/humid-/

This lexeme is attested two times in inscriptions from Assur and Tabal, dating maximally from the 9^th to the late 8^th century BCE.

[A.P.]

acc. sg. or nom./acc. pl.	/humidin/ or /humida/	(BRACCHIUM)hu-mi+ra/i(=)	ASSUR letter f+g, §6 (Assur)
abl./instr.(?)	/humididi?/	BRACCHIUM-mi+ra/i-i〈+ra/i〉-i	ÇALAPVERDİ 1, §5 (Tabal)

The form at ASSUR letter f+g, §6 hosts the clitic connective 〈-ha〉, i.e. /=ha/ ‘and’, and is therefore ambiguous as to its inflection and thereby also grammatical gender. Since the connective /=ha/ causes a possible final /-n/ of the hosting word to be left out in writing, cf. e.g. Melchert 2003b:182, the attested form may stand for /humidin/, an acc. sg. of a common gender /humid(i)-/. However, the attested form may well reflect /humida/ instead, an alternative suggested by Oreshko 2020b:347f. incl. n. 11, i.e. a nom./acc. pl. of a neuter noun /humid-/; cf. the discussions below.

The form at ÇALAPVERDİ 1, §5 is contextually most likely an abl./instr. due to a preceding /ammiyadi/ ‘with my’, and if the repeated 〈i〉 signs are to be taken seriously, the attested spelling may miss a second 〈+ra/i〉 representing a rhotacised abl./instr. /-adi/ or /-idi/. Since the sign 〈+ra/i〉 (*383) is merely a thorn-shape protrusion added to an adjoining sign, it may have been omitted by mistake, because the putative hosting sign happens to be one of the signs 〈i〉 at the end of the word. It is therefore possible that the form should be emended to 〈BRACCHIUM-mi+ra/i-i〈+ra/i〉-i〉, representing /hummididi/.

[A.P.] [AH.B.]

The word long escaped interpretation, not least because one of the HLuw. attestations is severely fragmented, and the other one appears in the letters, a genre rife with difficulties due to its relative rarity in the corpus. Still, the suggestion ‘arm’ was made by Oreshko 2020b:347 based on the context at ASSUR letter f+g, §6: “CORPUS”-hi-sà-wa/i (BRACCHIUM)hu-mi+ra/i-ha zi-ku-na-ti ARHA wa/i-la-mi-na-´ PUGNUS.PUGNUS-nu, translating as ‘Keep the body and arm dying from zikkuna- labour!’Oreshko 2020b:349 makes a case for /zikkuna(/i)-/ denoting a harvest activity such as ‘to reap’, ‘to glean’, or ‘to thresh’, which fits well with the body parts named, but cannot be proved at this point.(see also Melchert & Yakubovich 2022b). Provided the understanding of the passage turns out to be correct, ‘arm’ represents the most likely interpretation for the present lexeme.

[AH.B.]

If the present word is indeed related to CLuw. ḫumid-, it likely represents either a neuter noun or a substantivised adjective in /-i(ya)-/ deriving from one such noun. The attested forms are ambiguous for several reasons. Thus, it cannot be said if the form attested at ASSUR letter f+g, §6 is sg. or pl., see the discussion under Forms above. As a result, the grammatical gender of the word is unclear. In addition, use of the sign 〈+ra/i〉, which is vocalically underspecified, obscures the presence or absence of i-mutation, which would be a marker of a common gender noun. Still, the graphemically difficult form attested at ÇALAPVERDİ 1, §5 seems to represent an abl./instr. ending in /-idi/ instead of /-adi/, hinting at i-mutation encroaching on usually non-mutated forms in the paradigm, although it is possible that the i-infected ending originates from outside the paradigm or the spelling is misinterpreted.

[AH.B.]

The sole occurrence of the lexeme comes from the festival texts mentioning the ašuša(tal)la- functionary.

[E.R.]

abl./instr.

ḫu-u-mi-ta-ti

KUB 35.133 iii 6’

(CTH 665, LNS)

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – It is assumed here that the form with singleton -m- towards the end of the line is a deficient spelling.

[E.R.]

No meaning is offered in DLL:48, CLL:72, HHw:58, and Starke 1990a:222. As the context is fragmentary and, therefore, quite obscure, only the comparison with HLuw. (BRACCHIUM)hu-mi+ra/i- ‘arm’ yielded the recent interpretation of ḫumi(t)- as ‘arm’ by Oreshko 2020b:348. He conflates ḫumi(t)- in ḫumitati with ḫuwammitiya[ and concludes that the mention of šu^MEŠ ‘hands’ together with the latter (parallel to patanta ‘foot’ and paršandanza ‘thigh’ in the same context) speaks for a more specific meaning ‘upper arm’. However, since ḫumi(t)- and ḫuwammitiya[ represent two cognate, but distinct lexemes, and moreover, the semantic interpretation of paršandanza as ‘thigh’ is far from assured, Oreshko’s last assertion lacks sufficient contextual support. In any case, in spite of Melchert’s (DCL:s.v.) doubts raised on account of the spelling with singleton -m- (see under Graphic Features), ‘arm’ represents a good option (in a request for support: “do tīta for us [             ] with (your) arms!”).

[E.R.]

If the meaning is identified correctly, the stem consists of the root ḫu(wa)mm- and the suffix -i(t)- for neuter nouns (following Starke 1990a:222).

[E.R.]

1. ḫuwammitiya[

For the lemma head see CLuw. ḫūmma-.