A Native Proto-Indo-European Etymology for Artemis: The h2rtk- + -mo- + -is Double-Suffix Stack
The etymology of the Greek goddess name Artemis (Mycenaean a-te-mi-to / a-ti-mi-te) remains highly contested, with mainstream scholarship frequently defaulting to an un-etymologizable Pre-Greek substrate loanword. This paper presents a novel, internally consistent native Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etymology. We demonstrate that Artemis can be reverse-engineered using standard Indo-European suffix-stacking morphology. By compounding the PIE zoonym for "bear" (h2rtkos) with a Caland-associated property suffix (-mo-) and a primary individualizing feminine animate agent suffix (-is), we reconstruct the intermediate form h2rtk-m-is. Through regular rules of vocalic syncope, phonetic cluster simplification (-tkm- to -tm-), and native Greek epenthesis, this framework provides an elegant phonetic and semantic pipeline: "The specific female individual embodying the characteristic aspect of the bear."
Authors
- Brandon Eli Cornelison (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4519-866X)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Published
- 2026-10-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23811266
- Primary Topic
- Linguistics and language evolution
- Type
- preprint