From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 10554
Date: 2001-10-23
--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
*****GK: No. What makes you a historical amateur is the belief that
the Arimaspoi were "Scythians" (:=))). which neither Herodotus nor
any reputable historian has ever held...*****
OK. What I mean, and what Herodotus says very clearly, is that their
name is composed of _Scythian_ elements, and he also speculates about
the meaning of those elements. I don't believe in cyclopic humans
anyway :)).
*****GK: The Scythians had very "poetic" (if that is the right word
perhaps "expressive" is better) designations for many of the
populations falling within the ambit of their perspective...*****
This is just an assumption, and its purpose is to justify your own
poetically fantastic analysis: "no-beloved-observe" = one-eyed.
*****GK: Actually even a linguistic dunce like myself can see that
Herodotus' "spu" is quite appropriate (cpr. Latin SPECIO and Sanskr.
SPASATI for "to see" to observe").*****
<spec-> and <spas'-> correspond to Iranian *spas- (e.g. Avestan
spasya:). The only thing in common with <spou> is the cluster <sp>.
You leave the <ou> and the absence of *s unaccounted for. Alas,
scientific etymology does not allow you to add or delete segments at
will. Also, the verb "observe" is one thing and the noun "eye" is
another. There is an independent Indo-Iranian term for "eye", related
to Slavic *oko. Why wasn't it used here? Besides, Herodotus doesn't
say that <arima> means 'unmarried'. He says it means <hen>,
i.e. 'one'. I think he's wrong, you think he's "right in a special
way", so to speak.
*****GK: And as for "arima" let me send you up the wall again. The
Scythian language seems to have used the negative "a" in verbal
compositions (like Iranic, and I think Sanskrit and other languages).
So here I essayed "a-rama" where "rama" (for "rima") would
mean "beloved" "spouse" or the like and "arimaspi" would poetically
construe as "they of the unmarried eye". Again, more ingenious than
provable. But not bad when compared to "black cloacks" "man-
killers" "man eaters" "beautifully horsed" "rich in horses" et sim.
Come upith something better and I'll lap it up.*****
There are lots of semantically transparent compound names in various
Iranian languages of the form X-asp(a)-, where the second element is
*aspa- 'horse', and the first is adjectival: X = good, strong, swift,
sturdy, ready, grey, etc. Why not *aram-aspa- with the same meaning
as Vishtaspa- '(having) ready horses' or better still *arima-aspa-
'having tame horses'? These at least look like real Scythian names,
even if applied to a legendary folk.
Piotr