Some people care. This is a forum about language after all.

The Hebrew name Esther is a variant of the common Semitic theonym Ishtar, Astarte.

Hebrew Esther brings to mind the Avestan luminary deity Atar.

Noah and its parallels to Sumerian, and Avestan was mentioned. Were the ancient Greeks familiar with the story of Gilgamesh?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

quote:

Some people care. This is a forum about language after all.

I suspect that Jerry was punning.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I suspect that Jerry was punning.

In that case, sorry Jerry. I didn't get it.

Am I missing something? So far as I can see Jerry hasn't posted to this thread since 09 May 2007.

Relax, Richard. I did post something and then deleted it.

By suggesting that indifference and who cares? might have descended from the same root words, I felt that I was expressing my feeling about the whole topic. My apologies go to anyone whom I have offended.

Forgive us as we forgive ...

I have to say that I find that this particular thread is too scholarly for me so I have contributed little. That's not to say that I am indifferent, simply that I am happier to leave it to those others who are better able to deal with its concepts.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
I have to say that I find that this particular thread is too scholarly for me so I have contributed little. That's not to say that I am indifferent, simply that I am happier to leave it to those others who are better able to deal with its concepts.

You are not alone, Richard.

Agreed. I very much enjoy reading threads like this, but sometimes I just don't have anything worthwhile to contribute. There's nothing wrong with that.

This is a terrific thread. I was inspired to go back & read the whole thing, as I only "came in" in early 2007. Thanks zmj & mojo for keeping such an esoteric conversation moving along.

I just ordered Alice au pays du langage from amazon.ca.

I'm aware of two theories on the development of language. One theory proposes that phonemic languages developed out of click languages. Another theory proposes that music and phonemic languages descended from a common ancestor, musilanguage. So, did musilanguage develop out of click languages, or are these two theories not meant to compliment each other?

I'm not familiar with either of these theories. I'm not sure what the difference would be between language, phonemic languages, and click languages. Altho I'm sometimes wary of linking to wikipedia, I think this is a good place to start.

Are there any theories about how the Indo-European languages developed other than the Proto-Indo-European hypothesis? I'm asking this because I've noticed the presence of Indo-Iranian groups where other branches of IE. have arisen, but for starters I'd like to focus on the Iranic presence. 1) The Scythians were present where the Celts arose 2) the Gutains attested in Sumerian texts are said to be related to the Goths, Germanic speakers; the Cimmerians were present where the Germans arose; the Saxons are said to have some relationship to the Scythians, at least in name 3) Armenian was thought to be a Persian language until more recently 4) The Tocharians are sometimes identified with the Kushans of ancient Afghanistan 5) the Sarmatians were present where Slavic speakers like the Russians and the Polish arose, Russia therein having developed from the Iranic word for "light, white" 6) the Alans were present where the Albanians arose.... How can we be sure that the aforesaid IE. language groups didn't develop from an Iranic ancestor instead of PIE.?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

I've recently read Benjamin Fortson's Indo-European Languages and Culture: an Introduction. It's a really good book on this subject, and it might help answer some of your questions. A second edition has just been released.

Where did you hear about the word Scythian being related to Saxon?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Persian Origins of Anglo-Saxon is one source that makes the connection between the Scythians and the Anglo-Saxons.

I'll look into the book you suggested, though I think I already possess a basic understanding of the PIE hypothesis. I'd like to study IE. languages and culture formally, but I'm having trouble finding a convenient school to do that. I noticed UCLA offers a course in just that, but I'm in New York and there doesn't seem to be a program that caters to this interest of mine here. Given that I have only a basic understanding of the development of IE. and the comparative method I'm probably blind-sighted, but I'm not convinced that the theory behind the comparative method is 100% fail-safe. What I'm competent enough to agree with is that 1) the language subfamilies within IE. resemble each other in word and therefore are related, and 2) they developed from a common ancestor.

