Re: Asian Migration to Scandinavia

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
wrote:

> At 7:30:18 PM on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, raucousd
> wrote:
> >
> > There are other pairs beside Devas and Ashuras who show a
> > similar pattern of demonization and they usually fall
> > across the same language groups. For example Atar is the
> > word for sacred fire in Avestan, but it appears as the
> > demon Atri in Sanskrit...
>
> This seems unlikely: my understanding is that the etymology
> of <a:tar> is unknown.

Yes, the etymology of the Avestan term a:tar ~ a:qr (see A.
Lubotsky's IA etym. database) *'fire' (n.) > 'fire-god' (m.) is
still unknown.

On the contrary, R.gvedic atri 'a devourer; name of a r.s.i' is from
*at-tri, i.e. from the IA root ad- 'to eat, consume' (cf. atra for
*at-tra, meaning both 'a devourer, demon' and 'food'; atrin 'a
devourer, demon').

The term atri is once used in the R.gveda (2.85) as an epithet of
the fire-god Agni, but this does not mean it was a cognate of
Avestan a:tar.

Regards,
Francesco