Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

--- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: george knysh
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 9:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian
> names
>
>
> ****GK: ... Since you (=Ch.G.) probably can't read

Ukrainian,

> here's a translation of
> a Petrovian footnote on the Scythian River Mother
> Goddess API (SE, p.153, n2: "Of all Indo-European
> languages the word API is closest to the Baltic
> lexicon. Cf. OlPr "APE" ("river": Elbing
> glossary,62); Lith., Latv. "UPE". Compare Hitt.
> "HAP" "river"
> "stream". In Indo-Iranian languages: Sanskr. "APAH",
> Avest. "AFS" ="water", Ossetian "ARF"= "deep"
> "deepness". Abayev thinks this possibly derives from
> "AP-RA" "AP" = "water". Contrary to the widespread
> view that the Scythian language was Iranic, the name
> of the Mother of the Scythians, both phonetically,
> and as to meaning, is closer to Balt. "APE" and
> Hitt. "HAP"= "river", than to Avest. "AFS"= "water"
> or Osseticc "ARF" = "deep", since in the Ossetian
> language the word "AP-" ="water" is missing
> altogether and must be reconstructed as an
> assumption."*****
>
> If this sample is anything to go by, Petrov is
> (was?)

*****GK: He died in 1969. His work was published
posthumously.*****

not a particularly serious linguist.

> "Phonetically closer"? Who, apart from complete
> amateurs, uses such criteria?

****GK: "Not particularly serious". An "amateur". (He
was one of the Soviet Union's leading specialists in
comparative Indo-European linguistics).But what did he
try to do here? To demonstrate that a knee-jerk search
for Iranic explanations of Scythian words was not
necessary and in fact could be highly misleading. And
the serious and professional Piotr (well not so much
in history and archaeology but we won't quibble) then
proceeds to demonstrate that Petrov was right...*****

Avestan a:fs^ is the

> Nom.sg. of the stem <ap-> (Acc.sg. a:pam, Instr.sg.
> apa:, etc.). He could also have mentioned Modern
> Persian a:p/a:b. The Old Prussian word is obviously
> related, but then *h2ap- is common Indo-European, so
> why shouldn't it be?

****GK: So if API goes back to what you call common
IE, or Proto-Indo-Iranian why the urgent need to
understand it by reference to Iranic dialects
only?****

PG: Anyway, *ap- is an impeccable

> Proto-Iranian word (and Proto-Indo-Iranian too,
> given the Sanskrit cognates), even if it is missing
> from Ossetic in underived form. The reason for that
> is a trivial semantic shift particular to Ossetic:
> don < *danu < *dHa:nu 'river' came to mean 'water',
> ousting the older term. However, the development
> *ap-ra- > *afra- > arf- is regular (even the Ossetic
> metathesis *-fr- > -rf-), and I see no obstacles to
> accepting this derivation.

*****GK: Petrov did not deny it either. But the idea
was to show that it was easier to rely (here and in
many cases) on Baltic analogies rather than to
automatically search for Iranic cognates. He looked at
Baltic, Iranic, and Thracian material because of the
territorial contiguity factor.*****

>
> Piotr
>
>
>
>

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