Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scytho-Iranian theory

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete per Original research and possible copyvio issues. This was a great discussion to read. Yanksox 23:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scytho-Iranian theory

This article should be deleted for several reasons: 1) It is entirely POV 2) It is origional research, which goes against Wikipedia's policy of NOR 3) It was origionally written for a Pan Turk website which also claims Etruscans, Sumerians, and Greeks along with Scythians as being Turkic 4) The User who created this article says that he wrote the article origionally for that Pan Turkish website, which puts into question his motives, and possibly even makes him a Pan Turk. The site can be viewed here: [1] Khosrow II 17:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy delete - For the reasons listed above.Khosrow II 17:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. The citations and references contained here are not OR as long as they are properly cited to known works, and should not be suppressed, as they represent an entire school of thought that has been around through the eras beginning with classical sources, but now a concerted attempt is being made by an organized partisan group within wikipedia to keep all of this testimony out of public access. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment with the current, much better title given by Dab, Ethnic classification of the Scythians, this article (or one like it) could be vastly expanded and made useful. Sections on all the vast classical references to Scythians out there could be included in one encompassing article - not just the "Iranian" and "Turkic" / "Altaic" classification sections, but all of the others out there over the years. I have already collected a partial sample of possible leads on my user page; as noted, the classical, historical references and traditions literally stretch all the way from Ireland to Cambodia. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Looks like substantially a copyvio from here. It's not exact, but certainly not written for WP. But note that Khosrow II has been edit-warring on this article for some time with Barefact. -- Slowmover 19:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Notice the 4 reasons I gave. First other users a well as I tried to discuss the issue and come to a conclusion, that didn't work and based on the 4 reasons I gave above, I believe this article should be deleted.Khosrow II 19:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy and Strong Delete Major POV issue which violages NOR. The article makes it seem it is western conspiracy to consider Scythians as Iranians and it is all based on ethno-nationalistic polemics. On the other hand the Iranianness of Scythians has been uniformly and unanimously accepted with the exception of nationalist Turkicist psuedo-scholars, like the writer of this article for at least the last 50 years and over the prior 100 years, many authorities have accepted it as well. In his site, the author of this article considers Sumerian, Elamite, Soghdians... and thousands of other non-Turkic groups as Turkic. The validity of the quotes also are selective and the author has already damaged the ossetian article by claiming it is a non-Iranian language, flatly denying scholarship. He was also caught misquoting a genetic study. So this article should be deleted as it constitutes NOR and has no backing from Academia. For example one out of the many wrong claims: 1) Ossetian is an agglutinating type language with phonetics, morphology, lexicon, semantics and syntax of the Kartvelian-Adygian languages (Abaev, V.I. "Ossetian..."). . That is totally wrong and this was proven in the Ossetic language page that this user just makes up stuff. See for example the section of the book here from a very distinguished Hungarian Iranologist (do a google search on his name if you do not believe me): [2]. Note this author of the article claims Ossetian is not an Iranian language! This is totally false and this should make this article invalid within itself. Scythians are unanimously considered Iranian[3] (Cambridge History of Iran, Volume II). Note the polemics of pan-turkist circles in claiming Sumerian, Elamite, Urartian, Soghdian, Hittite, Hurrian and thousands of other languages as Turkic has a long history in the republic of Turkey, but such theories are not mainstream and the authors article comes from here: [4]. . That is why this article should be deleted. So it is clear this is a non-academic article. There is not a single well known scholar in the field of Scythian studies who has published numerous articles (in peer reviewed