PY 35.0

yazom

In the PYH, Av. yazamaidē̆, a 1pl.ind.pres.mid. from the thematic stem yaza- of the root yaz ‘ to worship’ (Hintze 2007a: 156–62) or ‘to sacrifice’, is translated with the verb yaštan, yaz- ‘ to worship’. The verb is usually spelt 〈 YḎBḤWN-〉 in the MSS, although the phonetic spelling 〈 yc-〉 is also found. While 〈 YḎBḤWN-〉 consistently takes the phonetic complement 〈-m〉, 〈 yc-〉 varies in its endings between 〈-m〉 and 〈-wm〉 (see Table13.1). Considering that yazamaidē̆ is a 1pl., the question is whether 〈 YḎBḤWNm〉, 〈 ycm〉 and 〈 ycwm〉 represent the sg. or pl. of the first person. In the PYH, Mills (1905b: 105) reads ‘yežbexūnam’ and ‘yažōm’ and interprets both forms as 1sg.: ‘I sacrifice’ (Mills 1905a: 55). Dhabhar (1963: 4, fn. 4) suggests MP ‘om (1st.sg.)’ for Av.1pl. mahī in PY 35.1. Andrés-Toledo (2009) and Skjærvø (2010d) prefer the 1sg. yazam, while Malandra and Ichaporia (2010: 181) posit a1pl. in yazom.

In ZMP the phonetic complement 〈-m〉 is usually vocalised as -am and interpreted as the ending of the 1sg.pres. (Skjærvø 2010a: 217–19). However, as MMP has 〈-wm〉 for the 1pl.ind. (Sundermann 1989: 149, fn. 86; Skjærvø 2010a: 217), and most likely reflects an older stage of MP (Sundermann1989: 149), we may be inclined to view 〈 ycwm〉 of the PY MSS as preserving an old 1pl. Moreover, a similar distribution can be observed in both InsMP and InsPa, where the phonetic verbal complements attached to heterograms differ from those attached to phonetically written verbs. Heterograms take 〈-m〉 for the 1pl., while eteograms have 〈-wmy〉 (InsMP) and 〈-ywm〉 (InsPa) (Skjærvø 1983: 137, 138). Therefore, it may be tempting to interpret the alternation in these MSS between 〈-m〉 for 〈 YḎBḤWN-〉 and 〈-wm〉 for 〈 yc-〉 as a remnant of an old orthographic rule otherwise only known from the inscriptions.