Re: [tied] Must sound change be linguistically motivated?

From: george knysh
Message: 42683
Date: 2006-01-01

--- alexandru_mg3 <alexandru_mg3@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh
> <gknysh@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- alexandru_mg3 <alexandru_mg3@...> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Knowing from history, the Scythian invasions in
> > > Dacia and Balkans,
> > > (first one around sec VII-V BCE , last one sec
> III-V
> > > CE) I think that
> > > this transformation was trigerred when the local
> > > population has tried
> > > to adapt his own pronunciation to the Scythian
> > > ocuppiers that
> > > pronounced an r for any l.
> >
> > GK: (1)There were no Scythian invasions of
> "Dacia
> > and Balkans" in the 3rd-5th c. AD. As Pliny the
> Elder
> > remarked ca. 77 AD "nomen Scytharum usquequaque
> > transiit in Sarmatas et Germanos"...Of the
> classical
> > Scythian state, the remaining small organization
> in
> > the Crimea was conquered by the Bosporans at the
> very
> > end of the 2nd c. AD.
> > (2) Leaving the "Scythian" Goths aside, and
> dismissing
> > the Eastern Roman notion of Attila's Huns as
> "Royal
> > Scythians", we have evidence of "Sarmats" (Iazygi
> and
> > Roxolani) and Alans in the area. We have
> practically
> > no knowledge of the "Sarmat" dialect(s), but
> Alanic
> > certainly did not "pronounce an r for any l".
> "Alans"
> > for "Aryans"...
> >
>
>
> The last Iranian invaders (together with the
> Alanic tribes (that
> were also): Roxolani and Alani) were the Iazyge and
> I don't
> understand why you have put a doubt on their
> Sarmatian origin?

****GK:(1) I don't. The quote around 'Sarmat' merely
indicates that by the 3rd c. Iazygi and Roxolani had
begun to mix on the north Danubian plains. Their
descendants were usually designated by this term. (2)
The Iazygi were not the last but the first Iranian
invaders of the Balkans after the Scythians (earlier
Iranian/Iranic incursions are problematic though
possible).*****
>
> Also the r->l influenced could be also older and to
> remain active
> during the Roman occupation of Dacia & of
> Balkans....Note also that
> in Albanian there is no r-rothacism despite the fact
> that the Proto-
> Albanian phonetism is quite the same with the
> Pre/Proto-Romanian
> one. So this influence/transformation happened in
> the Nordest Part
> of the Balkans and in Dacia....

*****GK: Maybe, maybe not. If Albanian descends from
Dacian, there is no way of conclusively proving
anything about the location and reasons for r->l. And
judging by Piotr's suggested reconstruction of
"Paralatae" (which I like very much (:=)) it seems
clear that the Iranic Scythians were not an
l-exclusive ethnos either.*****






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