- Learn the RUKI rule. In Indo-European languages, most things ended in -os/-us. Greek and Latin preserved a lot of that. However, in Iranian languages, you see most things ending in -ah (where the h isn't written.) Why? The RUKI rule. Generally, between Iranian and other IE languages, s becomes h (ie. sam-/ham-, soma/haoma, ) except after R, U, K (and X), and I, where it became š. Hence, Dārayavauš versus Darius.
- The word for "Good." It appears that the enclitic hu- meaning "good", is related to Greek eu. Interestingly enough, depending on the word it modifies, hu- can either end in a v (before vowels), nothing (before consonants), or a š before an h (via RUKI) -- this results in huš-/huv-.
- H -> X. Judging from Greek, Elamite and Akkadian transliterations, as well as development into Middle Persian, it appears that initial h especially before u was a very hard h, possibly pharyngeal, and eventually became x. So with above, what we'd see in huš-/huv would become xuš-/xuv- and eventually xuš/xub. This jives with New Persian, as both of those words mean "good," but with slightly different connotations.
Showing posts with label RUKI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RUKI. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2009
huš-/huv- and RUKI
An observation from study of Old Persian:
Labels:
middle persian,
new persian,
old persian,
persian,
RUKI
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