Pelasgian/was Etruscans

Douglas G Kilday acnasvers at hotmail.com
Thu May 10 05:40:54 UTC 2001


Rick Mc Callister (30 Apr 2001) wrote:

>	I've seen somewhere (in popular etymological books) that
>	cypressus and kuparissos are from Semitic
>	and are cognate to English gopher (wood) --which was used for
>Noah's Ark (if I remember correctly),
>	and also cognate to Cyprus "(is)land of conifers"
>	--and indirectly copper (metal from Cyprus).

>	It does sound a bit pat and the -ssos ending looks suspiciously
>pre-Greek substrate rather than Semitic but I plead ignorance

>	So, are cypressus and kuparissos from Semitic?
>	If gopher (wood) derived from Hebrew or just a variant form derived
>from cypressus or kuparissos?
>	Is there a link between Cyprus and cypress?

>	Or is this all someone's wishful thinking?

All three variants (Lat. cupressus, Gk. kuparissos, Heb. go:pher) are most
likely derived from pre-Greek substrate, which I have been calling
"Pelasgian", also known as "Aegean" or "Aegeo-Anatolian". The Latin spelling
with cypr- reflects a belief (probably mistaken) that the word was borrowed
from Greek.

The wood is resinous, and Davies-Mitchell consider <go:pher> akin to
<ko:pher> 'village, pitch, henna, ransom' which are all "coverings" derived
from <k-p-r> 'to cover', so in their view the dendronym is Semitic. This is
refuted IMHO by Gen. 6:14, which uses the two lexemes distinctly: <te:bhath
!'ac,ey-gho:pher> 'ark of gopher-wood' but <bakko:pher> 'with pitch' (lit.
'in the pitch') and <w'kha:pharta:> 'and thou shalt pitch'.

The simple word occurs only in Gen. 6:14, but the derivative <gophriyth>
'sulfur, brimstone' (presumably named after similarity to burning
tree-resin) is found 7 times in the OT. The usage of the simple word in the
compound suggests that <go:pher> actually means 'resin', perhaps a specific
(fragrant?) type. The Latin and Greek dendronyms carry the generic
denominative suffix of the substrate, so one can provisionally extract
"Pelasgian" *kupar- '(fragrant?) resin'.

I have no solid information on the origin of the name "Cyprus". It is not
recognizable in the OT with the possible exception of <?iy kaphtowr> 'isle
of Caphtor' (Jer. 47:4) which, as homeland of the Philistines, is more
likely a reference to Crete. Aramaic has the adjective <kwpryy> 'Cypriot',
but this is almost certainly borrowed from Greek.

DGK



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