On the other hand, there is a Luwian neuter noun written sˇe-h
̆u-wa-a-a[l]
orsˇi-wa-al; it denotes a source of artificial illumination, in one place it is
accompanied by a determinative indicating a metal object, and it evidently
meant ‘lamp’, ‘brazier’, or something of the kind.^2 This puts a different com-
plexion on the lexical question. That a word originally meaning ‘sun’ was
applied to a lamp seems altogether less likely than the alternative, that a word
meaning ‘lamp’ was applied to the sun. In a Hittite prayer to the Sun-goddess
of Arinna she is called ‘the land of Hatti’s torch (zupparu)’, and in a narrative
text the Sun and Moon say, ‘we are the torches of what [lands] you [govern]’.^3
Greek poets speak of ‘the pure lamp (λαμπα ́ ) of the sun’ (Parmenides B 10.
3; cf. Eur. Ion 1467), ‘the god’s lamp’ (Eur. Med. 352), or simply ‘theλαμπα ́ ’
(Soph. Ant. 879). In Old English verse the sun is referred to in a variety of
similar phrases: rodores candel‘heaven’s candle’ (Beow. 1572), woruldcandel
(ibid. 1965), heofoncandel (Andreas 243), wedercandel (ibid. 372), Godes
candel (Battle of Brunanburh 15, Phoenix 91).
This suggests that MIE s.h 2 w.l‘sun’ may go back to some such expression
as ‘the lamp of Dyeus’. It is then easier to understand why the oldest recover-
able word for the sun is a neuter. As we have noted, the oldest ‘gender’
distinction in Indo-European was between animate and inanimate, between
active principles and mere physical entities. A lamp is naturally assigned to
the latter class, but we should have expected the sun to be assigned from the
beginning to the former. Historically we observe a general tendency to per-
sonalize the original neuter and to make the sun and the Sun-god masculine
or feminine. We have seen that Indo-European deities are on the whole male,
except for certain categories. In the case of the Sun we find a geographical
division. In Vedic the neuter súvar/svàr remains in the less personal sense of
‘sunshine, sunlight’, while beside it there is the more personalized masculine
derivative Su ̄ ́rya-, as it were ‘the god of the sunlight’.^4 The Greek kλιο and
the Latin sol are likewise masculine, as are Middle Welsh heul, Cornish
heu(u)l, Breton heol. In Slavonic the word has a different suffix and remains
neuter, Old Church Slavonic slu ̆nı ̆c e, etc. Gothic has neuter sauil besides femi-
nine (but sometimes neuter) sunno. Across northern Europe the feminine
(^2) F. Starke, ZVS 95 (1981), 152–7; id., Untersuchung zur Stammbildung des keilschrift-
luwischen Nomens (Wiesbaden 1990), 342 f. The forms may go back to seh 2 wo ̄ ́l; cf. Melchert
(1994), 264. Pretonic [e] gave [i] in Luwian (ibid. 240).
(^3) CTH 383 i 4 = Lebrun (1980), 310; CTH 364 (The Song of Silver) 7. 3, trs. Hoffner (1998),
50.
(^4) But su ̄ ́rya- can equally be used of the sun as a celestial body. Cf. B. Schlerath in Meid (1998),
96, on the development ‘ “Sonne” –– “der” oder “die sonnenhafte” –– “Gott Sonne”, wobei dann
unter Umständen “Gott Sonne” auch wieder das Gestirn bezeichnen konnte’. As for svàr, it
sometimes appears in lists of divinities and divine cosmic elements, as in RV 5. 46. 3; 7. 44. 1; 10.
- 1, 65. 1, 14.
5. Sun and Daughter 195