Re: More on Bastarnian archaeology

From: Torsten
Message: 67463
Date: 2011-05-03

> BTW what is the usual Iranic (Old or New) term for "slave"? "bast"
> seems a secondary one (?)*****
>

On slaves, with various irrelevancies (Iranian occurs somewhere in it):


From
'Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'

DACIAN LANGUAGE

The Dacians, situated north of the lower Danube in the area of the Carpathians and Transylvania, are the earliest named Indo-European group in the present territory of Romania. They are first mentioned in the writings of Herodotus (Histories 4.49, 93, 100, 119, 125) and Thucydides (Peloponnesian Wars 2.96, 1) and later were known historically from the first centuries BC, appearing in Greece as slaves where a Dacian was known as a δαος (or Latin Davas).

The Dacian language, attested primarily in the form of personal and place names, whose etymologies can only be speculative, or in the form of a few Greek glosses, is very little known. A Dacian origin has also been supposed for certain words in Romanian that lack Latin or Slavic ancestors, e.g.,
Rom mal 'mountain' (cf. Alb mal 'mountain'),
Rom mare 'big' (cf. Alb madh 'big')
but again the Indo-European nature of these words is controversial. Dacian is generally regarded as a variety of Indo-European closely related to Thracian (which was centered in what is now Bulgaria) and hence the frequently employed expression "Thraco-Dacian". Certainly such an association makes sense geographically (and, according to Strabo, was the opinion of the classical world as well) but as Thracian is similarly poorly attested such a closeness of relationship must be taken largely as an act of faith. Moreover, it has long been observed that certain toponymic elements show markedly different distributions, e.g., -dava 'town' is the standard element north of the Danube while in Thrace the corresponding element is -bria. Other frequent toponymic elements, e.g., -para 'settlement', -diza 'fortified town' and -sara 'river' are confined to Thracian territory. Ivan Duridanov has reviewed the evidence for toponymical terms of putatively IE derivation and found thirteen exclusive to Thracian and eight (
*aba, *auras 'river';
*mariska-, *tibas, *lugas 'swampy area';
*mal- 'hill; bank';
*karpa- 'cliff'; and
*medas 'forest'
) confined to Dacian territory. The Iron Age Dacians controlled the mines of the Carpathians which provided gold, silver and iron and by the first century BC they had carved out a substantial empire under their king Burebista. Wars between the Romans in the next century ultimately led to Trajan's total conquest of the Dacians by 106 AD. From the conquered territory the Roman province of Dacia was formed and the earlier Dacian language was eventually replaced by Latin whose legacy has survived as modern Romanian.


Description

Some 20-25 Indo-European etymologies have been regarded as reasonably solid for Dacian place and personal names and botanical terms although in the absence of a secure semantic base, little certainty can attach to any of them. Among the more convincing is the name of the town at the mouth of the river Axios, `αξíοπα, which is modern Cernavoda, i.e. 'black water'. The river name `άξıος may derive from *ņ-ks(e)i- ʼnot-shining' (i.e., 'dark', cf Av axÅ¡aÄ"na- 'dark-colored', while the second element may be from *upā river (e.g., Lith upe 'river') The place-name element -sara (δαυσαρα, Saprasara) may derive from *sorā (cf Lat serum, OInd sara- 'liquid') while similar appearing names such as Aizis, α`ιζισίς, and Azizis may all derive from the PIE *haeiĝs 'goat', cf
Grk α`ίξ '(she-)goať,
Arm ayc '(she-)goať,
Av izaenā- '(goat)hide', and perhaps
Alb edh 'kid'.
The name of the birch (PIE *bherHğos) probably lies behind the place-name Bersovia/Berzobis. Comparisons such as Dacian seba 'elder-tree' and Lith Å¡eivā-medis 'elder-tree' from *k^eiweha- support the argument that Dacian palatalized the palatal velars. While the evidence is far too meager to provide a full phonological picture, Edgar Polomé has outlined the basic features of Dacian, among which are included merger of voiced aspirates with non-aspirates, change of palatal velars into sibilants, *o > a, accented *ĕ > ie ~ ia, *Ä" > a, etc


Dacian Origins

With historical attestations from the fifth century BC onwards, Dacians can presumably be recognized in the archaeological record as bearers of the Iron Age Fengile group who exploited the iron sources of the Carpathians. The Fengile group is presumably derived from the somewhat earlier (eighth century BC) Basarabi culture (situated in modern Moldova). Beyond this point, the prehistoric record of Romania is exceedingly complex and the ethnic identity of its inhabitants is increasingly conjectural. What can be said is that the earlier cultures marking the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age horizon (corresponding to the Hallstatt culture of central and western Europe) are seen to be largely if not exclusively autochthonous and based on local Bronze Age cultures. This relationship can be seen, for example, in the way that the earliest Iron Age cultures appear to distribute themselves on the basis of local Bronze Age groups. The Bronze Age itself is marked by a cultural succession, sometimes involving cultures covering broad territories of Romania and adjacent territories such as the Noua culture of the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BC or smaller regional groups, especially in the middle Bronze Age c 1600 BC. The early Bronze Age cultures of the region (eastern Romania and Moldova) consist primarily of the Cernavoda and Folteşti cultures which represent, at least ceramically components of a broad Balkan-Danubian complex of cultures that extended as far south as Anatolia. In the Kurgan theory the creation of the early Bronze Age cultures is credited to the incursion of steppe peoples from the Ukraine and south Russia The cultural milieu of Neolithic Romania comprised the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture over the north-east, the Petreşti culture to its west and to the south, the Gumelniţa culture, which was primarily anchored in Bulgaria, south of the Danube but extended into the northwest Black Sea region. What is regarded as the structural collapse of these earlier Neolithic cultures is held by many to have been the result of Kurgan invasions which are attested in Romania by relatively persuasive evidence for burials and whole cemeteries of the steppe type and whose deceased may be physically differentiated from those of the previous Neolithic cultures by being taller, more robust and longheaded. Other cultural markers include the appearance of the domesticated horse, cord-decorated and shell-tempered pottery, etc. This cultural collapse represents the most recent major discontinuity within the archaeological record that is widely favored to reflect IE expansions into the region. Before this discontinuity, only the initiation of the Neolithic itself with the spread of the Criş culture and subsequent Neolithic expansions eastwards across the northwest, e.g., the Bug-Dniester culture, or along the Black Sea coast, the Hamangia culture (Dobrogea), could be seen as a major vector for the spread of a new language. These Neolithic populations, marked by a remarkable density of settlement, no doubt formed the essential population basis of the region. Nevertheless, both the evidence of cultural diffusion and the subsequent evidence of physical types suggests a persistent influx of steppe populations beginning with the Copper Age and continuing into later periods. This influx is especially marked in the Iron Age where presumably Iranian-speaking steppe populations (Scythians and Sarmatians) contributed to the ethnic mixture among the Dacians. By the first century AD, the impact of Roman colonization and assimilation brought about the end of the Dacians as an ethno-linguistic group.
...


