Re: Asian Migration to Scandinavia

Dear all,

I had written:

> The original meaning of *athar- appears to have been something
> like 'magico-religious fluid' (thus Oldenberg), and the stem *-rwa-
> or *-rb(H)a- is common to other alleged BMAC words borrowed into
> IIr. as substrate words; thus:
>
> BMAC substrate *atHarwan 'priest' > OIA atharvan, OIr. a:thrauuan
>
> BMAC substrate *c'arwa 'name of a deity' > OIA s'arva 'name of a
> god', OIr. sauruua 'name of a daeva'
>
> BMAC substrate *g(H)andH(a)rw/b(H)a 'a mythical being' > OIA
> gandharva, OIr. gan.d@...@ba
>
> G.-J. Pinault, ("Une nouvelle connexion entre le substrat indo-
> iranien et le tokharien commun", _Historische Sprachforschung_ 116
> (2003), 175-189) has connected this hypothesized BMAC substrate
> word *atHar- with Proto-Tocharian *etre 'hero' (Toch.A atär, B
> etre). This lexical comparison is part of a wider set of
> triangulations among OIA, OIr. and Toch. attested lexemes that
> allow Lubotsky, Pinault and Witzel to argue for the existence of
> the said Central Asian substratum of the BMAC as a source for many
> words in those three ancient languages that appear related, but
> that have no convincing IE etymology.

A correction: Pinault 2003 reconstructs the aforesaid BMAC (= non-
IE) substrate word as *athr.- 'superior force', which would be
reflected by Proto-Tocharian *etre- 'hero' on the one side, and by
Proto-Indo-Iranian *atHar- 'magico-religious fluid' (thus Oldenberg)
or 'magic power' (thus Neisser) on the other.

For a discussion (admittedly, not fully exhaustive) of the supposed
BMAC substrate nouns in *-(a)rwa designating what Witzel calls
"*-rwa beings" (putatively stemming from the BMAC people's
religion), you can check out the paper by Witzel I have just
uploaded in the Files section. It includes some detailed references
to Pinault's 2003 French article (quoted in Witzel's paper on the
basis of the materials provided by Pinault himself in "Further links
between the Indo-Iranian substratum and the BMAC language. Paper
given at the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, Helsinki, 14-18 July
2003"). You can use the link provided at

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61045
(IMPORTANT: enter "rwa", without quotation marks, in the Search
tool, and then go through all the search results)

Another Vedic word that may belong in this series is Pat.harvan, a
personal name used for a Vedic seer. According to Kuiper, it has no
IE etymology (like atharvan, S'arva, gandharva). Another "*-rwa
being"?

Regards,
Francesco