The Thracian people and language

[Sovius]

Sorry for the confusion. I’m woefully inept at posting to internet forums. Netiquette, I think it’s called. The first part was in response to the Gestapo. The 2nd, my confusion over your request, which appears to have stemmed from your confusion on the part of my failure to address what I mean by Vindelician as opposed to how you may be defining Vindelician. Vindelicia was a Roman Province and Vindelicia was also the entire territory of what Romans generically referred to as Germania during the later part of their occupation of Europe. Vindelicia defined northern Venetia.

For clarification, the Vandali (Vindelicians) were recorded on maps as being camped out to the west of the Goths along the Danube, with the Gepidian formations between them. Sorry about that.

Your hypothesis is plausible in its entirety, but I believe that the ultimate answer may be more complex and, therefore, more elusive, as we cannot ignore the Eastern component of the equation. The Vindelicians, Veneti and Gedani, during different times and in different regions, fought against, for and alongside the Scythians. To elaborate further would require some maps. If you’ll give me some time, I think I can explain, but an explanation might be more suitable over on the thread you created for the 6th Century AD Maps, as it would reinforce your observations, as well as, provide another set of angles to consider.

[Chakalarov]

Sovius, I have moved the conversation to the maps thread I created.

[Nikolaj]

Etymological Analysis of Thracian Toponyms & Hydronyms

I have seen discussion in the past about P. Serafimov’s work on scripts. Never about this though.

http://www.korenine.si/zborniki/zbornik07/serafimov_tra07.pdf

Abstract

This paper offers an etymological analysis of more than 60 Thracian toponyms, hydronyms and oronyms.
It presents the evidence that the Slavs were the indigenous population in the region, in agreement to the testimony of Simokatta, who equated Thracians (called Getae) with the Old Slavs:
"Sclavos sive Getas hoc enim nomine antiquitus appellati sunt” – “Slavs or Getae, because this is the way they were called in the antiquity”.

Introduction

The toponyms, hydronyms and oronyms can provide very valuable information about the inhabitants of certain lands, because every ethnic group has their own names for mountain, valley, lake, and village more or less different from these of the other people. Slavic Bela Gora (White mountain) corresponds to German Weiss Berg, the Greek Λέύκος Oρος and Latin Albus Mons. Judging by these differences and peculiarities we can determine the ethnic affiliation of people who lived a long time ago in a certain geographical area. In this paper the attention is given to the Old Thracian lands: from the Carpathian Mountains to Asia Minor and from Black Sea till Dardania (Serbia). But I have to clarify that these regions do not represent the totality of the Thracian domain, in reality it continued to the Hercynian forest (Schwarzwald in Germany), Map 1, where according to Strabo the country of the Getae began [1], VII-2-III-1.


Map 1 - Thracian lands

His discussion progresses for another 20 pages where he compares 'Slavic' tongues to Thracian etc which ultimately ends with:

The presentation of above facts brings new light to the question: Did Thracians disappear in thin air, and were the Slavs invaders at all? If we see that the inhabitants of certain land have same burial rites, material culture and religion as the inhabitants of the same land 1000 years later, and if the place names of the oldest inhabitants are candidates to explain from the language of these, who inhabit the same land later, the most logical and parsimonious conclusion is that we have the one and the same people, only known under different names. That possibility is confirmed by the historical sources, equating the two groups, so the only thing, which remains is to rewrite the early history of the Slavs, called Thracians in antiquity.

Taking scientific data into account that supports this view denying the Turkic roots of modern Bulgarians (this was posted in the Bulgarian propaganda thread):

http://society.actualno.com/Novo-genetichno-izsledvane-Bylgarite-sa-evropejci-njamat-turksko-mongolski-proizhod-news_449255.html

"The content of genes tyurkoezichnite - ie." Altayo-Mongols "is below 1.5% and Bulgarians are absolutely European population . This study - with 900 - inferior number of surveyed only Italians, Scots and Spaniards. These data showed that modern Bulgarians are related with some Slavic populations - for example, the Croats are close to the population of Northern Greece, some regions of Italy - Northern and Central Italy. This is in relation to mitochondrial DNA. In terms of y-chromosome has close with Serbians, Romanians, northern Greece, Croats.

I also remember the discussion about the intensity of R1A1 that is distributed in the Baltic region where Sovius argued that the diminishing value of R1A1 does not imply a migration went southward.

