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Ancient Survivals in Ossetic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

When Soslan went to the land of the giant Uomar, son of Tara, he pretended to be his own hireling: Tari furt Uomari zænxæmæ ranæxstæræy ye'xuærsti ræuoni, Pam. ii 60. The Dictionary translates Dig. ræuonæ as ‘cause, pretext, appearance’, and quotes our passage to illustrate the third meaning: ‘in the appearance of his hireling.’ There is, however, another passage, in which ræuonæ clearly means ‘disguise’. Uaskergi had placed watchmen at the gorge of Zadælesk, to prevent Cænxigol, the spirit of salt, from leaving the heights. The villain Sirdon advises Cænxigol: mæn gadcay ræuændtæy leu næ rayervæzay uædta, dæ ramardzænæncæ ‘if you do not escape by means of my bitch's ræuændtæ (plur. of ræuonæ) they will kill you’; thereupon Cænxigol Sirdoni gadcay cari bacudæy ma uotemæy qalaurtæbæl rayevhudæy, “Sirdoni gadca æy!” zæhgæy ‘Cænxigol entered the hide of Sirdon's bitch and thus passed by the watchmen, who said: “it is Sirdon's bitch”’ (Miller, Ocemuhckue Эmю∂ы i 102). Miller translated mæn gadcay ræuændtæy as ‘by the ruse of my bitch’; evidently the meaning is ‘by disguising yourself as my bitch’. The plural ræuændtæ is also used, according to B., my Digor friend, when the word means ‘pretext’.

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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1952

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References

page 483 note 1 Read ma instead of .

page 483 note 2 Where the derivation of ræuæg ‘light, quick’ from *fravaka- must, at any rate, be preferred to the one proposed by Szemerenyi, O., ZDMG 1951, 209 sq.Google Scholar

page 484 note 1 ænæuag, ænuag, for which the Dictionary only gives ‘slovenly, ill-bred, depraved’ (= ‘without manners’), also means ‘unusual’: Fidælti dogi næ bærzond xuænxti Ku iscæykodta ænæuag æstong ‘at the time of the fathers there arose on our mountains an unusual famine’, Geuærgi, Maliti, Iræf, Ordžonikidze, 1935, p. 33.Google Scholar

page 485 note 1 If Arm. tapar ‘axe’, NPers. tabar, Russ, , manopGoogle Scholar, etc., is a Scythian or Sarmatian LW, its origin should perhaps be sought in a metathesis of *parat (Oss. færæt, Khot. paḍa, Tokh. (LW) porat, peret, v. Bailey, , Asica 13 sq.Google Scholar; since it is doubtful that Khot. t can represent either an older t', or θ in OPers. LWs, one cannot dismiss the possibility that Khot. *par(a)ta-, like the Tokh. word, was borrowed from Western Saka).

page 485 note 2 Presumably misprint for ædemonæy.

page 485 note 3 Which at least has preserved the Nom. Sg. ending of -an- stems, v. Morgenstierne, , NTS xii 92Google Scholar. cf. melmә. The -ar- stem corresponding to Iranian mazan- ‘monster’ (v. Henning, , BSOAS xi 54)Google Scholar survives in Pš mzarai, zmarai, Bal. mazār ‘tiger’ [and in Khot. maysirkä (in various spellings, J¯takastava 9 r 4. 10 v 3. 10 v 4. 11 v 4. 19 v 4. 30 r 2. 32 r 4), the meaning of which was established as ‘monstrous, horrible’ by Professor Bailey].

page 486 note 1 Internal Iron æ corresponds to Dig. i (after l or before r) also in læhz ‘polished’, dærzæg ‘rough’, ævdærzin ‘to irritate (skin)’, ænt'ærin ‘to chase away, banish’, and xærink'a ‘pocket knife’, v. Abayev, Oc. яз. u ольк. i 369. Of these words the first has been compared by Miller with Skt. ślakṣṇa, Ossetisch 32Google Scholar, the second (to which presumably the third belongs, v. Dictionary) with Av. darəzišta-, Oc. Эm. iii 151.Google Scholar

page 486 note 2 B. views this popular etymology with disfavour.

page 487 note 1 Cf. the meaning of Dig. iskurdiadae (abstract of korun ‘to request, ask’) ‘ability, or right, to receive from God what one asks for’.

page 487 note 2 Hence Dig. uozun, Iron uzin ‘to rock, swing’ < Av. yaoz-, and Dig. uodun, Iron udin ‘to exert oneself’ < Av. yaod-, cf. Parth. ywdy-.

