From: liberty@...
Message: 11636
Date: 2001-12-03
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> The etymologies are correct, as far as I can see, and examples
could be multiplied. There is no lambdacism in Khotanese or even in
(the various dialects of) Sogdian, which seems to be more closely
related to Alanic/Ossetic. Yaghnobi, which derives from a Sogdian-
like ancestor, has its own sources of /l/, e.g. from intervocalic *-
þr- (> Ossetic -rt-; it's amazing, incidentally, how many different
reflexes of PIE *-tr- one can find in Iranian). The problem
with "Scythian" is that it fails as a linguistic designation. There
must have been numerous Iranian dialects spoken in the North Pontic
region and Central Asia. Even less general terms like "the Saka"
stand for linguistically diverse groups (Khotanese and Tumshuqese, to
say nothing of the unrecorded "Saka" languages). Lambdacism in *-ri-
/*-ry- combinations is supposed to be "Sarmatian", but may well have
been an areal feature of the western NE Iranian languages, affecting
also that of the "Royal Scythians".
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: liberty@...
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 11:11 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Scythian tribal names: Paralatai
>
>
> Are the change of -ry- > -l-, and the dissimilation of the first of
two /r/'s in the same word common to all of N.E. Iranian or only
Sarmatian? The following Khotanese etymologies from 'Saka
Grammatical Studies' by R. E. Emmerick seem to show that Proto-Ir. *-
ary- > -i:r- in Scythian:
>
> gvi:r- 'to talk' < *vi-var-ya-, cf. IE 6. *uer- 'feierlich sagen'.
>
> pi:r- 'to be filled' < *par-ya-, cf. O.Ind. pu:ryáte 'is filled'.
>
> bi:r- 'to throw, sow' < *bar-ya-, cf. Lith. beriù, Lett.
ber´u 'strew'.
>
> hambi:r- 'to be filled' < *ham-parya-
>
> I don't know if these etymologies have been overturned or were only
> tentative, but anyway there they are.