I'm not an expert in Ossetic so I'm asking not telling. Is the
first 'a' in 'Alan' short? I thought that it was long. John
Colarusso derives the Ossetic 'Alægatæ', a Nartic clan name,
from *a:rya-ka:ta-. If this is accurate then the stem would be
*a:l- with the derivatives **a:la:n > *a:lon (collective plur.
and adject.) and **a:lata > *a:lætæ (plur.). And isn't the
ending -on < *-a:n supposed to be from the Indo-Iranian genit.
plur. ending -a:na:m? If so then it seems that you could have
*a:lætæ and a:lon alongside each other but no further -tæ
plural built on the -on form. However if -on is a word-building
suffix and not originally a case ending then a plural like
*a:lættæ < **a:lanta seems possible as it is with Oss. don (pl.
dættæ) < *da:n (pl. *danta) "river, water". Although I don't
know that -on from an original case ending couldn't have been
reanalyzed and then treated as any other suffix. Also I want to
ask how certain is it that 'Ir' and 'Iron' are recent formations?
Don't the Vedas have the three words ari-, arya- and a:rya-
with similar meaning? Ari- and arya- are identical in most of
the oblique cases. I'm not sure exactly what the shades of
difference in meaning are but as I understand it they're all
based on the same root. I don't have any sources on the sound
changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Ossetic so I can't say
authoritatively, but I wonder if Alan couldn't come from
*a:rya:na:m or *a:rya:na- and Ir from *ari- or *arya-. This
would explain why 'Alan' fell out of use. It was synonymous
or nearly so with Ir and therefore redundant. Also it seems
to me that 'Ir' for Ossetia is secondary, based on the
collective plural sense of 'Ir' for the inhabitants, since
the word Iryston 'place of the Ir' is also used for Ossetia.
Also the Ossetians' Iranian cousins the Persians used to call
themselves 'Ir' with the adjectival 'Iran' beside it. So I
wonder if Ir and Iran/Iron aren't the true ethnic names for
both Persians and Ossetians in unbroken use going back to *ari-
or *arya- and if Alan isn't just a vrddhi form that went out
of use or is just one Sarmatian tribal name out of many with
no connection whatsoever with *arya-.
-David
*a:rya- > a:la-
*arya- > ala- or i:r- ?
*ari- > i:r- ?
Maybe original position of accent influences
whether *-ry- results in -l- or -r-?
??????????
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I'd begin with *<dæ ban xWarz>, which is attested (though
imperfectly recorded) Alanic for "may you have a nice day" (modern
Digor <dæ bon xWarz>, Iron <dæ bon xorz>). Then I'd switch to
body
language, for I can speak grammatically correct Ossetic (let alone
Old Ossetic) no better than you can. I only know a thing or two
_about_ Ossetic and I also know where to look for more information. I
have no idea what the Alanic words for "Zoroaster" and "Zoroastrian"
may have been. But the following point is worth making: the Old
Ossetic speakers' term for themselves was not Iron -- a more recent
formation from Ir 'Ossetia', which is foreign-influenced -- but
apparently Alan- (*ælan- < *arya:n-; had it survived, it would be
*ælon today), the plural of which was (I suppose) *ælantæ <
*arya:ni-
ta:.
>
> Piotr