Re: Indo-Aryans outside of India

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> I know about the Mitanni Indo-Aryans but does anyone
> know anything about the Sindes and Maeotes of the
> Black Sea?
> Are they considered Indo-Aryan just because of the
> name Sindes? Or is there anything to back this up?
> BTW: I thought the term Sind- originally referred to
> the Indus and meant "river"
>
>
> For Hellenistic times, Oleg N. Trubachev (1999;
> elaborating on a hypothesis by Kretschmer 1944)
> suggests that there were Indo-Aryan speakers in the
> Pontic steppe. The Maeotes and the Sindes, the latter
> also known as "Indoi" and described by Hesychius as an
> "an Indian people".[7]

Oops! If the presence of Indo-Aryan type words in the Pontic steppe is
proof positive that the Indo-Aryans came to India from there, and not
the logically possible other way round, how come Hysychius calls the
peoples in the Pontic steppe, who use those words, 'Indian'? Because
some of their relatives in the past had gone to India? Or...?


Torsten