Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

Latin form can be seen 323 , it seems that Hittite ßaÍtapi, if it was borrowed, might
represent a corresponding form of a satPm Luwian dialect (*HaÍ + tap/b- < Hô´k + *p e t-
r-, with loss of -r in a final non-accented syllable and metathesis of the labial stop of the
same type as in the Slavic word).
There are at least two more Northern Caucasian words for horse that might be
compared to dialectal Indo-European terms.
The local Indo-European term for “foal” *pôlo-s is found in a group of dialects but
still belongs to the relatively old part of Indo-European technical vocabulary since it is
attested in Mycenaean Greek (po-ro, Homeric p«low “foal”), Albanian pelë “mare” <
*pôlnâ and in all the ancient Germanic languages: Gothic fula “foal, colt”, Old Icelandic
foli (masculine), fyl < *fulja, Old English fola, Old High German folo. It seems
possible to compare it to the Northern Caucasian *farnê, reconstructed on the basis of
Avar x w áni “horses” (collective form); Khvarshi xaram “foal”; Lezghian x w ar “mare”;
Western Caucasian *x w ara > Adygh fâra “thoroughbred horse”. 324 The Northern
Caucasian word belongs to a very small class of lexical items beginning with f-. From
seven words included in this class in the dictionary by Nikolayev and Starostin, two
other lexemes (the numeral “five” and the noun “fist” related to it) are also shared with
Indo-European. 325 The connection between the Northern Caucasian and Indo-European
terms of this class seems beyond doubt. To establish the direction of borrowing one has
to keep in mind the relative chronology of the dispersal of
323 Ernout and Meillet 1994, 5 (-i- may be explained by the use in a compound, see above on the old rule);
Machek 1957, 177 (with the suggestion p et-r- > *trep- > *-trebb- and of a later change of the geminate *ebb-
> -2b-); in Hittite the single -p- points to a former voiced (or glottalized) phoneme. However,
according to Vey, the Slavic group st < *pt-, which would have explained jasËt- < asËst- < ô´kË-pt-, but
in that case the labial stop belongs not to the root in the Slavic word, but to the suffix *-emb(h)-.
324 Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 425-426. On the Indo-European word, see Lehmann 1986, 130.
325 Starostin 1988, 119.