Caucasian and Near Eastern Studies XIII - Armenian 1

8/2/2019 Caucasian and Near Eastern Studies XIII - Armenian 1

1/8

2

Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology

Caucasian and Near Eastern

Studies

XIII

Giorgi Melikishvili memorial volume

edited by Irene Tativili, Manana Hvedelidze,

Levan Gordeziani

Tbilisi

2009


2/8

266

Ilya Yakubovich (Chicago)

TWO ARMENIAN ETYMOLOGIESThe Armenian lexicon can be unsurprisingly divided into a stock of in-

herited lexemes, displaying regular correspondences with their Indo-European cognates, whose original shape must be reconstructed by thecomparative method, and a stock of loanwords that were borrowed at vari-ous periods following the separation of Armenian from the Common Indo-European. What distinguishes Armenian from most other Indo-Europeanlanguages is the unusually high proportion of early lexical borrowings. Thisis perhaps the reason why no Armenian etymological dictionary has beencompiled so far in a Western language. A linguist wishing to undertake sucha project would inevitably face a daunting task of browsing through thelexical corpora of all the linguistic neighbors of the Armenians, both pastand present, Indo-European and non-Indo-European, in search of likelysources of loanwords. Only upon completing this task can one embark onthe comparative analysis of the inherited Armenian lexicon.

Historically speaking, the etymological study of the Armenian lexicondeveloped in a somewhat different way. While Comparative Indo-EuropeanLinguistics represents a scholarly area with some two hundred years of un-broken research tradition and the standards of rigor that raise envy of com-parative linguists dealing with other language families, several languagesthat have been spoken side by side with Armenian have been identified onlyin the twentieth century. Although the study of linguistic contacts betweenArmenian and its neighbors frequently prompts the rejection of old con-structs advocated by the Indo-Europeanists, the paucity of scholars studyingthe Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia as a linguistic area, sometimes multip-lied by their dubious reputation, slows down the recognition of their disco-veries. This is rather unfortunate since there are cases, where the analysis of

lexical borrowings into Armenian does not only succeed in restricting thestock of inherited Indo-European lexemes, but can also extend our know-ledge of the respective source languages.

The first case is that of Urartean, a non-Indo-European language spokenduring the first millennium BC in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia, rough-ly in the same area where Armenians lived up to 1915. After the kingdom ofUrartu collapsed around 600 AD, the Urartean speakers were graduallyassimilated by the Armenians who, in all probability, had migrated to thisarea from the west. Although the Urartean royal inscriptions, whose com-

plete corpus is now available in Russian (Arutiunian 2001), are quite nu-


3/8

267

merous, our understanding of them is limited to the most stereotypical for-mulae related to the military and building activities of the Urartean kings.The identified Urartean substrate borrowings into Armenian are too few innumber to improve our understanding of the Urartean texts, but they are

quite significant for reconstructing Urartean phonology.The second one is the case of Parthian, an Indo-European Iranian lan-

guage that was spoken in Northern Iran from around 300 BC to 300 AD.Since the Armenian Arshakuni dynasty ruling in the early centuries of thefirst millennium AD represented an offshoot of the Parthian Arsacid dynas-ty, one can hypothesize that Parthian was the main language of the Arme-nian court for quite a while. As a result of this situation, numerous Parthianborrowings pertaining to all kinds of semantic domains have penetrated theArmenian language. As a matter of fact, these loanwords reflect an earlier

stage of the Parthian language than bulk of the attested Parthian texts, whichwere composed at the time after the Parthian Arsacid dynasty was forced toyield its power over Iran to the Persian Sasanian dynasty. The number ofParthian loanwords into Armenian is comparable with the number of lex-emes that are attested in genuine Parthian texts.

This presentation is called at extending the list of lexical borrowings intoArmenian, respectively from Urartean and Parthian. I am going to discusstwo Classical Armenian words that have been commonly regarded as a partof the inherited Indo-European lexicon, and will try to show that in both

cases the hypothesis of a lexical borrowing appears to be more plausible.

1. Old Armenian darbin (black)smith is routinely compared with Latinfaber skillful ; craftsman, artisan and Old Church Slavic dobr good,which both go back to the Indo-European proto-form *dhabhro- (see e.g. H.Acharian, 1971: 1/ 636, B. Olsen 1999: 471). This etymology, however,runs into several difficulties. On the one hand, it is not clear why the Arme-nian form extended the reflex of *dhabhro- with the suffix in, which isproductive only in adjectival derivation (Olsen, loc. cit., justly remarks that

"the stem formation is somewhat obscure"). On the other hand, it is a prioriunlikely that the Indo-Europeans, who did not excel in metal-working, nev-ertheless retained the inherited word for a blacksmith after coming to East-ern Anatolia, which is known to be one of the cradles of metal production.

The traditional etymology ofdarbin is further undermined by the factthat its putative Latin and Slavic cognates appear to possess a convincingroot etymology that connects them with verbal forms attested in the Bal-tic/Slavic/Germanic dialectal area, such as Goth. ga-dab-an to be suitable,appropriate, OCS. po-dob-ati to be necessary, appropriate, Latv. dab-t

to be pleasing; to favor etc. The adjective *dhabhro- appropriate, conve-


4/8

268

nient appears to be a derivative of the stative verb *dhabh- to be appropri-ate, formed according to a productive model. The base verb, however, isnot attested in the Aryan/Greek/Armenian dialectal area of the Indo-European, which makes one wonder whether it might represent an innova-

tion of the Central European dialects, or even a borrowing from the CentralEuropean substrate. In both cases, Arm. darbin blacksmith emerges as anisolated formation.

An attempt has been made to show that a cognate of Arm. darbin is at-tested in Anatolian, a sister language family of the classical Indo-European.H. Eichner (1975: 81, fn. 5) compared the discussed form with the Hittiteroyal title tabarna- /labarna- that is also attested as a Hittite personal name.If one accepts this proposal, then the form *dhabhro- (vel sim.) is to bereconstructed for the common ancestor language of Indo-European and

Anatolian, referred to as Indo-Hittite or Early Indo-European. Consequent-ly, the absence of the base-form *dhabh- in the Aryan/Greek/Armeniandialectal area must be deemed accidental, and the Indo-European antiquityof Arm. darbin would appear to be vindicated.

Yet, subsequent research has shown that Eichners suggestion stumblesupon very serious morphological difficulties. The Hittite royal title tabarna-/labarna- can be unprobrematically derived from the well-attested Luwianstem tabar- to rule, and thereforer- does not appear to represent an ad-jectival suffix in this case. There are no indications whatsoever that the stem

tabar- meant anything like to be good, or to be appropriate in Anatolian.As a matter of fact, some forms, like L A B RA N I O S , an epithet of Zeus at-tested in Cyprus, or , the name of the royal palace in Crete (theLabyrinth), which is so prominent in Greek mythology, indicate that theroot *abar- (vel sim.)is likely to represent the Mediterranean (non-Indo-European) substrate term pertaining to the sphere of kingship. I have de-fended this thesis at length in Yakubovich 2002: 93-116. While many de-tails of my conclusions cannot be regarded as generally accepted at thepresent time, the formal incompatibility of Hitt. tabarna- / labarna- and

Arm. darbin is now acknowledged by C. Melchert, the leading Americanauthority in Anatolian studies (Melchert, 2003: 19, fn. 18).Since the genetic comparison does not provide a satisfactory solution,

one can explore a theory that the Armenian word for blacksmithrepresents a lexical borrowing. I suggest that Arm. darbin must be con-nected with Hurrian tabrinni- blacksmith, the meaning of which is nowsecured by its attestation in a passage from the Hurrian and Hittite bilingualliterary text known as "The Song of Release". This curious passage containsa fable about a metallic vessel that rebelled against the craftsman who pro-

duced it, and who was subsequently punished (see Wegner 2000: 192 ff. for


5/8

269

the text of the fable). The form tabrinni- in the Hurrian version of this textcorresponds to the Sumerogram SIMUG blacksmith in its Hittite version.Sumerograms are words that were written in Sumerian in an ancient text,but pronounced in Hittite or another vernacular language, much like the

abbreviation lb. is pronounced "pound" in an English text. According to anAssyriological convention, Sumerograms are capitalized in transliteration.

Another occurrence of the Sumerogram SIMUG in the Hittite version ofthe same passage corresponds to Hurr. taballi-. Formally speaking, bothHurrian words can be derived from the verbal stem tav- to cast (metal),which corresponds to Hitt. lahu-, otherwise attested with the meaning topour (liquids). The stem alternation tav-/tab- in Hurrian can be comparedwith the similar stem alternation tb-/tv- incantate (Giorgieri 2002: 68:fn. 5). It is possible that this alternation is merely graphic rather than pho-

netic, cf. the Hurrian spelling ta-waa-ar[-na] for the royal title Tabarna dis-cussed above (Bo 4790.9) , or the alternation between Hurr. ku-waa-hi andHitt. ku-pa-hi a type of head-gear.

