Re: Swiftness of Indra

I think Colarusso's suggestion has much merit.

"The Huge One" is a suitable name for a sky/weather-god.

The only objections I would raise would be:

1) it is rather unusual to borrow a name for the supreme god;

2) forges are not usually associated with sky/weather gods.


Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 5:27 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Swiftness of Indra



George Knysh:

> I was ready to accept the notion that Indra was a later borrowing
> on the authority of Lubotsky and Witzel, even as I was rejecting
> some of their broader contentions about rituals.

Joao S. Lopes:

> But this epenthetical -d- is possible if the word is not IE.
> Indra < *Inra ?


May I jump in here with some additional data and hypotheses?

Don't take me too seriously (I'm thinking of this idea for the first
time right now), but, if the word Indra is not IE, it could belong
to a hypothetical Macro-Caucasian substrate language of Central
Asia.

This conjecture of mine rests upon:

1) Alexander Lubotsky's suggestion that *indra does not conform to
the expected Indo-Iranian vocalization, and may, therefore, be a non-
IE word;

2) Michael Witzel's theory according to which the "Central Asian
substrate words" found by Lubotsky in Indo-Iranian would have been
borrowed by one or more Macro-Caucasian language(s) spoken by the
peoples of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC);

3) John Colarusso's speculation that Indra may represent an early
North-West Caucasian loan into IE -- cf. Circassian /y@.../ 'huge +
present participle', Abkhaz /á-yna-r/ 'the huge + present
participle', the name of the god of the forge Aynar ('the Huge One')
> *inra > *indra (with intrusive -d-), in this case originally
meaning 'the Great One'.

Here is the link to the page from a book by Colarusso where this
etymology is discussed (N.B. Colarusso theorizes that North-West
Caucasian languages may be genetically related to the IE family in a
larger "Pontic" family):

http://tinyurl.com/357ype

==========

Addenda:

M. Witzel, "The Rgvedic Religious System and Its Central Asian and
Hindukush Antecedents", in A. Griffiths & J.E.M. Houben (eds.), _The
Vedas: Texts, Language and Ritual_, Groningen, Forsten, 2004
(preprint pdf):

"One may therefore revisit the old etymology of Indra from ind 'to
swell'. [M. Mayrhofer's] EWAia... connects indra with the
meaning 'strong': índra or *indrá 'strong, strength' ~ Gr. oidéo: 'to
swell' and perhaps índu 'drop'; if this goes back to *(h)i-n-d-ro ~
Slav. *je,dr' 'strong, forceful' (Croat. jédar 'strong', O.Russ.
jadr' 'quick')..."

And, from another (2002) preprint pdf by Witzel ("Early Loan Words
in Western Central Asia: Substrates, Migrations and Trade"):

"[An] interesting river name is that of the Indra River in S.
Tajikistan, Indar-a:b, and the Inder lake (Russ. ozero Inder) on the
lower Ural river in W. Kazakhstan. In light of the proposed non-IIr
etymology of the name of the god Indra... these widespread names may
reflect the C. Asian substrate language as well. Much more research
is needed, however, to turn these proposals into something closer to
certainty."

Regards,
Francesco