--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Smith"
<mytoyneighborhood@...> wrote:
>
> Thoughts?:
>
> --- In scythia@yahoogroups.com, Tonyukuk Kagan
<tonyukuk_kagan@...>
> wrote:
>
> The most politically and convincing hyphotesis put forward
> regarding the language of Schytians up to this day is that
> the one that is of the opinion that They spoke a Proto-
> Bulgaric (Turkic) dialect.
I'm a member of the scythia group too, and read Kagan's
post a few days ago. I almost set about writing a reply,
but in the end decided not to, as I get embroiled in such
nonsense far too often for my own good as it is already.
Moreover, even if you are to "win" such an argument, you
never truly win, because Mr. Kagan, or at least Miziev,
whom Kagan follows in all of this, is motivated by other
than a search for the truth by rational means. The less I
publicly write about Miziev's true motivations the better
it is for the peace of the list, as several bitter past
experiences have taught.
I will, to this list, and toward the information of yourself,
however, point out the following:
(1) A people known as the Jász settled in Hungary in the
12th century and were identified by the Hungarians among
whom they settled as Jazygians, the name of a well known
Sarmatian tribe. The Jász have by now been assimilated by
the Magyars, but a record of their original language has
surived in the form of a brief word list. The language of
the list is clearly a dialect of Ossetic, which is a North-
Eastern Iranic language.
(2) A very large body written in the language of the Khotan
Saka has survived, and that language too is a member of the
North-Eastern Iranic branch.
(3) The Byzantine Empire had diplomatic relations with the
old kingdom of Alania in the Caucasus, and the Byzantine
writer John Tzetzes (c. 1110 - c. 1180) recorded an example
of the Alanic language, about half of the words in which
clearly belong to a dialect of Ossetic. However Tzetzes also
records "Salamalek alti, salamalek altugep" as a Scythian
greeting, with the meaning "Good day, my lady, good day, my
lord". The latter certainly doesn't appear to be Iranic,
and I don't know for sure but it appears to me as if it might
be Turkic. Now Tzetzes may well have been using 'Scythian'
as an archaism and in fact have been referring to Turks, but
just try to convince Kagan of that, especially as the same
has been suggested about the Hungarians' reference to the Jász
as "Jazygians"!
David