|
Post by Ardavarz on Apr 12, 2012 3:09:00 GMT 3
"Iranian" here means having a laguage which can be clasified as belonging to the Iranian group, and not necessarily related to the territory of modern Iran. Although there were many other languages in the Steppe at that time, as Herodotus notes, the Scythian linguistic remnants and mythology are most certainly idnetified as Iranian.
The topic about Cimmerians is not quite clear - they could have been completely different people or just divisions of Scythian army during their invasion in Middle East in 6th century B.C.E. as Dyakonov has thought.
The Scythians living north of Black Sea have most probably come from Central Asia. Herodotus believed that they were driven away from there by the Massagetae and considered this version as most plausible. He also wrote that Persian name for Scythians was Saka. Later Ptolemy describes two other Scythias in Central Asia - "inside" and "outside" Imaon (< Skt. Himavan - mountain range between Hindukush and Tien Shan), the first between Ural and Amu-Darya rivers and the second probably corresponding to the modern Chinese Turkestan. Some scholars have suggested that Old Chinese pronunciation of the name Yueh-chih could have been sounding very similar to "Sogdian" or "Scythian" (which according to Oswald Szemerenyi were both derived from the same old Iranian word Skuda - "archer", lit. "shooter"). Thus we can hypothesize that there were three migrations of the "Proto-Scythians" - westward, southward and eastward - beginning probably somwhere in the South Ural region and between 2nd and 1st milienia B.C.E. (the legend puts the ancestor Targitaos thousand years before the Persian invasion or in 1513 B.C.E.). These three groups could have been the ancestors of the Pontian Scythians, the Central Asian Saka and/or Sogdians, and probably the Yueh-chih. Of course, they have lived and developed in different geographic and ethnic environment after that and then couldn't be considered as identical people anymore.
|
|
|
Post by ballaja on Apr 15, 2012 14:46:06 GMT 3
"Iranian" here means having a laguage which can be clasified as belonging to the Iranian group, and not necessarily related to the territory of modern Iran. Although there were many other languages in the Steppe at that time, as Herodotus notes, the Scythian linguistic remnants and mythology are most certainly idnetified as Iranian. The topic about Cimmerians is not quite clear - they could have been completely different people or just divisions of Scythian army during their invasion in Middle East in 6th century B.C.E. as Dyakonov has thought. The Scythians living north of Black Sea have most probably come from Central Asia. Herodotus believed that they were driven away from there by the Massagetae and considered this version as most plausible. He also wrote that Persian name for Scythians was Saka. Later Ptolemy describes two other Scythias in Central Asia - "inside" and "outside" Imaon (< Skt. Himavan - mountain range between Hindukush and Tien Shan), the first between Ural and Amu-Darya rivers and the second probably corresponding to the modern Chinese Turkestan. Some scholars have suggested that Old Chinese pronunciation of the name Yueh-chih could have been sounding very similar to "Sogdian" or "Scythian" (which according to Oswald Szemerenyi were both derived from the same old Iranian word Skuda - "archer", lit. "shooter"). Thus we can hypothesize that there were three migrations of the "Proto-Scythians" - westward, southward and eastward - beginning probably somwhere in the South Ural region and between 2nd and 1st milienia B.C.E. (the legend puts the ancestor Targitaos thousand years before the