Re: Mitanni and Matsya

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:47:25 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>On 2008-04-05 00:31, david_russell_watson wrote:
>
>> ... with radical accent árjuna- 'white' (Gk. árguros 'silver' from
>> r-stem; cf. also Skt. rjrá- from uncompounded r-stem), pís^una-
>> 'slanderous, treacherous' (cf. Gk. pikrós 'bitter, inimical', from
>> simple r-stem)...
>
>
>Just a thought. Adjectival *-ró- is in close-to-complementary
>distribution with *-ú-, and some adjectives have both variants. Gk.
>árguros, Skt. árjuna- seem to be secondary -ro-/-no- extensions of older
>*h2r.g^-ú- (var. of *h2r.g^-(r)ó-), with an accented vr.ddhi vowel
>(whatever the details of the process that produced such an outcome). I
>wonder if, after all, we couldn't be dealing with a parallel derivative
>of *wrh1-ú- 'wide' --> *wérh1-u-no-: 'the wide (sky)' or the like.

Excellent suggestion.

If we look at the Indo-Iranian forms of this root in
Pokorny:

Ai. urú-, av. vouru- (aus *varu-, idg. *w(e)ru-), jav. auch
uru- `weit', westoss. urux, Kompositionsform av. uru- (aus
*wru-, wie ai. gru- neben gurú-, oben S. 476); Komparativ
vári:yas-, Superlativ váris.t.ha-, dazu ai. uru:cí: f. `die
Erde', Femin. zu uru-vyáñc : uru:c- `weitreichend', vgl. den
av. Bergnamen Vourus^a-, vielleicht = ai. *uru:cya-; ai.
urvat.a- m. `Jahr', *uruat.a- `weit umherschweifend'; PN
Urvás´i: f. aus *uru-va:s´i:- `starkes Verlangen'; dazu
ulú:khala- `Mörser' aus *urú:-khara- `mit breitem Boden';

, that might also explain the Mitanni Hurrian form
ur(u)vana-.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...