Apparently, the Indo-Iranian made more innovations than other groups, whereas Greek is more archaic than other groups. What is the difference between for example Gathic Avestan and Mycenaean Greek in archaism? Because I've noticed that the Avestan is relatively identical to PIE in many cases.

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
Persian Origins of Anglo-Saxon is one source that makes the connection between the Scythians and the Anglo-Saxons.

This article doesn't actually make a connection between the words Saxon and Scythian.

Just because the words Sacae and Saxones are similar in sound doesn't mean the two tribes are related. Even if the words are related it doesn't mean that the tribes are related. The OED suggests that Saxones is borrowed from the same Proto-Germanic source as saw.

If you want to show that the IE languages are descended from Avestan (say), then you have to explain sound changes that are already explained by positing a proto-language. For instance why does Avestan have z where Greek has both kh and g:

Avestan zā
Greek khēn
"goose"

Avestan zanu
Greek genus
"cheek"

This problem is solved if we posit that these words had different consonants in Proto-Indo-European (*ǵh and *ǵ).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Just because the words Sacae and Saxones are similar in sound doesn't mean the two tribes are related. Even if the words are related it doesn't mean that the tribes are related.

It's good to keep in mind that genetics is distinct from language and culture. A good example is France. There was a group of people (tribe), the Franks, Latin Franci, who spoke a (probably West) Germanic language. They settled in the area of the northern present-day France and formed a monarchy . The population of that kingdom was mainly Gaulish who spoke (Vulgar) Latin, though no doubt pockets of Gaulish remained from pre (Roman) conquest days. The Franks were absorbed into the Romano-Gaulish population, though they left some lexical items in the vocabulary of what was to become Old French. The modern country of France takes its name from this Germanic tribe. Are the modern French Germanic? Are they Celtic? I'd say they are mainly Francophone (in that they speak French). Who a people are (what DNA fragments they share with other people within their socio-cultural group) and what language they speak (or may have spoken in the past) are unrelated.

UCLA

The IE linguistics program at UCLA is probably the best in the country. Other good schools would have to be Harvard and UT Austin. (Before the dot com bust, I attended about three of the annual IE linguistics and archeology meetings that are held in UCLA, and it was fun to met and talk with famous IEists.) If you want to study IE you could do worst. On a personal note, there is a huge Persian community near the UCLA campus. Each conference I attended has their group dinner in a Persian restaurant on Wilshire Blvd. I had a surreal experience walking to that restaurant the first time. I noticed a restaurant with signage in the Arabic script. I assumed it was a Persian restaurant. Then I notice some Hebrew below the other text. As I sounded it out, I discovered that it was not Hebrew as I assumed, but Yiddish. It read glat kosher. I assume it was a Persian cafe like the others, but I don't know as I cannot read Arabic letters (yet) and I only know less than a dozen words in Farsi. I do know there was a large Jewish community in Iran pre-1948.

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If you want to show that the IE languages are descended from Avestan (say), then you have to explain sound changes that are already explained by positing a proto-language. For instance why does Avestan have z where Greek has both kh and g:

Avestan zā
Greek khēn
"goose"

Avestan zanu
Greek genus
"cheek"

Wouldn't the g or kh sound have shifted to the z sound and not vice versa? Couldn't Greek have split from Iranic, became isolated, preserved the g and kh sound while the Iranic continued to innovate and resolved to the z sound? Moreover, I could be wrong, but I think there is evidence of the g sound in the West Iranic language when it comes to "cheek." I figure the Greek genus is cognate to the New Persian jan "kin, friend, love" and then there is also New Persian comah "cheek."

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I discovered that it was not Hebrew as I assumed, but Yiddish.

That's interesting because you don't see a lot of Yiddish these days.

Why doesn't New York have an Indo-European program?

Why? Do you know for sure that they don't? I'd presume they would.

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
Wouldn't the g or kh sound have shifted to the z sound and not vice versa? Couldn't Greek have split from Iranic, became isolated, preserved the g and kh sound while the Iranic continued to innovate and resolved to the z sound?

Then how is the language you're calling "Iranic" different from what is normally known as "Proto-Indo-European"?

