ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Vladimir Vladimirovich Napolskikh
Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia
Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

TO THE IRANIAN ETYMOLOGY OF THE ETHNONYMS MARI, MERYA, MUROMA

For citation
Napolskikh, V. V. (2024). To the Iranian Etymology of the Ethnonyms Mari, Merya, Muroma. Voprosy onomastiki, 21(1), 9–26. https://doi.org/10.15826/vopr_onom.2024.21.1.001

Received on 25 December 2023
Accepted on 29 February 2024

Abstract: The article continues the exploration of the ethnonym *märə, previously reconstructed by the author and A. V. Savelyev, as evidenced in the self-designation of the Mari people and in the names of Merya and Muroma found in Russian chronicles. In Finno-Ugric literature, it is commonly sub-derived from the Aryan *márya- meaning ‘young man, warrior.’ However, within the current framework, the specific Aryan origin of this ethnonym, along with the time and circumstances of its adoption, remains unspecified. The Mari-Meryan *märə cannot be construed as an ethnonym meaning ‘human, man,’ as such semantics would be anachronistic in terms of ethnic designation typology. Instead, it is proposed that this word was borrowed as a socionym with the additional connotation of ‘husband’ into the ancestral language of Mari and Meryan around the first millennium BC. The Aryan *márya- denoted a class of free (possibly noble) young men forming military communities, where they undertook feats to attain a social status entitling them to acquire a wife, hence the meaning ‘groom, husband’. Indo-Aryan (including Mitanni Aryan) languages predominantly associated it with ‘warrior’ and ‘noble youth,’ while Iranian languages developed pejorative meanings (‘rascal; slave’) but retained the meaning ‘husband’. An Eastern Middle Iranian language is deemed a more plausible source for borrowing, both temporally and semantically. The etymology suggested in the article resolves the issue of the limited representation of Aryan *márya- primarily as ‘slave, servant’ in Eastern Iranian languages. The proposed derivation links Ossetian bal ‘group, squad, gang, pack (of wolves)’ < Alanian *mal < *márya-; likely borrowed into Proto-Marian-Meryan from a Scytho-Sarmatian language around the middle of the first millennium BC (prior to the transition *-ry- > -l-). The subsequent Turkic designation of the Mari as *čermiš (Chuvash śarmə̑s, Tatar čirməš > Russian cheremis) < Turkic *čär ‘to fight, to wage war’ may be a calque of this ancient ethnonym.

Keywords: ethnonymy; Merya; Mari; Muroma; Aryan loanwords in Finno-Ugric languages; Mari language; Aryan languages; Iranian languages; Ossetian language

Acknowledgements
The grant of the Russian Scientific Foundation No. 23-18-00439 Onomasticon and Linguocultural History of the European Russia (https://rscf.ru/en/project/23-18-00439/) is gratefully acknowledged

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