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*H₂n̥gʷʰis is a reconstructed
Proto-Indo-European term meaning 'serpent', as well as a possible name for a mythological entity,
polycephalous sea serpent or dragon which was slain by a hero named
Trito with a help of god
Perkʷunos.[1]
Evidence
A unifying characteristic of most Indo-European descendant mythologies is a story about a battle between a god of thunder, the great hero and a huge serpentine creature. Indo-Iranian and probably also Hittite traditions use the same Proto-Indo-European root *h₂engʷʰ-, whence *h₂n̥gʷʰis, to denote the serpent.
Possible
Hittite cognate is
Illuyanka, a dragon from a myth known from tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital
Hattusa, and is also found in Catalogue des Textes Hittites. According to the narrative, a thunder god
Tarḫunna slays Illuyanka. The contest is a ritual of the
Hattian spring festival of
Puruli.
According to Katz (1998), Illuyanka's name is probably a compound, consisting of two words for "snake",
Proto-Indo-European*h₁illu- and *h₂engʷʰ-. The same compound members, inverted, appear in
Latinanguilla "eel". The *h₁illu- word is cognate to English eel, and *h₂engʷʰ- is related to
Sanskritahi and
Avestanaži.[2]
In
Hindu mythology, the Vedic god
Indra slays the multi-headed serpent
Vṛtrá, which has been causing a drought by trapping the waters in his mountain lair.[4]
In the
Vedas, Vṛtrá is frequently called Ahi (
Vedic Sanskrit: अहिahi), a
Sanskrit descendant of
Proto-Indo-Iranian*Háǰʰiš, and in turn, of Proto-Indo-European *h₂n̥gʷʰis.
^Katz, J. (1998). "How to be a Dragon in Indo-European: Hittite illuyankas and its Linguistic and Cultural Congeners in Latin, Greek, and Germanic". In Jasanoff; Melchert; Oliver (eds.). Mír Curad. Studies in Honor of Calvert Watkins. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. pp. 317–334.
ISBN3-85124-667-5.
^Ačaṙean, Hračʿeay (1979), “վիշապ”, in Hayerēn armatakan baṙaran [Armenian Etymological Dictionary] (in Armenian), volume IV, 2nd edition, a reprint of the original 1926–1935 seven-volume edition, Yerevan: University Press, pages 341ab
Gamkrelidze, Thomas V.;
Ivanov, Vjaceslav V. (1995). Winter, Werner (ed.). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 80. Berlin: M. De Gruyter.
Jackson, Peter (2002). "Light from Distant Asterisks. Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage". Numen. 49 (1): 61–102.
doi:
10.1163/15685270252772777.
JSTOR3270472.
Jakobson, Roman (1985). "Linguistic Evidence in Comparative Mythology". In Stephen Rudy (ed.).
Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings. Vol. VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology: Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972–1982. Walter de Gruyter.
ISBN9783110855463.
Littleton, C. Scott (1982). "From swords in the earth to the sword in the stone: A possible reflection of an Alano-Sarmatian rite of passage in the Arthurian tradition". In Polomé, Edgar C. (ed.).
Homage to Georges Dumézil. Journal of Indo-European Studies, Institute for the Study of Man. pp. 53–68.
ISBN9780941694285.
Tirta, Mark (2004). Petrit Bezhani (ed.). Mitologjia ndër shqiptarë (in Albanian). Tirana: Mësonjëtorja.
ISBN99927-938-9-9.
Treimer, Karl (1971). "Zur Rückerschliessung der illyrischen Götterwelt und ihre Bedeutung für die südslawische Philologie". In Henrik Barić (ed.).
Arhiv za Arbanasku starinu, jezik i etnologiju. Vol. I. R. Trofenik. pp. 27–33.