Re: [cybalist] Eri-danus

----- Original Message -----
From: Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 05 May, 2000 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Eri-danus


>
>
> >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".
>
> I think that the transference of such a myth and term could occur as far
> back as 6000 BCE with my "Semitish" people which John seems to find
evidence
> for (Yurmesomethinoranother) but refusing to accept the possibility of
their
> speaking an AA language. However, Eridanus to come from Semitish, we would
> need *h in the IE version of Eridanus... and that would make *e become *a
> which wouldn't explain Eridanus.
>
> Yet, *danu, if reconstructable, could be loaned early:
>
> Semitish **danu "netherworld" ->
> Mid IE *t:a:neu "Okeanos, river to underworld"
> IE *da:nu "river" & *da:neuos "river-like"
>
> But then the wind might have gained hold of my kite...
>
> - gLeN
> ________________________________________________________________________


Thanks for the above Glen.
To overcome the problem of the missing /h/ in Eridanus, I would see the
name Eridanus as a direct borrowing into Greek from West Semitic, not
inherited from IE via an earlier borrowing.
That the laryngeal /H/ may have been dropped even in Semitic can be
evidenced from the Akkadian god Erra - the Scorcher, whose name must also
have derived from /Hrr/.

As for /da:nu/ (without the Eri-), yours seems a plausible scenario. But I
have two questions :
1. why is the word only attested at the two geographical extremes of IE (I
exclude Greek, where I don't think it is inherited)?
2. would the Semitish people of 6000BCE have had such a sophisticated
imagery?

I myself had rather imagined independent contacts with Semitic or
Semitic-influenced people at much later dates.

Cheers

Dennis





However I think though that Eridanus, and the myth, came directly into
Greek much later, mid to late 2nd millennium, from the Egypto-Semitic Hyksos
colonists or during the high point of Egyptian power and influence on
Mycenean Greece during the 18th dynasty.
There is an Akkadian divinity by the name of Erra (the Scorcher) whose name
must derive from the same root, /Hrr/, and is attested from 3rd millennium.
Is it not also possible that the word came to Iranian, Greek and Celtic via
independent contacts with Semites or Semitic influence?
This would overcome the problem of the lack of cognates in the other IE
dialects.
Is not 6000BCE also rather early for such a sophisticated cosmology on the
part of the Semitish people?
.