Etymology of the name Jesus

[bob x]

I do find it curious that the names Jesus and Jason are cognates

No they're not. They're just words that have a couple letters in common.

Strabo mistakenly associated the Iranian places of worship which he called the "Iazonia" (cf. Middle Iranian yashtan, Avestan yaz, Modern Persian Jashan) with the name of Jason the Argonaut. First of all I got to ask if anyone knows why he made that association? And secondly is it possible he wasn't mistaken after all?

He made that association because there were a couple of letters in common. Also, he had the propagandistic motive to claim that Greeks were the source of anything good in Persia.

There is, actually, an apparent cognate for Avestan yaz, Sanskrit yajna in Greek: the Indo-Iranian J sound (becoming sibilant in Iranian) is from Indo-European G or K, so the ecstatic cry IAKKHE! IAKKHE! uttered by the worshippers in various mystery cults is likely to be the Greek descendant of that root. From this, Dionysus/Bacchus was sometimes given the name "Iacchus".

 

[Kasavubu]

It seems to me that the argument is silly. I can't believe how people argue over etymology of the name Jesus.

The issue is not his name. Who cares if some call him Yeshua, Joshua, Isa, or the latin Jesus? The issue is that many people believe in a man born in Roman Palestine at the end of the last century BCE. Most of them believe he was conceived in a Hebrew virgin by a god called the Holy Spirit producing a human man who was also a god. Legend has it that this Palestinian carpenter or house builder was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

Of the many cults founded on this story, Athanasian Christianity won in a bloody series of persecutions of other Christians and of Pagans.

That is the issue, not variations of the man's name. It is trivia. The issue is whether you believe the story of a virgin born god fathered man-god who was killed and resurrected for some strange means of salvation of those who believe in his divinity.

Either you believe in that or you don't. Debating the name is childish.

Kasavubu

 

[Dream]

The argument is as you say just talk about words, but the person who posed the question deserves respect. If they think its an important issue then why not treat it as such? I feel very passionately about whether it is clarified or obfuscated. I cannot pass that feeling to you, but that doesn't mean the feeling is worthless. By the same token even though I don't know you I appreciate that your are engaging in dialogue and just want to say:

Welcome to the Forum!!!!

 

[bob x]

The issue is whether you believe the story of a virgin born god fathered man-god who was killed and resurrected for some strange means of salvation of those who believe in his divinity.

Either you believe in that or you don't.

That is not the only distinction that can be drawn. One can believe that the story is greatly important, without buying into the particular orthodox interpretation of the story that you outline. Or one can disbelieve the story, but still want to understand the history of how the story came to be formulated and widely propagated. Mojobadshah is interested in the historical question of how much influence from Persia went into the formulation of the story: and a great deal of Persian influence did go into it, although I don't think the name is one of those elements. Taijasi believes his particular take on the story, in the context of which the name does in and of itself have some significance.

 

[mojobadshah]

This is true. I can't say I don't have an interest in the Persian influence on the Abrahamic religions, and as far as trying prove any connection between the Zoroastrianism and the name of Jesus I'm pretty much out of ideas, though there is something else that has kind of dawned upon me, but before I mention it I'd like to say how interesting I think it is that the Greeks used a cognate form of the Avestan yaz as an utterance in their mystery cults. I wonder if they used it as a form of praise to the Gods which would be comparable to how the Zoroastrians used it to praise Ahura Mazda and other Adorable Beings or Yazatas if I'm not mistaken.

Getting back to proving a connection between Zoroastrianism and the name Jesus. Initially I hypothesized that it was the Avestan form "yaza" alone that was the origin of the name Jesus. However the going theory is that the name Jesus developed from the combination of the Hebrew "Yahweh" and "Oshea" through Yehoshua. Now if it weren't for the fact that the following Avestan prayers are important ones including the "Yatha Ahu Vairya" which is considered the Pater Noster of the Zoroastrians (the most sacred prayer of the Zoroastrians) and the Ashem Vohu or invocation of Asha "righteousness, order" I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but what I would like to know is whether it is possible according to the rules of linguistics if the name Yahweh could have developed from the name of the most important Zoroastrian prayer Yatha Ahu Vairya and whether the name Oshea could have developed from the word Asha.

 

[mojobadshah]

The name Jesus developed from a contraction of the Hebrew words Yahweh and Oshea.
According to the Nostratic hypothesis the W in Hebrew YHWH which means "I am what I am" is akin to the words like be in English and a conceptual relative to the the naming of some Indo-European gods as "the beings that are" including the Avestan Ahura which is akin to the word is.
What I am proposing, however, is that the words Yahweh and Ahura are more than just conceptual relatives but etymologucally akin as well. That the Hebrew Yahweh is a contraction of the Avestan words Yatha Ahu Vairya which designate the most important prayer or pater noster among the Zoroastrians. And the word Ahu meaning "lord" is akin to the name of this Zoroastrian "being that is" Ahura.
The Hebrew name Oshea ultimately developed from the Semitic shin-waw-'ayin via the Hebrew Yasha "salvation" and apparently according to the Nostratic hypothesis is akin to the Indo-European *salwe which is the root of words like salvation. In Zoroastrianism Asha is the key to one's salvation. I am also proposing that the Hebrew name Oshea was derived from the Avestan Asha via the Hebrew Yasha both forms implying "salvation." However according to convention the word Asha derives from the Indo-European root *ar "to join" so in order for my hypothesis to be true it must be taken into consideration that there is an inconsistancy in the conventional wisdom and that the form Asha is in fact derived from the Indo-European root *salwe or a combination of both Indo-European forms *ar and *salwe.

