Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

I am afraid, George, that what you've come up with is folk
etymologies. You can't analyse Scythian words by comparing them with
arbitrary combinations of roots extracted from a Sanskrit dictionary,
without as much as checking how those roots collocate with other
elements when forming compounds. The vocabulary of Sanskrit is
enormous and such matches are easy to obtain, but they won't stand up
to closer scrutiny.

>> PARALATAE. I reconstructed this as PARA-LATA. Acc. to the Cologne

lexicon this might mean "The First Whips" or "The Chief Whips". <<

It can mean no such thing "according to the lexicon", since nothing
like *para-lata- is given there. The lexicon lists <para-> and <lata-

> separately, and the translation is your own proposal. However, you

must have noticed that <lata-> is recorded with several meanings, the
primary one being 'creeping plant'; 'thong of a whip' is just a
figurative extension of that, one of several. <para-> means 'far,
distant, ulterior' and can acquire the sense 'ultimate', but it
requires a leap of faith to interpret *paralata- as 'chief
whip'. "Foreign Creepers", perhaps ;)?

>> CATIARI. I found KATI-ARA in the Lexicon which translates as "The

Very Swift". <<

Again, what you found was <kati-> and <ara->, not the combination
*kati-ara-, and the interpretation is yours, not anything actually
found in the lexicon. The interrogative pronoun <kati-> means 'how
many?' (cf. Latin quot) and must be followed by particles like <-cid-

>, <-cana-> or <-api-> to be translated as 'several' or 'often'

(not 'very').

>> TRASPIES. I tried TARA-RASPA, which translates as "Lords of the

Mighty Roar". <<

Same thing again. _You_ translate it so, for reasons that escape me
altogether.

>> AUCHATAE. This I related to AU-KHATA which according to the

Lexicon means "earth-tillers" or "earth-plowers" or "earth-diggers".
<<

Again, there is no such thing as *au-kHa:ta- in the lexicon, with or
without the meaning you ascribe to it; <au-> doesn't mean 'earth' in
the sense of 'ground, soil', and the meaning 'digger, delver' would
be expressed by a different derivative, e.g. <kHa:-tar-> or <kHani-
tar->. <kHa:-ta-> is a past participle meaning 'dug, buried, etc.'

This doesn't mean that I have convincing alternative proposals up my
sleeve. I just want to warn you that linguists will reject your
etymologies.

Piotr

--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

> I am putting together material for an article on the
> political history of classical Scythia. The final
> product is still some distance away, but I cannot
> resist the temptation to seek enlightenment from the
> superb linguists on this forum. I am wondering if many
> of the reported Scythian "tribal" names need to be
> interpreted in terms of Iranic references.
> Unfortunately I cannot get ahold of Petrov's volume on
> the Scythians in short order. For those unfamiliar
> with his other work let me just say that he is the
> linguist who discerned many clear cut affinities
> between Scythian terms and the Baltic languages. But
> what I would like to find out, now that Trubachov's
> studies on the significance of Pontic Indic in
> historical times have appeared, is whether the
> Scythian ruling tribal nomenclature can be related to
> Indic. As a perfect dilettante in these matters, I
> consulted the on line Cologne digital Sanskrit lexicon
> and came up with "reconstructions". They all look
> pretty good if one only has historical criteria in
> mind. But what looks good in this context may in fact
> be nothing more than appalling absurdity to trained
> linguists and ingenuity is no substitute for science.
> So with apologies for my "efforts" here are their
> initial results: [...]