Indo-European Language and Society

Book 1: Economy - Section 1: Livestock and Wealth

Chapter 1: Male and Sire
Abstract
Contrary to traditional etymologies we have to distinguish between two ideas on
the Indo-European level: (1) on the physical side that of the male, i.e. *ers-, an
d (2) on the functional side that of the sire, i.e. *wers-. A semantic rapprocheme
nt between these two roots is found only in Sanskrit and may be regarded as seco
ndary.
Text
We shall first consider some typical expressions relating to stock breeding. The
object of study will be the differentiations characteristic of special techniqu
es: on the lexical level, as elsewhere in linguistics, the differences are instr
uctive, whether they are immediately apparent or come to light only after the an
alysis of a unitary group. An obvious and necessary distinction in a society of
stock breeders is that between males and females. This is expressed in the vocab
ulary by words which can be regarded as common, since they appear in several lan
guages, though not always with the same applications.
For the first word which we are going to study we have a series of correspondenc
es which are relatively stable, although they admit of variations. They concern
the word for male:
rabha aran
Skt. Av. Gr. rsn, rrn
vrabha *varan
We postulate for Avestan a word which happens not to be attested but which is im
plied by its derivatives, i.e. Av. varna masculine, varni- male, ram.
In Greek, again, we find slightly deviant forms in the group e(w)rs ((w)),
ai (
form with i Ido-Iri); the meig is (1) ri, dew (i the sigulr), where
s (2) the plurl is pplied to imls. To this fmily belogs Lt. verrs, the ma
le of a particular species, with its corresponding forms in Baltic, Lit. veris, Le
tt. versis. All these derive from the verbal root *wers- exemplified in the Skt.
varati, which means in the impersonal it rains (cf. ers); we may also adduce Irl. fr
ass rain < *wrst.
There is a morphological difference between the last forms and the preceding nom
inal forms, but this has not prevented etymologists from grouping them together.
But this should give us pause: we have on the one hand forms with and without a
n initial w in Indo-Iranian. Similarly in Greek, whereas rrn () eve
a a w, Home
ic
met
e implie t at e
 = ewrs, which develops to hrsai.
Comparatists have interpreted this disagreement as an alternation. But since the
re are no compelling reasons to follow them, we should practice the utmost econo
my in the use of hypothetical alternations.
In Indo-European morphology there is no principle which would permit us to assoc
iate forms without w- with those containing a w-. To postulate a unified group h
ere is gratuitous; there is no other example of this alternation w-/zero. As for
the meaning of the words thus associated, where an analysis is possible, it wil
l be seen that there are difficulties in bringing the words together.
In Sanskrit, vrabha- and rabha- attest the same manner of formation and the same not
ion. This is that of the mythological bull and the male in general, the epithet of g
ods and heroes alike. In Avestan, on the other hand, the two words (with or with
out w) have divergent meanings, and this disaccord is instructive outside Indo-I
ranian: in Iranian aran and *varan are absolutely separate words. Aran in the Avestan
texts is always opposed to a word which designates the female, this being someti
mes xar ( purely Iri term), but usully dnu. This latter expression, which is
Indo-Iranian (cf. Skt. dhenu), belongs to the group of Greek thlus (cf. the Sanskr
it root dhay- suckle, nourish). Thus we have here a specific designation, a functi
onal one, for the female animal.
The opposition of aran- : danu- is constant. In the lists of animals we find the tw
o series of terms enumerated in the same order:
"horse" aspa-aran- aspa-danu-
"camel" utra-aran- utra-danu-
"bovine" gau-aran- gau-danu-
The Avestan aran never designates any particular species, as does the Sanskrit rabha
which, without being the exclusive word for bull, frequently has this meaning.
This is quite different from aran; it simply denotes the male as opposed to the fe
male.
This opposition male/female may appear in a slightly different lexical guise in
Avestan. For human beings, nar/xar re used, where the ltter term looks like the f
emiie form of the djective meig royl, tht is, uee. This my pper somewh
t strge, but it is ot icoceivble if we thik of the correspodece betwee
Greek gu wom d Eglish uee. There re some slight vrits such s r/str,
where the secod term is the Ido-Iri me for wom, cf. i the compouds strm
an (cf. Lat. nmen) of female sex, while xar is sometimes trsferred to the iml wor
ld. All this is uite cler; the oppositio is umbiguous. Outside Iri, ran
has an exact equivalent in the Greek rsn, rrn with precisely the same sense as in Av
estan: it denotes the male as opposed to the female, rrn contrasts with thlus. The e
tymological identity of the two terms argues an Indo-European origin.
Let us now consider the Avestan word *varan. It expresses a different notion, that
of the sire. It is not the characteristic of a special class of beings, but an
epithet of functional value. *Varan (the actual form is varni-) is used with the nam
e for sheep to designate the ram: maa-varni-. This combination leaves no doubt as to i
ts meaning. Apart from this, there is also historical testimony: *varan, by regula
r sound development, yielded Persian guan, and this signifies not the male (represe
nted in Persian by a form derived from nar) but the sire.
Outside Iranian, Latin verrs is the exact counterpart in form and meaning. It doe
s not denote the male, the male pig being called ss (a word to which we shall retur
n later) but the sire. Verrs, boar, is used in exactly the same way as the correspond
ing Avestan form *varan.
What conclusion can we draw from these observations? *Ers- and *wers-, which wer
e regarded as identical, are two different forms, absolutely distinct both in me
aning and morphology. Here we have two words which rhyme, which may be superimpo
sed, but which in reality belong to two independent families. One designates the
male as opposed to the female; the other denotes a function, that of the sire of a fl
ock or herd and not a species, like the first. It is only in Sanskrit that there
was a close rapprochement between rabha- and vrabha-. Because of a mythology in whi
ch the bull has a prominent place and in virtue of a style in which high-flown e
pithets abound, the two terms became so far assimilated that the first assumed a
suffix which belongs properly only to the second.
Such is our first conclusion. It can be given further precision by recourse to a
distinct lexical development. There is probably some connection between Greek er
s and hrsai. How can this be defined? The singular ers denotes the light rain of the
morning, dew. Apart from this we have the Homeric plural form hrsai, which is on
ly attested once (Od. 9,222): in the cave of Polyphemus there is a sheep-fold in
which the animals are arranged in age groups, from the adults to the very young
estthe hrsai. Now, hrsai is the plural of ers. To understand this peculiar associatio
n, we can adduce some parallels in Greek: drsos means dew drop, but in Aeschylus drs
os in the plural denotes young animals. There is a third example of the same kin
d: psaks, which means fine rain, has a derivative pskalon, the newly-born of an anima
l. This lexical relationship may be explained as follows. The tiny newly-born ani
mals are like dew, the fresh little drops which have just fallen. Such a develop
ment of meaning, peculiar to Greek, would probably not have taken place if *wers
- had first been the name of an animal, considered as the male. It seems therefore
now to be established that we must posit for Indo-European a distinction betwee
n the two different notions and two series of terms. It was only in Indic that a
rapprochement was effected with the result that they became similar in form. Ev
erywhere else we find two distinct lexical items: one, *ers-, designating the ma
le, (e.g. Greek rrn), and the other *wers- in which the original notion of rain as
a fertilizing liquid was transformed into that of sire.