Thoughts?

[Nikolaj]

His interpretation of data is quite interesting:

- The Slavic words show only the different stages of development of one and the same word. That excludes the possibility of loaning it from other people. This explains why you keep on seeing Thracian words varying to which Slavic tongue it relates to the most.
- This is why you find Thracian words to match at least one of the Slavic languages.
- Apparently Slovenian has the most related words due it its conservative nature. Funny, I would have expected a Balto-Slavic language instead.


From the 30 additional words extracted from the Thracian toponyms and hydronyms 30 have very good matches in Bulgarian and the other Slavic languages. Lithuanian offers 16 matches, Greek 13, Latin 5 and English 4. We can see that again the Slavic languages offer the most and the best matches. The resemblance of many names is so strikingly close that it can’t be called coincidence. And if we consider the fact that Thracian words were documented about 2000 years ago, it will not be an exaggeration to say that in fact they are identical with the Slavic ones. The comparison presented in the Tables 1, 2 and 3 has never been made by any scientist, who studied the ancient Thracian culture. That is why now we have the wrong impression that Thracians have disappeared into thin air and the Slavs came to the lands south of the Danube as invaders.


Also some good points right after:

To that wrong view contributed the ignoring of the historical testimonies of T. Simokatta (cited by Tsenov [19], p. 14), who equates Slavs and Thracians, while the old writer is very clear saying: Sclavos sive Getas hoc enim nomine antiquitus appellati sunt – Slavs, or Getae, because that was their name in the antiquity. Ignored was also the amazing similarity of the Slavic and Thracian burial rituals. Herodotus narrated how after the burial took place, games were organized around his grave [20], V-8. These are in my opinion the Old Slavic Trizna games, played after the burial [21], p. 126. Herodotus gives us another very important detail from the burial rites of the ancient Thracians: the wife of the deceased followed him voluntary into the grave [20], V-8. About the same peculiarity writes Pseudomaurikius in Strategikon, describing the life of the Thracians – Their wives are so pious that follow the man in the grave (cited by Bakalov et al. [5], p. 144.) One more peculiar ritual of the Thracian burial rites was the placing of horse and dog in the grave [22], p. 212; exactly the same ritual was practised by the Old Bulgarians till about 9th ct. AD [23], p. 330-333. If the Old Slavs were invaders in the lands south of the Danube than we should see sharp change in the material culture after the ‘invasion’, but such change is not attested. Thracian domestic pottery of 5th ct. B.C. is identical to Old Slavic domestic pottery of 5th ct. A.D. Tsvetkov’s explanation to this almost unknown fact was that the similarity appeared because the conditions of production were the same [24], p. 56. I can’t agree that the similar conditions of production would lead to same shape and ornaments. The village population of different countries might have produced its pottery in similar conditions, but every ethnic group has its own style, taste, and needs, which would be reflected in the shape, size and the ornaments of the vessels. Let’s not forget that only the Slavic domestic pottery is undistinguishable from the Thracians one. Greek, Roman and Anglo-Saxon ones are quite different.

[Nikolaj]

Mods, please move the thread to 'Exposing Lies and Propaganda.'

[Philosopher]

[I]This paper offers an etymological analysis of more than 60 Thracian toponyms, hydronyms and oronyms.
It presents the evidence that the Slavs were the indigenous population in the region, in agreement to the testimony of Simokatta, who equated Thracians (called Getae) with the Old Slavs:

Old Slavs? Again what is with this Slav stuff?

Who is this author?

Slavs were not the indigenous people of the Balkans, as there were and are no Slavs.

[Nikolaj]

Old Slavs? Again what is with this Slav stuff?

Who is this author?

Slavs were not the indigenous people of the Balkans, as there were and are no Slavs.

Let me clarify a few things. I would have thought you knew me better than that Philosopher.

1) Slavic people do not exist and the word Slav is a misinterpreted anachronistic term.

2) There were never a Slavic people or language. I am only using this terminology to tackle what is now accepted history (Slavs).
Without doing so, you wouldn't have the slightest clue to what I am referring to. It is also important to be able to understand what the author is talking about too.

3) I especially do not believe in the Slavic migration theory.

Who is this author? It looks like some Bulgarian guy I have never heard of; at most I think he runs a blog.

