Re: [cybalist] Eri-danus

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

From: Dennis Poulter

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 4:51 PM

Subject: Re: [cybalist] Eri-danus

Dennis,

 

The Indic form is actually da:nu, not dhanu, and the Celtic/Indo-Iranian match is quite good formally. The most serious problem is that there don't seem to be any other IE cognates, and the hypothetical proto-meaning is difficult to reconstruct. While keeping an eye on your Semitic connection, I'll try to see if anything can be done on the IE side.

 

Piotr

 

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Woodson <wood2@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 04 May, 2000 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Eri-danus


>
>   Dennis,
>     What about the rivers of south Russia / Ukraine?  The Don, Dnieper,
Dniester
> are from the *danu root and are of Iranian origin, from an older IE root.
>
>
Yes but Steve, it's all very well to say this, but what is the root and what
was its primary meaning?
So far, leaving aside river and divine names, we have come up with :
Old Indic /dhanu/ - dew, dripping water
Ossetic /don/ - river
Gaulish /dan/ - violent
Irish /danae/ - swift

I would think that the Ossetic is not primary, because this would mean that
the Iranians, migrating westwards and arriving at the Don, just called it
"the River", then proceeding further to the Dniepr, called it "the Next
River" and then to the Dniestr "the River-After-That" - not very imaginative
of them.

I know nothing about Celtic morphology, so I can't say whether /dan/ and
/danae/ are related to /danu/. Piotr dismissed a Celtic origin for Greek
Eridanos based on the fact there is no trace of  a /u/ stem  in the Greek
name.

So can these Celtic terms be related to the Vedic? From a semantic point of
view it seems unlikely.

So, If there is an underlying IE stem, we have yet to identify its
proto-form or proto-meaning.

Failing that, there are many alternatives - independent creations, no
connection between Celtic /dan-/ and the river names, pre-Celtic divinities,
and so on and so on.

So, to keep the pot boiling, I threw in a possible Semitic derivation that
can be interpreted as signifying "large river to the west with associations
with the end of the world/entry to the underworld".
Can this explain the forms found?
1. Indic /dhanu/ /dhanava/ - very unlikely.
2. Iranian /don/ - quite possibly - there were ancient contacts between
Semites and Iranians, and the rivers in question are large and (from the
Iranian perspective) to the west.
3. Greek /Eridanos/ - quite likely - see my other posts on Eridanus
4. Celtic - mmm - maybe, but I haven't yet thought through how this could
have happened.

But, please, if you have a better solution, I would really like to know.
Having lived for several years in Aberdeen, the mouth of the Scottish Don,
it has always intrigued me how this (rather unimpressive) river had the same
name as the mighty Don of the Ukraine.

Cheers
Dennis

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