Irish Chronology of the Irano-Afghan and Abrahamic People

[voice]

Mojo , I like your posts , please go fishing ,unbury some truths.

[bob x]

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Everything I quoted came from this book Lebor-gabála-Érenn-taking-Ireland

OK. I couldn't get from that link to anything more than excerpts from the book. I have to think well of the editor, Macalister, since he agrees with me about Books I/II/VIII, that it is a separate and late composition from Books III-VII, made up by a Christian author to make a pseudo-Biblical origin story, not to be trusted for any historical content. He says (Book VIII. Introduction. page 2, the only section I can reliably get the text of) that "Liber occupationis [Book of Occupations, his term for I/II/VIII, as opposed to 'the originally independent Liber praecursorum'] was originally composed, not in Irish, but in Latin" as an explanation for why its text is so highly variable, and goes on to describe it as "merely a quasi-learned parody of the story of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites" (citing several precise parallels) and assesses it (on p. 1) "the book not only possesses no historical value-- as is only too obvious; but in the form in which it is presented it has next to no importance in the general field of anthropology".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I thought I might have been missing something when it started at Vol. III, but it looked to be a translation of the original source material because the Celtic version is on every other page.

So you are getting an actual bilingual, with the Irish text facing the English translation? How do you get to it?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Yet, it did pretty much mention everything you described.

But it is also containing a lot of other stuff that I don't understand. The annotations appear to be from various dates in the 18th and 19th centuries: the names "Sosarmes" (from a 17th century misprinted Herodotus) and "Labashi Marduk" (from early decipherments of cuneiform in the mid-19th century) are obviously not from the Lebor Gabala Erenn itself, and can't even be from Vallancey. Does Macalister mark off "Notes" or "Commentary" from translations of the Lebor itself? For example, it's my understanding that in the Lebor Partholon migrates from Babylon to Greece to Sicily and then sails out the Pillars of Hercules; Nemed is from Greece (descended from a brother of Partholon who stayed behind there) and sails from the Maeotian Sea to the Caspian to the Arctic Ocean (impossible, but medievals didn't know that); the Danaan were a branch of Nemedians who were chased out to Hyperborea (a totally imaginary paradise by the North Pole) and return from there. You assert that they were "all from Scythia": who says so?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Also I'm not really sure where you're coming up your date for the development of the Celtic language.

You are confusing two different issues. The split of Indo-European into the Centum branch (Celtic and Italic) vs. all the rest (Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Balkan Peripheral; what I have lumped as "Indo-Germanic") is ~4000 BCE, well after the divergence of Indo-Hittite into Anatolian and Indo-European proper, but well before the distinct emergence of all the sub-branches. Exactly when "Celtic" could be spoken of as a distinct entity, as opposed to Italic (and now-extinct Centum sub-branches like Vandic and Lusitanian), is more a matter of semantic definitions than of facts: the humans have been speaking something-or-other, ever since they have been humans, and at every ancient period the languages were what they were, regardless of what you want to call them.

But the issue I have talked about, which is more a question of fact than semantics, is at what date the Celtic languages entered the British Isles. Celtic languages, or Indo-European languages gradually becoming more and more like "Celtic" depending on how you define it, had been spreading from central Europe to western Europe for thousands of years; but exactly when did they cross the Channel to replace "Iberian" languages in the islands? Without literacy, we can only go by archaeological signs of cultural transition: the spread of new agricultural techniques (new to Britain, that is; copying what had been practiced in Celtic areas on the Continent) in the mid-2nd millenium BCE is one of the major transitions; the introduction of "Hallstadt" culture (iron metallurgy, and other material artifacts) from the 7th to 3rd centuries BCE (in multiple waves) is the other. Technology can move without any migration of peoples, of course (Iberians in Britain might have traded with the Continent, learned of new ideas, and brought them home), and even where there was a movement of peoples, we don't know for certain that the people in question were Celtic-speaking until the "Bolgi" (latest of the Hallstadt waves) who interacted with literate cultures-- but we don't know any evidence to the contrary either.

I have expressed my opinion that the earlier ("Celtic field" agriculture) transition, rather than the later, is when the Celtic languages crossed over (the contrary opinion is also widespread among scholars). If my reasoning has not been clear: the genetic evidence indicates that the "Iberian" substrate contributes very little to the ancestry in Britain, whereas it remains an important percentage in Ireland; disappearance and replacement of a native populace is not characteristic of a military conquest (mythical tales of total slaughter are common but the reality always turns out to be a small aristocracy imposing itself on a larger peasantry and then assimilating), but is readily explained by an agricultural people out-multiplying a sparser Stone Age culture (compare the small percentage of Native American in the modern genetics of the US). In Ireland it would appear that the agriculturists trickled over slowly, and the natives learned to farm and keep their numbers up before they were overwhelmed; the mutation of the language into the "Q-Celtic" form unique to Ireland (Scottish Gaelic is also Q-Celtic but this is known to be from early medieval migration from Ireland) is typical of adoption of a new language by natives whose earlier speech was something quite other.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

It seems like with the Irish history someone's always coming up with an earlier and earlier placement for when the Celtic languages developed and when the megaliths appeared

That's a totally different issue. The megaliths are principally in Britain, not Ireland (which is poor in sources for stone), and are certainly from the pre-Celtic Iberians: the date of 1850 BCE established in the 1950's for charcoal from an altar that post-dates the completion of Stonehenge is already before the "Celtic fields" agricultural revolution; more recently a date of 2200 BCE has been established for the erection of some of the bluestones that appear to be mid-stage in the construction; this indication that the construction took centuries suggests that the earliest stage of the construction started perhaps earlier than 3000 BCE.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

when it comes to the Indo-Iranians scholars are coming up with later and later dates for when their literature appeared.

What are you talking about? The scholarly consensus for a very long time was that Zoroaster was a few generations before Cyrus, contemporary with the kings of Anshan; when I first started debating this with you, I was unaware that this had changed. Now, the linguists think ~1200 BC is the date indicated by the state of Iranian language in the Gathas, and I have found those arguments convincing. The Gathas are certainly centuries later than the Vedas: your stubborn refusal to accept that has no basis except your egotism.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Lastly, there are a few relationships that Vallancey also makes that I'm curious to know more about. 1. the NPer. mogh and Ir. mogh both designating a "priestly caste" of some sort.

In Irish I only know Mog as an early king, progenitor of the dynasty giving its name to Moghan "Mog's half" (the south) whence Moghanstadr > Munster "the southwest quarter". Comparing to "NPer." that is New Persian is silly: the shift from "a" to "o" and from "g" to "gh" in mag > mogh cannot be invoked to explain earlier words in other languages unless you believe in time machines.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

2. Ir. Magh "great [lake]" OPer. Maga "Great [cause]

Both are from the "M-quantitative" set of words in Indo-European, not only for large quantities like English many/much/more/most, Latin maius (hence English major), Sanskrit maha, but also for small quantities as in Latin minus. Which consonant comes second after the "m" is different from one group to another for reasons that are not always clear: on another thread I said I really don't know why it is "g" in Persian mag but we also see it, not just in this Irish "great" but also in Greek mega.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

3. Ir. Druid Iran. Daru "medicine" darakht cf. tree dorost cf. truth

Would you care to either support or diffuse these proposed etymological relationships?

Indo-European *deru hence English tree, Greek druos "oak" etc. is associated to the meaning "straight" or "firm" as in English true, and going back to Nostratic (hypothetical ancestor of Indo-European, Semitic etc.) that may have been the root-meaning, see Hebrew derekh "straight path" (compare Latin directio), d-r-k "to walk, proceed in constant direction" (metaphorically, to behave morally).

Gaulish dru-wid "oak-seer" was originally used in Aquitaine, where most people spoke a non-Indo-European language ancestral to Basque, and had a rather different religious culture (the sacred Oak of Gernika was revered in Basque country down to modern times); it was borrowed into Greek as druidos by Sotion of Alexandria, who visited Aquitaine, and then it became the standard Latin term for any religious figure in Gaul because Julius Caesar, who didn't actually know anything about Gaulish religion, plagiarized a Latin translation of Sotion for his chapter in De Bello Gallico on the subject. At least, now that's generally how it is thought to have happened: there has long been puzzlement that Caesar's chapter on the Druids describes them as societally dominant, even over-ruling the kings, and yet, in the rest of the book they never play the slightest role at all; Sotion was describing the society in Aquitaine, when elsewhere in Gaul conditions were quite different. Julius Caesar knew a Diviciacus as a political and military leader, but never calls him a "Druid"; but Cicero met him also, and since he knew how to read omens, calls him a "Druid" because that is the word he understands from Caesar to be the Gaulish term for such a person. That is, in Aquitaine the Druids were a separate "caste", outranking the political-military caste like Brahmans outranking Kshatriya in India; but in Gaul, there was no sharp distinction among the people involved in religion, politics, or the military, who were all drawn from the same class, and druwid apparently wasn't even a word that the Gaulish holy men used for themselves at all, rather a word they used for the Aquitainian priests.

There were three sorts of holy men in Celtic society: the "bards" (Strabo gives bardoi, a more accurate rendering of a foreign word than we usually get from him), who were not just poets but also preservers of the oral traditions; the "seers" (Irish faidh, Gaulish ovates according to Strabo, like Latin vatis "prophet" as in "the Vatican") who could foretell the future by astrology, bird-watching, and other omens; and various "healers" and "philosophers" who knew practical sciences, called druidoi in Strabo (though elsewhere that word is used as a catch-all for all these categories) but maithin in Irish ("brothers" or "fellows" as they often lived in monastic-like communities, same root as English mate and Sanskrit maitri "friendship", Mitra like Iranian Mithra "god of alliances / contracts"). Irish subdivided the "poet" category further: a bard specifically remembered historical sagas, and composed new ones to honor a king's deeds (and if the king did not pay him, vicious satires of the ungrateful king), while a brehon remembered legal codes and precedents, and a filidh scientific and magical lore (astronomy, medicine etc.) of the sort a maithin might need to consult him about. The "tree/true" root mutated to dara in Irish, and was not used for any of these types of holy men: druid in Irish (like druidecht "magic" in Welsh) is evidently a borrowing from Latin rather than an independent inheritance from proto-Celtic, adopted when Christians needed some generic term for "pagan holy men" and did not wish to call them by names like "seer" that implied they were honorable. This is the great irony about the modern "Druids" in Britain and Ireland: although they want to revive the ancient traditions, it is probable that no-one ever called themselves "druids" in the British Isles before the 18th century.

