Re: CHAT: Scythes and Scythians (was: Re: CHAT: Re: Japanese English)
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, March 25, 2000, 21:20 |
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At 10:52 25.3.2000 -0800, wayne chevrier wrote:
>According to a book I am reading, the Scythians and Sarmatians spoke
>a North-Eastern Iranian language, and that its closest living relative
>is Ossetian, spoken in Caucasia just north of Georgia (although an
>extinct dialect, Jassic, was spoken in Hungary during the Middle
>Ages).
Absolutely correct. The Alani (< *aaryaana-, and hence ultimately a
cognate of _Iran_) also belonged in this group: in fact Scythians seem to
have been a cover term for all the North Iranian speaking peoples, today
represented by Ossetian and Iron, both in the Caucasus.
/BP
"Doubt grows with knowledge" -Goethe