Could "arya-" have any connection to the Latin
"alius"?
My Latin Dictionary gives: "alius: the other (of two
individuals)", "alii; others (= one's neighbours or
fellow-creatures)", and "alius (5) all other, the rest"
Emile Benveniste writes "There is more precise testimony
to the social position of the arí in the complaint of the
daughter-in-law of Indra (Rig Veda X, 28, 1): `All the
other arí have come (to the sacrifice); only my father-
in-law has not come'. Indra is thus counted among the
arí of his daughter-in-law. If we took the expression
in the most literal sense, we should conclude that the
arí formed the other moiety in an exogamic society."
and "The derivative a:rya, which at first designated
the descendants of the arí (or the arya), indicated
that they belonged to the arí, and it soon came to
serve as a common denominator for the tribes who
recognized the same ancestors and practised the same
cults. These comprise at least some of the components
of the notion of arya, which among both the Indic people
and the Iranians, marks the awakening of a national
conscience."
So could "arya-" have originally signified "belonging
to the other (moiety)"? Endogamy and exogamy taboos
are a central part of both the Hindu and Ossetian
cultures to this day. Alternately, if there had been
at some point in time a three way system with "same,
other (near), other (far)" comparable to Latin's
demonstratives in "this, that (near), that (far)" or
"here, there (by you), there (by him)", and *alyo-
played the role of the first "other", then it seems
to me that it could minimally distinguish, when used
in context, one's own people "the others (near)" from
outsiders or aliens "the others (far)", comparable to
the use of "mare nostrum" for the Mediterranean, which
is nondistinctive when taken out of context (translated
from Latin and/or spoken by other than a Roman).
Though I've never heard of a group whose ethnonym
meant simply "us".
This question probably tells more about what I don't
know than what I do, but it's just that, a question.
I'm not insisting on anything, so please just tell me
where I've gone wrong and don't rush to call the
looney wagon yet! :-)
David
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Nor can German Ehre, Old English a:r, Old Norse eir be cognate to
Indo-Iranian *arya-; they go back to Proto-Germanic *ais-/*aiz-.
Greek aristos contains the superlative suffix <-isto-> added to <ar-
>, which is usually connected with PIE *h2ar(h1)- 'fit together
(skilfully)' (cf. Latin ars 'art') and is not likely to have anything
to do with *arya-. Truth to tell, I know no _certain_ cognates of
*arya- outside Indo-Iranian (even Celtic *ario- admits of more than
one etymological interpretation).
>
> Piotr