Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian and Indo-European (original) (raw)

DINGIR MEƒ "gods" is attested. It probably contains the phoneme [Û] rendered by a cuneiform syllabic sign beginning with z-. The morphonemic alternation of consonant phonemes is seen in the later parallel Bog¬ azköy forms e-in !-Ía-a-ri (V Bo T 14 10'), i-inza-ar-ri (K Bo XXXII 26 Vs. II 33') 33 , and Ras Shamra alphabetic Genitive Plural enÛ = cuneiform Hurrian e-en-na-a-Íe(/Íi) and Comitative Plural enÛr earlier interpreted as *enna-Íura 34. The latter may be close to the form of collective Plural enÍ/zari 35 : compare the similar semantic roles of e-en-za-a-ri in ta-ße-e-ni-wa a-a-al e-en-za-a-ri maa-ta-aÍ-tab i-ti-i-ta (= nu-za a-pé-e-da-ni LÚ-ni DINGIR MEƒ Íe-e-er ßa-at-ta-a-tar Íi-iÍßi-ir in the Hittite translation) "to this man the gods have given (allocated/assigned) wisdom/insight" 36) and enÛr = enz= 1 r in as# hnz= 1 rm hldp enz= 1 r trnz= 1 rm hldp enz= 1 r "and you are elevated above the higher gods and you are elevated above the lower gods" 37 Rƒ 24.278 3-6. According to Neu 38 , the original suffix of the collective form enzari was *-Íâri. Denying the existence of such a suffix 39 , Starostin thinks that the fricative consonant belongs to the root, which he reconstructs as Northern Caucasian ? ams# Å with further distant Yenisseyan and Sino-Tibetan cognates 40. In that case, the Hurrian form enzâri [enÛâri] contains the Plural element-(a)r widely represented in Northern Caucasian. As already noticed by Thomsen (1899), the suffix is known in Etruscan in a similar grammatical function: see the identical opposition of Etruscan-ar (animate) :-33 A form with the suffixed article *-rn->-rr-: