[B-Greek] Josephus Ant. 18.6.7

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Aug 21 08:28:00 EDT 2007


On Aug 21, 2007, at 8:00 AM, Thomas J. Kraus wrote:

> 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 ...

Well, it just MAY be; the only etymological resource I have at hand  
is Hofmann's 1950 Etymologisches Woerterbuch des Griechischen; for  
BOH/BOAW, Lat. boare, it offers "vielleicht von Schallwurzel *bu" --  
sounds like "Schallwurzel" is indicating that the root is onomatopoetic.

Carl W. Conrad

>
> 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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