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

So you are getting an actual bilingual, with the Irish text facing the English translation? How do you get to it?

Precisely. I paid for it.

Originally Posted by bob x

But it is also containing a lot of other stuff that I don't understand. The annotations appear to be from various dates in the 18th and 19th centuries: the names "Sosarmes" (from a 17th century misprinted Herodotus) and "Labashi Marduk" (from early decipherments of cuneiform in the mid-19th century) are obviously not from the Lebor Gabala Erenn itself, and can't even be from Vallancey. Does Macalister mark off "Notes" or "Commentary" from translations of the Lebor itself? For example, it's my understanding that in the Lebor Partholon migrates from Babylon to Greece to Sicily and then sails out the Pillars of Hercules; Nemed is from Greece (descended from a brother of Partholon who stayed behind there) and sails from the Maeotian Sea to the Caspian to the Arctic Ocean (impossible, but medievals didn't know that); the Danaan were a branch of Nemedians who were chased out to Hyperborea (a totally imaginary paradise by the North Pole) and return from there. You assert that they were "all from Scythia": who says so?

It looks like all of it comes from a Celtic language.

"Now Ireland was waste thereafter, for a space of thirty years after Partholon, till Nemed son of Agnoman of the Greeks of Scythia came thither, with his four chieftains; [they were the four sons of Nemed]. Four-four ships had he on the Caspian Sea for a year and a half, but his ship alone reach Ireland. These are the four chieftains, Starn, Larbonel the Soothsayer, Annind, and Fergus Red-side: they were the four sons of Nemed.

Twelve plains were cleared by Nemed in Ireland: Mag Cera, Mag Eba, mag Cuile Toland, and Mag Luirg in Connachta, Mag Seired in Tethba; Mag Tochair in Tir Eogan; Mag Seimne in Araide; Mag Macha in Airgialla; Mag Muirthemne in Brega; Mag Bernsa in Laighne; Leccmag and Mag Moda in Mumu." - 123

237. Ba faas tra Heeriu ??arain, fri ree trichat mbliadan ?ar Parthaloon, conostoracht Nemed mac Agnoman do Greecib Scithiia...


"BELLEPARES was in the high ingship of the world when Nemed came into Ireland out of Scythia...SOSARMUS 29 " In his time Troy was captured by Hercules against Laomedon 60 years from that capture to the last capture, by Agamemnon and Peleus (sic read Achilles) and the Greeks against Priam and his sons...MITREUS" - 159

273. POLEPARIS in andighe in domain on tan taame Nemed an He?mn assm Scithiia...

"Bellepares was king of the world when Nemed came into Ireland. In his tenth year it was that Nemed came from the east with Cecrops for its first king. In that time was the beginning of the reign of the Sons of Israel in Egypt. In that time further. Sru s. Esru s. Gaedel Glas was expelled from Egypt...Sru son of Esru was in exile in Scythia at that time, as well as his son, Eber Scot." - 137

254...Sru mac Easru for loinges ?sin Sceithia...

"At Sru s Esru the relationship of Partholon and Nemed and the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha De Danann and the sons of Mil of Spain unite. And each of these peoples had the Scotic language: this is evident from the story that when Ith son of Breogan came into Ireland, and he and the Tuatha De Danann conversed, it is through Scotic he conversed with them and they with him: and they said that they were of the seed of Rifath. Others say that Nemed was of the seed of the son whom Partholon left in the East, namely, of the seed of Agla son of Partholon.

He came out of Scythia westward, voyaging on the Caspian Sea, till he came in his wandering to the great ocean in the north." - 129

248. Doluid asin Scithiia...

Originally Posted by bob x

What are you talking about? The scholarly consensus for a very long time was that Zoroaster was a few generations before Cyrus, contemporary with the kings of Anshan; when I first started debating this with you, I was unaware that this had changed. Now, the linguists think ~1200 BC is the date indicated by the state of Iranian language in the Gathas, and I have found those arguments convincing. The Gathas are certainly centuries later than the Vedas: your stubborn refusal to accept that has no basis except your egotism.

OK, I'd like to take a moment here to challenge you're very last sentence. Of course my background in the field of linguistics is limited, but nevertheless here goes...

Speaking in terms of the differences between Avestan and Sanskrit consonants...

Sanskrit displays evidence of aspirated plosives:

*bh > bh - b

*dh > dh - d

*gwh > gh [ɡʱ]; h [ɦ] - g; j [dʒ];γ +

Linguists like to use this fact to show that Sanskrit is more archaic than Avestan, but no other IE. language displays aspirated consonants so there is no way to support this as archaism. Moreover based on my understanding Sanskrit was influenced by Dravidian languages whereas Avestan was more isolated. Therefore in the case of *gwh > gh [ɡʱ]; h [ɦ] - g; j [dʒ];γ is looks to me like Avestan j [dʒ];γ is closer to the PIE than Sanskrit h [ɦ] especially when you consider there is not strong support for aspirate plosives in PIE.

*ĝh > h - z + Here Avestan preserves the intermediate [z] allophone between * *ĝ[h] and Sanskrit [h]

*p > p; ph - p;f - it looks like Sanskrit wins out over Avestan on this one.

*ĝ > j - z here it looks like Sanskrit wins out over Avestan but I wouldn't be surprised if z > j > g

Velar Fricatives

*s > s - s ~ h [h, x];s Here it looks like there is evidence of s > velar fricative, maybe it was the other way around

*kʷ > k; c [tʃ];kh - k; c [tʃ]; x before a consonant or original laryngeal; this looks like a tie

So all in all if we were to conclude that the aspirated plosives were actually innovations then that's 3 cases where Avestan is more archaic than Sanskrit. Then there's Avestan [z] where Sanskrit has [h] after PIE *ĝh. Avestan has h [h, x];s where the other IE. languages including Sanskrit have [s]. Sanskrit has [j] where Avestan has [z] from *ĝ. They tie on *kʷ > k; c [tʃ];kh - k; c [tʃ]; x. So all in all based on this view Avestan is 5 times more archaic in its consonants than Sanskrit, and Sanskrit only shows 1 maybe 2 archaisms over Avestan if you are going to conclude that s > [h,x] and not h > x > s.

Originally Posted by bob x

In Irish I only know Mog as an early king, progenitor of the dynasty giving its name to Moghan "Mog's half" (the south) whence Moghanstadr > Munster "the southwest quarter". Comparing to "NPer." that is New Persian is silly: the shift from "a" to "o" and from "g" to "gh" in mag > mogh cannot be invoked to explain earlier words in other languages unless you believe in time machines.

Yeah, but what if you're to take into account the Old Persian magush or the earlier Avestan forms, and then how do you explain how they developed into the same sound and semantics. Vallancey claimed Mog in Irish was a "priest" just like in Iranian.

Originally Posted by bob x

Both are from the "M-quantitative" set of words in Indo-European, not only for large quantities like English many/much/more/most, Latin maius (hence English major), Sanskrit maha, but also for small quantities as in Latin minus. Which consonant comes second after the "m" is different from one group to another for reasons that are not always clear: on another thread I said I really don't know why it is "g" in Persian mag but we also see it, not just in this Irish "great" but also in Greek mega.

But Greek mega is a loan from Iranian Maga. And Irish Magh certainly does not derive from Greek. Greece xi - xii. Persian Loanwords and Names in Greek

Indo-European *deru hence English tree, Greek druos "oak" etc. is associated to the meaning "straight" or "firm" as in English true, and going back to Nostratic (hypothetical ancestor of Indo-European, Semitic etc.) that may have been the root-meaning, see Hebrew derekh "straight path" (compare Latin directio), d-r-k "to walk, proceed in constant direction" (metaphorically, to behave morally).

I thought Latin directio was from PIE *reg I cf. right, rex, direct

Originally Posted by bob x

Gaulish dru-wid "oak-seer" was originally used in Aquitaine, where most people spoke a non-Indo-European language ancestral to Basque, and had a rather different religious culture (the sacred Oak of Gernika was revered in Basque country down to modern times); it was borrowed into Greek as druidos by Sotion of Alexandria, who visited Aquitaine, and then it became the standard Latin term for any religious figure in Gaul because Julius Caesar, who didn't actually know anything about Gaulish religion, plagiarized a Latin translation of Sotion for his chapter in De Bello Gallico on the subject. At least, now that's generally how it is thought to have happened: there has long been puzzlement that Caesar's chapter on the Druids describes them as societally dominant, even over-ruling the kings, and yet, in the rest of the book they never play the slightest role at all; Sotion was describing the society in Aquitaine, when elsewhere in Gaul conditions were quite different. Julius Caesar knew a Diviciacus as a political and military leader, but never calls him a "Druid"; but Cicero met him also, and since he knew how to read omens, calls him a "Druid" because that is the word he understands from Caesar to be the Gaulish term for such a person. That is, in Aquitaine the Druids were a separate "caste", outranking the political-military caste like Brahmans outranking Kshatriya in India; but in Gaul, there was no sharp distinction among the people involved in religion, politics, or the military, who were all drawn from the same class, and druwid apparently wasn't even a word that the Gaulish holy men used for themselves at all, rather a word they used for the Aquitainian priests.

