The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Evidently, the Hyksos were a highly mixed company. But
of all the things it may be, there is not a shred of evidence
for proto-Greek among them (the comparison of the Ugaritic
royal name Niqmadu to Greek Nikomedes is an ingenious
but futile attempt, not taking into account the fact that,
considering the royal name Niqmepu as attested for
Aleppo, the first element of the name appears to be
Niqm-). 162 And this is exactly the component which according
to the scenario of Best was so dominant that it
planted its language on the whole population of Greece. If
proto-Greeks were present among the Hyksos at all, and if
they entered Greece, I think their numbers must be assumed
to have thinned out to homeopathic proportions!
The third and final model is that of Stubbings, who, in
line with Best, paints the picture of a military conquest of
the Argolid by displaced Hyksos rulers, but, contrary to
Best, does not consider them proto-Greeks but simply foreigners
who were not numerous enough to cause a language
shift. The immediate consequence of this view is
that Greek developed from the languages of the population
groups already present in Greece at the time of the takeover
by the foreign military caste, in casu Thraco-Phrygian
and IE Anatolian. As a matter of fact, of these two languages
Thraco-Phrygian is so closely related to Greek that
it must be assumed to have once formed a linguistic continuum
with the latter. The similarity of Greek to Phrygian
was noted already by the ancient Greeks themselves. Thus
Plato makes Socrates remark in a dialogue that the Phrygians
have the same word slightly changed for pur “fire”,
hudr “water” and kunes “dogs” and many other words. 163
Especially the case of kunes (< PIE *k(u)won-) is interesting,
because it demonstrates that Phrygian, like Greek, is a
Drews 1988: 96-7, the temporary military superiority of the Indo-
Aryan invaders, probably originating from the Transcaucasian
steppes, during the late 18th and early 17th centuries BC is based
on their combination of the Near Eastern war-chariot with horsecontrol
in the form of the bit – a steppe innovation – , of which the
seal impressions and seal depicted in Littauer & Crouwel 1979:
figs. 33-4 and 36 bear testimony, whereas their Near Eastern opponents
up to that time were accustomed to the technical inferior
nose-ring, see, for example, the sealing depicted in Littauer &
Crouwel 1979: fig. 29.
162 Best 1992-3. Note, however, that the ethnonym Danaoi is likely
to be based on the PIE root *dnu- “river” as exemplified by the
Old European and North Pontic steppe river names Danube, Don,
Dnieper, and Dniester (see Sakellariou 1980: 175-7), which would
explain the mythical identification of the daughters of Danaos as
waternymphs.
163 Plato, Cratylus 410.
65
centum language. 164 The same holds good for Thracian,
which in an early inscription from Kjolmen shows the
form ekoa “mare” (< PIE *ekwo-). 165 Another outstanding
feature is formed by the relative pronoun, in which respect
Phrygian with the form ios or yos exhibits a particular affinity
to the Mycenaean forerunner of later Greek hos, i.e.
jo- as represented in the composite jo-qi (the use of these
forms instead of reflexes of PIE *k w i- or *k w o- is an innovation
which Greek and Phrygian share with Indo-Iranian,
which has ya-). 166 This Phrygian affinity to particularly
Mycenaean Greek can be further illustrated by the sequence
lavagtaei vanaktei (D sg. in -i) from a dating formula,
the roots of which strikingly recall the Mycenaean
titulary expressions ra-wa-ke-ta (= Greek lvgets)
“leader of the host” and wa-na-ka (= Greek (v)anaks)
“king”, respectively. The preservation of the wau, a typical
archaic feature, also characterizes Phrygian forms like
ev(e)- (cf. Greek eu- “good”), venavtun (cf. Greek heauton
“himself”), vetei (cf. Greek etos “year”), otuvoi (cf. Greek
ogdoos “eighth”), etc. 167 Of these forms venavtun (with
first element ven- < PIE *swe-) is also interesting in another
respect, as it shows the loss of the initial s which in
Greek becomes h (a development which Greek has in
common with Iranian and Armenian). 168 Furthermore, it
may be pointed out that both Phrygian and Thracian share
with Greek the use of the augment in the indicative of the
past tense, cf. Phrygian edaes “he dedicated” and Thracian
edakat “he made” (this is again an innovation which Greek
and this time Thraco-Phrygian share with this time Sanskrit).
169 If we realize, finally, that medio-passive forms in
-tor reported for Neo-Phrygian are problematic as Old
164 Note, however, that in New Phrygian satem influences as witnessed
by the form seiti < PIE *kei- “to lie, to be put to rest” may
have slipped in, see Diakonoff & Neroznak 1985: 132-3.
165 Woudhuizen 2000-1. Like it is the case with Phrygian (see the
previous note), in the late period satem influences, as represented
by esbi- “horse”, may have slipped in, see Detschew 1976: 171.
166 Crossland 1971: 866; cf. Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1995: 339;
345.
167 Woudhuizen 1993b. The given examples are based on the Old
Phrygian texts (8th-6th centuries BC) as discussed in Woudhuizen
1993a. I have purposely avoided to make use of parallels from
New Phrygian texts (2nd-3rd centuries AD), because, under the
overwhelming influence of Hellenism, this is actually on the way
of becoming a provincial form of Greek.
168 Crossland 1971: 853.
169 Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1995: 312.