Persian invasion or in 1513 B.C.E.). These three groups could have been the ancestors of the Pontian Scythians, the Central Asian Saka and/or Sogdians, and probably the Yueh-chih. Of course, they have lived and developed in different geographic and ethnic environment after that and then couldn't be considered as identical people anymore. WHATEVER YOU WROTE HERE ABSOLUTELY DOESN’T ACCORD TO REALITY, SCYTHIANS WEREN’T IRANIANS,MOREOVER ALL NOWDAYS NATIONS OF IRANIAN ORIGINS WHO INHABIT ASIA INHERITED NOTHING FROM SCYTHIANS, I MEAN LURES, LYAKISTANIS, ZAZAS, BAHTIYARS,BULUDJIS, PUSHTUNS, KURDS, LEZGIS, IRANIANS THEMSELVES,TAJIKISTANIS,OSSETIANS – ALL OF THEM NEVER IN CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORY DIFFERED IN WARFARE COMPARING TO TURKIC NATIONS, ALL OF THEM ALWAYS JOINED THE RANKS OF SLAVES OF TURKS. THEY HAVE NO HORSE BREED,THEIR RUGS ARE DULL AND DIM AND INHERITED NOTHING FROM HIGHLY CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ANCIENT SCYTHS. ALSO HOW COME THAT HISTORY OVERLOOKED THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF SUCH GREAT WARLIKE IRANIANS (ACTUALLY WOMANLIKE) FROM MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA?? HOW COME THEY DISAPPEARED SUDDENLY? OH YES, THEY LEFT THEIR FERTILE,COMFORTABLE PLACES AND EXCHANGED TO BARREN LANDS OF AFGANISTAN. LOL
|
|
|
Post by ballaja on Apr 15, 2012 16:15:46 GMT 3
Here are good words of greatest historian of Ibn Khaldun that can be ascribed to indo-iranian pseudohistorians---
Untruth naturally afflicts historical information. There are various reasons that make this unavoidable. One of them is partisanship for opinions and schools... Another reason making untruth unavoidable in historical information is reliance upon transmitters... Another reason is unawareness of the purpose of an event ... Another reason is unfounded assumption as to the truth of a thing. ... Another reason is ignorance of how conditions conform with reality... Another reason is the fact that people as a rule approach great and high-ranking persons with praise and encomiums... Another reason making untruth unavoidable—and this one is more powerful than all the reasons previously mentioned—is ignorance of the nature of the various conditions arising in civilization. Every event (or phenomenon), whether (it comes into being in connection with some) essence or (as the result of an) action, must inevitably possess a nature peculiar to its essence as well as to the accidental conditions that may attach themselves to it. Ibn Khaldun al-Muqaddimah
“If the soul is impartial in receiving information, it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation the information deserves, and its truth or untruth thus becomes clear. However, if the soul is infected with partisanship for a particular opinion or sect, it accepts without a moment’s hesitation the information that is agreeable to it. Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The results is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.” ~Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddimah
|
|
|
Post by massaget on Apr 15, 2012 20:28:19 GMT 3
"Iranian" here means having a laguage which can be clasified as belonging to the Iranian group, and not necessarily related to the territory of modern Iran. Although there were many other languages in the Steppe at that time, as Herodotus notes, the Scythian linguistic remnants and mythology are most certainly idnetified as Iranian. The topic about Cimmerians is not quite clear - they could have been completely different people or just divisions of Scythian army during their invasion in Middle East in 6th century B.C.E. as Dyakonov has thought. The