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Weekly Georgian Etymology: კავკასია ḳavḳasia 'Caucasus', learnèd borrowing of Greek Καύκασος, from Scythian *kroukas- 'shining like ice'. Originally just the Darial Pass, it may come from Georgian მყინვარწვერი Mq̇invarc̣veri lit. 'glacial prominence', an old name for Mt Kazbek.
The Greek borrowing is first attested in Georgian sources in an 11th c work on the history of the Bagrationi dynasty: ბაგრატ, აფხაზთა მეფე, კურაპალატი დიდი, და ეუფლა ტაოს მამულსა თჳსსა, და დაიპყრა ყოველი კავკასია თჳთ-მპყრობელობითა ჯიქეთითგან ვიდრე გურგენადმდე
Which translates as: "Bagrat [III], King of the Abkhaz, Great Kuropalates [of Byzantium], took possession of his ancestral lands in Tao, conquered all Caucasia as lord and master from the Pontic coast up to Gurgen" (Sumbat Davitis-dze's Life and Account of the Bagrationi)
Like many ancient toponyms, the name 'Caucasus' has shifted form and meaning over the centuries. Though mentioned by Herodotus and Aeschylus, its first geographically identifiable mention is found in Pliny the Elder's survey of nations of the world:
It is clear from Pliny's account that the word 'Caucasus' here refers not to chain of mountains, but one specific pass through that chain. His account also makes clear that he is referring to the Darial Pass, along which lay sulphur springs and Armazistsikhe, citadel to Mtskheta.
In a later passage, Pliny explicitly states that the 'Scythians... call Mt Caucasus "Graucasis", which means white with snow' [hoc est nive candidum]. Very little is known about ancient Scythian, but Kretschmer connected this to Greek κρύος 'frost' and Indic kāśate 'shines'.
Kretschmer explains the loss of the /r/ as folk-etymology after borrowing into Greek, in imitation of completely unrelated place names Kaukasa on the Aegean island of Chios. In any event, Pliny's attestation of <Croucasim> is the earliest with /r/.
Whether this is true is hard to know, since Scythian was so poorly attested, and its historical sound-changes virtually unknown. But Pliny establishes that it was first used to refer to a small region consisting of a mountain and a pass, and applied later to the mountain chain.
Missing in all the Indo-European literature is discussion of Caucasian lgs toponymy themselves. In Georgian the pass is today called დარიალი Dariali (< Persian Dar-i-Alan 'Gate of the Alans') and its most important mountain ყაზბეგი Q'azbegi, but these were not the original names.
The older name for Mt Kazbek in Georgian is მყინვარწვერი Mq̇invarc̣veri, from მყინვარი mq̇invari 'glacier' and წვერი c̣veri 'peak, prominence'. This is significant because this is (more or less) exactly what Pliny says the Scythians call this same mountain (in fact a volcano).
This is also true of other regional lgs:
Chechen Башлам melting-mountain
Ossetic Урсхох white-mountain
So it seems regional lgs have been calquing the name of this mountain across lg family barriers.
Chechen Башлам melting-mountain
Ossetic Урсхох white-mountain
So it seems regional lgs have been calquing the name of this mountain across lg family barriers.
So if we can take the Scythian etymology at face-value, the various cultures of the region created snow-bound calques for this mountainous toponym, and this was then spread to the Pass, and then to the whole mountain chain, after spreading into Greek. This week looks like this:
