Scythian languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Scythian languages (/ˈsɪθiən/ or /ˈsɪðiən/) are an extinct family of Iranian languages of the classical and late antiquity (Middle Iranian) period, spoken in a vast region of Eurasia named Scythia.
The location and extent of Scythia varied by time, but generally it encompassed the part of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula riverand much of Central Asia. The dominant ethnic groups among theScythians were nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia and thePontic-Caspian steppe. Fragments of their speech known from inscriptions and words quoted in ancient authors as well as analysis of their names indicate that it was an Indo-Europeanlanguage, more specifically from the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages. Further classification is uncertain and elusive, though it is usually considered a part of the areal group of theEastern Iranian languages. Alexander Lubotsky summarizes the known linguistic landscape as follows:[1]
Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about the Scythian of that period [Old Iranian] – we have only a couple of personal and tribal names in Greek and Persian sources at our disposal – and cannot even determine with any degree of certainty whether it was a single language.
The vast majority of Scythological scholars agree in considering the Scythian-Sarmatian languages (and Ossetian) as a part of the Eastern Iranian group of languages — like the once widespread but now extinct Sogdian language. This Iranian hypothesis relies principally on the fact that the Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Coast contain several hundreds of Sarmatian names showing a close affinity to the Ossetian language. The classification of the Iranian languages is in general not however fully resolved, and the Eastern Iranian languages do not form an actual genetic subgroup. [2]
Historians normally divide the Scytho-Sarmatian group chronologically rather than geographically:[citation needed]
The Scythian languages may have formed a dialect continuum:
The approximate distribution of Eastern Iranian languages in 100 BC appears in orange.[citation needed]
Scythians are the Iranian branch of the Indo-European peoples, Early East Iranians originated in the Yaz culture in Central Asia[citation needed] (ca. 1500–1100 BC) from Kurgan culture inEastern Europe (ca. 4000 to 1000 BC). The Scythians migrated from Central Asia toward Southern Russia in the 8th and 7th century BC,[7] occupying today's Southern Russia andUkraine and the Carpathian Basin and parts of Moldova and Dobruja. They disappeared from history after the Hunnish invasion of Europe in the 5th century AD, and Turkic (Avar,Batsange, etc.) and Slavic peoples probably assimilated most people speaking Scythian.[citation needed] However, in the Caucasus, Ossetian language belonging to the Scythian-Sarmatian linguistic continuum remains in use today, while in Central Asia, some languages belonging to Eastern Iranian group are still spoken, namely Pashto, Pamir languages and Yaghnobi.
Corpus
Inscriptions
Some scholars ascribe certain inscribed objects found in the Carpathian Basin and in Central Asia to the Scythians, but the interpretation of these inscriptions remains disputed (given that nobody has definitively identified the alphabet or translated the content).
An inscription from Saqqez written in the Hieroglyphic Hittite script may represent Scythian: [8]
Transliteration:par-tì-ta₅-wa₅ ki-ś₃-a₄-á KUR-u-pa-ti QU-wa-a₅ | i₅-pa-ś₂-a-m₂
Transcription
artitava xšaya DAHYUupati xva|ipašyam
Translation:King Partitavas, the masters of the land property."
King Partitava equates to the Scythian king called Prototyēs in Herodotus (1.103) and known as Par-ta-tu-a in the Assyrian sources. ("Partatua of Sakasene" married the daughter of Esarhaddon c. 675 BC)
The Issyk inscription, found in a Scythian kurgan dating approximately to the 4th century BC, remains undeciphered, but some authorities assume that it represents Scythian.
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 Scythian-Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.
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. [9] The river names Don, Donets, Dnieper, Danube,Dniester and lake Donuzlav (the deepest one in Crimea, Ukraine) may also belong with the same word-group. [10]
Herodotus' Scythian etymologies
The Greek historian Herodotus provides another source of Scythian; he reports that the Scythians called the AmazonsOiorpata, and explains the name as a compound of oior, meaning "man", and pata, meaning "to kill" (Hist. 4,110).
Herodotus also gives a list of Scythian theonyms (Hist. 4.59):
The Alanian language as spoken by the Alans from about the 5th to the 11th centuries AD formed a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, and forming in its turn the ancestor of the Ossetian language.Byzantine Greek authors recorded only a few fragments of this language.[26]
The Scythian languages (/ˈsɪθiən/ or /ˈsɪðiən/) are an extinct family of Iranian languages of the classical and late antiquity (Middle Iranian) period, spoken in a vast region of Eurasia named Scythia.
