maruwāi- (marruwa-)

This finite verb is attested once in a Hittite historical text dated to Ḫattušili III, in a Hittitized form with the preverb anda. The Luwian participle is a hapax occurring in a ritual of Zuwi (Old Hittite text transmitted only in late copies). In dictionaries, the participle is kept distinct from the verb, but since they might go back to a single lexeme, they are treated together here.

[E.R.]

3sg. pret. act.	ma-ru-wa-a-⸢it⸣	KBo 6.29 ii 12	(CTH 85, NS)
part. acc. sg. c.	mar-ru-wa-am-mi-in	KUB 35.148 iv 12‘	(CTH 412, NS)

The relationship, if any, of this verb with the word marrutti, attested twice in KUB 35.124, is still doubtful; see s.v. – Furthermore, in KUB 6.19 + KUB 52.63 rev. iii 21, there is a form ma-ru-ti-d[a^? (the last sign is partially broken off, but the suggested reading is probable), which can be interpreted as a 3sg. pret. (thus Neu apud HEG L-N:151 and HED M:89). This, however, remains uncertain, too. The form ma-ar-wa-ta-ni-ma-za is probably not a 2pl. pres. and does not belong here; see marwatar/-t(a)n- ‘blackness’.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv.

[E.R.]

Hittitologists have been discussing the meaning of this verb for half a century. In the context of attestation of the finite verb, we read: ⁽¹⁰⁾nu-mu ^dIŠTAR ^URUša-mu-ḫa GAŠAN-IA ⁽¹¹⁾wa-ar-ri-iš-ši-iš-ta nu ša-ra-az-zi ⁽¹²⁾kat-te-er-ra-ia an-da ma-ru-wa-a-⸢it⸣ nu ne-⸢pí-iš⸣ ⁽¹³⁾te-kán-na kat-kat-te-nu-ut “My lady Ištar of Šamuḫa helped me. She m.-ed above and below and shook heaven and earth” (KBo 6.29 ii 10-13). First, the gloss-wedge-marked verb is translated by Götze 1925a:49 as ‘schneiden’; differently HW:138 ‘durcheinandermengen(?)’, probably influenced by the following sentence, where the deity makes the earth shudder. When the word’s relationship with the mar(r)u- family was recognized, Güterbock 1956a:122-123 proposed the meaning ‘to blacken’ or, alternatively, ‘to mix up (?)’, offering the translations ‘she (Ištar) blackened the upper and the lower (world)’ or ‘she mixed up the upper and the lower (world)’; however, the same year, Güterbock 1956b:116, n. b accepted the old theory by Forrer 1919a:1039, according to which this family of words meant ‘red’, and the verb ‘to redden’. The last theory is still followed in DLL:69 (‘rougir’), HHw:102 (‘röten, rot färben’ [oder ‘voneinander trennen’? oder im Gegenteil ‚durcheinandermengen‘?]), Oettinger 1979a:385 (‘rot machen’), and Ünal 2007a:435, but it was rejected by CHD L-N:201-202 and Starke 1986a:162-163. Nowadays, the verb is translated ‘to darken, to blacken’: thus CLL:141, DCL:s.v., HEG L-N:151 (‘verdunkeln’, although at the beginning of the entry its meaning is considered unknown), HED  M:89-90, EDHIL:562-563, and de Martino 2023a:20 (‘she blackened [the sky] above and below’). The participle, being attested as an epithet for a pot, is used to refer to its color and poses no problem, although the verb expressed by KI.MIN (‘ditto’) cannot be determined because of the broken context; for a different perspective on the word marruwammin, see Sasseville forthcoming.

[E.R.]

Since we cannot be sure that the verb did not change its stem class after being borrowed into Hittite, the participle with its Luwian inflectional form must be the starting point for the identification of the stem class. The lexeme can be tentatively considered a denominative verb in -a-^(ti) from a base *maruwa-; slightly different HEG L-N:151 (from *maru-), HED M:90 and EDHIL:563 (from marwai-).

[E.R.]

1. marwatar/-t(a)n-

We are dealing with a Luwian verb, which was borrowed in Hittite and subsequently Hittitized giving the form maruwāit. The Luwian origin, hinted at by the use of the Glossenkeil, is shown by the participle in -mma/i- (to which we can perhaps add the form marrutti, provided it really is a 3sg. pres.; see s.v.). In any case, the base *maruwa- ‘black, dark’ with the loss of the voiced velar component of *g^u̯ is surely Luwian; see under Reconstruction of the lemma head. Accordingly, the word is regarded as Luwian by DLL:69, CHD L-N:202, CLL:141, HHw:102, HED M:89-90, Melchert 2005a:448, 450, van den Hout 2006a:240, EDHIL:562f., DCL:s.v.

[E.R.]

*This lemma was written together with the trainee Marco Ammazzini.

For the lemma head see CLuw. *maruwa-.