## Reconstruction Calin | `*yéwo-` | "barley" ## Poetics [[■ GRAIN∕WHEAT and BARLEY∕CEREALS]] [[■ to SOW BARLEY (also = 'to make rain')]] # Barley Main Source: http://www.ceisiwrserith.com/pier/xador.htm It was an important PIE grain, and probably THE sacred grain, and it was (along with salt) one of the main ingredients in the ritual-blessing substance [Xádōr](xador.md). It was called PIE *yéwos*, which is the same, in the nominative singular, as that for "ritual law." ("Barley" is an o-stem, whereas "ritual law" is an s-stem, so they are formed differently in other cases and numbers. The nominative plural of "ritual," for instance, is *yéwesā, whereas that of "barley" is *yéwōs.) --- ### Iran From a domestic point of view, it was the major grain of pre-Zoroastrian Iran. [(h-humbach1994)]((h-humbach1994).md) --- ### Vedic - Barley, along with rice, often shows up in Vedic ritual. - It is used as part of the [indic-soma](indic-soma.md) mixture, and is what the other sacred drink [surā](sura.md) (likely the pre-soma ritual drink) was made from. In [RV8.2.3](RV8.2.3.md) barley is even identified with soma. - Barley was sacred to [Varuṇa](varuna.md). [(j-gonda1980p112)]((j-gonda1980).md) [(a-parpola2004-5p41)]((a-parpola2004-5).md) --- ### India - In India, a mixture of [salt](salt.md) and barley is cast on ploughed fields to encourage the growth of the crops [(j-gonda1980p429)]((j-gonda1980).md). This is an odd thing to do, since salt prevents growth (the Romans' ploughing the destroyed Carthage with salt to make sure that noting would ever grow there again is famous). We are clearly dealing with a religious significance of a mixture of barley and salt, used for blessing. --- ### Greek - Some Greek sacred drinks which included barley; it was, for instance, the major ingredient of the drink Demeter asks to be made for her while she was mourning her daughter Persephone. - It was barley that the food eaten by the priestess at Delphi before prophesying was made of. [(j-panagos1965p16)]((j-panagos1965).md) - Barley is found in Greece as a purification, sprinkled on animals before sacrifice [(j-bremmer2010p133)]((j-bremmer2010).md). - Plutarch (Greek Questions, 6) tells us that it was used in preliminary offerings in ancient times. - Ritual inclusion of both barley and salt [(w-burkert1985p136)]((w-burkert1985).md). --- ### Rome - Ritual roasting and grinding of barley - Ritual inclusion of both barley and salt [(w-burkert1985p136)]((w-burkert1985).md). --- ### Hittite - Ritual roasting and grinding of barley - Ritual inclusion of both barley and salt [(w-burkert1985p136)]((w-burkert1985).md). --- ### d ## Etymology Barley PIE *bhar-(s-) Gloss: ‘barley’ (item 2 in [[bjorn2017]]) Attestations: Lat. fār; (?)OIr. bairgen ‘bread, loaf’; Goth. bariz-eins ‘of b.’; OCS brašĭno ‘food’, Rus. bor ‘millet’; Alb. bar ‘grass’; (?)Gr. Περσεφόνη ‘Persephone (? = the grain-slayer)’ (PN) Notes: It is noteworthy that a bare stem may also exist in Celtic and Slavic (Russian bor ‘millet’) next to the somewhat more prolific extensions. The inclusion of the Greek deity is highly dubious (cf. Chantraine 1968: 889), and, even if accepted, would not introduce significant new evidence to the picture already painted by the more secure attestations. Lehmann proposes that the lexeme be internally derived from a verbal root (1986: 62), but the a-vocalism and the external comparanda treated immediately below demand that the possibility of foreign influence, at least, be entertained (cf. de Vaan 2008: 201f.). External comparanda: NE Caucasian: *bVrcị̌nV NW Caucasian: possibly Adyghe cā ‘grain’, Abkhaz cə ‘id.’ Semitic: *barr-/burr- ‘cereal, wheat’ Discussion: Some objections have been raised to the Semitic loan hypothesis, e.g. by Mallory & Adams who consider a borrowing ‘unlikely’ based on the morphology (1997: 51), while Diakonoff’s rejection of the claim, based on its putative isolation in Semitic (1985: 126f.), has become mute in light of the fact that Orel & Stolbova (1995: 56) connect it to an almost ubiquitous Afro-Asiatic root, *bar-/bur– ‘grain, cereal’, which certainly advocates for Semitic (or related) origins. Gamkrelidze & Ivanov insist that the IE branches representing the item were in direct contact with speakers of a Semitic proto-language (1995: 770), but, as several other instances suggest (e.g. *ghaid– ‘goat’, item 21), the proposition of an agricultural substrate, possibly even related to Semitic (§ 2.5), blunts the urgency of the claim. Note, too, that the semantic shift from ‘wheat’ or ‘cereal’ speaks against direct contacts. Dolgopolsky introduces the Caucasian comparanda, and questions a Semitic provenance on the basis of its simpler stem that lacks the *-s (1989: 15f.), but, as shown above, a similar IE variant could represent the original state only secondarily derived. The North Caucasian comparanda seems to reflect a higher complexity than either of PIE and Semitic, possibly hinting at greater antiquity, but, more likely, a window to PIE phonetics may be encountered here, seeing that there is a decent argument in the proposition that the desinence *-inV in North East Caucasian reflects the PIE derivational suffix *-in-o-, cf. Slavic *boršĭno– ‘flour’, Latin farīna ‘id.’, and probably also Goth. barizeins ‘of barley’ (ibid., cf. also S. Starostin 2009: 91 and further Matasović 2012: 291). This comparison is also favorable due to identical semantics. A tentative history of the term can thus be schematized as Afro-Asiatic > Semitic & Old European substrate → middle or late PIE → North (East) Caucasian.