Re: [tied] Re: Sarasvati

From: João Simões Lopes Filho
Message: 3966
Date: 2000-09-21

OK, you must be right. I think I goddess of aerial/celestial waters does make sense.
But IE fro willow is *sa:lik- (cf. Greek He:lix, Latin Salix, VIrl sail (gen. sailech)).
 
Joao SL
Rio
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Parvati
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Parvati

Not impossible, since Indic *saras and its Iranian counterpart can reflect *seros or *selos equally well. But the Greek word helos means 'marshy ground, marsh meadow' or (by semantic extension) 'backwater', so Sarasvati:, if derived from the stem *seles-, would mean 'marshy' rather than 'watery' -- which could well be the case, but why, then, was Saras-vant- the ruler of aerial waters or the pesonification of the sea? And here's the second problem: What's the real evidence for IE *selos? The Indo-Iranian cognate is ambiguous (it may well belong to the *ser- family of words), and *selos is not the only possible ancestral form of the Greek word. It could be *swelos, for example (the gain would be the tantalising possibility that it's related to some IE terms for 'willow'). On the other hand, *ser- is a very secure root, abundantly attested in Indo-Iranian (and elsewhere, also in numerous river-names). On the whole the "*seres-wnt-i:" etymology looks more credible to me.
 
Piotr

 

The etymology for SARASVATI I know is *saras-vati" "watery", < IE
seles-wnti: cf. Gr. helos "marsh". This names is cognate of toponym
Arachosia < Iranian *Harahvaiti.
Joao SL
Rio