Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

horse during the training” 349 , Sogdian (’nxr)-wzn “path (of the stars) = ring of zodiac”;
Crimean Gothic waghen “currus”, Old Icelandic vagn “carriage”, Old English waegn
“wagon”, Old Irish fén “vehicle”; a related thematic stem with the meaning “vehicle” is
present in Homeric Greek ˆxow, pluralia tantum “chariot(s)” (Mycenaean wo-ka in
Pylos different from i-qi-ja in Knossos 350 ) corresponding to Slavic *vozË and (with
morphonemic recoding of Brugmann’s law 351 ) to Old Indian vâza = Avestan vâza
“vehicle, draft animal”; also common to Greek (gloss xesfi: ërmasin (Hes.)) and
Old Indian (vahas- “shoulder of a draft animal”) is a stem in *-s. One of the most ancient
forms among these stems might be Old Indian vahitra- “square chariot with pole” (in
lexical lists); “boat”, Greek ˆxetla: ÙxÆmata (Hes.) and Latin uehiculum. 352 In Baltic
an -î/i- (/-yo-) stem can be found in the second part (*vezîs) of the Old Prussian
compound kelle-wesze “driver”, wessis “sledge for riding”, Lithuanian vâÛis, vâÛÁ
“small sledge”. 353 A corresponding verb from which all these nominal stems (in *-n,
thematic vowel -o, suffixes -s- , -i-/-î- and *-tlo- ) have been derived has the technical
meaning “to ride on a chariot” in Eastern Indo-European (Old Indian Vedic vahati
“drive”, Avestan vazâite “drive”, Greek Pamphylian Wexetô), Balto-Slavic (Lithuanian
veÛù, Proto-Slavic *vezoN), Western Indo-European: Italic (Latin uehô, Umbrian
aÂveitu “aduehitô”, kuveitu “conuehitô”). The root in this meaning has been
discovered in Hieroglyphic Luwian wiza- “drive”. 354
349 Starke 1995, 95-108.
350 w h According to Plath 1994 from Proto-Greek *ikk iyâ *wok â “a horse-driven vehicle”.
351 If this rule is accepted a remark in Porzig 1954 (in a book that in general should be singled out for its
careful investigation of the dialectal relationship of vehicle terms in Indo-European) on the relatively
late character of this thematic term loses force. In many Indo-European dialects derivatives of this root
acquired the meaning “weight” (originally “weight that an equid can bear”).
352 On the age of the noun and its morphology see: Vine 1993, 122-125; Meid 1994 (late Indo-European or
post-Indo-European according to Meid).
353 MaÛiulis 1988, II, 160; Eckert 1995, 51-65.
354 Meriggi 1962, 147 (with an antiquated reading of the phonetic sign for the initial syllable); Starke
1990, 308, n.1055, 314, 509, n.1874. Since the voiced aspirated palatal disappeared in Luwian, the -z(z)morph
should be traced back to the sigmatic suffix *-s´k-.