Now when taking this assertion into consideration one must also take into account that somewhere along the lines Indo-European peoples began to confuse their language and history with those of the Semites and vice versa. For example the names of Abraham and Sarah are oftentimes quoted to have been derived from the Indic forms Brahman and Saraswati. The Scots believe their Scythian ancestry to have descended from Isaac. Among the Pashtuns of Afghanistan there is a legend that they are descendents of the tribes of Israel. One of the Pashtun tribes call themselves the Yusofzai or Joseph's sons. However it may have been just as likely that the Jews adopted the name Yusof while included within the vast Zoroasrtrian expanse known as Persia where much of the Jewish and Christian ideolology was derived from the Zoroastrians. For the name Yusof is actually hypothesized to have derived from a word a akin to our word equine, Asip. The root of this form is also the root of the word Afghan and the Yusofzai Pashtuns are the direct linguistic descendants of the Zoroastrian or Avestan people.

 

[bob x]

That the Hebrew Yahweh is a contraction of the Avestan words Yatha Ahu Vairya which designate the most important prayer or pater noster among the Zoroastrians.

The name is older than the Avestan language.

And the word Ahu meaning "lord" is akin to the name of this Zoroastrian "being that is" Ahura.

That "h" was originally an "s" (Vedic Sanskrit asura); the shift in Avestan of all the Indo-European sibilants to "h" or nothing, and shift of other sounds to sibilants, is what makes it worthless to try to find cognates by looking at words which have accidental resemblances that did not exist until after these shifts.

I am also proposing that the Hebrew name Oshea was derived from the Avestan Asha via the Hebrew Yasha both forms implying "salvation." However according to convention the word Asha derives from the Indo-European root *ar "to join"

Which is why it is silly to think of Asha as the source for anything that contains a sibilant: that "sh" JUST WASN'T THERE until a late stage in the development of the language.

Now when taking this assertion into consideration one must also take into account that somewhere along the lines Indo-European peoples began to confuse their language and history with those of the Semites and vice versa.

??? No, that just isn't true.

For example the names of Abraham and Sarah are oftentimes quoted to have been derived from the Indic forms Brahman and Saraswati.

There is a tiny number of people who say this-- on no basis whatsoever.

The Scots believe their Scythian ancestry to have descended from Isaac.

There is a tiny number of people who say this-- on no basis whatsoever.

However it may have been just as likely that the Jews adopted the name Yusof while included within the vast Zoroasrtrian expanse known as Persia

The name is much more ancient that Zoroastrianism, or Persia; yosef is Semitic for "he increases", a perfectly native root with no Indo-European cognates, and in no need of external explanation.

For the name Yusof is actually hypothesized to have derived from a word a akin to our word equine, Asip.

Hypothesized BY WHOM? This is a new one on me, not one that seems to have any more plausibility than the rest of your grasping at random resemblances.

The root of this form is also the root of the word Afghan and the Yusofzai Pashtuns are the direct linguistic descendants of the Zoroastrian or Avestan people.

Pashtun is of the Indo-Iranian family, but in no way a descendant of Avestan.

 

[mojobadshah]

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
That the Hebrew Yahweh is a contraction of the Avestan words Yatha Ahu Vairya which designate the most important prayer or pater noster among the Zoroastrians.

Bob X: The name is older than the Avestan language.

Where is the name Yahweh found apart from the Hebrew Bible? And are you saying there older forms of the name in the Hebrew Bible or other than the Hebrew Bible?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
And the word Ahu meaning "lord" is akin to the name of this Zoroastrian "being that is" Ahura.

Bob X: That "h" was originally an "s" (Vedic Sanskrit asura); the shift in Avestan of all the Indo-European sibilants to "h" or nothing, and shift of other sounds to sibilants, is what makes it worthless to try to find cognates by looking at words which have accidental resemblances that did not exist until after these shifts.

But why does that mean that the name Yahweh couldn't have come from Avestan? I'm not saying it came from Sanskrit or Proto-Indo-Iranian.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
I am also proposing that the Hebrew name Oshea was derived from the Avestan Asha via the Hebrew Yasha both forms implying "salvation." However according to convention the word Asha derives from the Indo-European root *ar "to join"

Bob X: Which is why it is silly to think of Asha as the source for anything that contains a sibilant: that "sh" JUST WASN'T THERE until a late stage in the development of the language.

Again, why does that mean that the Hebrew couldn't have come from Avestan? If you're going to place the Hebrew language before the Avestan language then I see why not, but if you consider that at least some of these forms appeared after Avestan than I don't see what the problem is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
Now when taking this assertion into consideration one must also take into account that somewhere along the lines Indo-European peoples began to confuse their language and history with those of the Semites and vice versa.