There were three sorts of holy men in Celtic society: the "bards" (Strabo gives bardoi, a more accurate rendering of a foreign word than we usually get from him), who were not just poets but also preservers of the oral traditions; the "seers" (Irish faidh, Gaulish ovates according to Strabo, like Latin vatis "prophet" as in "the Vatican") who could foretell the future by astrology, bird-watching, and other omens; and various "healers" and "philosophers" who knew practical sciences, called druidoi in Strabo (though elsewhere that word is used as a catch-all for all these categories) but maithin in Irish ("brothers" or "fellows" as they often lived in monastic-like communities, same root as English mate and Sanskrit maitri "friendship", Mitra like Iranian Mithra "god of alliances / contracts"). Irish subdivided the "poet" category further: a bard specifically remembered historical sagas, and composed new ones to honor a king's deeds (and if the king did not pay him, vicious satires of the ungrateful king), while a brehon remembered legal codes and precedents, and a filidh scientific and magical lore (astronomy, medicine etc.) of the sort a maithin might need to consult him about. The "tree/true" root mutated to dara in Irish, and was not used for any of these types of holy men: druid in Irish (like druidecht "magic" in Welsh) is evidently a borrowing from Latin rather than an independent inheritance from proto-Celtic, adopted when Christians needed some generic term for "pagan holy men" and did not wish to call them by names like "seer" that implied they were honorable. This is the great irony about the modern "Druids" in Britain and Ireland: although they want to revive the ancient traditions, it is probable that no-one ever called themselves "druids" in the British Isles before the 18th century.

I think I'm going to have to rescind my statement about being mixed up about how the forms Odin, Vatican, Avesta, and Veda are not cognates, because it looks like they are. Odin cf. Woden "seer" (amongst other things), Vatis "seer" cf. Vatican compare Veda and Avesta cf. wisdom, evidence, hollywood; and now I'm wondering whether the proposed relationship between druwid "seer" and dervish "sufi" might actually be accurate too.

[bob x]

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Precisely. I paid for it.

Ah. I may need to buy the book as well. I thought this was another of your strange web-sites.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

It looks like all of it comes from a Celtic language...

Until I have any money, apparently I can't look for myself, but can you clue me in to what the numbers are? I had been taking them for page numbers, but apparently not.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Sanskrit displays evidence of aspirated plosives:

*bh > bh - b

*dh > dh - d

*gwh > gh [ɡʱ]; h [ɦ] - g; j [dʒ];γ +

Linguists like to use this fact to show that Sanskrit is more archaic than Avestan, but no other IE. language displays aspirated consonants so there is no way to support this as archaism.

You are mistaken. Where Sanskrit has "bh" vs. "b" other languages will often show two different sounds: in Germanic "b" vs. "w" but in Italic "f" vs. "v" as for example bherati "to carry" is English bear, Latin fer but balati "to exert power" is English wield while bala "power" is Latin valor. In Avestan they collapse into the same sound. Now PIE may not have sounded like Sanskrit, but must have had two different sounds: if it was one sound to begin with, it could not have systematically shifted into two different sounds in the descendant languages (how would the Latins "know" that this was one of the "b" sounds that the Germans made a "w" so that they should make it "v" while that was one of the "b" sounds that stayed "b" in German so they should make it "f"?)

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Moreover based on my understanding Sanskrit was influenced by Dravidian languages

There is just about nothing at all in Sanskrit that looks to have come from Dravidian (there are some things in Dravidian that look to have come from Indic, though later).

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

in the case of *gwh > gh [ɡʱ]; h [ɦ] - g; j [dʒ];γ is looks to me like Avestan j [dʒ];γ is closer to the PIE than Sanskrit h [ɦ]

Absurd: "g" sounds often palatalize into "j" sounds, but never the reverse.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

*ĝh > h - z + Here Avestan preserves the intermediate [z] allophone between * *ĝ[h] and Sanskrit [h]

I have no clue why you would think "z" an intermediate between "gh" and "h".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

*p > p; ph - p;f - it looks like Sanskrit wins out over Avestan on this one.

*ĝ > j - z here it looks like Sanskrit wins out over Avestan but I wouldn't be surprised if z > j > g

I would. It would be unique in the history of the world for z > j > g rather than g > j > z.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

*s > s - s ~ h [h, x];s Here it looks like there is evidence of s > velar fricative, maybe it was the other way around

Not likely: "x" to "sh" occasionally happens, but we don't find "sh" anywhere.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

*kʷ > k; c [tʃ];kh - k; c [tʃ]; x before a consonant or original laryngeal; this looks like a tie

Right.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

So all in all if we were to conclude that the aspirated plosives were actually innovations then that's 3 cases where Avestan is more archaic than Sanskrit.

No. Avestan has mergers there; this is 3 cases where Avestan has seriously departed from the original, whether Sanskrit is preserving the original well or not.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Then there's Avestan [z] where Sanskrit has [h] after PIE *ĝh.

Avestan is clearly less archaic there.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Avestan has h [h, x];s where the other IE. languages including Sanskrit have [s].

No question Avestan is less archaic.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Sanskrit has [j] where Avestan has [z] from *ĝ.

"j" is the intermediate shift: "g" palatalizes to "j" which then simplifies to "z"; so neither is preserving the original (this is one of the S'atam shifts) but Sanskrit is closer.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

They tie on *kʷ > k; c [tʃ];kh - k; c [tʃ]; x. So all in all based on this view Avestan is 5 times more archaic in its consonants than Sanskrit, and Sanskrit only shows 1 maybe 2 archaisms over Avestan if you are going to conclude that s > [h,x] and not h > x > s.

There are, in fact, a couple of features in Avestan which are more archaic than Sanskrit, but you have failed to hit on a single one of them.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Yeah, but what if you're to take into account the Old Persian magush or the earlier Avestan forms

Yeah, precisely. When the words look LESS alike the further back you go (rather than looking MORE alike as you go back in time), that indicates that they are not originally related at all.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

then how do you explain how they developed into the same sound and semantics.

There is nothing easier in the world than randomly rummaging through dictionaries of different languages and finding words with the same sounds. English moggie is slang for "kitty-cat": must be related, huh? Persian bad means "good" but is just like English bad, so obviously Iranians have a warped moral code and have reversed bad and good, right? Unless both those words are derived from German Bad "bath" or Turkish bad "wind". As for the semantics, they're not the same at all.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Vallancey claimed Mog in Irish was a "priest" just like in Iranian.

Vallancey claimed a lot of baseless things. Mog was a king, and the Irish really didn't have any such thing as a "priest".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I thought Latin directio was from PIE *reg I cf. right, rex, direct

Maybe; don't know how to explain the di- part though, in that case.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I think I'm going to have to rescind my statement about being mixed up about how the forms Odin, Vatican, Avesta, and Veda are not cognates, because it looks like they are.

NO. THEY AREN'T. Vague look-alikes aren't "cognates". You need more than that.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Odin cf. Woden "seer" (amongst other things),

NO. It means RAGE. I have told you this before.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Vatis "seer"

or "soothsayer" or "fortune-teller" or "augur" or "prophet". In ENGLISH the word seer does come from the verb see, but in Latin vates is not from videre which, you should note, has an "i" instead of an "a" and a "d" instead of a "t"; and the Celtic forms have the analogous distinction. A Sanskrit cognate of vates is bat. "in truth; amen; indeed!"; German wetten, English bet (originally meaning "predict" more than "wager") is a cognate in Germanic. Note again: Sanskrit "b" corresponds to Germanic "w" (though it ended back at "b" in English) and Latin "v" (though Sanskrit "v" also merges into Latin "v").

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

compare Veda and Avesta cf. wisdom, evidence, hollywood

Yes, now the "e" vowel in the Indo-Iranian Veda, Avesta does correspond to "i" in Germanic wise, wit or Latin videre "to see" (root of evidence). You were doing fine until you threw in "hollywood": WTF???

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

now I'm wondering whether the proposed relationship between druwid "seer" and dervish "sufi" might actually be accurate too.

Dervish is from an Iranian root meaning "poor" (with no clear cognates in other IE branches). I can, however, if you like, point you to a bunch of Celtic chauvinist web-sites which will prove to you beyond question that all religious ideas about monotheism and afterlife and so on were invented by the Celts, and that Zoroaster as well as Pythagoras learned everything they knew by studying under Druid masters.

EDIT: missed this bit of lunacy, because your quote tags mismatched a little.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

But Greek mega is a loan from Iranian Maga. And Irish Magh certainly does not derive from Greek. Greece xi - xii. Persian Loanwords and Names in Greek

Sigh. Greek mega is a perfectly common native word. And yes, Irish magh certainly does not derive from the Greek any more than the Greek derives from the Persian. All three derive independently from Proto-Indo-European. You have profoundly misread your source, which states that Persian names starting Baga- often get twisted by the Greeks into Mega- by "folk etymology", which means replacing something you aren't familiar with by something that you think it might have come from. It is precisely because mega IS A NATIVE GREEK WORD that it was mistakenly used to REPLACE something from Persian.

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

...can you clue me in to what the numbers are?

237, 273, 254, and 248.

Originally Posted by bob x

You are mistaken. Where Sanskrit has "bh" vs. "b" other languages will often show two different sounds: in Germanic "b" vs. "w" but in Italic "f" vs. "v" as for example bherati "to carry" is English bear, Latin fer but balati "to exert power" is English wield while bala "power" is Latin valor. In Avestan they collapse into the same sound. Now PIE may not have sounded like Sanskrit, but must have had two different sounds: if it was one sound to begin with, it could not have systematically shifted into two different sounds in the descendant languages (how would the Latins "know" that this was one of the "b" sounds that the Germans made a "w" so that they should make it "v" while that was one of the "b" sounds that stayed "b" in German so they should make it "f"?)

