Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

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

From: george knysh

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 9:13 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

****GK: ... Since you probably can't read Ukrainian, here's a translation of
a Petrovian footnote on the Scythian River Mother Goddess API (SE, p.153, n2: "Of all Indo-European languages the word API is closest to the Baltic lexicon. Cf. OlPr "APE" ("river": Elbing glossary,62); Lith., Latv. "UPE". Compare Hitt. "HAP" "river"
"stream". In Indo-Iranian languages: Sanskr. "APAH", Avest. "AFS" ="water", Ossetian "ARF"= "deep" "deepness". Abayev thinks this possibly derives from "AP-RA" "AP" = "water". Contrary to the widespread view that the Scythian language was Iranic, the name
of the Mother of the Scythians, both phonetically, and as to meaning, is closer to Balt. "APE" and Hitt. "HAP"= "river", than to Avest. "AFS"= "water" or Osseticc "ARF" = "deep", since in the Ossetian language the word "AP-" ="water" is missing altogether and must be reconstructed as an assumption."*****

 

If this sample is anything to go by, Petrov is (was?) not a particularly serious linguist. "Phonetically closer"? Who, apart from complete amateurs, uses such criteria? Avestan a:fs^ is the Nom.sg. of the stem <ap-> (Acc.sg. a:pam, Instr.sg. apa:, etc.). He could also have mentioned Modern Persian a:p/a:b. The Old Prussian word is obviously related, but then *h2ap- is common Indo-European, so why shouldn't it be? Anyway, *ap- is an impeccable Proto-Iranian word (and Proto-Indo-Iranian too, given the Sanskrit cognates), even if it is missing from Ossetic in underived form. The reason for that is a trivial semantic shift particular to Ossetic: don < *danu < *dHa:nu 'river' came to mean 'water', ousting the older term. However, the development *ap-ra- > *afra- > arf- is regular (even the Ossetic metathesis *-fr- > -rf-), and I see no obstacles to accepting this derivation.

 

Piotr