Beekes (EDG s.v.) rejects
the connection of Greek _adé:n_ 'gland' with Latin _inguen_ 'groin' and (Old)
Icelandic _økkr_ 'swelling', _økkvinn_ 'swollen' given by Pokorny (IEW
319). He argues that since no PIE word
can start with a vowel, Pokorny's root *engW- must be corrected to
*h1engW-. While this would work for the
Latin and Germanic words, Rix's Law would require Greek *end-e-, not *ad-e-,
from the PIE zero-grade *h1n.gW-e-. Beekes
thus regards _adé:n_ as an isolate and its origin, Indo-European or Pre-Greek,
as indeterminate.
De Vaan (EDL s.v.) argues
that _inguen_ indeed belongs with _adé:n_, deriving both from PIE *n.gW-en-
'the nude one', from *negW- 'naked', and rejecting the Gmc. words as
cognates. However, I cannot agree that
'gland' and 'groin' are plausible semantic derivatives from 'naked'. The groin is usually covered in IE-speaking
societies, some of which use a word meaning 'shame(ful)' for it, and women's
breasts, the most prominent glands, are usually covered as well.
Greek _adé:n_ is attested
first and foremost by the Ionic medical writer Hippocrates. However, a form _hadé:n_ is cited by
Herodian, and this may well be the pure Attic word, with Ionic psilosis in the
Hippocratic one. This leads to the
possibility that the PIE root is actually *sengW- (IEW 906), the source of
Armenian _ankanim_ 'I fall, weaken, wane' and Gmc. *sinkWanaN 'to sink,
subside' and *sinxti- 'low-lying, swampy, damp'. (Greek _heáphthe:_ is of uncertain meaning,
as noted by Beekes s.v., and cannot securely be placed here.) If Gmc. *sinkWanaN originally meant 'to
become damp' (typically by sinking into swampy ground), the sense of PIE *sn.gW-en-
may have been 'damp one', and this provides a better semantic fit to _(h)adé:n_
than 'naked one' in my opinion. Glands
secrete liquids. The declension is animate,
of the 'ox' type, not corresponding to the Latin neuter _inguen_.
For Greek _parthénos_
'virgin, maiden, unmarried woman', Beekes likes Klingenschmitt's derivation (GS
Güntert 273-9, 1974) from PIE *pr.-steno- 'having protruding breasts', which makes
no sense semantically. We all know that
virgins can be flat-chested, indeed they all start out that way, and most women
with prominent protruding breasts are no longer virgins. The only advantage to this is that _parthénos_
can be explained as an archaic substantivization of a thematic adjective of two
terminations whose usage was practically restricted to women, so that the resulting
noun was a feminine in -os.
Beekes makes no mention
of Hamp's alternative derivation (Homenaje Tovar 177-80, 1972). Hamp operates with the PIE verbal root
*bHerg^H-, in his view 'to increase, grow' (in Pokorny as *bHereg^H-, IEW 140-1),
and the suffix *-wen- of Sanskrit adjectives such as _yúdhvan-_
'fighting'. The resulting adjective *bHr.´g^Hwen-
could have been oxytonized to *bHr.g^Hwén- under nominalization like Skt.
_mus.i:ván-_ 'thieving one, thief', then thematized to *bHr.g^Hwéno-. Hamp assumes that word-internal *-g^Hw- would
behave like *-gWH- in Greek, and there seems to be no objection to this. With the application of Grassmann's Law, this
protoform would yield Grk. _parthénos_.
An alternative explanation of the Greek accent is Wheeler's Law, which
would require an oxytone thematic protoform *bHr.g^Hwenó- instead. (The protoform *bHr.´g^Hwen- printed in the
paper in this connection makes no sense.
Perhaps the error is due to Hamp copying the protoform of the original
PIE adjective from an earlier draft of the paper into the wrong place, and the
mixup escaped the notice of the editor.
It also eluded Collinge, who missed the error when citing this passage
of Hamp's paper in his chapter on Wheeler's Law (Laws of IE 221), along with
wrongly citing the name of the paper (ib. 222).)
Hamp concludes that the
original meaning of _parthénos_ was simply 'full-grown', specialized for the
feminine. Three serious objections can
be raised. First, the Sanskrit
adjectives cited as parallels have the force of present, not perfect, active
participles, so the expected meaning is 'growing, adolescent'. Second, there is no basis for such an
adjective becoming specialized for the feminine. Third, there is no good reason why such an
adjective should have come to mean 'virginal, chaste, pure' and the like, which
is clearly its primary application in Greek.
In Hittite we find
zero-grade derivatives of PIE *bHerg^H- such as _parku-_ 'high', _parknu-_ 'to
make high', _parkess-_ 'to become high, tall', and of *pelh2- such as _palhi-_ 'wide'
and _palhess-_ 'to become wide'. We also
find _parkui-_ 'pure, clear', _parkue-_ 'to become clear', _parkunu-_ 'to
purify' (Hoffner-Melchert, Grammar of the Hitt. Lg. 51). That _parkui-_ was associated with the ideal
of feminine purity is indicated by the belief of some Hittitologists that it
belonged to a class of adjectives originally marked as feminine (ib. 64). Pokorny placed it under his root *bHer@...^-,
*bHre:k^- 'to shine' (IEW 141-2), hence 'bright', which does not well explain
the cuneiform representations _pár-ku-is_ nom. sg. 'pure', _pár-ku-nu-uz-zi_
3sg. pres. 'purifies'. The sign _ku_
goes better with a labiovelar in the root, which could thus reflect PIE
*bHergWH-.
Now, if this root
produced an 'ox'-type derivative *bHr.gWHen- 'pure one' like the presumed
*sn.gWen- 'damp one' above, it would yield a Greek noun, nom. *parthé:n, gen. *parthénos. 'Elbow, forearm, mat', normally _o:léne:_,
has an athematic masc./fem. by-form, nom. _o:lé:n_, gen. _o:lénos_. Beekes
(EDG s.v. _o:léne:_) suggests that the Celtic, Italic, and Germanic cognates
are derived from *olé:n-, *olén-, with pretonic shortening by Dybo's Law. It thus appears that _o:léne:_ is a thematic
enlargement of _o:lé:n_. Presumably
_parthénos_ is a similar, but more archaic, enlargement of *parthé:n, produced
at a time when thematic adjectives had no distinct feminine (cf. _oloó:tatos
odmé:_, Od. 4:442). I presume that
*parthé:n was associated with the ideal of feminine purity and practically restricted
to denoting females, with _parthénos_ following suit and joining the minority
of feminines in -os like _géranos_ 'crane'.
Since PIE *gWH becomes
Celtic *g, and Germanic labiovelars lose their labial component before *u, it
is at least conceivable that the feminine name appearing as Old Irish _Brigit_
and Old High German _Purgunt_ is derived from *bHergWH- rather than
*bHerg^H-. That would explain why there
seems to be no corresponding masculine name.
Of course, speakers of these languages would come to associate the name
with reflexes of *bHerg^H- anyway. In my
view *bHerg^H- originally signified 'to carry within', hence 'to protect'. Since protected places are usually high
places, the sense 'high' developed out of passive deverbals. Such words as Arabic _burj_, Aramaic _burgin_
'tower', Punic _bursa_ 'citadel of Carthage', and Urartean _burgana_ 'fortress'
are in my opinion borrowed from IE languages reflecting zero-grade *bHr.g^H-.
Douglas G. Kilday