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JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CIRCULARS PublisAed witk tAe approbation oft/~e Board of Trustees YoL. YJ.—No. 5g.] BALTIMORE, AUGUST, 1887. [PRICE, 10 CENTS. SCIENTIFIC NOTES. Including Communications to the University Societies, etc. On the Etymology of Nekasim. By PAUL HAUPT. (2) K after a preceding vowel must have been spiraled as in Hebrew and Syriac, the k in ArtakAatsu certainly being pronounced like the Hebrew 3, [Abstract ofa paper* read before the UniversityPhilological Association, January7,1887]. thus answering the Persian kh. For 3= ~ cf. Syriac ri~’% ~n Barhebr. As a rule the Hebrew word o’~ “wealth” (Aram. PP?~) is regarded as a Chron. pag. 215 = Arabic Ijdkirn ijalife. (3) tsu in ArtakAatsu stands for tAu, ArtakAatAu, A becoming a in Assyro- metathesis of ~ from ~ “to gather” or “amass.” This explanation, however, is untenable. The word is evidently connected with Assyrian Babylonian after a dental, as in Aapatsu “his lips” instead of AapatAu. In nikdsu or rather nikd.su “offering” which is found ASKT. 108, 4 preceded the Old Testament form of the name, ArtakhAaat (written either ‘~5 or by qi~tu “gift,” taklimu “present” and nindab~2 (Hebr. ~‘~9) “free-will offer- we have the Hebrew rendering of the Babylonian form of the name with the peculiar Hebrew transposition of the consonantal group Isto at ing.” The primitive meaning of nikasu is “Schlachtopfer,” the primitive as in ~ “to be burdened” for ‘PTh~. Or ~ for ~ only may meaning of ~ (from a singular D?]*) “Schlachtvieh.” Both come from the be based on the Babylonian form Arta&Aat.su, the other spelling Nnr’~vniv~x for common Assyr. verb nakdsu “to cut down, to slaughter,” Aram. Dp~. From the meaning “Schlacht~iels,” “cattle to be killed” there was developed the ~ possibly being an attempt to render the Persian original form meaning “cattle, herds” in general, and finally, “property, wealth.” Cf. ArtakhAatrd. Greek ‘Apra4ip~~g evidently stands for ArtakhAetAea. for this Lat. pecus and pecunia; Assyr. sugullatu “herd,” Hebr. ~ “pro- Consequently ti~ which is rendered in the Babylonian form of the name Uitraiitakhma by a real tr (Babylonian Sitranta~ma) must have sounded in perty;” Hebr. ~‘‘~ “cattle” from ~ “to acquire”; Greek Krivo~ = ici-icvov, ArtakhAatrd and Atrina more like tA, ~. The r in this Persian consonantal icr sa ; Assyr. mar~itu “herd” pass. partic. of rahil “to possess”; Syr. K~i? group tr must have been a spirantic alveolary r not trilled as in English. “property” and then especially “animal for riding,” just as Assyr. ruk~1Au It is a well-known fact that words like tried very often sound almost like (V R. 9, 36) means “animal for riding” while the corresponding Hebr. chide, cf. Sievers, Phonetik, 3rd ed. p. 108, ~ 12, 1 b. ~ has the general meaning “property.” Accordingly D’P?~ is certainly I should like to add here a few remarks ad (2). not a transposition of ~ On the other hand it is possible that the The spiration of the r~n in Assyro-Babylonian was first pointed out by stem ‘~ “to offer” (whence Arabic nasike “victim” and Hebr. ~ “liba- me in ii ZK 282, 1. Compare also my CV. 29, 7 and ii ZK 264 where tions,” Aram. P?~i) rests only on a metathesis from ~. Pinches remarks that a Babylonian duplicate to YR. 14, 10 d exhibits instead ofna-ba-au “wool” (?) na-ba-ti. Another example for the rendering of Persian kh by Babylonian 3 is Umaku-iAtar = Persian UvakhAatra, i. e. On the Pronunciation of tr in Old Persian. By PAUL Kva~ip~. (II R. 57, 29 cd aniku = anihu is not a case in point). The name HAUPT. Kvc~jipr~ possibly originated by transposition from the barbarian ‘Ta~aKp~, ‘Tc~ai-pr~. A similar metathesis seems to underlie Babyl. Aruhatti, ‘ApaXcs- (Abstract oC a paper read before the University Philological Association, January 7,1887]. ata = Pers. Harauvati. Aru~atti or ratherA ~atti,Ar6~atti may have arisen from Har6atti, perhaps for the sake of avoiding the hiatus. However this In the Babylonian version of the Achaemenian cuneiform inscriptions Persian tr is rendered in three different ways. For the Persian Uiti~afttakhma is very doubtful. For the reduction of the diphthong compare Babyl. PiAi’4umadu = Pers. PaiAiyauvddd, Babyl. Si we findin Babylonian 8itranta~.ma(Si-it-ra-an-t~4~-rnaBeh. 62, Si-tir-an-tah-mu 4~iiivatti = Pers. SikayauvatiA. Beh. kl. No. 6), instead of ArtakhAatrd “Apra~tp~” ArtakAatsu (cf. YR. 37, The spiration of n after vowels is proved for Babylonian by the fact that 58), and the name Atrina is rendered in Babylonian by Akina. Persian th in the beginning is rendered by a, but in the middle of a word by (1) It is clear that Babylonian .