Publication details
Tocharian A kopräNk ‘antelope, deer’
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Tocharian and Indo-European Studies |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | Tocharian; Iranian; Indic; moonstone; etymology; haplology; umlaut |
| Description | With respect to the metal names wäs ‘gold’ and nkinc ‘silver’ appearing in the same text A303, where Tocharian A kopräNk is attested, Feist (1913) interpreted this word as a cognate of Latin cuprum and translated it as ‘copper’. Pinault analyzes the compound kopräNk-pärsánt as representing the poetic name of the moon-stone, originally “antelope-spotted”, judging from Sanskrit kuraNga-lánchana- ‘deer-spotted’, as a metaphoric designation of the moon with the spots resembling those of an antelope. In this perspective Tocharian A kopräNk is derivable from a Middle Iranian compound *kafra-ranku-, probably shortened via haplology to *kafranku- and further adapted to proto-Tocharian A *káprunk (as A tuNk vs. B taNkw ‘love’), and finally through u/w-umlaut (as in A motarci, B motartstse ‘green’ < *modhru-) and the change *u > ä resulted in kopräNk. The meaning of the assumed compound could be ‘a young of deer or antelope with a spotted coat’. |
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