The discussion of the Old Armenian month names has been reopened by a recent article in this journal.
1 The author dealt mainly with
the Iranian elements in the list, confronting it with a synoptical table
of Middle Iranian calendar systems. In a paper read in Oslo, July
1986, I tried to show that such a confrontation hardly yields new insights with regard to the Old Armenian calendar.
2 It does not explain,
e.g., why most of the “Iranian” month names etymologically are
names not of months but of festivals, and how they were combined
with perhaps autochthonous designations to give a twelve-month calendar. Instead I claimed that a different comparison should be more
effective, i.e., with the calendar systems of the neighboring nonIranian
peoples. This holds for two such systems which had in fact
been confronted with the Armenian calendar for the first time as early
as 1832,
3 but had been left out of the discussion again in more recent
times.
4
The results of my Oslo paper, in which I could deal with the Old
Georgian calendar only, can be summarized as follows:
The Old Georgian month names, which were used until in the
seventh or eighth century Latin designations were taken over, have
come down to us in three branches of tradition. First, we have the list
compiled by the Georgian lexicographer Sulxan-Saba Orbeliani (early
eighteenth century) in his “Leksik'oni kartuli”, used by M. Brosset,
through the Georgian prince Teimuraz, in his article in 1832. Second,
a comparable list was preserved in Armenian tradition in the calendar
treatises of the authors Anania Širakac`i (seventh century) and Hovhannes Imastaser (twelfth century). The third and most important
branch of tradition is the Old Georgian textual material itself, which
reveals some 50 attestations within Bible translation and hagiography.
These attestations, while largely agreeing with the lists for relative
sequence, do not reestablish the chronological shape of the Old
Georgian year compared with, e.g., the Julian year because there are
contradictions with other parallel traditions. A tentative conclusion
leads to the following equational table:
| Latin month
| ≈ Georgian month
|
|
|
|
| January
| surc'q'nisay
| February
| mihrak'nisay
| March
| igrik'isay
| April
| vardobisay
| May
| marialisay
| June
| tibisay
| July
| kueltobisay
| August
| axalc'lisay
| September
| stulisay
| October
| ? t'irisk'nisay
| November
| ? t'irisdinisay
| December
| ap'nisay.
| | | | | | | | | | | |
It can easily be shown that the basic structure of the Old Georgian and the Old Armenian month lists was the same. In word formation every month is in a genitive form (navasard-i, ara-c` etc.), the
Georgian forms being built on genitive -isa-; the structure is an attibutive scheme “month of (the) x.” The etymological basis also agrees.
If we start with the month axalc'lisay, and confront the Georgian list
with the Armenian starting with nawasardi, we can state agreements
in at least five positions:
| Georgian month
| Armenian month
|
|
|
|
| 1. axalc'l-isay
| nawasard-i
| 2. stul-isay
| hor̄-i
| 3. t'irisk'n-isay ?
| sahm-i
| 4. t'irisdin-isay ?
| trē
| 5. ap'n-isay
| k`ało-c`
| 6. surc'q'n-isay
| ara-c`
| 7. mihrak'n-isay
| mehekan-i
| 8. igrik'isay
| areg
| 9. vardob-isay
| ahekan-i
| 10. marial-isay
| marer-i
| 11. tib-isay
| marga-c`
| 12. kueltob-isay
| hroti-c`.
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Identity can be postulated for mihrak'n-isay and mehekan-i (7.),
for marial-isay and marer-i (10.), from the Iranian preforms
*mihrakāna- and maδyār- > *marear.5 We can connect t'irisdinisay
and trē through the Iranian name of the god Tīr.6 The Georgian
axalc'l-isay, obviously built on axal-c'el- `New Year', represents a
loan translation of the Iranian preserved in the Armenian nawasardi.7
As a semantic concordance, the Georgian tib-isay has long been
interpreted as `month of mowing or haycrop',8 which fits quite well
with the Armenian marga-c` `month of the meadows'.
Although many of the Old Georgian (and some Old Armenian)
month names remain unclear, the mass of concordances above can
hardly be accidental. It suggests that both lists had a common skeleton
in the Iranian calendar of festivals, filled in with names reflecting seasonal terms. Some further observations: The two remaining Armenian
month names from Iranian festivals, ahekani and hrotic`,9 match the
Georgian vardobisay and kueltobisay, both from a noun in -oba-, a
suffix forming names of festivals (vard-oba- `rose feast', from vard-i
`rose'); vardoba- and kueltoba- seem to stand for the Iranian models
of ahekani and hrotic`, although kueltoba- is not yet clear.10
I now want to examine some problems of the Old Armenian
month names for which Old Georgian gives evidential support. The
present part is devoted to the names that have an Iranian origin. In a
second part, I shall deal with the etymology of the Armenian hor̄i and
sahmi. A discussion of the “Albanian” month names and of the
chronological facts involved in the comparison of the Armenian and
Caucasian calendars will finish the article.