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Moreover, I could be wrong, but I think there is evidence of the g sound in the West Iranic language when it comes to "cheek." I figure the Greek genus is cognate to the New Persian jan "kin, friend, love"

That's a different Greek word: genos "race, family". The Avestan cognate is zīzǝnti "to give birth".

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and then there is also New Persian comah "cheek."

I don't know the etymology of that word. I just gave Avestan as an example. Whatever attested language you choose as your ancestor, you're going to have similar problems.

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
I'm not convinced that the theory behind the comparative method is 100% fail-safe.

There are limitations to the comparative method, but it is the best method we have.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

I searched the Web for Indo-European programs, and found precisely what z had said...programs at UCLA (they were cited almost exclusively), with some mention of the U of Texas, Austin, program. Indeed, this page about Victor Thomas shows that he is from Harvard, but is now a Professor-in-Residence in the Program of Indo-European Studies in UCLA. I did find one at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, but that probably wouldn't be convenient.

I found one undergraduate course at New York University on Indo-European Syntax (V61.0036-001), if that would work. Their description of their graduate program in linguistics was bare, and last modified in May of 2006. I couldn't find much on linguistics at Columbia.

In the east, however, you benefit from the short distances between universities, as compared to the west. For example, the University of Pennsylvania is well-known for its linguistics program; in 2006 Donald Ringe from there published "From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic: A Linguistic History of English, Volume I." This won the Linguistic Society of America's Biennial Bloomfield Book Award in 2008. Yet when I scrolled through their undergraduate and graduate courses, I did not find any Indo-European courses. However, since this is not my field, I might not recognize that a course by another name includes this content.

I hope that helps.

Maybe its just me, but I think its kind of odd that of all places New York doesn't have a comprehensive Indo-European program. Its a bummer. But, the linguistics program at University of Pennsylvania does look like it has potential.

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Then how is the language you're calling "Iranic" different from what is normally known as "Proto-Indo-European"?

That is pretty much the same thing isn't it? There are, however, cases where these sounds or phonemes shift in either direction. Like, could the z sound have shifted to the g or kh sound by a phenomenon that's been overlooked by theorists? Couldn't, for example, the Iranic speaking Sarmatians have transmitted their language to a pre-Indo-European population whose accent effected the language so much that it appeared to be a non-Iranic IE. language?

Isn't Gathic almost identical to Vedic Sanskrit. In turn, isn't Vedic Sanskrit almost identical to Lithuanian, a Balto-Slavic language, the same subfamily as Russian?

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That's a different Greek word: genos "race, family". The Avestan cognate is zīzǝnti "to give birth".

Don't Greek genos and Greek genus come from the same root?

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Whatever attested language you choose as your ancestor, you're going to have similar problems.

What about time placement of the attestations? I've seen Gathic Avestan placed as far back as 1700 BCE by linguists and Mycenaean Greek at 1500 BCE.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:

quote:

Then how is the language you're calling "Iranic" different from what is normally known as "Proto-Indo-European"?

That is pretty much the same thing isn't it?

Then I don't understand what you meant when you wrote:

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
How can we be sure that the aforesaid IE. language groups didn't develop from an Iranic ancestor instead of PIE.?

The point is that the proto-language, whatever you want to call it, is not a language that we have a written record of. None of the languages that we have written records of preserve all of the features that the proto-language had.

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
There are, however, cases where these sounds or phonemes shift in either direction. Like, could the z sound have shifted to the g or kh sound by a phenomenon that's been overlooked by theorists?

The change from a palatal or velar stop (*ǵ and *ǵh) to a fricative (z) is much more phonologically probable than the other way around. We see it happen with Latin c which is a velar stop in Latin, an affricate in Italian and a fricative in French. But as far as I know, a change in the opposite direction is much rarer if it happens at all.

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
Couldn't, for example, the Iranic speaking Sarmatians have transmitted their language to a pre-Indo-European population whose accent effected the language so much that it appeared to be a non-Iranic IE. language?

