Re: [tied] Bakkhos etymology

Well, here's my take on the whole thing.

Dionysos is Zeus' son. One of Jupiter's functions is storage of the harvest and prosperity (cf. Jupiter Ops).

Dionysus is his son in this function. One of the major sub-aspects is as god of wine. He is associated with the thyrsus, the pine-cone tipped staff. Rosin come from the pine. And retsina is what the Greeks drink. His divine madness is simply that he is a mean drunk (berserker) on furlough from the wars. In early vase-paintings, horse-men (ass-men) are Dionysus' companions. I believe his name means Divine Ass (Di-onus-os) from the fact that ass mare's milk was his earliest intoxicant (kumiss) in the Caucasus.

Robert Graves thinks his name (Bacchus) derives from *bhe:gh-, 'quarrel'. He is a good source for ancient information but a little wild on his interpretations of same. If Bacchus is not originally from Greece, we might explain the form of his name (B for P) as a result of its being formulated in another related IE language where the rules were different.

Now Ares is a son of Zeus also, associated with growth, war, horses (mare's milk anyone?), and intoxicants.

Bacchus may be an Anatolian(?), tamer form of Ares, so that 'quarreler' is an appropriate name.

Patrick

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

From: Joao S. Lopes

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 10:41 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Bakkhos etymology

I liked this idea of kkh<nkh...

Bakkhos < *bHaggH- < *bHangH-

Other possibility is that this b<*w or *sw or *gW(H)

Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

I think the Egyptian word you want is b3q (dotted k), 'moringa-oil'

It means supposedly 'moringa' rather than 'olive'; the 3 was a kind of /r/.

There is an IE cognate: *bher6 n)g^-,'shiny white'.

As for the cluster, I have found doubling of medial or final dorsals (velars) as an indication of earlier nasals:

so ba(n)kh(n)kh -> ba(n)kkh-, by the rule that eliminates one of two aspirated stops.

You might want to consider IE *bheng^h-, 'fat', for **beng^h-; there is confusion between *b and &bh in PIE.

Patrick

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

From: Joao S. Lopes

To: Cybalist

Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 3:53 PM

Subject: [tied] Bakkhos etymology

I found an old note copied from some article I don't
remember, linking BAKKHOS to Berberian tabakat and
Egyptian b´k "olive", Latin baca "berry".

What would be the origin of such odd cluster -kkh- in
Greek? < *bakH-? *baks^-?

Joao SL

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