The name Gerrh(u,o)s refers to three things in
Herodotus' Scythian excursus: (1) a river; (2) a
"spot
which goes by the same name"; (3) a member of the
most
remote and northerly Scythian tribe, among whom
their
Kings were buried.
I wonder what kind of etymology might be possible
for
"Gerrhus/Gerrhos"?
Leaving aside the combination ge-rrhos (which some
proposed because Herodotus said that "the country of
the Kings" begins "on the other side" of the Gerrhos
r.), is there any possible "Iranic" explanation?
Also: if the Gerrhus is today's Desna (as many
think)
would the following make any sense--- given that
"desna" refers to "the right (side or direction)" in
Baltic, and that Desna would be the Old Baltic name
of
the river, inherited by Slavic, could
Gerrhus/Gerrhos
be an alternative name for it from the perspective
of
those "non-Royal" Scythians whose language was
Thrakoid, and who lived west of the
Borysthenes/Dnipro? We would need to make a few
assumptions. "Black" in Thracian is "kersas" (also
in
some Baltic speeches?). We would need to assume that
in compounded names "kersas" could be abbreviated to
"ker". And that this "ker" could be rendered "ger"
by
Herodotus. Now as to "rrhos/rrhus" we would need to
assume that this is the name of the river Ros' (this
would not be too big a problem since linguists are
prepared to recognize "Ros'" as a very ancient IE
hydronym. Today's Ros' would have been so called in
Scythian times also. And today's Ros' was located on
the territory of the Thrakoid Scythians). So
"Gerrhos"= "Kerrhos", viz. the "black" Rhos (i.e.
the
"northern" Ros') i.e. the Desna. Would this be
possible? We know from much later times that the
colour "black" was associated with the basin of the
Desna. That is where the "Sivera/Siverjani" resided
(their name etymologized from the Iranic word for
"black") and that is where the city of
Chernihiv/Chernigov was located, which also has
"black' connotations.
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