Many ancient Indo-Iranian and related Indo-European languages are lost or un-known except for isolated fragments. This is the case with the bordering Indo-European languages of Anatolia, the northern Caucasus, and Near East. Some surviving words are intriguing (e.g. Hittite god Peruas, Kassite sun god Surias, Hittite lord, Ishan). Surviving Indo-Iranian languages and dialects remain insufficiently investigated for links with old and modern Slav languages. There is reason to believe that there is linguistic gold in the more remote hills. In the high mountains and remote valleys of the Hindu Kush, for example, Parun is the Kafiri God of War; in Afghanistan, his Pushtu name is Perun.
9A. INDO-IRANIAN / SERB-SLAV GLOSSARY
Our primary Slav basis for comparison, modern Serb, is separated from the Indo-Iranian model, by several thousand years of history and development, by a great loss of vocabulary, especially in terms of basic social-religious institutions and values. With re-gard to the pace of linguistic change, it is important to note that by 200 B.C. or earlier, the common language of the migrating Aryans had evolved into two separate and differ-ent languages, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan. In some important instances, the words have not only different but opposite meanings. For example, the Indie-Sanskrit word for god, deva, is now the Iranian-Avestan word for demon, daeva. Nonetheless, in letter, sound and meaning many Indo-Iranian words appear to share roots with old and modern Slav words. Nowhere are the parallels more numerous and profound, the sounds and rhythms more obvious, than in modern Serb. Even the most cursory reading of the Rig Veda, Avesta, and later texts and commentaries suggest the following parallels, some perhaps more apparent than real. In the following comparative series, unless otherwise indicated, the first word is a modern Serb equivalent of the Sanskrit word that follows, mainly Rig Veda Sanskrit. In some instances, the first or alternative word is an Old Rus-sian (OR), Old Slavic (OS), RusRus-sian (R), Czech (CZ) or Polish (PO) equivalent, the second word an Iranian (Iran.) equivalent, mainly Avestan Iranian, or a related language as indicated (e.g. Ossetian, Alanic, Pashtu, Tajik).1
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UNIVERSE
Rota/OS—Rita (the original cosmic law) Rota/OS—Vrata (vow, pledge)
COSMIC/PRIMARY JUSTICE Pravda—Ir/Para-dhata (primary law)
SOUL, SPIRIT
Duh, Dusha—Bhuh ('one of three original breaths by which earth was created').
Duhovi—Bhu-tani (spirits) Boze moi!—Bhaga me! (My God!) Chist—So-chista (pure)
Diva, Divozena—Ir/Daeva (demonic force) Hram—Asrama
Hram—Ir/Fsarema (temple, hermitage) Pocitanije/R—Pujan (worship)
Sluh, Slush—Ir/Sraosh (Originally the genius of hear-ing, later, Ahura Mazda's 'all-hearing ear which listens to the cries of men wronged on earth by evil spirits') Spasitelj, Spasti—Svasti (saviour)
Spasitelj, Spasti—Ir/Saoshyant (Savior. In Persian my-thology the one who will come to renew all life at the end of time)
Sreca—Sradah (faith)
Strava/OS—Svadah (food offered to dead) Vera—Ir/Var (the choice between good and evil) Zal—Ir/Zal (as in Zal, 'the infant left to die on a remote
mountain by a sorrowful father')
FATE, FORTUNE, FAME
Ziv—Jiv (one who lives in the body; a mortal being) Ziviti—Jivati (to live)
Zivot—Jivana (Life)
LIGHT, DARK Crno—Krsna (black) Crunu /OS - Krsna (blac)
Siv—Siva ('dark God of cosmic destruction') Siv, Siva, Sivast—Syavas (dark)
Yama—Yam ('the underground world where the lumi-nous soul of the dead continue to exist')
MAN, WOMAN, PEOPLE
Mokra—Mutra (urine)
Musko—Muska ('manly' as in 'Thousand testicled Indra or Sahasramuska')
