Re: Interpreting some Scythian names

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-12-28 08:03, stlatos wrote:
>
> > You made a guess with no evidence at all (not even the
> > unknown-to-you but possible ev. Herodotus could have had), saying
> > -aspo- could be 'horse' (assuming it was the name of a real group
> > named for a real characteristic instead of that of fictional one-eyed
> > people named for an inhuman ch. (like s.ad.aksó:)). You have no ev.
> > that H. made any guess at all (I think he heard rightly that it meant
> > 'one-eyed').
>
> Well, if one finds <-aspa-> or <-aspo-> in a name supposed to be Old
> Iranian,

There's no ev. there was only one Scythian language, or that they
were all Iranian.

> the first thought is of horses, simply because we have
> something like a few dozen _attested_ and _analysable_ horsey names
> ("Aspa-X-" or "X-aspa") in several Iranian languages.

It's not the name of any old group, but of a group of one-eyed people.

> That's my
> circumstantial evidence. On the other hand, the change of *-kWs- >

*-ps-

> > *sp- is based on no Iranian evidence whatsoever.

Because kW>p didn't occur in Iranian, but did in several words said
to be Scythian.

> As for the
> prototheme, *aryama-aspa- (~= Philippos) has often been suggested, but
> of course it's just one possibility among many. As for Herodotus's
> etymological method, I wonder if you've seen his "etymologies" of
> Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

It doesn't matter; the change kW>p is seen in other words attested
elsewhere.