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AN ETYMOLOGICAL MISCELLANY
В статье предлагаются новые этимологии для ряда древнегреческих слов, не получивших удовлетворительной интерпретации в недавнем словаре Р. Бекеса (атерлуо;, афиоуето;, eiapevq, ёотшр, коли;, Kpn^vo;, ппро;, XP°vo;).
Ключевые слова: этимология, индоевропейская реконструкция, микенский диалект древнегреческого языка, Гомер, Ивик, Гераклит, Никандр.
The publication of Etymological Dictionary of Greek (henceforth EDG) from the pen of Robert S. P. Beekes in 2010 provides an occasion to revisit the etymologies of some rare Greek words which have not yet received a satisfactory etymological explanation1.
aTEpnvo^ ‘insomniac, sleepless’: this word is transmitted only in the etymologica, where it is attributed to Stesichorus and Ibycus, e.g. Et. Gud. 1.225 (de Stefani): axepnvo^ оитю^ o aypunvo^ napa Tnyivoi^, ю<; Kai nap’ ’1рйкф (fr. 328 PMGF) Kai £тпт%орФ (fr. 251 PMGF). It is uncertain whether пара Tnyivoi^ in both lemmata should be trusted as a reference to the epichoric dialect of Rhegium or its metropolis Chalkis: it is just as likely that having encountered an unclear word in the text of Ibycus, the ancient scholars assumed that it came from the vernacular of the poet’s native city2. At the same time, the absence of napa 'Ip,epa(oi<; may be significant, and the
1 It is not the purpose of the present article to discuss the merits of EDG (which I intend to do elsewhere). I would, however, like to mention that classical scholars who are unsure whether EDG has now replaced Chantraine and Frisk and are seeking a specialist’s evaluation of this new research tool, find themselves in an unfortunate situation: the reviews of the dictionary that have appeared in mainstream classical journals do not always inform the reader about some unfortunate aspects of the book (George 2011 and Simkin 2011 are broadly positive; Beckwith 2012 is lukewarm). For a much more sobering assessment of EDG interested classicists should go to journals that may lie outside of their purview and consult Blanc 2011, Meissner 2011 and Schmitt 2010 along with the remarks by Katz 2010: 35. Fazit: scholars concerned with etymological research will still need to consult Chantraine (and Frisk, for that matter, and plenty else).
One should also bear in mind that in antiquity the language of Ibycus’ poetry was largely identified with the dialect of Rhegium (see Ucciardello 2005: 64-83).
attribution to Stesichorus may not rest on any textual witness whatsoever3: the two major poets of Magna Graecia are often combined in the ancient lexicography4. The case for seeing axepnvo^ as a genuine fragment of Ibycus looks stronger; sleeplessness being a classic erotic symptom, the word would be quite at home in one of Ibycus’ love songs.
In the EDG the word is listed under xepno^ai (as “uncertain”), but it is unlikely that axepnvo^ has anything to do with xepnvo^, since the leap from ‘un-delightful’ to ‘wakeful’ is too significant to make such a relationship plausible. A new solution is called for.
The action most commonly associated with sleeplessness is tossing and turning around, which is exactly what we find in the description of Achilles’ tormented insomnia after the funeral of Patroclus (II. 24.5: eaxpe^ex’ ev9a Kai ev9a “he tossed from one side to the other”); a similar agitation is experienced by Odysseus, as he is inventing ways to avenge the suitors (Od. 20.24=28: axdp auxo<; eMaaexo ev9a Kai ev9a “but he himself tossed to and fro”)5. By contrast, Endymion’s proverbially deep sleep is called ‘unturning’ by Theocritus (3.49): axponov unvov lau®v. This seems to provide a fitting semantic motivation for a word meaning ‘sleepless’: axepnvo^ may be connected with the well-attested Indo-European root *terkw-‘to turn’ (LIV 635), continued in Latin torquere ‘to twist, to turn’, Sanskrit tark- ‘to turn’, Tocharian AB tark- ‘to twine’, and Hittite tar(k)u-z ‘to dance’6. As a compound with intensifying a-, Proto-
3 The attribution to Stesichorus has been doubted before, most recently by Cingano 1990: 201-2.
4 For instance, Hsch. p 1226 Latte: PpuaMK-rav no^spiKoi opxnoxav ‘psvESounoi’ "ipuKoq Kai 2xn^xopoq (“performers of a war-dance, steadfast in the battle-din”; Ibyc. fr. 335, Stesich. fr. 258) or Sch. Pi. O. 9.129 (p. 297 Drachmann): oi 5e rcspi "IPukov Kai Srn^xopov x&PPnv T^v eniSopaTiSa ^aaw (Ibyc. fr. 340, Stesich. fr. 267). We even find speculations about a personal connection between the two poets (e.g. Him. Or. 69.38-41 Colonna = Ta 29 Ercoles).
