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Persian Bahmān “so-and-so”: an ancient survival?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Nicholas Sims-Williams
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Extract

In this short article marking Sir Harold Bailey's 90th birthday on 16 December 1989 it seems appropriate to take up and develop one amongst the many fruitful insights with which he has enriched our understanding of the languages of India, Iran, and Central Asia.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 122 , Issue 1 , January 1990 , pp. 10 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1990

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References

1 Thus according to D. N. MacKenzie's forthcoming edition of the Qunyat al-munya. Henning, W. B. had suggested n'(n) “that” (“The Khwarezmian language”, Z. V. Togan'a ArmaǦan [Istanbul, 1956], p. 428)Google Scholar or negative n'- (apud Gershevitch, I.A grammar of Manichean Sogdian [Oxford, 1954], p. 175, §1155)Google Scholar.

2 The phrase is borrowed from Martin Schwartz's review of Bailey's, Prolexis to the Book of Zambasta in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, LXXXIX, no. 2 (1969), p. 447Google Scholar.

3 Bailey, H. W. “Armeno-Indoiranica”, Transactions of the Philological Society (1956), pp. 107–8Google Scholar.

4 For Armenian manauand “rather, more, especially”, which shows the same metathesis according to Bailey, an alternative etymology has been offered by Gershevitch, , The Avestan hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 223–4Google Scholar.

5 The meaning of Sogdian I'nm'n “so-and-so” was established by Henning, , Ein manichäisches Bet- und Beichtbuch, Abhandlungen der Preuβischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1936, no. 10 (Berlin, 1937), p. 67Google Scholar.

6 Colditz, I. “Bruchstücke manichäisch-parthischer Parabelsammlungen”, Altorientalische Forschungen, XIV, no. 2 (1987), p. 281Google Scholar.

7 The preceding t'- and ‘w’ - will correspond to Avestan tā “so, then” (= Khotanese tta, Bactrian ta(do), Sogdian t(wty), cf. Sims-Williams, N. “A note on Bactrian phonology”, BSOAS, XLVIII [1985], p. 112)Google Scholar and Old Persian avā “thus”. For Sogdian one could justify a prior element t'n-, cf. the formation of w'nw “thus”, but such pronominal forms with -n-suffix are not found in Parthian.

8 Schindler, J. “Zum Ablaut der neutralen s-Stämme des Indogermanischen”, in Rix, H. (ed.) Flexion und Wortbildung. Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft … (Wiesbaden, 1975), pp. 263–4Google Scholar. According to Beekes, R. S. P. “The PIE words for ‘Name’ and ‘Me’”, Die Sprache, XXXIII (1987, published 1989), pp. 1–12Google Scholar, the initial was h 3 rather than h l as generally supposed (by those who accept the postulate of an initial laryngcal).

9 Oettinger, N. “Die w-Stämme des Hethitischen und ihre indogermanischen Ausgangspunkte”, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, XCIV (1980), p. 46Google Scholar; Mayrhofer, M.Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, I, Heidelberg, 1986–, p. 164Google Scholar.

10 Art. cit., p. 263, and earlier in Die Sprache, XIII (1967), pp. 201–2Google Scholar, and XV (1969), p. 149.