Scythians living north of Black Sea have most probably come from Central Asia. Herodotus believed that they were driven away from there by the Massagetae and considered this version as most plausible. He also wrote that Persian name for Scythians was Saka. Later Ptolemy describes two other Scythias in Central Asia - "inside" and "outside" Imaon (< Skt. Himavan - mountain range between Hindukush and Tien Shan), the first between Ural and Amu-Darya rivers and the second probably corresponding to the modern Chinese Turkestan. Some scholars have suggested that Old Chinese pronunciation of the name Yueh-chih could have been sounding very similar to "Sogdian" or "Scythian" (which according to Oswald Szemerenyi were both derived from the same old Iranian word Skuda - "archer", lit. "shooter"). Thus we can hypothesize that there were three migrations of the "Proto-Scythians" - westward, southward and eastward - beginning probably somwhere in the South Ural region and between 2nd and 1st milienia B.C.E. (the legend puts the ancestor Targitaos thousand years before the Persian invasion or in 1513 B.C.E.). These three groups could have been the ancestors of the Pontian Scythians, the Central Asian Saka and/or Sogdians, and probably the Yueh-chih. Of course, they have lived and developed in different geographic and ethnic environment after that and then couldn't be considered as identical people anymore. WHATEVER YOU WROTE HERE ABSOLUTELY DOESN’T ACCORD TO REALITY, SCYTHIANS WEREN’T IRANIANS,MOREOVER ALL NOWDAYS NATIONS OF IRANIAN ORIGINS WHO INHABIT ASIA INHERITED NOTHING FROM SCYTHIANS, I MEAN LURES, LYAKISTANIS, ZAZAS, BAHTIYARS,BULUDJIS, PUSHTUNS, KURDS, LEZGIS, IRANIANS THEMSELVES,TAJIKISTANIS,OSSETIANS – ALL OF THEM NEVER IN CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORY DIFFERED IN WARFARE COMPARING TO TURKIC NATIONS, ALL OF THEM ALWAYS JOINED THE RANKS OF SLAVES OF TURKS. THEY HAVE NO HORSE BREED,THEIR RUGS ARE DULL AND DIM AND INHERITED NOTHING FROM HIGHLY CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ANCIENT SCYTHS. ALSO HOW COME THAT HISTORY OVERLOOKED THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF SUCH GREAT WARLIKE IRANIANS (ACTUALLY WOMANLIKE) FROM MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA?? HOW COME THEY DISAPPEARED SUDDENLY? OH YES, THEY LEFT THEIR FERTILE,COMFORTABLE PLACES AND EXCHANGED TO BARREN LANDS OF AFGANISTAN. LOL What do you suppose, if not iranians then who ? Türks werent there where the scythians lived B.C. north of the caucasus.
|
|
|
Post by sarmat on Apr 15, 2012 20:56:40 GMT 3
WHATEVER YOU WROTE HERE ABSOLUTELY DOESN’T ACCORD TO REALITY, SCYTHIANS WEREN’T IRANIANS,MOREOVER ALL NOWDAYS NATIONS OF IRANIAN ORIGINS WHO INHABIT ASIA INHERITED NOTHING FROM SCYTHIANS, I MEAN LURES, LYAKISTANIS, ZAZAS, BAHTIYARS,BULUDJIS, PUSHTUNS, KURDS, LEZGIS, IRANIANS THEMSELVES,TAJIKISTANIS,OSSETIANS – ALL OF THEM NEVER IN CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORY DIFFERED IN WARFARE COMPARING TO TURKIC NATIONS, ALL OF THEM ALWAYS JOINED THE RANKS OF SLAVES OF TURKS. THEY HAVE NO HORSE BREED,THEIR RUGS ARE DULL AND DIM AND INHERITED NOTHING FROM HIGHLY CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ANCIENT SCYTHS. ALSO HOW COME THAT HISTORY OVERLOOKED THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF SUCH GREAT WARLIKE IRANIANS (ACTUALLY WOMANLIKE) FROM MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA?? HOW COME THEY DISAPPEARED SUDDENLY? OH YES, THEY LEFT THEIR FERTILE,COMFORTABLE PLACES AND EXCHANGED TO BARREN LANDS OF AFGANISTAN. LOL You must stop propaganding this paranoidal nonsense or you will join the ranks of those who were banned from this forum LOL.
