Casa Editrice Persiani Hunara: Journal of Ancient Iranian Arts and History 2975-1608 4 No. 1 2026 07 01 The Indo-European Verb *peh2- “to Protect, Guard, Pasture” in Native and Borrowed Layers of Armenian 1 21 248056 10.22034/hunara.2026.248056 EN Hrach Martirosyan University of Würzburg 0000-0002-5554-0712 Varduhi Badalyan Higher Education and Science Committee of MESCS RA 0009-0008-1040-6115 Journal Article 2025 11 07 The Indo-European verbal root *peh₂- “to protect, guard; to graze, tend (livestock)” is represented in Armenian through native developments such as *ph₂-tēr “father” > hayr, *h3eu̯i-peh₂- “sheep-herder” > hoviw (instrumental hovu-a-w), *peh2-i̯e- > hayim “to look, gaze on, observe, watch”, and *peh₂-tro- > hawr-an “flock, sheepfold”. It is also reflected in numerous words and personal names borrowed from Iranian sources, e.g. apat “inhabited/cultivated place”, darapan “porter, doorkeeper”, hpatak “subject, vassal”, šahap “vice-roy, governor, mayor”, pa(r)hem “to guard, preserve, keep”, pahapan “keeper, guard, watchman”, etc. This article attempts to present the corpus of such words in a concise form, supplemented with etymological notes. Special attention is devoted, on the one hand, to terms for pahanord, pahapan, pahpanak, grapanak—amulets or magical protective objects—and, on the other hand, to the etymology of pay/payn, the name of a protective spirit.

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