Re: con-Indo-Iranian (was: Re: Judean-Sanskrit/Bantu/Austronesian?)

At 10:41 on 23.1.1999, Vladimir Vysotskii wrote:

> BP.Jonsson wrote:
> >In fact I have recently been playing around with the idea that a group of
> >Alani or Sarmatians -- speakers of "Scythian" north Iranian languages north
> >of the black sea, before Goths and Slavs coming from the north and Turks
> >and Mongols coming from the east ousted them -- had survived somewhere.
>
> I'm sure you remember that Alans did survive in the Notherth Caucasus and
> are now called Ossetians. Here's a sample of their beautiful language (in
> my ad-hoc transliteration):
According to my source (the article in "Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum")
the modern Ossetian language is descended from a closely related but not
identical dialect having some eastern features, notably Old Iranian *aaj >
/i/ rather than /aa/, *rj > /r/ rather than /l/ and *aa > /o/ rather than
/aa/, as evidenced by "iron" vs. "alan".

Thanks for the sample of the language, which is beautiful indeed!  I also
like the old Cyrillic ortography of Iron...

B-P>

PS: are you on a Mac?  I seem to have received all your special letters
correct! :)


    B.Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
    ----------------------------------------------------

        Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                            (Tacitus)