I suppose that's possible, but in that case would we expect to see the same regular sound correspondences that we in fact see?

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
Isn't Gathic almost identical to Vedic Sanskrit. In turn, isn't Vedic Sanskrit almost identical to Lithuanian, a Balto-Slavic language, the same subfamily as Russian?

I've heard other people say that Lithuanian is almost the same as Sanskrit. Lithuanian preserves some features that other IE languages have lost, but that doesn't make it almost identical to Sanskrit. If it is almost identical to Sanskrit, why is it considered a Balto-Slavic language and not an Indo-Iranian one?

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:
Don't Greek genos and Greek genus come from the same root?

No, there are two roots: *ǵenh₁- and *ǵenu-.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Isn't Gathic almost identical to Vedic Sanskrit. In turn, isn't Vedic Sanskrit almost identical to Lithuanian, a Balto-Slavic language, the same subfamily as Russian?

Avestan (and Old Persian) are more closely related to Vedic Sanskrit than are either of them to Lithuanian. And all three of them are not mutually intelligible, otherwise we'd call them dialects rather than languages. Lithuanian looks and sounds nothing like Sanskrit. Both Vedic Sanskrit and Lithuanian seem to preserve PIE tone accent (as opposed to stress accent as with all the other daughter languages).

Here is an example of the same text in (Classical) Sanskrit and present-day Lithuanian for comparison:

quote:

sarva manavaḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartante api ca gauvadṛśā adhikaradṛśā ca samānāḥ eva vartante | eve sarvaṃ cetanā-tarka-śattisyaṃ susamyannāḥ santi | api ca sarve 'pi banthutva-bhavanayā parasyaraṃ vyaraharantu |

Visi žmonės gimsta laisvi ir lygūs savo orumu ir teisėmis. Jiems suteiktas protas ir sąžinė ir jie turi elgtis vienas kito atžvilgiu kaip broliai.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The Sanskrit is a little wordy, but even somebody not familiar with the two languages can see they are quite different. (BTW, the text is Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (link).)

I think the reason that IE studies is not available in New York is because it's a rather unpopular subject and not many people go into the field. To put it bluntly, there's no money in it. It takes a long time to study all the various ancient languages that one needs to make informed comparisons. And a relatively lengthy study not only of the comparative-historical method as it is practiced today, but also of its history and development. It may not seem like it to outsiders (and in a way I am one, too, though I have studied IE on and off since getting my AB in linguistics in '79), but the theories have been long in development and fought over until some kind of consensus or detente has been reached.

Also, there is a tendency for some people outside the field of IE studies not only to criticize it but to suggest improvements or alternate theories. Unfortunately, these often have little to do with linguistics or historical linguistics, but are more of a political agenda. The German philologists are the most frightening example who fell prey to this tendency. Imagining that the Urheimat (proto-homeland of the IEs) was in Germany or Scandinavia. (Innocent I suppose in and of itself, but when coupled with virulent nationalism and fascism it led to some great unpleasantness.) More recently Lithuanians and Indians have gotten into the mix, asserting that their language is the proto-language. Never mind that PIE is thought by most to have existed 6K BP and that Lithuanian has about 500 years of written history. Even Vedic Sanskrit probably only goes back 3K or 4K BP. Every time I run across one of these "theories" I think of the infamous Dutch philologist from the 16th century, Johannes Goropius Becanus (link). He determined that not only was Dutch the language of paradise, but it just happened to be the Dutch dialect from Antwerp (which coincidentally was his home town).

Now, mojobadshah, I am not accusing you of this tendency, as you seem genuinely to want to learn more about the IEs and their language and culture, and I wish you luck in finding a program, though I think you may have to leave New York to find it.

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Lithuanian looks and sounds nothing like Sanskrit.

Then why do I have notions from reading about IE. that Lithuanian and Sanskrit do have a resemblance? Could it be that if you listed the two vocabularies side by side, cognate by cognate, they would look like the same language, but when you take a random quote like you did and translate it they look different?