5 For insomnia in Homer see the discussion by Minchin 1985.
6 Greek evidence for the root *terkw- is limited to the Cypriote gloss svTpoooso0av EmaTpE^saOai (Hsch. s 7253), which seems to go back to *'trkw-ie/o- (Egetmeyer 2010: 124, 464), and Mycenaean forms such as instr. sg. to-qi-de (PY Ta 642.3+) ‘spiral’ (viz. ltorkwid-el). The reflexes of the root *terkw- in Greek seem to have been gradually assimilated by those of the root *trep- with a similar meaning ‘turn, revolve’; in particular, an early contamination of the two roots may explain the much-discussed hapax to-ro-qe-jo-me-no ltrokweiomenosl (PY Eq 213.1) ‘touring, inspecting’ (the expected counterpart of Latin torqueo would have been *to-qe-jo-me-no
Greek *a-terkw-(m)no- would be expected to mean ‘turning around much’, hence ‘wakeful’.
d^ucyETO^ ‘mud and rubbish which a stream carries with it, drift wood’ (EDG: “etymology unknown”). The word is attested once in the Iliad (11.495), once in Oppian (H. 1.779) and two times in Nicander (Al. 342, 584). The meaning and derivational structure of the word must have become opaque quite early, and at least Nicander clearly connected it with the verb a^uaa® ‘to draw liquids’(see Jacques 2007 ad loc.). However, as Vine 1998: 15 n. 23 observed, this derivation poses numerous formal and semantic difficulties.
Since the word basically means debris, I propose to analyze it as a determinative privative compound, the second member of which, (*)9uoyexo^ can be derived from the IE root *bheug- ‘to make use of’ (LIV 84: Vedic bhunakti ‘utilizes, exploits, enjoys, Latin fungor ‘perform, discharge, execute’). For the phonetic development of *bhug-ske/o- > *9uoyro one might compare *mig-ske/o- > ^icyro. As a deverbal stem with the characteristic “gerundivish” semantics (see Vine 1998) arnuayexo^ can be translated ‘unusable’, hence ‘useless stuff, garbage’ .
da^EV^ ‘meadow’ is attested twice in the Iliad (4.483; 15.631) and goes out of use until its revival in Hellenistic poetry; the etymological dictionaries are agnostic as to its origin (EDG 379: “probably Pre-Greek”). There is also an apparently synonymous word iapvog, found four times in Nicander’s Theriaca.8 elapev^ and iap,vo<; have been considered variants of the same word, but all attempts to reconcile one with the other have been unsuccessful.
ltorkweiomenosl; on the Mycenaean form see Ka3aHCKHH-Ka3aHCKeHe 1986: 139, 149; Aura Jorro 1993: 366-367; Meissner 2013: 5; several scholars have interpreted to-ro-qe-jo-me-no as a form of oTps^ro). The final consonant of Tpsnro, Tponsro and related forms (including the adjective aTponoq “unturning”, mentioned above) goes back to Proto-Indo-European *p-, cf. Hittite teripzi (< *trep-ti with epenthesis), Latin trepit “vertit” (Paul. Fest. p. 367 M.), and Sanskrit trapate; the root *trep- does not have a variant *terp- and a connection between aTspnvoq and Tpsnro is unlikely.
7 There probably is no connection with ^voyrov ‘pot-belly’ found on a Corinthian pinax of the mid-sixth century bce (IG IV.322: ®uo9ro[v), as well as in Alc. 129.21 (Voigt and Liberman print ^voKrov, but see Specht 1943 and Pisani 1948). Wachter 2001: 143 connects ^voyrov to German Bauch (IE *bhug(A)?).
