Actually, one would _not_ expect /a/ in
Thracian when PIE had *e. Unlike Indo-Iranian, Thracian did not merge PIE
*e with *a and *o, and PIE *ek^wo- is reflected there as <esba->
-- a regular Thracian development, as opposed to I-Ir. *aCwa-. In Iranian,
historical *a often has a wide range of realisations -- a normal phenomenon in
small-size vowel systems. I am sure that many an Iranian *a is represented as
<o> in Greek orthography (in more-or-less predictable positions), so why
not <e> in some cases?
I think the Scythian soothsayers were more
likely "non-male" (*a:nara- < *n-h2nero-) than "un-Aryan".
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Exampaeus
== Then again I notice that Thracian sometimes uses "e"
where you
would expect "a", like in their word for "horse" which
starts
with es- i.o. Indic and Iranian as-.*******