Re: Juggernaut & Jagannath

A kind of background history of this word from good ol' _Hobson-
Jobson_:

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?
c.1:1:266.hobson

Look at the size of Jagannath's car, and especially of its wheels
(which have reportedly crushed many devotees to death through the
centuries), in this movie clip:

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=zx3kdJRc4eo

Regards,
Francesco


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> On 2008-02-16 19:42, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> > No. The question is not 'Is Juggernaut is derived from

Jagannath?'.

> > It is whether this can be *conclusively proved*, a rather

different

> > question. I am sure this example was chosen because the

derivation

> > seems obvious. The rider is because of a fear that apparent

proofs

> > can be adduced for anything.
>
> Here, of course, it's as sure as anything that <juggernaut> can't

be an

> old word in English, since there is no native source of

initial /dZ/.

> Indo-Aryan <jaganna:tHa->, on the other hand, it's at least as old

as

> the Mahabharata, and there is direct philological evidence that it

was

> borrowed from Hindi into English. It's _ultimate_ etymology is of

course

> a different question. The first element of the compound is IE. I'm

less

> sure about <na:tHá-> 'protector, lord' (from the verb

<ná:tHate> 'seek

> the help of, beseech'), though it has been variously connected

with

> Celtic *sna:d- 'protect' or Goth. niþan, ne:d- 'help'.
>
> Piotr
>