Scythian languages

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Template:Pp-pc Template:Indo-European Template:Contains special characters The Scythian languages (Template:IPAc-en or Template:IPAc-en or Template:IPAc-en) are a group of Eastern Iranic languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranic period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descendants. The dominant ethnic groups among the Scythian-speakers were nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Fragments of their speech known from inscriptions and words quoted in ancient authors as well as analysis of their names indicate that it was an Indo-European language, more specifically from the Iranic group of Indo-Iranic languages.

Most of the Scythian languages eventually became extinct, except for modern Ossetian (which descends from the Alanic dialect of Scytho-Sarmatian) and Wakhi (which descends from the Khotanese and Tumshuqese forms of Scytho-Khotanese). Alexander Lubotsky summarizes the known linguistic landscape as follows:<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about the Scythian of that period [Old Iranian] – we have only a couple of personal and tribal names in Greek and Persian sources at our disposal – and cannot even determine with any degree of certainty whether it was a single language.{{#if:|

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Classification

Ossetian is an Eastern Iranic language. The vast majority of Scythological scholars agree in considering the Scythian languages a part of the Eastern Iranic languages too. This relies principally on the fact that the Greek inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Coast contain several hundreds of Sarmatian names showing a close affinity to the Ossetian language.<ref>Compare L. Zgusta, Die griechischen Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste [The Greek personal names of the Greek cities of the northern Black Sea coast], 1955.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Some scholars detect a division of Scythian into two dialects: a western, more conservative dialect, and an eastern, more innovative one.<ref> E.g. Harmatta 1970.Template:Page needed </ref> The Scythian languages may have formed a dialect continuum:

• Alanic languages or Scytho-Sarmatian in the west: were spoken by people originally of Iranic stock from the 8th and 7th century BC onwards in the area of Ukraine, Southern Russia and Kazakhstan.
  • Modern Ossetian survives as a continuation of the language family possibly represented by Scytho-Sarmatian inscriptions, although the Scytho-Sarmatian language family "does not simply represent the same [Ossetian] language" at an earlier date.

File:Khotanese animal zodiac BLI6 OR11252 1R2 1.jpg

A document from Khotan written in Khotanese Saka, part of the Eastern Iranic branch of the Indo-European languages, listing the animals of the Chinese zodiac in the cycle of predictions for people born in that year; ink on paper, early 9th century

• Saka languages or Scytho-Khotanese in the east: spoken in the first century in the Kingdom of Khotan (located in present-day Xinjiang, China), and including the Khotanese of Khotan and Tumshuqese of Tumshuq.<ref>Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Reichert, 1989.Template:Page needed</ref>
  • Modern Wakhi likely descends from this branch.

It is highly probable that already in the Old Iranic period, there were some eastern Scythian dialects which gave rise to the ancestor(s) of the Sogdian and Yaghnobi languages, although data required to test this hypothesis is presently lacking.Template:Sfn More recent scholarship suggests that this is due to the Scythian languages and the Sogdo-Bactrian languages descending from a larger shared genetic phylum coined as Northeastern Iranian.

The Scythian languages shared some features with other Eastern Iranic languages, such as the use of the suffix Template:Transliteration to denote the plural form, which is also present in Sogdian, Chorasmian, Ossetian, and Yaghnobi.Template:Sfn This again hints towards the idea that these languages share more recent common ancestry through the existence of a possible Northeastern Iranian dialect cluster.

History

Early Eastern Iranic peoples originated in the Yaz culture (ca. 1500–1100 BC) in Central Asia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Scythians migrated from Central Asia toward Eastern Europe in the 8th and 7th century BC, 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 Europe in the 5th century AD, and Turkic (Avar, Batsange, etc.) and Slavic peoples probably assimilated most people speaking Scythian.Template:Citation needed However, in the Caucasus, the Ossetian language belonging to the Scythian linguistic continuum remains in use Template:As of, while in Central Asia, the Wakhi language is spoken by around 58,000 people across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and China.

See also

• Getae
• Dacian language

References

Sources

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Further reading

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• Mayrhofer, M.: Einiges zu den Skythen, ihrer Sprache, ihrem Nachleben. Vienna 2006.
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• Rjabchikov, Sergei V. The Long Awaited Bilingua in Ancient Greek and Scytho-Sarmatian Languages from Bosporan Kingdom; Scytho-Sarmatian Texts Written in Greek Letters. In: I.I. Ivanovskaya and M.V. Posnova (eds.) Fundamental’naya i prikladnaya nauka: Sostoyanie i tendentsii razvitiya. Sbornik statey XXV mezhdunarodnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, sostoyavsheysya 28 noyabrya 2022 g. v g. Petrozavodske. Petrozavodsk: International Center for Scientific Partnership “New Science”, 2022, pp. 178-193.
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• 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.