No that's pretty much what I said. Sanskirt shows these aspirated plosives where none of the other IE. languages do. I view this as a sign of 4 cases where Sanskrit develops from the proto-Indo-Iranian consonants where Avestan doesn't. And b > w or v or even v > b is not uncommon so why would that mean it had to have developed from an aspirated plosive/

Originally Posted by bob x

I have no clue why you would think "z" an intermediate between "gh" and "h".

If a sibilant like [s] can develop into an aspirate like [h]>(h) then I don't see why a sibilant like [z] or something softer like an [s] wouldn't develop into [h].

Originally Posted by bob x

I would. It would be unique in the history of the world for z > j > g rather than g > j > z.

I have found evidence of a z in the word "zoo" being pronounced j "joo" in Vietnamese, but getting from j > g would appear to be less likely. But what about j > dj > g?

Originally Posted by bob x

Not likely: "x" to "sh" occasionally happens, but we don't find "sh" anywhere.

If it occasionally happens that's all I need to know. "sh" to "s" happens too right? It's not something you can discount unless you're trying to attribute some kind of language dominance to a people other than the Aryans (Irano-Afghans).

Originally Posted by bob x

There are, in fact, a couple of features in Avestan which are more archaic than Sanskrit, but you have failed to hit on a single one of them.

And I got another question. Avestan is more archaic than Old Persian. Yet Avestan shows Airya whereas Old Persian shows Ariya. So how do you know that the Vedic with its Arya form is not contemporary to Old Persian or maybe Young Avestan? Old Persian and Sanskrit was mutually intelligble.

Originally Posted by bob x

There is nothing easier in the world than randomly rummaging through dictionaries of different languages and finding words with the same sounds. English moggie is slang for "kitty-cat": must be related, huh? Persian bad means "good" but is just like English bad, so obviously Iranians have a warped moral code and have reversed bad and good, right? Unless both those words are derived from German Bad "bath" or Turkish bad "wind". As for the semantics, they're not the same at all.

Actually this form bad is kind of an interesting one for me. From what I understand bad in Persian does not mean "good" it means "bad," but bad also cf. faith, better : NPer. bettar, and bad also means "powerful" maybe from another root cf. potent so maybe faith belongs here? And yes there is also bad cf. wind, but I've also noticed that Sem. bedouin means "people of the arid land" which maybe be some sort of confusion between Iran. behdeen "people of good faith" and [people of the] bad "wind/arid" + din "cult"

Originally Posted by bob x

Vallancey claimed a lot of baseless things. Mog was a king, and the Irish really didn't have any such thing as a "priest".

But weren't the Magush well-nigh kings?

Originally Posted by bob x

Maybe; don't know how to explain the di- part though, in that case.

OED says di- fr. dis prefix repr. L. dis-, corr. to Germ. *tiz- and rel. to Gr. DIA-.

Originally Posted by bob x

NO. THEY AREN'T. Vague look-alikes aren't "cognates". You need more than that.

NO. It means RAGE. I have told you this before.

see Wōden Etymology and origins

Originally Posted by bob x

or "soothsayer" or "fortune-teller" or "augur" or "prophet". In ENGLISH the word seer does come from the verb see, but in Latin vates is not from videre which, you should note, has an "i" instead of an "a" and a "d" instead of a "t"; and the Celtic forms have the analogous distinction. A Sanskrit cognate of vates is bat. "in truth; amen; indeed!"; German wetten, English bet (originally meaning "predict" more than "wager") is a cognate in Germanic. Note again: Sanskrit "b" corresponds to Germanic "w" (though it ended back at "b" in English) and Latin "v" (though Sanskrit "v" also merges into Latin "v").

See Vatican- are its orgins from paganism

[bob x]

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

237, 273, 254, and 248.

Sigh... I didn't want you to just repeat the numbers. I was asking if you would give me some clue what they are, if they're not page numbers. Before the 237, you have a related text (roughly corresponding Irish/English, both with the "Greeks of Scythia" weirdness) marked 123. Before the 273 is a section marked 29 in the middle and 159 at the end. Before the 254 is a section 137 (where Cecrops, founding king of Athens, is mentioned as the king where Nemed came from). Before the 248 is a section 129 which is obviously not from the Lebor at all: it describes inferences drawn from putting different sections of the Lebor together, and variant traditions disagreeing with the Lebor, and I'm interested to know what the source is.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

No that's pretty much what I said.

You didn't understand at all what I was talking about, but it is probably more my fault for not explaining well. Where the original language had two different sounds, then in the descendant languages we would usually expect that these would stay two different sounds, even if not the same two sounds as before (one or both might shift: "p" and "f" were different in Latin, and become "p" and "h" in Spanish, pater/filius "father/son" > pater/hijo), but what used to be two different sounds might merge into one ("f" and "h" were different in Latin, but merge in Spanish). The reverse is more difficult: where the original language had only one sound, we do not expect it to split into two different sounds in descendants, except where the shift is driven by differences in the neighboring sounds: "c" in Latin was always pronounced "k", but before a front-vowel (i/e) it typically shifts to "s" where a back-vowel (a/o/u) leaves it alone, cattus/centum "cat/hundred" becoming English cat ("k" sound) but cent ("s" sound). There is no difference in neighboring sounds that distinguishes Sanskrit "b" from "bh" (or the corresponding Germanic "w" vs. "b" or the corresponding Latin "v" vs. "f") since both can occur before any sort of vowel. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE, therefore, that this arose from the Avestan, in which both of them are "b"; if the single sound "b" had originally been present in all of the words, there is no reason why some cases of "b" would shift and not others, particularly not in systematic ways where, in each descendant language, the "bear/fer/bharati" word would shift one way while the "wield/valor/bala(ti)" word would shift the other, despite the fact that each descendant is shifting by a different pattern. It is totally established that Avestan shows a merger of two original sounds into one, here and in the analogous cases where Sanskrit also has aspirated vs. unaspirated while Avestan has a merger.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Sanskirt shows these aspirated plosives where none of the other IE. languages do.

It is hotly debated among Indo-Europeanists what the two original sounds were, whether Sanskrit's "b" vs. "bh" is faithful to the original, or whether there used to be glottalized consonants (something no IE language now has but related Nostratic languages do) which got reduced in varying ways in the descendant languages. It is however believed that in the Indo-Iranian branch at least, "b" and "bh" was original.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I view this as a sign of 4 cases where Sanskrit develops from the proto-Indo-Iranian consonants where Avestan doesn't.

There have to have been 8 separate consonants in the Indo-Iranian, which are merged into 4 in the Avestan, where Sanskrit preserves the set of 8.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

If a sibilant like [s] can develop into an aspirate like [h]>(h) then I don't see why a sibilant like [z] or something softer like an [s] wouldn't develop into [h].

What you were claiming is that "gh" shifting to "h", which is totally direct and straightforward, could only have happened through an intermediate stage "z": the shift "z" to "h" is not impossible, though rare, but "gh" to "z" is totally bizarre.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I have found evidence of a z in the word "zoo" being pronounced j "joo" in Vietnamese

You are confusing what happens to non-native words that get borrowed, with the evolution within a language of native words. Vietnamese doesn't HAVE the "z" sound, so they have to substitute the next-nearest approximation when they borrow a word like "zoo".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

but getting from j > g would appear to be less likely. But what about j > dj > g?

Both of these are unheard-of.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

If it occasionally happens that's all I need to know.

Since x > sh is rare, the expectation is that the majority of descendants would retain the original, a small minority showing the shift.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

"sh" to "s" happens too right?

Rarely. So under your hypothesis, the majority should have the original "x"; of the minority, most should show "sh"; hardly any should have "s". Instead ALL BUT ONE have "s".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

It's not something you can discount unless you're trying to attribute some kind of language dominance to a people other than the Aryans (Irano-Afghans).

It is totally implausible, unless you are arbitrarily trying to attribute some kind of language dominance to Irano-Afghans. But if you think the Avestan form is original, then why don't you see "Aryan" as a distortion, and "Iran" (pronounced EYE-ran) as the original?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

And I got another question. Avestan is more archaic than Old Persian. Yet Avestan shows Airya whereas Old Persian shows Ariya.

Not only have I talked about this with you repeatedly, I just got through asking you, specifically, to stop replying without paying attention to what I am saying. FOR AT LEAST THE FOURTH TIME: Old Persian is written in a weird script, syllabic cuneiform where each character is consonant+vowel, and the pronunciations of the words are not faithfully reflected, as the words are shoehorned into that shape. My best guess as to how a.ri.ya. was pronounced is that the ri. character is here being used for "ir" and that the word was airya exactly like in the Avestan. Is there any possibility that you could respond to this hypothesis of mine, or at least acknowledge that I have made it? Or am I going to have to post this same thing again next time, and then again, and then again...

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

there is also bad cf. wind, but I've also noticed that Sem. bedouin means "people of the arid land" which maybe be some sort of confusion between Iran. behdeen "people of good faith" and [people of the] bad "wind/arid" + din "cult"

Hopeless... I was giving you those words thinking it was OBVIOUS TO ANYBODY that they had NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING to do with each other. OK: so do you think Iran is derived from English "I ran" because Irano-Afghans are all cowards, related of course to iron in the sense of "to flatten out wrinkles"?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

But weren't the Magush well-nigh kings?

The shah was the king. From Cyrus on, no rival to the royal authority was tolerated.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

OED says di- fr. dis prefix repr. L. dis-, corr. to Germ. *tiz- and rel. to Gr. DIA-.

