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Sanskrit Naka-s: Gothic Nehw-s
VITTORE PISANI
IN his important review of Heinrich Lüder's Varuna (Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft' 101, 1951, p. 407 ff.) Paul Thieme defines the names of the parts of the sky in Ṛgveda (p. 412) récana-m means, according to him, the unvisible part, naka-s the part that is visible as the firmament; only later on this word ends by indicating the sky in general. In a foot-note (4) Thieme suggests that nå'ka- may be formed, like úpaka- and ápáka-, from a no which exists no more in Sanskrit but is preserved in Slav na 'on' (from *no, as shown by its Lithuanian correspondence nuo). His further comparison with Greek nôton' back' is surely wrong; but the idea that na'ka- may be formed like úpaka- ápäka- (cp. further úрāñe-, áрāñe- etc.; s. also my paper Latino provincia, etc., Rendiconti dell' Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere' LXXIV, 1940, p. 148 ff.) is doubtless an illuminating Manfred Mayrhofer, A Concise Etymological Sanskrit Dictionary II, 1963, p. 149 mentions further etymologies that deserve no attention.
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Now, if Thieme's etymology is right, then we must consider. na'ka as originally an adjective: na'ka-, like úpaka-approximate', ápaka-distant', may have indicated, to judge from Slav na and according to the significance of na'ka- 'firmament' as opposed to rócana-, what is situated on something or near to something. And one cannot avoid to compare it with Gothic nehw-s (German nahe, old English néah, Engl. nigh), of which Sigmund, Felst, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache, 3d ed. 1939, p. 373 rightly says that all extant
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