III. THE LANGUAGE OF THE SARMATIANS
3. The Sarmatian Dialects of the North Pontic Region
2.
The Old Iranian diphthong au developed along two lines: 1. au
(αο). 2 ō (ω).
Old Iranian *au > au.
'Sarmatian
tribe'. This name has been interpreted in different ways. Jacobsohn thought
that the word
ryana-
was somehow concealed behind it; later, however, he gave up this conjecture
(Arier und Ugroffinen, 234, 257). Miller (
1886 October 235 — article inaccessible to me) and Tomaschek (SWAW
CXVII [1888], 37, PWRE I, 2660) connected the name
eith Avestan auruša- 'weiß', Ossetian ors, ūrs
'weiß'; this interpretation was later accepted by Vasmer (Die Iranier in
Südrußland, 32) and Altheim, too (WaG
II [1936], 319).
Against this interpretation Marquart has tried to explain the name in
a new way. The starting point of his new interpretation was the existence
of historical contacts between Alans and Aorsi. According to the testimony
of Chinese sources, Yen-ts’ai whom Marquart, following Gutschmid
and Hirth, identifies with the ,
changed his name to A-lan. Since, however, Greek and Latin sources
inform us that in Eastern Europe the name Aorsi was replaced by Alan, Marquart
comes to the conclusion that the name
is but the earlier name of the Alans. He now attempts to establish the
meaning of the name Alan, calling to aid the series of epithets applied
to an Armenian nobleman's family in Faustus Byz. (4, 2): ałanazgik‘,
alana-drawšk‘ arcowēnšank‘
waržnakanišk‘.
The last of these four epithets, in Marquart's view, goes back to an adjective
*waržnak which may be a borrowing of a Middle Persian form *waržānak
or *waržēnak
(derived from Middle Persian warž, Modern Persian war
'Größe, Würde'): hence the meaning of the word is 'würdig'. The expression arcowēnšank‘
is purely Armenian, with the meaning 'Adlerstandarten führend'. The second
element in the first epithet is the Armenian word azg 'Geschlecht,
Nation', hence the compound probably means 'aus ałanischem
Geschlecht stammend'. Finally the second element in the second epithet
is the Armenian word drawš (< Iranian drafš) 'Banner',
so that the meaning of the compound is 'ałanische
Banner führend'.
Since thus all the epithets express worth and dignity and are closely related in meaning. Marquart was justified in concluding that the word ałan, i. e. the initial element in the first two epithets must mean 'siegreich, ruhmvoll, würdig'. Hence, according to him, "der Volksname Alanen wird demnach ein Ehrenname sein, den sich das Volk selbst beilegte und der eine Gruppe verschiedennamiger iranischer Nomadenstämme der kaspisch-pontischen Steppen zu einer politischen Einheit zusammenfaßte".
Regarding the word
as the former name of the Alans, Marquart then
Additional Notes
To p. 82. Zgusta (Die Personennamen griechischer Städte der
nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste. 263 foll.) would like also
to cancel the name |
82
proceeds to look for a similar meaning behind it. For the purposes of
interpretation he distinguishes, first of all, two forms of the name: 1.
Arsoae
(Tab. Peut. IX 5, X 1), *Arzoae (Abzoae: Pliny, Nat. Hist.
6, 38) — 2.
(Strabo, Ptolemy), Aorsi (Pliny Nat. Hist. 4, 80). Of these, Marquart
derives the form Arsoae, Arzoae from the Iranian form *arž-awa-
(cf. Modern Persian ar
'Wert', Avestan arə
ah-,
Middle Persian ar
,
etc.); as to the form
Aorsi,
he interprets it as the Iranian compound *hu-arž- (with the approximate
meaning 'guten Wert habend'?). Thus Marquart concludes that "der Name Aorser,
ebenso wie die Alanen, eine ehrenvolle Selbstbezeichnung ist, welche sich das
Volk bezw. der führende Stamm wahrscheinlich bei der Begründung einer größeren
politischen Einheit beilegte" (Untersuchungen
zur Geschichte von Eran, II, 82—86.)
Marquart's explanation is, both historically and linguistically, so
well-grounded that one cannot simply pass it by. The first question in
this connection is whether we really have to do with two forms of the name.
In support of his conjecture. Marquart refers to the parallel forms Su-gambri
~ Gambrivii and Wisi-gothae ~ Guto-nes. But these
parallels only demonstrate, in a general way, the possibility of a tribe
or a people having two names, differing only in an element implying comparison.