|
|
|
Post by ancalimon on Apr 16, 2012 4:41:15 GMT 3
WHATEVER YOU WROTE HERE ABSOLUTELY DOESN’T ACCORD TO REALITY, SCYTHIANS WEREN’T IRANIANS,MOREOVER ALL NOWDAYS NATIONS OF IRANIAN ORIGINS WHO INHABIT ASIA INHERITED NOTHING FROM SCYTHIANS, I MEAN LURES, LYAKISTANIS, ZAZAS, BAHTIYARS,BULUDJIS, PUSHTUNS, KURDS, LEZGIS, IRANIANS THEMSELVES,TAJIKISTANIS,OSSETIANS – ALL OF THEM NEVER IN CENTRAL ASIAN HISTORY DIFFERED IN WARFARE COMPARING TO TURKIC NATIONS, ALL OF THEM ALWAYS JOINED THE RANKS OF SLAVES OF TURKS. THEY HAVE NO HORSE BREED,THEIR RUGS ARE DULL AND DIM AND INHERITED NOTHING FROM HIGHLY CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ANCIENT SCYTHS. ALSO HOW COME THAT HISTORY OVERLOOKED THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF SUCH GREAT WARLIKE IRANIANS (ACTUALLY WOMANLIKE) FROM MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA?? HOW COME THEY DISAPPEARED SUDDENLY? OH YES, THEY LEFT THEIR FERTILE,COMFORTABLE PLACES AND EXCHANGED TO BARREN LANDS OF AFGANISTAN. LOL What do you suppose, if not iranians then who ? Türks werent there where the scythians lived B.C. north of the caucasus. While I can't say I agree with ballaja, we simply can't say that Turks are not related with Scythians. Ballaja: They didn't disappear. They became some of the Turks themselves. Well... The Turks were probably very good at suddenly converting Persians into Turks... "or" Turks lived in lands in which they are not supposed to exist at all in older times and it was a long process.
|
|
|
Post by Ardavarz on Apr 18, 2012 1:03:38 GMT 3
Yes, there was no "sudden disappearance". We speak about processes which took centuries, even millenia. Migrations and cultural development are traceable through comparing archaeological data and historical records. Things were not always as they are now and climatic changes should be considered too. Where we have deserts now there were flourishing lands once like for instance in northern Afghanistan as the ancient sources testify (the very name "Bactria"/Bakhtra meant "fortunate country"). The Steppe ecosystem though is very fragile and coudn't support large populations. Whenever the animal husbandry becomes too extensive and the scarce resources of the land depleted, famine follows and as a result - inter-tribal fights for the reminders, splits and migrations. There were several such cycles in the Steppe history and every one has left the lands more and more devastated - that's why we have the deserts in Central Asia now. The last drought was during the 20th century due to the ignorant land management of the communist goverments in the former USSR and China - one of the consequences was the drying up of Aral Sea and Lob-Nor lake. In the 3th millenium B.C.E. there was an even bigger lake in what is now the Kazakhstan desert - it is described in Avesta. (During the Ice Age there was no one desert on the planet - indeed humans can be quite a pest!). That is why the prophet Zarathustra saw this as evil and preached more peaceful lifestyle and practicing agriculture as a base for self-sufficient economy to reverse this destructive process. But agriculture can be detrimental too when applied without proper knowledge. The human ignorance, greed and immoderate breeding have done the biggest harm to the planet.
As for the "nations" there were never such things. As I have written before, those are fictional entities - ideological construct of the modern state propaganda. "Iranian" or "Turkic" are just labels for linguistic affiliations - an abstract too. During the different ages one or another linguistic group predominated the Steppe, but it was always a multilingual society - there never was "one people and one language" as in the ridiculous Abrahamitic myths. The ethnic and linguistic groups are processes passing through the centuries over the face of the Earth like waves in the sea, they are not things or entities. Maintaining some "identity" between ancient and modern people is such an illusion as it would be between individuals lived in different eras. It's as the monk Nagasena said to King Menander when asked whether a reborn is the same person or another: "Neither the same, nor other" - since there is no person, only flux of phenomena. And same with the "ethnos" and the "culture" - a temporary vortex within the biosphere-noosphere interface.
|
|
|
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Apr 18, 2012 9:57:52 GMT 3
You must stop propaganding this paranoidal nonsense or you will join the ranks of those who were banned from this forum LOL. Indeed he already has. I'm sick of these people who come, yell loud at the members and post just propaganda.
