I dont have a digital edition of the Kāṇva rescension of the ŚBr with me to quote the text directly, but here is an extract from a tertiary online source saying that what is he’lavo he’lavaḥ in the Mādhyandina rescension is quoted as hailo hailo in the Kāṇva rescension, and as he’layo he’layaḥ by Patañjali.
Source: Journal of the Oriental Institute , Volumes 7–8, Oriental Institute (Vadodara, India), 1958 (originally from the Kāṇva rescension of the ŚBr)
Patañjali, writing in the Vyākaraṇa-Mahābhāṣya the 2nd century BCE, repeats the same account with the words “helayo helayaḥ” (“te 'surā helayo helaya iti kurvantaḥ parābabhūvuḥ . tasmāt brāhmaṇena na mlecchitavai nāpabhāṣitavai . mleccho ha vā eṣa yad apaśabdaḥ” i.e. “those asuras, mispronouncing words by saying “helayaḥ, helayaḥ”, got vanquished in war. Therefore a brahmin should not intentionally speak in a slurred/foreign way (na mlecchitavai) or mispronounce words (na apabhāṣitavai) like this. For mispronounced words is the characteristic of the speech of foreigners (mleccha)”
As you can see, identifying with asuras and their language, and being foreigners, and mispronouncing Sanskrit words, all go hand in hand. Except that the Persians worshipping the all-knowing-Asura (Ahura-Mazda) would have been speaking perfect persian and not intentionally speaking sanskrit with a bad pronunciation. But to the ears of Sanskrit speakers, it would have sounded like simple words like “he 'rayaḥ” were being intentionally and habitually mispronounced in different ways leading to all sorts of semantic confusions and resultant loss in battle as a result of that.
But similar (phonetic) Persianisms are visible in Pali and Gandhari as well - for example the r alternating with l (as in he’rayo with he’layo), the contraction of ayo / avo to just ‘o’ (as seen in hai’lo hai’lo in the screenshot above, and the interchange between y and v (helavo vs helayo) - which is seen in Skt mṛga-dāva vs Pāli miga-dāya etc. This is one of the reasons why I think Achaemenid rule and linguistic influence in Gandhara manifests in Gandhari & Pali which are based on western-Indian spoken dialects in the Buddha’s time.
What Norman calls eastern forms (for example the letter ‘l’ in place of ‘r’) are not “eastern” in any geographical sense. He puts an ‘eastern’ sticker on them to group them together with other ‘eastern’ phonetic forms (in his conception), but I have argued elsewhere from primary sources that I dont think Magadha was an eastern janapada to begin with. Therefore those are eastern in his conception because he is a-priori assuming (or inheriting a century of secondary research and cross-citations back and forth that claim Magadha axiomatically was an eastern janapada).
A derogatory sense might fit it in the Pāli-suttas - and yes it’s use could be construed to be impolite, authoritarian or brusque even if not necessarily outright derogatory/demeaning. But if je originally etymologically was aye, it is an indeclinable and therefore gender-independent. Being a particle, it carries no meaning of its own, so a derogatory meaning is likely a superimposed interpretation (a derogation imagined from the surrounding circumstances). The sutta(s) in question might make you want to introduce some verbal drama in the translation, but I dont think that is necessarily tenable strictly on linguistic or etymological grounds. But it’s your decision how to translate, I am not saying you need to revise your opinion, I am just suggesting how I read it.
Yes OK, got it. I also named other dāsas from early-Vedic for that purpose. If dāsa-names didnt evidently get invariably associated with darkness in pre-Buddhist times, and if you think the contrary was the case in the society that the Pali canon seeks to depict, that is fine. I wouldn’t however derive the same conclusion from just two (what I consider scanty evidence). It seems to me that it reflects more the personal mental picture about dāsas/dāsīs, that the unknown original narrator of the suttas seeks to depict - I am unable to evaluate its historical veracity from the etymology of just those two names.