8 For the meaning see Finzenhagen 1939: 117-118; Robert 1980: 11-15.
It is possible, however, that we are dealing with two different words. Lukaszewicz 1998 plausibly argued that ia^vo^, used by Nicander in a description of Egypt (Th. 200), is a borrowing from Egyptian, compare Eg. ym, Copt. ©IOM l IOM ‘water; sea; basin’.9 If ia^voq ‘watery meadow’ is unrelated to ela^ev^, one may attribute such glosses as ela^evaq^ xouq Ka9uypouq xonouc; (Sch. Ap.Rh. 2.818 p. 189 Wendel) to a later contamination between two similar-sounding words and then venture to reexamine the etymology of ela^ev^ on its own terms.
The word was clearly poetic, and the initial el- is best taken as metrical lengthening of original *Mp,ev^. Now, in Homer the word refers to a pasture: atixdp o y’ ©<; xe Xe®v oXoo^pfflv pouaiv eneX9®v ll ai pa t’ ev ela^evfl eXeo<; ^eyaXoio vepovxai (Il. 15.630-1). It is therefore suggested that *M^ev^ may be compared to Vedic (a-lsu-)yavasa- ‘pasture’, gav-yuti- ‘cow pasture’ for the root of which Schindler apud Krisch 1996: 28 n. 54 proposed a reconstruction *hxieuhx- ‘to graze’.10 Since the quality of neither laryngeal can be determined on the basis of Vedic alone, Schindler’s reconstruction can be revised to *hxieuh2- > Greek *heua-.
One can further theorize that in Greek there was a verb *epa^i ‘to put (cattle) to feed in a pasture’, *epa^ai ‘to feed on grass’ (intr.); its middle participle *epa^evo^, -a, -ov would mean ‘that which is grazing, feeding on grass’, hence ‘cattle’. This originally participial form underwent an accent shift comparable to that found in ao^o-Se^o^ ‘asphodel’ ^ ao^oSe^o^ (^ei^®v) ‘meadow with asphodels on it, flowery meadow’: similarly, *ea^ev^ (noin l Poxav^) ‘grassy meadow with cattle grazing on it’, hence e(i)a^evn ‘pasture, meadow’.
eoxrap ‘peg at the end of a chariot pole, yoke fastening’ (EDG 472: “unexplained”). This word is found only in the Iliad (24.272) and in Aristobulus’ account of the Gordian knot, quoted by Plutarch and Arrian (FGH 139.7ab); descriptions of eoxrop in these texts match its representations on Attic black-figure pottery (Beazley 1956: 332; see also Bosworth 1980: 187). There thus is some measure of certainty that eoxrop denotes a pin passing through both pole and yoke, keeping the yoke firmly in position on the pole, see the drawings below (source of the drawings: Leaf 1902: 624):
9 The Egyptian word itself is a loanword from Semitic *yamm, see Vycichl 1983: 63.
10 Arguing against Forssman 1987; see also EWAia 1.481.
In my opinion eoxrop should be connected to e0^or Seo^oi (Hsch.) and further to IE *uedh- ‘tie together’: Gothic gawidan ‘ouZeuyvovai’, Welsh gwedd ‘yoke’, perhaps Sanskrit vivadha- ‘a shoulder-yoke for carrying burdens’ (IEW 1116-7)11. Initial aspiration will be regular in the reflex of IE *uedh-tor- > PGk. *ues-tor- by the so-called toxrop-rule (see Nussbaum 1998: 139-40 n. 146).
Koni^, -iSoq ‘glib talker’ (LSJ Suppl. 1996) is only attested a few times in Greek literature: we find it in Euripides’ Hecuba 132, in Heraclitus fr. 18 Marcovich, and in Lycophron’s Alexandra 763, 1464 (Lycophron no doubt was drawn to this word by its rarity).
A connection with Konxro ‘strike’, Konoq ‘beating, fatigue’ was made already in antiquity; it was adopted by all modern etymological dictionaries, including EDG. Under this theory Koniq would either be a hypocoristic of a compound like Sn^oKonoq ‘demagogue, one who is hitting the ears of the public’ (so Fick 1876: 176) or an original i-stem nomen agentis ‘one who hitslwearies (by lying)’ (so Solmsen 1909: 162). But how plausible this really is? The required semantic leap from ‘hit’ to ‘lie’ seems a bit drastic: after all, Koniq refers solely to speech (cf. Koniq o ^a^oq Sch. ad Eur. Hec. 133).
