This Good Friday you should be thinking about what really matters.
The Aryan superstrate in Mitanni Hurrian.
The Aryan superstrate in Mitanni Hurrian.
First: what actually is “the superstrate”? Conventionally it’s assumed to be pre-rigvedic Indic, but I’m not sure the evidence stacks up in favour of this.
The most commonly cited arguments in favour of an Indic branch are:
1. The use of Indic stem *aika- “one” as opposed to Iranian *aiwa- in the Kilkuli manual.
2. Retained *s, which becomes *h in both Old Persian and Avestan.
1. The use of Indic stem *aika- “one” as opposed to Iranian *aiwa- in the Kilkuli manual.
2. Retained *s, which becomes *h in both Old Persian and Avestan.
However, the *aika- stem is attested in many Iranian dialects, particularly from the west. Interestingly Middle Persian has “ēk” (modern Persian “yek”) for one, despite epigraphic Old Persian’s “aiva”, perhaps suggesting an “Avestanising” tendency.
Second, loanwords in Neo-Assyrian texts from the 8th to 6th centuries suggest the shift from /s/ > /h/ in Iranian only occurred in the 1st millennium. Notably the name of the god Ahura-Mazda appears in a Neo-Assyrian god list as “Assara-Mazaš”.
There are also some diagnostic features of Indic not reflected in Mitanni onomastics: Mitanni names do not show any clear indication of aspirated stops, which are ubiquitous in Indic but absent in Iranian.
Many Mitanni names can be interpreted as Iranian with more confidence than they can Indic: notably ar-ta-ta-a-ma, often interpreted as Ṛtadhāman, looks like it could reflect an Iranic name “Artatāma” or “Artatahama”.
Many Mitanni names contain the element *priya-, a common element in Persian, but known only in the Rigveda from the latest stages, and possibly influenced by contact with Avestan. (Talageri 2008 for more on influence between the Rigveda and Avesta if you’re interested).
Mitanni preserves /šd/ where we’d expect Indic /dh/ as a contraction of /zdh/, which better reflects Iranic.
There’s one curious exception to all this that I’m aware of: the name tu-uš-rat-ta, tu-iš-e-rat-ta, which seems to reflect a relative of Vedic Tveṣáratha, “with a charging chariot”.
This name has no good Iranic interpretation I can think of (*t(a)wHsi-ratha?!) and appears to reflect an aspirated stop via reduplication (perhaps by association with the hurrian “fortis” equivalent.)
What we might be seeing here is actually very early forms of western Iranic languages, potentially with Indic interpolation. This would make sense as the core of the Mitanni territory is occupied by and adjacent to both Persian and Median territory in later periods.
The presence of the odd Indic name here or there indicates a high but not implausible degree of mobility and contact across the Aryan group, despite their already being split by this period. (1600-1200-ish BC at the widest margin).
Also of note: the names “Ariya” and “Artaya” are both fairly common in Mitanni texts. “Artaya” means something like “hero”, and is noted to by Herodotus to be an older name of the Medians (“Artaioi”).
“Ariya” later came to refer to the entire Iranian ethne, but probably originally referred to an aspect of character, a sense which is retained in Sanskrit (“refined, hospitable, aristocratic, a nobleman”). Herodotus reports that the Persians originally called themselves “Arioi”.
At least one “Ariyan” in the Mitanni texts is explicitly referred to as a “Maryannu.”
This is a technical term meaning “charioteer”, and refers to a specific class of soldier, and derived from the Proto-Aryan *mar-ya-, which carries the sense in daughter languages of both “young warrior” and “stallion”.
I believe it may potentially be related both to *markos, a term for the horse attested only in Celtic, Germanic, and marginally in Indo-Iranian.
*-yo and *-ko are fairly common PIE derivational suffixes. In this case the root they modify is *mer-. In most branches this carries the primary meaning “to die”, but I think with *maryas and *markos we see a preservation of an elder sense, “to disappear or depart.”
This would suggest a cultural analogy between a young warrior, who leaves the tribe to serve another,
and the stallion, which will often form “bachelor herds” in its youth as with many other species.
and the stallion, which will often form “bachelor herds” in its youth as with many other species.
We can use the institution of the “maryannu” as a way to date the arrival of Aryan speakers in the Near East. Although the institution is closely identified with Mitanni, it predates the Mitanni kingdom as we know it by at least 2 centuries.
In a letter from the early 18th century BC, two Hurrian kings make a trade of maryannu soldiers between them, suggesting that the institution of pledged indo-Iranian mercenaries is already established between the various Hurrian petty kingdoms that predate Mitanni’s rise.
But how far back can we establish this presence? I think the answer is “quite far”. To demonstrate this I will recruit two pieces of experimental philology concerning the name “Mitanni” and the Sumerian word for “chariot”.
This is the point at which we devolve into lunacy.
This is the point at which we devolve into lunacy.
The name “Mitanni” (or Mittani or Mittanni or Maitanni in the oldest tests) consists of 2 elements: the Hurrian associative suffix -nn(i), and a name “Maitta”, which is also given as the name of a semi-mythical eponymous founder.
It doesn’t take much squinting to see the similarity to a Proto-Indo-Iranian *may-tra- as in Sanskrit mitra “friend” and Avestan “mithra” “agreement, oath”, literally and perhaps as a name, “he who causes binding”.
Mitanni = “the land of the allies” or “Mithra’s country”?
Mitanni = “the land of the allies” or “Mithra’s country”?
Second: the Sumerian word for chariot, “gigir”, has been proposed as a distant descendant of PIE *kʷékʷlos (usually “wheel”, but often “anything that turns), but without much confidence as to the precise form or origin point.
I think we can isolate it with a bit of work to a very early stage of Indo-Iranian, which we perhaps want to call “pre-indo-Iranian” because the relevant features aren’t quite there yet.
Here’s the rough progression by which the variant *kʷekʷlóm becomes PIIr *čakrám:
1. *kʷekʷlóm
2. *keklóm (labiovelar loss)
3. *kekróm (l/r merger)
4. *kekrám (o/a merger)
5. *čekrám (palatalisation of /k/ before front vowels)
6. *čakram (e/a merger)
1. *kʷekʷlóm
2. *keklóm (labiovelar loss)
3. *kekróm (l/r merger)
4. *kekrám (o/a merger)
5. *čekrám (palatalisation of /k/ before front vowels)
6. *čakram (e/a merger)
We can presume a borrowing of “gigir” somewhere around stage 3 or 4.
Since we know “gigir” is present in Sumerian texts by the tail end of the 3rd millennium BC we can use this to provide some (fuzzy) anchors for the development of the 2-wheeled chariot, the presence/contact of Indo-Europeans with the south, and the development of Indo-Iranian.
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