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The Scythian languages comprise the dialects spoken by the Scythian (Sarmatian, Saka) tribes of the nomadic pastoralists in Scythia (Central Asia, Pontic-Caspian steppe) between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD. They may have formed a dialect continuum:

• Scytho-Sarmatian languages in the west: spoken in the area of the Ukraine, Southern Russia and Kazakhstan
• Saka language or Scytho-Khotanese in the east: spoken in the Kingdom of Khotan (located in present-day Xinjiang, China), and including the Khotanese of Khotan and Tumshuqese of Tumshuq.

History

The 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 Europe in the 5th century AD, and Turkic (Avar, Bulgar, Batsange, etc.) and Slavic peoples probably assimilated most people speaking Scythian. However, in the Caucasus, a dialect belonging to the Scythian-Sarmatian linguistic continuum remains in use today, namely Ossetic.

Classification

The vast majority of Scythological 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. This Iranian hypothesis 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 Ossetic language.

Minority views, often fuelled by ethnic nationalism, have proposed affiliation with Turkic, Ugric or Proto-Slavic A more moderate suggestion by Boris Rybakov suggests a Proto-Slavic substrate.

Divisions

Historians normally divide the Scytho-Sarmatian group chronologically rather than geographically:

• Scythian (ca. 800 - 300 BC), mainly evidenced in Classical Greek authors
• Sarmatian (ca. 300 BC - AD 400), mainly evidenced in Hellenistic and Roman inscriptions
• Alanic (ca. AD 400 - 1000), mainly evidenced in Byzantine Greek authors

Some scholars detect a division of Scytho-Sarmatian into two dialects: a western, more conservative dialect, and an eastern, more innovative one. 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.

The Scytho-Khotanese group sub-divides into Khotanese, spoken in Khotan and Tumshuqese, spoken in Tumshuq.

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 remains disputed (given that nobody has definitively identified the alphabet or translated the content).

An inscription from Saqqez written in the Hieroglyphic Hittite script may represent Scythian:

King Partitava equates to the Scythian king called Prototyēs in Herodotus (1.103) and known as Par-ta-tu-a in the Assyrian sources.

The Issyk inscription, found in a Scythian kurgan dating approximately to the 4th century BC, remains undeciphered, but some authorities assume that it represents Scythian.

Personal names

The primary sources for Scythian words remain the Scythian toponyms, tribal names, and numerous personal names in the ancient Greek texts and in the Greek inscriptions found in the Greek colonies on the Northern Black Sea Coast. These names suggest that the Scythian-Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.

Some scholars believe that many toponyms and hydronyms of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe have Scythian links. For example, Vasmer associates the name of the river Don with an assumed/reconstructed unattested Scythian word *dānu "water, river", and with Ossetic don and Avestan dānu-. The river names Danube, Dnieper, and Dniester may also belong with the same word-group.

Herodotus' Scythian etymologies

The Greek historian Herodotus provides another source of Scythian; he reports that the Scythians called the Amazons Oiorpata, and explains the name as a compound of oior, meaning "man", and pata, meaning "to kill" (Hist. 4,110).

• Most scholars associate oior "man" with Avestan vīra- "man, hero", Sanskrit vīra-, PIE *u̯iHro-. Various explanations account for pata "kill":
  1. Avestan paiti- "lord", Sanskrit pati-, PIE *poti- (i.e. "man-ruler");
  2. Ossetic maryn "kill", Sanskrit mārayati, PIE *mer- "die" (confusion of Greek Μ and Π);Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
• Alternatively, Herodotus has got it all wrong; one scholar suggests Iranian aiwa- "one" + warah- "breast", the Amazons having a single breast according to ancient folk-lore as reflected in Greek folk-etymology: a- (privative) + mazos, "without breast".

Elsewhere Herodotus 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).

• Some scholars connect arima "one" with Ossetic ærmæst "only", Avestic airime "quiet", Greek erēmos "empty", PIE *h₁(e)rh₁mo-?, and spu "eye" with Avestic spas- "foretell", Sanskrit spaś-, PIE *speḱ- "see".
• However, Iranian usually expresses "one" and "eye" with words like aiwa- and čašman- (Ossetic īw and cæst).
• Other scholars reject Herodotus' etymology and derive the ethnonym Arimaspoi from Iranian aspa- "horse" instead.
• Or the first part of the name may reflect something like Iranian arjat- "rich", cf. Arəjatāspa (later Arjasp, a nomad king in Zoroastrian mythology;.

