Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

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

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: george knysh
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 8:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian
> names
>
>
> *****GK: Probably because in Scythian "eye" was
> "spu" (:=)). I prefer the lexical information
> offered by Herodotus in the 5th c. BC to the
> putative scientific etymology of the early 21rst c.,
> not because I doubt the relevance of the latter in
> its contexts, but
> because I think Herodotus stood a better chance of
> being properly briefed about these things (even if
> he could occasionally garble a bit). ... And if
> Herodotus says that "arima" meant "one"(or some
> equivalent thereof)in Scythian, then I must believe
> him, other things being equal (and they haven't yet
> been shown not to be).******
>
> PG:Well, why don't you buy his one-eyed men and
> gold-guarding gryphons as well?

*****GK: Because there is a difference is there not
between accepting the existence of such creatures and
accepting the reality of the words used to refer to
them in speech.*****

PG: Very few ancient

> Greeks were interested in learning a barbarian
> language (even fluent Persian, as in the case of
> Themistocles, was an exception confirming the rule);
> they surely expected foreigners to learn Greek
> instead. Herodotus often made mistakes showing that
> his linguistic knowledge of foreign langages was
> very limited. For example, he opined that all
> Persian personal names ended in <-s> (meaning, I
> suppose, masculine names only). This shows that his
> knowledge of those names was restricted to their
> Greek forms. He could easily have been misled by
> unreliable informants, second-hand sources, or by
> his own imagination.

*****GK: Yes of course, and the example you give is a
good one. But just because someone "could easily have
been misled etc.." doesn't mean that he was in fact
misled etc. In that case one should just jettison the
whole or whatever doesn't fit current prejudice. And
perhaps rewrite this for him ("arima-aspa") just like
old Pritsak tried to rewrite the Rus' Primary
Chronicle because some stuff in it displeased him. No
thank you.*****

>
> >PG: Here I beg to differ. Of course the term

"Scythian"

> is often applied rather loosely to any reputedly
> nomadic tribes of the Eurasian steppe zone
> (historically sandwiched between the "Cimmerians"
> and the "Sarmatians")

*****GK: Herodotus and many others applied it to the
whole complex of ethna of which the "Royal Scythians"
were but one component. The majority were not
nomads.****

.PG: As such, it might well have

> included some non-Iranian speakers (Thracians,
> Slavs, perhaps some residual Indo-Aryan groups, if
> Trubachev is right, not to mention
> non-Indo-Europeans from Central Asia or the
> Caucasus). But if we exclude such components,

*****GK: Well the point is you can't exclude them.
They were part of the Scythian self-image (as
reflected in the Foundation Legend: the Royals were
late arrivals).******

PG: what

> remains is a cluster of Northeast Iranian dialects,
> not a mystery Satem language.

*****GK: Everyone agrees that the language of the
incoming Royals (Paralatae or Paradatae) was steppe
Iranic. But the "Scythian" language of Herodotus' time
cannot be automatically identified with this. That is
the main point Petrov tried to make, and in my
opinion, successfully. Because it is not so much a
linguistic as a historical point proved with the
assistance of linguistics. If you can "show" that
recorded Scythian words have great Baltic or Thracian
analogs and also have them in a number of cases where
the Iranic analogies are weaker or doubtful, then the
automatic identification of "Scythian" with northest
Iranic or whatever is no longer acceptable. And
"Scythian" culture included contributions from all the
components, as archaeology has shown. There was a
process of fusion going on. The Paralatae were a
majority among aristocratic Scythians (at least until
they were annihilated by Philip of Macedon in 339
BC).Then the Aukhata took over as we know from Pliny.
The "Scythian" language of 450 BC was much more likely
that of the locals, and the belief that it had
affinities to Baltic and Thracian is not an outlandish
hypothesis at all.****

PG: Loanwords in Slavic

> and in Finno-Ugric show diagnostic Iranian traits
> and so come from Iranian, not from a distinct
> branch. Loans in Finno-Ugric can be grouped into
> several chronological strata identifiable as stages
> in the (pre-)history of Iranian. In the case of
> Slavic there might be just a few Indo-Aryan
> borrowings, but the bulk of steppe influence comes
> from Iranian and testifies to its linguistic
> dominance in the North Pontic region. Besides,
> "Iranian Scythian" is not completely extinct;
> Ossetic and Yaghnobi (the modern descendant of a
> Sogdian dialect) derive from it.

*****GK: Well if Slavic evolved from Balto-Slavic (or
from some even more ancient IE complex:
BaltoSlavic-Scythian) it could very well have had
elements of this "Scythian" language, Iranic
borrowings etc. notwithstanding.*****

>
> *****GK: You don't like my "expressive"
> interpretations. But I did not invent "man-killers"
> (oior-pata, the Amazons), "not 'real men'" (enarees
> in Herod. and Hippocrates, the Scythian priestly
> class), "man-eaters" "black cloaks" "beautifully
> horsed" "wild
> white horses" et sim. (even if the latter have only
> survived in Gr. rendition there is little doubt they
> are Scythian expressions).******
>
>PG: "Man-Killers" for the Amazons or descriptive

names

> like "the Black Cloaks" may be correct or incorrect
> interpretations, but at least represent common
> naming patterns and are surely more down-to-earth
> than "Spouseless Observers" for one-eyed creatures.

*****GK: Well "spouseless observers" is your
distortion of me: I said "they of the unmarried eye".
But I then withdrew my unlearned adaptation of the
Sanskrit lexicon I had consulted and came back to the
traditional Herodotean "they of the one eye", assuming
that "arima" meant just that in Scythian (="one").
Since you insist on interpreting Scythian to be an
Iranic dialect you don't see this. You're entitled to
your opinion.******

> PG: Wherever we are able to make sense of Scythian
> names, there's nothing typologically unusual about
> them. I'm afraid we'll never find an acceptable
> etymology for some of them, but that's normal too.
> After all, there are some perfectly obscure tribal
> names in Slavic, Germanic, Greek, etc. I'll post my
> modest attempt to analyse some of those Scythian
> names soon, but I can't promise it will be something
> sensational -- just a couple of heuristics for
> eliminating _very wild_ guesses.

*****GK: "wild" in the context of Sanskrit, Iranic and
such. OK. Looking forward to it.*****

>
> Piotr
>

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