From: dgkilday57
Message: 70993
Date: 2013-02-26
>Does NISKAS have any necessary connection with Basque _neska_? I am reminded of OHG _nichus_, _nih(h)us_ 'water-elf', OE _nicor_, ON _nykr_, etc., given the context.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@> wrote:
> >
> > The forms axo(n)ias, axonis are attested on lead foil inscriptions
> found
> > at the thermal station Amélie-les-Bains/Banys d'Arles
> > (Rosselló). They're Italoid votive texts directed to water godesses
> > called kantas niskas 'sacred girls'. These inscriptions, discovered at
> > the beggining of the 20th, have been studied by Coromines in a 1976
> > article, but are mostly unknown to the rest of the world:
> >
> > KANTAS NISKAS ROGAMOS ET DEP(R)ECAMUS VOS OT SANETE NON LERANCE (E)
> DEUS
> > ET NESCA PETEIA ET ELETA NESCA SLA(T) SNUKU AS M(E)
> > [...]
> >
> I'm really puzzled by the *null* interest shown by IE-ists, even in this
> list.
>
> Of course, kantas is a femenine plural from IE *k´wen-to- 'holy'.
> From the Germanic semantics (e.g. Gothic hunsl 'sacrifice', English
> housel), I gather the original meaning could be 'offer', as in Iberian
> eguan (surely a deverbative noun from an unrecorded verb *e-guan-).
>