Smearing the Drums

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 1/13/2001 10:55:16 AM Central Standard Time,
bjartekal at AH.TELIA.NO writes:


>
>  As far as I know, the etymology of kinna:ru (long a), "lyre", and na:ru or
>  na'ru or nu'a:ru, "musician" is not in any way transparent.

The etymology proposed by Dr. Asko Parpola is simple. According to him,
kinnara is a compound of Dr. kil + nara. The first portion means "to
resound'.

> Kinna:ru is
>  thought to have entered  Akkadian from West Semitic, I think.

Parpola says:

"There are, however, also the following phonetically and semantically very
similar words from the Near East, about whose relation to the Indian material
Mayrhofer is hesitant (1956, I, 210 "Aber sollte der Anklang...blosser Zufall
sein?"): Old Babylonian *kinnArum 'lyre' ... attested in Mari (18th cent.
B.C.) and slightly later in Ras Shamra (Ugarit), ..."

He adds,

"We know for certain that Harappan traders visited and probably even resided
for long periods in Mesopotemia and the islands of Failaka and Bahrain in the
Persian Gulf, at least from the 24th to the 20th century B.C. (Gadd 1932;
Parpola, Parpola, and Brunswig 1977). A Harappan seal (which in its round
form agrees with the seals of the Persian Gulf civilization but differs from
the native Harappan square seals found in India), inscribed with the Indus
script characters, was excavated in 1970 in Bahrain. In the present context
it is significant that this seal was associated with a cneiform tablet, dated
with the help of orthographic conventions to approximately the 20th century
B.C.: the tablet contained three Amorite personal names (Brunswig and
Parpola, in press). The Amorites, who in the early second millennium B.C.
penetrated Mesopotamia fromthe west in growing numbers, constituted a very
considerable ethnic component of the Old "Babylonian kingdom of Mari, where
the word kinnArum is first attested.

(contd.)

Regards
S. Palaniappan