Secondly, what is an etymological translation? For example, I have a copy of the Zend Avesta. In the beginning of the book it explains how its an etymological translation. Does that mean that every Avestan word has been replaced by an English cognate, exactly, without adding or detracting vocabulary? Because I know there would be difficulties syntactically. So, it obviously wouldn't be a perfect etymological translation, right? Though I think it would be interesting to see a version of the Gathas, for example, replaced by English cognates using the Gathic syntax.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

quote:

Originally posted by mojobadshah:

quote:

Lithuanian looks and sounds nothing like Sanskrit.

Then why do I have notions from reading about IE. that Lithuanian and Sanskrit do have a resemblance? Could it be that if you listed the two vocabularies side by side, cognate by cognate, they would look like the same language, but when you take a random quote like you did and translate it they look different?

Well, let's see:

Sanskrit áśvaḥ "horse"
Lithuanian ašvà "mare"
Latin equus "horse"

That looks promising, but here are some more:

Sanskrit dāru "wood"
Lithuanian drẽvė "cavity in tree"
Greek doru "tree"

Sanskrit śráyati "to lean"
Lithuanian šliejù "to abut"
Russian sloj "layer"

Sanskrit jīvātuḥ "life"
Lithuanian gyjù "make healthy"
Old Russian goj "peace"

Sanskrit hánti "to hit"
Lithuanian genù "to destroy"
Old Norse gunnr "fight"

Sanskrit dēváḥ "god"
Lithuanian diẽvas "god"
Latin deus, dīvus "god"
Gaulish Dēvona "god"

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Secondly, what is an etymological translation? For example, I have a copy of the Zend Avesta. In the beginning of the book it explains how its an etymological translation. Does that mean that every Avestan word has been replaced by an English cognate, exactly, without adding or detracting vocabulary? Because I know there would be difficulties syntactically. So, it obviously wouldn't be a perfect etymological translation, right?

Since cognates often don't share the same meaning, such a translation would be extremely inaccurate (not to mention weird).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

what is an etymological translation?

I've read the same about Avestan and Vedic. That is because those two languages really are quite close to one another, but I stand by my statement about Lithuanian and Sanskrit. I have heard speakers of both speak them in my presence, and there is no way I could say that they are near identical. They do share some traits or family resemblances, but that is because they are both related to one another. And better yet, they are both in the eastern satem grouping of IE languages. (You know, Hindi and Sanskrit sound like they're related, too. That's because they are. And there are a lot of learned words in Hindi that are Sanskrit loans; cf. the Latin and Greek loans in English.) There is also 2500 to 3500 years separating them from one another.

when you take a random quote like you did and translate it they look different?

Well, let's be honest, I took transliteration of a text in Sanskrit. If you look at Sanskrit in devanagari and Lithuanian in Roman letters they do not resemble one another at all. There are resemblances in phonology, morphology, syntax, etc., but again that is because they are related to one another. A better test would be to take a Lithuanian professor and have him utter a twenty minute discussion of his normal day at the unviersity. Repeat with an Indian professor. Then take those two recordings around to a variety of Indian and Lithuanian speakers, play them the one not in their language, and record their reactions. I doubt that very few would even know the languages are related, and even less would have any idea what the discussions were about. That would be a better experiment than me taking two texts at random or you stating a theory about the two languages without any texts taken at random or otherwise. Of course, it would involve money, time, and travel, and in the end I'm not sure what you would prove.

If one were to line the IE. subfamilies (Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italic, Celtic, etc...) up in order on the bases of resemblance in word what would it be? For example subfamily A resembles subfamily B, subfamily B resembles subfamily C, subfamily C resembles subfamily D, etc....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

Interesting question. There seems to be a difference between the satem branches (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Armenian, Albanian) and the centum branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek). I've heard that some people posit a Celtic-Italic grouping and a Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian grouping based on similarities in morphology, but I don't know the details offhand.

Its kind of confusing Greek is a centum language and Indo-Iranian and Armenian are satem languages, which I'm assuming would imply their are their differences in morphology, yet Greek, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian are sometimes group together because of morphological similarities?

