The Thessalian and Cretan Name for ‘Bottle Gourd’

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 63 (2015), issue 3. In his work Deipnosophistae (IX 369b), Athenaeus discusses four Greek names for turnip, (Brassica campestris L., syn. Brassica rapa L.): βουνιάς, γογγυλίς, Laconian γάστρα and Boeotian ζεκελτίς. The three first names are clearly motivated by the Greek vocabulary. The fourth term remains obscure in terms of its etymology and word-formation. According to Athenaeus (IX 369b), two Greek writers, Amerias and Timachidas, refer to a dialectal (evidently Thessalian) term ζακελτίς f. ‘bottle gourd, calabash, Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.’. In his lexicon, Hesychius of Alexandria registers two related glosses: ζακελτίδες • κολοκύνται. ἢ γογγυλίδες (HAL ζ-24); ζακαυθίδες • κολοκύνται (HAL ζ-30). The former refers to the Thessalian lexis. The latter one (wrongly printed as ζακυνθίδες • κολοκύνται in M. Schmidt’s and K. Latte’s editions) demonstrates a shift of the liquid consonant λ [l] to [ṷ], which is a typical Cretan phenomenon, attested also in the Hesychian lexicon, see e.g. [1] αὐκάν • ἀλκήν. Κρῆτες (HAL α-8277); [2] αὐκυόνα • ἀλκυόνα. Κρῆτες (HAL α-8280); [3] αὕμα • ἅλμη, ὑπὸ Κρητῶν (HAL α-8324); [4] αὖσος • ἄλσος. Κρῆτες (HAL α-8347); [5] θεύγεσθαι • θέλγεσθαι. Κρῆτες (HAL θ-427). The same phonological process of the velarization of *λ [l] is also registered in epigraphic texts found in three towns of Central Crete (Gortyna, Leben, Phaistos). Thus, it seems that the Hesychian term ζακαυθίδες ‘bottle gourds’ (derived from the earlier *ζακαλθίδες) must be seen as a dialectal form typical of Central Cretan.