/kirad(i)-/, (*198)ki+ra/i-ti-

This lexeme occurs twice in the HLuw. corpus. Both attestations originate from one of the letters found in Assur, but with uncertain provenance. The letter is dated to the late 8^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

The meaning of this lexeme has until now escaped interpretation, as it occurs twice within the same letter in contexts that are only partially understood. ASSUR letter e §25 reads: a-wa/i-wa/i-mu-ta (“*198”)ki+ra/i-ra+a-za *317.CRUS₂(-)pa-sa-za-ha SUPER+ra/i-ha (“LONGUS”)ia-ti-na-ia, ‘Come on, promote The context strongly suggests that this verb form is, contra Hawkins 2000a:536, a 2sg. impv. rather than a 3sg. pres. act., because the clause is one of several in a row to end with a 2sg. impv. verb, and the verb starting off the clause, /awai/ ‘come!’, is undoubtedly a 2sg. impv. me to the kiradi- and the *317.CRUS₂!’ (probably meaning: put me in the way of). The clause at §29 runs: (*198)ki+ra/i-ti-zi-wa/i *317.CRUS₂(-)pa-sa-ha kwa/i-i-sà (LITUUS)u-ni-ti, ‘(Send me a servant child) who knows kiradi-s and *317.CRUS₂’. In both instances, the word under discussion is joined through /=ha/ ‘and’ with the noun *317.CRUS₂(-)pa-sa-, whose meaning is unknown.The logogram *317 also appears in a clause between those cited, viz. in §27 as zú+ra/i-wa/i-za … *317-ni-za, i.e. /Zurawannin=za … *317-nin=za/ a nom./acc. sg. neuter with unclear phonological shape, but evidently sourced from the city of Tyre. However, in §29 it becomes clear that both nouns denote either crafts or items requiring some skill to make, when the sender of the letter requests from the addressee a person skilled in making what it denotes. On the basis of the available evidence it cannot be said what exactly the item(s) are; at least /kirad(i)-/ may denote some kind of container, based on its likely provenance (see Stem and Origin below), but this cannot be proved until further textual evidence surfaces.

[AH.B.]

This word may be based on a loan from Akkadian kirādu ‘(a leather container for oil)’, cf. CAD:401 and AHw:483, but see also the discussion of the origin below. The forms attested in the HLuw. corpus show the word to be a common gender noun and subject to i-mutation, indicating that, if it is indeed a borrowing, it has been fully integrated into the Luwian system. It may even be the case that Luwian speakers parsed the word as consisting of /kir-/ and the nominal suffix /-ad(i)-/, which appears in many other nouns, although this would constitute a reanalysis, as the original morpheme boundaries of the word were quite different within the templatic morphology of the Semitic root.

[AH.B.]

The base for this word may be a borrowing, which also appears in Akkadian kirādu ‘(a leather container for oil)’, cf. CAD:401 and AHw:483. While AHw:483 records the word as attested in Old and Neo-Babylonian and lexical lists, CAD:401 notes it as exclusive to Mari, which would speak for a very early loan prior to 1759 BCE or a circumstantial lack of attestations later. Because of the temporal distance and the fact that the Akkadian word is attested in Mari, a direct loan is rather unlikely, and the word may come from a third language that served as a source for both, or it passed through another language into Luwian.

[AH.B.]