--- Piotr Gasiorowski <
piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <bugalowbil@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 7:11 PM
> Subject: [tied] The Cimmerians
>
>
> > Do we know anything at all about the language of
> the Cimmerians? Many thanks.
>
> Hardly anything at all. No linguistic material has
> survived apart from just a few (probably garbled)
> personal names that sound vaguely Iranian. That
> could be a local fashion, however, rather than proof
> that the Cimmerians were Iranian-speaking.
>
> Piotr
*****GK: The most recent archaeology of the historical
"Cimmeria" (which is construed as the area
subsequently occupied by the Paralata (Par-arya-ta) or
"Royal" Scythians) identifies it as a Late Zrubna
(Srubnaya) culture, with two components: one deriving
from the earlier (local) Zrubna culture (which has
roots going back to the mid-IInd mill. BC) and
another, analyzed as a "recent" (i.e. ca. 900 BC)
arrival from southern Siberia. Terenozhkin and
Chlenova have rather convincingly linked this second
group with the descendants of the Andronovo steppe
culture. Rostovtzev's old theory about the Thracian
character of the Cimmerians' language can probably be
laid to rest, though Oleg Trubachov is not yet
prepared to do so. There is more. Recent archaeology
also holds that most "Cimmerians" did not migrate, but
stayed behind and mixed with the incoming Scythians.
So while the linguistic evidence is inconclusive, as
Piotr noted, the convergence of linguistic data
(meagre enough) and archaeological data makes it
fairly likely that the Cimmerians spoke an Iranic
dialect. This would have facilitated the swift
dissolution of the masses which remained into the
ethnos of eastern Scythia (by Herodotus' time there
were only "Scythians" around in old "Cimmeria").
Beside the names of rulers, their ethnonym and
constructions stemming therefrom have survived. There
is still some debate about the etymology. They are the
Biblical "Gomer" of course (Gen.10).*****
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
http://shopping.yahoo.com