--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> 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.
And, in another message:
> You must differentiate between borrowing a foreign name for an
> existing native god, who keeps his native attributes, and
> adopting a foreign god with his original foreign attributes into
> the native pantheon (like Isis in the classical world). Continuing
> to worship Odin but calling him Yahweh? Pretty rare.
I think I have presented my thoughts in a somewhat confused manner
in my msg. archived at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/54687
In my proposal, I should have distinguished between two possible
ways of borrowing the name *indra (Vedic Indra, name of a god; Late
Avestan In.dra, name of a dae:uua; Nuristani Indr, name of a god)
into the Indo-Iranian branch of IE from "Macro-Caucasian" sources:
1) an early borrowing from Norhwest Caucasian sources (Colarusso's
**inra > *indra 'the Giant-One' hypothesis) which would have
concerned either PIE as a whole or parts of the PIE dialectal
continuum and which, as regards Indo-Iranian specifically, would be
reflected in the name *indra;
2) a much later borrowing from the languages of the BMAC -- presumed
(by Witzel at least) to belong in the "Macro-Caucasian" super-
phylum -- that was limited to the Indo-Iranian branch of IE.
As regards 1), let me mention that Colarusso suggests that even the
name of the Hittite goddess Innara (originally, as it seems, a male
deity) may belong here. Innara was most likely a deity of very
ancient Hattic origin, and Hattic is claimed by some linguists
(Colarusso, Ivanov and D'jakonov among others) to have some
affinities with Northwest Caucasian. In his Hittite Etymological
Dictionary, Puhvel, who denies an IE origin for the theonym Innara,
reconstructs the Hittite proto-form as *E1énr.- (/E1/ = a
voiceless /e/-coloring laryngeal), which doesn't appear to be too
far removed from Colarusso's Northwest Caucasian *y@... etc. 'the
Huge-One'.
To reply to one of the objections raised by Patrick, I don't think
that Colarusso means to say that the epithet *y@... etc. was
EXCLUSIVELY the designation of a Northwest Caucasian god of the
forge. This was likely the case with the Abkhaz divine blacksmith
Aynar (< *y@... etc.?), but yet an epithet 'the Huge-One' can be
assumed to have been conferred on other divine beings that were not
associated with metal-smelting, too.
As regards 2), I don't think that, as a general rule, names for
native gods, rituals etc. can't be borrowed, particularly if we
assume that Indo-Iranian steppe cultures had prolonged contacts with
the "foreign" BMAC cultures in and around the oases of southern
Central Asia. Look at the case of the soma plant: its Proto-Indo-
Iranian name, probably *(H)anc'u, was most likely borrowed from the
same Central Asian (= BMAC?) substratum from which, according to
Lubotsky and Witzel, the name *indra was also borrowed. Yet, for a
series of reasons I can't illustrate here it appears difficult to
deny that the shamanistic-like soma ritual was not part of the
earlier, common Indo-Iranian religion which developed in proximity
to the Central Asian mountain ridges the soma plant grew on.
The BMAC could well have contributed to the Indo-Iranian religious
tradition prior to the split of common Indo-Iranian into different
sub-branches. This cultural process, which Mallory has christened
as "Kulturkuegel", could have been conductive to the borrowing into
common Indo-Iranian of BMAC-language terms associated with deities
(yes, Patrick, even some theonyms if they sounded "more prestigious"
than the native Indo-Iranian ones!), rituals (again, cf. the case of
the name of the soma plant), magic, and priesthood. This is, at
least, both Lubotsky and Witzel's position.
The next step, made by Witzel alone (not by Lubotsky so far), is to
verify if the "Central Asian substrate" is reconducible to languages
belonging in the "Macro-Caucasian" superfamily, whose existence (as
a taxonomic sub-unit of Dene-Caucasian or Vasco-Dene) is theorized
by Bengtson and other long-range linguists. This theoretical attempt
is admittedly still at the embryonic stage. One of the empirical
assumptions backing up Witzel's hypothesis is geolinguistic: what
languages could have been spoken in Central Asia before the Indo-
Iranians came onto the scene, if Burushaski to its east, Yeniseian
to its northeast, and Northwest and Northeast Caucasian to its west
are, as it seems, related language families within the ambit of the
postulated "Macro-Caucasian" super-phylum? A logic reply is: still
other "Macro-Caucasian" languages, on account of geolinguistic
continuity!
To sum up my point 2), *indra could have been borrowed into common
Indo-Iranian from a BMAC source language (viz., at c. 2200-1700 BCE)
that could have been affiliated to the "Macro-Caucasian" super-
phylum. If that is so, we cannot exclude that the ultimate source of
this word was a "Macro-Caucasian" word cognate to Colarusso's
Northwest Caucasian *y@... etc.
Hope this clarifies,
Francesco