??? No, that just isn't true.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
For example the names of Abraham and Sarah are oftentimes quoted to have been derived from the Indic forms Brahman and Saraswati.

Bob X: There is a tiny number of people who say this-- on no basis whatsoever.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
The Scots believe their Scythian ancestry to have descended from Isaac.

Bob X: There is a tiny number of people who say this-- on no basis whatsoever.

Don't you think its futile to deny the possibility that there was an exchange of language and ideas between the Indo-Europeans and the Afro-Asiatic peoples, especially while the Jews had been under Persian influence for so long, and later the Indo-Europeans under Christianity and Islam?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
However it may have been just as likely that the Jews adopted the name Yusof while included within the vast Zoroasrtrian expanse known as Persia

Bob X: The name is much more ancient that Zoroastrianism, or Persia; yosef is Semitic for "he increases", a perfectly native root with no Indo-European cognates, and in no need of external explanation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
For the name Yusof is actually hypothesized to have derived from a word a akin to our word equine, Asip.

Bob X: Hypothesized BY WHOM? This is a new one on me, not one that seems to have any more plausibility than the rest of your grasping at random resemblances.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_(name)

Quote:
Originally Posted by mojobadshah
The root of this form is also the root of the word Afghan and the Yusofzai Pashtuns are the direct linguistic descendants of the Zoroastrian or Avestan people.

Bob X: Pashtun is of the Indo-Iranian family, but in no way a descendant of Avestan

Not according to what Prof. Micheal Henderson has to say; see http://people.ku.edu/~mmth/Four_varieties_of_Pashto.pdf

 

[bob x]

Bob X: The name is older than the Avestan language.

Where is the name Yahweh found apart from the Hebrew Bible? And are you saying there older forms of the name in the Hebrew Bible or other than the Hebrew Bible?

There are some extra-biblical forms (for a god of metal-workers) that have been compared to YHWH, but whether that is the source or not is not the point here.
Sections of the Hebrew Bible itself are considerably older than the Avestan language: Genesis 14 is in a particularly archaic form of the language, indistinguishable from Canaanite of the 18th century BCE; Genesis 21 (which contains an early instance of YHWH) is not that old, but still considerably older than anything in Avestan (7th century at best).

Bob X: That "h" was originally an "s" (Vedic Sanskrit asura); the shift in Avestan of all the Indo-European sibilants to "h" or nothing, and shift of other sounds to sibilants, is what makes it worthless to try to find cognates by looking at words which have accidental resemblances that did not exist until after these shifts.

But why does that mean that the name Yahweh couldn't have come from Avestan? I'm not saying it came from Sanskrit or Proto-Indo-Iranian.

When the name "YHWH" came into use, languages like Vedic Sanskrit (with asura but not ahura) did exist, but Avestan with its s->h shift was not in existence yet.

Bob X: Which is why it is silly to think of Asha as the source for anything that contains a sibilant: that "sh" JUST WASN'T THERE until a late stage in the development of the language.

Again, why does that mean that the Hebrew couldn't have come from Avestan? If you're going to place the Hebrew language before the Avestan language then I see why not

Precisely.

Don't you think its futile to deny the possibility that there was an exchange of language and ideas between the Indo-Europeans and the Afro-Asiatic peoples, especially while the Jews had been under Persian influence for so long, and later the Indo-Europeans under Christianity and Islam?

AFTER Cyrus, yes certainly there were was a lot of impact from Zoroastrian thought. The Hebrew Bible did not have any concept of afterlife, either heavenly or hellish (just the blankness of Sheol the "pit" or "grave"); your reward for good deeds was to have your descendants multiplied, and your punishment for evil to have your lineage extincted (very Darwinian); when God is said to "save" someone, it is from an earthly peril, not from any eternal damnation; nor was there any personification of Evil opposite to God (S'atan the "accuser" or "prosecutor" worked for YHWH, his job being to sniff out secret wrongs and bring them to the divine attention). All of this had changed by the New Testament period, and Persian influence here is undeniable. But you are trying to make out Zoroastrianism as a source for the earlier ideology, which was quite dissimilar.

And likewise, AFTER Christianity and Islam, there were many attempts to link totally non-Semitic peoples like Scots or Afghans or whoever to a completely mythical past in the Mideast, when historically there was no such connection. But you are trying to take such late-invented and baseless stories as literal truth.

Bob X: Hypothesized BY WHOM? This is a new one on me, not one that seems to have any more plausibility than the rest of your grasping at random resemblances.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_(name)

All I see in the article is that "Afghan" probably derives from as'van "horseman", a word with no connection whatsoever to "Joseph". And: a story about Afghans deriving from Israel was invented in the 17th century by a poet at the Mughal court; there is no reason to believe it any older than that.

The root of this form is also the root of the word Afghan and the Yusofzai Pashtuns are the direct linguistic descendants of the Zoroastrian or Avestan people.

