Iberia

[Douglas G Kilday]

Max Wheeler (12 Dec 2000) wrote:

>Some further curiosities w.r.t. Latin Iberia:

>1. The preferred form for this root in Latin seems to be Hibjr-; Greek
>texts seem to have /ibjr-/ (with smooth breathing) though Greek may well
>have lost the phomeme /h/ by the time this word came to be recorded.

This resembles the discrepancy between Lat. <Hannibal> and Gk. <Annibas> in
transcribing <Channi:ba`al> 'favor of Ba`al'. Greek makes <e:ta> out of West
Semitic <che:th> and sometimes transcribes the pharyngeal `ayin initially
with the smooth breathing: LXX <Astarte:> for Heb. <`As^to:reth>, Punic
<`s^trt>. The Greek smooth breathing was probably not as smooth as our
simple glottal stop.

The discrepancy suggests that the initial sound was close to che:th, which
is usually taken as [x]. It is worth noting that West Semitic has a radical
Ch-B-R 'to bind, unite, join, etc.' which forms several nouns including Heb.
<cha:be:r> 'associate', pl. <chabe:ri:m>. It is conceivable that Gk.
<ibe:res>, Lat. <Hiberes> are derived from the Punic term for 'allies,
foederati', applied originally to those natives whose leaders agreed with
Carthaginian policy in Spain.

Obviously this speculation says nothing about Georgia and doesn't apply to
river-names at all. If only we had the Carthaginian account of the
colonization of Spain.....

Doug Kilday