OK, my bad.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

see Wōden Etymology and origins

Yeah, it says the name means "rage", just like I told you. They also suggest a connection to the PIE *wat "shamanic trance" root in Latin vates "soothsayer; diviner" and the Irish faidh. That's possible, but there is no relation to the root of Germanic wit/wise, Latin videre "to see", Irish fis "sight", Indo-Iranian veda/avesta. There's a rare Sanskrit vaadiza "soothsayer" that looks to belong to the other root: the two roots are plainly distinguished in all branches.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

See Vatican- are its orgins from paganism

Yeah, confirming what I told you. Do you have a point?

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

Sigh... I didn't want you to just repeat the numbers. I was asking if you would give me some clue what they are, if they're not page numbers. Before the 237, you have a related text (roughly corresponding Irish/English, both with the "Greeks of Scythia" weirdness) marked 123. Before the 273 is a section marked 29 in the middle and 159 at the end. Before the 254 is a section 137 (where Cecrops, founding king of Athens, is mentioned as the king where Nemed came from). Before the 248 is a section 129 which is obviously not from the Lebor at all: it describes inferences drawn from putting different sections of the Lebor together, and variant traditions disagreeing with the Lebor, and I'm interested to know what the source is.

I don't know what to tell you. I told you what the book is called, who wrote it, and cited where the forms in question appear, and that they appear in two languages. 1 is in English and the other looks to be a Celtic language that it was translated from. The only other thing I figure might help is that 237 for example is taken from SECTION V First Redaction L3y11: F7y10.

Originally Posted by bob x

It is totally established that Avestan shows a merger of two original sounds into one, here and in the analogous cases where Sanskrit also has aspirated vs. unaspirated while Avestan has a merger.

It is however believed that in the Indo-Iranian branch at least, "b" and "bh" was original.

Originally Posted by bob x

There have to have been 8 separate consonants in the Indo-Iranian, which are merged into 4 in the Avestan, where Sanskrit preserves the set of 8.

There have to have been??? Because Sanskrit shows two forms one of which no other IE. languages shows? No way! For all we know Sanskrit was affected by another language and THAT's the reason it shows aspirated plosives, whereas Avestan and ALL the other IE. languages were not affected in the same way and maintained the unaspirated plosives or whatever they shifted to.

Originally Posted by bob x

What you were claiming is that "gh" shifting to "h", which is totally direct and straightforward, could only have happened through an intermediate stage "z": the shift "z" to "h" is not impossible, though rare, but "gh" to "z" is totally bizarre.

Yeah, that's what I was saying gh > z > h.

Originally Posted by bob x

You are confusing what happens to non-native words that get borrowed, with the evolution within a language of native words. Vietnamese doesn't HAVE the "z" sound, so they have to substitute the next-nearest approximation when they borrow a word like "zoo".

But how do you know that there wasn't a lot of intermixing with non-IE speakers? Pelasgians, Etruscans, the Basque, Seal people, etc...

Originally Posted by bob x

Since x > sh is rare, the expectation is that the majority of descendants would retain the original, a small minority showing the shift.

Rarely. So under your hypothesis, the majority should have the original "x"; of the minority, most should show "sh"; hardly any should have "s". Instead ALL BUT ONE have "s".

Tocharian Latin, Old Irish, Gothic all show "s". And what is interesting is that is that all the Greco-Aryan languages including Armenian to the exclusion of Sanskrit show "h" as well as "s" and Hittite shows "sh"

Initially my argument was that h > x > s e.g. Ahura > *Axura > Ashura > Asura.

Originally Posted by bob x

It is totally implausible, unless you are arbitrarily trying to attribute some kind of language dominance to Irano-Afghans. But if you think the Avestan form is original, then why don't you see "Aryan" as a distortion, and "Iran" (pronounced EYE-ran) as the original?

I do see it as whatever it was. If it was Eye-ran then it was Eye-ran. On the Yahweh-Yireh post I was trying to point out how the term Aryan is intentionally and for political reasons not associated with the Iranians in textbooks whereas it is associated with both the Vedic people, the Indo-Europeans, and the Nazis. You implied that the textbooks were right to call the Vedic people Aryan but not correct to call the Iranians Aryan when so far we have concluded that neither group ever really called themselves Aryan verbatim. You were also telling me that it's not a good idea for the Iranians to call themselves Aryan because the term would be confused with Nazis, but then you turned around and said that it made sense for the textbooks to call the Vedic people Aryan. Moreover my point is that the Iranians are called the Iranians because they have been using some form of the term Iran as a national designation throughout there history beginning with the Avestan form Airyana > Eran[shahr] > Iran[shahr] > Iran > Aryana which designates their ancestral homeland. Talgeri is one of the few Indic scholars who has come forth with this new interpretation that implies the Indics used the Arya "Aryan" as a national designation, yet most any Indic person you speak to on the subject will tell you that the term is used in the spiritual sense and though in post-Vedic (I stress post-Vedic; centuries after the Yasnas were attested) texts that the form Arya to designate the homeland Aryavarta. But the Iranians live there today as well as on part Airyana. The Indic speakers that live there are not even Hindu, but virtually all Urdo speaking Muslims in the strict sense and I doubt that the designation is even relevant to them. And lastly, Talgeri also promotes the out of India hypothesis which implies that the Indo-Europeans migrated out of in India rather than the reverse which if you ask me is a big joke. So at present I do see Aryan as a distortion of Airyana, but I also see Roman as a distortion of Romanus. Yet both Aryan and Roman are just Irano-Afghan and Romance family designations, respectively.

Originally Posted by bob x

Yeah, it says the name means "rage", just like I told you. They also suggest a connection to the PIE *wat "shamanic trance" root in Latin vates "soothsayer; diviner" and the Irish faidh. That's possible, but there is no relation to the root of Germanic wit/wise, Latin videre "to see", Irish fis "sight", Indo-Iranian veda/avesta. There's a rare Sanskrit vaadiza "soothsayer" that looks to belong to the other root: the two roots are plainly distinguished in all branches.

Yeah, confirming what I told you. Do you have a point?

Oh, I just assumed that PIE *wat "prophet, poet" (but compare Avestan: aipi-vat-`to understand, comprehend') was the root of words like wit, but it resembles PIE *weid- "to know" in sound and meaning so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if the linguists distinguish the two roots so that people wouldn't come to realize that the Vatican and the Avesta and Veda don't share more in common than just expressions associated with religion, not to mention that the Vatican was built over a Mithraeum.

[bob x]

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I don't know what to tell you.

WHAT THE NUMBERS MEAN! What is so difficult about this?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

The only other thing I figure might help is that 237 for example is taken from SECTION V First Redaction L3y11: F7y10.

So the "237" is a footnote number? OK, so where is "129" taken from?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

There have to have been???

There were four pairs of sounds conventionally marked (because of the Sanskrit pattern) as b/bh, d/dh, g/gh, gw/gwh (as opposed to the unvoiced p, t, k, kw where there need not have been any p/ph etc. distinctions). THEY DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE BEEN "b" and "bh" etc. originally (there are conflicting theories about what the original sounds were). But there do have to have been eight different sounds originally, definitely not just four like in Avestan. Because in other descendant languages we get two different sounds depending on whether it is a "b" case or a "bh" case; what two sounds we get varies from one branch to another, but we keep getting two, not one. So it didn't start as one sound.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

For all we know Sanskrit was affected by another language and THAT's the reason it shows aspirated plosives

And how would the Germanics and the Italics telepathically know which words in Sanskrit got a "bh" from the alien source, so they could know whether or not to keep it as "b" rather than shift it to "w" (in the case of the Germans) or shift it to "f" rather than keep it as "b" (in the case of the Latins). Your hypothesis, remember, is that ALL the sounds were just "b"; that's how it is in Avestan, and somehow you've gotten it into your head that that's the original, so why do Germans sometimes shift that "b", and sometimes not, and Latins shift if and only if the Germans didn't, and Sanskrit lets you predict which shifts will happen?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Yeah, that's what I was saying gh > z > h.

I KNOW that's what you're saying. I was asking WHY you would think that: "gh" straight to "h" makes sense; "gh" to "z"???

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

what is interesting is that is that all the Greco-Aryan languages including Armenian to the exclusion of Sanskrit show "h"

Greek only has "h" at the beginning of words, not always in place of "s"; Armenian "h" is something completely different; other branches of Indo-Iranian like Dardic do not have the s > h shift which is unique to Iranian.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Hittite shows "sh"

Possible, but not likely. They wrote in cuneiform, which is terrible for figuring out what the real pronunciations were. Their convention was to use the syllables with plain "s" only for Sumerograms and Akkadograms (spelling out words in the older languages instead of in their own) and the syllables with "sh" for Hittite, but that does not necessarily mean "sh" was the sibilant in Hittite, and few scholars think it was. Brill's Dictionary assumes the sibilant was just "s" but except for a little discussion of how consonant clusters including the sibilant reduce, there isn't much to explain why they think so.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Initially my argument was that h > x > s e.g. Ahura > *Axura > Ashura > Asura.

Then the majority of branches should have "h". Of the remainder, most should have "x". Of the few that are left, most should have "sh". Only very late derivative languages should have "s" as the-minority-of-the-minority-of-the-minority probability for all three shifts shoudn't even give us so much as one example among the ancient cases. This, of course, is nothing like reality.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I do see it as whatever it was. If it was Eye-ran then it was Eye-ran.

OK then. It is spelled IRAN. Can we stop this nonsense now?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

On the Yahweh-Yireh post I was trying to point out how the term Aryan is intentionally and for political reasons not associated with the Iranians

Sigh... apparently not. THE REASON THE TERM "ARYAN" IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH IRANIANS IS... I THINK I HAVE TOLD YOU THIS BEFORE... MORE THAN ONCE... ARE YOU READY? IT IS BECAUSE THE IRANIAN PEOPLE HAVE NEVER EVER EVER USED THAT WORD FOR THEMSELVES, NOT SINCE "IRANIAN" PEOPLE EXISTED, NOT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

whereas it is associated with both the Vedic people

Correctly.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

the Indo-Europeans

Seemed like a reasonable guess, but it was wrong.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

and the Nazis.