The name Yusof is found in post-Islamic Afghanistan just as "Joseph" in post-Christian Europe.

Bob X: Pashtun is of the Indo-Iranian family, but in no way a descendant of Avestan

Not according to what Prof. Micheal Henderson has to say; see http://people.ku.edu/~mmth/Four_varieties_of_Pashto.pdf

He says Pashto is from some Old Iranian language like Avestan: he has to use Avestan since we don't have written documentation of other Iranian languages of that vintage; but some of the shifts (particularly involving the sibilants) which are characteristic of Avestan did not happen in Pashto, which is descended from some relative of Avestan. As an analogy, the only way to document older forms of Germanic roots as seen in English or Danish or whatever is to look at Gothic, the first Germanic language to be written down-- but no modern Germanic language is descended from Gothic, which had some peculiarities not found in any of the later languages; modern Germanic languages are descended from some old Germanic language which was related to, but not identical to, Gothic.

 

[mojobadshah]

There are some extra-biblical forms (for a god of metal-workers) that have been compared to YHWH, but whether that is the source or not is not the point here.
Sections of the Hebrew Bible itself are considerably older than the Avestan language: Genesis 14 is in a particularly archaic form of the language, indistinguishable from Canaanite of the 18th century BCE; Genesis 21 (which contains an early instance of YHWH) is not that old, but still considerably older than anything in Avestan (7th century at best).

That Hebrew is older than Avestan may or may not be the case. But I'm talking about one word here so what is the early instance of YHWH in Genesis 21? And wasn't Genesis written in Persia after the Babylonian captivity?

see Text and Composition Book of Genesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When the name "YHWH" came into use, languages like Vedic Sanskrit (with asura but not ahura) did exist, but Avestan with its s->h shift was not in existence yet.

Didn't the name YHWH come into use in Genesis?

All I see in the article is that "Afghan" probably derives from as'van "horseman", a word with no connection whatsoever to "Joseph". And: a story about Afghans deriving from Israel was invented in the 17th century by a poet at the Mughal court; there is no reason to believe it any older than that.

The name Yusof is found in post-Islamic Afghanistan just as "Joseph" in post-Christian Europe.

What am I missing? Did you read this part?

"The former Aspins of Chitral and Ashkuns (Yashkuns) of Gilgit are identified as the modern representatives of the Pāṇinian Aśvakayanas (Greek: Assakenoi); and the Asip/Isap (cf. Aspa-zai > Yusufzai) in the Kabul valley (between the rivers Kabul and Indus) are believed to be modern representatives of the Pāṇinian Aśvayanas (Greek: Aspasioi) respectively." -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_(name)

He says Pashto is from some Old Iranian language like Avestan: he has to use Avestan since we don't have written documentation of other Iranian languages of that vintage; but some of the shifts (particularly involving the sibilants) which are characteristic of Avestan did not happen in Pashto, which is descended from some relative of Avestan. As an analogy, the only way to document older forms of Germanic roots as seen in English or Danish or whatever is to look at Gothic, the first Germanic language to be written down-- but no modern Germanic language is descended from Gothic, which had some peculiarities not found in any of the later languages; modern Germanic languages are descended from some old Germanic language which was related to, but not identical to, Gothic.

What kind of silibants are we talking about here?

 

[bob x]

That Hebrew is older than Avestan may or may not be the case.

There is not any question about that whatsoever.

But I'm talking about one word here so what is the early instance of YHWH in Genesis 21?

Gen. 22:14 is the correct cite.

And wasn't Genesis written in Persia after the Babylonian captivity?

The final text, that is, the one that has been copied letter-for-letter ever since, was publicly read by Ezra under the Persian administration (Neh. 8:1-8). Except for fundamentalist orthodox Jews (ask Bananabrain) few believe that the text existed in precisely that form any earlier-- but, no scholars doubt that the source materials are older, in some cases vastly older. We are certain of this because of the very archaic forms of the Hebrew language which occur in some parts (early Hebrew is not separable from late Canaanite; it was a continuous development). There is no consensus on how to disentangle the different sources, but it is clear that the dates of these sources range all the way back to the 18th century BCE.

Didn't the name YHWH come into use in Genesis?

Yes-- and in some of the very old parts of that book.

What am I missing? Did you read this part?

"The former Aspins of Chitral and Ashkuns (Yashkuns) of Gilgit are identified as the modern representatives of the Pāṇinian Aśvakayanas (Greek: Assakenoi); and the Asip/Isap (cf. Aspa-zai > Yusufzai) in the Kabul valley (between the rivers Kabul and Indus) are believed to be modern representatives of the Pāṇinian Aśvayanas (Greek: Aspasioi) respectively."

I don't know what you're missing. It should be naked-eye obvious that the old forms of the name don't look like "Joseph" in the slightest, and that only the post-Islamic adoption of that name by one small tribelet would suggest any connection. When it says "Aspa-zai > Yusufzai", the ">" sign means that the authors assume (as, so far as I know, everybody would assume) that the "Yusuf" form is the late development; you seem to think it is the source.

What kind of silibants are we talking about here?