The question whether this applies also to the name
can be decided only after a careful investigation of the data containing
the name.
An examination of the ancient sources referring to the name
yields the following result: of the two forms, separated by Marquart, it
is only the
,
Aorsi
that can be substantiated by sound textual tradition. Textual tradition
supports unanimously the form
in Strabo and Ptolemy, and nearly unanimously the form Aorsi in
Pliny (Nat. Hist. 4, 80). In the case of Tacitus (Ann. XII 15. 16 and 19),
the MSS give the forms adorsorum, adorsi, and aduorsorum.
These forms are obviously due to the circumstance that the scribes wanted
to impart some meaning to a name unintelligible to them. But these particular
forms of 'rationalization' may all be traced back to the form Aorsi,
not to Arsoae. Thus the data in Tacitus, too, are organically connected
with the form
,
Aorsi.
As to the other form distinguished by Marquart, we have to point out,
first of all, that the Plinian form Arzoae is only Tomaschek's conjecture:
the MSS give Abzoae which is probably a corruption — yet
there is no material proof whatever to show that the name Aorsi
is hiding behind it. Hence this conjecture may be left out of account.
But if this is so, the forms Arsoae in the Tabula Peut., by themselves,
do not possess any special significance. The Tabula is full of corrupt
forms, so that it would be contrary to all rules of scientific methods
if one were to regard the form Arsoae as authentic as the forms ,
Aorsi
found in Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny, and Tacitus. Moreover, judging from the
character of textual corruption due to the copying of MSS, one may
demonstrate almost palpably the corrupt nature of the form Arsoae
as well as the causes of its origin. The deviation in the endings of the
two forms Arsoae and Aorsi may be easily explained by the
supposition that, parallel with the Latinized form Aorsi of the
name
, the
geographical literature of the Romans also used the form Aorsoe,
a transcription of the Greek name.
There are plenty of examples in Roman authors for such parallel usage
in names taken over from Greek geographical literature. Thus, e. g.,
the name
appears in Mela (II, 1) as Neuri, while in Pliny we find the form
Neuroe
(Nat. Hist. 4, 88); conversely, the name
is transcribed by Mela (II, 1) as Hamaxobioe, by Pliny (Nat. Hist.
4, 80) as Hamaxobii; similarly, the name
occurs in Mela (II, 1) as Arimaspoe, while in Pliny (Nat. Hist,
4, 88) we find Arimaspi. It may be observed that such un-Latinized
names, transcribed from Greek, often have their
83
ending -oe distorted, or rather Latinized, to -oae in
the course of MS transmission. Thus, e. g., in some MSS
of Pliny the name Enoecadioe (Nat. Hist. 4, 83) appears as enocadloae,
enoae.adioae.
In the latter form both Greek diphthongs -oe- have been 'corrected'
to -oae- by the copyist. Similarly, some MSS of Pliny give
the form neuroae for the name Neuroe (Nat. Hist. 4, 88).
Thus the ending of the form Arsoae in the Tabula Peut, may be easily
explained as the result of a secondary Latinization of the name Aorsoe.
As to the deviation in the initial sounds of the word (Aor- ~ Ar-),
the omission of one of two juxtaposed vowels is a frequent phenomenon in
the transmission of MSS. Thus the name of the people given by Mela
as Choamani is found in several of Pliny's
MSS as comani
(Nat. Hist. 6, 48). Another example from the transmission of Pliny's text
is the distortion of the word Bactros (Nat. Hist. 6, 47), first,
to baotros, then its further corruption to botros. On the
basis of these examples we are justified in taking it practically for granted
that the form found in the Tabula Peut, is a distorted form of the Latin
transcription of the name .
The process of its origin may be outlined as follows: *Aorsoe >
*Aorsoae > Arsoae.
Thus the thesis which forms the base of Marquart's edifice of explanations
— viz. the existence of two forms for the name of the Aorsi — has
proved to be unacceptable. The other fundamental question which has to
be posed in connection with Marquart's theory, is whether the name
may, in fact, represent the transcription of an Iranian form *hu-arž-.
Since the Greek letter o stood for a definitely close o-sound
(=
) it is
most probable that the name
represented a foreign form *aurs. Such a form is, of course, very
far from Marquart's *hu-arž-, the Greek transcription of which would
be
or
.
