--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> *****GK: I take it then that "AGATHYRSOI" might be
> interpreted as "the very bold" or "the very strong"?
> As a Greek version of some non-Greek name it would be
> in the same category as the name of the Callipidae.
> Would you take a tentative stab at how "AGATHYRSOI"
> (in the above sense might) be rendered in Iranic?****
To begin with, I doubt if the <-tHursoi> part can be interpreted as
'bold' in Greek terms. <tHurso-> is not a Greek adjective, and the
noun <tHursos> means 'Dionysian staff' (it looks like a loanword and
may have something to do with ethnonymic <tHurso->, but I wouldn't
like to walk too far off into these quicksands). When I said that
Agathyrsi made sense as a Greek word, I meant that Aga- could be
identified with the Greek prefix <aga->. The whole thing might mean
something like 'the Arch-Thyrsi', with Thyrsi (<tHurso->) still
non-Greek, possibly a Thracian or "Thracoid" reflex of *tr.so- (rather
than anything Iranian). The possibility that there is an ultimate
connection between that and <turrheno->/<tHurseno-> is certainly worth
considering.
As for <aga-> itself, Raimo Anttila has proposed that it represents
the composition form of <ago:n> 'contest' (*h2ago:n/*h2agn.-). It
would certainly make sense to analyse names like Agamemnon or
Agastrophos in such "sporting" terms. I suspect that <aga-> is in fact
of mixed origin, standing for the merged reflexes of *m.g^h2- and
*h2agn.- in Greek. The accentual difference between <agánnipHos> and
<agaklutós> may reflect their different origin: *m.'g^h2-snigWHos
'very snowy' vs. *h2agn.-k^lutós 'famous in contest' (reinterpreted as
'very famous').
Piotr