Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names

I forgot to ask before if you've read "The Jases and Brodniks in the
Steppes of Eastern Europe (6th - beginning of 13th centuries)" at
http://www.gilan.uar.net/nasu/ios/summary1.html ? See especially
Chapter V. "Alans-Ases in the Polovcian Ethnopolitical Union". If
you have, I wonder what you make of it, or what any list members
make of the etymologizing of the word "Burtas" that's done.
-David

--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- liberty@... wrote:
> > It may be known what the Polovetsians of the 12th
> > century
> > called themselves,/etc. cut for economy/
>
> *****GK: All of this helps a lot David. Thanks.*****
>
> (D) I also have personal doubts as to whether the
> Alans
> > called
> > themselves "Alan" in their own language. This may
> > just be
> > the usage of the classical authors possibly based on
> > no more
> > than a one-time explanation by a native informant
> > that most
> > of the tribes in the Alanic confederation were
> > Iranian, "Alan"
> > < *arya:na-. Did the Germans call themselves
> > "Germani"? Did
> > all of the N.E. Iranian tribes call themselves
> > "Sauromatoi"
> > or just the first group to come in contact with the
> > Greeks?
>
> *****GK: Your point about the "Germani" and the
> "Sauromatoi" is good and reflects my own conviction.
> It may not apply to the case of the Alani however.
> Ammianus Marcellinus has this to say about the issue
> (History, XXXI,13):
>
> "hoc transito [the Don GK] in inmensum extentas
> Scythiae solitudines Halani inhabitant, ex montium
> appellatione cognominati, paulatimque nationes
> conterminas crebritate victoriarum adtritas ad
> gentilitatem sui vocabuli traxerunt, ut Persae."
>
> A similar conclusion was drawn by historians in
> connection with the use of the term "Alan" in Chinese
> chronicles, and by epigraphic inscriptions of the
> Bosporus Kingdom. Ammianus adds in nother context that
> the "Halani" are divided into many "gentes" (which he
> does not name) and clearly differentiates them from
> the "Sauromatae". It cannot be categorically ruled out
> that "Alan" was a self-designation for many cognate
> tribes at a particular moment in time. Nor can it be
> ruled out that this might have changed (some sort of
> return to the status quo ante?) once the tribes whose
> "victoriae" had led to the spread of their name to
> include others moved out of the area. And then "Return
> of the As"? Perhaps. In the 6th century the main
> Iranic tribal group of the Don to Volga steppe was
> called the "Dirmar". Perhaps they also had once been
> "Alans".*****