Yet another derivative of the same root, attested as Hurr. tabiri- onewho casts was independently borrowed into Sumerian, yielding Sum. tabi-ra /tibira copper-worker (Wegner 2000: 15 with ref.). As for Hurr. tabal-li- blacksmith, this noun may well have been preserved in the Neo-Assyrian toponym Tabal, used with reference to a Luwian Kingdom in Cen-tral Anatolia that abounded in copper resources (thus Neu.1996: 150, fn.

410).The Armenian form darbin could not be borrowed from Hurrian since

this language had secondarily devoiced its word-initial-stops, and thereforeone would expect **tarbin in Classical Armenian. A natural assumptionthat can be made on historical grounds is that the Armenian form came fromthe Urartean language, which is closely related to Hurrian. This hypothesisrenders the borrowing phonetically possible: we know that the cuneiformsigns for voiceless, voiced and "emphatic" stops were contrastively used inUrartean orthography in word-initial position. Thus one can hypothesize

that Urartean contained the form *dabrinni (vel sim.) blacksmith that wasborrowed into Pre-Classical Armenian, where it underwent the expectedmetathesis br- > *-rb- (on which see e.g. Schmitt 1981: 72-3). The list ofUrartean borrowings into Armenian, presented in Jahukian 1987: 427 ff.,can be now extended by an additional item.

The comparison between the reconstructed IE. *dhabhro- (includingArm. darbin), and Sum. tabira- /tibira- has been made in Whittaker 1998:135. The author, who did not mention the Hurrian forms as a tertium com-parationis, used this comparison as one of many equations meant to demon-

strate that a considerable part of the Sumerian lexicon was borrowed from


6/8

270

the hereto unknown Indo-European language, the so-called "Euphratic"originally spoken in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC. While thedestiny of this obviously controversial claim remains uncertain for the timebeing, some of the suggested equations are amenable to the reinterpretation

as borrowings from a third source. Among these, Arm. darbin vs. Sum.tabira /tibira represents the most obvious case.

2. The survey of possible Indo-European etymologies of Old Armenianhiwand ill is given in Jahukian, 1987: 185. Out of the three suggestedproto-forms, *pp to-, piw to-, and pim to-, none is backed by goodIndo-European lexical cognates. The root level comparison with Sanskritppman- evil, suffering, sickness, sin, demon is not precise enough, whileGreek. - un-harmed, un-hurt can be adduced only on the as-

sumption of the irregular sound change *-m- > -w- in Armenian.The Iranian comparanda of this form include MPers. hy(w)ndkyh

/xindagh/ illness, an equivalent of Av. axti- illness preserved in theMiddle Persian translation of the Avesta, as well as Manichean Middle Per-sian xyndg sick, ill. After the Middle Persian forms were identified by aSaint-Petersburg Iranologist Karl Salemann around 1908, his colleagueNikolaj Marr immediately suggested that they display the same contractionof the intervocalicw- as MPers.zindag alive, presumably going back tothe Iranian root jw to be alive, while the Armenian borrowing hiwand

preserves to us a more archaic formation (Salemann 1908: 92-3). Unfortu-nately, N. Marr is mainly known not through his important philologicalwork, which he mostly conducted during the early period of his life, butrather due to his later "New Linguistic Doctrine", a bizarre theory that de-nied the comparative-historical method in linguistics and linked languagehistory with social progress and class struggle. According to this theory, allthe languages of the world ultimately the result of the interplay of four dif-fuse elements SAL, BER, YON and RO.

Marrs adherence to these peculiar views brought about the prejudice

against his earlier work on the part of many Armenologists. For the mostpart of the 20th century, Arm. hiwandcontinued to be assigned to the Indo-European stock, and only the recent book by Olsen 1999 (p. 303, fn. 229)has re-established the Iranian connection of the Armenian word, withoutmentioning the original author of this suggestion. This comparison prec-ludes Indo-European proto-forms beginning withp- since the sound change*p-> h- is not attested in Iranian. Olsen did not clarify, however, either theprecise origin of the Armenian borrowing, or its etymology within Iranian.

