05-04-2004 14:02, tgpedersen wrote:
> I forgot to mention that the saddle (according to what I could find
> on the net) is considered to be a Sarmatian invention. The Iranian
> and Indic mismatching cognates of "saddle" that Piotr provided are
> from Avestan and Sanskrit repectively, so they don't disprove the
> assumption of a Sarmatian provenance for *saDula. Apart from it being
> Iranian, we don't know much about Sarmatian.
Well, at least we know that it was a collection of Northeast Iranian
dialects, and if Alanic was a variety of Sarmatian, then the Ossetes are
speakers of Modern Sarmatian.
"They don't disprove the assumption" is not a legitimate argument. If so
little is known about Sarmatian, you could use this convenient ignorance
as an excuse for the wildest claims about it, just repeating the same
weary statement: "It has not been disproved ...". But ignorance is no
substitute for positive evidence. If you want to put forward an
etymological proposal, the burden of proof in on your shoulders. You
can't shift it on the critics.
Piotr