--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...>
wrote:
> Persian < *Parsa, ParTa, what's its meaning?
The first occurrence of Old Persian Parthava `Parthia/Parthian' is
in the Behistun inscription (c. 520 B.C.) of Darius I, but Parthava
may be only a dialectal variation of the Old Persian ethnonym
Pa:rsa `Persian'.
According to M. Witzel, Old Persian pa:rsa- `Persian' < *pa:rsva- <
*pa:rc'ua-. I don't know what is the etymology of this term. I,
however, assume that *pa:rsva- is the Iranian proto-form, and
*pa:rc'ua-, the Indo-Iranian proto-form.
The still controversial identification of the R.gvedic term pars'u-
[see RV 8.6.46, 10.86.23 for the two only occurrences of this term
as an uncompounded proper name in Old Indo-Aryan] with Old Persian
pa:rsa- was first proposed by A. Ludwig about 150 years ago. Old
Indo-Aryan pars'u- `rib', pa:rs'va- `(the region of the) ribs, side,
flank' is derived from the PIE root *per(@)k'- `rib(s), chest,
breast'. Thus, from a different IE root., É. Pirart ("Les noms des
Perses", _Journal Asiatique_ 283 [1995], pp. 57-68, abstract at
<
http://tinyurl.com/2jobpr>) argues that this R.gvedic proper name
probably refers to the mother of the ancestors of the twenty
original Persian tribes through by alluding to the miraculous way
they were born: as Indra and the Buddha did, through the ribs
(pa:rs'va). Cf. RV 10.86.23:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10086.htm
"Daughter of Manu, Pars'u bare a score of children at a birth.
Her portion verily was bliss although her burthen caused her grief."
In sum, the composers of the above indicated R.gvedic hymns would
have changed an eastern Iranian ethnonym they were aware of,
possibly (Proto-Iranian?) *Pa:rsva `Persian', into a mythological
name coinciding with the Old Indo-Aryan term for `rib(s), pars'u-
/pa:rs'va-. If proved true, this interpretation could attest for the
existence of an Iranian ethnonym *Pa:rsva (later > Pa:rsa) in the
late second millennium B.C.E.
For the earliest written record about the Iranian ethnonym *Pa:rsva
(which some may want to transliterate as *Pa:rsua or *Pa:rswa) in
Mesopotamian cuneiform sources, see the article from the
_Encyclopaedia Iranica_ at
http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v2f1/v2f1a091.html
(no phonetic transliterations available):
"The earliest reference to the land of Parsua is given in an
Assyrian text of the 9th century B.C. Recent studies would locate
this district in the vicinity of Kermanshah in western Iran. The
same area is identified as Parsuash in inscriptions of Sargon II
(721-05 B.C.); these show it to have become a province of the
Assyrian empire. [
] An Assyrian text relating to the destruction of
Elam by Ashurbanipal mentions a king of Parsuwash named Kurash. This
Kurash is recognized as Cyrus I of the Achaemenid line, who offered
submission to Ashurbanipal and sent his son to Nineveh as a
testimony of good faith. With this reference the House of Achaemenes
first enters the historical record. In a Babylonian text Cyrus II
(the Great) gives his grandfather Cyrus I the title `Great King of
Anshan'. It therefore would seem that the first Cyrus was ruler of
the former Elamite province of Anshan/Anzan in Fars and also
political chief in Parsuwash. The two lands are certainly identical.
Parsuwash/Parsumash would be Assyrian renderings of Old Persian
Parsa, which relates specifically to the province of Fars, and is
not to be confused with the earlier attested toponym Parsuash
located in the region of Kermanshah. In one passage the Chronicle of
Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia (556-39 B.C.), refers to Cyrus
II as King of Anshan; in a further entry Cyrus is called King in
Parsu, an Akkadian rendering of Old Persian Parsa. We may therefore
understand, as in the case of earlier references to Anshan and to
Parsuwash, that Anshan was also considered at this later period a
part of the province now called Fars. The replacement of Anshan as
the local name of that province would have occurred much earlier,
when the Achaemenid Persians transferred the ethnic name of their
nation, Parsa, to their new homeland in the south. The toponym
Anshan is attested only in the Elamite version of the Behistun
inscription where it is identified as a non-specific location in
Parsa/Fars."
Best,
Francesco