River Krishna

[Bh.Krishnamurti]

The possible related group I can think of is DEDR 4160a. *pee.n-:*pe.n-V-
'to twine, twist' with cognates in all subgroups. wee.nii is perhaps derived
from this verb. I do not have Mayrhoffer readily to check. The course of a
river looks like a long plaited hair (which is what wee.nii means in
wee.niisaMhaara 'untying the wee.nii'). This accounts for Kr.s.nawee.nii.
The River Pennaa near Nellore is Sanskritized as Pinaakinii.
pe.n.n-ee_r/pe.n.n-aa_r can be derived from the same route meaning'a river
of twisted course' (like the 'snake river' below). DEDR gives Ta. pen.n.nai
'palmyra'with the group of words meaning 'woman, female, etc.', and no other
Dravidian lg. shows that meaning. Another possibility is 4436 *pee.n
-**pe.n-V- 'protect, increase, etc.' Telugu pennaa could be an abridgement
of penn-aa_r (with the loss of final _r), although in Telugu the normal word
is ee_ru (<*yaa_t-). The isogloss of aa- (<*yaa-)could touch Nellore, like
tiru- in tirupati.
Bh.K.

At 17:26 19/03/99 -0500, you wrote:

>This is what I wonder about. Again not the prevalence of plam trees, but
>the most common river names are 'white' ,"milky' (= quick, in the
>mountains), and 'black (=slow, in the plains), or red (if full of mud as in
>monsoon, or iron), etc.  Then, of course, 'crooked" etc., etc.
>Of course, you can name a river after peculiar local landmarks or natural
>phenomena as well (Wind / Snake/ Beaver river, in Wyoming, Colorado etc.,
>Double Mountain Fork in Texas, Red Deer in Alberta, Canada), and I guess
>there must be a Fir River or Lake somewhere in Canada...
>
>But such names are not so typical as the others... That is why I would like
>to hear from the linguists what the Drav. roots and their meaning  of
>peNN-Ar/ai, Porunai etc. would be ....
>
>>Are the TN rivers taNporunai (sanskritized as tAmraparNI)
>
>--- again a strange name in Skt. as in all adaptations: red/copper
>(colored) - leaved River?
>
>>and Aan2porunai ( later Amaravati, Amravati) also related to Nahali 'parayn'??
>
>I really wonder: why all these PennAru (A.P., sic, on my map) , PeNN-ar/-ai
>rivers in the South if there is no(?) good etymological explanation...?
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