Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

nominal stems have been preserved (in a derived social meaning that should be
reconstructed for the proto-language). The verb from which all these nominal stems
have been derived is present in all the main groups of dialects (on Hittite see below)
with an old set of different types of conjugation (nasal stems, sigmatic stem and
mediopassive stem in *-dh- etc.): Old Indian yuj-/yu-na-k-ti; Nuristani Prasun üpP-,
Imperative yúpu “to prepare”, Kati yipô 361 , Waigali yüpoy, Avestan yaog-; Greek
zeÊgnumi, Latin iungô, Lithuanian jùngiu. The network of archaic semantic and
grammatical connections makes it evident that the name for yoke belonged among the
older elements of the Proto-Indo-European language.
The Indo-European terms for yoke resemble Northeastern Caucasian words with
the same meaning: Nakh *duq “yoke” > Chechen duq, Avar-Andi *rul:V “yoke” >
Avar rul: ; Lezghian *?ärl: w “yoke” > Tabassaran jurk:-aR, Tsakhur ok, Kryz uk-ar,
Khinalug ing “yoke”, Western Caucasian *b(P)GP “yoke” > Kabardian bÃP “yoke”, on
the basis of which North Caucasian *?r‰gwË “yoke” is reconstructed, different from
*rikwV “yoke stick” seen to be reflected in Lak ruk “yoke”, Dargwa duk “yoke”. 362
The forms of concrete languages that may be explained by later multichannel
borrowing are particularly similar. As the date of the invention of the yoke is much
closer to us than the dispersal of Proto-Northern Caucasian and even of the Proto-
Northeastern branch, there is no use in discussing the relationship of protoforms, which
might be a scholarly illusion. The word might have been borrowed several times, as is
clear for Tabassaran uRin “yoke for two oxen” and some other later borrowings. 363
The main source of borrowing seems to be different Indo-European dialects,
particularly of the Eastern group: Iranian and Armenian, probably Greek as
361 The Nuristani and Dardic forms were based on the analogical reshaping yujjati > *yujjai > yuppai
“is joined, is fitting = is made ready”; the Waigali form may have been borrowed from Dardic Pashai:
Turner 1989, 607. This case is methodologically important as it shows that the value of Nuristani
linguistic forms for historical studies should not be overestimated.
362 Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 220, 954; Starostin 1985, 80.
363 Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 220-221.