Scythian languages

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Scytho-Sarmatian
Spoken in: Scythia
Language extinction: mostly extinct by AD 1000, remnants evolved into Ossetic
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Iranian
   Eastern
    Northeastern
     Scytho-Sarmatian 
Writing system: -
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: to be added
ISO/FDIS 639-3: —

 

Scythian and Sarmatian are the names of the East Iranian dialects spoken by the Scythian/Sarmatian tribes of the nomadic cattlebreeders in Southern Russia and Ukraine between 8th century BC and 5th century AD. Sometimes, the Scythian and Sarmatian languages are combined into one name: Scytho-Sarmatian languages.

Contents

[edit] History

The approximate distribution of Eastern Iranian languages in 100 BC is shown in orange.
Enlarge
The approximate distribution of Eastern Iranian languages in 100 BC is shown in orange.

Scythians migrated from Central Asia toward Eastern Europe, occupying today's Southern Russia and Ukraine and the Carpathian Basin and parts of Moldova and Dobruja. They disappeared from history after the Hunnish invasion of the 5th century, and most people speaking Scythian were probably assimilated by the Turkic (Avar, Bulgar, Batsange, etc.) and Slavic peoples. However, in Caucasus, a dialect belonging to the Scythian-Sarmatian linguistic continuum is still spoken today, namely Ossetic.

[edit] Classification

[edit] Affinity

The vast majority of scholars agree that the Scythian-Sarmatian languages (and Ossetic) belong to the North Eastern branch of the Iranian language family like the once widespread but now extinct Sogdian language. The main argument of the Iranian hypothesis is the fact that the Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Coast contain several hundreds Sarmatian names showing a close affinity to the Ossetic language.[1]

A competing theory claims that the Scythians spoke a Turkic language. The theory was more popular in the 19th century but has become marginalised during the 20th century. The remaining defenders of the Turkic hypothesis accentuate the problematic and sometimes arbitrary Iranian etymologies presented for Scythian names and words. Instead they rely on their own interpretations of the early "Runic" inscriptions found in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Early Hungarian chronicles, namely the two 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum, make claims of a Hungarian-Scythian connection. Few mainstream scientists, Hungarian or otherwise, accept these claims at face value; at most they refer to the experience of Scythian migrations, such as that of the contemporary Jassic tribe, who eventually did assimilate and contribute to the Magyar language and culture. There also appears to be similarity between the Hungarian runes and the Scythian runic writing. (Though it is worth noting that all runic forms of writing bear considerable similarity due to the limitations of the medium.)

Another minority theory identifies the Scythian-Sarmatian language with Proto-Slavic. This theory is represented by the Russian scholar Sergej V. Rjabčikov, who has written a numer of works on the decipherment of the Scythian/Sarmatian script and language.[2] Boris Rybakov thinks hypothesizes the settled agriculturalists ("Skolotai") dominated by the Iranian-speaking Scythian warrior nomads were in fact Proto-Slavs.[3]

[edit] Dialects

The Scythian-Sarmatian language group is divided mainly chronologically rather than geographically:

  • Scythian (ca. 800 - 300 BC), mainly in Classical Greek authors
  • Sarmatian (ca. 300 BC - AD 400), mainly in Hellenistic and Roman inscriptions
  • Alanic (ca. AD 400 - 1000), mainly in Byzantine Greek authors

Some scholars[4] believe that the Scythian-Sarmatian language was divided into two dialects, a western, more conservative dialect and an eastern, more innovative dialect. The innovative dialect may correspond to Sarmatian, whereas the conservative dialect may continue the dialect spoken by the old Scythians before the invasion of the Sarmatians.

[edit] Sources of the Scythian language

[edit] 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 is disputed (given that the alphabet and the content are unknown).

An inscription from Saqqez written in the Hieroglyphic Hittite script may be in Scythian:[5]:

Transliteration: pa-tì-na-sa-nà tà-pá wa-s6-na-m5 XL was-was-ki XXX ár-s-tí-m5 ś3-kar-kar (HA) har-s6-ta5 LUGAL | par-tì-ta5-wa5 ki-ś3-a4-á KUR-u-pa-ti QU-wa-a5 | i5-pa-ś2-a-m2
Transcription: patinasana tapa. vasnam: 40 vasaka 30 arzatam šikar. UTA harsta XŠAYAL. | Partitava xšaya DAHYUupati xva|ipašyam
Translation: "Delivered dish. Value: 40 calves 30 silver šiqlu. And it was presented to the king. | King Partitavas, the masters of the land property."

