Interpreting some Scythian names

From: george knysh
Message: 10511
Date: 2001-10-22

I am putting together material for an article on the
political history of classical Scythia. The final
product is still some distance away, but I cannot
resist the temptation to seek enlightenment from the
superb linguists on this forum. I am wondering if many
of the reported Scythian "tribal" names need to be
interpreted in terms of Iranic references.
Unfortunately I cannot get ahold of Petrov's volume on
the Scythians in short order. For those unfamiliar
with his other work let me just say that he is the
linguist who discerned many clear cut affinities
between Scythian terms and the Baltic languages. But
what I would like to find out, now that Trubachov's
studies on the significance of Pontic Indic in
historical times have appeared, is whether the
Scythian ruling tribal nomenclature can be related to
Indic. As a perfect dilettante in these matters, I
consulted the on line Cologne digital Sanskrit lexicon
and came up with "reconstructions". They all look
pretty good if one only has historical criteria in
mind. But what looks good in this context may in fact
be nothing more than appalling absurdity to trained
linguists and ingenuity is no substitute for science.
So with apologies for my "efforts" here are their
initial results:

The four major Scythian ethna of his time are called
thus by Herodotus: (I'll give the English version)=
PARALATAE (the "Royal" Scythians and descendants of
the youngest son of the Scythian Foundation Legend
(SFL), Colaxais); CATIARI and TRASPIES (the "nomadic"
Scythians and descendants of the second son of the
SFL); and the AUCHATAE ("agricultural" Scythians and
descendants of the eldest son of the SCL). For a while
I thought that TRASPIES might be linkable to the
Iranic word for horse (ASPA), which would make sense
in view of some other names preserved only in
Herodotus' Greek (CALLIPIDAE above all), but I
couldn't do anything with the prefix (TR-) and was
unsure whether it could stand for "three" which would
translate the name as "Third Horse". So I tried an
Indic variation about which more shortly.

PARALATAE. I reconstructed this as PARA-LATA. Acc. to
the Cologne lexicon this might mean "The First Whips"
or "The Chief Whips". The ingenuity here would be the
clear relationship between this and the story in
Herodotus about how the Scythians reconquered their
land after returning from their lengthy forays in the
Middle East (by whipping their "slaves" into
submission).

CATIARI. I found KATI-ARA in the Lexicon which
translates as "The Very Swift". This sounded
appropriate for horse-riding nomads.

TRASPIES. I tried TARA-RASPA, which translates as
"Lords of the Mighty Roar". Given the location of the
Scythian nomads on the Lower Dnipro, I thought this
might be a reference to those who controlled the fords
close to the Dnipro falls (which existed until 1927,
and whose "roar" was notorious).

AUCHATAE. This I related to AU-KHATA which according
to the Lexicon means "earth-tillers" or
"earth-plowers" or "earth-diggers". Which I thought an
appropriate designation for the farming
Scythians.==The fact that they weren't actually
farmers but rather "landowners" is secondary here.

What do you think?

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