~ (i. e. sh) is used here to render Persian ~ the Babylonian n. A clear illustration for the pronunciation of intervo- (i.e. tsh or English ek as in child). Cf. Babylonian Si.ipiA = Persian CaiApi.~ calic n as a sibilant in Assyrian is the spelling ma’asau, ma’aasi in several “Tetair~,” SinAa4ri~ = Gin~ikri~, AspaAina = Aspa&sna (I ZK 18). Accord- passages in the texts of Sardanapalus for ma’attu, gen. ma’atti, fem. to ma’adu ingly AAina may stand for Atslsina, A&na. “much;” e.g. dikt4iu ma’asau Assurb. Sm. 98 and 291 = diktaAu ma’attu *Publiahed in full in the January number of Hebraica, 1887, Vol. iii, No. 2, p. 107. ibid. 259. Cf. also ibid. 170 ~dbtu ma’aaau and YR. 2, 61 and 71 itti tirhati ma’a.sai. Lyon in his A.sryriaa Maaucd, p. 73 (notes on p. 21,1. 10) remarks 118 JOHNS HOPKINS [No. 59. on this: tirhati ma’assi means apparently the same as nudunnfi ma’adi, “a large dowry;” ma’assi may stand for ma’dsi, from a stem ~cz; cf. also ibid., p. 11, ~ 22, he clearly and plainly says: “La prononciation, du reste, sem- p. 116. Ma’assi, however, is merely an attempt to render the pronunciation ble n’avoir pas toujours ~ la mbme ~ Babylone et ~ Ninive. Les lettres of ma’atti, which was sounded as ma’dti, ma’dthi, fl~R. qul contiennent un a’ paraissent avoir 6t~ prononc~es par un s dans le nord, et par un sh (ch fran9ais) dans le midi; juste le contraire eut lieu pour la The sibilant instead of the dental in ma’assi — ma’atti is a phonetic spell- lettre a. Nous pouvons conclure ce fait de la transcription assyrienne des ing, the choice of~, on the other hand, to express ~ is based on historical orthography. We know that in later time, at least since the accession of noms bibliques; voir Exp. de Mis. t. II, p. 12.” (Cf. also GGA. 1878, pp. 1030—33; 1881, p. 914 note; 1882, p. 808). Sargon II, ~ in Assyrian was pronounced not s, but ~. Consequently, the spelling ma’assi for ma’atti must have come up at a relatively early period. That is precisely what we should say on this point to-day. I presume Accordin,, to the pronunciation of the sibilants at the time of Sardanapalus tha.t Schrader, p. 89 of his paper of March 5,1877, had only in mind the ma’atti should have been phonetically written ma-’-a~i-~ii, ma-’-a-~i. One remarks of EM. it, 12 (1859). In face of the above cited extracts from mi,,ht think that the sh (expressed by ~)was due to the influence of the the second edition of the Ellments de la grommaire assyrienne he would cer- following i-vowel, did we not find ma’assm alongside of ma’assi. tainly have expressed himself somewhat differently about Oppert’s priority. On this spiration of n and ~ after vowels rests the transition of ds and ts to However, Oppert was not the first discoverer of this principal difference ss, while ts on the other hand remains unchanged. We find for emid~u, between the Assyrian and Babylonian dialects. In this instance, as. in so many others, the priority belongs to E. Hincks. The great Irish scholar “I placed on him,” emissa; so too issa, “her hand “ __ idsa, id~a; efiitt, “new,” remarked in 1857 in a short essay, which I have recently acquired from ed~u (had~u, hado~m); ~ieftim,“sixth,” ~ed~u; nwssa, “her husband,“ the library of the late Richard Lepsins: mutsa, mutia; a~assu, “his wife” — oftiatsu, afiictMu, but that e. g. ukamissu occurred instead of uhammitsu (with a) I at least have never found. a of “In the Achaemenian inscriptions Samech has the value 5, and Shin SH. course always remained a dental while n and i after vowels were pronounced The Sibilant in the name of Darius and the former of those in that ofHys- like sibilants. The transition of ds and ts is accordingly to be compared taspes [Babylonian Ultaspa] are represented by Shin, and in the first kind of Persepolitan writing by SH; the latter of the Sibilants in the name of with the change of ~i-~i,z-~i, s-~i to ss, e. g. karassa “his stomach” — karwi-iu, Hystaspes is represented by Samech, and by S. This is in conformity with izflssu “he distributed to him” — iniz-~tt, muru~su ‘his sickness” — muruslfu. Concerning the pronunciation of the sibilants ~ and a’ in Assyro-Baby- received opinion; but when we go back to the Assyrian inscriptions, we find lonian there still prevails grcat confusion. Schrader is mistaken in assum- a very different state of things. There, in the Assyrian representations of ing in his article openina the first volume of ZK, that his paper on the foreign proper names, the Hebrew Shin is represented by Samech; although in the roots which were common to the two languages Samech corresponds sibilants in the Proceedings of the Berlin Academy of Science of March 5, 1877, met with general approval.