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Pontic Scythian language

Extinct Scythian language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pontic Scythian language
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Pontic Scythian was a Scythian language formerly spoken in western Asia and eastern Europe between the 8th and 2nd centuries BC by the Scythians.

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Phonology

The Pontic Scythian language possessed the following phonemes:[2]

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This article uses cursive theta ϑ to denote the Scythian voiceless dental fricative (IPA /θ/), and regular theta θ to denote the Greek aspirated, voiceless dental plosive (IPA //).

The western dialects of the Scythian languages had experienced an evolution of the Proto-Iranic sound /d/ into the Proto-Scythian sound /ð/, which in the Cimmerian and Pontic dialects of Scythian became the sound /l/. Scythian shares the evolution of Proto-Iranic sound /d/ into /ð/ with all Eastern Iranic languages with the exception of Ossetian, Yaghnobi, and Ishkashimi; and the later evolution of /ð/ into /l/ is also present in several Eastern Iranic languages such as Bactrian, Pashto, Munjani, and Yidgha.[3][2]

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Personal names

The primary sources for Scythian words remain the Scythian toponyms, tribal names, and numerous personal names in the ancient Greek texts and in the Greek inscriptions found in the Greek colonies on the Northern Black Sea Coast. These names suggest that the Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.[4]

Recorded Scythian personal names include:

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Tribal names

Recorded Scythian tribal names include:

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Place names

Some scholars believe that many toponyms and hydronyms of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe have Scythian links. For example, Vasmer associates the name of the river Don with an assumed/reconstructed unattested Scythian word *dānu "water, river", and with Avestan dānu-, Pashto dand and Ossetian don.[30] The river names Don, Donets, Dnieper, Danube, and Dniester, and lake Donuzlav (the deepest one in Crimea) may also belong with the same word-group.[31]

Recorded Scythian place names include:

More information Name, Attested forms ...

Herodotus' Scythian etymologies

The Greek historian Herodotus provides another source of Scythian; he reports that the Scythians called the Amazons Oiorpata, and explains the name as a compound of oior, meaning "man", and pata, meaning "to kill" (Hist. 4,110).

  • Most scholars associate oior "man" with Avestan vīra- "man, hero", Sanskrit vīra-, Latin vir (gen. virī) "man, hero, husband",[36] PIE *wiHrós. Various explanations account for pata "kill":
    1. Persian pat- "(to) kill", patxuste "killed";[37]
    2. Sogdian pt- "(to) kill", ptgawsty "killed";[38]
    3. Ossetian fædyn "cleave", Sanskrit pātayati "fell", PIE *peth₂- "fall".[39]
    4. Avestan paiti- "lord", Sanskrit páti, PIE *pótis, cf. Lat. potestate (i.e. "man-ruler");[40]
    5. Ossetian maryn "kill", Pashto mrəl, Sanskrit mārayati, PIE *mer- "die" (confusion of Greek Μ and Π);[41]
  • Alternatively, one scholar suggests Iranic aiwa- "one" + warah- "breast",[42] the Amazons believed to have removed a breast to aid drawing a bow, according to some ancient folklorists, and as reflected in Greek folk-etymology: a- (privative) + mazos, "without breast".

Elsewhere Herodotus explains the name of the mythical one-eyed tribe Arimaspoi as a compound of the Scythian words arima, meaning "one", and spu, meaning "eye" (Hist. 4,27).

  • Some scholars connect arima "one" with Ossetian ærmæst "only", Avestic airime "quiet", Greek erēmos "empty", PIE *h₁(e)rh₁mo-?, and spu "eye" with Avestic spas- "foretell", Sanskrit spaś-, PIE *speḱ- "see".[43]
  • However, Iranic usually expresses "one" and "eye" with words like aiwa- and čašman- (Ossetian īw and cæst).
  • Other scholars reject Herodotus' etymology and derive the ethnonym Arimaspoi from Iranic aspa- "horse" instead.[44]
  • Or the first part of the name may reflect something like Iranic raiwant- "rich", cf. Ossetian riwæ "rich".[45]

Scythian theonyms

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Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder's Natural History (AD 77–79) derives the name of the Caucasus from the Scythian kroy-khasis = ice-shining, white with snow (cf. Greek cryos = ice-cold).

Aristophanes

In the comedy works of Aristophanes, the dialects of various Greek people are accurately imitated. In his Thesmophoriazusae, a Scythian archer (a member of a police force in Athens) speaks broken Greek, consistently omitting the final -s () and -n (ν), using the lenis in place of the aspirate, and once using ks (ξ) in place of s (sigma); these may be used to elucidate the Scythian languages.[57]

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References

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