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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
G. bāp, bai, āpo, ái and Related IA. Kinship Words
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H. C. Bhayani*
This is an attempt to account for a particular IA. kinship word-group exclusively on phonological grounds. This is not to rule out influences also, either from the nursery vocabulary or from Dravidian, but they are deliberately not considered in the present discussion.
The typologies and data given in R. L. Turner's A Comparative Dictionary of IndoAryan Languages (1966) (=CDIAL; other abbreviations used here are according to it) are taken as the basis of this discussion. The numbers refer to the CDIAL entires.
The etymologies and interrelationships discussed here pertain to the following words (and their IA. cognates). The meanings and derivatives are given only when necessary.
G. båp 'father' (9209; 9147) G. bâyo 'wandering religious mendicant', 'father' (dial) G. bat 'woman', 'servant-girl', 'honorific female name-ending', 'mother' (dial)
(9198) G. ba 'mother', 'address to elderly woman', 'honorific female name-ending (9198). G. āp 'father' (dial.) (500) di 'grand-mother (deal), 'mother used before the name of a goddess' (Old
G., M.) (997) bapapa 'grand-father' (dial.)
The source-forms of these words and their cogoats reconstructed by Turner to explain their origins, are considered by him mostly to be nursery words.
I think regular phonological change can account for the development of the forms of this word-group and it reveals their interconnections. The changes can be figured out as follows: 1. OIA. *bäppa- .
(1) *bāppa- (m.) > *bāppa- (Early Northern MIR.) L.P bäp. (2) *bäppa > *bäppa- (Early Eastern MIA.) > *bdva- (Middle MIA)
G. bäys, B. H. etc. baba. (3) *bāva- (as per (2)) > M. ba 'honorific male name-ending'. (4) *bäppa-> bappa- (MIA) > G. etc. bäp.
* Hon. Prof., L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad
G. bap, bāi, apo, ai and Related IA. Kinship Words
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