> [[nagy-g]]. "About what kinds of things we may learn about mythology by reading about rituals recorded by bureaucratic scribes". Article in [[journal-classical-inquiries]]. > [chs](https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/about-what-kinds-of-things-we-may-learn-about-mythology-by-reading-about-rituals-recorded-by-bureaucratic-scribes/) > [pdf](a/nagy-g2019-11-22.pdf) ## Relevant Excerpt > "§3. With reference to ¶122.1, where I argue that nouns for social units can be used as impersonal subjects of verbs, I now note what I think is a comparandum from the standpoint of Indo-European linguistics. The comparandum comes from medieval Irish, as I learned from conversations with Joseph Nagy and Heather Newton. As the other Nagy points out to me, the noun _túath_, which stands for a petty kingdom, can be used as the subject of a verb in the formula _tongu do dia toinges mo thúath_, ordinarily translated as ‘I swear by the god my people swear by’. (For attestations, I refer to the entry _tongaid_ in the _Dictionary_ of the Royal Irish Academy. On the archaism of this Irish expression, I recommend an article by Watkins 1990.) But **the translation ‘people’ for Irish _túath_, as also for Greek _dēmos_, reflects a secondary meaning. Primarily, such words once referred to homelands ruled by kings, and each homeland had its own distinct customary laws—including its own ways of making juridical speech-acts. Only secondarily, in juridical contexts, could such homelands be personified as people, and, even in such contexts the personification would have been originally restricted to contexts where the homeland itself had a juridical role, as in the case of formal oaths and asseverations.**" [Bold added] ## Comments by other scholars [[woodard2019-11-25-comment]]