From: Rick McCallister
Message: 50403
Date: 2007-10-21
> /ov/. Is it possible that this was shared withGeorgian as an areal feature?
>http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/24Alans/IranianEtymologyEn.htm
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh
> <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> > what is your take that long "a" can transform
> itself into long "o"
> > in attested situations? Cf. the table at
> >
> > http://www.kroraina.com/sarm/jh/jh3_4.html
>
> It seems to me that in Old Iranian --> Iranian of
> South Russia and
> Central Asia this transformation only occurs before
> a nasal (cf.
> also below).
>
> > there are a few classical "Os-" mentions of
> presumably Alanic
> > tribes (in Pliny and Ptolemy).
>
> For example?
>
> > Besides the Georgian deflection you cite
> (obviously the ultimate
> > source of our "Ossetes") I noticed that the
> hydronimic
> > nomenclature of East Ukraine has many river names
> where "o"
> > substitutes for the putative Iranic "a", incl. the
> river Oskol in
> > Poltava region. I'm starting to develop doubts
> about the obligatory
> > "a" in the light of Harmatta's reflections.
>
> I now see there are authors who state that Georgian
> Os (âOsseteâ)
> couldnât possibly have been derived from As/A:s in
> that the older
> Georgian form Ovs would (?) exclude it:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/yt3khb
> "In Old Georgian (400 AD) the Ossetians were called
> Ovs which
> later changed to Os. The suffix -eti means 'land',
> so Osseti
> [Georgian Osetâi -- Francesco] simply means 'the
> land of Ossetians'.
> It is in other words a Georgian term for the people,
> they have never
> been called As [this is a well-known fact --
> Francesco], and there
> has never been a phonetic development from as to os
> such as
> advocated by [Thor Heyerdahl -- open the link for
> details]...
> Ossetian is a Georgian name for those who call
> themselves Ir, Iron
> which again has the same origin as Alan."
>
> According to an authoritative book on things Alanic,
> AgustÃ
> Alemanyâs _Sources on the Alans_ (Leiden, Brill,
> 2000), quoted at
>
>
>__________________________________________________
> with some interspersed editorial comments by a
> proponent of a
> Turkish origin of the Ossetes,
>
> "Georg. Osetâi, Ðsi [are] the evolution of some
> older forms
> Ovsetâi and Ovsi, documented in the chronicle
> Kâartâlis Câxovreba (§
> 9. 1); however, this does not seem to be more than a
> variant of an
> ethnic name *as-. [...] The origin of the term *as-
> is obscure. The
> Georg. form os- could have the same origin as *as-,
> although it goes
> back to ovs-, as the long length of the vowel in
> some forms (Arab.
> NPers. As/As, Lat. Aas) and the gemination of the
> sibilant in others
> (Lat. Assi, Azzi) suggest a development *aws-/*ows-
> > as-/os-, thus
> the Arm. Awsowrk/Osur, name of an Alan tribe which
> inhabited the
> present-day Mazran-Dvaletâi, near Georgia
> (Asxarhacâoycâ § 7.3); cf.
> however the Abkhaz wafs âOsseteâ."
>
> Thus, there seems to be also a possibility that the
> ethnonym
> As/A:s âAlanâ comes from *aws-/*ows-.
>
> In Ossetic, as far as I know, the rounding of /*a/
> to /*o/ only
> occurs before nasals, which doesnât appear to be
> the case here.
> Thatâs why I continue to think that the forms with
> initial o-
> (whence Russian Osetiya), which come from Georgian,
> don't represent
> the âoriginalâ self-designation of the Alans.
>
> I, however, agree that the linguistic evidence to
> draw any firmer
> conclusion on this issue is very shaky.
>
> Regards,
> Francesco
>
>
>
>
>