The location and extent of Scythia varied by time, but generally it encompassed the part of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula riverand much of Central Asia. The dominant ethnic groups among theScythians were nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia and thePontic-Caspian steppe. Fragments of their speech known from inscriptions and words quoted in ancient authors as well as analysis of their names indicate that it was an Indo-Europeanlanguage, more specifically from the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages. Further classification is uncertain and elusive, though it is usually considered a part of the areal group of theEastern Iranian languages. Alexander Lubotsky summarizes the known linguistic landscape as follows:[1]
Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about the Scythian of that period [Old Iranian] – we have only a couple of personal and tribal names in Greek and Persian sources at our disposal – and cannot even determine with any degree of certainty whether it was a single language.
The vast majority of Scythological scholars agree in considering the Scythian-Sarmatian languages (and Ossetian) as a part of the Eastern Iranian group of languages — like the once widespread but now extinct Sogdian language. This Iranian hypothesis relies principally on the fact that the Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Coast contain several hundreds of Sarmatian names showing a close affinity to the Ossetian language. The classification of the Iranian languages is in general not however fully resolved, and the Eastern Iranian languages do not form an actual genetic subgroup. [2]
Historians normally divide the Scytho-Sarmatian group chronologically rather than geographically:[citation needed]
- Scythian (ca. 800 – 300 BC), mainly evidenced in Classical Greek authors
- Sarmatian (ca. 300 BC – AD 400), mainly evidenced in Hellenistic and Roman inscriptions
- Alanian (ca. AD 400 – 1000), mainly evidenced in Byzantine Greek authors
The Scythian languages may have formed a dialect continuum:
- Scytho-Sarmatian languages were spoken by people originally of Iranian stock[4] from the 8th and 7th century BC onwards in the area of Ukraine, Southern Russia and Kazakhstan. Modern Ossetian survives as a continuation of the language family possibly represented by Scytho-Sarmatian inscriptions, although the Scytho-Sarmatian language family "does not simply represent the same [Ossetian] language" at an earlier date.[5]
- Saka language or Scytho-Khotanese in the east: spoken in the Kingdom of Khotan (located in present-day Xinjiang, China), and including the Khotanese of Khotan and Tumshuqese of Tumshuq. Scholars classify these languages as North-Eastern Iranian.[6]
The approximate distribution of Eastern Iranian languages in 100 BC appears in orange.[citation needed]
Scythians are the Iranian branch of the Indo-European peoples, Early East Iranians originated in the Yaz culture in Central Asia[citation needed] (ca. 1500–1100 BC) from Kurgan culture inEastern Europe (ca. 4000 to 1000 BC). The Scythians migrated from Central Asia toward Southern Russia in the 8th and 7th century BC,[7] occupying today's Southern Russia andUkraine and the Carpathian Basin and parts of Moldova and Dobruja. They disappeared from history after the Hunnish invasion of Europe in the 5th century AD, and Turkic (Avar,Batsange, etc.) and Slavic peoples probably assimilated most people speaking Scythian.[citation needed] However, in the Caucasus, Ossetian language belonging to the Scythian-Sarmatian linguistic continuum remains in use today, while in Central Asia, some languages belonging to Eastern Iranian group are still spoken, namely Pashto, Pamir languages and Yaghnobi.
Corpus
Inscriptions
Some scholars ascribe certain inscribed objects found in the Carpathian Basin and in Central Asia to the Scythians, but the interpretation of these inscriptions remains disputed (given that nobody has definitively identified the alphabet or translated the content).
An inscription from Saqqez written in the Hieroglyphic Hittite script may represent Scythian: [8]
Transliteration:par-tì-ta₅-wa₅ ki-ś₃-a₄-á KUR-u-pa-ti QU-wa-a₅ | i₅-pa-ś₂-a-m₂
Transcription
artitava xšaya DAHYUupati xva|ipašyamTranslation:King Partitavas, the masters of the land property."
King Partitava equates to the Scythian king called Prototyēs in Herodotus (1.103) and known as Par-ta-tu-a in the Assyrian sources. ("Partatua of Sakasene" married the daughter of Esarhaddon c. 675 BC)
The Issyk inscription, found in a Scythian kurgan dating approximately to the 4th century BC, remains undeciphered, but some authorities assume that it represents Scythian.
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 Scythian-Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.
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. [9] The river names Don, Donets, Dnieper, Danube,Dniester and lake Donuzlav (the deepest one in Crimea, Ukraine) may also belong with the same word-group. [10]
Herodotus' Scythian etymologies
The Greek historian Herodotus provides another source of Scythian; he reports that the Scythians called the AmazonsOiorpata, 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",[11][12] PIE *u̯iHro-. Various explanations account for pata "kill":
- Alternatively, one scholar suggests Iranian aiwa- "one" + warah- "breast",[16] 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".
