Dear Alexander,
The Ossetic change *-rj- > *-l- is very
well evidenced and perfectly regular. I have no Ossetic etymological dictionary
to consult, but I suspect Ossetic <Ir, Iron> are loans, borrowed after the
shift, from a different Iranian dialect -- one that had a
diphthongised vowel in the first syllable: *airja:na- (as in Avestan) "Aryan,
Iranian" > Pre-Oss. *eran- > Oss.(Ir.) Iron; the Ossetes were
formerly known as the As ("Alani sive Assi" 1245). Tribal names change hands
rather easily in multiethnic areas.
On internal evidence, <Sarmátai>
appears to be the Greek version of an Iranian ethnonym like
*sarmá:- (no *-i-, and therefore no lambdacism) with the collective ending
*-ta:- that is still used in Ossetic to form plurals. I don't think an
etymological connection with Sairima- or any such (Serri etc.) is warranted by
historical or linguistic evidence.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 10:05 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Warning to list: Race and
anthropology
Thank you very much,
Piotr.
You gave me confidence in this topic I needed.
One particular
question remains, one of those questions which made me
hesitate. I hope it
also can be well explained.
[Piotr]
Modern Ossetic displays the
effects of several historical changes that are
also ascribed to Sarmatian and
Alanic on the basis of documented proper
names and loanwords. One of the most
characteristic features of Alanic and
Ossetic is the shift of Proto-Iranian
*r into *l, mainly before *i and *j
(*-ri-, *-rj- > *-li-, *-l-). The very
name "Alanoi" is derived from the
adjective
*arjana-.
_____________________________________________________
Ossets
call themselves "Iron" (or "Digoron"). This word is thought to be a
reflex of
Aryana.
What do we have then?
Aryana > Alanoi > Iron, i.e. *-rj-
> *-l- > *-r- .
Rivers flow backward?
Or "Iron" means something else
but Aryana?
And BTW another naive question.
Why this shift (*-ri-,
*-rj- > *-li-, *-l-) is not reflected in the name of
Sarmatians (original
Avestan Sairima) as well? We don't call
them
"Salmatians".
Alexander