The Reading of LuwianARHAand Related Problems

Abstract

Im vorliegenden Beitrag lege ich dar, dass die üblicherweise mit ARHA transliterierte luwische Hieroglyphe *216, die in ihrer Funktion dem hethitischen Präverb arh a entspricht, die Lesung /axxa/ hat. Luwisch /axxa/ "weg" ist mit hethitisch arh a ursprünglich verwandt und wird in keilschriftlicher Überlieferung bisweilen mit ah h a wiedergegeben. Einige luwische Lexeme, die bisher ohne überzeugende Etymologie geblieben sind, lassen sich als Sekundärbildungen mit dem Morphem /axxa/ erklären.

The Luwian Language

“…Afterwards, the term "Hieroglyphic Hittite" came to be gradually replaced with "Hieroglyphic Luwian". I have, however, tried to demonstrate in Yakubovich (2010) that the inner-Luwian dialectal isoglosses do not precisely align with the boundaries separating the cuneiform and hieroglyphic corpora. Therefore it is better from the methodological viewpoint to operate with the concept of one Luwian language having several dialects and written in two scripts.…”

“…The translations given above are very approximate, both in view of the inherent categorial ambiguity of the Luwian local adverbs and because their detailed study has not yet been undertaken. Recent studies that brought about new identifications of adverbs are Goedegebuure (2010), containing the identifications of zanta and anni, and Yakubovich (2012), containing the identification of ahha. For rare examples of prepositions in Luwian see Melchert (2003: 203).…”

“…The first attempt at the comprehensive treatment of Luwians as an ethnic group is Melchert (2003). It was followed by Yakubovich (2010), where different perspectives on the Luwian homeland and the spread of the Luwian language are offered. The discussion of various approaches to the ethnic history of the Luwians became a topic of a recent conference, whose proceedings were published as Mouton, Rutherford, and Yakubovich (2013).…”

Internal or external evil: a merism in Luwian incantations

“…24While the precise phonetic interpretation of < ARHA > in Luwian hieroglyphic texts remains a matter of debate (cf. Yakubovich 2012 vs. Melchert 2013), there is a general agreement that the morpheme hidden behind this glyph is ultimately cognate with Luw. /irh(i)-/ “boundary”.…”

“…14The Hittite noun arha - “border, boundary” is replaced by irha- from the Middle Hittite period onward (Kloekhorst 2008: 246). Since this change is not amenable to an explanation in terms of the known sound laws, the later form irha- must represent a Luwian loanword (Yakubovich 2012: 337, n. 22). Within Luwian, the change * arh(i) - > irh(i)- must have been conditioned by the unstressed character of the initial syllable.…”