Budit—Budhyati (to be awake, conscious, alert) Budan, Buditi—Bhudyate (awakes, recognizes, under-stands)
Sloboda, Svoboda—Svadharma (according to one's own values, self-rule, self-government) Napisao sam—Ir/Niyapisam (I wrote down) Pricati—Prchati (to ask, to converse) Rec—Rac (compose)
Reciti—Radhyati (speaks) Slovo—Sloka (call)
Slovo—Ir/Sravo (word) Zoviti—Hvayati Zoviti—Ir/Zbajati (calls)
SOCIAL-POLITICAL TERMS
Bolyar, Bolye, Bolij/OS—Balam (greater)
Drz, Drzava—Drh (to hold together, support, sustain) Go—Gopa (shepherd, guardian)
Gospodar—Ir/Gospandar (he who owns a flock) Grad, Gard/OS, Gorod/R—Grha, Ghara (house) Grad—Grama (village)
Grad—Ngara (city) Kesa—Kosa (treasury)
Mir—Mihr, Mithra (Some believe that mir is the Slavic equivalent of mihr, that the Mithra the Ruler is the root of old Slavic princely names ending in -mir (e.g. Vladimir, Jaromir)
Pravda—Dharma (law, cosmic law, from root Drh, 'to bind, to hold together')
Pravda—Ir/Prahlada (bearer of truth, who rules with justice and wisdom)
Prvak—Purva (elder)
Prvomeshtanin—Parameshtin (who stands in first place) Sabor—Saba (council)
Savez, Soyuz/R—Samyoga (union)
Slobodu, Svobodu/OS—Sva-dha (law, rule, self-governing)
Vlada—Ir/Prahlada (bearer of truth, who rules with jus-tice and wisdom)
Zupan—Ir/Zan-pait (from Zan-tu, tribe, tribal chief) Zupan—Ir/Vispaitis (chief, clan chief)
Rat, Ratnik—Ir/Rataestar (warrior, literally'he who stands in a chariot')
Gora—Afghan/Gor or Ghor (e.g. Ghor, mountain dis-trict of northwestern Afghanistan; the ruling Ghazni Af-ghans of the Sur tribe of Ghor; Gorich, mountaineers commonly called Gorchani', a subdivision of the Lund tribe).
Topiota—Tapa (warmth, heat) Vatra—Atra (fire)
Vbda—Uda (water)
Vodopad—Udapata (waterfall) Ixt—Svar (heat, fire, sun, sky) Zar—Ir/Azar (heat, fire, sun, sky) Zara—Jvala (burning, heat)
Az, Azdaja—Azi (three-headed dragon or snake) Bik—Vrisha (bull)
Bojise Vuka—Bhayate Vrkat (he fears the wolf) Vulna—Ossetian/Ulaen (wool)
Tresati—Trasati (to shake, quiver)
Dvor— Pers/Duvaraya maiy (my door) Kot, Kotac/WS—Ir/Kata (room, space)
Vratiti—Vartati (return)
MISCELLANEOUS Bogat—Bhagaka (rieh) Bogastvo—Bhagatva (wealth)
Cupati—Chupti (to touch, feel by hand) Dar—Dana (gift)
Vrtit—Nivrti (to escape from the rotating wheel of re-birth, to cease all activity)
Zevati—Jambhati (to yawn)
1J. Rozwadowski, Stosunki leksykalne miedzy jezykami slowianskiemi i iranskiemi, RoT 1, 1914-15. A. Kalmykov, Iranians and Slavs in South Russia, Journal of the American Oriental Society XLV, 1925. A. Meillet, Le Vocabulaire Slave et Le Vocabulaire Indo-Iranien, ReVVI, 1926. H. Arntz, Sprachliche Beziehungen zwischen Arisch und Balto-slavisch, 1933. J. Harmatta, Studies in the Language of the Iranian Tribes in South Russia, 1952; J. Harmatta, Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians, 1970. E. Benveniste, Une correlation slavo-iranienne, FsT M. Wasmer, 1956; Les relations lexicales slavo-iranniennes, To Honor R. Jakobson, 1967. K. Treimer, Skythisch, Iranisch, Urslavisch, Ethnogenetische Erwägungen, WsJ 6, 1957-58; Skythisch-slavische Parallelen, WsJ 14, 1967-68. V. Georgiev, Balto-slavjanski, germanski i indo-iranski, Slavjanskaja Filologija I, 1958; Praslavjanski i indoevropejski, Slavjanskaja Filologija III, 1963; Introduction to the history of the Indo-European Languages, 1981.
A.A. Zalizniak, Problemy slaviano-iranskikh iazykovykh otnoshenii drevneishego perioda, VoP 6, 1962. V.V.
Ivanov, Obschcheindoevropeiskaja, praslavanskaja i antoliiskaja jazykovye sistemy, 1965- O.N. Trubacev, Iz slavjano-iranskih leksiceskih otnosenij, Etimologija, 1965; Lingvisticeskaja periferija drevnejsego slavjanstva. Indoarijcy w Severnom Pricernomorje, VjZ 6, 1977. V. Pisani, Baltico, Slavo, Iranico, RiC 15, 1967.
10. ETHNONYM SERB:
ALTERNATIVE LINGUISTIC THEORIES