Re: Scythian tribal names

Irættæ is the plural of Ir, but just Ir is normally
used for the plural if the context makes it clear.
I have no idea how a 12th century Alan would
say "Zoroastrian". I doubt that they would have
much awareness of Persian religion. If they spoke
of it at all they would probably use a borrowing
from Turkish, Greek or Persian like 'zardošti'.
V. I. Abaev makes the case that the Alans were
completely uninfluenced by Zoroastrianism.
-David

--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> *****GK: Let's say (as a test) that I'm a Kyivan
> traveller of the 12th century, interested in getting
> information about Zoroastrian remnants (if any) among
> the Ossetians. Would it be grammatically correct, for
> that time, (we'll leave the security aspect out for
> the moment(:=))) when I arrived at one of the cities
> on the Donetz (say Sugrov' or Sharukan')[they were
> Osseto=Alanic cities controlled by the Cumans] if,
> wanting to ask about the identity of the people I was
> interested in I translated my question "(Are you) the
> Ossetians of Zoroaster?" as "... IRONT-I-ZARATHUSHTRA?"*****