[tied] Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 10637
Date: 2001-10-26

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


> *****GK: OK I'll find the time to come up with a list
> in the next week or so.

Thanks in advance. I know perfectly well that re-typing from the book
is a boring and time-consuming process (and what one gets as a
compensation? Some dude's comments. :)

>One that I
> remember from "Skify" (but not in technical detail) is
> Petrov's view that Scythian "oior-pata" (the
> "man-killer" Amazons) is best understood by reference
> to Baltic equivalents. I think he argued that "oior"
> was a Greek (mis)pronunciation of the word "vir"(?) or
> something close to this (I only remember that this
> word looked very much (to me) like the Latin "vir").==

You mean 4.110.1

oio`r ga`r kale'ousi a'ndra to` de` pata` ktei'nein

To declare <oio'r> a mispronunciation of Baltic *wi:'ras is a
stretch. And what about ending (-as), which is preserved so carefully
in <Api'> and <Tabiti'> then. This rendering seemes the more strange
taking into account the existance of a Greak counterpart <-os>, close
phonetically and equal functionally. As for <pata'>, the
morphological structure resembles Baltic 3 pers. verbal endings (-a),
but the latter is never stressed in Baltic, and I am not aware of
anything like **pat- with the meaning 'kill' or so in Baltic.

> As to your other request, here is the reference for
> Petrov's 1965 statement: "Baltica i Slavika v
> hidronimiji Nadrosja", in "Pytannia hidronimiky.
> Materialy 3-oi Respublikans'koi onomastychnoi
> (hidronimichnoi) narady", Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1971,
> pp. 13-16.. So it looks as though the proceedings of
> the December 1965 conference were not published until
> 1971.

The minor problem is that I don't have access to the source you
mentioned. Interestingly enough, I've just come across the
Trubachev's interview (http://www.voskres.ru/bratstvo/trbchv2.htm),
where he states (after V. Georgiev) that (South-)Slavic
*vIrtIpU 'cave;funnel-shaped cavity,whirlpool' could preserve *up-
'water' (usually ascribed to the Baltic member of the Balto-Slavic
group only - S.T.) (<*wrt-up- 'rotate;whirl' + 'water' , cf. Lith.
Vir~tupe. 'hydronym').
This *up-component is usually used as an argument in favour of the
Baltic vs. Slavic origin of a hydronym. And as to the Piotr's glove,
*u`pe: is East Baltic. I'm getting confused.

Sergei