ENEMY

?*des- 'enemy' [GI 400, Mayrhofer I, 711-712]
Myc do-e-ro 'slave'
Grk δου~λος (Doric δω~λος) 'slave' (Grk < *dos-e-lo-),
Av dahyu- 'region',
OPers dahyu- (nom sg dahyāuš) 'province',
MPers dÄ"h 'region',
NPers dih 'town',
Manichean Sogd ztyw (< Proto-Iran *uz-dahyu-) 'exiled',
OInd dāsa- 'demon, enemy, infidel, barbarian, slave',
dasyu- 'demon, enemy of the gods, barbarian, impious man'
(< Proto-Indo-Iran *dasyu- 'enemy, foreigner, foreign people',
*dasyu- '(foreign) land').

Not everyone would agree that the Greek word belongs with the Indo-Iranian one (many taking it to be a borrowing from some unknown Asia Minor source). If these words do belong together, however, then we have evidence for a word for 'enemy' in the southeast of the IE world (the semantic shift in Greek would be the result of the pragmatic fact that the usual source of slaves was captured enemies).

An alternative hypothesis has been proposed by Asko Parpola who suggests that the word was originally an ethnic designation which later developed the meanings of 'enemy' and 'slave', e.g.,
NE slave < (captive) Slav,
Finnish orja < (enemy?) Aryan.
He argues that the Dāsas, lumped with the Dasyus and Panis as enemies of the Aryans in the Ŗgveda, refers to a more distant memory of encounters between Indo-Aryans and their enemies in Bactria and northern Afghanistan (the Dāsas lived in triple-walled forts which can be more easily identified with the fortresses of this region rather than anything in the Indian subcontinent). He argues that the Vedic Dāsas are cognate with the nomadic Persian tribe of the δάοι mentioned by Herodotus (1 125) which occurs in later historical and geographical sources, e.g., Tacitus's (Ann 11 10) Dahae. He suggests that Khotanese Saka preserves the original meaning of the word in
daha- 'male, man, man of courage',
i.e., like many peoples of the world, the word originally was a self-designation 'men', e.g.,
Mari mari 'man' (Mari is the self-designation of the Mari), or
Bantu ba-ntu 'men, Bantu'.'


Herodotus, I think it is, argues that those Persian δάοι were not identical to the Dacians, formerly called δάοι. However, if they were (look at the history of the Dacians),
*dō-s- "enemy, slave' and
*dao- 'Dacian'
(< *daN-) would related.

On the -dava supposedly marking Dacian settlements, see:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66620
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dava_(Dacian)


On the -para supposedly marking Thracian settlements, see:
EIEC
'*per- 'exchange, barter' (< *'transport across'?).
[IEW 817 (*per-); Wat 50 (*per-); Buck 11.82; BK 37 (*p[h]ar-/ *p[h]ər-)].
OIr ren(a)id 'sells, barters, exchanges',
Lat interpres 'go between', pretium 'price', paris 'like, similar',
Grk πέρνημι 'sell',
Av pairyante 'were compared',
perhaps
OInd páņate (< *pŗņate) 'bargain, haggle'
(if this word does not belong with the following entry). The vocalism of the Greek verb is problematic as a zero-grade would have been expected in such a form that reflects an archaic type of present with a nasal infix. This may be seen in the dialectal (Hesychius) form πορνάμεν 'to sell' and in the verbal adjective
πόρνη (< *pŗ-néha-) 'prostitute' (< *'sold').
The earliest use of the term applies to sales abroad (cf.
Homeric πέρην ´αλός 'across the sea'
) and refers to the sale of slaves abroad. It is derived, like many Greek verbs meaning 'transport, cross' (e.g.,
πόρος 'river crossing, passage',
πορεύω 'transport',
πείρω 'cross the sea',
πέρα: 'beyond, across',
πέρανδε 'abroad'
) from *per 'through, across' and its development can be seen in πεíρω which originally meant 'pierce through' (e.g., a piece of meat on a spit), hence 'open a road, cross the sea' > 'transport (across)'; cf. the related
OCS na-perjo, 'pierce',
OInd párşati 'may he cause to go through', etc.
At least of late IE status.'


In other words:
Dacian -dava "settlement"
Thracian -para "(slave) market)"
Doesn't get clearer than that.


And on the Dacian *karpa- "cliff", cf. the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpi_(people)
situated between the Atmoni / Sindi and the Pecini, thus presumably the people that attacked and separated them.




Torsten