The belonging of the Scythian language to a certain language group is the subject of heated debate among contemporaries. The study of this issue is complicated by insufficient confirmation by archaeological finds. Most researchers agree that the Scythian language belongs to the East Iranian, but there are also other hypotheses.
Identification difficulties
The difficulty of learning the Scythian language lies in the fact that the culture of this people did not leave traces of writing behind. It can only be judged by the information found in the works of the ancient historians Herodotus and Diodorus, by some toponyms - the names of rivers and settlements in the area where the Scythians lived, by the names of their rulers.
However, some archaeological finds in the northern Black Sea region, dating back to the end of the II - beginning of the I millennium BC. may shed some light on this problem. During the excavations of the burials of the Srubnaya culture, which chronologically preceded the Scythians, several ceramic vessels were found with pictographic inscriptions in the formhorizontal, oblique lines and geometric shapes. Their meaning has not yet been deciphered by scientists due to lack of material.
Origin of the people
Describing the Scythian language, linguists first of all try to establish its origin. Equally important is the connection with related dialects. The Scythians existed in the 8th century BC. e. - 4th century AD e. in the Northern Black Sea region. Among them, two large groups are distinguished - forest-steppe and steppe tribes. The first found a great anthropological similarity with representatives of the so-called Srubnaya culture. The steppe representatives are similar to the people of the Okunev culture of Tuva. Presumably, they migrated from the east, from the Aral Sea region.
The Scythians lived in the neighborhood with many heterogeneous tribes, of which there are about two dozen. The language of these communities was both very similar to the Scythian, and significantly different from it. In this regard, there are two hypotheses that explain the heterogeneity of the forest-steppe and steppe groups. According to one of them, the appearance and customs of the steppe inhabitants were formed as a result of mixing with other tribes.
According to another version, these two groups differ in origin. The second hypothesis is also ambiguous. Perhaps the Scythians originated from tribes that lived in the west of Europe, after which they mixed with the Asians. Their merger could take place over 2 centuries. Genetic studies show that the Scythians are in an intermediate position between Asians and Europeans.
In the third century BC onthe territory of Great Scythia was invaded by the Sarmatians - a nomadic warlike people, consisting of Iranian-speaking tribes. Part of the Scythians was destroyed, and part was pushed back beyond the Danube. The Scythian kingdom was finally destroyed after the invasion of the Goths in the second half of the 3rd century AD. e. At the same time, the great migration of peoples began and the remnants of the Scythians dispersed in neighboring tribes, losing their bright identity.
Information from Herodotus and Diodorus
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus and his work "History" is one of the main sources for learning the language. According to his data, there were several Scythian groups in the northern Black Sea region: the ruling royal Scythians; tribes that do not obey the royal and speak a special dialect; nomads; farmers; Pahari and Hellenic communities. The latter used a mixture of languages: Hellenic and Scythian. Apparently, already in those days this kingdom was very heterogeneous.
Its center was a settlement in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine (Kamenskoye settlement), on the territory of which a large number of mounds and remains of villages were found in the middle of the 20th century. According to Diodorus and Herodotus, the land of the Scythian kingdom extended to the mountains of the Caucasus. This was later confirmed by archaeological finds in Asia Minor. Herodotus considered these places the birthplace of the Scythians.
The royal tribe of the Scythians, according to the ancient historian, had an independent, original language. Other tribes spoke the "bad" Scythian language. And others had their own special dialect, which during the negotiations demandedpresence of interpreters.
In the culture of the Greeks in the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, it became a tradition to call Scythians all the communities that lived in the northern Black Sea region, which has become the subject of scientific disputes about the originality of the language in our time. In subsequent centuries, settlements existed here, the inhabitants of which belonged to various linguistic groups: Slavic, Germanic, Finno-Ugric and Iranian.
Modern theories
Among modern historians and linguists, there are two points of view on the question of what language the Scythians spoke:
- Theory of the unity of the Scythian and Sarmatian languages. Numerous coincidences of Scythian and Iranian words testify in favor of it. Some scholars distinguish them as two dialects of the same language. Others believe that the royal Scythians had their own, special dialect (Skolotsky). This idea was first substantiated in the works of the Ossetian researcher V. I. Abaev in 1950-1960. and developed further by other historians. The Ossetian language is a direct descendant of the Scythian.
- Theory of differentiated existence of the Scythian language. According to this idea, its separation from the Sarmatian occurred in antiquity. Proponents of the theory attribute the Scythian language to the Eastern Iranian languages \u200b\u200b(southern subgroup), and Sarmatian to the northern subgroup. Scholars have been trying to distinguish between them for a long time, at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the modern researchers in this area is the candidate of historical sciences S. V. Kullanda, who in his works put forward the hypothesis that the Scythian culture was formed from close contactEast Iranian and North Caucasian tribes, and not originated from Central Asia.
Iranian roots
Evidence of the relationship between the Scythian and Iranian languages is based on linguistic parallels. Arguments for and against their identification are given in the table below:
| Transition of phonetic sounds in the Scythian words, characteristic of the Iranian language | Objections |
| "d" to "l" | This phenomenon is inherent in several languages of the region where the Scythians lived and cannot serve as a sign of the genetic relationship of peoples. |
| "хш" in "s" or in "u" | In the Greek language, which contains information about the Scythian kings, there is only one way to write the sound "s". The Greeks simply could not express Scythian phonetics in any other way. |
| "u" to "d" | Same as above. |
These phonetic transitions were also present in the Persian language. Archaeologists also note the similarity of the Scythian burial grounds with elements that characterize the Koban culture that existed in the Caucasus (masonry technique, ornaments on dishes, metal composition in products, jewelry). These facts call into question the first theory about the Scythian language, which is currently generally accepted.
Self-name of the people
The versionsassociated with the word that the Scythians called their own people - Skuda. In Indo-European languages there are words with the same root that translate as "shoot". This version of the origin of the self-name is supported by the fact that the Scythians were excellent shooters.
In the Wakhan language (Eastern Iranian group), common in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, this word is consonant with the word skid - "skullcap", and in the past it could mean "pointed hat". Such headdresses were worn by the Central Asian Saks, who, according to some historians, are the ancestors of the Scythians.
In the Ossetian language there is another analogy for this word - “cut off”, “split off”. In this case, the word "Scythian" means "outcast". Later, "skuda" was transformed into "cleaved" using the plural suffix ta and the traditional Eastern Iranian transition d into l.
Finno-Ugric analogies
Archaeological finds of the Ananyino culture (the village of Ananyino near Yelabuga in Tatarstan) also confirm a close relationship with the Scythians. Some words of the Mari language are consonant with Eastern Iranian. The Scythian presence in the Middle Volga is also evidenced by genetic studies comparing the DNA of modern inhabitants and samples taken from Scythian burial grounds.
The catacomb method of burial in the Scythian era is more in line with the traditions of the Indo-Aryan tribes than the Iranian ones. Some researchers also draw parallels between the Scythian language and Chuvash, which is currently the only languagetime in the living language of the Bulgar group (for example, the similarity of the words "Tanais" (Danube) and the Chuvash "tanas" - "calm", "quiet"). According to this assumption, the Scythians are the ancient Bulgars. However, the Turkic languages, which include Bulgar, are characterized by such combinations of consonants that are completely absent in Scythian.
So what language did the Scythians speak?
Disputes about the origin of the language have been going on for a long time, starting from the 19th century. Most modern linguists agree that the Scythian language belongs to the Eastern Iranian language group. It includes Bactrian, Pashto, Munjan languages. Its relationship with Sarmatian and Ossetian is also confirmed by linguistic studies.
As some scholars note, for the Scythian language, at present, only its Iranian affiliation can be established. An exact and unconditional attribution of the specific names of the kings preserved in the History of Herodotus to any language is impossible, since there is not enough archaeological, anthropological and genetic data about this people, which disappeared more than a millennium ago. The absence of a written culture, the Great Migration of Peoples and the assimilation of conquered tribes have become the main reason that Scythia is now shrouded in numerous legends and mysteries that have yet to be unraveled.