I submit that Koniq may belong instead to the root *kep- (LIV 327) continued in Vedic sap- ‘to curse’ and perhaps in Hittite kappilai- ‘to be aggressive, pick a fight’, kappilalli- ‘enemy’ (first compared to sap- by Eichner 1979: 61). Under this theory the Proto-Indo-European root *kep- referred to various kinds of foul speech, including cursing and lying.
Kpn^vo^ ‘steep incline’12: Beekes is justified in his rejection of the traditional comparison with Kepawu^i13, but he does not offer a better solution (EDG 777: “remains unexplained”). A plausible
11 The evidence has been assembled by Lagercrantz 1898: 273.
12 Perhaps already Mycenaean, depending on the interpretation of o-pi-ke-re-mi-ni-ja.
13 See e.g. Deroy 1976: 294; this solution was adopted in LfgrE.
comparandum seems to be available in isolated Slavic *stromh / *strъmъ ‘steep’ which may continue *krdmo- (with t-epenthesis): Old Church Slavonic стръ/ъмоглавъ ‘ката кєфа^п?’, Old Russian стръ/ъмъныи, Serbo-Croatian strm, Czech strmy, Polish stromy ‘steep’ and derivatives, such as Russian стремитъ(ся)14.
япро<; ‘infirm, invalid, blind, lame’: despite Mawet 1979: 68, comparison with п^ца is rendered highly problematic by the dialectal forms with -а- (Cretan паp6ю, Lesbian napo^ Alc. 10.4 V.).
This word may instead be compared to Hittite and Luvian pahhiya- ‘to beat, to harm’, Cuneiform Luvian pahhit- ‘beater, whisker’15. Under this analysis n^po^ would continue *peh2-rd-‘beaten, maimed’; for a full-grade adjective with the suffix *-ro- and a passive meaning one may compare e.g. *gheh]-rd- ‘left behind’ ^ %^а ‘widow’.
Xpovo^ ‘time, period of time’ (EDG 1651: “etymology unknown”): in my opinion this notoriously recalcitrant word can be analyzed as a derivative from the IE root *gher- ‘early time’, reconstructible on the evidence of Hittite karu ‘formerly; already’, Hieroglyphic Luvian ruwan ‘formerly’, as well as Slavic *zarja ‘dawn’ and Old Norse gryjandi ‘dawn’, Old Swedish gry ‘to dawn’16.
According to Beekes, “a suffix *-ono- does not seem to have existed in Indo-European or in Greek” (EDG 558); this is, strictly speaking, correct, but the problematic sequence -ovo- can be analyzed in other ways. While decomposition is unlikely (compounds with -%povo<; are posthomeric), one might entertain the possibility of simple (viz. non-functional) thematization of *%p®v, gen. *%pov6^. Such an n-stem would be exactly parallel to other n-stems denoting periods of time (Greek аі^ ‘lifetime’, Avestan xsapan- ‘night’, etc.)17.
14 While the alternation o / ь in the root is not immediately clear and requires some auxiliary assumptions, this problem seems to be inner-Slavic.
15 The verb is not well attested in Hittite and Luvian, and Puhvel 2011: 3-4 construes the Averbo on the basis of verbal nouns alone, while Kloekhorst 2008: 613 takes a more cautious approach. (Puhvels etymological comparison to ла(ю is phonetically difficult: *p(e)h2ie/o- would give Greek *nas/o- / *лее/о-).
16 See Cop 1971: 5-6. Cop’s Anatolian-Germanic connection is widely accepted (e.g. Puhvel 1997: 114; Kloekhorst 2008: 458).
17 These formations have been analyzed as based on locatives with a suffix *-en: see Николаев 2010: 42-3 with references.
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Alexander Nikolaev. An etymological miscellany
The purpose of this contribution is to offer novel etymologies for several Greek words, whose origin is labeled unknown in the recent Etymological Dictionary of Greek by Robert Beekes (axspnvoq, d^uoysxoq, siapsvn, soxrop, Komq, Kpnpvoq, n^poq, xpovoq).
Keywords: etymology, IE reconstruction, Mycenaean dialect of Greek, Homer, Ibicus, Heraclitus, Nicander.
