Re: Swiftness of Indra

This sounds more plausible than an IE scenario.
I just wish there were some more competent people
working on Macro-Caucasian who had a bit more common
sense.
I'm not a linguist but I know enough about Basque to
know that Bengtson is fudging Basque data to comply
with his hypothesis. Although I can't speak to
Bengtson's competency in Caucasian languages, I'm
shocked that Witzel, a Harvard professor, is naive
enough to accept his word re: Basque.
Before going farther, the Macro-Caucasian people need
to cement relationship between NE Caucasian, NW
Caucasian, Burúshaski and Yenisseian. Then look at
Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené et al. As it looks now, it's too
fly-by-night.
Can anyone on the list judge Colarusso's competency in
this?


--- Francesco Brighenti <frabrig@...> wrote:

>
> 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
>
>

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