ВОПРОСЫ ОНОМАСТИКИ | PROBLEMS OF ONOMASTICS

Yuri A. Dzitstsoity
South Ossetian State University
Tskhinval, Republic of South Ossetia

On the Relics of Scytho-Sarmato-Alanian Vocabulary in the Toponymy of Ossetia

Voprosy onomastiki, 2018, Volume 15, Issue 1, pp. 30–50 (in Russian)
DOI: 10.15826/vopr_onom.2018.15.1.002

Received 28 May 2017

Abstract: The article undertakes to pick out the oldest Scythian-Sarmatian-Alanian element in Ossetian toponymy where the appellative lexis that was lost in the language is partly retained. The reconstruction of the ancient Iranian etymons is based on strict data recordings of historical phonetics and historical morphology of the Ossetian language. As a result of the work carried out, such stems as *æf- ‘water, river’, *æfsæn- ‘the top of a mountain’, *dæj- ‘settlement’, *fi jjag- ‘(wild) onion’, *fi jjag- ‘running (about water)’, *ke- ‘house’, *mærg- ‘meadow’, *zæræ- ‘grass’ and others were reconstructed. Some of them are also present in the appellative lexis as elements of compounds. The analyzed information verifi es the remarkable capacity of toponymy as a keeper of the ancient lexis. And although this line of research is barely touched upon, it is already clear that the relics of the ancient Iranian lexis in the Ossetian toponymy are important both for the history of the Ossetian language and the ethnic history of Ossetia. Common Iranian lexis retained in the Ossetian toponymy came out of use at different times and for various reasons. In most cases, it was replaced by Ossetian neologisms, but some of these stems were substituted by ancient Iranian lexemes which had the status of dialectical words in the ancestor language. Therefore, the Ossetian toponymy, along with compounds and the Nart Epic language, is one of the sources for reconstruction of the ancient Iranian lexis. The geography of relic lexis is another feature of interest: these word forms are equally distributed all over the Ossetian mountain zone, regardless of the contemporary dialect variations of the Ossetian language: the toponym Zæræmæg is present both in Digoria and the Alagir gorge, the hydronym Æræf is attested in Digoria and in South Ossetia.

Keywords: Ossetia, toponymy, old Iranian relics, Scytho-Sarmatian stratum, Alanian stratum, reconsruction, etymology, ethnic history

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