alex wrote:
> Patrick Ryan wrote:
>>> I've heard that Io < Egyptian iw.'t or ih .t 'cow', not 'moon'. Cf.
>>> also Iónios póntos and Bósporos 'cow's ford'
>>>
>>> Grzegorz J.
>>
>> ***
>> Patrick:
>>
>> Firstly, why would we expect that names for Greek mythological
>> figures derived from Egyptian words?
>>
>> Secondly, there is not Egyptian jw'.t, 'cow'; jw'.t means 'heiress'.
>>
>> Thirdly, jH.t does mean 'cow' but what would connect that to I:o:?
>
> seems they are connected with the "ju-" words in Latin, Alb. and Rom.
> where the word means too "cow", even if "young cow"( I guess in Alb.
> the word has an another meaning, I don't remember exactly).
> The "t" in Egyptian here should be a local suffixation?
>
> Alex
.t is a feminine marker in Egyptian (btw. it is a common Afro-Asiatic
feature).
And what would connect Egyptian words to I:o:? Meaning of course. A link
between Io and a cow (and Egypt) is obvious, see Ovid., Met., I,610nn, or
look at this page:
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Io.html
"Io, who is one of the Three Main Ancestors, was turned into a cow after
having been seduced by Zeus, and forced to wander over the whole world until
she settled in Egypt."
And what concerns the cow's etymologies in Latin, Alb. and Rom. - could you
give more details please? If you mean Latin juvenca 'young cow', it is
obviously a derivative from juvenis 'young' (btw. juvencus 'young bull'
seems to be the exact counterpart of the English word "young"). I see
nothing cow's in it. Some common words used to change their meaning into
something related to cattle, cf. Polish jal/ówka 'young, virgin cow' from
jal/owy 'barren, sterile'.
Grzegorz J.
___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com