From: Michael Smith
Message: 37169
Date: 2005-04-14
--- 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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