--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet"
<fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:
> No, Dear Francesco
>
> I wonder how Kannada-Telugu oNTe can be derived from us^tra ??
> and the same question applies to WPah u:NT
> Is there a law changing s^ in N in those languages ?
> There exists another form oNT- which has nothing to do with us^tra
> and this word exists in other languages like Urartean ultu.
> Your statement is therefore dead wrong.
> And see below your own contradictions.
>
> [...]
>
> [Akkadian] udru 'two-humped camel'
> One more word deriving from *oNT.-
> How contradictory !!
> You are now providing more data for my reconstruction !!
>
> Hope you still have some time to spare for a discussion.
Yes, I found some time for continuing this discussion at last!
1) AKKADIAN UDRU-/UT.RU-/UTRU-
The Akkadian term udru-/ut.ru-/utru- `two-humped camel' is first
attested in Assyrian texts dating from the 11th century BCE and is,
therefore, susceptible to being analyzed as an Indo-Iranian loan:
"The Akkadian word udru- is first used in the reign of the Assyrian
king Assurbelkala (1074-1057 B.C.) who bought some two-humped camels
from merchants with dealings in the east" (R.W. Bulliet, _The Camel
and the Wheel_, Columbia Univ. Press, reprint 1990, p. 156).
There is a good consensus among ANE scholars that it is roughly by
this date that the Bactrian camel was introduced into Mesopotamia
through trade with the Iranian Plateau.
Igor M. Diakonoff advanced an interesting linguistic hypothesis
about the source of this (probable) loan into Akkadian. According to
him, the source would be a proto-Dardic (viz. an Indo-Aryan, not an
Iranian) form of PIIr. *us^tra-:
"There is still another Akkadian gloss, which is (with good reason
as it seems) thought to be a borrowing from (Indo-)Iranian: This is
Akkadian udr- `(Bactrian) camel' [...]. The Indo-Iranian name for
the Bactrian camel is *us^tra-; the question is whether this could
point to the ultimate origin of Akkadian udr-, and if so, what was
the reason for its acquiring this particolar phonetic form? The
reading UD-ru is in itself suspect, since the sign UD has fifteen
different possibile readings in the cuneiform texts [...]. A reading
*utra- or *utru- would in principle be possible, were it not for the
occasional spelling u-DU-ru/i. The sign DU may be read as <du> or
<t.u> but never as *TU. Hence, the only two really possible readings
for the Akkadian term denoting `Bactrian camel' are either udr- or
ut.r-. I would vote for the second: the term is obviously borrowed
in Akkadian and most probably from an Indo-Iranian dialect, but udr-
is very difficult to lead back to *us^tr- (which would produce *us^r-
in Akkadian). However, <*t.> is a phoneme which, very probably, is
glottalized, something like <t?>; ut?r- might be an Akkadian
reproduction of *uhtr-, or even *us.tr-, if the <s.> is to be
understood as a phoneme different from the standard <s^>. Now, in
some Iranian languages nothing serious seems to have occurred with
the <s^> in *us^tra: we encounter us^tur or s^utur in
Persian/Tajik/Dari, and the same form, with sundry minor changes,
appears also in Dardic languages. In Pashto (Afghan), however, we
encounter u:s.^- [/s.^/ = voiceless retroflex fricative], borrowed
into several Dardic dialects as u:x- (thus also in the Nuristani
languages Ashkun, Dameli, Waigali [...]), and even as u:k-. The word
is also pronounced as u:t.(h)- in a number of other Dardic dialects,
as well as in the western Indian languages Lahnda and Panjabi. This
pronunciation is not to be expected in Median, which was a dialect
very much more similar to Persian. Thus, the Akkadian word for the
Bactrian camel, which should be reconstructed as ut.r-, probably
goes back [...] to a proto-Dardic form such as *uhtra:-/*us.tra:-"
(I.M. Diakonoff, "Pre-Median Indo-Iranian Tribes in Northern Iran",
_Bulletin of the Asia Institute -- Bloomsfield Hills_, N.S., Vol. 10
[1996], pp. 12-13).
A different hypothesis about the origin of Akkadian udru-/ut.ru-
/utru- `two-humped camel', always starting from ProtoIIr. *us^tra-,
has been advanced by historian Richard W. Bulliet:
"Akkadian udru- and uduru- `two-humped camel,' attested in the 11th
century B.C., may be a loan from an Old Iranian form of the word
similar to the form from which Khotanese [Saka] ula- was derived
(possibly *us^èra- > *u[è]èra- > *u'ra- and, with metathesis in
proto-Khotanese, *ur'a-" (R.W. Bulliet, article "Camel" in
_Encyclopaedia Iranica_).
2) URARTIAN UL.TU > ARMENIAN ULT
"[Armenian] uLt- `Bactrian camel' [/L/ = voiced apico-alveolar
velarized lateral approximant] < Urart[ian] ult.u- do. The Urartian
word is somehow connected with Akkad[ian] utru-/ut.ru- (not *udru-!)
do., and perhaps with OIran. us^tra-" (I.M. Diakonoff, "Hurro-
Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian", JAOS 105 [1985], p. 600).