|
|
|
Post by Yazig on Apr 23, 2012 10:42:26 GMT 3
"Iranian" here means having a laguage which can be clasified as belonging to the Iranian group, and not necessarily related to the territory of modern Iran. Although there were many other languages in the Steppe at that time, as Herodotus notes, the Scythian linguistic remnants and mythology are most certainly idnetified as Iranian. The topic about Cimmerians is not quite clear - they could have been completely different people or just divisions of Scythian army during their invasion in Middle East in 6th century B.C.E. as Dyakonov has thought. The Scythians living north of Black Sea have most probably come from Central Asia. Herodotus believed that they were driven away from there by the Massagetae and considered this version as most plausible. He also wrote that Persian name for Scythians was Saka. Later Ptolemy describes two other Scythias in Central Asia - "inside" and "outside" Imaon (< Skt. Himavan - mountain range between Hindukush and Tien Shan), the first between Ural and Amu-Darya rivers and the second probably corresponding to the modern Chinese Turkestan. Some scholars have suggested that Old Chinese pronunciation of the name Yueh-chih could have been sounding very similar to "Sogdian" or "Scythian" (which according to Oswald Szemerenyi were both derived from the same old Iranian word Skuda - "archer", lit. "shooter"). Thus we can hypothesize that there were three migrations of the "Proto-Scythians" - westward, southward and eastward - beginning probably somwhere in the South Ural region and between 2nd and 1st milienia B.C.E. (the legend puts the ancestor Targitaos thousand years before the Persian invasion or in 1513 B.C.E.). These three groups could have been the ancestors of the Pontian Scythians, the Central Asian Saka and/or Sogdians, and probably the Yueh-chih. Of course, they have lived and developed in different geographic and ethnic environment after that and then couldn't be considered as identical people anymore. Nice hypothesis. I was not refering to the language though. Language is a very complicated issue. Scythians probably spoke iranian but it is not clear if it's their original language. They may have changed. Also the scythians were barbarians to greeks and Herodotus may have classified other tribes with scythians as well. The migration theory that you posted is very likely though. Alas we don't know the original name of the scythians. Saka, scythae ----> these are the names given to them by foreigners.
|
|
|
Post by pecheneg on Apr 24, 2012 18:17:15 GMT 3
personally; I wonder what makes them "Iranian" ? language? i don't think so... lifestyle? lol, absulutely not... race/ethnicity? well im sure that Kypchaks were looking like sycthians...
it is an indo-euro-centric claim, that Scythians were iranians...
|
|
|
Post by Ardavarz on Apr 25, 2012 2:44:58 GMT 3
Nice hypothesis. I was not refering to the language though. Language is a very complicated issue. Scythians probably spoke iranian but it is not clear if it's their original language. They may have changed. Also the scythians were barbarians to greeks and Herodotus may have classified other tribes with scythians as well. The migration theory that you posted is very likely though. Alas we don't know the original name of the scythians. Saka, scythae ----> these are the names given to them by foreigners. Actually we do. Saka (meaning "nomads") is indeed a foreign name given by the Persians according to Herodotus. But he gives also their self-designation: Skolotai (< *Skula-tæ) which is plural of *Skuda ("archer, shooter") considering the regular change d > l in north-eastern Iranian languages, while in Central Asia it was preserved in the name Suguda ("Sogdian" in cuneiform Old Persian). "Scythians" ( Skythai) is actually a more early form of the same name (in ancient Greek the letter Y has rendered an "u"-sound). See f.e. O. Szemerény: azargoshnasp.net/history/Scythians/fouroldiranianethnicnames.pdf There were many languages in the Steppe at that time - Herodotus wrote that Scythians have communicated with the other tribes "in seven languages with seven interpreters" (IV; 24). It is important that he mentions interpreters - that means the languages were quite different indeed. In this environment the Scythian language has most surely been changing over time and even replaced by other maybe not once. It is generally thought that Scythians were assimilated first by the Sarmatians (who according to Herodotus spoke a "distorted Scythian" language) and later by the Huns. Some authors have compared the name of their cousins - the Agathyrsoi with that of the Akatziri Huns. I am not sure if this could be correct. Maybe during the Great Migration period some of the remnants of the Scythians and their relatives have been pushed southward toward Caucasus. Thus we could also speculate that the Gelons (Gelōnoi) have given the name of the modern Gilan, but I doubt this. Another interesting thing is that Scythians were condsidered by the Greeks (who usually referred to all other people as "barbarians") somehow "less barbaric" than the others. According to Herodotus the Scythians were the only people from around the Black Sea who were wise - the others in his opinion "are not distinguished by wisdom" being "most ignorant of all" (IV; 46). Maybe he wrote so because of Anacharsis, still the latter was the only not-Greek reckoned among the Seven Sages, which fact is significant by itself. Other Scythian sages like Abaris, Toxaris and (maybe) Zalmoxis were also well known and esteemed in the ancient world. It seems that the Greek authors have had a very close knowledge of the Scythian culture.
