Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

this god and eaten by the whole family but not by strangers” (cf. the same Eastern
Iranian elements in the reverse order in Sogdian Gwr’rD [*xôr-arE] “the fire of the sun”,
the old Ossetic divine name Xur-at-xuron < *xur-art-xur-on “Fire, companion of the
Sun” 75 ), and possibly in Scythian Cendartãkh (read instead of the distorted
Ceudartãkh): lÒfow §n Skuy¤& metå tÚ legÒmenon ˆrow ëgion (Steph. Byz.) =
*fsand- “holy” + art “fire”. 76 The word is continued in the other Eastern Iranian
languages (Khwarazmian ’dr, Bactrian aE(o)Ío “fire”, Sogdian ”tr, Yagnobi ol “fire”,
Afghani or, Pamirian Shugni yôc, Yazgulian yec, Mudzhan yûr, Yidga yûr= 77 ) and in
Western dialects (Kurd âr). The number of Indo-European cognates with the same
suffix 78 is restricted, and although they are closely related semantically, they usually do
not have the primary meaning “fire”. It is commonly accepted that the word is
connected to Latin âter “black” (< blackened by fire), âtrium “forecourt, hall” (originally
a place where the smoke from the hearth escaped through a hole in the roof, cf.
Avestan âtrya- “ashes”, Buddhist Sogdian ”Í’kw “ash”, Mudzhan yéxyo “ash”, Sarykol
75 Dumézil 1978, 141-142. According to Dumézil’s interpretation the name in an archaic Ossetic prayer
written down by Gatiev 1876, 21, should be understood as “Sun-Fire, the son of the Sun” (on this, cf.
already Miller 1882, 266-267). In Avestan religion Fire is the son of the principal god Ahura Mazda.
The form was borrowed into Slavic as the name of a fiery demon or bird, Czech Rarog, see on the
different sound shapes of the word Jakobson 1985, 7, 26-28, 47-52 (with another Iranian etymology).
76 Vasmer 1923, 57; Abaev 1949, 158. Less clear is the interpretation of the name ÉAryãmvn (*âEr
“fire” + â-man- “to teach, to show; to adore” > Ossetic amonyn used also in mythological names, cf.
Milewski 1969, 157, on the meaning of the Ossetic verb; Abaev 1958, 52-53, and Zgusta 1955, 70, for other
suggestions).
77 Benveniste 1929, 91; Steblin-Kamenskij 1981, 321; Griunberg 1972, 391; Xromov 1972, 121, 127;
Sokolova 1967, 14, 125; 1973, 9, 48; Edel’man 1986, 172-175.
78 The root is connected to the Hittite verb ha-/a-/ay-/e-/(w)a- “to be warm, to be hot”, but on the
difficulties in reconstructing the initial (even synchronically for the Hittite rhyming formations) see
Puhvel 1984, 9-12; on *Hai-dh- (Old Irish aed “fire”): Sturtevant 1942, 45; Pokorny 1959, 11; Watkins
1985, 1. Theoretically Iranian âtar might have belonged to the same Eastern Indo-European (Greek-
Macedonian–Iranian) stem as Homeric Greek afiyÆr “the upper air, the purest and most elevated
radiant part of the atmosphere”, Macedonian éd∞: oÈranÒw (Hsch.; with a morphonological loss of
the final *-r, see also as a parallel formation Tocharian B e/iprer, A eprer “atmospheric space”), but
several phonetic irregularities in the correspondences point to taboo distortions, quite understandable in
an important sacred term. According to Jasanoff (1979, 145) the Armenian verb ayr-el “to burn”
(previously thought to be related to the Iranian noun) may be a cognate of Greek a‡yv, with the same
meaning.