Old Nordic herðr ‘shoulder’ and Greek κορσίς ‘behind, buttocks, ass’: Is there any etymological relationship between them?

Abstract

The article discusses a possible relationship between the Proto-Germanic term for ‘shoulder’ (ON. herðr f., Far. herðar f. pl.; Elfd. erde f.; OHG. harti, herti f., MHG. herte f. < PG. *hardīz f.) and the unexplained Greek gloss attested in the lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria: †κορσίς· πυγή (“korsís: behind, buttocks, ass”). It is suggested that the above-mentioned gloss comes from the Laconian dialect, which already in the Classical era (5th–4th c. BC) spirantized the Greek phoneme θ [th] > [θ] > Lac. σ [s]. The Laconian word κορσίς goes back to the Doric appellative *κορθίς, which presumably derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱerdh- ‘to fart, blow to, break wind’, secondarily ‘to stink, smell’ (cf. Ved. śárdhate ‘s/he breaks wind downwards’; Lat. cerda f. ‘dung’ attested in mūscerdae f. pl. ‘mouse droppings’, ovicerda f. ‘sheep dung’ etc.). The Laconian derivative has reliable semantic equivalents in other Indo-European languages (e.g. Skt. śr̥dhū- f. ‘the anus, rump’, śr̥dhu- m. ‘id.’). The Proto-Germanic term *hardīz (gen. sg. *hardjōz) ‘shoulder’ has no convincing etymology. Its juxtaposition with the Laconian word κορσίς (< Doric Greek *κορθίς < IE. *ḱordh-ī̆-s f.) seems phonologically indisputable. Doubts are raised only by the semantic part of the proposed etymology. The author assumes that ancestors of the Germanic people originally used the term *hardīz (< PIE. *ḱordh-ih2-s f.) to describe an extremely smelly part of the human body, i.e. the armpit located near the shoulder. The suggested change ‘anus, rump’ > ‘a stinking part of the body’ > ‘armpit’ > ‘shoulder’ must have taken place already in the Proto-Germanic epoch.