"Sibilants" are the sounds that resemble "s" and "z"; more complex sibilants are the "hushing" sounds ("sh" and "zh"), the "whistled" sibilant (written s' when transcribed from Sanskrit as in S'ri Lanka; the sound doesn't exist in English); and "affricates" in which a "stop" sound is then released in a sibilant manner ("ts" and "dz"; also English "ch" is really t+sh and English "j" is really d+zh).

Avestan has a peculiar shift in which the original simple sibilant "s" from Indo-European changes to "h" or nothing: and in the languages descended from Avestan (Farsi, Dari, Tadzhik) related sounds also start to decay similarly (the sun-god Mitra in Vedic Sanskrit has a weaker sound Mithra in Avestan, and became the name-element Mehra in later Persian). When I speak of "Hebrew being older than Avestan", I mean specifically that most of the Hebrew forms in Genesis are from earlier periods than this specific shift which characterizes "Avestan" as opposed to any other Indo-Iranian tongue.

The Indo-Iranian group in general tended to show what is called the centum/s'atam shift, of "k" sounds in the original Indo-European, as preserved in older languages from western branches, to complex sibilants. The archetypal case is Latin centum "hundred" which was pronounced "kentum" (although later western languages did tend to shift this to a sibilant: French, Spanish, Italian etc. all now start their versions of the "cent" word with an "s" sound), with that "k" also preserved in Greek hekaton and in the older Germanic forms of hundred (that "h" used to be a "kh" as in Gothic khont); in Sanskrit it is s'atam with that "whistled" sound. The case discussed before of the Greek worship cry Iakkhe! related to Sanskrit yajna and Avestan yaz is the same centum/s'atam shift (note that in Sanskrit it is a complex sibilant, becoming a simple sibilant in Avestan as the original simple sibilants disappear). And the word for "horse" in Indo-European was something like *akwo as in Latin equus, but shifting in the east to things like Sanskrit as'va.

What is noteworthy about Afghan is that the centum/s'atam shift did not take hold early, unlike the rest of the Indo-Iranian family; the pronunciations have slowly been influenced by the neighbors, but the original "k" sounds have sometimes shown remarkable persistence. The tribal name Pakhto did not shift to Pashto until recent centuries, and the "sh" pronunciation is not 100% established even today. And the name "Afghan" seems to have come from a variant pronunciation more like akhvan than the Sanskrit as'van. There is no question that the Pashtun language is from the Indo-Iranian branch, and its ancestor would have been closer to Iranian languages like Avestan than to Indic languages like Sanskrit, but it has gone its own way for a long time; this is the sense in which I say it is certainly not descended from Avestan (it was already going in a different direction before Avestan made its particular combination of shifts) although descended from a "cousin" of Avestan.

 

[mojobadshah]

Gen. 22:14 is the correct cite.

Yaweh?

The final text, that is, the one that has been copied letter-for-letter ever since, was publicly read by Ezra under the Persian administration (Neh. 8:1-8). Except for fundamentalist orthodox Jews (ask Bananabrain) few believe that the text existed in precisely that form any earlier-- but, no scholars doubt that the source materials are older, in some cases vastly older. We are certain of this because of the very archaic forms of the Hebrew language which occur in some parts (early Hebrew is not separable from late Canaanite; it was a continuous development). There is no consensus on how to disentangle the different sources, but it is clear that the dates of these sources range all the way back to the 18th century BCE.

When you say late Canaanite are you talking about a proto-language, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, what?.

I don't know what you're missing. It should be naked-eye obvious that the old forms of the name don't look like "Joseph" in the slightest, and that only the post-Islamic adoption of that name by one small tribelet would suggest any connection. When it says "Aspa-zai > Yusufzai", the ">" sign means that the authors assume (as, so far as I know, everybody would assume) that the "Yusuf" form is the late development; you seem to think it is the source.

No. I was saying that the forms Yusuf and Asip are related. So now are we in agreement that the form Yusuf developed from the form Asip?

"Sibilants" are the sounds that resemble "s" and "z"; more complex sibilants are the "hushing" sounds ("sh" and "zh"), the "whistled" sibilant (written s' when transcribed from Sanskrit as in S'ri Lanka; the sound doesn't exist in English); and "affricates" in which a "stop" sound is then released in a sibilant manner ("ts" and "dz"; also English "ch" is really t+sh and English "j" is really d+zh).

This source seems to be implying that Pashto was descended from Avestan as well - Introduction. On the origin and relationship of the Pashto |

Avestan has a peculiar shift in which the original simple sibilant "s" from Indo-European changes to "h" or nothing: and in the languages descended from Avestan (Farsi, Dari, Tadzhik) related sounds also start to decay similarly (the sun-god Mitra in Vedic Sanskrit has a weaker sound Mithra in Avestan, and became the name-element Mehra in later Persian). When I speak of "Hebrew being older than Avestan", I mean specifically that most of the Hebrew forms in Genesis are from earlier periods than this specific shift which characterizes "Avestan" as opposed to any other Indo-Iranian tongue.