I suggest that the Armenian word was borrowed from Parthian, rather

than Middle Persian. The contrast between Parth.wandag attested in Ma-


7/8

271

nichaean texts and MPers. zindag living, alive indicates that Parth. w-was preserved in the relevant phonetic environment. To this, one must addthat few unequivocal Middle Persian borrowings (as opposed to Parthianborrowings) have been identified in the Armenian language so far, which

makes my hypothesis the simplest one possible. The only reason why Sale-mann and Marr could not indicate the Parthian origin of Arm. hiwand, wasthe lack of information about Parthian phonology in the early 20th century.

Since Parthian * and * were reflected in Armenian as i in non-finalsyllables, we are free to choose any of the two vowels for our Parthian re-constructions. The reconstructed Parthian *hwand can go back to Proto-Iranian *haya-want- (vel sim.). This form ought to contain the suffix want-deriving adjectives from nouns, which is attested in several other Parthianwords (e.g. pwnwnd commendable, sprhmwynd blooming, cf. further

Skalmowski 1967, 3.16). The most likely root underlying Ir. *haya- ill-ness (vel sim.), which morphologically can be an action noun, is hibind < IE. sHi- bind, which is well attested in Old and Middle Iranian,mostly with negative connotations. For the semantic derivation of adjectivesmeaning ill from verbs of negative physical impact, cf. Avestan bazda-ill, a historical participle from Iranian band bind, or somewhat moreremotely Turk. hasta ill < Pers.xasta tired< Ir. xadgrind.

Even though the sound change *s(H)-> h- is attested in the history ofboth Iranian and Armenian, it is impossible to assume that Arm. hiwand

represents an Indo-European root cognate of Ir. hayawant- since the vocal-ism of both forms cannot be reconciled under the assumption of their genet-ic relationship. The foreign origin of such a basic word may appear surpris-ing, but cf. Turkish hasta ill borrowed from Persianxasta tired, ill citedabove, or even English ill whose origin is Old Norse illrid.

REFERENCES

Acharrean, Hracheay. Hayeren armatakan barraran. Yerevan: Erevan

hamalsarani haratarakchiuthiun, 1971. 4 volumes.Eichner, Heinrich. Die Vorgeschichte des Hethitischen Verbalsystems.Flexion und Wortbildung.Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indoger-manischen Gesellschaft (Regensburg, 9-14, 1973). Ed. by H.Rix.Wiesbaden: Dr. L. Reichert, 1975.

Giorgieri, Mauro. Hurritisch TB/V-Beschwren. Studi Micenei eEgeo-Anatolici 44/1, 2002.

Harouthiunian, Nikolai. Korpusurartskikh klinoobraznykh nadpisej. Je-revan: Gituthiun, 2001.


8/8

272

Jahukian, Gevorg B. Hayoc lezvi patmuthun. Jerevan: Haykakan SSHGA hratarakchiuthiun. 1987.

Melchert, H. Craig. Prehistory. The Luwians. Ed. by C. Melchert. Lei-den-Boston: Brill, 2003.

Neu, Erich.Das Hurritische Epos der Freilassung. Wiesbaden: Harras-sowitz, 1996.

Olsen, Birgit Anette. The Noun in Biblical Armenian: Origin and Word-Formation. Berlin New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999.

Salemann, Carl. Manichaeische studien I. Die mittelpersischen texte inrevidierter transcription, mit glossar und grammatischen bemer-

kungen. Saint-Perersburg: Izdatetlstvo Akademii Nauk, 1908.Skalmowski, Wojciech. Das Nomen in Parthischen. Bulletyn Polskiego

Towarzystwa Jzykoznawczego 35, 1967. Reprinted in Wojciech

Skalmowski. Studies in Iranian Linguistics and Philology. Kra-kow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersitetu Jagielloskiego, 2004.

Schmitt, Rdiger. Grammatik des Klassisch-Armenischen. Innsbruck:Institut der Sprachwissenschaft der Universitt Innsbruck, 1981.

Wegner, Ilse. Einfhrung in die Hurritische Sprache. Wiesbaden: Har-rassowitz, 2000.

Whittaker, Gordon. Traces of an Early Indo-European Language inSouthern Mesopotamia. Gttinger Beitrge zur Sprachwissen-schaft, 1998/1.

Yakubovich, Ilya. Labyrinth for tyrants. Studia Linguarum 3(MemoriaeA.A.Korolv dicata), ed. A.S. Kassian and A.V. Sideltsev. Mos-cow: Languages of Slavonic Culture, 2002.

Documents

Caucasian and Near Eastern Studies XIII - Armenian 1