Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

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

From: george knysh

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 1:16 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

***GK: All that might well be so. But the fact remains that however you technically dearticulate "AUKHATA" you still come up with terms intimating a sense that is identical with the names retained for us by Herodotus and Pliny (plus Pliny's sources). ...*****

 

Not quite. I really can't see a way to decompose Aukhatai into "earth" + "diggers" in a way that any specialist would find acceptable -- not, at any rate, as "au-" + "khata-". The division au-khata- is almost certainly wrong in the first place, for reasons I hope to be able to discuss later.

 

***GK: ... This should be a cue for linguists to work harder and see if they can discover some way to overcome "formal difficulties". Even taking into account that good old Herodotus may have occasionally garbled things. After all they wouldn't want to be historical amateurs would they?(:=))*****

 

Well, well, well... Work harder? We do work hard. Some way to overcome "formal difficulties"? I hope you aren't suggesting that we should relax our methodology and lower our critical standards in order to get preconceived results. That would be very bad science. From the fact that the Aukhatai were "agricultural Scythians" it doesn't automatically follow that their ethnonym must mean "earth-diggers", "farmers", or the like. Herodotus, with all due respect, offers many a completely spurious etymology -- e.g. Arimaspoi, the allegedly cyclopic Scythians, from "arima" meaning 'one' and "spou" meaning 'eye' (or "ari" 'one' + "maspo" 'eye', as other auctores divide it). If I reject such naive guessing, does it make me a historical amateur?

 

Piotr