Indo-Aryan words in Hurrian

[Bjarte Kaldhol]

Dear listmembers,

I have been very busy lately, and since Michael's questions should not be
taken lightly, I will continue to ponder on them. Here are some preliminary
comments:

We should not posit that there was an Indo-Aryan Mittani language. No such
language is attested, not one sentence. If we had one or two complete
sentences, we might discuss this issue, but I am not aware of any such
material. On the other hand, we have thousands of Hurro-Akkadian and
Hurrian texts where not one word of IA origin can be found. You may read
tablet after tablet without noticing even an IA name. As for appellatives,
they are practically non-existent, except for a handful of international
trade words. This is the real world.

We should forget everything that was written about the Hurrians during the
Nazi era - and even today, by some German researchers who are heavily
biased. (More about this later.)

> we have... names such as Artataama = Rtadhaaman, (Biridas'uva =
*priitaas'va,
Priyaas'va = *priyaas'va), Tuis'eratta/Tus'ratta = TvesSaratha RV,
Indaruta/indaruda = Indrota RV, S'ativaaja ~ vaaja-saati, S'ubandu =
Subandhu RV, --by no means a complete list. Such princely names are found
all over Syria and down to Jerusalem, if I remember correctly, down to 1000
or 900 BC.

Down to Jerusalem? I doubt it.
Ardadama(n) may be IA, but names in Arda(r)- are Hurrian (ArdarTilla etc.)
Biridas'uva (Frida$uwa/we/wi/wu?) is unknown to me. Where is it found?
Biria$$uwa (Firi(j)a$$uwa/we/wi/wu) (?) was the son of a Hurrian, Irip$eni.
Birikku (Firikku) is a Hurrian name, indicating that fir- is a verb.
Biriatti (Firi(j)atti) is probably a Hurrian name, since -atti seems to be
Hurrian.
Tu$ratta may originally have been *Tvai$eratta, if IA, but note $ = th
(voiced).
Indarutta/Indaruda (or o? why not au?) should be compared to Indarutti as
well as:
Indardija/Indartija, Indatija, Inderda/Interta, Indigija and Indija.
$attiuazza (unvoiced -ts-) is problematic. Compare Hurrian $att- and:
$attauaazza (long a), $attauazza (short a). The -tt- is always long.
$ub-Andu (not Sub-) has been interpreted as West-Semitic, I believe.

Most of these names are so garbled that they should be compared to modern
renderings of Greek or Hebrew names: Giovanni, Yannis, John, Hans, Hasse,
Johannes, Georg, Jorgen, etc. Perhaps I am too sceptical, but this is my
impression so far in my studies.

>But isn't it just the case that the *male* line has IA names, while their
>wives, then mothers, consistently have Hurrite names? This looks more
>like 'throne names' (or fashion), for whatever reason.

Only a couple of names of Hurrian queens are attested in the texts, so we
cannot know to what extent their names were IA. The earliest known king of
Urgi$ (in the Hurrian heartland, about 2250 BC) had a wife with the
Akkadian name Uqnitum = Lapis lazuli. Hurrians probably intermarried with
Akkadians to establish trade relations. Tu$ratta's wife was Juni (see EA
26; god knows whether this name was pronounced Yuni or Yoni), interpreted
by Mayrhofer as IA. Their daughters had Hurrian names.

>These facts combined, don't they just point to IA influence on the higher
>level (marriage as you say?) AND the low level (horse trainers, foreign
>mercenaries?)

Yes. And I wish we had names of a few IA horse trainers and mercenaries.
Paraiuna$? Aiuktaeraia$$a? (non-Hurrian names of Hurrian generals, readings
uncertain).

>In short: if Mitanni has, by 1400 BC, mazda, vaz'hana, then the RV medha,
>vaahana is *late*/later. Note that Possehl now wants to bring down the
date
>of iron as well. If this goes down from c.1200 to, say, 1000 BCE, so goes
>the RV. It has no iron, yet.

Words like these need reexamination. I have not yet studied the Hittite
texts, but some words may have been read with a bias and may have to be
reinterpreted.

Kassite:
>The old S'uriyas' and Bhaga (Bugas')> Do you have arguments against them?
>More interestingly Abiratta = Abhiratha, a perosmnal name. Maybe
S'ukaniya.
>--  I also would like to add: timirias' as horse color, and among the many
>horse names : Akriyas' (agriya?), and finally there are a few suspious
>names ending in IA -as' etc. (nominatives).

-ia$ (ya$) is the Kassite word for "land", and a "nominative" in -a$ is
pure speculation. (Regarding Abiratta$, was he a Kassite?) In my opinion, a
concentration on Hurrian texts is much more profitable, and life is too
short for all kinds of speculative discussions about Kassite. But timiria$
is interesting; the Hurrian word for "dark/black" is timeri/timari, see
StBoT 32, Erich Neu's edition of the Hurrian "Song of Remission", p.
244-47, where Hurrian "timerre e$eni turi" is rendered with Hittite
"kattanta tankuwai takni" = hinab in die dunkle Erde.

Best wishes,
Bjarte Kaldhol