On the origin of the names of anthropomorphic creatures in Abkhazian

Abstract

The paper argues that the word ayəṭaa ‘devil’ attested in Abkhaz was borrowed from New Persian where it denoted the ancient written monument of the religion Zoroastrianism of the ancient Iranian people (Avistā). The Abkhaz aʒəʒlan // aʒəzlan denotes a fairy. The paper argues that the lexeme might have a complex structure: aʒ meaning 'water' + the transformation suffix *-s > z + the local preverb la + n. In Abkhaz aǯnēš is one of the lexical units denoting Satan, a devil. Our attention is also focused on the Old Georgian lexical entry memaǯani ‘horrifying’ that entered Georgian from the Asian languages. We believe that the lexemes aǯnēš, ǯahanam, memaǯani, which entered Abkhaz and Georgian from the Asian languages, were derived from the common source ǯahnam // ǯahanam ‘hell’. The paper also deals with the analysis of the Abkhaz proper name až°ejpšaa and its etymology. In order to thoroughly analyze the ethnopsychology of any ethnos, we think that studying the etymology of anthropomorphic names is very important. In our opinion, this part of a language’s vocabulary clearly shows the linguistic worldview, history, ethnological traditions, customs and rituals of an ethnos. Our etymological research focuses on 4 anthropomorphic words: Abkhaz a-yəstaa ‘devil’, aʒəʒlan // aʒəzlan ‘fairy’, aǯnəšǝ ‘Satan, the devil’, and až°ejpšaa ‘the deity of beasts’.