Re: Mitanni and Matsya

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Russell Watson" wrote:
>
> You are the one who introduced the word 'confine' in connection
> with your proposed root for Varuna: *vR-.

Not _my_ proposal, but an old and well known suggestion,
but which obviously has nothing at all to make your use
of 'idiocy' any more acceptable.

> I continue to think the suggestion purely idiotic. No one
> familiar with divine nomenclature practices would believe
> 'Confiner' as a meaning for a sea-god!

No one familiar with Rig Veda would believe that Varuna's
original function was one of sea god, as has already been
stated several times now, but which you think you're free
to ignore. So then whom does that make an idiot?

> > A turtle may crawl for a very long time, and even stay in
> > a perfectly straight line the entire while, yet not get a
> > fraction as far as a leopard could in the same amount of
> > time.
>
> You, the leopard. Pfffffft!

Maybe not, but _you_ are definitely the turtle.

> Every other adjective an insult.

Yes, I know, so why don't you stop?

> Most egotists like yourself do not really realize how transparent
> their devices are to people.

I'm not an egotist, though you strongly give the impression
of being one yourself, with your ex cathedra proclamations,
fantasy of having reconstructed the "proto-language", etc.

> You have added no new information to the discussion in the
> paragraphs above except to display your contempt for me.

I have added a great deal of information to the discussion.
Is it _my_ fault that you refuse to acknowledge anything at
odds with your idiosyncratic idées fixes?

> > > APAM PITAH
> >
> > Your Sanskrit fails you again, as 'ap-' means 'water' not
> > 'sea'. Why aren't you consulting the dictionary I pointed
> > out to you at http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil ?
> >
> > So then it's just as I've said, he's associated to a small
> > degree, your use of capital letters doing nothing to make it
> > any bigger.
>
> Seas are not composed of water?

Yes, just as nuts are pale once you peel them, but that in
no way amounts to 'nut' being synonymous with 'pale', and
neither does 'water' amount to 'sea'.

Your semantic-chain games will no longer be tolerated.

> > Yes, along with the Avesta, it's the _oldest_ of the voices.
>
> No, actually not. The oldest voice is the proper analysis of his
> name.

Again you demonstrate that you have no idea how linguistics
is properly done. We can't decide on the basis of the shape
of the word alone what it might have meant, since, as should
be obvious by now, there are a few equally valid candidates.
In addition to the form of the word some context is required
for the character of Varuna so we can guess at the necessary
_semantic_ aspect.

Our oldest source describing Varuna is the Rig Veda, and that
fact simply won't go away, Patrick.

> > Greeks identified a very late and thoroughly Zoroastrianized
> > version of Mithra with Helios, but then who has ever denied
> > that Mithra took on more and more solar attributes as time
> > went by?
>
> Mitra's original attributes were solar.

No, not according to the oldest sources mentioning him, and
not according to the etymology of his name, with admits to
far fewer interpretations than Varuna's.

You can't wish those facts away either.

> > What is Mitra's birthday and what is the significance of that
> > day of the year?
> >
> > You do not know the answers to these questions, do you?

It's so amusing how you imagine that nobody besides yourself
has ever read a book.

I know all about the winter solstice. See for yourself at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/28762
where I mention my celebration of "the rebirth of the sun".

For your comment to be in any way relevant you would have to
first prove that the winter solstice was regarded as Mitra's
birthday in the Proto-Indo-Iranian period.

> > Well today you told us that "Syncretism has blurred many
> > a god's original functions", and pretended discernment in
> > regard to what is original and what is syncretic, and now
> > you turn right around and present us with as late and as
> > highly syncretized a version of Mithra as there is to be
> > had - the form in which he was worshipped in Rome!
> >
> > What you're doing is akin to claiming that aircraft, tanks,
> > and computer-guided missiles were used during the U.S.'s
> > revolutionary war, or that Paul Revere led an assault on
> > Germany during World War II. I assumed that you were a
> > student of history, but in light of such claims it's clear
> > that you don't mentally possess a basic framework of dates
> > and historical periods grounding you.
>
> More abuse. David, your petticoat is showing.

Not at all. You clearly demonstrated that you conflate the
Mitra of the Rig Veda and the Mithra of the Avesta with the
highly syncretized Roman version that didn't come around
until many centuries later. In fact, there are many more
years between the first mention of Mitra or Mithra and his
later worship in Rome, than there are between WWII and the
revolutionary war.

So clearly it wasn't an insult but a _charge_, and a charge
you haven't answered. How about it, do you think a proper
historian would conflate the revolutionary war and WWII?

The problem is that you somehow think you can rewrite the
rules of logic, and force us to accept that _later_ sources
can provide a more accurate understanding of the earliest
form of a god than the _earliest_ sources can.

What's next; are you going to tell us to boil something if
we want to freeze it, or to submerge it in water if we want
to dehydrate it, or to dip it in mud if we want to clean it?

> > If it were. Maybe you should try to prove that first.
>
> I have provided the analysis. I guess you missed it

I didn't miss it, I simply rejected it. Better linguists
than you have been all over this question for more years
than you have, and have rejected the equation. 'Varuna'
and 'Ouranos' are not cognates. Case closed.

> - like so much else.

I haven't missed anything.

> > > Now, I will ask again:
> > >
> > > please explain the _u_ in Varuna as it relates to your
> > > proposed derivation. My guess is you cannot, and that
> > > is why you keep ignoring it and excising the question in
> > > your 'answers'.
> >
> > You're not asking "again", I already answered that question,
> > some time ago. Check the archives or your mail box again if
> > you truly haven't seen it yet.
>
> Oh, you think a casual mention of -una as a suffix suffices as
> an answer.
>
> I asked you what PIE suffix is its correspondent;

You can't ask what may well not exist. Who's claimed that
the word or the god ascends to Proto-Indo-European times?
Certainly not I. That's a necessity for _you_ and _your_
etymology and assumptions, not mine. I've never claimed
that Varuna was more than an Proto-Indo-Aryan, and possible
also a Proto-Indo-Iranian deity.

> and now ask what the name means based on your root and suffix?

Roughly "he who creates/maintains boundaries", or, with the
newer suggestion (have you seen it?), "the seer".

A few other suggestions have been made in this thread that
have merit too. About the only idiotic suggestion we've
seen so far is "the wide one".

David