[tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

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

>
> *****GK: As to the first point. What can I say? His
> book "Slavic Ethnogenesis" was approved for
> publication on 15 February 1972 by the "Learned
> Council [Vchena Rada] of the Institute of Archaeology
> of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" and in the
> Preface he was described as "one of the leading
> specialists [odnym z providnykh fakhivtsiv] in
> comparative Indo-European linguistics in Ukraine, as
> well as a known [znanyj]researcher on Early Slavic
> archaeology".

I can hardly imagine how archeologists could evaluate his competence
as a linguist. Rather different branches of science.

> His conclusions seemed moderate enough,
> and were accompanied by a technical apparatus that
> looked every bit as impressive as anything Piotr or
> others have come up with on this list ,with constant
> references to authorities every linguist (I suppose)
> would accept as genuine.

It's a pity I can't put my hand on the books you mentioned. Your
impression still can't take place of the source itself.

> As to the second question. No that wasn't his point at
> all. He had a very evolutionary concept of language
> and language groups. He contended that "Slavic" was
> not fully constituted until nearly historical times,
> that in previous ages the populations that became its
> eventual carriers formed part of a vaster family (for
> which he had no specific name) some groups of which
> (the Balts) retained many archaisms lost in others. He
> viewed the Scythians (the complex of Herodotus
> including the recently arrived Iranic and assimilating
> (in his view) Royals) as a component of this larger
> family. It wasn't a question of the Scythians (or
> Slavs) being proto-Balts but of their once having
> shared a nearly common language with the proto-Balts,
> out of which the "Slavs" "innovated" so to speak,
> along with those Scythians who did not outmigrate.
> This view seemed far less questionable to me than that
> of the Rybakov school.*****

OK, sorry for misunderstanding. As to Rybakov, he's a good example of
an archeologist who has extended his sphere of interest towards
linguistics but has failed to extend his scientific competence
appropriately. His linguistic exercises are rather ridiculous, and I
am highly unsympathetic to his ethnogenetical concepts (I hope they
don't form the school in scientific terms). Also he is a good example
of the fact that ethnocentrism is usually a bad scientist's friend
(Ukranian scientists are not an exception).

I hope I'll post something more informative (than the rhetorics
above) on the Scytho-Baltic comparisons you mentioned in some hours.

Sergei