page 488 note 1 Av. asču-. The expected OIr. *asku- survives in Oss. sgŭtæ (Pam. iii 413)Google Scholar, skŭtæ (Narti Kaddźitæ, Dzæudźihæu, , 1946, 3521)Google Scholar ‘haunches (as food)’, Plural of sgŭ (Dict.), isgǔ, (Abayev, , PycckO-ocGoogle Scholar. слоеарьЭ, s.v. δе∂ро).

page 488 note 2 A compound with æx may be recognized in Dig. ænguldzæxtæ ‘dance on tip-toes’, which, ace. to Abayev, Oc. яз. u ольк., i 441, corresponds to Iron k'ax-k'uxtil kaft. As k'ax-k'ux is ‘foot-finger = toe’, so ænguldzæx may be ‘æx-finger’, with the order of compound terms inversed as in yæugæf ‘fish-millet = caviare’, xæffindz ‘nose-matter = snivel’, and others discussed by Abayev, , op. cit., 234Google Scholar. ænguldzæxtæ kænun ‘to dance on tip-toes’ is used by Geuærgi, Maliti, Iræf, p. 48Google Scholar; knows, B.ænguldzæxtæ kafunGoogle Scholar. One is reminded of the expression gændzæxtæ cæhdin ‘to be seized with convulsion, cramp’, cf. Dict., 389, 1639. It occurs, e.g. in Pam. iii 521 (Iron)Google Scholar, where the corresponding Digor version (Pam. ii 126)Google Scholar has tæppæztæ cæhdun. The latter is explained p. 180 n. 68 as ‘to beat, shake one's extremities’. gændzæxtæ, which, acc. to the Dict., is also Dig., may thus contain æx; gændz- is not clear; cf. Dig. gændzu, Iron gæcci ‘tooth’ (nursery word)?

Since haxa- may belong to Av. haxti (Dual) ‘thighs’ (as Professor E. Fraenkel has convinced me by referring to the relation of Lith. kulnis ‘heel’ to kùlšė ‘hip’, cf. Walde-Hofmann, , Lat. Et. Wb3., 144)Google Scholar, its closest cognate will be Gr. ἴσχι ὀσΦύς (Hes.), v. Meillet, , MSL 23, 259.Google Scholar

page 488 note 3 Chr. prγyž-umstellen’ may contain a base *γiz-, which is attested in Dig. hizun, Iron qtzin ‘to threaten, wish ill’, cf. Pam. ii 4332.Google Scholar

page 492 note 1 Cf. also NPers. (etc.) pāy- ‘to protect’ and ‘to wait’, Horn, , Npera. Et., 63Google Scholar; here, however, the difference in meaning may reflect a difference in origin, v. Hübschmann, , Pers. St. 37Google Scholar, Henning, , ZII ix 203, 214.Google Scholar

page 492 note 2 OIr. *h z(a)ya- would have had palatalized z in Khot. and Sogd.

page 492 note 3 For the absence of palatalization in Sogdian, cf. zrywn ‘vegetable’ < zairi.gaona-.

page 492 note 4 Viz. *hiz- ‘to rise’ (Sogd. °xaz-/°xašt-) and *2hiz- or *xiz- ‘to creep’ (Sogd. °xēz-/°xišt-).

page 493 note 1 This view seems preferable to deriving xezun ‘to pasture’ from OIr. *xāzaya-, denominative of *xāza-, cf. Khot. khāysa- ‘food’ (< *xād-s-, v. Bailey, , BSOAS x 598)Google Scholar, Parth. x'z- ‘to devour’, NPers. xāyīdan ‘to chew’ (Ghilain, , Essai, 59).Google Scholar

page 494 note 1 Or from *rand-? Cf. Wx rand- ‘to give’, Morgenstierne, , 11FL ii 537Google Scholar, and Osa. bædtun < band-.

page 494 note 2 The Dig. Past tæværdton, which belongs to fra-bar-, should be added to the forms quoted, JRAS 1946, 181, n. 3.Google Scholar

page 494 note 3 Or does fe- merely represent pati- in special circumstances? fe- may correspond to an irregular MPers. pāδi- in fedis (Iron fīdis) ‘blame’, if MPers. p'dys'gyẖ ‘slander’ can be compared; the latter was derived by Henning from *pati-dis-, v. ZII ix 229Google Scholar; either meaning may have developed from ‘stigmatizing’. In festæg ‘pedestrian’ < *pastika- (v. Morgenstierne, , NTS xii 267)Google Scholar no original long vowel seems to be involved.