Did Proto-Indo-European Have a Word for Wheat? Hittite šeppit(t)- Revisited and the Rise of Post-PIE Cereal Terminology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23134162 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Hyllested (0000-0002-2516-6117, Center for Applied Linguistics, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Pages | 130-143 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-06 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Dispersals and Diversification (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004416192_007 |
| OpenAlex | W3134051734 |
| ISBN | 9789004416192 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Hittite šeppit(t)- ‘(a kind of) wheat’ can be identified as a borrowing from Akkadian or another Semitic language, identical to the Mediterranean culture-word that has ended up in English as semnel. There is thus no basis for a PIE reconstruction *sép-it meaning ‘wheat’. The very suffix *-it, which Watkins (1978) interpreted as a marker for ‘(basic) foodstuffs’, is likewise a phantom. Balkan Indo-European *álbh-it and Iranian *arpucya-, both ‘barley’, are borrowings from separate dialectal reflexes of Turkic *arpa ‘barley’; the former acquired its suffix in analogy with *mél-it ‘honey’ because the two terms were interpreted as *albh- ‘white’ and *mel- ‘dark’, respectively—an important distinction in ritual contexts.
Akkadian · Arabic · Biology · Hittite language · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Phonology · Semitic languages · Suffix · Terminology · Triticeae · Word formation · Ancient Near East History · History · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.8 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |