# Old Persian: Artaxerxes



## Ben Jamin

Does anybody know a reliable etymology of the name *Artaxerxes*?
I tried to find it on the net, but no two sources agree with each other, which means that they are not reliable. Many look just like pure conjectures, taken from nowhere, i.e. from the author's brain.


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## apmoy70

Is wiki's entry unreliable?

From Old Persian _Artaxšaçā_, “whose reign is through truth”.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ἀρταξέρξης


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## Perseas

If we try an analysis,_

Artaxerxis_ > 
_Arta_: "... a common prefix of Achaemenid names meaning correctness, rightness, and ultimate (divine) truth". For ex. <<_Artabanus_, _Artaphernes>>_
+
_Xerxis_: Old Persian _Xšaya-ṛšā_ , "ruling over heroes"


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## fdb

apmoy70 said:


> Is wiki's entry unreliable?
> 
> From Old Persian _Artaxšaçā_, “whose reign is through truth”.
> 
> en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ἀρταξέρξης




Better: ṛta-xšaça-


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## fdb

Perseas said:


> If we try an analysis,_
> 
> Artaxerxis_ >
> _Arta_: "... a common prefix of Achaemenid names meaning correctness, rightness, and ultimate (divine) truth". For ex. <<_Artabanus_, _Artaphernes>>_
> +
> _Xerxis_: Old Persian _Xšaya-ṛšā_ , "ruling over heroes"



No, Artaxerxes is not Arta + Xerxes.


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## Ben Jamin

apmoy70 said:


> Is wiki's entry unreliable?
> 
> From Old Persian _Artaxšaçā_, “whose reign is through truth”.
> 
> en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ἀρταξέρξης


Wiki was alone in giving this explanation, and I was unable to judge if it was correct or not.


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## Dib

Ben Jamin said:


> Wiki was alone in giving this explanation, and I was unable to judge if it was correct or not.



Like fdb has mentioned above, it is supposed to _originally_* have been ṛta-xšaça-. Both elements have clear and profusely attested Indic cognates too: ṛta- and kṣatra-.  The first element (Old Persian, Sanskrit: ṛta-; Avestan: aša-) means  "truth, cosmic order, etc." and is an important part of Indo-Iranian  world view (e.g. Zoroastrian and Vedic theology). The second element  (xšaça-/kṣatra-) means "power (of a ruler),  dominion, etc.", the Old Persian term is used also in the sense of  "empire". The compound itself is what is called of "bahuvrīhi"-type,  to be understood indeed as "(one) whose power/dominion/reign is through  truth/cosmic order". Wiki is certainly right about this.

It may  be possible to further etymologize the elements ṛta- and xšaça-. ṛta-  looks formally like the perfect participle of ṛ- "to go, move, etc.",  which yields in Old Persian - with the "inchoative" suffix (PIE *sḱe-  > OP. sa-): OP rasatiy (he arrives). While the form matches exactly,  the semantics is harder to derive, but maybe that is not unexpected for such a  highly "philosophized" word.

"xšaça-" seems to contain the  primary suffix *-tra- > -ça- which forms neuter nouns (and "xšaça-"  is indeed neuter). The root may be related to "xšay-" (to rule >  xšayataiy, he rules), but I do see problems in reconciling the form.

---

* I say "originally", because this derivation yields an -a stem noun. But the actual attested forms seem to be -ā stem. I don't know the explanation for this change.


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## Wolverine9

fdb said:


> Better: ṛta-xšaça-



I've usually seen _arta-_ used in Old Persian, with _ṛta_- used as the reconstructed form for Proto-Iranian.  Has there been a change in the analysis of the Old Persian word?


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## fdb

Yes, there has been. In Old Persian cuneiform script the graphemes <a-r-> can represent /ār/ or /ar/ or /ṛ/. In Elamite script /ṛ/ is represented by <ir>. This word is written <ir-tá> in Elamo-Persian. This implies zero-grade /ṛta/, not full-grade /arta/.


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## Dib

Wolverine9 said:


> I've usually seen _arta-_ used in Old Persian, with _ṛta_- used as the reconstructed form for Proto-Iranian.  Has there been a change in the analysis of the Old Persian word?



Apart from the Elamite evidence mentioned by fdb, it seems their Middle Persian reflexes are also different. Prods Oktor Skjærvø mentions in his "An Introduction to Old Persian" that OP ar- > MP ar-, e.g. martiya- (Cuneiform: m-r-t-i-y-) > mard (man); but OP ṛ- > MP ir-/ur-, e.g. bazṛka- (b-z-r-k-) > (MP wuzurg?) > NP. bozorg (great), kṛta- (k-r-t-) > kird- (done). (Cf. pp 21, 63). I don't know Middle Persian at all, so I cannot really judge for myself though.

On a second thought, ṛtaxšaça- starts in ar- in MP, right? Probably Skjærvø missed cases where ṛ- too became ar-?


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## fdb

Dib said:


> On a second thought, ṛtaxšaça- starts in ar- in MP, right?



No, the Achaemenid kings are not mentioned in MP texts.


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## Dib

Well, I didn't necessarily mean Achaemenid kings. I was thinking more about the Sassanian kings bearing the same name's MP/Parthian reflexes.


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## fdb

*The Sasanian royal name Arda(x)šīr cannot so easily be derived directly from OP ṛta-xšaça-; the received view is that it is a hypocoristicon from *arta-xš-īra. (see Gignoux, IPNB ii/2 no. 126.) But that is not really the issue. The issue is that full-grade arta- and zero-grade ṛta- are largely interchangeable in Indo-Iranian.*


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## Dib

Ah, ok. Thank you.


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## fdb

….unless it is from *arta-xšīra- ‘whose mother-milk is righteousness, nurtured on righteousness’….


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