Herodotus' Scythian theonyms

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

• Tabiti = Hestia. Perhaps related to Sanskrit Tapatī, a heroine in the Mahābhārata, literally "the burning (one)".
• Papaios = Zeus. Either "father" (Herodotus) or "protector", Avestan, Sanskrit pā- "protect", PIE *peh₃-.
• Api = Gaia. Either "mother" or "water", Avestan, Sanskrit āp-, PIE Hep-
• Goitosyros or Oitosyros = Apollo. Perhaps Avestan gaēθa- "animal" + sūra- "rich".
• Argimpasa or Artimpasa = Aphrodite Urania. To Ossetic art "fire", Avestan āθra-.
• Thagimasadas = Poseidon.

Alanic

The Alanic language as spoken by the Alans from ca. the 5th to the 11th centuries AD formed a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, and forming in its turn the ancestor of the Ossetic language. Byzantine Greek authors recorded only a few fragments of this language.

Notes

1. Compare L. Zgusta, Die griechischen Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste, 1955.
2. 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.
3. B.A. Rybakov, Gerodotova Skifija. Istoriko-geografičeskij analiz , Moscow 1979.
4. E.g. Harmatta 1970.
5. 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.
6. M. Vasmer, Untersuchungen über die ältesten Wohnsitze der Slaven. Die Iranier in Südrußland, Leipzig 1923, 74.
7. P. Kretschmer, "Zum Balkan-Skythischen", Glotta 24 (1935), 1-56, here: 7ff.
8. Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15.
9. Hinge, Glotta 81 (2005) 94-98.
10. J. Marquart, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte von Eran, Göttingen 1905, 90-92; Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 12; H.H. Schaeder, Iranica. I: Das Auge des Königs, Berlin 1934, 16-19.
11. W. Tomaschek, "Kritik der ältesten Nachrichten über den skythischen Norden", Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 116 (1888), 715-780, here: 761; K. Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, Berlin 1893, vol. 3, 305-306; R. Grousset, L’empire des steppes, Paris 1941, 37 n. 3; I. Lebedensky, Les Scythes. La civilisation des steppes (VII-III siècles av. J.-C.), Paris 2001, 93.
12. Hinge, Glotta 81 (2005) 89-94.
13. W. Brandenstein, "Die Abstammungssagen der Skythen", Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 52 (1953) 183-211, here: 191; Ė.A. Grantovskij & D.S. Raevskij, "Ob iranojazyčnom i «indoarijskom» naselenii Severnogo Pričernomor’ja v antičnuju ėpochu", in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja. Lingvistika, istorija, archeologija, Moscow 1984, 47-66, here: 53-55; G. Dumézil, Romans de Scythie et d’alentour, Paris 1978, 125-145; Dumézil offers a different interpretation in La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés. Esquisses de mythologie, Paris 1983, 124-125.
14. Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 15; L. Zgusta, "Zwei skythische Götternamen", Archiv orientální 21 (1953), pp. 270-271; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
15. L. Zgusta, "Zwei skythische Götternamen", Archiv orientální 21 (1953), pp. 270-271.
16. Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 11; Brandenstein, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 52 (1953) 190-191; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54.
17. Vasmer, Die Iranier in Südrußland, 1923, 13; other interpretations in Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983, 121-122; Grantovskij and Raevskij, in: Ėtnogenez narodov Balkan i Severnogo Pričernomor’ja, 1984, 54-55.
18. Dumézil, La courtisane et les seigneurs colorés, 1983.

Literature

• Harmatta, J.: Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians, Szeged 1970.
• 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.

Links

• Scythian language A brief overview of the Scythian and Ossetian languages (in Spanish)
• Herodot zur skythischen Sprache About Herodotus' Scythian etymologies (in German)
• The Slavonic Antiquity: Scythians, Sarmatians, Meotians and Slavs A collection of articles by Sergei V. Rjabchikov on the decipherment of the Scythian/Sarmatian language and script. Note that this scholar decoded the famous rongorongo script, too. (But the theories concearning Scythians and Slavs are weird)
• Rjabchikov, S.V., 2005. On Scythian, Sarmatian and Meotian Records about Thunderstorm. AnthroGlobe Journal, 2005.
• Rjabchikov, S.V., 2001. The Scythian and Sarmatian Sources of the Russian Mythology and Fairy-Tales. AnthroGlobe Journal, 2001.

• Ancient languages
• Scythians
• Sarmatians
• Unclassified languages
• Northeastern Iranian languages
• Extinct languages of Asia
• Extinct languages of Europe