But why would that mean that this one word couldn't have been introduced from another language around the time Gensis was compiled under the Persians? Also, are you saying that Farsi, Dari, and Tadzhik developed from Avestan?

 

[bob x]

Yaweh?

YHWH-Yireh, "the LORD is seeing"

When you say late Canaanite are you talking about a proto-language, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, what?

No, I am talking about what was being spoken and written in Canaan in the early 2nd millenium BCE. This is from the "Central Semitic" group; Akkadian and its later derivatives Assyrian and Babylonian are the "Eastern Semitic" group, the Ethiopic languages (Amharic, Tigre etc.) and some south Arabian tongues are the "South Semitic" group, while Arabic, Aramaic, and Canaanite (from which developed Phoenician as well as Hebrew) are the "Central Semitic" group. The "proto" languages would be hypothetical ancestors of those three groups, or the "proto-Semitic" common ancestor of them all; proto-Afroasiatic in turn would be the common ancestor of Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, and Chaddic.

No. I was saying that the forms Yusuf and Asip are related.

And I am telling you that they are not. They have a mild coincidental resemblance. The English word asp "African poisonous viper" resembles Asip more closely, but is not "related" (the meanings are not close, and the words are ancient in English and Iranian long before there was regular contact between English-speakers and Iranian-speakers anyway).

So now are we in agreement that the form Yusuf developed from the form Asip?

A story was invented that Afghans descended from Israelite royalty-- apparently this was invented in the 17th century CE. Subsequent to that, the Asip-zai tribe started using the Yusof-zai name, based on the vague resemblance between Asip and Yusof-- but Yusof (or Yusuf: "u" and "o" are not really distinguished in Arabic) had been a standard Islamic name for a thousand years by then; and it was derived from the name Yoseph which had been in the standard Hebrew texts for a thousand years before that, and evidently in the older Hebrew sources for a thousand years before that, and the root "to increase" had been in Semitic languages for thousands of years before that.

Now, I am sure that the "Asip" who decided to start calling themselves "Yusof" sincerely believed that there was ancient truth behind the story that they were of Israelite descent: but there is no reason to think they were correct about that. If the names were really related, then what you should find is that the forms going back deeper and deeper into the past are MORE alike-- rather than LESS, as is actually the case. The "p" in Asip used to be a "v"; the vowel in the second syllable didn't used to be there at all; the "s" used to be a whistled-s coming ultimately from a "k".

This source seems to be implying that Pashto was descended from Avestan as well - Introduction. On the origin and relationship of the Pashto |

It begins with a plea that nobody anymore take seriously the nonsense about any relationship between Afghan and Semitic!

Afghan is Indo-Iranian, quite obviously so; and is intermediate between Indic and Iranian, but closer to Iranian, as your source says, and I agree. When he talks about the "Zend" group, he means what most linguists call "Iranian", "Zend" being an alternate name for "Avestan"; when he talks about the "Indo-Aryan" or "Prakrit" group, he means what most linguists call "Indic", "Prakrit" being a generic term for any of the various ancient vernaculars derived from the Vedic Sanskrit. He points out that Pashtun retains some features which are found in the Indic and not in the Iranian; although in more cases it resembles Iranians rather than Indic.

When Proto-Indo-Iranian broke up, it did not break up into just two languages, but into several, at least five of which have left descendants (how many simply died out, we cannot know). The "Dardic" languages spoken in parts of Kashmir and adjoining regions are not Indic, and not Iranian, and not particularly "in the middle" either, just a group which went its own way from the beginning (and there were probably more than two languages originally spoken in India than just the Proto-Indic, which was identical to or very close to Vedic Sanskrit, and the Dard, but the others were overwhelmed, and did not find a corner to hide as Dardic did). And in "Greater Iran" (the region from Black Sea to eastern steppes where "Iranian" languages are found), there were at least three: West-Iranian was distinct in several respects from Central-Iranian (which has remained fairly cohesive from ancient Avestan to the present day; there isn't a sharp border where Farsi stops and Dari starts, or where Dari stops and Tadzhik starts, rather they slide into each other), but unfortunately none of the ancient languages in the "West" group (Scyth, Mitanni, Mede) were well-recorded, and the modern examples (Kurdish, Ossetian) were not well-recorded until quite recently. And then there is an East-Iranian group, which we are talking about here: Pashtun, Hazara, Baluchi. The ancestor did not change from Proto-Indo-Iranian in all the same ways that Avestan did; it retained some features which were otherwise found rather in India (we have one ancient example of the group, the "Pahlavi" spoken by the Parthians, who took over Iran contemporary with the early Roman emperors, starting from an eastern base).

But why would that mean that this one word couldn't have been introduced from another language around the time Gensis was compiled under the Persians?

Yoseph was not just an isolated name in a genealogy; rather, the hero of an old cycle of stories, old enough to come in multiple versions. The compiled text merges two versions (often repeating the same incident with slight differences) in two distinct dialects (there are systematic vocabulary shifts between the two), both of which are centuries older than the late Hebrew spoken under the Persian regime (as different from that late Hebrew as Shakespearean English is from American English). And the root is used as the ordinary verb for "to increase", in multiple derivations scattered all over the text (as also found in non-Biblical Semitic texts, as far back as we have any Semitic languages at all). There is not the slightest connection between the Joseph stories and any Zoroastrian stories-- and not a single mention, anywhere, of a horse, or suggestion that any of these people knew how to ride a horse (horsemen just weren't around in the time and place the stories were set).

