Etimologie indoeuropee di nomi geografici significativi nella storia ebraica: Gerusalemme, Sion, Canaan, Giordano, Babele, ʾAškənāz

Ancient Near East encompasses such unmistakably Indo-European linguistic areas as Anatolia, Armenia and the Iranian Plateau. Whether these areas were part of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland is a much debated issue; equally controversial is the presence of Old Indo-European substrata in Lower Egypt and Mesopotamia (where Babel can be added to the place-names of possible Indo-European origin). The Biblical notion of Hittites in Pre-Canaanite Palestine is commonly dismissed as a late fairy tale; nevertheless, some relevant place-names in the Levant, like Canaan, Jerusalem, and Zion, do have a regular Indo-European Anatolian etymology of equal plausibility as the current Semitic ones. The same holds true for Jordan. All these names fit into an Indo-European net of hydronyms, choronyms, and ethnonyms which ties the Mediterranean basin with the Caucasian region and the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) linguistic area. Finally, the Hebrew name of the Armenian region of Ashkenaz happens to be an appropriate Armenian designation for the Jews.