|
|
|
Post by hjernespiser on Apr 25, 2012 3:38:14 GMT 3
Ah Ardavarz, thanks for responding to that. I knew there was some information we had about what name the Scythians used for themselves. It is buried somewhere else in this forum too.
|
|
|
Post by Ardavarz on Apr 26, 2012 2:31:24 GMT 3
You are welcome . It is by Herodotus in book IV; 6.
|
|
|
Post by Yazig on Apr 28, 2012 21:38:05 GMT 3
Nice hypothesis. I was not refering to the language though. Language is a very complicated issue. Scythians probably spoke iranian but it is not clear if it's their original language. They may have changed. Also the scythians were barbarians to greeks and Herodotus may have classified other tribes with scythians as well. The migration theory that you posted is very likely though. Alas we don't know the original name of the scythians. Saka, scythae ----> these are the names given to them by foreigners. Actually we do. Saka (meaning "nomads") is indeed a foreign name given by the Persians according to Herodotus. But he gives also their self-designation: Skolotai (< *Skula-tæ) which is plural of *Skuda ("archer, shooter") considering the regular change d > l in north-eastern Iranian languages, while in Central Asia it was preserved in the name Suguda ("Sogdian" in cuneiform Old Persian). "Scythians" ( Skythai) is actually a more early form of the same name (in ancient Greek the letter Y has rendered an "u"-sound). See f.e. O. Szemerény: azargoshnasp.net/history/Scythians/fouroldiranianethnicnames.pdf There were many languages in the Steppe at that time - Herodotus wrote that Scythians have communicated with the other tribes "in seven languages with seven interpreters" (IV; 24). It is important that he mentions interpreters - that means the languages were quite different indeed. In this environment the Scythian language has most surely been changing over time and even replaced by other maybe not once. It is generally thought that Scythians were assimilated first by the Sarmatians (who according to Herodotus spoke a "distorted Scythian" language) and later by the Huns. Some authors have compared the name of their cousins - the Agathyrsoi with that of the Akatziri Huns. I am not sure if this could be correct. Maybe during the Great Migration period some of the remnants of the Scythians and their relatives have been pushed southward toward Caucasus. Thus we could also speculate that the Gelons (Gelōnoi) have given the name of the modern Gilan, but I doubt this. Another interesting thing is that Scythians were condsidered by the Greeks (who usually referred to all other people as "barbarians") somehow "less barbaric" than the others. According to Herodotus the Scythians were the only people from around the Black Sea who were wise - the others in his opinion "are not distinguished by wisdom" being "most ignorant of all" (IV; 46). Maybe he wrote so because of Anacharsis, still the latter was the only not-Greek reckoned among the Seven Sages, which fact is significant by itself. Other Scythian sages like Abaris, Toxaris and (maybe) Zalmoxis were also well known and esteemed in the ancient world. It seems that the Greek authors have had a very close knowledge of the Scythian culture. I really appriciate that you give some literature on this. It is really important because I want to read on the topic of steppe nomads as much as possible. That's some interesting stuff you posted here. If they had 7 languages, maybe it was a tribal coallition. Not the exact same people. They had a similar culture. I remember seeing depictions of scythians were some of them had asiatic features and some caucasian.
|
|
|
Post by Ardavarz on May 1, 2012 1:25:14 GMT 3
Yes, more or less that's my opinion too.
|
|