Old Armenian k'oweay ‘die, cube’, with the allotropes k‘owē and k‘oway, is well documented both in original works and in translations. On the basis of some formal characteristics, especially for the presence of initial k‘-, the word cannot be directly traced back to Gr. κυβεία and seems to suppose the intermediation of a third language. Talmudic Aramaic has qubyā and Syriac knew an emphatic form *qubāyā, whose plural *qubāye is well attested. All these models are not compatible with the phonetics of the Armenian form and in the case of a direct derivation from them, the expected outcome would be *koweay. The only intermediation which can explain the initial k‘- in Armenian is that of a Middle Iranian language, probably Middle-Persian. Actually there is some evidence that Middle-Persian stops could have aspirated allophones in word initial position - exactly as it happens in New Persian - already in the Late Antiquity. In conclusion Arm. k'oweay ‘die, cube’ can be considered a loanword from a not attested Middle-Persian word whose primary model was Gr. κυβεία. The intermediation of a variety of Aramaic between Greek and Middle-Persian is only possible, but not required.
In armeno antico k'oweay ‘dado, cubo’, con gli allotropi k‘owē e k‘oway, è molteplicemente attestato, sia in testi originali, sia in traduzioni. Il sostantivo, per alcune sue caratteristiche formali, in particolare per k'- iniziale, non può derivare direttamente dal gr. κυβεία, ma sembra supporre una mediazione di una lingua terza. Nell'aramaico talmudico si segnala la forma qubyā e in siriaco si può documentare un plurale enfatico qubāye, che suppone un singolare *qubāyā, tutte queste forme però sono incompatibili con la replica armena che dovrebbe suonare *koweay. In tale quadro l'unica mediazione possibile è quella di un dialetto medio-iranico; si tratterebbe dunque di un prestito greco entrato in medio-iranico (eventualmente con mediazione semitica) e passato poi di qui in armeno. Nel caso specifico, la parola armena iniziante per k‘- sembra suggerire un'origine medio-persiana, se è giusta l'ipotesi, suffragata da alcune evidenze, che già in fase tardo-antica il medio persiano presentasse per le occlusive in posizione iniziale una realizzazione aspirata, secondo un processo allofonico assente in altri dialetti iranici in contatto con l’armeno.
Sull'origine di armeno k'oweay 'dado' / A. Scala. - In: ACME. - ISSN 0001-494X. - 69:1(2016 Jul), pp. 77-85. [10.13130/2282-0035/7410]
Sull'origine di armeno k'oweay 'dado'
A. Scala
2016
Abstract
Old Armenian k'oweay ‘die, cube’, with the allotropes k‘owē and k‘oway, is well documented both in original works and in translations. On the basis of some formal characteristics, especially for the presence of initial k‘-, the word cannot be directly traced back to Gr. κυβεία and seems to suppose the intermediation of a third language. Talmudic Aramaic has qubyā and Syriac knew an emphatic form *qubāyā, whose plural *qubāye is well attested. All these models are not compatible with the phonetics of the Armenian form and in the case of a direct derivation from them, the expected outcome would be *koweay. The only intermediation which can explain the initial k‘- in Armenian is that of a Middle Iranian language, probably Middle-Persian. Actually there is some evidence that Middle-Persian stops could have aspirated allophones in word initial position - exactly as it happens in New Persian - already in the Late Antiquity. In conclusion Arm. k'oweay ‘die, cube’ can be considered a loanword from a not attested Middle-Persian word whose primary model was Gr. κυβεία. The intermediation of a variety of Aramaic between Greek and Middle-Persian is only possible, but not required.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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