How is it that Greek and Lithuanian come from different IE. subfamilies, yet they are both considered the most archaic of the IE. languages? Wouldn't that mean that Greek and Lithuanian have a close resemblance in word? Furthermore, I came across something on the net that said that Lithuanian and Sanskrit share 10,000 words in common. Is that allot?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

The centum-satem division of IE languages is based on what different daughter languages did with certains sets of phonemes: the dorsal stop consonants, i.e., the labiovelars (*kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ), the palato-velars (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ), and the velars (*k, *g, *gʰ). The satem languages basically innovated and changed some of these into fricatives. This is illustrated by the words for hundred in Latin and Sanskrit. It was thought this division was an old dialect split in PIE, an areal feature, but the discoveries of Hittite and Tocharian posed a problem for the latter theory. This division of the IE was first noticed in the 19th century and is purely a phonological observation. (It is not thought to be that important historically and linguistically today.) Phonologically the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages show a lot of change.

I still don't know what "most archaic" means. Does it mean in phonology? Because that is wrong. Does it mean in morphology? Or Syntax? Hittie, Old Persian / Avestan, and Sanskrit are amongst the IE languages with the oldest texts. Lithuanian, Latvian, and Albanian are amongst those with the newest texts. So, do Sanskrit and Lithuanian have over 10K words in common? I'd like to see a list. It must exist because somebody counted them. Also, words are different from roots. There are nowhere near 10K roots in the PIE reconstructed vocabulary. I have not studied the Baltic languages that much, but Sanskrit is famous for its derivation morphology (by affixing and compounding). Don Ringe at UPenn has some papers on determining the time-line when different language groups split of from PIE. I seem to remember that he talks about the criteria they used to compare languages: it was mainly phonological and morphological.

Most archaic could mean preserves the most grammatical features of PIE. (The problem is nobody quite agrees with what the grammatical features of PIE were.) Or it could mean split from what became the other languages the earliest. (The problem with that is that languages change. So the first to split off (usually thought to be the Anatolian languages) would still continue to change. There is no real consensus on how many cases or genders PIE had. One feature that Lithuanian still has that none of the other extant languages do is a pitch accent. Sanskrit had it, too, but none of Indic languages today has it. Ancient Greek had it. All the other IE languages today have stress accent. Hittie has two genders, but most of the other IE languages that still have grammatical gender had three. Italo-Celtic was based pretty much on some morphological features that the Celtic and Italic languages shared. The only one that comes to mind is passive formations in -r (something that Hittite also has traces of). English today little resembles reconstructed Proto-Germanic, yet it is closer in time and genetic relationship to that language than it is Old Prussian or Thracian. Most of these differences and similarities are used to construct trees (called cladistics) showing when different branches of IE split off from the trunk. No two historical linguists seem to agree on the when, where, and why the splits occurred.

[Corrected terminological infelicity.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Is there any recollection of people having economic motivations or agendas for studying linguistics or for establishing the Indo-European Homeland?

Is there any recollection of people having economic motivations or agendas for studying linguistics or for establishing the Indo-European Homeland?

None that I know of. It's pretty much limited to academic pursuits and political or nationalist-racist agendas. There's just not much money in linguistics, and even less in historical linguistics. But, technically, the question of the Indo-European homeland is an archaeological one and not a linguistic one.

Is there any relationship between the Irish prefix mac "son of" and Avestan mogh "father" OPer. magush, magi or PIE *magh?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mojobadshah,

Is there any relationship between the Irish prefix mac "son of" and Avestan mogh "father"?

Old Irish macc 'son' is related to Avestan maγava 'unmarried', Gothic magus 'boy', Old Icelandic mǫgr 'son, young man', Old English magu 'boy' (the surname Maugham is related) :- PIE *maghos 'young', *maghu- 'boy, youth'. As far as I know, Avestan pitar, patar, ptar is 'father', related to Latin pater, Sanskrit pitṛ, English father. Where in the Avesta does the word mogh occur?