Also, are you saying that Farsi, Dari, and Tadzhik developed from Avestan?

Or something exceedingly close to it. Avestan is as good a representative of Proto-Central-Iranian as we can hope to get (as Vedic Sanskrit is for Proto-Indic).

 

[mojobadshah]

YHWH-Yireh, "the LORD is seeing"

No, I am talking about what was being spoken and written in Canaan in the early 2nd millenium BCE. This is from the "Central Semitic" group; Akkadian and its later derivatives Assyrian and Babylonian are the "Eastern Semitic" group, the Ethiopic languages (Amharic, Tigre etc.) and some south Arabian tongues are the "South Semitic" group, while Arabic, Aramaic, and Canaanite (from which developed Phoenician as well as Hebrew) are the "Central Semitic" group. The "proto" languages would be hypothetical ancestors of those three groups, or the "proto-Semitic" common ancestor of them all; proto-Afroasiatic in turn would be the common ancestor of Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, and Chaddic.

Now are you saying that variations of the form YHWH-Yireh can be found in other [Central] Canannite languages that date back to the 18th century B.C.? If so what are some examples of these forms? And what would be its proto-Afroasiatic form?

 

[bob x]

Now are you saying that variations of the form YHWH-Yireh can be found in other [Central] Canannite languages that date back to the 18th century B.C.? If so what are some examples of these forms? And what would be its proto-Afroasiatic form?

No, I am saying that the place-name YHWH-Yireh is the particular context in which the holy name is found in that particular passage of Genesis. The second element (the verb "to see") of course is all over the place; but the only extra-Biblical ancient usages of something like YHWH that I know of are the YW forms (no vowels were written so we do not know pronunciation) for a god of metal-workers, which some take as the source.

 

[mojobadshah]

No, I am saying that the place-name YHWH-Yireh is the particular context in which the holy name is found in that particular passage of Genesis. The second element (the verb "to see") of course is all over the place; but the only extra-Biblical ancient usages of something like YHWH that I know of are the YW forms (no vowels were written so we do not know pronunciation) for a god of metal-workers, which some take as the source.

YW doesn't have the H in it either so how did this form or its proto-form develop into YHWH? And where can this extra-Biblical YW be found?

 

[mojobadshah]

Sorry, I think I see the relationship between YW and YHWH now. The proto-form developed into YW in one direction and YHWH in another, but just out of curiosity where can this extra-Biblical form be found? But what about YHWH-Yireh? The proto-form developed into YW in one direction and YHWH-Yireh in another so would the proto-form have been closer in resemblance to YHWH-Yireh? Then I could see how a contraction Yatha Ahura Vairya couldn't have developed into YHWH-Yireh unless there is something that I'm missing like an Avestan form that resembled Yireh. Because the way I see it you're presupposing that the Canaanite languages was attested before Avestan which I realize is the conventional viewpoint. But now that I think about it I recall that the form Asha was used in Sumerian which if true would at least place this form before the Canannite languages.

 

[bob x]

where can this extra-Biblical form be found?

Ugaritic inscription KTU 1.1:IV:14 "my son should not be named after Yaw, but after Yam [god of the sea]" c. 1450 BCE; some names from the city of Ebla (c. 1800 BCE) have been thought to be named after Yaw but there is controversy about this. The deity was associated with the Kenites: the root means "to produce" and these appear to have been a tribe of itinerant smiths (like the "Tinkers" of Europe, who merged into the Gypsies). Moses married a Kenite woman, according to Exodus; Jeremiah notes a community of them still living in Judah just before its fall, and praises them for pious adherence to their laws against ever drinking alcohol or cutting their hair. "Cain" in Genesis may have been their ancestor-figure (one genealogy in Genesis tracing all the descendants of Cain repeats a lot of the names in the second genealogy tracing humankind to a non-murderous brother Seth; maybe Cain was the ancestor of us all in the original myth, but somebody found that too hard to take).

But what about YHWH-Yireh? The proto-form developed into YW in one direction and YHWH-Yireh

No no no. The second element in the place-name is just yireh "sees".

you're presupposing that the Canaanite languages was attested before Avestan which I realize is the conventional viewpoint.

Canaanite just IS attested before Avestan, over a thousand years before. That's not a question of "viewpoint": the word "attested" means "what we have actually found."

But now that I think about it I recall that the form Asha was used in Sumerian which if true would at least place this form before the Canannite languages.

The Sumerian language has no commonalities whatsoever in either vocabulary or grammar with Indo-European or Semitic. Its origins are mysterious and controversial.

