Re: [tied] Thracian place-names

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
> --- George Hinge <litgh@...> wrote:
> > If you derive the riverword from the same IE root, I
> > cannot see, why
> > a Thracian intermediary would make the short vowel
> > more
> > understandable.
>
> *****GK: Because the relevant "a" is short in the
> attested areal Thracian and long in the attested
> areal Iranic. Why this should have occurred is a
> different question.*****
>
> > The problem with the hypothesis that the Cimmerians
> > were Thracians
> /rest snipped for economy GK/
> *****GK: I do not claim that the Cimmerians proper
> were Thracians. In fact I prefer the hypothesis of
> their Iranism. This is a different issue from that of
> the short "o" in Don and its historical
> implications.*****
>

But if the Cimmerians were not Thracians, why should the rivername
Tanais with its short a be derived from an unknown Thracian source?
It could be any (non-Iranian or Iranian) Indo-European dialect with a
short a in this word. After all, Don is pretty far from the core land
of the Thracians, isn't it?