[Addendum (after previous posting was modified): Greek μαγος (magos) 'magus' < Old Persian maguš 'magician; priest' < PIE *magh- 'to know; be able to' is related to Old English magan 'may', English may (aux. verb).]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

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Where in the Avesta does the word mogh occur?

It must occur somewhere in the Avesta. I have records of two forms mogh and mogu akin to OPer. magush. But, I had notions that this word was patryonomic and means "father" like when a priest is called father, and that Old Irish macc or the Mc- prefix was patryonomic, too. That's why I thought the two forms might be related.

Do either of these roots PIE *maghos or PIE *magh- have anything to do with the designation Magog as in the tribes of Gog and Magog of the Old Testament?

It must occur somewhere in the Avesta. I have records of two forms mogh and mogu akin to OPer. magush. But, I had notions that this word was patryonomic and means "father" like when a priest is called father, and that Old Irish macc or the Mc- prefix was patryonomic, too. That's why I thought the two forms might be related.

Old Irish macc means 'son'. It is used in the construction of Irish names. In English it acts more like a prefix, but in Old Irish it is a word. The are other words used in patronymic name constructions in Irish: ui 'grandson' (which shows up as O) and ni 'daughter'. A name like that of the legendary Irish hero Finn McCool in Irish is Fionn mac Cumhaill meaning literally Finn son of Cumhall. The Finn's father's name is in the genitive. No part of the name is the word for father.

I asked for a citation, because I could find the word mogh neither in an online Avestan dictionary (link), which is not exhaustive, nor in Pokorny's IEW (etymological dictionary of IE). Another Avestan glossary (link) cites magus 'priest' and the Persian mobed 'head priest' (< magu + paiti). The Avesta is a collection of texts some of which are older than others and some of which are in a fragmentary state. I aksed for a citation so I could take a look at the text and the word's context to make a more informed decision on the likelihood of an etymological relationship.

Do either of these roots PIE *maghos or PIE *magh- have anything to do with the designation Magog as in the tribes of Gog and Magog of the Old Testament?

I think it unlikely. The Tanakh (Old Testament) is written in Hebrew (and some bits in Aramaic), both of which are Semitic languages.

[Fixed formatting mistake.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

My notions must have been incorrect, though I did find a translation for mobad "magic-father" in the Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Encyclopedia-Preisthood. It seems mogh is actually Persian, but I'm pretty sure mogu appears in the Avesta at least once in reference to Zoroaster.

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I think it unlikely. The Tanakh (Old Testament) is written in Hebrew (and some bits in Aramaic), both of which are Semitic languages.

But, according to what I have read the tribe of Magog where ancestors of gentiles or Indo-Europeans including the Iranians, the Celts, and Russians.

Lastly, if the Gathic language is more archaic than that of the Vedas in that it systematically preserves the PIE laryngeals, does this mean that they were recorded orally before the Vedas were?

But, according to what I have read the tribe of Magog where ancestors of gentiles or Indo-Europeans including the Iranians, the Celts, and Russians.

The Old Testament is not necessarily an historical document. Later commentators and interpretors have mapped certain tribes in the Old Testament to certain peoples in historical times and the present. I don't imagine that these mappings are very useful or even accurate.

Lastly, if the Gathic language is more archaic than that of the Vedas in that it systematically preserves the PIE laryngeals, does this mean that they were recorded orally before the Vedas were?

From what I know, the Anatolian IE languages (i.e., Hittite, Luwian, Palaic, et al.) are the only IE languages that preserve PIE laryngeals as phonemes. There are traces of of laryngeals in many of the IE languages. That is how Saussure hypothesized that these phonemes existed. Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit are roughly the same age. If by more archaic, you mean that Avestan preserves some features of of PIE that Vedic Sanskrit does not, could you list them for me? If Avestan did preserve more "archaic" features than Vedic Sanskrit, what does that mean? To me, it would mean that the study of PIE and IE languages could be advanced. It does not mean that the language with fewer features loses or is not as useful. Different IE languages are useful for different reasons. Not all the features of PIE are preserved by any one daughter language. For example, Indo-Iranian languages are weak in showing vowel-coloring by lost laryngeals, but Latin and Greek are stronger in this area. Sanskrit has three genders, but Lithuanian has lost the neuter, though traces of it exist.

