Studies in the Historical Development of the Ossetic Vocalism

Abstract

According to John Batchelor (1975: XX), the Ainu word kaco 'shaman's drum' is a borrowing from Nivx qP c Pas/-xas 'id.'.This view has been accepted de facto for a long time and nobody suggested different options.For example, Janhunen in his important paper on Siberian shamanistic terminology came to the same conclusion as Batchelor in the Ainu section on Ainu shamanism (1986: 111).At this time, Vovin's book on the reconstruction of the Proto-Ainu language (1993) was not yet available.Had Janhunen been able to use Vovin's work, he would certainly have treated this Ainu shamanistic term differently.The main goal of this brief paper is therefore to demonstrate that a detailed analysis of the material will show that this conclusion is not precise, since kaco is of Ainu origin in the new light of evidence offered by Vovin's book.First, it is necessary to point out that Ainu kaco LH (Hattori 1964: 177) contains the affricate /c/, which according to Vovin does not belong to the Proto-Ainu phonological system.This fact is very important because Janhunen concluded in his paper that the borrowing from Nivx had taken place a long time ago.Presuming that Janhunen meant that this borrowing had taken place at Proto-Nivx and Proto-Ainu stages,T P 1 P T it is obviously necessary to deal with Proto-Nivx *kP h Pac P h PV and Proto-Ainu *katyo LH rather than with the forms from the modern languages.The latter has *ty, as in modern Ainu /c/ is derived from: a) *t before *i, e.g.*tis L 'to cry' > Nayoro, Asahigawa, Yakumo cis L, Hokkaidō cysy, b) consonant cluster *py-, e.g.*pyAA LL 'mouth' > Asahigawa paroho LHL, Nayoro caro LH, Hokkaidō car, and c) consonant cluster *ty before *a, *o and *u, e.g.*tyuk L 'to fall' > Nayoro, Asahigawa, Yakumo cuk H, Saru cuk H, cuk-ita L-HL, Hokkaidō T *T P ) P I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to Alexander Vovin (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) for having read and discussed with me some earlier drafts of the present paper.All errors are my responsibility.

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