An Iranian etymology has been claimed for six Armenian month
names, only three of which fully agree with the rules for borrowings
from Arsacid Middle Iranian (Parthian), viz. nawasardi (1.), mareri
(10.) and hrotic` (12.). The first must be the genitive singular of an -a-stem *nawasard, from a Parthian *nau̯a-sard- `New Year'. Mareri is
the genitive of *marear, traceable to Avestan maiδiiāiriia-, the `fifth
seasonal feast', assuming a Parthian *maδi̯ār-.11 The form hrotic`,
genitive plural of an -i-stem *hro(r)t-, exactly reflects the Iranian “immortal souls” and “protecting spirits” which through Avestan
frauuaṣ̌i- must be an -i-stem frau̯ar-ti-12 for Western Iranian. Thus,
hrotic` is not identical with the Middle Persian festival name fravardigān, but rather with the first month, fravardīn, in its turn derived from
the festival, too.13 A special treatment, however, is required for the
three remaining “Iranian” names, trē (4.), mehekani (7.), and ahekani
(9.).
The -e- vowels in mehekani and ahekani cannot be motivated on the
basis of the proposed Iranian preforms, *mihrakān- `festival of the god
Mithra' and *āhrakān `fire festival'.14 These forms if from Arsacid
times, should have given m(r)hakan- (with syncope of the pretonic -i-)
and a(r)hakan- as regular outcomes. In fact, both of these are attested
in Armenian tradition: mrhakan-, an adjective `related to Mithra', occurs in Agathangelos's history,15 while ahakani is a varia lectio of
ahekani.16 Since just the oldest manuscript preserves the “abnormal”
form,17 we must assume that the canonical ahekani reflects a later development. The same assumption can be made for mehekani, too, but
here it is the Georgian evidence which is decisive.
Mihrak'nisay, the normal Georgian form, must be the nominative (in -y) of an hypostatical paradigm built on an underlying genitive
(-isa).18 Because Georgian syncope strikes the vowels a and e in certain
syllables it is not clear by itself whether the basic stem here is
mihrak'n-, mihrak'en- or mihrak'an-. From the Parthian *mihrakān- it
is the stem mihrak'an- which becomes at once preferable.
Theoretically, a genitive like mihrak'nisa could belong to a vocalic stem in -a- or -e; however, no Parthian words were borrowed into
Georgian as stems in -a- or -e-, so that we can ignore this possibility.
The nominative mihrak'ni19 offers no counterevidence because it can be
due to abbreviation or to false restitution from the genitive
mihrak'nisa-. The reconstruction is in turn supported by forms like
mirk'anisa-, e.g., in Bible translation.20 These forms can be analogical
levellings of different syncopations: Originally genitive mihrak'nisa
and nominative *mihrk'ani both reflected underlying *mihrak'an-.
There is at least one more Old Georgian month name to be traced to
an Iranian festival name, viz. marialisay.21 The basic stem here is
certainly *marial-; and a nominative marial-i is attested, too.22 If we
assume that marial- is due to regular Georgian dissimilation of two rsounds, we reach *mariar- which exactly represents the state between
Armenian mareri < *marear- and Parthian maδi̯ār-. Returning to mehekani, this form must surely share a common predecessor with Georgian mihrak'nisay, viz. *mihrakan- < Parthian *mihrakān-. We are
forced to assume that mehekan- did develop within Armenian, from
m(r)hakan- < *mihrakan- just as ahakan- became ahekan-.
To explain the development of -a- to -e- in the middle syllables
of mehekani and ahekani, we must consider the third Iranian name
that left traces in both the Armenian and the Georgian calendar: trē.
The name trē was treated by R. Schmitt in his article mentioned
above. He considers it to be the genitive of a noun *Tri < Proto-Armen. *Tiri, exactly matching a Parthian *tīrī. Trē would be from a
preform *Treay = /tareay/, with a sound change as in tēr `master, lord'
< *ti-ayr.23 Schmitt's argument, however, offers several problems with
respect to relative chronology. The equation of ē in trē and in tēr is
crucial, because the element *ti- in the preform of the latter word has
to be traced back to pretonic tē- itself, as the maintenance of the first
i in ti-kin `lady' shows; in view of words like asteay, genitive astēi
`spear', one wonders which period of Armenian sound history to
assign the change *-eay to -e to. Second, a Proto-Armenian *Tiri
would lead to *Tir, not *Tri, because apocopy of final syllables is
prior to syncopy. The central problem is one of stem class chronology
when positing a nominative *tiri.24
A connection between Georgian t'irisdinisay and Armenian trē
became probable as soon as the latter was traced back to the name of
the Iranian god Tīr.25 This, however, leaves the second element of the
Georgian t'irisdinisay unexplained, as it does the name of the third
Georgian month, t'irisk'nisay. It is just this element, t'iri-, which bears
the clue of the problem.
