# Old Persian ardata- cognate with PIE *arg-



## PersoLatin

PIE *arg- means "to shine; white," hence "silver", it forms part of French 'argent' and English 'argue', but what did it mean in OP, as 'silver' at least in MP/NP is asim/sim?

Thank you.


----------



## apmoy70

I think the middle/modern Persian word is a borrowing from Byzantine Greek. In Byzantine Greek, colloquially, silver was *«ἀσήμιν» asḗmin*, Late ByzGr *asímin*, diminutive of the neuter noun *«ἄσημον» ásēmon* (Late ByzGr *ásimon*) --> _newly-cut unimpressed/unmarked silver coin_ = privative prefix *«ἀ-» a-* + neuter noun *«σῆμα» sêmă* --> _sign, symbol, trait, omen, mark, character, feature, gravestone_.
In MoGr colloquially, _silver_ is *ασήμι* [aˈsi.mi] (neut.).


----------



## PersoLatin

Thank you, although that doesn't answer my question, it is certainly more interesting, however isn’t Byzantine Greek rather late for Persian to borrow from especially for such a fundamental  metal?


----------



## ahvalj

In Old Persian, _ardatam_ is translated as “silver” — Darius' foundation tablet from Susa, line 40:
_abariya \ hya \ idâ \ karta \ ardatam_​(see below in the translation the phrase _The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt_).

The idea about the Greek origin of the Middle>New>modern Persian word does exist among Iranists. In Zoroastrian Pahlavi this word is _asēm~asēmēn_.


----------



## PersoLatin

ahvalj said:


> In Old Persian, _ardatam_ means “silver” — Darius' foundation tablet from Susa, line 40:
> _abariya \ hya \ idâ \ karta \ ardatam_(see below in the translation the phrase _The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt_).


 Thanks ahvalj.



ahvalj said:


> The idea about the Greek origin of the Middle>New>modern Persian word does exist among Iranists. In Zoroastrian Pahlavi this word is _asēm~asēmēn_.


Ok, so Persians dropped _ardata _in favour of _asēm~asēmēn_ at the Byzantine Greek period rather than the much earlier contact with the Greeks_? _

Do we know if _ardata _survived in MP/NP in some form?


----------



## ahvalj

PersoLatin said:


> Do we know if _ardata _survived in MP/NP in some form?


There is _ارزیز_ but, if indeed related, it must have been borrowed from a North-Western language because of this _z_. And the suffix is different as well.


----------



## eamp

From what I could find _asēm _was already the normal word for silver in the Sasanian period (found inscribed on a vessel ca. 300 AD), so must have been borrowed in the Roman era or earlier. 
For modern forms there is apparently Yazdi (Zoroastrian Dari/Gabri/Behdinan) _ālī _(< *ardata/arzata), but hard to actually find a dictionary for this language not locked away in a university library.


----------



## PersoLatin

Thank you.

ارزیر according to Dehkhoda means tin and Wiktionary lists it as  tin & lead.

_Yazd/یزد_, according to Wiktionary “from Avestan 𐬫𐬀𐬰𐬀𐬙𐬀‎ (yazata, “yazata, (an entity that is) *worthy* of worship”).”

How about NP arz /ارز “worth” although I’m sure someone would have spotted it by now.


----------



## ahvalj

_Āl- _is indeed an expected Middle/New Persian phonetic outcome of _ard-,_ compare in سال, also گل, دل.


----------



## PersoLatin

eamp said:


> For modern forms there is apparently Yazdi (Zoroastrian Dari/Gabri/Behdinan) _ālī _(< *ardata/arzata)


Does anyone know the actual NP for _ālī_ please, it can only be آلی ?


----------



## fdb

ahvalj said:


> _Āl- _is indeed an expected Middle/New Persian phonetic outcome of _ard-,_ compare in سال, also گل, دل.



More precisely, in Persian ard becomes āl as in sāl; ṛd (with vocalic ṛ) becomes il (as in dil) or ul (as in gul).


----------



## PersoLatin

^ Thank you fdb.



ahvalj said:


> _Āl- _is indeed an expected Middle/New Persian phonetic outcome of _ard-,_ compare in سال, also گل, دل.


Do these words (سال, also گل, دل) have, in some measure, the original meaning of PIE *arg-  in them, otherwise why are they relevant? Maybe in layman's terms please.


----------



## ahvalj

I meant that the Old Persian combination of sounds _rd_ becomes _l_ in the later language, and _ard_ becomes _āl,_ so the abovementioned_ ālī_ can indeed be derived from the Old Persian _ard-_ with some suffix.

Concerning the _d_ in the Old Persian _ardatam: _unlike in the rest of attested Iranic languages, the outcome of the Proto-Indo-European _*gʲ_ developed not into _z_ but into _*đ _and then into _d_ in this language, and therefore _ardatam_ is a regular, sound after sound, Old Persian continuation of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word and an exact counterpart of the Latin _argentum_.

_Yazdi_ in #7 means a term, not an etymologically related syllable.


----------



## PersoLatin

ahvalj said:


> _Yazdi_ in #7 means a term, not an etymologically related syllable.


I thought that was the case so drafted a post to ask for clarification but changed my mind, so red faced either way  .


----------



## Dib

PersoLatin said:


> ^ Thank you fdb.
> 
> Do these words (سال, also گل, دل) have, in some measure, the original meaning of PIE *arg-  in them, otherwise why are they relevant? Maybe in layman's terms please.



These are just parallel examples of the Old Persian rd sequence developing into New Persian l. I am too lazy to look up the exact attested and reconstructed forms right now, but they would be roughly something like θard-, dṛd- and wṛd- in Old Persian. Compare the first two with Sanskrit śarad- and hṛd-; the last with the loanword in Arabic: ward-.


----------



## fdb

ahvalj said:


> In Old Persian, _ardatam_ is translated as “silver” — Darius' foundation tablet from Susa, line 40:
> _abariya \ hya \ idâ \ karta \ ardatam_​(see below in the translation the phrase _The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt_).



The passage to which this translation belongs is in lines 40-41: rdatam \ utâ \ asâ \ dâruv \ hacâ \ Mudrâyâ \ abariya \

The word written a-r-d-t-m was probably pronounced as ṛδatam (nom. sing. neuter) with zero-grade in the first syllable, like Avestan ərəzata- .


----------



## Abaye

apmoy70 said:


> I think the middle/modern Persian word is a borrowing from Byzantine Greek. In Byzantine Greek, colloquially, silver was *«ἀσήμιν» asḗmin*, Late ByzGr *asímin*, diminutive of the neuter noun *«ἄσημον» ásēmon* (Late ByzGr *ásimon*) --> _newly-cut unimpressed/unmarked silver coin_ = privative prefix *«ἀ-» a-* + neuter noun *«σῆμα» sêmă* --> _sign, symbol, trait, omen, mark, character, feature, gravestone_.
> In MoGr colloquially, _silver_ is *ασήμι* [aˈsi.mi] (neut.).


The term _asimon_ exists in Hebrew no later than the 2nd century (appears several times in the Mishnah) so could be borrowed by Persian too before the Byzantine era. Denotes the meaning as described above: "unsigned", a piece of metal similar to coin but with no specified value.

Also attested in Hebrew of 7th century and used intensively in the 20th century, but this is off-topic.


----------

