Pontic Scythian language
Pontic Scythian was a Scythian language formerly spoken in western Asia and eastern Europe between the 6th and 1st centuries BC by the Scythians.
Phonology
The Pontic Scythian language possessed the following phonemes:This article uses cursive theta to denote the Scythian voiceless dental fricative, and regular theta to denote the Greek aspirated, voiceless dental plosive.
The western dialects of the Scythian languages had experienced an evolution of the Proto-Iranic sound into the Proto-Scythian sound, which in the Cimmerian and Pontic dialects of Scythian became the sound. Scythian shares the evolution of Proto-Iranic sound into with all Eastern Iranic languages with the exception of Ossetian, Yaghnobi, and Ishkashimi; and the later evolution of into is also present in several Eastern Iranic languages such as Bactrian, Pashto, Munjani, and Yidgha.
Corpus
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 Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.Recorded Scythian personal names include:
| Name | Attested forms | Notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [Ariapeithes|] | Composed of:Tribal namesRecorded Scythian tribal names include:
Place namesSome 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 Avestan dānu-, Pashto dand and Ossetian don.The river names Don, Donets, Dnieper, Danube, and Dniester, and lake Donuzlav may also belong with the same word-group. Recorded Scythian place names include:
|