"Arm[enian] uLt- `camel'. Bible, 5th century... Ur[artian] ult.u-
>`camel'... The camel is not found in the mountainous area of
Daghestan, and an early native Proto-East-Caucasian form would be
surprising. It is almost sure, then, that the Urartian word is
borrowed from elsewhere. It is probably related, somehow, to
Akkadian udru-/ut.ru-/utru- (Diakonoff 1985: 600), Avestan us^tro:-
`camel', Skt. us.t.ra- `buffalo, camel'..." (J.A.C. Greppin with
I.M. Diakonoff, "Some Effects of the Hurro-Urartian People and Their
Languages upon the Earliest Armenians", JAOS 111 [1991], p. 7 and n.
60).
3) MUNDA AND DRAVIDIAN FORMS
Robert Shafer ("Nahali: A Linguistic Study in Paleoethnography",
_Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies_ 5 [1941], p. 353) lists the
following South Asian words inherited or borrowed as loans from Old
Indo-Aryan us.t.ra- `camel':
Indo-Aryan u:~t-, ut.t.h- etc.
Munda: Korku u:n.t.o-, Korwa u:n.t.-, most Kherwarish dialects
(Mundari, Santali, etc.) u:~t.-
Dravidian: Kurux un.t.-, Gondi u:n.t.-, Kannada on.t.e-
Therefore, the nasal infix or the nasalization of the initial vowel
in the above Munda and Dravidian words is an (unexplained) phonetic
development that is also found in several northwestern Indo-Aryan
terms for `camel' (including some Dardic ones) derived from Old Indo-
Aryan us.t.ra-. The latter terms are commonly regarded as the
sources for the similar Munda and Dravidian forms presenting a nasal
infix or a nasalization of the initial vowel. Note that most of the
above mentioned Munda and Dravidian languages (with the exception of
Kannada) are spoken in areas close to the "Hindi belt" in the north.
Moreover, before disappearing from South Asia by the end of the
second millennium BCE the two-humped camel is not known to have been
introduced into northern Deccan, where most of the said Munda and
Dravidian languages are spoken, and this militates against the
existence of any independent Munda and/or Dravidian roots
for `camel'.
As regards the o- in Tamil-Malayalam ot.t.akam-, Toda ot.t.e-
Kannada on.t.e-, it is known that in Middle Indo-Aryan loans into
Old Tamil, initial /u/ often changes to /o/ (and initial /i/
to /e/). Thus, Skt. us.t.ra-, > Pali. ot.t.ha- > Old Tamil ot.t.akam
(cf. S. Vaidyanathan in JAOS 91 [1971], p. 323)
Finally, the Brahui (North Dravidian) word for `camel', hu:c^-
(transliterated as huc- by other authors) appears to represent an
independent loan not connected with the South and South-Central
Dravidian loanwords:
"The Ir. origin of Br[ahui]... is extremely doubtful. Possibly hu:c^-
is borrowed from an Ind[ic] form allied to Khetrani uc^- `she-
camel'..." (G. Morgenstierne, _Irano-Dardica_, Wiesbaden, Ludwig
Reichert Verlag, 1973, p. 148).
Khetrani, a Lahnda (Indo-Aryan) dialect spoken in Balochistan
(Pakistan) near the area where Brahui is spoken, has ut.t.h- as the
general term for `male camel', and uc^- as the term for `she-camel'.
It may be further added here that the initial /h/ in the Brahui word
can be explained away by postulating an influence on Brahui of the
Balochi term for `camel', us^tir- (~ us^tar-, us^tur-), which was
probably borrowed from Middle Persian us^tar-. The Balochi term also
occurs in the variant form hus^tar- (~ hus^tur-), showing a
secondary, unetymological h- which may constitute a Kurdish
influence (cf. Kurdish hus^tir- `camel').
4) CONCLUSION
The source of all the South and Southwest Asian words for `camel'
discussed above seems to be PIIr. *us^tra- (or *Hus^tra if one
accepts the tentative reconstruction of an initial laryngeal for
it). However, since the underlying PIE root *wes- `to be wet'
(referred to the ejaculation of semen) that has been proposed as the
etymon of the PIIr. word looks unsatisfactory to many comparative
linguists, I think A. Lubotsky and M. Witzel's suggestion that the
PIIr. word is probably a loan from the non-IE language(s) spoken in
the BMAC area in the late-third millennium BCE to be a good one. In
fact, in the third millennium BCE Bactria and Margiana became a
secondary centre of domestication of the two-humped camel, an animal
which had been initially domesticated in Neolithic Inner Mongolia
and northeastern Xinjiang -- see archaeologist Daniel Potts' article
on the Silk Road Foundation website at
http://www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol3num1/7_bactrian.php
Regards,
Francesco