zamurai-

The noun zamurai- is attested in Hittite transmission with certainty only once, but the word likely appeared once more earlier on the same tablet, but this instance is broken off.

[E.R.]

acc. sg.	za-mu-ra-⸢i⸣	KUB 40.33 Vs. 13′	(CTH 212, NS)
nom./acc. sg. (?)	za-[mu-ra-i?]	KUB 40.33 Vs. 7′	(CTH 212, NS)

Differently, Oettinger 1979a:386 interprets zamurai as a finite 3sg. pres. ind. act. of a verb zammurā(i)-⁽ⁱ⁾ with Luwian inflection. However, this reading makes little sense in the passage in question (see under Meaning), especially since it leaves the following transitive predicate without an object.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – Since the spelling za-am-mu- is much more common than za-mu- in the base verb zammurā(i)-, the singleton m of this derivative is understood as a deficient spelling of the expected geminate.

[E.R.]

zamurai- is an action noun derived from the stem zammurā(i)- ‘to slander, profane, dishonor’ (Melchert in DCL:300, EDHIL:1030). HEG IV:652 thus translates ‘Verleumdung’. In its only certain attestation, zam(m)urai is modified by the adjective HUL-lu ‘evil’ and a genitivus objectivus ŠA ^DUTU^ŠI: mān=a=wa=kan A-NA ŠEŠ-IA-za ŠA ^DUTU^ŠI HUL-lu zamurai KA×U-i GEŠTU-ašmi “if I hear evil slander of My Sun in the mouth of my brother” (KUB 40.33 Vs. 12-13).Five lines earlier, the sequence HUL-lu za-[ also appears before the text breaks off. In this passage, Boley 1993a:106 translates zamurai as ‘revolt’, which is unrelated to the meaning of zammurā(i)- and cannot be motivated by the context. Instead, the passage suggests that the action noun has the same meaning as the verb, as it indicates an act (in this case, a speech act) that causes an object of reverence (in this case, the king) to lose face. Thus, the translation ‘slander’ is most appropriate here.

[E.R.]

So far, the stem formation of zamurai- has not been discussed in the literature. On the surface, it looks like an inner-Hittite deverbal āi-stem functioning as an action noun. Its neuter gender is nearly unparalleled within Hittite since action nouns in -āi- almost universally belong to the common gender (the only exception being the well attested ḫūkmai- ‘incantation’, which appears to be neuter in a few instances: KUB 9.4 Vs. II 22; KUB 9.34 Rs. III 6). Neuter āi-stems, on the other hand, constitute a small class of concrete nouns such as ḫaštai- n. ‘bone’, ḫašuwai- n. ‘a plant’, which show no relation to synchronic verbal stems (see Brosman 2005afor an overview Hittite āi-stem nouns). For the derivational chain leading to the Hittite verbal base zammura(i)-^(mi), see under Lemma.

[E.R.]

The Luwian origin of the base verb zammurā(i)-^(mi) has been established (see lemma head). Frantíková 2022a:216 states that the noun zamurai- may be a direct loan of a Luwian āi-stem, although she considers a Hittite origin to be “at least equally likely.” However, this stem class is unattested in Luwian. Instead, Luwian forms action nouns with suffixes such as -tt(i) and -it- (see zammuratt(i)- formed to the same stem). Thus, zamurai- appears to be a Hittite formation, albeit an unusual one.

[E.R.]

 *This lemma was written in collaboration with the trainee Ben Korb.

 For the lemma head see CLuw. zammurā(i)-.