 

[mojobadshah]

Ugaritic inscription KTU 1.1:IV:14 "my son should not be named after Yaw, but after Yam [god of the sea]" c. 1450 BCE; some names from the city of Ebla (c. 1800 BCE) have been thought to be named after Yaw but there is controversy about this. The deity was associated with the Kenites: the root means "to produce" and these appear to have been a tribe of itinerant smiths (like the "Tinkers" of Europe, who merged into the Gypsies). Moses married a Kenite woman, according to Exodus; Jeremiah notes a community of them still living in Judah just before its fall, and praises them for pious adherence to their laws against ever drinking alcohol or cutting their hair. "Cain" in Genesis may have been their ancestor-figure (one genealogy in Genesis tracing all the descendants of Cain repeats a lot of the names in the second genealogy tracing humankind to a non-murderous brother Seth; maybe Cain was the ancestor of us all in the original myth, but somebody found that too hard to take).

I hear what you're saying. I haven't done the extralinguistic and paleolinguistic study so I can't confirm what you're saying, but ultimately there's no way to know these dates are accurate. The Greeks placed Zoroaster 5000 years before the siege of Troy, and though present day linguists refute this claim, didn't people also refute the siege of Troy at one time too, yet it turned out to be an actual event? However, I can see how one could determine the archaic nature of a language. Like how Gathic is more archaic than Sanskrit because there are morphological elements in Gathic that have disappeared by the time Zend was introduced and these same elements that do not appear in Gathic don't appear in Sanskrit. In other words Sanskrit resembles Younger Avestan more than it does Older Avestan.

Canaanite just IS attested before Avestan, over a thousand years before. That's not a question of "viewpoint": the word "attested" means "what we have actually found."

Yet linguists have also placed Zoroaster c. 1500 around the time of the Mittani which would only place Canaanite 300 years before Avestan.

No no no. The second element in the place-name is just yireh "sees".

So YHWH-Yireh is a contraction of YHWH and Yireh?

The Sumerian language has no commonalities whatsoever in either vocabulary or grammar with Indo-European or Semitic. Its origins are mysterious and controversial.

Yeah, that's what I thought until I read this article - LINGUIST List 7.1222: Sumerian and PIE which appears to be implying that Sumerian is closer to Indo-European than any other language family and I've seen other sites like this one.

 

[bob x]

there's no way to know these dates are accurate.

You aren't going to go all creationist on me, are you?

The Greeks placed Zoroaster 5000 years before the siege of Troy

No, "the Greeks" didn't; if you have some single author in mind, obviously he was talking through his hat.

didn't people also refute the siege of Troy at one time too, yet it turned out to be an actual event?

I wouldn't say anybody "refuted" Troy: that would mean making a positive argument, based on the evidence, that it didn't happen. People did regard the evidence of old epics as insufficient to prove that it did happen; indeed we wouldn't feel confident that it did without more.

Gathic is more archaic than Sanskrit because there are morphological elements in Gathic that have disappeared by the time Zend was introduced and these same elements that do not appear in Gathic don't appear in Sanskrit. In other words Sanskrit resembles Younger Avestan more than it does Older Avestan.

That is not an argument that Gathic is more archaic than Sanskrit, unless you are claiming that Indo-Iranian had not yet broken up by the time of Gathic, which it clearly had. Rather, the greater resemblance of later Avestan to Sanskrit reflects regional diffusion of pronunciation and grammatical habits from India to the west.

Yet linguists have also placed Zoroaster c. 1500 around the time of the Mittani

WHAT linguists? The Mittani spoke a West-Iranian tongue quite distinct from the Central-Iranian ("Persian") group, and worshipped a large pantheon in which Buriyash the North Wind was the chief of the weather gods and Shuriyash the Sun the chief of the planetary gods, etc. Zoroaster was a contemporary of Cyrus I, grandfather of Cyrus the Great; and the linguistic evidence for Avestan is considerably later than Zoroaster's time: as in the Qur'an we often find stories in the Zend which are alluded to but not told (taking it for granted that we already know the stories), indicating a previous stage of development; you are correct however that the Gatha hymns are more archaic in linguistic form.

So YHWH-Yireh is a contraction of YHWH and Yireh?

There's no contraction here. It is quite straightforward.

Yeah, that's what I thought until I read this article - LINGUIST List 7.1222: Sumerian and PIE which appears to be implying that Sumerian is closer to Indo-European than any other language family and I've seen other sites like this one.

Quite interesting, thanks. There are of course lots of claims made about Sumerian (as about Basque or Etruscan or other mysterious old languages) that are rubbish, but I have encountered Miguel Carrasquez before and consider him a respectable source.

Note however that even if Sumerian is closer to Indo-European and kin than to anything else, it is still not at all "close": the separation must have been tens of thousands of years. The pronouns, low numerals, kinship terms, and grammatical affixes, which are usually very stable elements and helpful for long-range classification, are alien and weird in Sumerian (as Miguel acknowledges). The comparisons to Indo-European roots require numerous systematic consonant-shifts (a word in Sumerian is never related to a word in Indo-European which looks the same, but rather to something that looks different in some particular way), and most of the Indo-European roots he cites to are very rare ones, for which he cannot give examples in generally familiar languages; this indicates a large-scale shift in usage of the vocabulary.