Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

Several terms in Indo-European, partly discussed above, have been reconstructed
which refer to the harness and its details. 408 Many formal difficulties among them are
connected with one represented by Mycenaean Greek a-ni-ja, a-ni-ja-pi, a-ni-jo-ko
“charioteer, reins-holder”, Homeric ≤n¤a “reins”, ≤n¤-oxow “holding the reins,
charioteer” (Laconian éniox¤on, without aspiration), Middle Irish ê(i)si “reins, bridle”,
Old Indian nâsyâ “bridle passing through a nose” (with probable influence from the
word for nose), and are comparable to several technical terms denoting a hook (Old
Prussian ansis), a handle (Latin ânsa), perhaps with an original stem in *-m- (> -n-). 409 If
one accepts this reconstruction and considers the meaning connected with the horse
harness as primary, a possible Northern Caucasian match could be found in *HxPmV
“leather strip, rope, string” (> Nakh *m êxV “harness thread”, Avar-Andi * ? inlo >
Tindi ila “leather rope for donkey tethering”, Proto-Tsez-Khvarshi * ? öl “leather
rope”, Lak xumu “rope, string”, Western Caucasian *xa “thread in a spindle” 410 ) on the
one hand and in Hurrian himz- “to bind, to tie up” (hi-im-za-at-hu-u-Íi = Hittite an-da
iÍ-ßu-zi-ya-it “girdled” 411 , K Bo XXXII 13 I–II 10-11) on the other.
6. The Hurrian Voluntative in -l- : an areal feature?
The Hurrian epic text begins with the formula Íi-ra-ti-li “I would like to sing”, 1st
Person Singular Voluntative of the verb Íir-âd- “to sing, to narrate” 412 (K Bo XXXII 11
408 Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1984/1995, 621-627; Delamarre 1984, 117-127.
409 Toporov 1975, 92-93 (with bibliography); Chantraine 1990, 413; Watkins 1995, 7-8, n.1 (reconstruction
*H 2ans-iyo/aH2). 410 Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 623.
411 Neu 1996, 248-249. The Hurrian verb may be linked genetically to Proto-Dargwa *-imx:Vr; on the
different variants of the reconstruction, cf.: Starostin 1985, 86; Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 655. A
connection with the Indo-European word for girdle *yôs(-to-) can also be suggested. But the
morphonemic relations between all these words seem too complicated, and some of these hypothetical
etymologies should perhaps be abandoned.
412 Neu 1994, 8, 30, 33-34, 38, 41, 257-258; 1988, 243, n.33; the semantic link between Hurrian Íiri = Hittite
kapuwar “enumeration, computation, number” and Íir-âd- “to sing = narrate” (cf. Chamalal Ωal-id- “to
read” < *-îÇw l “to count”, Nikolayev and Starostin 1994, 628-629), as in XVI-XVII-century English
“(ennobled) numbers” (R. Herrick; numbers as opposed to prose in Shakespeare) in the meaning “verses,