journals) who has denied the Iranian heritage of Scythians. Here are some other wrong claims in the article: Not Az-eri, whose endoethnonym is Azeri, and not Balkars, one of whose endoethnonyms is As. Actually Azari is Adhari and Adhari comes Adharibaijan Middle Persian AtoorPatekaan (which is used in this way in Armenian as well). Azarbaijan due to its numerous firetemples was called Azarbaijan (gaurdian of the fire) and not the term "Azari" has nothing to do with the word "As". Wikipedia is a not place for polemics. An author who does not know the etymology of Adhari somehow wants to link this term to "As". There are much more wrong claims. The author of this unreliable wikipedia entery ignores Abaev who himself clearly states Ossetian and Alans are Iranians: [5]. Yet the author has the audacity to misquote Abaev when Abaevs opinion is clear from the article above. Abaev says the name "Alan" is a cognate with Iran and Aryan. Abaev says that Alanian may be reconstructed from Ossetian (after excluding the borrowed words of Ossetian from Caucasian and Turkic languages)(pg 803, above source). Its all there in the above entery written by Abaev himself! The Iranian evidence for Scythians is overwhelming and Britannica 2006 has no doubt it either nor do all these references: [6]. For example the following book which is 500 pages: Zgusta, L.: Die griechischen Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste. Die ethnischen Verhältnisse, namentlich das Verhältnis der Skythen und Sarmaten, im Lichte der Namenforschung, Prague 1955 , has done a detailed etymology on each of the Scythian words. Here is more information on this author: [7]. Or see Peter Golden's book on the Turkic people. Here is another example of faulty etymology from the writer of this article: The same straightforward etymology was offered for the ethnonyms named by the classical sources: Ashkuza/Ishkuza is As-guzes, a transparent ethnonym for As tribes, where "guz" is Türkic "tribe. Actually the Assyrian Ashkuza has nothing to do with Az-guzes! And also there is no tribe name guz but actually is Ghuz. There has never been a tribe called As-Oghuz or As-Ghuz. Just by the above example, we can see the writer of this article does not know his etymology. Wikipedia is a not place for polemical opinions. Serious academics who have written numerous peer-reviewed journals should not be ignored for the sake of the creatre of the following website: [8]! (Just take a look at the website of the user who wrote this article and pretty soon every ancient people in history will become Turks because unacademic and falsified information is allowed to creep into Wikipedia). Now compare this to the academic work written by professor Oswald Szemerényi available here:[9]. Indeed the book here: [Four old Iranian names Scythian-Skuda-Sogdian-Saka http://www.azargoshnasp.net/history/Scythians/fouroldiranianethnicnames.pdf] shows the difference between real scholarsip and psuedo-scholarship based on psuedo-linguistics. The author forgets that the names of Scythians have easily recognized Iranian etymology. Saka Haumavarga - The Saka bearinng the Hauma - Hauma is the sacred drink of the Zoroastrians and ancient Areyan Hindus of India. Saka TigraKhauda - The Saka with the pointed hats. "Khauda" for example is middle Persian (Pahlavi) "Khaud" and present day "Khood" or "Kolah-Khood" in modern Farsi (Helmet). Saka Paradraya - The Saka from beyond the sea. Para is Indo-European (and it's subset Iranian) for "beyond" (there in no such root in Turkish or indeed any Altaic languages that I know of). Certain dialects in Khorassan still seem to use the word "para" in that context. "Draya" is sea (Persian "Darya" - which is also a word loaned into modern Turkish as "Derya"). Either the author of the entery scytho-Iranian theory(actually it is not a theory and it is not a Western conspiracy) should be a major Professor with major cited publications from a major Western University (which he is not) or else his politically motivated article should be completely removed because it violates Wikipedia's NOR and all of its facts are really psuedo-scholarship non-academic theories. Also Wikipedia should not be a democracy and should reflect academic opinions of the relavent scholars in the field and not ethno-nationalists. Almost every single line of this entery article is without a reference. Here is another false quote: Instead, the Indo-Iranian tribes are documented as agricultural, sedentary, grain-consuming, never mastering long-distance horse husbandry, which is again false, for example the Mittani whom we have the oldest Indo-Iranian manuscripts were excellent horse trainers for fighting wars. (see the wikipedia article on Mittani or Encyclopedia Britannica).

Some more academic references:

Gamkrelidze & Ivanov (1984). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A

Reconstruction and Historical Typological Analysis of a Proto-Language and

Proto-Culture (Parts I and II). Tbilisi State University.

Mallory, J.P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language Archeology

and Myth. Thames and Hudson. Read Chapter 2 and see 51-53 for a quick

reference.

Newark, T. (1985). The Barbarians: Warriors and wars of the Dark Ages.

Blandford: New York. See pages 65, 85, 87, 119-139.

Renfrew, C. (1988). Aecheology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European

origins. Cambridge University Press.

Note I wanted to mention that the user Codex Sinaiticus did some research and found a quote which also contradicts this nationalistic psuedo-scholarship POV of article. Indeed the article claimed Zosimus considered the Huns(who might have been party altaic) to be Scythians. But the user Codex Sinaiticus found the actual quote which writes: While these affairs were so conducted, a barbarous nation, which till then had remained unknown, suddenly made its appearance, attacking the Scythians beyond the Ister. These were the Huns. It is doubtful whether they were Scythians, who lived under regal government, or the people whom Herodotus states to reside near the Ister, and describes as a weak people with flat noses, or whether they came into Europe from Asia.. [10]. Note this actually works against the author of this article who came up with the conspiracy theory!

Finally there is the admittance of the writer of the entery himself from his own webpage: The following discourse addresses the reasons for the current universal acceptance by the scientific community of the preposition that the Scythians were unambiguously Indo-European, and specifically Iranian speaking, and the methods to reach this conclusion. [11] and due to discredit all these scholars, the author comes up with the falsified polemics! As you can see the authors work here is to challenge the universal acceptance of a fact. He needs to do this in Academic journals which are seriously peer reviewed and not in Wikipeda and once Britannica 2006 and thousands of other books and journal articles are changed, then his theory can be accepted. So this is clearly OR , POV, ..and violates WIKIPEDIA's NOR policy.

--Ali doostzadeh 02:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Can it be mentioned in no article anywhere, the quotes that Zosimus (ca. AD 500) and Theophanes the Confessor (ca. 800) identified Huns with Scythians, Menander Protector (ca. AD 600) identified Turks with Sakas, Procopius (ca. 550) identified Cimmerians with Utigurs, etc.? It is a fact that these are quoted opinions held in antiquity, not OR - but such facts as these have already proven unwelcome at the relevant pages like Scythians, where they have been systematically stripped and kept out, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the so-called "Iranian Watchdog" of Wikipedia. (See Iranian Wikipedians' notice board). The "Watchdogs'" board is permissible - but one must wonder how far it can go when they band together for purposes of deliberately keeping such information as these quotes from Zosimus, Procopius, et. al. from being seen anywhere, through sheer strength of numbers. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I have shown enough weak links in the current article. But here is more. What you wrote is wrong because you do not provide the sources. Huns themselves were a mixed group:[12], so even if your quote is right (where are the standard English edition references to Procopius for example), it does not make Scythians->Huns->Turks. Or who says Cimmerians were related to Utigurs and of course by word playing you are going to some how assign Utigurs to Uyghurs. Give me a break. Show me a single Western Academician with in the last 20 years that has written peer-reviewed journal article that supports such a claim. I would read some serious books on Scythians. As per Iranian noticeboard, I would not support any proposal that does not have academic backing. Here we have "Universal" academic backing on a subject matter. Cimmerians by the way were not Turks either (Britannica). The current article is about conspiracy theory in claiming that western scholars falsified the scytho-Iranian theory. As Richard Frye the eminent Harvard Professor puts it: In the fifth century a forrnidable new enemy appeared in the north-east as successor to the Kushans, a new wave of invaders from Central Asia called the Hephthalites. They are connected with the new order on the steppes of Central Asia which can be characterised best as the rise of the Altaic-speaking peoples or the Hunnic movement. Just as the first millennium BC in Central Asia was considered by classical authors as the period of Scythian dominance in the steppes, so the first half of the first millennium AD is the time of the Huns, while the second half and later is the period of the Turks and the Mongols. Of course the term 'Scythian' continued to be used by classical authors for various steppe peoples well into the Christian era just as the Ottomans were designated 'Huns' by several Byzantine authors. None the less the various terms 'Scythian, Hun and Turk' were general designations of the steppe peoples in Western sources including the Near East, though the Chinese had other names. Obviously not all peoples who lived in, or came from Central Asia into the Near East or eastern Europe in the first half of the first millennium AD were Huns, and the fact that Western and Near Eastern sources call a tribe Hunnic really only means that they came from the steppes of Central Asia, a vast area. The word 'Hun' has caused scholars great trouble as have other problems of Hunnic history, but this is not the place to discuss such questions as, for example, the iclentity of the Hsiung-nu of Chinese sources with various 'Huns' of Western, Near Eastern or Indian sources. [13] In many Persian manuscipts the Ottoman empire is designated by "Rome" so are you going to try to prove that the Romans were Ottomans? Here is a serious book by Professor Frye who is an expert authority which also shows that Scythians were Iranians[14] and furthermore takes up the history of central asia till the Turkic expansion. --Ali doostzadeh 04:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

These are all verifiable quotes from Early Middle Ages Sources, if they can be verified I think they deserve to be in some article somewhere to demonstrate what earlier traditions regarding these peoples were. It's not Original research. What article would you propose is appropriate to mention this antique, even if incorrect, view that they were connected? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 04:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable? So far I have shown a good amount of false sources in this article. Secondly the former confusion about Scythians has been put succintly by Professor Richard Frye of Harvard University and I quote again: In the fifth century a forrnidable new enemy appeared in the north-east as successor to the Kushans, a new wave of invaders from Central Asia called the Hephthalites. They are connected with the new order on the steppes of Central Asia which can be characterised best as the rise of the Altaic-speaking peoples or the Hunnic movement. Just as the first millennium BC in Central Asia was considered by classical authors as the period of Scythian dominance in the steppes, so the first half of the first millennium AD is the time of the Huns, while the second half and later is the period of the Turks and the Mongols. Of course the term 'Scythian' continued to be used by classical authors for various steppe peoples well into the Christian era just as the Ottomans were designated 'Huns' by several Byzantine authors. None the less the various terms 'Scythian, Hun and Turk' were general designations of the steppe peoples in Western sources including the Near East, though the Chinese had other names. Obviously not all peoples who lived in, or came from Central Asia into the Near East or eastern Europe in the first half of the first millennium AD were Huns, and the fact that Western and Near Eastern sources call a tribe Hunnic really only means that they came from the steppes of Central Asia, a vast area. The word 'Hun' has caused scholars great trouble as have other problems of Hunnic history, but this is not the place to discuss such questions as, for example, the iclentity of the Hsiung-nu of Chinese sources with various 'Huns' of Western, Near Eastern or Indian sources. [15]. This is a scholarly source. In many Persian manuscipts the Ottoman empire is designated by "Rome" so are you going to try to prove that the Romans were Ottomans? All foreigners in persian and middle eastern languages (British, French, Spanish, Italians..) were called "Farang" (from Frankish German tribe). What you are trying to argue about is a totally different issue. The fact of the matter is that there is a universal acceptance that Scythians are Iranians. But we can mention in the Scythian article (and not this conspiracy theory article) what Professor. Frye has referred to. But this has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Else one can work backward and say since Huns (a mixed group btw) were called Scythians, then Huns are Iranians and make up theories. The issue at hand is an article POV here challenging the current universal scholarly opinion (admitted by the author of the article) on the Iranian background of Scythians. The article has many false quotes and etymologies and I just showed a few. So there is two different issues here and there is no reason to convolute them. I have no quarrels with ancient designations and we can bring the quote by Professor. Frye to show that various different groups and even the Ottoman empire was called Scythian at one time just like middle easterners called all europeans as Franks. But that has nothing to do with the original Scythians and other weired theories of the author above who claims Ossetian is not an Iranian language although Abaev has clearly stated it is. --Ali doostzadeh 04:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

As I said, "if they can be verified" (the quotes from Procopius, and all the others) then they are admissible to Wikipedia, in some form or another. All one would have to do is verify them first, which hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to prove if they are correct quotes or not. ፈቃደ ([[User

talk:Codex Sinaiticus|ውይይት]]) 04:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

What you say here is not related to the current argument here . Also note how ancient authors even differentiated between Huns and Alans(scythians). [16] and I quote again here for sake of clarity: Important, however, is the fact that Ptolemy and Ammianus both located the Huns in the neighborhood of the Iranian-Sarmatian Alans, and that the land of the Alans between the Sea of Azov and the Caucasus was still considered by Byzantine historiography as the country of origin of the Huns (Priscus, frag. 1; Procopius, Bella 4.5; Agathias, 5.11). The Alans are known to have been the first victims of the sudden expansion of the Huns between 370 and 375 C.E., and to have been forced by the latter to participate in subsequent military expeditions (Amm. Marc., 31.3.1). . And note my quotes are verified from a verifiable source and note picking and choosing is not keeping a unbiased POV. We can have a section on the main Scythian page about former affiliations of Scythians and mention Altaic, Slavic, Uralic and Germanic. But the current argument is about how there is a big conspiracy theory and how according to the author of the article: the universal acceptance of current scholarship is false and is a conspiracy. So that is the issue at hand. --Ali doostzadeh 04:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Note I wanted to mention that the user Codex Sinaiticus did some research and found a quote which also contradicts this nationalistic psuedo-scholarship POV of article. Indeed the article claimed Zosimus considered the Huns(who might have been party altaic) to be Scythians. But the user Codex Sinaiticus found the actual quote which writes: While these affairs were so conducted, a barbarous nation, which till then had remained unknown, suddenly made its appearance, attacking the Scythians beyond the Ister. These were the Huns. It is doubtful whether they were Scythians, who lived under regal government, or the people whom Herodotus states to reside near the Ister, and describes as a weak people with flat noses, or whether they came into Europe from Asia.. [17]. Note this actually works against the author of this article who came up with the conspiracy theory! --Ali doostzadeh 05:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy delete - Serious problems such as copy right violation and original research. --Mardavich 22:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep the claim of original research seems farfetched when there are several books listed which, allegedly at least, support the theory, and there apparently is a website that also supports the theory. One should not delete articles based on the political association of the user who creates them. No one should be caring if the creator of this article is a Pan-Turk, Republitarian 22:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Show me a single Western Academician with in the last 20 years that has written peer-reviewed journal article that supports sucha weired claim. Note pretty soon with such an author we will slowly see all of his page: [18] in one form or another in Wikipedia and pretty soon kids will be mislead in thinking Greek, Sumerian, Elamite,French[19].. are all Turkish as well. I am suprised that Wikipedia has stooped so low. --Ali doostzadeh 23:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

WP hasn't stooped, you are just witnessing the slow churning of the wiki machine, turning insane kookery into encyclopedicity (per aspera ad articulum). Give it some time, it will turn out alright. Inputs of blooming nonsense such as this is a powerful driving force of Wikipedia. dab (ᛏ) 09:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I hope you are right. But if there wasn't observant users scrutinizing some of these articles, who knows what would happen or what is happening. Not to speak of myself, but for at least 6 months, some user who was in copy right violation had disfigured the Medes article and claimed that the Hungarian Magyars are related to Magians and had claimed Sumerian,Dravidian,Elamite .. are all Hungarian. Note such an embarrasing error in Wikipedia for 6 months without anyone noticing it was very unfortunate. More unfortunate though was the insistence of someone that the false information (which was also in copy right violation) should not be removed! I can tell you that in some pan-Turkist countries, they have written books with bogus materials in order to claim Sumerians, Medes, Elamites, Hurrians, Scythians, Urartuians, Hittites,Greeks. For example in one book, Homer is called Omer and Hellen of Troy is related to Turks since Toroy and Tork sound close. Or please take a look here: [20]. The material on this article is bogus like those books/article, but very few people actually might check the sources. That is why it becomes very important to actually have academic backed articles in some of the enteries(and these are mainly historical articles since with political articles everyone can pretty much have an opinion) so that nationalistic POV does not creep in. I can tell anything which the creator of this wikipedia article will write, will have a non-neutral POV. Is it then my job to track every single sentence down? I hope not since that is very time consuming. In the Ossetic language page, he is denying that Ossetic is classified as an Iranian language! (See the talk page). And unfortunately another user instead of siding with the truth puts a dispute tag, while there is absolutely no dispute that Ossetic is classified linguistically as an Iranian language. It is like me going to the entery of George Washington and claiming that he was Chinese and if someone doesn't like it, then I will put a dispute tag! Take care. --Ali doostzadeh 13:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong delete per Ali doostzadeh... there really isn't much more to say than that. Possible copyvio on top of all of that. Srose (talk) 02:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
• Abstain. Sorry guys, but I'd really prefer not to take sides this time. —Khoikhoi 03:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
• redirect/merge with Scythia, or at the very least rename: the current title is consciously misleading, with nationalistic motivation, by presenting a 99% scholarly consensus as a far-fetched "theory". In the same spirit we could pretty much move any article on Wikipedia (WoW-style) to take a " theory" suffix. dab (ᛏ) 08:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete this original research. Wikipedia doesn't need ultra-nationalist fabrications. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 09:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy delete - The material for this article is from a very biased and unserious pan-turkist site.

Ofcourse the first thing you encounter here (http://www.turkicworld.org/) is the "grey wolf" background, which is an obvious reference to the pan-turkist ideology of the site.

Here are a few examples of what else you can see on this page:

Famous TURKS in history:

Biruni (perian scientist) Changiz khan (mongol general) Farabi (persian scientist) Abu muslim Khorasani (Persian General) Khwarizmi (Persian mathematician) Avicinna or Ibne Sina (Persian physician) Qublai Khan (Mongol Ruler)

(http://www.ozturkler.com/data_english/0004/0004.htm)

Nowrooz is an ancient turkish holiday! (http://www.ozturkler.com/data_english/0001/0001_19_03.htm)

Here is an other jewel of knowledge (I quote):

"In the Iranian Zend-Avesta narrations which can be found in detail in the Islamic sources and in the Israely origin Torah narratives the name "Turk" was searched at Noah's grandson (son of Yafes) Turk..."

(Ofcourse the author needs to explain where in Avesta is there any talk about the semitic myths of Noah etc...)

Articles like this are and have been part of a concerted effort by pan-turkist ideologists to romantisize the origin of turks, through association of ancient heroic or civilized people with turks. Note that in the article in question, the english word "Turk" is consistently spelled "Türk" as per spelling in Turkish, which suggest a very national-romantic approach to history. Nothing from this site has a place in a serious encyclopedia and therefore we really should remove this nonsense from Wikipedia. Arash the Bowman 09:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

this isn't a debate about the website, but about the article. Unlike the website, we can fix the article. I have started the process, and I see no reason to delete it rather than cleaning it up. dab (ᛏ) 10:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It's easier to start this anew. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 12:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason this article exists is to promote the ideas of the aforementioned websit. (the author of the wikipedia article is a contributor to that website). The article about Scythians should be enough. Therefore there is no reason to fix this article. Fixing it will require a major rewriting any way, which I do not think is necessary, since any useful information can be put into the Scythia article. best wishes Arash the Bowman 10:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Thanks to all that contributed specially user Dab. I definitely welcome the name change although I recommend former ethnic classification of Scythians instead of ethnic classification of Scythians. Personally I do not think any aspect of this article can be salvaged although historical identification of Scythians with Germans, Turks, Slavs, Uralic people could be mentioned succintly in the Scythian article (with appropriate sources). I believe there was a Russian book two hundreds years ago by the title "Yes we are Scythians". Anyways found another error and faslification in the current article. Procopius in no way identifies the Huns as Scythians. [21]. He just mentions various steppes people. Please read the third paragraph. I am wondering how many errors do we have to find before some other users stop the distortion and disfigurement of Wikipedia for their nationalistic POV. --Ali doostzadeh 13:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

'Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians!' is actually a famous line from one of the last poems by Alexander Blok --Ghirla ^-трёп- 12:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Ali... As you can see I am a stickler for getting to the bottom of things and finding the true story, whatever it is...! As for the Procopius claim, note that the claim here is actually that he identified the "Utigurs" with the "Cimmerians", which seems more probable that he said this. All he seems to say about "Scythians" and "Huns", is that Attila's army had absorbed and incorporated a large Scythian fighting force into his own ranks, which is basically what the other historians agree. (E.g. [22] - "Attila, who had invaded the Roman domain with a great army of Massagetae and the other Scythians...") You are right in that a distinction between the Huns and Scythians nations seems to be maintained, or as in Zosimus, left open. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That is good. I am also at getting to bottom of the truth. That is why each statement in the original article which is non-factual needs to be removed. Zosmus actually distinguishes more than leaving it open. I still favor a strong delete and believe that historical identification of Scythians with other groups(Slavs, Germans,Turks..) needs to be put in a small succint section. All nonsense stuff in this article about conspiracy theories needs to be thrown out. So basically we need a small section in the main scythian article to just summarize this issue, and of course the universal opinion which is the final opinion in my view (since all sources have now been exhausted), is that Scythians were Iranic Indo-European people. --Ali doostzadeh 23:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• My two pennies

I enjoy the ongoing debate.

The fact that the debate takes place already shows that there is a need to address the subject, its history, its concepts, its pros and cons. The abcence of such subject in the Wikipedia was glaring, which drew me to full in the void in the first place. The notion that all seven Scythian languages were Iranian/Ossetian/Northern Iranian/Eastern Iranian is laughable and unsustainable other than by policing means. These means were employed by former USSR and its Easterm European sattelites. As soon as the enforcement apparatus faded, facts and opinions started to flourish, and need to be sorted out, which is not the Wikipedia task, and may take half a century or more. But for Wikipedia to pretend that the subject does not exist is ridiculous, totally contrary to its objectives, and again, usustainable. The German version quotes Tanshu stating that Alans were one of four Hun's tribes, and a leading one. The English version, policed by enthusiastic watchdogs, does not have it. So, they have to stretch their policing effort into German, Finnish etc. versions, or to nuke the Tabshu itself to suppress the flow of ideas. And it is unsustainable, because no one can suppress the Tanshu.

Adding information about competing views does not endorse these views, but only reflects a fact of the life that exists whether Wikipedia reflects it or not.

And while we are discussing this subject, we should think about other information we want to suppress. Shall we suppress the genetical data on Scythians? Shall we suppress the observation of Cavalli-Sforza? Shall we supress the studies of Karvellian and Nakh languages that view Ossetian as a dialect of their languages? Where are we to stop at suppressing? Is the partizan watchdog agency a proper tool to define the limits of suppression?

Regards, Barefact 14:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually Wikipedia is not a debate place and it is up to the actual scholarly community and not nationalist groups to discuss history and they have done so over the past 200 years and it is firmly established that Scythians are Iranians. Your competing view falls in the realm of original research and so it is not for Wikipedia. I already showed numerous examples of you using false etymology. As per all seven Scythian dialect being Iranian, you might want to check Kurdish which has 50 dialects/variants. The rest of the political stuff about USSR is irrelavent since Western scholarship as independently reached the same convincing conclusions and as I said there is no conspiracy theory. Also you have totally picked and choosed statements from Abaev (assuming your quotes where valid) to reach a conclusion he did not reach. I will quote Abaev here: Ossetic is the spoken and literary language of the Ossetes, a people living in the central part of the Caucasus and constituting the basic population of the North-Ossetic ASSR, which belongs to the Russian Federation, and of the South-Ossetic Autonomous Oblast [Region] which belongs to the Georgian Republic. Ossetic is genetically related to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages. From deep antiquity (since the 7th-8th centuries B. C), the languages of the Iranian group were distributed in a vast territory including present-day Iran (Persia), Central Asia, and Southern Russia. Ossetic is the sole survivor of the northeastern branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes in Central Asia and Southern Russia, known in ancient sources as Scythians, Massageti, Sakas, Sarmatians, Alans, Roksolans, etc. In close relationship with these tribes were the Khorezmians and the Sogdians. At the beginning of our era, one of the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes, the Alans, advanced to the Northern Caucasian Mountains and mixed with the local Caucasian elements, thus giving rise to the Ossetic nationality. In the course of centuries-long propinquity to and intercourse with Caucasian languages, Ossetic became similar to them in some features, particularly in phonetics and lexicon. However, it retained its grammatical structure and basic lexical stock; its relationship with the Iranian family, despite considerable individual traits, does not arouse any doubt. Among the languages of the Soviet Union belonging to the Iranian family are also Tajik, Kurdish, Tat, Talysh, Yagnobi, and Shugni. Among those beyond the border are Persian, Pashto, Balochi, and others. Ossetic is divided into two main dialects: the eastern, called Iron, and the Western, called Digor. The overwhelming majority of Ossetes speak the Iron dialect, and the literary language is based on it. The creator of the Ossetic literary language is the national poet Kosta Xetagurov (1859-1906)[23]. As Per Alans, The Alans are known to have been the first victims of the sudden expansion of the Huns between 370 and 375 C.E., and to have been forced by the latter to participate in subsequent military expeditions (Amm. Marc., 31.3.1)[24]. As per phenotype, original Turks were mongloid (like Yakuts today) and Scythians are clearly Caucasoid. --Ali doostzadeh 23:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Huh? That's to say, I stared at this article for several minutes and could not make up my mind as to whether this is a genuine attempt at documenting a scientific controversy or a bowl of copyvio-WP:OR-ethnic-chest-thumping-word salad. And the surreal content debate here on AfD doesn't help. I don't even understand what the article is about, except possibly whose national ancestors the Scythians are, which appears to be a terribly weighty question. I'm not voting yet. Let's see whether I can at least understand what the article means to say after the ongoing rewrite. Sandstein 18:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - everything has already been said. This article is POV. Tājik 16:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong delete - As per all the reasons above. No need to explain. --(Aytakin) | Talk 20:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete per Sandstein abakharev 22:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, but Sandstein hasn't voted "Delete"...! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.