Re: [tied] Three Horses revisited

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 11935
Date: 2001-12-27

First, sorry for using arcane symbols without explaining what they mean. The initial <þ> in the root "3" stands for a voiceless dental fricative like English "th"; its the regular Iranian reflex of *t before consonants. You can read the name as "Thriaspia-". The best Greek substitute for this fricative "th" would have been aspirated <tH> (theta), but the Greeks were not very consistent in this respect (cf. <satrape:s> from <xs^aþrapa:van->).
 
I'll think about the Katiari. Of course the name may have been of the "Something-arya-" type, with two provisions: (1) if there's any merit in my analysis of <paralatai>, the dialect of the Katiari must have been different (no lambdacism); (2) "kati-" had better be made to mean something :))
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "george knysh" <gknysh@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Three Horses revisited

> *****GK: I think either one of your solutions might
> work. Here we have to carefully ponder the
>
significance of "Three" in IE myth-forming (and
> eventually
people-forming, structure-forming,
> "sovereignty-forming"). A very
delicate task. But one
> possible scenario, for which I do not claim
either
> exclusivity or finality, might be this. The variant of
>
the Scythian Foundation Legend reported by Herodotus
> seemed to require
"three" brothers. Perhaps because
> that is what was "in place" when the
Royal Scythians
> arrived from the East in the mid- 7th c. BC. What
is
> speculative is whether these Royal Scythians merely
> displaced
the Cimmerians in the role of "younger" (and
> dominant) brother in the
Myth. That this might have
> been so may be indicated by the "thousand
years"
> associated with Targitaos. In any case, either with
> the
arrival of the R. Scythians or their predecessors,
> a "fitting" problem
arose, which was "solved" by
> making the "second" brother (Arpoxais) the
ancestor of
> two groups (the as yet undeciphered "Katiari" and
the
> o-iri-aspya). Prior to the R Sc./Cimm. the system in
> place
might have been that of the descendants of the
> "three sons" of
Targitaos: Aukhatae, Katiari, Traspies
> (using Herodotus' terms), I'll
have to think through
> the complications. Archaeologically it is
most
> tempting (assuming all that has so far been assumed)
> to
associate the "o-iri-aspya" with the Srubna
> culture. If only we could
come up with something for
> "Katiari"!! We cannot rule out that there was
an older
> layer of just "two" combinants which was replaced by
>
"three" when the "o-iri-aspya" (surely Iranic these?)
> arrived.=== Do you
think there might be any way of
> working in "arya" into
"Katiari"?******