Etymology of honorific particle jI

Thu Jun 23 13:59:50 UTC 2005

Yes, it is accepted; and it has a beautiful counterpart in 
Urdu and Persian _jaan_, also meaning 'life' as well as 
being used as an honorific/term of endearment.  The Hindi 
(etc.) _jii_ might well be a calque of the Persian word.  
The root is also contained in Hindi _jii-naa_ 'to live'.

Cheers-ji,

Hans Henrich Hock

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 14:20:43 +0200
>From: Artur Karp <karp at UW.EDU.PL>  
>Subject: Etymology of honorific particle jI  
>To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>
>Dear Listmembers,
>
>Could anyone, please, direct me to bibliographical 
references re: etymology 
>of Hindi (also Gujarati, Marathi) honorific particle jI?
>
>Turner (CDIAL 5240) connects it with jIva (<jIvatu). Is 
this etymology 
>widely accepted?
>
>Best,
>
>Artur Karp
>South Asian Studies Department
>Oriental Institute
>University of Warsaw
>Poland
Hans Henrich Hock
Professor of Linguistics and Sanskrit
Department of Linguistics
4080 FLB, MC-168
University of Illinois
707 S. Mathews
Urbana, IL  61801-3652, USA
Tel. 1-217-333-3563, Fax 1-217-244-8430
E-mail hhhock at uiuc.edu

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