Very wrong, but in order to teach that the Nazis were wrong, we do have to explain what they were saying.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

You implied that the textbooks were right to call the Vedic people Aryan but not correct to call the Iranians Aryan when so far we have concluded that neither group ever really called themselves Aryan verbatim.

English speakers use -an as an adjective ending. German speakers use -isch instead. We will continue to do so, whether you like it or not. The ary- stem to which those adjectival endings have been attached is strictly from the Sanskrit. Your people shifted the vowel, a very long time ago, and the standard name for your people reflects that. I have told you this before. I don't understand what it is so difficult here.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

You were also telling me that it's not a good idea for the Iranians to call themselves Aryan because the term would be confused with Nazis

It is the peculiar combination of grabbing this inappropriate name "Aryan" and making exaggerated pretensions to be the one and only race in the world which ever thought about God or souls or right and wrong, and taught all the other untermenschen the ideas they needed to become civilized, which makes you sound like a Nazi.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

but then you turned around and said that it made sense for the textbooks to call the Vedic people Aryan.

That's what they called themselves (except that they have different adjectival endings other than -n, if that really matters to anyone).

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Moreover my point is that the Iranians are called the Iranians because they have been using some form of the term Iran as a national designation throughout there history

No, that's MY point actually.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

beginning with the Avestan form Airyana > Eran[shahr] > Iran[shahr] > Iran > Aryana

You were fine all the way up there until the end. "Iran" has stayed "Iran".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Talgeri is one of the few Indic scholars who has come forth with this new interpretation that implies the Indics used the Arya "Aryan" as a national designation

There is nothing even slightly new about that. It has been taken for granted by Sanskritists since the 1600's.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

yet most any Indic person you speak to on the subject will tell you that the term is used in the spiritual sense

Among other senses.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

The Indic speakers that live there are not even Hindu, but virtually all Urdo speaking Muslims

So? Linguistically, "Urdu" and "Hindi" are not even separate languages. Now you are saying that all Muslims are basically the same? That's how you end up being called "Arabs" by the more ignorant elements of the American population.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

And lastly, Talgeri also promotes the out of India hypothesis which implies that the Indo-Europeans migrated out of in India rather than the reverse which if you ask me is a big joke.

I would agree with you there.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

So at present I do see Aryan as a distortion of Airyana

Quite the reverse, actually: all cognates in other branches have ar-

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I also see Roman as a distortion of Romanus.

No, that's just a change of adjectival endings. English speakers use -an to form adjectives. I know I have told you this before.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Yet both Aryan and Roman are just Irano-Afghan and Romance family designations, respectively.

No, "Aryan" does not occur in the Irano-Afghan languages at all; "Roman" is more narrow than "Romance", referring either to inhabitants of the city, or to the political structure of the old Empire.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Oh, I just assumed that PIE *wat "prophet, poet" (but compare Avestan: aipi-vat-`to understand, comprehend') was the root of words like wit

The two roots are distinct in every branch, as far as I can tell. That means there were two separate words all the way back to PIE. Now, if you go further back than PIE, it could well be that those two came from one

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

so that I wouldn't be surprised if the linguists distinguish the two roots so that people wouldn't come to realize...

Don't start stupid conspiracy theories. Linguists distinguish the two roots because they are two separate roots.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

not to mention that the Vatican was built over a Mithraeum.

The Vatican was a CEMETERY before the Christians took it over. It was swamp ground that nobody wanted. People write lots of horse manure about the Mithraists, always wanting to pretend they had more to do with the Christians than it now appears they really did.

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

WHAT THE NUMBERS MEAN! What is so difficult about this?

So the "237" is a footnote number? OK, so where is "129" taken from?

I'll have to get back to you on this because I don't have my book on me, but from what I can remember apart from the numbers marking the beginning of each verse in the Volume there is hardly any explanation as to where the Celtic source is derived from, but the books is called "The Book of the Taking of Ireland."

Originally Posted by bob x

Your hypothesis, remember, is that ALL the sounds were just "b"; that's how it is in Avestan, and somehow you've gotten it into your head that that's the original, so why do Germans sometimes shift that "b", and sometimes not, and Latins shift if and only if the Germans didn't, and Sanskrit lets you predict which shifts will happen?

So 1. Sanskrit "b" corresponds to Germanic "w" and Latin "v" and 2.) Sanskrit "bh" corresponds to Germanic "b" and Latin "f".

So how do you know that a foreign element didn't affect "b" such that "b" > Avestan "b" Germanic "b" Sanskrit "bh" and Latin "f"?

Originally Posted by bob x

I KNOW that's what you're saying. I was asking WHY you would think that: "gh" straight to "h" makes sense; "gh" to "z"???

Sorry you're question is not very clear. Is it impossible that "gh" > "z" > "h"? I just looks to me like in the case with *PIE *gwh> Skr. gh that a development straight to "h" looks too quick and unlikely and I'm compelled to conclude that there had to have been an intermediary stage like "z" or "j" or "s" before "h" that Sanskrit just doesn't show. Proto-Indo-Iranian shows *ǰʰ > Av. "z" where Skr. is "h." It's another case of this bs tendency to stay as close to the original false hypothesis that Sanskrit is closer to PIE than all the other IE. languages, but it's not unlikely that either ǰʰ or there was no ǰʰ but rather *ǰ and *ǰ > z > h is it?

Originally Posted by bob x

Greek only has "h" at the beginning of words, not always in place of "s"; Armenian "h" is something completely different;

Big deal. They show "h" instead of "s" so how can you be 100% certain that "s" wasn't a product of "h" via an intermediary like "x" or "sh" which other languages like Avestan show or like Hittite at least are believed to display?

Originally Posted by bob x

Then the majority of branches should have "h". Of the remainder, most should have "x". Of the few that are left, most should have "sh". Only very late derivative languages should have "s" as the-minority-of-the-minority-of-the-minority probability for all three shifts shoudn't even give us so much as one example among the ancient cases. This, of course, is nothing like reality.

Should have would have could have. To much conjecturing. We know that Avestan has "h", "x", and "s" Greek has "h" and "s" and Armenian has "h" Hittite might have "sh" and Sanskrit only s. There is no sure way to conclude that s >h and not the other way around like h > x > sh > s. And "s" doesn't regularly shift to "x" does it?

Originally Posted by bob x

Sigh... apparently not. THE REASON THE TERM "ARYAN" IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH IRANIANS IS... I THINK I HAVE TOLD YOU THIS BEFORE... MORE THAN ONCE... ARE YOU READY? IT IS BECAUSE THE IRANIAN PEOPLE HAVE NEVER EVER EVER USED THAT WORD FOR THEMSELVES, NOT SINCE "IRANIAN" PEOPLE EXISTED, NOT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY.

YOU ARE BEING TOO TECHNICAL. Just like the lame ass imaginary laymen I was talking about. If the reason Aryan is not associated with Iranian then why does most of the literature from at least Müller 1847 Bopp 1850 Nolan 1857 up to now associate the Irano-Afghans (and Indo-Iranians) with the term "Aryan."

Originally Posted by bob x

English speakers use -an as an adjective ending. German speakers use -isch instead. We will continue to do so, whether you like it or not. The ary- stem to which those adjectival endings have been attached is strictly from the Sanskrit. Your people shifted the vowel, a very long time ago, and the standard name for your people reflects that. I have told you this before. I don't understand what it is so difficult here.

That's what they called themselves (except that they have different adjectival endings other than -n, if that really matters to anyone).

Correctly.

No they never called themselves Aryan verbatim. According to you -n was a modern western development. The textbook itself even appears to make a point of this distinguishing Arya as a linguistic term and Aryan as a "national" term like it matters. The point is that the Iranians and according to you the Indics both used the term "Aryan" as a national designation.

Originally Posted by bob x

Seemed like a reasonable guess, but it was wrong.

IT WAS PROPAGANDA.

Originally Posted by bob x

Very wrong, but in order to teach that the Nazis were wrong, we do have to explain what they were saying.

Yeah, and in order to prove just how WRONG they were wouldn't it make sense to show that the ancestors of the Germans did not establish the First World-Empire, their literature does not date back to the furthest reaches of antiquity among the Indo-Europeans, and that a good deal of the religious expressions among the IE. were not derived from the Germans but oddly enough the ancient Irano-Afghans who do have a realistic association with the term "Aryan" were responsible for having established the First World-Empire, their literature is ancient, and the religious expressions that westerners still associate with today are characteristic of those that can be traced back to this ancient literature? And if not that then wouldn't it be fair to the Iranians and if it is just the Indics to point out that the term Aryan was not only misused but had been and is still used among the Indo-Iranians?

Originally Posted by bob x

No, that's MY point actually.

No its not exactly your point. My point is that the Irano-Aryans actually had a national homeland called Airyana "Aryan land" in the beginning whereas, although the Indo-Aryans did call themselves Arya in some ethnic sense they did not mention any national homeland Aryavarta "Aryan land" until Manu-smriti was composed which was hundreds of years later.

Originally Posted by bob x

You were fine all the way up there until the end. "Iran" has stayed "Iran".

Yeah as the name of the country Iran, but Aryana has been used among the Afghans at least since the 1950s, not to mention forms like Aryan, and Ariya. And see you just got confused about whether I was referring to the Iranians or the Irano-Afghans.

Originally Posted by bob x

There is nothing even slightly new about that. It has been taken for granted by Sanskritists since the 1600's.

I don't think so. I think that this idea that "it has been taken for granted" is recent Hindu national propaganda that runs along the same lines as the Hindus trying to claim that the Indo-Europeans migrated out of India and not the reverse.

