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Supplementary Note on the Name of the Black Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. S. Allen
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge

Extract

Since my article in C.Q. xli, pp. 86 ff., a further discussion of the problem has come to my notice. H. Jacobsohn, in an article entitled Σκνθικ⋯ in Zeitschr. f. vergleichende Sprachforschung, liv, pp. 254 ff., anticipates my point that the Greek ᾊξε(ι)νƿς is borrowed not from Avestan but from some other Iranian language, probably Scythian. He also makes outan attractive case, based on the word παφ⋯δεισ¿ς, for considering the Iranian pronunciation at the period when the loan occurred to have been αχšēna, with ē from original ai. It is unfortunate that he should have supported his case with the argument that a form αχšaina is too remote from Greek ἄξειν¿ς (where ει = ē, not ei) for the identification to have taken place: this insistence on complete homonymy in folk-etymology I have already criticized in discussing Moorhouse's article; and in any case it is by no means certain that ἄξεινႿς is the earliest form of the name in Greek.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1948

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