references
to "Patrick's asinine theory"? ;^)

-OU, that hurts.

Patrick

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