tgpedersen@... wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
>>
>>Don't remember if I asked this before. Couln't find
>>anything in my notes. Is there an Iranic meaning to
>>the term "As" (et sim.) which is behind the
>>designation of modern Ossetians (and Alanic forebears)
>>in other languages?
As well as the Jassic branch (Jász/ok /ya:s/) that fled (along with
the Cumanians) to Hungary in the 13th century, fearing the Mongols,
namely in a region that was inhabited 10-11 centuries earlier by
(their ancestors) the Yazyges:
The Jász region, where numerous place names start with Jász-
http://www.didac.ehu.es/antropo/11/11-18/Papai_archivos/image002.jpg
(The former capital of Moldavia, Ia$i (Jassy), seems to have been
some Jassic foundation.)
Some people assume that As (and Ossetic + Jassic) is a short form of
Aorsi. An Alanic people mentioned by Strabo in Geografia, 23, XI, v. 8:
"The next peoples to which one comes between Lake Maeotis and the
Caspian Sea are nomads, the Nabianai and the Panxini, and then next
the tribes of the Siraces and the Aorsi. The Aorsi and the Siraces are
thought to be fugitives from the upper tribes of those names and the
Aorsi are more to the north than the Siraces.
Now Abeacus, king of the Siraces, sent forth twenty thousand horsemen
at the time when Phrarnaces [_II Anatolian king of Pontus and son of
Mithradates VI Eupator_] held the Bosporus [_63-47 BCE_]; and
Spadines, king of the Aorsi, two hundred thousand; but the upper Aorsi
sent a still larger number, for they held dominion over more land,
and, one may almost say, ruled over most of the Caspian coast; and
consequently they could import on camels the Indian and Babylonian
merchandise, receiving it in their turn from the Armenians and the
Medes, and also, owing to their wealth, could wear golden ornaments.
Now the Aorsi live along the Tanaïs, but the Siraces live along the
chardeüs [the Kuban] which flows from the Caucasus and empties into
Lake Maeotis."
>Copied from the Indo-Iranian list (maybe you would want to join it?)
>"
>Re: "As"
[SNIP]
How about Æsir and Asgard? :-)
George