Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

unknown) that could have been in contact with Greek at that time. Still, such contacts
are supposed on the basis of several Greek words considered to be borrowed from
some Northern Caucasian languages 291 ; on possible cultural reasons for borrowing see
below in connection with the name of Artemis.
d) Another Northern Caucasian word for horse—*˙I(n)ÇwÈ-, discussed
above—might have been borrowed from Northern Caucasian into Greek either
directly (from a dialect perhaps different from Hurrian, since the Hurrian noun is less
closely related to the Greek than many other Northern Caucasian forms) or indirectly
through one of the Anatolian dialects. In Northern Caucasian a laryngeal phoneme is
reconstructed in initial position which may account for the Greek h-. The vowel i is
reconstructed for the protoform and is attested in several branches of Northern
Caucasian. The reflection of a geminate group of intervocalic labialized fricatives in the
Greek geminate labiovelars is the most difficult part of the suggestion (see above). The
general historical difficulty mentioned in connection with the preceding word is valid
here as well.
e) The explanation of the Greek word as a borrowing from the Anatolian form of
the satPm Pisidian type, in which the palatal is reflected as in Luwian-Lycian, seems
more plausible, but the root has initial i as in many Hittite words with i < *e. This
explains the vowel i present in these Anatolian (Pisidian and Pamphilian) forms and
may continue the former *e. The appearance of Greek labiovelars in intervocalic
position can be explained as an attempt to identify the group *-issw- of the borrowed
term with the geminated -ikkw-/ik w k w -.
To test this hypothesis, a probable equivalence of the Mycenaean Greek proper
name A-ri-qa and of Homeric ÉAr¤sbh cited above seems particularly interesting. If
referring to ritual objects, but the word penetrated Hittite as well and might have been borrowed into
Greek through this language; on Luwian Íihual- “luminous object”, see also Starke 1990, 342-343 (with
an Indo-European etymology *seH-ul- “sun”); a Luwian loanword in Greek seems possible.
291 Nikolayev 1985, 66-73 (some of the etymologies are far from acceptable, for which see below). In
some of these borrowings (ib., 68, etymologies 14 and 15) Northern Caucasian affricates are reproduced
by Greek combinations of a velar and another stop. An old borrowing from a Northern Caucasian
language like Hurrian or from an Indo-European satPm dialect may be present in the Mycenaean Greek