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Originally posted by mojobadshah:
But, according to what I have read the tribe of Magog where ancestors of gentiles or Indo-Europeans including the Iranians, the Celts, and Russians.

Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that the word Magog is Indo-European in origin. For instance the word German is from Latin and doesn't seem to have anything to do with a Germanic language. It might be from a Celtic word for "neighbour".

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I know there is a theory about how Abraham means non-bramin; Peter=father; Luke=light, etc... Does anyone know where I can find a list of IE. names in the Testaments?

I think it's pretty much understood that Peter is from Greek petros "stone". And Abraham is Semitic.

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OK... in a much earlier post I posted a link to an article called Traces of the Aryan by Jahanshah Derakshani wherein he seems to make these connections between Iranic names and Sumerian names. One of them was between Av. Ardvi Sura Anahita and the Sumerian Inanna who do seem to share similar qualities as well as in their names (Anahita ~ Inanna). Through mass comparison its seems like it could be the same case with Av. Yima Kshaeta (Per. Jamsheed) and Gilgamesh. Yima Kshaeta builds an enclosure called a Vara. Gilgamesh builds a wall. Today I noticed there's a Zoroastrian service called the Ab-Zohr "offering to waters" and then I read something about the Sumerian abzu ab 'water' + zu 'far' the name for fresh water from underground aquifiers that was given a religious quality. I'm no expert, but to me it looks like the Avestan forms are shrinking or eroding into the Sumerian. And, finally, I recall an article I found on the net Disc: Sumerian and PIE which lists PIE forms and what seem to be their Sumerian equivalents. And, I'm noticing the same kind of "erosion" with the bulk of the lexical comparison. So is this evidence that IE. culture developed from Sumerian or the reverse?

With the first link, I'm not sure what Derakhshani means by "Aryan" - do they mean "Indo-Iranian"? I can't access the second link.

To answer your question "So is this [mass comparison] evidence that IE. culture developed from Sumerian or the reverse?" - no, because mass comparison is not evidence. (But it might mean there's something more to be discovered here.) Also, even if it's true that Sumerian has borrowings from PIE, that says nothing about which culture developed from which.

I think Derakshani uses Aryan to refer to both the Iranians and the Indo-Europeans. I don't think the second article is mass comparison.

If the language is similar then its possible Sumerian and PIE culture developed from a common ancestor, right? If the stories and some names are similar it could mean that the stories of the Avesta are as ancient as Sumerian, unless Sumerian influenced the Zoroastrians, right? But if the Indo-Europeans borrowed from the Sumerians why does it seem like the IE. names have been preserved better (because they're longer eg. Ab-Zohr -> abzu)?

Another mass comparison and example of this shrinking is Greek Gaia "earth mother" which seems to be related to Av. Gaya "life" and Sumerian Ki "earth; mother of Enki"

I wish the second article was accessible because I'd like to read it.

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But if the Indo-Europeans borrowed from the Sumerians why does it seem like the IE. names have been preserved better (because they're longer eg. Ab-Zohr -> abzu)?

The length of the word doesn't necessarily mean it's been preserved better. A language can add an affix to a word, making the word longer than the word it's borrowed from.

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Another mass comparison and example of this shrinking is Greek Gaia "earth mother" which seems to be related to Av. Gaya "life" and Sumerian Ki "earth; mother of Enki"

Avestan gayō "life" is from PIE *gʷeih₃- "to live" (Pokorny 467-469). The Greek derivative is bios. Greek gaia doesn't seem to be of PIE origin. This example shows why mass comparison doesn't work (imo) - because related words are often not superficially similar.

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I wish you could read the article on Sumerian and PIE too. Would it help if I display the link like this:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/re...sumd/sumerianPIE.htm