[Philosopher]

Let me clarify a few things. I would have thought you knew me better than that Philosopher.

1) Slavic people do not exist and the word Slav is a misinterpreted anachronistic term.

2) There were never a Slavic people or language. I am only using this terminology to tackle what is now accepted history (Slavs).
Without doing so, you wouldn't have the slightest clue to what I am referring to. It is also important to be able to understand what the author is talking about too.

3) I especially do not believe in the Slavic migration theory.

Who is this author? It looks like some Bulgarian guy I have never heard of; at most I think he runs a blog.

My post was not an attack on you, Nikola.

I know you understand the subject well.

My reply was geared towards the author.

Anyway, judging from his comments about Turkish mixture in Bulgarians, and his use of the word "Slav", and Thracians, it makes sense he is Bulgarian.

I still do not know who this guy is or what his credentials are.

[Nikolaj]

All good.

I did actually spend a good 10 minutes trying to find out who he was last night, it wasn't very apparent though.

I do appreciate his work regardless because it does seem he is knowledgeable on the subject. He does state in his acknowledgement PhD professors that do review his work.
He has other work like 'Evidence for Early Slavic presence in Minoan Crete', where he affiliated with some guy named Giancarlo Tomezzoli.

I am really just giving his work a try because it goes against the Slavic migration theory; one of the more important things we should continue discussing on this forum (well I believe so).

[Philosopher]

He has other work like 'Evidence for Early Slavic presence in Minoan Crete', where he affiliated with some guy named Giancarlo Tomezzoli.

I scanned this document.

One of the things that struck me was this statement:

A strong argument for the connection of proto-Slavs with Crete is the recent genetic research showing that the Slavic Macedonians are genetically closer to the Cretans than the Greeks are [19]. That is a clear and undisputable indication for the past presence of proto-Slavic people on Crete.

This is based on the Arnaiz-Villlena study.

It is interesting to note that there was a study conducted after this, done in Macedonia, with a somewhat different conclusion.

The observed closest standard genetic distance between the studied Macedonian population and the Greek population (SGD=2.77, GD=6.35) is not in concord with that published by Arnaiz-Villena et al. (21), who point out the close genetic relatedness of the Macedonian population to that of the Cretans and to the great genetic distance between Macedonians and the Greeks coming from Attica, Cyprus and northern Greece.

Bearing in mind the differences in the allele frequencies in the Macedonians in our study and those in the study of Arnaiz-Villena et al., we believe that the discordance of the observations in both the studies investigating the HLA polymorphism is probably due to the selection of difference subject populations.

In both studies, however, Cretans were very close.

[Philosopher]

A strong argument for the connection of proto-Slavs with Crete is the recent genetic research showing that the Slavic Macedonians are genetically closer to the Cretans than the Greeks are [19]. That is a clear and undisputable indication for the past presence of proto-Slavic people on Crete.

The Bulgarian author has a habit of distinguishing Slav Macedonians from Macedonians. While he believes the Thracians and Illyrians were proto-Slavs, it does not appear he entertains the same notion about the ancient Macedonians.

It is almost as if he believes that modern day Macedonians were historically another ethnicity and nation (possibly Thracian), and later adapted a Macedonian consciousness.

[Nikolaj]

Philosopher,

The reason why I am getting into Thrace is because I am trying to find an explanation to how the 'Slavic' language has always been in the Balkans. This would also make it very realistic for the Macedonians to have a similar language too.

Do you believe this is the correct approach to this matter?

At the end of the day, many realistic models of what has happened in the Balkans since antiquity have been made. The Slavic migration is one of them, as unrealistic as it is, it is still being classified as realistic because this is a way you could explain a linguistic connection between all the 'Slavic' nations. This is why I believe we can develop a realistic model that supports an anti-Slavic migration notion.

[Nikolaj]

In continuance, Macedonians not being Greek in antiquity has been flawlessly proven. The only thing that's stopping that from getting attention is the fact that the Slavic notion still lives. In other words, this is the main thing we should be focusing on.

[George S.]

Some people the slavic nigration didn't happen.The slavic language was allways spoken in the balkans.

[Nikolaj]

Some people the slavic nigration didn't happen.The slavic language was allways spoken in the balkans.

Yes George, that is the motive of the thread - to prove. In this case, specifically Thrace.