The Survey of two Metonymic phrases of Achaemenid Elamite

Elamites and Persians were approximately in contact since 9 or 8 century BCE. Their broad connection contained diverse cultural, economic, social and linguistic interactions. Like all the contacts, the lexical borrowing was one of the initial consequences of Elamo-Persian contact; therefore, both languages have borrowed lexica form one another. In the pre-Achaemenid era, Old Persian language had a lower position in comparison with Elamite language which was the upper language, however, after a few centuries, in the Achaemenid age, this hierarchy has collapsed, and Old Persian became the upper language and used as the language of royal Achaemenid inscriptions as well as the language of the ruling class. At any positions, lexical borrowing was not one-sided, and both languages received lexica from each other. Apart from loanwords, there are some metonymies and forms of expression in Elamite language, which their origins are not apparent, yet they are comparable with some metonymic phrases in Classical and Middle Persian. This paper focuses on two Achaemenid Elamite metonymic expressions which are identical with metonymic terms in Persian and also tries to provide some instances for elucidating the possible origins of some metonymic Persian phrases and furthering this aspect of language contact between Elamites and Persians.