In my Oslo paper I concluded that the material available does
not suffice to decide which is the true order of the two months in the
table above (and in Saba Orbeliani's lexicon). Both cases fail to reveal
the exact names of the months.26 With due caution, I proposed that
t'irisk'nisay and t'irisdinisay could be two different names of the one
(fourth) month matching Armenian trē. This was suggested by the fact
that for Armenian trē, too, there existed a parallel form which can be
etymologically cognate: trekani, which occurs at least once in the
Girk` t`łt`oc`.27 Given the identification of mehe-kani and mihrak'nisay with the Iranian ”Mithra-festival“ *mihrakān-, tre-kani
should be equated with t'iris-k'nisay and an Iranian festival name,
too. The festival can only be that of the god Tīr, the 13th day of the
month of Tīr, and called tīragān in Middle Persian.28
Neither trekan-i nor t'irisk'n-isay can however match exactly
tīragān, which points to a Parthian *tīrakān-. The Armenian -e- of the
central syllable, again, fails to agree with the Parthian -a-. But in this
case, we may assume that the name should be reconstructed as
*tīr(i)i̯akān- > *tireakan-, regularly yielding trekan- in Armenian.
The Georgian t'irisk'nisay, of course, seems to disagree, since we
would expect *t'iriak'nisay. We seek, then, some evidence for the -s-
of t'irisk'n- being a secondary linguistic or graphical phenomenon. In
the 1956 edition of the Armenian author Hovhannes Imastaser a list of
Georgian month names as part of a calendar treatise is reproduced after four different Erevan manuscripts.29 In three of them the third and
fourth month names occur in nearly identical forms, viz. tirisdi/
tirisdini, tiritdi/tirissdini and tirisdi/tirisdini; further agreeing with
the forms tirist`i/tirisdeni and tirisdin/tirisdini attested in the treatise
of Anania Širakac`i.30 The fourth manuscript, however, offers a very
divergent reading which must be taken seriously: trisidisos and
treakan (in this order!).31 Although there might be an Armenian influence, the latter form seems to conceal just the postulated *t'iriak'an-.
The -s- of t'irisk'n- can be motivated as an analogical levelling
from the neighbouring name, t'irisdinisay. Equating t'irisk'nisay with
Armenian trekani and assuming that t'irisdinisay originally meant the
same month, the latter form should converge semantically with
Armenian trē as the synonym of trekani. We should thus postulate the
meaning ”month of (the god) Tīr“ for t'irisdinisay, too. This form
cannot be a genitive of the god's name alone: it can, however, come
from a borrowing from Armenian, indeed attested in the genitive form
Tri dic`.32 The plurale tantum di-k` `deity' contained in this figure,
taken over into Georgian, yields *di-ni, which might have been
reinterpreted as a singular *din-i in the appositive construction with
the single deity Tīr. T'irisdinisay is seen to be built upon the
Georgian rendering of the apposition Tri dic`, *t'iris dinisa,33 ”the
(month) of Tīr, (of) the deity“; the -s- of t'iris- spread into the
synonymous t'irisk'nisay after both names lost their transparency,34
doubtlessly, more easily if the original form of t'irisk'nisay was
*t'iriak'nisay, not *t'irak'nisay.35
Georgian thus supports Armenian trekani as *tiriakan- < Iranian
*tīr(i)yakān- as opposed to, e.g., Middle Persian tiragān; and
throws new light on the origin of trē, which should reflect a stem in
-ya-, namely *tīr(i)ya-.36 As *tiriya, this would have led to an Armenian nominative Tri (by apocope, and syncopy of the first syllable
-i-),37 which persists in Tri dic` if we assume that only the final
member of the group was inflected.38 Trē would be an archaic
genitive of Tri < *tiriya-, retained instead of a regular *trwoy (from
the stems in *-iyo-), because it was no longer analyzed.
Returning to mehekani and ahekani, we can now propose that the
vowel -e- is due to influence of trekani, where the -e- was justified, a
development that must have taken place within Armenian.39
One problem remains with regard to mehekani: the vowel -e- of the
first syllable, which cannot continue Iranian *-i-, cp. the adjective
mrhakan.40 A secondary assimilation of the reduced vowel resulting
from syncope to the -e- of the following syllable, which was secondary itself, would match, e.g., the result in mehean `shrine' if this really
is connected with the name of Mithra, too,41 the preform being something like *mihr(i)yan; cp. the genitive meheni. There are, however,
other forms (the personal names Mehružan/Merhužan/Mehužan or the
family name Mehran42) for which such an assimilation cannot be
presumed. Together with some other similar cases, such as the name
Meherdates met with in Tacity,43 they point to a different suggestion:
There might have existed an Arsacid pronunciation with the -i- lowered to -e- by which the Armenian forms were influenced.44 As we
have no authentic testimony of the pronunciation of short vowels in
Western Iranian of that time, we must leave this problem open.45
NOTES