George- the 3rd one:Re: [tied] Thracian place-names

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "George Hinge" <litgh@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- 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].
>