Re: Well-armed Sauromatians?

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 11600
Date: 2001-11-30

A still more speculative thought: *saru-mant-/-mat-, with common dialectal developments such as *sauru-... (Iranian "umlaut") ~ *sar-... (syncope) could account for "Sauromatai" and "Sarmatai" at the same time. Old Indo-Aryan s'aru-mant- 'equipped with arrows' ('well-armed') is actually attested, and I think this attractive connection must have been noticed before (though I can't remember seeing it published). The only question is whether there is a way of getting *-ma-ta as the collective of -mant- at a sufficiently early date (this seems to be the main obstacle). I'll investigate this possibility further; it might be a rewarding exercise, since there are several similarly formed ethnonyms.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: Rosomoni (was[tied] Dirmar)

Sarus from *saru- has the advantage of being in the right (u-stem) declension.