Indo-European astronomical terminology in the Near Eastern and North Eurasian context
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The most archaic Indo-European terms designating celestial bodies are those which can be reconstructed for both Anatolian and non-Anatolian Indo-European. Only **H2ster- “star” fulfills this condition. In the case of **seH2wel- “Sun” and **meH1ns- “moon” there were also attempts to identify the etymological Anatolian counterparts, but they are not generally accepted. The word for “Sun” may originate from the Nostratic protolanguage, while for “star” borrowing from Semitic is not excluded, while the designation for “moon” probably expresses the basic idea of “measure of time”. The non-Anatolian languages feature several other terms which are attested in at least two branches. In some cases they probably reflect independent formations: **H2rew-i- “Sun” (but “moon” in Old Irish), *louk(e)sno-/-(e)sná “moon” < “light”, *(s)ke/ond- “moon”. Balto-Slavic *g'(h)woisd(h)aá represents a local dialectism which may be derived from the compound *gwh/g'whwoid- “shining [spot]” and **dheH1- “to put” or **steH2- “to stand”. Remarkable are common semantic models in designations of some constellations, namely Pleiades = “basket or sieve”, “numerous” or “seven stars”; Sirius = “(belonging to) three stars”, which appear across Northern Eurasia, especially in the Fenno-Ugric languages. |
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