wayant(i)-

The lexeme occurs in the incantations of Kuwattalla rituals and a festival text.

[E.R.]

dat./loc. sg.	wa-ia-an-ti	KUB 35.43 ii 36	(CTH 761, NS)
	u-wa-ia-a[n-t]i	KUB 35.21 rev. 11	(CTH 761, MS)
	[u-wa-i]a-an-ti	KUB 35.22 rev. 1	(CTH 761, MS)
nom. pl.	wa-ia-an-ti-e[n-zi]	KUB 35.133 iii 2	(CTH 665, LNS)

Outdated discussions of the morphological analysis in Otten 1953a:102 and Meriggi 1980a:339, see already Starke 1990a:266 n. 907.

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Konkordanz.

[E.R.]

The first proposal for the meaning of the verbal stem *(u)waya-, supposedly underlying wayaḫi(t)- (see under Lemma) and a cognate of (u)wayant(i)-, goes back to Carruba 1979a:87f., who suggests ‘generare (?)’, at a time when the sheep described by the adjective was taken to refer to an attractive sacrificial lamb. However, the credibility of Carruba’s interpretation was hampered already then by its reliance on an implausible connection with an alleged cognate in Lycian (see wam̃ãt(i)-) and Cuneiform Luwian (wayam(ma)n-, see under Lemma).

The second proposal came from Yakubovich (apud Hutter 2019a:387 n. 27 and pers. comm.), who thought of ‘animal (?)’ as the ‘howling one’, derived from *(u)waya- ‘to howl’ (cf. Hitt. (u)waya- ‘to howl’), which, according to him, was reflected by wayam(ma)n- n. ‘howl, cry’ (see under Lemma). This is not entirely impossible, but can be replaced with one of the next two, more straightforward accounts.

Hutter 2019a:387 n. 27 translates the syntagma dat./loc. sg. (u)wayanti šaknuwanti as ‘at the miserable (and) the defiled’. The two words are deployed to describe a sheep used in scapegoat fashion, driven forth into the gatehouse and presented to the Storm-god Tarḫunza who is asked to focus on it (instead of the ritual client). Since, within the syntagma (u)wayanti šaknuwanti, the second part šaknuwant- ‘defiled, impure’ is a negatively connotated adjective perfectly suitable for a sheep loaded with negative features, we may assume the same for (u)wayant(i)-. Hutter refers to the Hitt. verb (u)waya-‘to howl’, which he translates as ‘to grieve’, thus arriving at ‘miserable’ (← part. ‘grieving’). More economically, a possessive -ant- adjective based on (u)wāi- ‘woe’ could be posited, which would mean ‘having/carrying woe’, also appropriate for the burdened sheep. A draw-back of these solutions is that there is no noun referring to the sheep, which seems awkward.

Alternatively, one should return to Yakubovich’s earlier suggestion mentioned above that wayant(i)- is a noun meaning ‘animal’, but considering that wayaḫi(d)- very probably means ‘vitality’ and is derived from a thematic stem *(u)waya- ‘life’, this could be the base of a possessive adjective ‘the living one, animal’ (cf. lat. animal ‘the one related soul/breath’ from anima ‘soul, breath’, NHG Lebewesen ‘creature’ from leben ‘live’, Russ. животное ‘animal’ from живо ‘living’). In this case, the Sun-god is to focus ‘on the animal in its defiled state’, with postposed šaknuwant(i)- to indicate its depictive function.

[E.R.]

While the assignment to the class of nt-stems is obvious, it is not a priori clear whether (u)wayant(i)- is a participle of a reconstructed verb *(u)waya(i)- ‘to live’ or a denominal possessive -ant(i)- adjective derived from *(u)waya- ‘life’. The latter option is the more economic one, as it requires fewer steps and is, therefore, preferred here.

[E.R.]

For the lemma head see Luw. *waya-.