The Name Kurd and its Philological Connexions

G. R. Driver

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00067605

The Name Kurd and its Philological Connexions

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

G. R. Driver

Show author details

G. R. Driver: Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

It is not unlikely that the earliest trace of the Kurds is to be found on a Sumerian clay-tablet, of the third millennium B.C., on which “ the land of Kar-da ” or “ Qar-da ” is mentioned. This “ land of Karda ” adjoined that of the people of Su, who dwelt on the south of Lake Wân, and seems in all probability to have been connected with the Qur-ṭi-e, who lived in the mountains to the west of the same lake, and with whom Tiglath-Pileser I fought; the philological identity of these two names is, however, uncertain, owing to the doubt about the precise value of the palatals and dentals in Sumerian.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , July 1923 , pp. 393 - 403

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00067605 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1923

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 393 note 1} Thureau-Dangin, Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Königsinschriften, i, 150 (No. 22, § 2).

^{page 393 note 2} Tiglath-Pileser's Cylinder-Inscription, I, ii, 17; iii, 50.

^{page 393 note 3} This identification is accepted by Winckler in Schrader's Keilschriftliche Bibliothek, vol. i, s.v. Tiglath-Pileser; Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde, i, 356; Kiepert, Lehrbuch der Alten Geographie, p. 80; Sachau in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, xii, 52; and Hommel, Geschichte, p. 524; it is rejected by Streck in Z. f. Ass., xiii, 101.

^{page 393 note 4} Xen., Anab., III, v, 15, 17 ; IV, i, 2–4, 8–11; iii, 1–2, 7, 26–7, 30; v, 5, 17; VII, viii, 25.

^{page 393 note 5} The singular Cardûchus is an artificial form deduced from the plural Cardûchi (Xen., Cyr., vi, 3, 30).

^{page 394 note 1} Xen., Anab., IV, iv, 18 ; vi, 5 ; viii, 1 ; V, v, 17.

^{page 394 note 2} Steph. Byz., Ethnica (Meineke), s.v. Τοχοι, i, 211; see also his note on Καρδοχοι, i, 358.

^{page 394 note 3} Id. ib., i, 211.

^{page 394 note 4} See also Meillet, Esquisse d'une Grammaire comparée de l'Arménien classique, pp. 40–3, and Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, pp. 404, 518–20.

^{page 394 note 5} See Polyb., Hist., v, 79, 11, 82, 11; Corn. Nep., Datames, viii, 2; Arr., Anab., ii, 8, 5–6, and Plut., Sec. Epic., xiii; see also Steph. Byz., s.v. Kardakes; Hesych., Lex. (Schow), p. 403, (Alberti), ii, 147 ; Phot., Lex. Synag. (Porson), i, 131.

^{page 395 note 1} Plin., Hist. Nat., vi, 15, 44.

^{page 395 note 2} Id. ib., vi, 31, 129.

^{page 395 note 3} Strab., op. cit., xvi, 747. For references to Kardûchi see Strab., Geogr., xvi, 747 ; Epit., p. 148 (Kardûchiā); Diod. Sic., Hist. Gr., xiv, 127 ; Plin., Hist. Nat., vi, 44 ; Ptol., Geogr., vi, 2 ; Agath., Hist., iv, 29 ; Theophyl. Simoc, ii, 10, 2.

^{page 395 note 4} In the corresponding passage in Josephus (Archœol., xx, 2, 2, § 34) the MSS. read Καρρν, Καιρν, or Καρεν, all possibly errors for Καρδν, although the form Καρδο, with which Γρδοι should be compared, does not actually occur.

^{page 396 note 1} The other writers of biographies of Alexander the Great have Gordiaei, Gordyaei (Curt. Ruf., Hist. Alex., iv, 10, 8; v, 1, 4, 14–15), or Cordiaei (Epit. Rer. Gest. Alex. Magn., xxix); in one passage of Curtius (op. cit., iv, 10, 8) some MSS. appear to read Cordei.

^{page 397 note 1} Steph. Byz., s.v. Gordyaea.

^{page 397 note 2} Compare the note, quoted below, in Land's Anecd. Syr., iii, p. 332.

^{page 397 note 3} Strab., Geogr., xii, 13, 533 ; xv, 3, 727.