King Partitava is identical to the Scythian king which is called Prototyēs in Herodotus (1.103) and Par-ta-tu-a in the Assyrian sources.

The Issyk inscription, found in a ca. 4th century BC Scythian kurgan is undeciphered, but assumed to be in Scythian.

[edit] Personal names

Our primary sources, however, are the Scythian toponyms, tribal names, and numerous personal names in the ancient Greek texts and the Greek inscriptions found in the Greek colonies on the Northern Black Sea Coast. These names show that the Scythian-Sarmatian language was closely related to Modern Ossetian.

Many toponyms and hydronyms of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe are believed to be of Scythian origin. For example, the name of the river Don derives from Scythian *dānu "water, river", Ossetic don, Avestan dānu-.[6] The river names Danube, Dnieper, and Dniester may also belong to the same Scythian word.[7]

[edit] Herodotus' etymologies

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

  • Most scholars associate oior "man" with Avestan vīra- "man, hero", Sanskrit vīra-, PIE *u̯iHro-. Various explanations are given for pata "kill": 1) Avestan paiti- "lord", Sanskrit pati-, PIE *poti- (i.e. "man-ruler");[8] 2) Ossetic maryn "kill", Sanskrit mārayati, PIE *mer- "die" (confusion of Greek Μ and Π);[9] 3) Ossetic fædyn "cleave", Sanskrit pātayati "fell", PIE *peth₂- "fall".[10]
  • Some scholars connect arima "one" with Ossetic ærmæst "only", Avestic airime "quiet", Greek erēmos "empty", PIE *h₁(e)rh₁mo-?, and spu "eye" with Avestic spas- "foretell", Sanskrit spaś-, PIE *spek̂- "see".[11] However, the usual words for "one" and "eye" in Iranian are aiwa- and čašman- (Ossetic īw and cæst). Other scholars reject Herodotus' etymology and derive the ethnonym Arimaspoi from Iranian aspa- "horse" instead.[12]

[edit] The Scythian theonyms

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)".[13]
  • Papaios = Zeus. Either "father" (Herodotus) or "protector", Avestan, Sanskrit pā- "protect", PIE *peh₃-.[14]
  • Api = Gaia. Either "mother" (Zgusta 1953) or "water", Avestan, Sanskrit āp-, PIE Hep-[15]
  • Goitosyros or Oitosyros = Apollo. Perhaps Avestan gaēθa- "animal" + sūra- "rich".[16]
  • Argimpasa or Artimpasa = Aphrodite Urania. To Ossetic art "fire", Avestan āθra-.[17]
  • Thagimasadas = Poseidon.

[edit] Alanic

The Alanic language was the language spoken by the Alans from ca. the 5th to the 11th centuries AD. It was a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, and is in turn the ancestor of the Ossetic language. Only few fragments of the language are recorded by Byzantine Greek authors.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Cf. Zgusta 1953.
  2. ^ S.V. Rjabčikov, Drevnie texty slavjan i adygov, Krasnodar 1998; Skifo-sarmatskie istoki slavjanskoj kul’tury: Materialy Južnorossijskoj fol’klorno-ėtnografičeskoj ekspedicii, Krasnodar 2002; see also the homepage of Rjabčikov on the Slavonic Antiquity.
  3. ^ B.A. Rybakov, Gerodotova Skifija. Istoriko-geografičeskij analiz, Moscow 1979.
  4. ^ E.g. Harmatta 1970.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ M. Vasmer, Untersuchungen über die ältesten Wohnsitze der Slaven. Die Iranier in Südrußland, Leipzig 1923, 74.
  7. ^ P. Kretschmer, "Zum Balkan-Skythischen", Glotta 24 (1935), 1-56, here: 7ff.
  8. ^ Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15.
  9. ^ V.I. Abaev, Osetinskij jazyk i fol’klor, Moscow / Leningrad 1949, vol. 1, 172, 176, 188.
  10. ^ L. Zgusta, "Skythisch οἰόρπατα «ἀνδροκτόνοι»", Annali dell’Istituto Universario Orientale di Napoli 1 (1959) pp. 151-156.
  11. ^ 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..
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15; L. Zgusta, "Zwei skythische Götternamen", Archiv orientální 21 (1953), pp. 270-271; Grantovskij & Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
  15. ^ Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 11; Brandenstein, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 52 (1953) 190-191; Grantovskij & Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
  16. ^ Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 13; other interpretations in Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983, 121-122; Grantovskij & Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54-55.
  17. ^ Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983.

[edit] Literature

  • Harmatta, J.: Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians, Szeged 1970.
  • 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.

[edit] Links

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