--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- George Hinge <litgh@...> wrote:
>
> > The short vowel of Don / Tanais is problematic
> > whether you point to
> > Thracian or to Scythian as the source of the
> > proprium. You would have
> > to accept either a peculiar variant of the stem or a
> > special Thracian
> > or Scythian vowel shortening (ad hoc).
>
> ****GK: It is only problematic if you insist on
> looking for an Iranic source. Then you have to posit
> unknown and unattested "Scythian" dialects which
> already reflect a transition not occurring in Ossetic
> (developing from late steppe Alanic) until after the
> Mongolian invasion. There is no need to speculate
> about the short "a" in the Thracian riverword. For the
> evidence. cf. S. Stryzhak et al., "Hidronimija
> Ukrajiny v jiji mizhmovnykh i mizhdialektnykh
> zvyazkakh", Kyiv: Naukova Dumka 1981, pp. 13-14,
> 27-30, with references to Lehr-Splawinski, Trubachov,
> Mashtakov, and others.******
> >
If you derive the riverword from the same IE root, I cannot see, why
a Thracian intermediary would make the short vowel more
understandable.
The problem with the hypothesis that the Cimmerians wre Thracians is
that the linguistic evidence is virtually non-existent, partially
because our knowledge of Thracian is incomplete. It is true that
Strabo classes the Treres with Thracians at one place (13.1.8) and
with the Cimmerians at another place (14.1.40); but that is all.
The material culture of the Cimmerians in the Near East is identical
to the material culture of the Scythians (A. Ivantchik, Les
Cimmériens au Proche-Orient, Fribourg / Göttingen 1993, 127-154;
idem, Das Problem der ethnischen Zugehörigkeit der Kimmerier,
Prähistorische Zeitschrift 72 (1997) 12-52; H. Sauter, Studien zum
Kimmerierproblem, Bonn 2000). In the Achaemenid period, at least, the
two names are synonyms, so that the Babylonian texts use Gimirrai,
where the Persian text have Saka.
The myth about the autochtonous Cimmerians being expelled by invading
Scythians is probably the construction of Herodotus, combining local
folklore with the history of the invasion of nomadic horseriders in
Asia Minor 200-300 years earlier. The name Kimmerios was probably not
North Pontic, but introduced by the first Greek colonists coming from
Asia Minor, where the Iranian horse nomads were familiar under that
name. Cf. G. Hinge, Völkerwanderungen in Herodots Geschichtswerk, in:
Barjamoviæ i.a. (ed.), Language and Prehistory of the Indo-European
Peoples, Budapest [forthcoming].