Gerrhos/Kerros, Seim, and Desna

From: george knysh
Message: 11654
Date: 2001-12-04

Earlier [3 Dec. 21:08:52] Piotr wrote:
"There's no need to assume that <desna> is a Baltic
name. Reflexes of PIE *dek^s-(i)no- 'right (= not
left)' occur throughout the family, _including_
Slavic, as you probably don't realise (OCS desnU
'right', desnica 'right hand'), and Indo-Iranian (Skt.
daks.in.a-, Av. das^ina-)."

****GK: Actually I did know about "desnytsia", but
thought that in historical context it was more likely
that a big river like the Desna would have been named
by the Proto-Balts since the area is otherwise filled
with Baltic hydronyms and has practically no Old
Slavic ones. But your point about the Indo-Iranian
reflex, and especially your suggestion that "Gerrhos"
might well be a Thrakoid form "Kerros" (the
"black"[river]) got me thinking.== There is another
major river here, which flows east-west, has its
source in Russia and joins the Desna in Ukraine. That
river is the Seim (or Sejm, Sem', Syam'). The Seim has
been etymologized as an Indo-Iranic name: "syAma"=
"dark", hence the "dark" river. Now if you gaze not as
today west-east but east-west this Seim or "dark
river" looks like it might just continue on towards
the Dnipro and eventually flow into it. At its
confluence with the Desna, it is the Seim and not the
Desna which has the larger channel (judging by a
couple of maps I've consulted). What if the original
"Desna" was also an Iranic name as you've suggested
above? That would make perfect sense geographically.
As you go westward along the "dark river" (the
Thrakoid "black river") at one point you have this
"right" or "das^ina" inflow. There is some backing for
this in the Herodotan passage about the Gerrhos. This
was an important river where the Royal Scythians
buried their dead. And quite a few Scythian kurgans
and "castles" are to be found along the present Seim
(but not along the Upper Desna from the point of
confluence). Perhaps in the 5th c. BC the Kerros/Syama
was today's Lower Desna-->Seim. Only later under
different circumstances was the name Desna, which
originally only applied to the branch from the spot of
the confluence come to mean also that portion of the
older Kerros/Syama which flowed on into the Dnipro,
and where the eventual "black" city of
Chernihiv/Chernigov arose.*******

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping.
http://shopping.yahoo.com