Bactrian xpovo (calendar) year, (regnal) year

Abstract

Since H. Humbach's Baktrische Sprachdenkmäler (Wiesbaden, 1966) the main etymological proposal for Bactrian xpovo '(calendar) year, (regnal) year' has been A. Thierfelder's suggestion of a loanword from Hellenistic Greek xpovoς 'time'. In this article the plausibility of this etymology is re-examined, and it is further argued that it should be rejected on the grounds that the formal phonological differences between the potential Hellenistic Greek source form and its presumable loan-adaptation form in Bactrian are inconsistent with what is known of Bactrian diachronic phonology.