Originally Posted by bob x

Among other senses.

The other senses like the national sense was only pointed out recently by the Hindu nationalists.

Originally Posted by bob x

So? Linguistically, "Urdu" and "Hindi" are not even separate languages. Now you are saying that all Muslims are basically the same? That's how you end up being called "Arabs" by the more ignorant elements of the American population.

No I am saying that all Muslims are definitely NOT the same. Before Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, thanks to the CIA, Taliban had a good connotation. The term Taliban was interchangeable with the term Sufi and Sufism was essentially Zoroastrianism embracive of Islamic elements. The Urdu speakers are a different breed of Hindi speakers, and they're not even Hindu they're Muslim. Pakistan even means purest. I doubt very much so that these Indic speakers give two shits about Aryavarta or anything slightly related to Indic literature. Most of them are the product of waves of recent migrations into the region.

Originally Posted by bob x

Quite the reverse, actually: all cognates in other branches have ar-

I know New Persian has Artesh cf. Army. And what about Old Persian cognates like Arta? Are you sure Old Persian Ariya was pronounced Airya?

Originally Posted by bob x

No, that's just a change of adjectival endings. English speakers use -an to form adjectives. I know I have told you this before.

No, "Aryan" does not occur in the Irano-Afghan languages at all; "Roman" is more narrow than "Romance", referring either to inhabitants of the city, or to the political structure of the old Empire.

"Aryan" as a translation does occur Arya however does not, but Airya does and so does Airyene whereas Aryantioccurs in Indic. Just as "Roman" is a translation referring to inhabitants of the city whereas the form appears as Romanus in the ancient literature.

[bob x]

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

apart from the numbers marking the beginning of each verse in the Volume there is hardly any explanation as to where the Celtic source is derived from

So the numbers are verse numbers? OK, whatever. It does appear that the use of "Scythia" all over the place is from the Irish original text and not the later commentators. The particular case of Nemed (by the way, I find that "Nemed" is Irish for "privileged status"; sometimes nemed is "holy place" but more often used for people, doer nemed "conditional status" is the social rank of tradesmen who are treated as upper-caste if they have patrons who are nemed "aristocratic status"; probably related to English name) is what had me disputing your accuracy, because my sources said specifically Nemed was said to have come from Greece and you were saying he was said to have come from Scythia. So it turns out Nemed is said in the Irish text to come from "the Greeks of Scythia" which sounds to me like "Scythia" was just a generic word for "east somewhere" as far as they knew.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

So 1. Sanskrit "b" corresponds to Germanic "w" and Latin "v" and 2.) Sanskrit "bh" corresponds to Germanic "b" and Latin "f".

So how do you know that a foreign element didn't affect "b" such that "b" > Avestan "b" Germanic "b" Sanskrit "bh" and Latin "f"?

AND "b" > Avestan "b" Germanic "w" Sanskrit "b" Latin "v".
If you insist that the Avestan (which only has one sound) is the original, then the same sound in the original has to have gone two different ways in each of the descendant languages. Your "foreign elements" have to have been present in India, Germany, and Italy; in all three places they arbitrarily divided words containing "b" into two categories which were affected in two different ways, and just by coincidence the b/w categories in German, b/bh categories in Sanskrit, and f/v in Latin agree. I'm sorry, this doesn't make any sense; the way this obviously worked is that the original had two sounds here, and the distinction between the two was usually preserved even though the shifts were not the same in each descendant group, but Avestan was one group that merged the two into one.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Sorry you're question is not very clear. Is it impossible that "gh" > "z" > "h"?

Certainly it wouldn't happen directly. I suppose "gh" could go to plain "g" to palatalized "gy" to a "j" simplified to "z" and then devoice to "s" and reduce to "h". This is a very bizarre proposal, and I don't know why you would even think "gh" has much in common with "z".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I just looks to me like in the case with *PIE *gwh> Skr. gh that a development straight to "h" looks too quick and unlikely

??? "gh" and "h" are very similar, and going straight to "h" is completely unproblematic. You think it's "unlikely" because it's too easy?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Big deal. They [Greek and Armenian] show "h" instead of "s"

Not in words like asura/ahura which you were citing. Greek "h" is strictly initial and represents nothing in other languages (insertion before initial "k" as in hekaton) as often as "s"; elsewhere, Greek has "s" like usual. Armenian "h" is totally different: in hayr "father" for example it represents what is a "p" everywhere else.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

so how can you be 100% certain

Without tape-recordings from ancient times we can't be 100% certain about anything. We deal in probabilities: you propose insanely improbable scenarios, with zero justification except that your desire to force-fit everything to an Iranian origin. It is not my burden of proof to show you 100% certainly wrong; it would be your burden, as the inventor of these hypotheses, to show that your proposals have any likelihood.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

that "s" wasn't a product of "h" via an intermediary like "x" or "sh" which other languages like Avestan show or like Hittite at least are believed to display?

No form like *axura shows up in Avestan or anywhere else, and Hittite is not believed to have had the "sh" sound (as I just got through telling you). The hypothesis s > h is straightforward: we would expect, if that were true, that most show "s" and only a small minority show "h", which is what we see. Your alternative h > x > sh > s requires that almost all (instead of a minority) made the initial h > x shift, that ALL (without exception) of those which shifted to "x" then made the x > sh shift, and then ALL of these (without exception) made the sh > s shift, so that there is no trace of the intermediaries anywhere.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

"s" doesn't regularly shift to "x" does it?

No, it would be s > h > x. We should then expect to see that in most cases, the first shift didn't happen at all (indeed, the majority of languages retain "s" everywhere), AND, if the first shift happens, only a minority of the "h" then go on to "x" (indeed, that is what we see in Avestan).

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

YOU ARE BEING TOO TECHNICAL.

What is "TECHNICAL" about spelling "Iran" as "Iran" rather than twisting it into a different spelling which has a different meaning, and is not the name of "Iran"? What if the president of Tajikistan had decided he wanted his country to be called "Ireland" from then on? Would you be here, arguing on and on and on and on and on about how you are the "real" Ireland, and it is all a political conspiracy against you that people keep using "Ireland" for that other place (you know, the one where that name has actually been USED before?), and accusing me of being "technical" for saying that "Irish" and "Iranian" are not the same word?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

why does most of the literature from at least Müller 1847 Bopp 1850 Nolan 1857 up to now associate the Irano-Afghans (and Indo-Iranians) with the term "Aryan."

That's not true. Bopp 1850 is the only author you have shown who does so (and of course, he actually used arisch if the precise form of the adjectival ending matters). Mueller of course used it for the ancestral Indo-Europeans (or rather, his imaginary picture of them).

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

According to you -n was a modern western development.

Adjectival endings with "n" in them, with or without other letters, are practically universal in the Indo-European group. The Celtic double-n in Eireann "Irish" etc. could have been written with a single-n, but apparently you get real technical about these things. The Latin -anus instead of -an in Romanus "Roman" is just the same thing, except that Latin needs a masculine singular ending tacked on afterward. The old Indo-Iranian languages likewise needed some further endings after the "n", Avestan no less so than Sanskrit. Why in the world do you care? Why in the world do you expect anybody else to care?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

The textbook itself even appears to make a point of this distinguishing Arya as a linguistic term and Aryan as a "national" term like it matters.

WHAT textbook are you referring to?

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

The point is that the Iranians and according to you the Indics both used the term "Aryan" as a national designation.

No, Iranians have NEVER EVER EVER used that term, at all, for anything, ever since they existed as a distinct people. They have always used, instead, the related word now commonly spelled "Iran".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

IT ["Aryan" for "proto-Indo-European"] WAS PROPAGANDA.

No, it was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. The suggestion that Eireann "Irish" was from the same root as "Aryan" or "Iranian" was a plausible-looking one; it turned out to be wrong, but there was no conspiracy to get things wrong. When it was accepted, it seemed reasonable to assume that a name that was found at both the extreme eastern end to the extreme western end was the original ethnic self-name. The further elaboration into racial theories about the nature of that original ethnic group was, indeed, propagandistic; but not the initial hypothesis.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Yeah, and in order to prove just how WRONG they were wouldn't it make sense to show that the ancestors of the Germans did not establish the First World-Empire

Detouring into irrelevant ancient history is not useful to illustrating what was wrong about the German ideas.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

wouldn't it be fair to the Iranians and if it is just the Indics to point out that the term Aryan was not only misused but had been and is still used among the Indo-Iranians?

It has been, and is still, used AMONG THE INDICS. That, of course, is generally pointed out. Pointing out that the name "Iran" is a related form is a tangent of limited relevance.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

My point is that the Irano-Aryans actually had a national homeland called Airyana "Aryan land"

1. It is spelled Airyene pronounced "IRE-yeh-neh" and even at this early stage is better approximated by "Iran" if you pronounce it "EYE-ran" than by "Aryan"
2. It is just an adjective at this stage, not the name of a "national homeland" in the sense of a political entity with fixed boundaries. There was some vaeja "land" which they lived on, and such land was called airyene vaeja "Iranian land".

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

although the Indo-Aryans did call themselves Arya in some ethnic sense

Wow. I think this is the first time you were willing to give an inch on acknowledging that.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

as the name of the country Iran

Until 1935, that state was called "Persia". I do understand that nowadays, you want to emphasize that the linguistic group is wider than the inhabitants of that state. Your hyphenated form "Irano-Afghan" is fine for that purpose. Insisting on a word that is well-established with different meanings is not fine.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

but Aryana has been used among the Afghans at least since the 1950s

Really? I can't find a usage earlier than 2006.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

see you just got confused about whether I was referring to the Iranians or the Irano-Afghans.

