snaśiouitos

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Attestation:	VA·20 (ṣnaśịọụịṭoṣ §) (1)
Status:	probable
Language:	Celtic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	personal name
Grammatical Categories:	nom. sg. masc.
Stem Class:	o
Morphemic Analysis:	snaś-(i)i̯-o-u̯it-os
Phonemic Analysis:	/sna/ād(i)i̯ou̯i/ītos/ (?)
Meaning:	'Snaśiouitos'

Commentary

See the inscription page for details about the reading.

o-stem personal name in the nominative; io indicates a segmentation into two elements snaśio- and uito-. The use of the two ambiguous letters san (see Ś) and St Andrew's cross leaves room for a number of hypothetical reading options, but the name finds a Celtiberian comparandum on Botorrita III (MLH K.1.3) 2.30 snaziueṇtos or snaziueịtos (Beltrán 1996: 154) which allows us to determine the phonetic shape of the name more precisely.

The first element features a thematic composition vowel in the Cisalpine, but not the Celtiberian form; whether the name is formed with an i-stem as first element and a secondary -o- was inserted in snaśiouitos, or /o/ in snaziuen/itos was assimilated to following /u̯/ is unclear. The latter development is argued by Eska 2006b (with previous literature) for the dat. sg. luguei < *lugou̯ei̯ at Peñalba de Villastar (MLH K.3.3); the sequence /uu̯/ would be spelled with single ⟨u⟩ in the Celtiberian script. Alternatively, Eska (p.c.) suggests that the underlying stem could be thematic snaśo- shifted to an i-stem as the first element of the compound in Celtiberian.

Concerning the inlauting dental in the first element, it cannot at this point be entirely discounted that sigma (z) in the Celtiberian script could denote sounds which are etymologically related to tau gallicum, such as reflexes of dental-dental clusters, but the letter appears to primarily denote voiced fricative reflexes of */s/ or */d/ (see the detailed discussion in Jordán Cólera 2019: 115–130), in the present position (/VzV/ if snazi- or snazii̯o-, /Vzi̯V/ if snazi̯o-) most probably of */d/ (ibid.: 125, 129). The sound spelled with san in snaśi- is thus also most easily interpreted as ⁽*⁾/d/ rather than a complex sibilant of the tau gallicum variety: snad(i)i̯o-. Wodtko 2000: 338 and Stifter 2024b: 134, independently for the Celtiberian and Cisalpine Celtic name respectively, compare OIr. snaidid 'cut, chip, hew' (< PC *snad-, see KP: 594 f.) or OIr. snáidid 'protect' (< PC *snād-), though Wodtko notes that neither are common in onomastics.

As for the dental or nasal-dental cluster in the second element, the options are less restricted due to the uncertainty concerning the eighth letter in the Celtiberian name (n or i). We can exclude only a cluster ⁽*⁾/nd/, which would appear as ⟨n⟩ in Cisalpine Celtic, and /χt/ (suggested as a formal option for the Celtiberian name by Wodtko 2000: 338), which would be spelled ⟨kt⟩ or ⟨χt⟩ in Cisalpine Celtic (cf. teuoχtonikon). /d/ is almost equally unlikely, since it should be expected to be written with the same letter – sigma or san, respectively – as in the first element. This is admittedly not fully conclusive, because the phonetic contexts are not the same. Specifically in the Lepontic alphabet, the rationale behind the extension of the use of san to cover (reflexes of) /d/ is not entirely understood; in the present context, it can be argued that the spelling of /d/ in ^?snadi̯o- with san is due to palatalisation before /i̯/ (cf. meśiolano). There are, however, currently no clear examples for intervocalic /d/ being spelled with St Andrew's cross after the archaic period, indicating that the spelling of /d/ with san covered these allophones. Similarly, in Celtiberian, the syllabogram ⟨to⟩ is technically bivalent in the non-dual system, but sigma is used in the first element and also appears quite frequently between vowels in Botorrita III, suggesting that it would have been employed to spell -u̯ei̯dos unambiguously – thus, despite the attestation of u̯ei̯dūi̯ (dat., MLH K.0.7 ueidui, K.6.1 ueizui, probably from PIE *u̯ei̯d- 'see'), a reading of the dental as /t/ is also preferable here. Untermann in Beltrán 1996: 154 does not consider a reading option -u̯ei̯dos in the analysis of the name.

We are left with -u̯entos ~ -u̯intos or -u̯ei̯tos ~ -u̯ī̆tos. The first of these two pairs agrees well in terms of Continental Celtic sound change, /e/ > /i/ before /nC/ being a well-supported development in Gaulish and Cisalpine Celtic (e.g. kituaretos, eskikorikos). For Celtib. -u̯entos, the most plausible analysis proposed by Untermann in Beltrán 1996: 154 is a t-derivation from the root PIE *u̯enH- 'love', though Irslinger 2002 lists no such formation in Celtic (cf. Wodtko 2000: 338). A tā-derivation *u̯entā 'place'(?), attested in Brittonic toponyms (W gwent, in cadwent 'battle(ground)'), is reconstructed from different roots by Irslinger 2002: 346 (PIE *u̯en- 'vanquish') and Schumacher KP: 368 (*h₁u̯en- 'put'). Untermann's suggestion *u̯ento- 'wind' (W gwynt etc.) is formally irreproachable, but maybe less attractive semantically. (Cf. also Falileyev 2015 on the theonym u̯inti̯us and possibly associated toponyms in south-eastern France.) The second pair -u̯ei̯tos ~ -u̯ī̆tos is more difficult to bring in line, as /ei̯/ > /ē/ in Gaulish. We may consider the possibility that ⟨i⟩ in the Cisalpine Celtic name reflects /ī/ as a variant of /ē/ (cf. dēu̯-). Untermann in Beltrán 1996: 154 suggests a connection of Celtib. -u̯ei̯tos with PIE *u̯ei̯h₁- 'strive for sth.'. Alternatively, cf. u̯īt-, though this usually appears as first element in compound personal names.

In summary, the most cogent analysis seems to be *snā̆d(i)i̯o-u̯entos; the etymology of both elements being as uncertain as it is, no speculation about the name's semantics are profitable at this point. It is of course possible that snaziuentos/snaziueitos and snaśiouitos do not go back to the same PC name, but that one is an inner-Celtic loan of the other (or indeed that both are loans from a non-Celtic IE language), in which case non-regular sound substitutions or morphological transformations may have occurred.

See Salomon 2024b: 25–27.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Beltrán 1996	Francisco Beltrán (ed.), El tercer bronce de Botorrita (Contrebia Belaisca) [= Collección Arqueología 19], Zaragoza: 1996.
Eska 2006b	Joseph F. Eska, "Remarks on the phonology, morphology, and orthography of Hisp.-Celt. LVGVEI and related matters", Emerita 74/1, 77–88.
Falileyev 2015	Alexander Falileyev, "Where linguistics fails: towards interpretations of some divine names in the Roman Danubian Provinces", in: Livio Zerbini (ed.), Culti e religiosità nelle province Danubiane. Atti del II convegno internazionale, Ferrara 20–22 Novembre 2013, Bologna: I Libri di Emil 2015, 167–176.