--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:
>
> This mugel-mögel-mogil-magur-etc. seems to be more than
coincidence...
******GK: Let's follow this up for a moment. We have a word in at
least 3 IE language families with meanings that can be related to the
actual 'appearance' of kurgans. As to size. The earliest kurgans
weren't very big as far as I know. Not more than about 2 meters, and
usually smaller. And this persisted for millennia (until Scythian
times). Now if there are counter examples as to size in the period
ca. 3500-1000 BC let someone advise us. Further. Prior to
Scythian times, kurgans were usually surrounded by cromlechs. So both
of these facts (the relatively small mounds, the stones) could easily
yield such meanings as "small bumps" or "heap of stones" depending on
your focus. And of course the meaning of "grave" would also be very
old. For "hill" or "hillock" you probably have to take into account
the changes in classical Scythian times (or even Late Cimmerian
times) when the height of many of these kurgans increased
dramatically, sometimes to 19 or 20 meters. And no more cromlechs. In
Sarmatian times, the kurgans return to a much smaller size (less than
2 meters). The Iranic etymology being rechecked by Piotr might make
some sense if the perspective was that of a judgement passed by a
later population on the tremendous kurgans of the Scythians which
they "inherited". These could indeed appear to be "magic mountains".
The counter argument is the non-existence of the word in Ossetian
(heir to those Iranics who were closest to the territory of classical
Scythia), and the non-existence of the proposed Iranic meaning in any
of the languages where the word is/seems attested, especially in the
Slavic languages. It is difficult to see the relevance of the Altaic
and Finno-Ugric terms except possibly as some remote derivations from
the "hill" or "hillock" meaning.*****