Huh? No I wasn't.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I don't think so. I think that this idea that "it has been taken for granted" is recent Hindu national propaganda

No. I never heard of Talgeri until you brought him up on this thread. I've known of "Aryan" as an (archaic and now disfavored) ethnic/linguistic designation for the Indics since the 60's. Its usage in such a sense goes back in western literature since the 17th century (although you appear to be correct that using the adjectival ending -an in English does not go back that far, the Latin adjectival ending -anus has been used in Arianus since the first Jesuits to translate Sanskrit).

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

No I am saying that all Muslims are definitely NOT the same... The Urdu speakers are a different breed of Hindi speakers, and they're not even Hindu they're Muslim

What's your point? I am really not following you: Urdu and Hindi are the same language (some technical vocabulary differs, with learned borrowings from Persian into Urdu but Sanskrit into Hindi), and Urdu-speakers are unquestionably Indic. You are saying however that we should call them not Indic but "honorary Irano-Afghan" simply because they are Muslim? That does, indeed, sound to me like you are saying that all Muslims are alike.

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

I know New Persian has Artesh cf. Army. And what about Old Persian cognates like Arta?

Are you claiming those are cognates of arya???

Originally Posted by mojobadshah

Are you sure Old Persian Ariya was pronounced Airya?

No, I'm not sure (ancient tape-recordings still being in short supply). But given the Avestan script, which records pronunciation more precisely than the cuneiform syllabary, it is the best guess that the Old Persian was actually similar.

[bhaktajan]

The end point of the proto tribes migrating to the furthest shores west would be the Irish Isles.

The "Green Movement" is obviously an International Sydicate centered amongst the Upper landed gentry of Ireland.

The Spread of the "Green Movement" in all levels of the economy is the proof!

Chucky ar'law has gone global . . . I'm just speculating on this one, of course.

[radarmark]

bhaktajan,

You got it, just look at the Phoenix Park murders vignette in "Finnegan's Wake". Jamie Joyce began the "Green" movement while drinking his way across Europe!

Peace, brother!

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

So it turns out Nemed is said in the Irish text to come from "the Greeks of Scythia" which sounds to me like "Scythia" was just a generic word for "east somewhere" as far as they knew.

Can you confirm this now? It could have been a generic word kind of like "Hun" but there were Iranians among the Huns too. Or considering that the Greeks had been present in that part of the world maybe they were Perso-Greeks. What could Parthalon have meant?

Originally Posted by bob x

AND "b" > Avestan "b" Germanic "w" Sanskrit "b" Latin "v".
If you insist that the Avestan (which only has one sound) is the original, then the same sound in the original has to have gone two different ways in each of the descendant languages. Your "foreign elements" have to have been present in India, Germany, and Italy; in all three places they arbitrarily divided words containing "b" into two categories which were affected in two different ways, and just by coincidence the b/w categories in German, b/bh categories in Sanskrit, and f/v in Latin agree. I'm sorry, this doesn't make any sense; the way this obviously worked is that the original had two sounds here, and the distinction between the two was usually preserved even though the shifts were not the same in each descendant group, but Avestan was one group that merged the two into one.

Well what do the vowels that proceed each of these sound changes look like? Could their vowel systems have anything to do with it. Like I hear you on how these changes were systematic, but why did Avestan maintain a harder "b" instead of shift to a "w" or "v"? Like what does shifting from a "b" or a "v" have to do with a "bh" when it could have been from a "b"? Couldn't the vowel systems (which would be comparable to foreign influences) in each of these languages Latin, German, as well as Sanskrit have explained a systematic change from say "b" to Skr. "bh" Ger. "w" and L. "v"?

Originally Posted by bob x

I don't know why you would even think "gh" has much in common with "z".

What do you mean? Avestan is believed to have shifted from "gh" to "z."

Originally Posted by bob x

Not in words like asura/ahura which you were citing. Greek "h" is strictly initial and represents nothing in other languages (insertion before initial "k" as in hekaton) as often as "s"; elsewhere, Greek has "s" like usual. Armenian "h" is totally different: in hayr "father" for example it represents what is a "p" everywhere else.

Armenian shows h; s; and Ø8 from PIE *s Indo-European Sound Laws

Originally Posted by bob x

No form like *axura shows up in Avestan or anywhere else, and Hittite is not believed to have had the "sh" sound (as I just got through telling you).

So is the source I listed above dated?

Originally Posted by bob x

The hypothesis s > h is straightforward: we would expect, if that were true, that most show "s" and only a small minority show "h", which is what we see. Your alternative h > x > sh > s requires that almost all (instead of a minority) made the initial h > x shift, that ALL (without exception) of those which shifted to "x" then made the x > sh shift, and then ALL of these (without exception) made the sh > s shift, so that there is no trace of the intermediaries anywhere.

But isn't it true that most IE. languages don't show a lot of evidence of velar fricatives "x" especially in the initial consonant position?

Originally Posted by bob x

What is "TECHNICAL" about spelling "Iran" as "Iran" rather than twisting it into a different spelling which has a different meaning, and is not the name of "Iran"? What if the president of Tajikistan had decided he wanted his country to be called "Ireland" from then on? Would you be here, arguing on and on and on and on and on about how you are the "real" Ireland, and it is all a political conspiracy against you that people keep using "Ireland" for that other place (you know, the one where that name has actually been USED before?), and accusing me of being "technical" for saying that "Irish" and "Iranian" are not the same word?

Originally Posted by bob x

That's not true. Bopp 1850 is the only author you have shown who does so (and of course, he actually used arisch if the precise form of the adjectival ending matters). Mueller of course used it for the ancestral Indo-Europeans (or rather, his imaginary picture of them).

Yes Bopp uses "Aryan" arisch verbatim translated Aryan in English and I was referring to Karl Otfried Muller:

"Although the Arian (or Iranian) tribe, which, commencing from Ariana, comprehended the ancient inhabitants of Bactria, Media, and Persia, was essentially different in language, national customs, and religion, from the Syrian race, yet the style of art among the former people bore a considerable affinity to that with which we have become acquainted at Babylon; and we are compelled to regard the art which flourished in the great Persian empire as only a further development ofthe ancient Assyrian." - Karl Otfried Müller Trans. John Leitch, Ancient art and its remains: or a manual of the archaeology of art pg. 219

Originally Posted by bob x

WHAT textbook are you referring to?

"World History: Patterns of Interaction: Atlas"

Originally Posted by bob x

No, it was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. The suggestion that Eireann "Irish" was from the same root as "Aryan" or "Iranian" was a plausible-looking one; it turned out to be wrong, but there was no conspiracy to get things wrong. When it was accepted, it seemed reasonable to assume that a name that was found at both the extreme eastern end to the extreme western end was the original ethnic self-name. The further elaboration into racial theories about the nature of that original ethnic group was, indeed, propagandistic; but not the initial hypothesis.

My point is ethnic designations get corrupted, but we don't throw them out because another ethnic group has defamed it. If the Nazi Germans had called themselves Americans and slaughtered tens of millions would Americans stop calling themselves Americans?

Originally Posted by bob x

It has been, and is still, used AMONG THE INDICS. That, of course, is generally pointed out. Pointing out that the name "Iran" is a related form is a tangent of limited relevance.

A corrupted version of the term.

2. It is just an adjective at this stage, not the name of a "national homeland" in the sense of a political entity with fixed boundaries. There was some vaeja "land" which they lived on, and such land was called airyene vaeja "Iranian land"..

And this "Airyene Vaeja" appear in the Yasnas which were attested centuries before Manu-Smrti was composed and attest to an Aryavarta.

Originally Posted by bob x

No, Iranians have NEVER EVER EVER used that term, at all, for anything, ever since they existed as a distinct people. They have always used, instead, the related word now commonly spelled "Iran".

Really? I can't find a usage earlier than 2006.

No. I never heard of Talgeri until you brought him up on this thread. I've known of "Aryan" as an (archaic and now disfavored) ethnic/linguistic designation for the Indics since the 60's. Its usage in such a sense goes back in western literature since the 17th century (although you appear to be correct that using the adjectival ending -an in English does not go back that far, the Latin adjectival ending -anus has been used in Arianus since the first Jesuits to translate Sanskrit).

Ariana Airlines was established in 1955... and everyone who has come out of Afghanistan since, at least that time, has known Aryana to have been the ancient name of Afghanistan, and they are all familiar with Zartusht : Zoroaster. Hamza Ifahani (894-970) notes in his "history of the Prophets and Saints" recalls that the Persians had once known their land as as Aryan. As far as I can tell the Indics had no knowledge of an "Aryan" homeland such as Aryavarta until the Jesuits arrived because the Sanskrit literature wasn't even intelligible to them.

Originally Posted by bob x

Are you claiming those are cognates of arya???

No, I'm not sure (ancient tape-recordings still being in short supply). But given the Avestan script, which records pronunciation more precisely than the cuneiform syllabary, it is the best guess that the Old Persian was actually similar.

All these words Aryan OPer. Ariya, arta NPer. artesh developed from the same PIE * ar- "to join" root, so if the Old Persian speakers are pronouncing arta "arta" then what is more plausible that Ariya was pronounced "Eye-rya" because of Avestan forms or "Ariya" like it sounds?

[mojobadshah]

Oh, this was another really interesting etymology that Vallency proposed:

Av. Ahura Mazda > OIr. Crom

For a long time I couldn't see the connection, but then it came to me - the contracted Parthian form of Ahura Mazda was Hormazd, and if you take into account what I've been saying about h shifting to a velar fricative kh e.g Hormazd > Khormazd > korm (with metathis) > krom it makes sense.

And wikipedia says Crom was worshiped since Erimon cf. Av. Airyaman, Aryan who cast out the polytheists.

[mojobadshah]

Originally Posted by bob x

No form like *axura shows up in Avestan or anywhere else

Shipley lists Oscar as a cognate of Ahura/Asura...