- 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".[17]
- However, Iranian 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 Iranian aspa- "horse" instead.[18]
- Or the first part of the name may reflect something like Iranian raiwant- "rich", cf. Ossetian riwæ "rich".[19]
Herodotus also gives a list of Scythian theonyms (Hist. 4.59):
- Tabiti = Hestia. Perhaps related to Sanskrit Tapatī, a heroine in the Mahābhārata, literally "the burning (one)".[20]
- Papaios = Zeus. Either "father" (Herodotus) or "protector", Avestan, Sanskrit pā- "protect", PIE *peh₃-.[21]
- Api = Gaia. Either "mother"[22] or "water", Avestan, Sanskrit āp-, PIE Hep-[23]
- Goitosyros = Apollo. Perhaps Avestan gaēθa- "animal" + sūra- "rich".[24]
- Argimpasa = Aphrodite Urania. To Ossetic art and Pashto or, "fire", Avestan āθra-.[25]
- Thagimasadas = Poseidon.
The Alanian language as spoken by the Alans from about the 5th to the 11th centuries AD formed a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, and forming in its turn the ancestor of the Ossetian language.Byzantine Greek authors recorded only a few fragments of this language.[26]
- Lubotsky 2002, p. 190.
- Compare L. Zgusta, Die griechischen Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste [The Greek personal names of the Greek cities of the northern Black Sea coast], 1955.
- E.g. Harmatta 1970.[page needed]
- Scythian, member of a nomadic people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th and 7th centuries BC – Encyclopædia Britannica 15th edition – Micropaedia on "Scythian"
- The languages of the Scytho-Sarmatian inscription may represent dialects of a language family of which Modern Ossetian is a continuation, but does not simply represent the same language at an earlier time – Encyclopædia Britannica 15th edition – Macropedia on Languages of the World
- Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Reichert, 1989.[page needed]
- Scythian, member of a nomadic people originally of Iranian people who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th and 7th centuries BC—The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition—Micropædia on "Scythian", 10:576
- Text and translation in J. Harmatta, "Herodotus, historian of the Cimmerians and the Scythians", in: Hérodote et les peuples non grecs, Vandœuvres-Genève 1990, pp. 115–130.
- M. Vasmer, Untersuchungen über die ältesten Wohnsitze der Slaven. Die Iranier in Südrußland, Leipzig 1923, 74.
- P. Kretschmer, "Zum Balkan-Skythischen", Glotta 24 (1935), 1–56, here: 7ff.
- vir - Wiktionary
- Vir - The Latin Dictionary
- Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15.
- V.I. Abaev, Osetinskij jazyk i fol’klor, Moscow / Leningrad 1949, vol. 1, 172, 176, 188.
- L. Zgusta, "Skythisch οἰόρπατα «ἀνδροκτόνοι»", Annali dell’Istituto Universario Orientale di Napoli 1 (1959) pp. 151–156.
- Hinge 2005, pp. 94–98
- J. Marquart, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte von Eran, Göttingen 1905, 90–92; Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 12; H.H. Schaeder, Iranica. I: Das Auge des Königs, Berlin 1934, 16–19.
- W. Tomaschek, "Kritik der ältesten Nachrichten über den skythischen Norden", Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 116 (1888), 715–780, here: 761; K. Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, Berlin 1893, vol. 3, 305–306; R. Grousset, L’empire des steppes, Paris 1941, 37 n. 3; I. Lebedensky, Les Scythes. La civilisation des steppes (VIIe-IIIe siècles av. J.-C.), Paris 2001, 93.
- Hinge 2005, pp. 89–94
- W. Brandenstein, "Die Abstammungssagen der Skythen", Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 52 (1953) 183–211, here: 191; Ė.A. Grantovskij & D.S. Raevskij, "Ob iranojazyčnom i «indoarijskom» naselenii Severnogo Pričernomor’ja v antičnuju ėpochu", in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja. Lingvistika, istorija, archeologija, Moscow 1984, 47–66, here: 53–55; G. Dumézil, Romans de Scythie et d’alentour, Paris 1978, 125–145; Dumézil offers a different interpretation in La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés. Esquisses de mythologie, Paris 1983, 124–125.
- Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15; L. Zgusta, "Zwei skythische Götternamen", Archiv orientální 21 (1953), pp. 270–271; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
- L. Zgusta, "Zwei skythische Götternamen", Archiv orientální 21 (1953), pp. 270–271.
- Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 11; Brandenstein, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 52(1953) 190–191; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
- Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 13; other interpretations in Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983, 121–122; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54–55.
- Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983.
- Ladislav Zgusta, "The old Ossetian Inscription from the River Zelenčuk" (Veröffentlichungen der Iranischen Kommission = Sitzungsberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 486) Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987. ISBN 3-7001-0994-6 in Kim, op.cit., 54.
