Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

aÍvíenis “work horse” 244 ). Bûga supposed that the vowel a (instead of *e) in the Baltic
word for horse was caused by Iranian influence. This idea seems interesting if one takes
into consideration the importance of a (Northwestern and -eastern) Iranian term for
many other languages into which it was borrowed. Later in Eastern Baltic the old term
for horse survived only in Zhemaitic and some other Lithuanian dialects. The word
disappeared in prehistoric Slavic. 245 Its use in hydronyms like Lithuanian AÍvà, Latvian
Asva, Prussian Asswene, cf. Slavic Osva, can be traced back to the Eastern Indo-
European metaphor describing rivers as horses, well documented in the ancient Indo-
Iranian languages. 246
From these data on the name for horse in the satPm dialects it follows that the
immediate source of the Hurrian form (if no serious changes are supposed in its
prehistory) can be seen only in the consonant structure of the Southwestern Iranian
form (which is—probably a marginal Southern form opposed to Central Northwestern
and Eastern Iranian innovations—also phonetically similar to the Vakhan-Khotanese
dialectal shape, but the latter is found at such a distance from the Near East that any
idea of a historical link would seem far-fetched). The vowel in the Hurrian word, if it is
a dialectal (Iranian) borrowing, still seems to go back to the time before the change *e >
a. If this suggestion is accepted, it may lead to a study of those groups of speakers of
Southwestern Iranian dialects which might have been instrumental in introducing
244 Toporov 1975, 136; MaÛiulis 1988, 106. It is supposed that the -n- suffix in Old Indian a≈v-in- and
some other Indo-European forms may be related to the Old Prussian word (Eckert 1995, 55). But the
parallel in Latin equînus (cf. Umbrian ekvine borrowed from it or cognate to it) now seems excluded if,
according to Nussbaum and Vine, the latter contains a secondary denominative suffix *-no- added to the
original Genitive Singular form equî. See Vine, “Latin -înâre/-înârî”, §5. (this volume).
245 It was ousted by such synonyms as *komon- (on the meaning, see Odincov 1980, 25-32; probably
cognate also to Prussian camnet “horse” is *kumel-, cf. Toporov 1975, 268-270; 1984, 191-196; Eckert 1995,
57; Lithuanian kumÎl& “mare”, Latvian kumele), from Eastern Asiatic words like Tibeto-Burman
Kukuchin (Jinghpaw) kumraM “horse” < Tibeto-Burman *ku(m)r(t)aM (reconstruction after Matisoff,
Proto-Lolo-Burmese *myaM 2 , Burling 1967, 84; cf. Peiros and Starostin 1996, fasc.1, 35-36; see above on
the root in Eastern Asian languages of different families) borrowed through some intermediary
Eurasian language (of some of the nomadic horse-riding tribes). A related name for horse with another
initial became widespread in Eurasia and entered Germanic and Celtic (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov
1984/1995, I, 471, 832 with references).
246 Porzig 1954; Vanagas 1981, 50.