Marquart himself was aware of the grave difficulties which arise in this
connection: hence he gave several parallels to illustrate the possibility
of transcribing as
the conjectural form *hu-arž-. His examples are as follows:
< Iranian
*hu-warna-, 'wohlbewehrt', from the stem war- 'wehren'.
= Avestan
hutaosā- 'EN der
Schwester und Gemahlin Vištāspas’.
,
,
Lycian Humrkkā
= Old Persian haumavarga-.
Finally, Marquart quotes several names beginning with ,
in which the first element represents Old Persian *wāta-;
e.
g.
— Old
Persian wātafraδāta-.
But these examples are either not suitable parallels to the transcription
of Iranian *hu-arž- as Greek
or have to be interpreted in a way different from Marquart's.
The name
is certainly not the transcription of an Old Iranian form *huvarna-:
it may either stand for *əurn,
a conjectural development of this form; or it may be connected (as Tomaschek
suggested in PW-RE I, 2659) with a quite different word,
viz.
Old Iranian āvarana-
'Schutzwehr', the existence of which may be conjuctured on the basis of
Old Indian āvaraṇa-
'verhüllend; Verhüllung, Hülle, Decke, Gewand': in this case the Greek form
would transcribe the development *āurn.
The name
may also represent the transcription of *ətōs,
a later development from Old Iranian *hutausā-.
Greek ,
and Lycian Humrkkā
reflect different developments of Old Iranian *haumavarga-: 1.
,
< *əmurgi, *əmurg
< *hauma-vargah; 2. Humrkkā
< *hūmūrga
< *haumavargah.
From the angle of phonemics, the correspondence
~ Vātafraδāta
implies quite a different problem from that represented by
~ *hu-arž-.
84
This is a case of the Greeks replacing a group of sounds (va-, a-)
absent from the phonemic system of their language, by another phoneme or
group of phonemes (αυ). Similar cases are very
frequent in the Greek transcription of Iranian names (see e. g.
Harmatta, Ant. Hung. II, 35).
We may thus establish that the Greek form of the name
cannot represent the transcription of an Iranian form *hu-arž-.
The latter may have developed into *hvarž, *χvarz,
*varz, *χarz, *χaz:
but all these are far from the foreign form *aurs, the existence
of which may be conjectured on the basis of the spelling
Thus the form *aurs hiding behind the name can hardly be anything
else but an intermediate stage in the following development: Old Iranian
*aruša- > *auruša- > Ossetian ors,ūrs.
We may also remark that the name
shows u-epenthesis, a phenomenon which connects it with names like
,
etc. showing i-epenthesis.
Tanais,
,
No. 79 (225 A. D.). According to Vasmer, the word may be an abbreviated
form of a person's name like Avestan gaodāyah-
'das Rind hegend und pflegend' or gavayan- 'der Rinder hat' (see
op.
cit. 36, RLV XII, 244) Since the group of phonemes -ava-
is usually transcribed in the names of the inscriptions as -av-
or as -αvα-,
-αvo- (e. g.
:
~ Avestan yava- 'Getreide', Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland,
55; G.
~ Avestan syāva-
'schwarz', Vasmer, op. cit., 51, etc.), probably only the first
possibility has to be taken into account.
Old Iranian *au > ō.
Panticapaeum,
Latyshev, IOSPE II, 107 ~ Avestan raoχšna-
'licht, glänzend' (Vasmer, op. cit., 49).
Tanais,
,
No. 85 (220 A. D.). According to Vasmer (op. cit., 37) this word
has been obtained by suffixation from the short form of a name derived
from *gōš,
the equivalent of the Avestan word gaoša- 'Ohr'. Besides Vasmer's
conjecture there is also the possibility that this name has simply to be
regarded as an equivalent of Old Persian *gaušaka- 'Horcher', Parthian
*gōšak (>
Armenian gušak 'Angeber, Denuntiant'). [84]
Panticapaeum,
Latyshev, IOSPE II, 29: the word represents the short form of a
name like Avestan aspāyaoδa-
(zu Rosse kämpfend' (Vasmer, op. cit., 41). A similar name
has recently been found in Sogdian: ywδrzmk-
:
yōδrazmag-
(see Reichelt, Die soghdischen Handschriftenreste des Britischen Museums,
II, 56).
84. With regard to these see
Schaeder, Iranica, 5.
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