zila-

The lexeme is attested in Hittite transmission about 60 times in texts from the NH period, mostly oracle texts, but sometimes also in mentions of oracles outside the genre. Only a few representative attestations are cited here.

[E.R.]

nom. sg.	zi-la-aš	AT 454 ii 16’	(CTH 568, NS)
	zi-la-aš	KUB 5.6 ii 31	(CTH 570, NS)
	zi-i-la-aš	KBo 47.203, 3’	(CTH 470, NS)
acc. sg.	zi-la-an	AT 454 ii 29’	(CTH 568, NS)
	zi-la-an	KBo 55.201 obv.? 6’	(CTH 574, NS)

Pace Tischler (HEG W-Z:715f.), the forms claimed for a neuter nom. sg. are to be analyzed as a Luw. adverb zilan meaning ‘behind, afterwards, thereupon (?)’. Additional attestations of a common gender accusative singular are listed above and interpreted as names of tokens moved in KIN oracles. Nevertheless, it cannot be entirely excluded that they are further instances of the adverb zilan even those contexts.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Konkordanz. – The plene spelling of -i- is attested only in KBo 47.203, 3’.

[E.R.]

The meaning of zila- was recognized by Friedrich as early as 1926 (Friedrich 1926b:196) and has received plentiful confirmation since (cf. most recently HEG W-Z:714-717).The semantic restriction suggested by Ünal 1978a:115 is unfounded.

[E.R.]

Luwian origin of zila- c. is not entirely assured, since in both Luwian and Hittite paradigmatic leveling could have given rise to a root zī- (z- from the full grade and -ī- from the zero grade of the root, see under Reconstruction). However, the late attestation from the NH period only and the semantic restriction to ‘result of an oracle’ (instead of ‘result’ in general), which speaks for a technical term borrowed together with the terms of the whole semantic field from Luwian and Hurrian, point to a non-Hittite word. This is confirmed by the fact that the scribe of KUB 54.1 changed the Luwian adverb zīlan into ze-˹e˺-la-an in order to make it more Hittite-looking. He seems to have had an intuition that -ē- (instead of -ī-) would be the correct vocalism for the word family (cf. Hitt. zē- ‘to be cooked to the end, Hitt. zēna- ‘fall, end of year’).

[E.R.]