Re: [tied] Daci

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 9854
Date: 2001-09-29

There is no reason to doubt Strabo's opinion that the Daci (Greek Dakoi/Dakai, probably with the first "a" long, Latin Da:ci, Da:cia, Da:ciscus) and the Getae were linguistically identical (<homoglo:ttoi>). The early peoples living on the Upper Danube and in the Carpathian region apparently constitute a separate branch of IE. They spoke a Satemic language known from fragmentary evidence such as toponyms, names cited by ancient sources, and a handful of substrate loans in Romanian. It was not directly related to Celtic, though some lateral Celtic influence would not be surprising. Its relationship to Thracian is unclear. My personal opinion is that Albanian belongs to the Dacian/Getic branch as its only surviving member. There are some phonological arguments in favour of such a view (syllabic *r > ri, *e: > *a:). It's hazardous in the extreme to speculate about the etymology of an ethnonym if the corresponding language is almost unknown, but let me just point out that a derivation from *dHe1- is also possible. Dacian compound placenames very often contain the element -da:va- (evidently 'town, fortress' < *dHeh1-wah2-?).
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: João S. Lopes Filho
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Daci

If Dacia was an IE name there's a lot of possibilities. Are the Daci Celts?
Slavs? Balts? Thraco-Phrygians?
Has Dacia  short or long "a"?

*d(H)ak-? d(H)ag-? d(H)ayak-? d(H)asak-? d(H)asnk-? d(H)ok-?