Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names

--- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> Pseudo-Zachariah lists the Dirmar together with
> thirteen other "peoples", some of whom are
> well-known Turkic or North Caucasian ethnoi. As far
> as I can see, among the peoples on the list only the
> Alans are unquestionably Iranian-speaking.

*****GK: My source for the list was M.I. Artamonov,
Istoriia Khazar, Leningrad 1962, pp. 83-84. He seem to
give 13 names only, and does not mention the Alans.
BTW the "Ephtalits" of the list might also be
Iranian-speakers?****

(PG)The

> source does not say or imply that the Dirmar were
> "the main Iranic tribal group of the Don to Volga
> steppe"; linguistically, they may well have been
> Turkic.

*****GK: Sources rarely give that kind of information.
Hence the need for interpretation. As a non-linguist I
have to rely on others for bits and pieces of
information. J.H. Maenchen-Helfen, "The World of the
Huns" 1973, p. 453 note 62, mentions that "-mar" was
an Iranic suffix meaning "people". Hence Dir-mar.
Which does not mean they might not have been bilingual
given the circumstances of the time.*****

>
> (PG)What makes me wary of your interpretation is

that

> whereas Dirmar is a hapax legomenon and we know
> nothing of substance about the name or the people so
> called, Askold and Dir are perfectly plausible Norse
> personal names (e.g. Askaldr [or H�skuldr?], D�ri,
> cf. OE De:or). Whatever its historical referents,
> the _name_ Dir is more likely of Scandinavian origin
> than related to <Dirmar>.

****GK: It's good to be skeptical. Speaking of Askold
and as an aside, I too am highly skeptical of the
historian (I forgot his name but have it in my note
somewhere) who claimed that the real name of Popiel
was... Askold (popiel= "cold ash" --> ashcold -->
askold). Seriously though, the fact that Hoskuldr and
Doeri are good Scandinavian names means very little in
context. Plenty of examples of similar problems. What
was "Attila"'s real name? What were the real names of
the Rosomon aristocrats presented in Jordanes' sources
as "Sarus" "Ammius" and "Sunilda" for the delectation
of Gothic audiences? A linguist recently demonstrated
that practically all the names of Slavic leaders in
the 6th century were Gothic. So I try to dig a little
deeper and the results are for the most part not
unsatisfactory. Except for "Paralatae" (:=)))*****

>
> Piotr
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: george knysh
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 8:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names
>
>
> *****GK: As far as I know they are only mentioned in
> two contexts, one certain, the other speculative.
> The certain context is a mid-6th c. list of
> Don-Volga steppe peoples found in a Syrian source
> (pseudo-Zacharias). The speculative context I
> developed a few years ago through microanalysis of
> the Nestor Chronicle. I concluded that a case could
> be made that the constant pairing of the two rulers
> of Kyiv (Kiev) mentioned there as "boyars of Rurik",
> to wit, Askold and Dyr (Askold i Dir -->
> Askolt-i-Dir(t), killed by Oleg on the Ugrian Hill,
> might represent not so much an earlier Norse
> presence, as a Khazar imperial one. That's actually
> the background of my queries about Turkic and/or
> Iranic "i". I'm reasonably certain about the
> historical and archaeological evidence, less so
> about the linguistic one. "Askol" was a Turkic title
> meaning "ruler of the (western) borderland", which
> seemed rather appropriate in the case of mid-9th
> century Kyiv. The Nestor Chronicle
> locates "Dir's tomb" in an area of the old city
> where archaeological excavations have discovered
> burials according to the Zoroastrian rite of West
> Khazaria I mentioned in a separate post. My
> assumption was that some of the Dir (or Dirmar) had
> been sent to the Kyivan outpost by the Kagan-Bek of
> Itil. I published an article containing this
> suggestion in The Ukrainian Quarterly (NY) 2000,
> entitled "The mystery of Kyiv's
> original Rus'". I didn't develop any theories about
> the later fate of the Dirmar. Their Donetz
> settlements were destroyed by the Pechenegs, and
> their remnants incorporated into the P. and
> successor Hordes. I suppose they were eventually
> Turkicized.*****
>

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