[B-Greek] Josephus Ant. 18.6.7

Thomas J. Kraus t.j.kraus at web.de
Tue Aug 21 08:00:34 EDT 2007


Carl,

Thanks for answering. Yes, what you write is a confirmation of what I have
already found (the Latin loan word connection). In addition, I wonder if
this word - i.e. BOUBWN and BUAS (both mentioned in LSJ, the first with
reference to Josephus and bubo only) - was used by other writers as well.

As you refer to the entry BUAS in LSJ: can BOUBWN have anything to do with
BOAW and that way be something onomatopoetic? I am just thinking, but doubt
that this is correct ...

Thomas J. Kraus

On 21.08.2007 12:12 Uhr "Carl W. Conrad" at <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
wrote:

> 
> On Aug 21, 2007, at 4:21 AM, Thomas J. Kraus wrote:
> 
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> 
>> In his Antiquitates judaicae 18.6.7 Flavius Josephus writes:
>> BOUBWNA DE hOI RWMAIOI TON ORNIN TOUTON KALOUSIN.
>> 
>> My major interest is on BOUBWNA: recently I found in an essay that
>> BOUBWN
>> should have been integrated into Greek from Latin bubo. Another form
>> mentioned that should correspond with Latin bubo should be BUAS
>> (but I do
>> not see any morphological link with this).
>> 
>> Questions:
>> (1) Does anybody know anything about such a link (is it plausible)?
>> (2) Does anybody know other instances in which BOUBWN (or BUAS) are
>> used?
>> 
>> Thanks in advance for reflecting about this
>> semantic/etymological/morphological issue.
> 
> I'm not sure that I fully understand the question. The sentence cited
> pretty clearly indicates that BOUBWN (gen. BOUBWNOS) is a Hellenized
> form of the Latin word BUBO (gen. BUBONIS); this is very much like
> other "loan-words" taken into Greek from Latin, such as proper names,
> KIKERWN (gen. KIKERWNOS) from Latin CICERO/CICERONIS or AUGOUSTOUS/OU
> from Latin AUGUSTUS/I.
> 
> LSJ does have an entry for BUAS:
> β?αV, ou, ?,  [BUAS, OU, hO] eagle-owl, Strix bubo,
> Arist.HA592b9 (v.l. βρ?αV [BRUAS]) β?αV ?buxe [BUAS
> EBUXE] an owl hooted, D.C.56.29, 72.24. (Onomatop.)
> 
> It's interesting that BUAS is a first-declension masculine (it has to
> be with a genitive in -OU).  It could very well be that it is
> etymologiclly derived from the same IE root as the Latin BUBO, but
> the Josephus entry simply gives a Latin name for the bird in his
> narrative account.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 




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