^{page 397 note 4} Polyb., Hist., v, 52.

^{page 397 note 5} Livius, ab Urb. Cond., xxxvii, 40, 9 (where they are called Cyrtaei), and xlii, 58, 13.

^{page 397 note 6} E.g. Barhebraeus, Nomocanon (Hunt MSS. 1), 36 v., Ascensus Mentis (ib., 540), 83 v.; Patr. Or., Sim‘on bar Sabba’e, cp. 23 (and 25); Wright, Catal. of Syr. MSS. in the B.M., iii, 1136a-b; al.

^{page 398 note 1} The Nestorians pronounced Qardû as Qardâ, which without doubt contributed to the Arabic Qardā (Acts of Mārî, 23, 2).

^{page 398 note 2} Avri et Slîbâ, de Patr. Nest. Comm. (Gismondi), p. 80 ; Maris, de Patr. Nest. Comm. (Gismondi), pp. 2, 3, 10;. Balâdhurî, 176, 5; Aṭ-ṭabarî, iii, 610, 3 ; Ibn Faqîh, 132, 8 ; 136, 2 ; Ibn Rustah, 106, 14 ; 195, 12 ; Ibn Khurdâdhbih, 76, 12 ; 245, 15 ; Mas‘ûdî, Tanbih, 53, 12 ; Ibn Ḥauqal, 145, 13. Yâqût (i, 476) has Qirdā, which he says that people pronounced Qardā. Compare also Bāqardā in Arabic (Aṭ-ṭab., iii, 610, 1).

^{page 398 note 3} M‘ārt d’Gazê (Bezold), Syr., p. 98 = Ar., p. 99.

^{page 398 note 4} Elias of Nisibis (Baethgen) in Abhandl. f. d. Kunde des Morgenl., viii, 3, p. 17.

^{page 398 note 5} Assemanni, Bibl. Or., vol. i, pp. 204a, 352a; Chabot, Nest. Synods in Notices et Extraits (Paris), x, p. 165.

^{page 399 note 1} Chabot, op. cit., x, p. 423 (Syr., p. 165); Tûmâ d’Margâ, Governors (Budge), p. 98, al. ; Bedjan, Acta Martyrum, ii, p. 673 ; Wright, Catal. of Syr. MSS. in the Brit. Mus., iii, p. 1207a.

^{page 399 note 2} Mār Yabhalāhâ (Bedjan), chap, xiv, p. 121.

^{page 399 note 3} Nöldeke in ZDMG., xxix, pp. 419 ff.

^{page 399 note 4} Compare the form Kûrdayyâ in a writer of the twelfth century A.D. (Johannes of Nisibis, in Assemanni's Bibl. Or., ii, pp. 221–2).

^{page 399 note 5} The Arabic account of Abu-’l-Faraj (Pococke), p. 13, has “ the mountain of the Qurd which is called Al-Jûdī ”.

^{page 400 note 1} The form Qardûn occurs also in Midr. B^ereshîth Rabbâ and in the Mandaic Great Book (i, 380, 21) in reference to the same passage.

^{page 400 note 2} Y^ebhāmôth, 3b, 16a.

^{page 400 note 3} Rabbinowitz on Bābâ Bathrâ, 91a.

^{page 400 note 4} The usual plural in Arabic is ’ Akrâd, but there once occurs ’ Akârîd. (‘Abdu-’l-Bâsiṭ, Dâris in the Journal Asiatique, IX, iv, pp. 252–3) as a variant in one MS. for the regular form.

^{page 401 note 1} Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lix.

^{page 401 note 2} See Baethgen in Abhandl. f. d. Kunde des Morgenl., viii, 3, p. 17.

^{page 401 note 3} Assemanni, Bibl. Or., ii, p. 366.

^{page 401 note 4} E.g. Assyrian gardu or qardu = Persian gurd or kurd (valiant), etc. ; similarly the Persian Kirmân became Qarman in Syriac.

^{page 402 note 1} Nöldeke, Kardu und Kurden in Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und Geographie : Festschrift für H. Kiepert, pp. 71–82 ; see also Hartmann, Bohtan, pp. 90 ff.

Article contents

The Name Kurd and its Philological Connexions

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests