From: Alexander Stolbov
Message: 11649
Date: 2001-12-04
----- Original Message -----
From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names
...
> *****GK: I don't see how we can move much beyond this
> opinion. The fact that the Volga had a Turkic (?) name
> Atil or Itil seems irrelevant. I don't remember
> leaders of steppe peoples named after rivers. They
> MIGHT sometimes be named after Peoples of course (or
> the reverse). In the case of Attila the only thing
> that comes immediately to mind is that strange list of
> "northern peoples" in Jordanes we discussed a while
> back. Among then is a possible ATHAUL.
...
[A]
Turkic "Atil" = Volga and Jordanes "Athaul"...
I thought about this possible correspondence when we tried to consider this
Jordanes fragment not as a single list (one word = one tribe) but as a more
complex and perhaps slightly corrupted text.
The surrounding of "Athaul" is:
"... mordens imniscaris rogas tadzans athaul navego bubegenas coldas."
I'm not clever in Latin but "navego" seems almost like "navigo" - "to
navigate" (?).
If the suppositions are accepted we can get
"... tadzans athaul navego ..." = Tadzans who navigate (Lower) Volga
or
"... athaul navego bubegenas ..." = (Lower) Volga navigating Bubegenas
I like more the first variant, as in this case the previous group is:
"... mordens imniscaris rogas ..."
As Piotr pointed "imniscaris" can really be "in miscaris".
IMO "in miscaris" could be explained as "the place where rivers start to
flow together".
Mordovian ethnic territory before Slavic expansion was restricted
(approximately) with Oka from West, Don-Volga watershed from South, Volga
from North and East. For a river navigator the most important fact is that
Mordovians lived in the place where Upper Volga and Kama start to flow
together (BTW Kama is a bigger river than Upper Volga).
What do we have here?
"... Mordens in miscaris Rogas ..."
What can be taken for "Rogas", "Rog" in Nominative ?
I suggest "Rangha", better to say what remained from Old Iranian Rangha. Is
it possible linguistically?
BTW in modern Mordovian the name for Volga is Rav.
Again, from the beginning. What do we have now?
Golthescytha thuidos (Golden Scythian people ?) on the Karelian isthmus
between the Gulf of Finland and the Ladoga lake [where I am typing these
letters at the moment];
then Ves' "inabroncas" (to decipher yet) - actually around Beloe (White)
lake;
then Merya in Upper Volga;
then Mordva where Upper Volga and Kama start to flow together;
then Tadzans (who? apparently a Turkic folk) which navigate Lower Volga;
then "bubegenas coldas" ??
I guess we should look for the latter somewhere around the Caspian see.
Alexander