Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

undergone an early palatalization of the initial labiovelar (*k w el- > *zel- > *zal-). 344 A
corresponding verb existed in some Indo-European dialects and can be reconstructed
for the oldest periods of the prehistory of the protolanguage 345 , but it has undergone
semantic shift after the invention of devices based on rotary motion (wheel, spindle,
etc.). Some probable verbal derivatives without reduplication are also used in reference
to vehicles and their parts in other dialects: Mycenaean qe-re-me-ne-u is supposed to be
equivalent to plhmnÒdeton “a ring with which spokes are fixed to the hub”; cf.
Homeric plÆmnh “hub or nave of a wheel” derived from *k w el-H-. 346
Another (third) name for the wheel/cart often shifted to the meaning “road, path,
way”. It has also been reconstructed for Tocharian: A wkäm, B yakne aikne “manner,
way” < “road” (a semantic parallel to the cognate English way), very often as a second
part of a compound, A tämne-wäknâ kakmu = Sanskrit tathâgata = Tibetan de-bÃin-
G≈egs-pa “he that walks in the same ways [as his predecessors]” 347 in an archaic
construction with a verb of motion. The stem in *-n- of this Tocharian derivative from
Indo-European *we´gh- has been rightly identified in Old Indian Vedic vâhana- “any
vehicle or draft animal” (deva-vâhana-s a≈va-s “a horse that carries a god” in the g-
Veda 348 ), Mitannian (Mesopotamian) Indo-Iranian waÍanna “prescribed path of the
343 Toporov 1980, 305-307, 310; MaÛiulis 1988, II, 157-158, 160; Eckert 1995, 50-53 (a possible Curonian
borrowing according to Bûga).
344 On the meaning, see: Starke 1990, 337; synchronically Starke suggests the formation as derived with
the suffix -al-, but historically an old reduplication (intensive *zal-zal- or normal *zazal-) might
have been transformed. The phonetic development, typologically similar to palatalization of
labiovelars in the other satPm dialects (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1984/1995, 79-80), can also be seen in
several other stems, see Ivanov 1999.
345 Pokorny 1959, 639. On the Nostratic parallels, see Illich-Svitych 1971, 326-327. The original
meaning referred to roundness as a visual archetype.
346 Plath 1994 (the laryngeal might belong to the suffix as also in *ret-H-). The traditional etymology
linking the Homeric word to the verb “to fill” (p¤mplhmi) does not seem semantically satisfactory:
Chantraine 1979, 215. But the suffix -mnh seems to point to an archaic formation.
347 Jäschke 1987, 565-566 (a modern native interpretation; for the other possible meaning: “Buddha =
thus gone or come”: Edgerton 1953, 248).
348 In connection with the Old Indian image of vâhanas “the animals which the gods ride” one can
suggest a comparison to the Hurrian deities standing on animals in the YazIlIkaya rock pictures
(Güterbock 1982, fig. B, C) and a similar Urartian representation of the god Haldi standing on a lion,
Khodzhash a.o. 1979, 73, fig. 41, 57-58.