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Scythian languages

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

Contents

History

The approximate distribution of Scytho-Sarmatian in 100 BC is shown in green.
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The approximate distribution of Scytho-Sarmatian in 100 BC is shown in green.

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, etc.) and Slavic peoples. However, in Caucasus, a dialect belonging to the Scythian-Sarmatian linguistic continuum is still spoken today, namely Ossetic.

Classification

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.Cf. Zgusta 1953.

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.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]. Some Russian scholars think that the settled agriculturalists ("Skolotai") dominated by the Iranian-speaking Scythian warrior nomads were in fact Proto-Slavs.B.A. Rybakov, Gerodotova Skifija. Istoriko-geografičeskij analiz, Moskow 1979.

Dialects

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

Some scholarsE.g. Harmatta 1970. 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.

Sources of the Scythian language

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: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.:

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 pro|perty."

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.

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-.M. Vasmer, Untersuchungen über die ältesten Wohnsitze der Slaven. Die Iranier in Südrußland, Leipzig 1923, 74. The river names Danube, Dnieper, and Dniester may also belong to the same Scythian word.P. Kretschmer, "Zum Balkan-Skythischen", Glotta 24 (1935), 1-56, here: 7ff.

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).

The Scythian theonyms

Herodotus also gives a list of Scythian theonyms (Hist. 4.59):

The cited Iranian etymologies are uncertain due to the fact that we do not know what aspect has motivated the naming of the particular deity. They cannot of course serve as a proof of the Iranian nature of the Scythian language since they are based themselves on that assumption (it would be a vicious circle). Furthermore, it cannot be excluded altogether that the Iranian-speaking Scythians had non-Iranian theonyms.

The same criticism is valid for the alternative etymologies proposed by the advocates of the Turkish hypothesis. The following list of cognates in Sumerian and the Altaic and Uralic languages (inter alia) has been compiled by Fred Hamori: [link]

In addition to being arbitrary like the Iranian etymologies given by mainstream scholars, these alternative etymologies suffer from a serious deficiency, namely the lack of a proper methodology. Even though the accumulative evidence may seem convincing to a non-specialist, it is in fact contrary to the basic principles of comparative linguistics. A superficial similarity of two words with a more or less similar meaning is not a proof of them being cognates (famous examples of accidental similarity are English bad ~ Persian bad or English have, German haben ~ Latin habere). The more languages one includes in a mass-comparison, the chance of finding similar words increases.[link] A sound linguistic comparison, on the other hand, works hard in finding regular sound correspondences and derivation patterns language by language. In most cases related words are in fact very unlike indeed in the different languages (e.g. English hound = French chien, English come = French venir); thus, the apparent similarity of Hamori's cognates do not support his allegation - on the contrary.

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.

Notes

Literature

Links

Indo-Iranian languages
Indo-Aryan Varieties of Sanskrit: Vedic Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit | Angika | Assamese | Bengali | Bhojpuri | Dhivehi | Dogri | Gujarati | Hindi | Hindustani | Konkani | Magadhi | Mahl | Maithili | Marathi | Nepali | Oriya | Pāli | Prakrit | Punjabi | Romani | Sindhi | Sinhala | Urdu
Iranian languages>Iranian Avestan | Varieties of Persian: Old Persian - Middle Persion (Pahlavi) - Modern Persian (Fārsī) - Darī (Afghanistan) - Tājikī | Bactrian | Balochi | Dari (Zoroastrianism) | Gilaki | Kurdish | Mazandarani | Ossetic | Pamiri | Pashto | Saka | Scythian | Sogdian | Talysh | Tat | Yagnobi
Dardic languages>Dardic Dameli | Domaaki | Gawar-Bati | Kalasha | Kashmiri | Khowar | Kohistani | Nangalami | Pashayi | Palula | Shina | Shumashti
Nuristani languages>Nuristani Ashkun | Kamviri | Kati | Prasuni | Tregami | Waigali

 

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