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The inscription from Hamath 4.4.2 and 4.6.4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Henri Wittmann*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta

Extract

When Barnett projected the connection of Greek eléphant- “ivory” with hieroglyphic Hittite ulubandas “bull,” he believed himself to be solving one of the minor puzzles of etymology, for the origin of Greek eléphant- was still unaccounted for. Since the Romans, when they first met the elephants of Pyrrhus in South Italy, called them Lucanian bulls, it seemed clear to Barnett that this hieroglyphic Hittite word for a bull had been used for what was supposed to be his horn. Kretschmer postulated an Indo-European equation with a particular significance: in addition to comparing Greek eléphant- and hieroglyphic Hittite ul(u)bandas, he compared Gothic ulbandus “camel” and Greek elephairmai “harm.” From this, he inferred an Indo-European appellative “noxious animal, destroyer” referring to “mammoth,” which preserved in Gothic ulbandus the evocation “big animal.” Kretschmer’s line of reasoning is especially definitive in his own words (p. 320), alleging the mammoth to be a species of animals which, though “schon längst ausgestorben…durch die grosse Menge ihrer fossilen Überreste und den kostbaren Stoff Elfenbein, den sie lieferte, sich dauernd im Gedächtnis der Menschen erhielt.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1964

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References

1 Barnett, R. D., Journal of Hellenic Studies 68 (1948), pp. 6f CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Kretschmer, P., Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der #x00D6;sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 88.21 (1952), pp. 307325 Google Scholar.

3 Hrozný, B., Les inscriptions hittites hiéroglyphiques (Prague, 1933-7), p. 307 Google Scholar.

4 Hamath, 4.4.2 and 4.6.4. See figure.

5 Cf. Laroche, E., Les hiéroglyphes hittites 1 (Paris, 1960), p. 67 Google Scholar.