Re: [tied] Re: apsinthion

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 11383
Date: 2001-11-21

In a hypothetical compound like *ap-zinda- the *ap- part would be the determiner: "living in water", "water-fed" or the like, rather than "life-potion". The "ispand-" etymology is difficult semantically and formally -- in fact, there's little more to it than a vague similarity of the consonantal skeletons. I am sure the etymology of <apsintHion> (also <apsintHos>) should be investigated together with that of other plant-names (as well as toponyms and cultural words) in -ntHo-.
 
The quality of etymologies in Partridge's _Origins ..._ is on the whole very poor. Partridge may have been a great lexicographer, but he was a linguistic amateur -- and certainly no historical linguist. I trust him in matters of British army slang in the Great War, but he did not have the kind of competence that is necessary in etymological research. I know the dictionary is popular, "classic", etc., but there are far too many outdated, inconsistent or erroneous reconstructions, the terminology is odd, and the sources used by Partridge are untraceable. It is not the kind of reference book to be used for serious research.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: john_monastra@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 3:57 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: apsinthion

At first I thought: ap- is Old Persian for 'water'.  Or any drink. The rest maybe related to Persian zindah 'living'.  The verb zistan  'to live' was the same in Pahlavi (Sassanid era) as in New Persian.  As a LW in Greek, the adjacent [p] would have devoiced the [z] to [s].  Absinthe was used as a drug from ancient times.  Pliny wrote: "They  drink to each other of it in the summer, thinking it to be a causer of health." 

So for its medicinal use, not to speak of druggie subculture, they might have named it analogously to "aqua vitae" or "uisge beatha."

But I was unsatisfied with this line of speculation.

Another idea was deriving it from Persian ispand < Avestan spenta, 'sacred', the name of a plant (Peganum harmala) with psychoactive properties, used in ancient Iranian rites and still used in Iran on ceremonial occasions.  It grows as a shrub in semiarid environments and resembles Artemisia spp., including wormwood and sagebrush.

van Dale's Dutch etymological dictionary relates absinth to Persian espand and Georgian abzinda.  One of the many Persian loanwords in Georgian?  Metathesis of -sp-/-ps- is not unknown; English wasp, Italian vespa came from PIE *wopsa.

Neither of these is really satisfying.  Does anyone have any idea if, or how, apsinthion could be derived from Persian?  I wonder where Eric Partridge got that idea.