Ancient Survivals in Ossetic

Ancient Survivals in Ossetic Author(s): Ilya Gershevitch Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 14, No. 3, Studies Presented to Vladimir Minorsky by His Colleagues and Friends (1952), pp. 483495 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/609110 Accessed: 26/11/2010 06:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

School of Oriental and African Studies and Cambridge University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

http://www.jstor.org

Ancient Survivalsin Ossetic By

ILYA GERSHEVITCI

Laegcal aevzagizona ual legi'y - uoyyau du daer, mraaxuzrgzenaeg. Praetextus HEN Soslan went to the land of the giant Uomar, son of Tara, he pretended to be his own hireling: Tari furt Uomari zaenxaemae ranzexstUeraey ye'xuzersti r§euoni, Pam. ii 60. The Dictionary translates Dig. raeuonaeas ' 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 rteuonaeclearly means 'disguise'. Uaskergi had placed watchmen at the gorge of Zadaelesk,to prevent Ceenxigol,the spirit of salt, from leaving the heights. The villain Sirdon advises Ceenxigol: mnengadcay rewaendtey ku naerayervzezayuaedtadaeramardzzenencae' if you do not escape by means of my bitch's raeuaendtae (plur. of raeuonae)they will kill you'; thereSirdoni Caenxigol upon gadcay cari bacudzey ma uotemaey qalaurt3ebael "Sirdoni rayevhudcey, gadca aey!" zzehgaey' Cenxigol entered the hide of Sirdon's bitch and thus passed by the watchmen, who said: " it is Sirdon's i 102). Miller translated maen gadcay bitch "' (Miller, OcemuucKuue 3mioObQ as 'by the ruse of my bitch'; evidently the meaning is 'by rneuzendtaey is also used, according disguising yourself as my bitch '. The plural rneuaendtse to B., my Digor friend, when the word means 'pretext'. for ' disguise ', the two passages quoted Although B. would not use rweuonxe show that speakers of an earlier generation were aware of this meaning. The semantic connexion between 'disguise' and 'pretext' is known in other languages. Hiibschmann, Pers. St. 32, quoted parallels from Latin and German in support of a derivation of NPers. bahane 'pretext' from OIr. *uahdna-, belonging to uah- 'to dress'. Dig. r§euon§e,from *fra-uahdna-, confirms the correctness of this derivation. Abayev, PyccKo-ocemu7cKuui cJzoeapb, s.v. npeO.ozt, gives also Dig. Iron §efson,for 'pretext'. The former, which rzeuagBe,and Dig. §efsoyn§e, the and means to B. was ' cause', according Dictionary compared by Miller, with ' Skt. We announcer'. Ossetisch,35,2 pravdka may prefer to derive it from *fra-uaha-ka-. While in NPers. bahdne, Oss. rzeuonaeand raeuaggethe disguising aspect of 'dressing' is stressed, the relation between dress and custom or disposition, 1 Read ma instead of ne. 2 Where the derivation of reuaeg ' light, quick ' from *fravaka- must, at any rate, be preferred to the one proposed by O. Szemerenyi, ZDMG 1951, 209 sq.

484

I. GERSHEVITCH-

which finds expression in such words as Ital. costume,Lat. habitus,suggests that also Oss. uag (Dig. uagae) 'custom, normal condition, character', Plur. uagtae 'manners ', belongs to the base uah- (*uahaka-). In tefson, for which the Dictionary also gives ' cause, reason' the meaning 'pretext' is perhaps to be understood as 'adduced fault'; the example in the Dictionary cey aefsonmmnna radtay dae baex 'on what grounds did you not give me your horse' means to B. 'because of which (= whose) fault or kaenunce ' they say guilt, etc.'; moreover I have noted from B. uoy wefsoynae'y it is his fault (lit. make it his fault) '. If one compares Lat. caussa 'cause, pretext, guilt', and its relation to causor and accuso, it seems possible that in tefson, from *abi-sihana-, an Indo-Iranian legal term has survived. Skt. abhi-'amsamna 'accusation' has been discussed by Hopkins, JAOS 45 (1925), 49 (a reference I owe to Professor Bailey). In the Avesta (Yt 14, 34) ZaraOustra asks for Ahura Mazdah'sadvice on how to behave if he is aiwi.sast5 aiwi.smardat by many opponents. Bartholomae's translation was ' verwiinschtin Wortenund Gedanken', but ' accused or assailed verbally and mentally ' agrees better with what we know of abi-sth-, even though its converse, pati-syh-, has a magical acceptation in Ahura Mazdah's reply (cf., on the other hand, paiti.sa.nhdm 'contradicendo' in Vend. 4, 54, and the juridical connotation of Pahl. passoxv (< *pati-sahvan-) ' sureties', v. Bailey, BSOS vi 83).

payah-, payuIn Oc. 3m. ii 86 Miller doubtfully compared Oss. ftezdon(ae)'udder' with Av. fstdna-, NPers. pistdn. The comparison no longer appeared in Ossetisch, since the voicing of -st- could not be justified. There is, however, an easy alternative etymology at hand. -don(ae)may be the second term of compounds which continues -ddna- ' container'. Comparisonwith Bal. goddn, Ps yulanja 'udder' < *gau-ddna(c5)-,cf. Morgenstierne, NTS xii 263, EVP 41, further suggests that fwtz- represents Av. payah- 'milk'. Hence *pay(a)z-ddna- (on -az-, cf. Bailey, BSOAS xii 331) > *frzzdon (on the assimilation of y to a following consonant, cf. Bailey, Asica 12 sq.) > fxzdon; cf. Wx pez,n, Morgenstierne,IIFL ii 536; payah- also survives in Ps pa?, etc., v. EVP 55. Iron Dig. fiyyau, Iron fiyau, fayyau, fiyyau ' shepherd ' probably represents a metathesis of OIr. pdyu- ' protector '. The Ossetic restriction to the protector of sheep may have been inherited from IE times, cf. Greek 7rciv ' flock of sheep'. The same metathesis can be recognized in Oss. yau(ce) 'energy, vital force', if, accepting Morgenstierne's etymology, NTS xii 269, we derive it directly from dyu-, instead of assuming secondary lengthening of a. One may compare 1 enseuag, enuag, for which the Dictionary only gives 'slovenly, ill-bred, depraved' (= ' without manners '), also means ' unusual ': Fidselti dogi nse bserzondxusenxti Ku iscseykodta senseuagsestong 'at the time of the fathers there arose on our mountains an unusual famine', Maliti Geusergi,Irasf, Ordzonikidze, 1935, p. 33.

ANCIENT SURVIVALS IN OSSETIC

485

the Sogdian metathesis which Henning established in fsy'ws 'gentleman'