Re: [tied] Thracian place-names

Hi George. Couldn't the Cimmerians have been a mixed Iranian-
Thracian group. Or, couldn't they have been originally a Thracian
people who absorbed incoming Iranian-speakers, maybe Scythians? I
think there's also the possibility that they were Thracian, but that
Iranian names among them being common, just like Germanic cheifs had
Celtic names.

Strabo does mention the Thracian Treres tribe as a Cimmerian people.

-Michael

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- Michael Smith <mytoyneighborhood@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Are there any Thracian place-names or river
> > names in the area of
> > modern Ukraine that could support a Thracian
> > presence there in the 8th
> > century B.C.? I want to know if there's any
> > evidence of Thracian
> > speech among the Cimmerians.
> >
> > -Michael
>
> ****GK: A number of hydronyms suggest the presence of
> a "Thrakoid" population east and north of the Dacians
> in Cimmerian and Scythian times.(The issue of toponyms
> has not been much developed).Whether this involves the
> actual Cimmerians is unclear, and perhaps doubtful
> (two names of Cimmerian kings are evidently Iranic).
> But Cimmerians and Scythians surely inherited a
> hydronymy which showed "Thrakoid" forms, and which
> seems to have extended considerably to the east. The
> Greek "Tanais" for Don is now viewed by Ukrainian
> linguists as perhaps more "Thrakoid" than Iranic,
> since the Slavic pronunciation (short o) would more
> likely have developed from a short "a" than a long
> "a". There is also an ancient river name in the Crimea
> ("Putalitsa") which has Thracian affinities
> (Pautalia). As mentioned before, the earliest
> designation of the Dnipro ("Borysthenes")seems to have
> been borrowed by the Greeks from a Thrakoid rather
> than from an Iranic speech. From a population, also,
> which used "t" rather than "d" in many instances.
> There are a number of other "Thrakoid" hydronyms
> reflective of ancient times. Some smaller rivers of
> the Ros' basin for instance. Possibly the Herodotan
> "Gerrhos" (now the Desna). The "Ibr", which connects
> to the Teteriv west of Kyiv. And of course the
> Dnister, also borrowed from a Thrakoid rather than
> Iranic speech. The picture which emerges is that much
> of the territory of Ukraine south of the forest zone
> may have been inhabited by a Thrakoid population in
> pre-Cimmerian times. Largely pushed out of the lands
> east of the Dnipro by the Cimmerians, who subsequently
> fused to some extent with the incoming Scythians
> (leaving a large amount of Iranic hydronyms there),
> this Thrakoid population concentrated west of the
> Dnipro and was considered politically "Scythian" in
> the 7th-3rd c. BC. With the collapse of Scythia under
> Sarmatian assaults, many of these Thrakoid "Scythians"
> may have migrated south of the Danube, into "Scythia
> minor", an area akin to them in speech. The pockets
> left behind were eventually Slavonized, as were their
> river names.******
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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