I've been contemplating something
like that since Glen suggested *potis + Gen.pl. of
*da:nu (an idea I genuinely liked, especially because of the
parallel Skt. phrase apa:m patis. The phonological problems
look insurmountable, but a lot depends on how we analyse the stem
*da:nu-. <speculation>
Is it = *dax-nu-? A noun-forming
*-n(e/o)u- suffix is rare, functionally obscure and
nonproductive, but not quite nonexistent -- after all, *suHnús,
Gen. *suHnóus (~ *suHnéus) is generally
believed to derive from *suH- 'give birth to', which allows us
to analyse the word as *suH-n(o)u-. A root like
*dax- would be a godsend, since there would be more than
one way of deriving *da:o:n from it, but where is it attested
and what does it mean? Supposing it's something to do with flowing
water, why don't we find in river-names except in combination with
*-nu-? </speculation>
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 7:37 PM
Subject: [tied] Danaans [was Poseidon]
Mark wrote:
From another article in the current JIES,
this by A.L. Katona, "Proto-Greeks and the Kurgan Theory". This is a review of
the work of the Greek archaeologist Michael B. Sakellariou.
If the second part of this compound name
could be connected to the IE root *da-/dan (c.f. Mycenaean po-se-da-o-ni
do-so-mo without the digamma) one might ask if the Danaans, or any other ethnic
component later to become Greeks, brought this deity with them as especially
theirs. [p. 70]
Just as a thought, Poseidon might
perhaps be better analyzed as 'Lord of the Danaans', 'Lord of the
Flowing-Water-People' rather than 'Lord of the Water'.
As for the Danaans, the da-/dan- root is
certainly the river-word. They were the people of flowing water. The article I
mentioned suggests this is probably the oldest ethnonym for Greeks that we have,
one they applied to themselves. It is probably too much to say the Danaans were
the proto-Greeks, much as it is too much to say just the Angles were the
proto-English.
The Danaans certainly contributed a
distinct component to Greek mythology, one that does not completely agree with
the usual Olympian version. The river-god stories are mostly *their* stories.
The Egyptian motifs in this cycle of myths is suggested to be something
late, a re-association and relocation of certain elements after
the 800-1000 year old North Pontic origin had been utterly forgotten; but
it's *still* the marriage of the river god and his children. The article leans
to North Pontic origin origin for the Danaans.