https://blue.feedland.org/?river=http://data.feedland.org/blue/feeds/azeini.xml It's just a feed for now Mon, 28 Aug 2023 13:39:55 GMT feedland v0.5.59 https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Mon, 28 Aug 2023 13:39:54 GMT azeini Mon, August 28, 2023 9:39 AM EDT Earlier this year, Princeton U Press published Christopher Beckwith's 'The Scythian Empire'. A user on the bird app recently pointed out B's discussion of the etymology for the name Zaraθuštra. I've been reading through the book and decided, I'll write a short note here. I don't take issue with strange etymologies, but the scholarship on display in this book seems very strange, at times outdated, and rather random. B. dedicates a lot of space to Zoroastrianism, Achaemenids and Iranian languages. But I'm unable to follow most of his views, and his methodology or approach often feels ideological, mostly due to his use of language. Consider this passage followed by footnote 20: "We must however doubt the folk etymologies that have been proposed for the name Zoroaster, Zaraθuštra, the most favored one today claiming that it means ‘Decrepit Camels’" (p. 239). In the footnote, B. refers to Rüdiger Schmitt's discussion of the name Zaraθuštra. It's one thing to say and show that Schmitt is wrong, it's another to label Schmitt's etymological discussion 'folk etymology'. The basis on which B. doubts the meaning "Decrepit Camel" is this: "Surely, as the founder of a great world religion, his name meant something else, something less redolent of an attempt to find an etymology, any etymology, in a hoped-for place—in this case, in Avestan itself". We find such reasoning throughout the book. His discussion of Iranian languages, in the section "Languages, Dialects, Accents" (p. 144), is truly bewildering. It takes him 5 pages of what seems to me a random selection of words from British, American and Australian English, then Russian, Japanese and English, and then German, Icelandic and English, before he can move to a table comparing Avestan, Median and Old Persian, before he sets off to discuss the actual Iranian languages. But you will be disappointed if you expect a historic-comparative linguistic discussion of the mentioned languages. It's a layman's simplistic discussion of language, dialect and accent, the point of which I don't really understand. But what I quote here, might show how he argues: For his discussion, B. considers "a strictly random example, the first sentence in Darius the Great’s Behistun Inscription" (p. 160). He asserts: "All the words in this sentence are distinctively and exclusively Old Persian. Imperial Scythian speakers could not have understood it" (p. 161). Then, he quotes "a sentence from an inscription of Xerxes I in Persepolis", and here too, concludes: "Again, this sentence is distinctively Old Persian both by the lexicon and by its forms, such as the exclusively Old Persian stem of the verb ‘to do, make’. Even with the easily recognized accusative demonstrative imam ‘this’, Imperial Scythian speakers could not have understood this sentence" (p. 161). Then something seems to happen which I don't really understand, but he concludes: "The Empire’s common written language was a West Semitic language, Imperial Aramaic.[fn. 53] Following that model, the name “Imperial Scythian” may be coined for the Empire’s common spoken Old Iranic language, a Scythian dialect comprising Median and Avestan subdialects" (p. 163). He also writes: "It is also shown by the greatly increased number of Scythian words in Middle Persian, many of which replaced native Persian words" (p. 163). The most important conclusion of the section seems to be: "The identity of Avestan, Median, and Scythian as dialects of one spoken language, Imperial Scythian, means we do after all have texts in Scythian and “Median”: they are the Avesta" (p. 165). Again, a lot of these ideas discussed by B. are not new. It's his approach and language that makes this book very irritating, at least to me. If I find the time, I'll also look at his discussions of Iranian religions, which is much closer to my own expertise. Mon, 28 Aug 2023 13:39:55 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=101595 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=101595 Earlier this year, Princeton U Press published Christopher Beckwith's 'The Scythian Empire'. A user on the bird app recently pointed out B's discussion of the etymology for the name Zaraθuštra. I've been reading through the book and decided, I'll write a short note here. I don't take issue with strange etymologies, but the scholarship on display in this book seems very strange, at times outdated, and rather random. B. dedicates a lot of space to Zoroastrianism, Achaemenids and Iranian languages. But I'm unable to follow most of his views, and his methodology or approach often feels ideological, mostly due to his use of language. Consider this passage followed by footnote 20: "We must however doubt the folk etymologies that have been proposed for the name Zoroaster, Zaraθuštra, the most favored one today claiming that it means ‘Decrepit Camels’" (p. 239). In the footnote, B. refers to Rüdiger Schmitt's discussion of the name Zaraθuštra. It's one thing to say and show that Schmitt is wrong, it's another to label Schmitt's etymological discussion 'folk etymology'. The basis on which B. doubts the meaning "Decrepit Camel" is this: "Surely, as the founder of a great world religion, his name meant something else, something less redolent of an attempt to find an etymology, any etymology, in a hoped-for place—in this case, in Avestan itself". We find such reasoning throughout the book. His discussion of Iranian languages, in the section "Languages, Dialects, Accents" (p. 144), is truly bewildering. It takes him 5 pages of what seems to me a random selection of words from British, American and Australian English, then Russian, Japanese and English, and then German, Icelandic and English, before he can move to a table comparing Avestan, Median and Old Persian, before he sets off to discuss the actual Iranian languages. But you will be disappointed if you expect a historic-comparative linguistic discussion of the mentioned languages. It's a layman's simplistic discussion of language, dialect and accent, the point of which I don't really understand. But what I quote here, might show how he argues: For his discussion, B. considers "a strictly random example, the first sentence in Darius the Great’s Behistun Inscription" (p. 160). He asserts: "All the words in this sentence are distinctively and exclusively Old Persian. Imperial Scythian speakers could not have understood it" (p. 161). Then, he quotes "a sentence from an inscription of Xerxes I in Persepolis", and here too, concludes: "Again, this sentence is distinctively Old Persian both by the lexicon and by its forms, such as the exclusively Old Persian stem of the verb ‘to do, make’. Even with the easily recognized accusative demonstrative imam ‘this’, Imperial Scythian speakers could not have understood this sentence" (p. 161). Then something seems to happen which I don't really understand, but he concludes: "The Empire’s common written language was a West Semitic language, Imperial Aramaic.\[fn. 53\] Following that model, the name “Imperial Scythian” may be coined for the Empire’s common spoken Old Iranic language, a Scythian dialect comprising Median and Avestan subdialects" (p. 163). He also writes: "It is also shown by the greatly increased number of Scythian words in Middle Persian, many of which replaced native Persian words" (p. 163). The most important conclusion of the section seems to be: "The identity of Avestan, Median, and Scythian as dialects of one spoken language, Imperial Scythian, means we do after all have texts in Scythian and “Median”: they are the Avesta" (p. 165). Again, a lot of these ideas discussed by B. are not new. It's his approach and language that makes this book very irritating, at least to me. If I find the time, I'll also look at his discussions of Iranian religions, which is much closer to my own expertise.