Re: [tied] Iranic in Slavic

From: Alexander Stolbov
Message: 11741
Date: 2001-12-09

Thank you, Piotr.
Could you please list formal marks (like *U versus *o in *dUn-) which can help in dating Iranian borrowings?
 
It is very interesting to me, what is your opinion (well scientifically grounded or just intuitional one) about Slavic-Iranian interaction.
Was it a long-term (lasting for long centuries) interaction between Proto-Slavic cultures and different neighbouring tribes of the East Iranian origin?
Or there was a period when a common society consisting of Slavic and Iranian components (either as a result of conquering of one of them by the other side or as a peaceful symbiosis - no matter) existed when Iranians mainly contributed to Slavic (+ minor sporadic loans from other Iranian sources in other periods)?
 
Alexander
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Iranic in Slavic

Who says that the borrowings were exclusively (or indeed mainly) Scythian? Certainly I do not :). I have already mentioned arguments in favour of dating several Iranian loans or calques (e.g. *bogU with the meaning 'god', *boz^Inica <-- *bagina-) to the early Middle Iranian ("Sarmatian") times. Also, *xUte^ti, *sUto and the rivernames with *dUn- must belong to that period (in earlier loans we'd expect *o rather than the reduction vowel *U). Interestingly, some of the Middle Iranian loans may have come from dialects diferent from those ancestral to Ossetic, and more similar to Middle Persian (of the late Seleucid to early Sassanid periods) in terms of phonetic developments. They are perhaps culturally important wanderworts migrating from the south. One characteristic example is *mirU, which possibly derives from mi:r- < mihra- < miþra- 'contract, pact (and, of course, Mithra)' with lenition and loss rather than the Alano-Ossetic metathesis *-þr- > -rt- as in Iron fyrt, Digor furt 'son' < *puþra-. Another, more speculative case is Szemerényi's derivation of *gospodI from *gos-pad ~ *gus-pad < *vis-pati- 'community headman, leader of a clan' (Middle Persian vi- > gu- ~ go-). This particular loan could be dated approximately to the 3rd century AD on linguistic grounds.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 11:37 AM
Subject: [tied] Iranic in Slavic

Slavonic scholars seem to have a consensus concerning traces of a mighty
influence of an East Iranian source on the Common Slavic language. The
Common Slavic lexicon and a series of god names don't allow denying it.

Theoretically there could be 3 main sources of such an influence
(chronological borders can overlap, of course) -
1) Scythian (7th - 4th cent. BC)
2) Sarmatian (4th c.BC - 1st c.AD)
3) Alano-Yazygian (1st - 6th cent. AD - later it would be an influence on
single Slavic groups, not on Common Slavic)

However always when I met mentioning of the Iranian influence only the
Scythian variant was considered (usually 6th - 5th cent. BC were suggested
as the contact period).
Is there a _linguistic_ basis for such an approach?
Are we able to distinguish the Scythian loans from the Sarmatian and Alanian
ones?

Alexander



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