--- michael_donne <
michael_donne@...> wrote:
> I think I noticed in another thread that the
> Scythians were not
> Zoroastrians. But they were members of the
> (Indo)Iranian language
> family?
*****GK: The leading ethnos of the classical Scythian
kingdom certainly was, viz., the so-called "Paralatae"
or "Royal" Scythians. In all probability so was one of
the two Scythian "Nomadic" tribes (the one Herodotus
called "Traspies"). The linguistic affinity of the
second "Nomad" aristocracy, that of the Catiari or
Cotieri is yet to be determined. Perhaps they were
Indic (which would qualify for "Indo-Iranian" I
suppose). As for the "Agricultural" Scythians, the
Aukhata, my view is that they were basically very
close to if not identical to the Thracians. It is
possible (indeed probable) that some elements of the
ruling classes of all the privileged Scythian ethna
were of Iranic stock ("sons of Kolaxais"). The
Scythian kingdom also included Baltic or Baltoid
groups (the "inner" Neuri of the upper Bog/Boh, and
the "wild white horses" (exact name unknown) further
to the northwest), another probably Indic tribe (the
Alazones), some strongly Hellenized groups (the
"Callipidae" whose Greek name is very close to the
meaning of the just mentioned Alizones). There must
also have been others whose names were not recorded
for posterity.*******
>
> Is there any evidence how many early
> Iranian-speaking groups there
> might have been? Would they all have originally been
> Zoroastrian? Is
> there any evidence where they were originally
> located? Is there any
> idea what caused them to splinter and then spread so
> widely over
> Central Asia?
******GK: Perhaps other list members might have some
fun taking a crack at this.********
>
>
>
>
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