Re: [tied] Ryabchikov

----- Original Message -----

From: Rex H. McTyeire

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2000 8:05 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Ryabchikov

Dear Rex,

 

The discussion of things like Rjabchikov's site is also very instructive. I wouldn't call it a distraction and I don't think you need to apologise for anything. I greatly value your input on things Geto-Dacian.

 

While we're at it, I have just discovered, to my dismay, that Mr Rjabchikov's (he prefers this transliteration) skill in peddling his theories on the Internet is quite effective. He announces updates to his site on various forums including linguist.org, and the Web is full of references to his pages. Fie on self-styled Web "committees" that give him "awards for academic excellence" -- they disseminate the illusion that Rjabchikov's work is recognised by international scholarly circles. A naive Web surfer may easily mistake Rjabchikov for an eminent scholar, since few academics bother to refute his ideas, and if they do (cf. Jacques Guy's "Rjabchikov's decipherments examined", Journal of the Polynesian Society 97 [1998]), their criticism gets much less publicity.

 

Piotr

 

 

 

Rex wrote:

 

To all injured parties, particularly: a most favored correspondent, Adriana; a most respected scholar, Piotr; and my ethnic kin, Beinn Mac.

    All due apologies are mine..and I offer them now.  I found Ryabchikov simply by running "sun + goddess + scythian" on my web ferret..initially pulling only those references from a single page at his site.  As I am not a linguist, it was not until I went back to read the whole site that I found reason for concern in the context of "Phaistos disc = Pelasgian = Proto Slavonic".  The ethnocentricity I am used to in interpreting (most) historical work on the eastern Danube..and Romanian history...from every possible direction.  I then posted what I had pulled, as support for an intended glimpse at confusion and contradiction within disciplines and certainly across disciplinary lines, as illustrated in the apparently contradictory Britannica quotes.

    I am not an academic, and teach here only by invitation and without fee: as an arch anth trained retired US Army officer, I have developed enough financial freedom to support an option to study, research and explore over accepting an underpaid post which would deny me said freedom.  I have taught English and History..but do not consider myself a professional in related fields.  I will even accept graciously "lay" or "amateur" labels, beginning to bristle only with application of "novice" or "dilettante" :-)  (I am too old to graciously accept the title "student"..even though I was born one and will die one.) The application of the web site material without clearly questioning "is this guy out in space?" was an amateurish error..and it is for that, that I apologize. 

    Somehow, as a resident Americanized Nordic-Celt (with subtle unclaimed Irish influence) political historical exile from Easter-Ross, I find myself the exo-ethnic champion of the ethnic identity, resilience, and history of the "Post-Thracian Latinized Geto-Daci" on many lists associated with history, anthropology and related fields; particularly in that dark void of local history between Roman withdrawal and the emergence of Wallacia.  (Most of those lists not achieving the high standards of cybalist, however).  I find it rewarding, as I learn on site. 

    For Adriana:  I don't think anyone would deny Scythian as an element in the ethnogenesis of Southern Russia...but I am used to seeing a graphic representation, in many sources here, of a state like entity called Scythia..that in my view never existed to the geographic extent illustrated.  Many such go straight from shard culture names to this illusion of cultural, ethnic, and political homogeneity without regard for time, pre and post influences; and relegating historical Thrace to the boundaries of the Roman province of the same name.  Even if I accept an expansion of Scythian to mean all nomadic Indo-Iranian intrusions westward...most of what I have seen is overstated, and that without even getting into Hungarian issues, which also mistreat the facts.

    In any case, I am guilty of initiating this distraction, and again my apologies for any disruption my errors may have caused.