Unknown ‘Dithyrambic’ Greek Dialect

Iurii Mosenkis

The Greek names of dances and then verses of unknown origin may be interpreted as the evidence of
an unknown Greek dialect or lesser distinct Paleo-Balkan language closely related to Greek

Greek ἴαμβος ‘two-step’ < *wi-amb-os < *dwi-amb-os ‘*two-step (dance and then
verse)’, θρίαμβος ‘*three-step’, διθύραμβος ‘*four-step’ might reflect dialectal Greek
names for ‘two’, ‘three’, and ‘four’, see below a short historiography of the problem.1
The ‘Dithyrambic Greek’ dialect or lesser distinct Paleo-Balkan language reflects:
dv > v (only in Greek and Tocharian),
t > th (‘consonant shift’, regularly in θρί- and διθύρ-, like in Thracian and
Armenian),2
qu > d (possibly in two steps: qu > t only in Greek, and then t > d).
Vocalism of διθύρ- is Greek, cf. Dorian τέτορες, Epic, probably Aeolian, πίσυρες,
Aeolian also πέσυρες ‘four’.
However, t > th and t > d are attested in Iranian (Avestan θri- ‘three’): it might be an
Iranized Greek dialect.
According to an old hypothesis, common element of *-amba, ‘*foot’ is related to Old
Ind. anga ‘foot’, cf. Old Ind. pāda ‘metric foot’. If iambus was mainly satirical poetry in
ancient Greece while thriambus and dithyramb were hymns (and the latter – also a
dance) to Dionysus then the metric foots might be related to the myth of Dionysus in
India. Note: if the term is not descended from common ‘Graeco-Aryan’ poetry (cf.
Greek πούς ‘foot, metric foot’ and aforementioned Old Ind. pāda) then it migh be
accepted before about 1000 BCE when gu > b in Greek (g in anga might be interpreted
similarly to gu).
According to another hypothesis, the hypothetical foot-name might be related to
ἀμβαίνω, an Epic, Ionian, and Poetic (including Pindar who’s poetry was descended
from Mycenaean tradition) form of ἀναβαίνω ‘go up’, cf. especially ἄμβων (the Attic
variant to Ionian ἄμβη) which in Cos had a meaning ‘steps of ladder’.
So ‘Dithyambic’ might be distinct (northern?) Greek dialect which was possibly
Thracianized or Iranized.

1 Versnel, H. S. Triumphus: An inquiry into the origin, development and meaning of the Roman triumph, Brill
Publishers (Leiden 1970), pp. 16–38.
2 I. Duridanov compared reconstructed Thracian tithe ‘light, radiance’ with Greek titō' ‘morning glow;

morning, day’, Alb. ditë ‘day’ http://groznijat.tripod.com/thrac/thrac_5.html Greek τιτώ ‘day’ (only one
meaning in LSJ) might be compared with Τιθωνός, ‘a lower of Eos’.