Shaman

[Geoffrey Samuel]

I'm afraid I'm not an Altaicist, so can't help there - I'd be
interested in the answer myself. Menges says "Es soll an dieser
Stelle noch einmal betont werden, dass gegen eine Herleitung des
tung. samaan/shamaan etc. aus dem indo-arischen Kulturkomplex, die
schon Klaproth, Schott, Mironov und Shirokogorov als richtig erkannt
hatten, keinerlei stichhaltige Argumente vorgebracht werden
können."(p.240)  - i.e. there are no valid arguments against deriving
shaman from an Indo-Aryan source. He cites the Bailey passage I
mentioned as the best documented derivation so far available, and
adds some notes on the plausibility of the sr/s shift, etc. Menges
then launches into an attack on Janhunen (in FUF 46, 1984, 184 -
unfortunately I don't have the volume here, only a photocopy of the
article, so I'm not certain what FUF stands for) who apparently
accused him of "basic absurdity" and an "omnicomparativist approach"
for supporting the derivation of shaman from zramaNa. Janhunen
"scheint nicht zu wissen, dass er sich mit seiner Behauptung nur
lächerlich macht, - selbst wenn er mit ihr nicht allein dasteht."
(p.241). So there was clearly no consensus in the mid-1980s.

Geoffrey

>Would
>Geoffrey Samuel or anyone else be able to characterize the consensus among
>Altaicists right now?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>George Thompson

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Geoffrey Samuel and Santi Rozario, Department of Sociology & Anthropology,
University of Newcastle, NSW 2308, AUSTRALIA
phone (home) (02) 4957 0244, (work, Geoffrey) 4921 5698 (work, Santi) 4921 6790
fax +61-2-49216902 email (Geoffrey) sogbs at alinga.newcastle.edu.au
(Santi) sostr at alinga.newcastle.edu.au
WWW (work) http://www.newcastle.edu.au/school/socsci
WWW (personal) http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbgbs
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