The Thracian people and language

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Pelister

I believe this idea pushed by the New Greeks that the 5th century constitutes "a clean break" is a cunning way of blind siding people from the fact that there are little or no traces of the ancient Thracians because the are indistinguishable from the current Slavic (Thracian) speakers living their today.

Absolutely.

[Pelister]

I of Macedon,

There are huge gaps in our history, from late antiquity to the present. It is very possible that the land inhabited by Thracians, as mentioned by Herodotus, took on new names, down the centuries, but again, we are forced to go back to the question, how can such a numerous people, culturally advanced, and organized into kingdoms, simply "disappear"? I think you are onto something, when you raise the point that the Thracians, were described at different periods in history, by different names, but that they are one and the same people. The other point you raised about "who named them" is important to, because much of what we know about the history of the region, and its people, comes down to us in Greek, and/or Latin. Who knows why some names were in vogue, and others not, or why the Thracians stopped being called Thracians, and were now called Dacians, or Getae or Slavs ...etc? I guess we have to account for the possibility that the ancient Thracians, and Illyrians were so numerous, that by the 4th century A.D, they had broken off into various, more distinguishable, Slavic spaeking tribes.

[Rogi]

This is plausible.

Otherwise, there would have to be some record in history or archaeology which would show the most numerous people (Thracians) migrating out of the area. Such a large number of people cannot disappear without a trace, they can however become more tribal (breaking off into their own, smaller communities which today form nations, etc).

[Risto the Great]

Originally Posted by Rogi

This is plausible.

Otherwise, there would have to be some record in history or archaeology which would show the most numerous people (Thracians) migrating out of the area. Such a large number of people cannot disappear without a trace, they can however become more tribal (breaking off into their own, smaller communities which today form nations, etc).

This goes to the heart of modern nationalism.
Of course this is the case and anybody who feels they need to ignore 2000 or so years of modern history in order to define an exclusive claim on an ancient race is either completely stupid or Greek ... or both.

[Pelister]

RTG, they are probably just being Greek, or I should say New Greek.

Given the evidence available, I already see a strong connection to the ancient Thracians, but that is only because we know so litte about the ancient Macedonians. Knowing that Greek wasn't their native langauge is not enough, though. It is possible that this vast tribe of Thracians broke off into separate nations, much earlier than we realize, very possibly in early antiquity, hence, the Illyrians, Macedonians ...etc. The Thracians were the only ones that did not, have to pay tribute to the Macedonians, and a large section of the Macedonian army, was of Thracian origin. How did they communicate, I wonder?

[TrueMacedonian]

http://books.google.com/books?id=5FH...=the+thracians

This book seems interesting. I really did not go through all of it but it seems interesting enough.

But this title caught my eye. http://books.google.com/books?id=iOU...ans&lr=&pgis=1

We, the Thracians: and our multimillenary history
By Iosif Constantin Drăgan
Published by Nagard, 1976

Does anyone have this book?

[I of Macedon]

I was trying to find some more info and I found this from the wonderful world of wiki that may just be of interest'

"The Wealth of the Thracians indicates a historical extent of Thracian settlement including most of the Ukraine, all of Hungary and parts of Slovakia."

I believe this was also mentioned in one of the books listed above, that they reached southern Russia

Ironic isn’t it, the same place of which the Slavs were to come from in the 5 to 6th century just so happened to be the same time the Thracians are to be swallowed up by the earth.


Also remember Mario Alinei’s work where he wrote the following about the new Thracian hypothesis (it may have been mentioned before but I can't recall).


Herodotus, as is known, describes the Thracians as the most numerous people after the Indians. Mallory comments that it is a “sad irony” they “have left no modern descendant of their language” (Mallory 1989, 72).

But is it really so?

First of all, if it is hard to admit that a numerous people might completely extinguish, it is even less likely that this pre-existing people would have left no traces in the archaeological record. And since, as we have seen, the demographic explosion of the Slavs must be placed in Neolithic, we could then advance the hypothesis that Thracians
was the name that Herodotus gave to the Slavs, owing to the fact the Thracians were one of the most powerful and representative elites of Slavic speaking Eastern Europe, seen with Herodotus’ inevitably colonialist eyes. In a first approximation, then, the Thracians would appear to be a Southern Slavic geo-variational group, out of which
came a Bronze age elite, first dominating then extinguished.

This hypothesis could be further developed and refined in the light of the results of research on the

Thracian language which, with the caution due to the scarcity of
materials, can be so summarized:

(1) Thracian is an IE satem language, like Baltic and Slavic;

(2) as discovered by Trubačev (see above), Thracian place names show a surprising similarity with the Baltic ones;

(3) in some cases, however, Thracian affinities seem stronger with Slavic: the Thr. place-name suffix -dizos e -diza, for example, to which the meaning of ‘fortress’ has been attributed on the basis of the comparison with Gr. teĩkhos ‘wall’ (IEW 244), has a much closer counterpart in the metathetic forms of OSl. ziždoã, zydati ‘to build’ zydŭ, zidŭ ‘wall’, than in the Baltic ones (also methatetic), meaning ‘to form’. And the vocalism of the Thr. river name Stry¤mōn and place name Stry¤mē seems closer to Pol. strumień ‘brook’ and OSlav. struja ‘stream’ than to Latv stràume ‘stream’ (IEW 1003).

Mario then goes on to state that:

The most plausible hypothesis would be then that Thracian was a conservative type of Slavic, still preserving Baltic features and spoken by a peripheral group of Southern Slavs, somehow parallel to the Northern peripheral Balts (following the geolinguistic well-known rule, according to which the center innovates, and the periphery preserves).


I'm starting to think that it just may be that the Thracians are the key to the unknown...

[Delodephius]

Here is a picture of Thracian soldiers, a reconstruction of a picture painted by Thracians themselves. It's from a tomb at Kazanluk from 4th-early 3rd century BC:



In the upper picture on the left are what seems to be Macedonian soldiers. This reconstruction is a bit inaccurate since in the original (which is a bit damaged, but still clearly visible) the two soldiers in the middle hold one spear together, which is most likely a peace gesture. But in all, both pictures depict the war between the Thracian king Seuthes III and a Macedonian king Lysimachos.

[TrueMacedonian]

Here's some more pics and info on the Thracians.





page 5


Backcover

[Napoleon]

Pelister Wrote...

How can such a numerous people, culturally advanced, and organized into kingdoms, simply "disappear"?

I think this is the most important question that has never been satisfactorily answered by the proponents of the 6th century 'migration' theory. Without conclusive proof of the wholscale extinction of not only the Thracians, but also the Illyrians and numerous other indigenous peoples, the 6th century 'migration' theory simply cannot be sustained. The fact that the 6th century 'migration' theory was propagated so widely during the 19th century obviously has more to do with German, Austrian and English politics than an honest view of history.

If the 6th century 'migration' theory were fact, and wholescale extinction of the Thracians and Illyrians took place as a result of an 'invasion' by 'migrating' Slavs, one would expect to find numerous archaeological evidence of this just about everywhere in the Balkans. One would also expect to find a clear break in the material culture (art, burial styles, type of dwellings etc) of the region where the Thracian and Illyrian ceases and the 'Slavic' begins...yet there is none.

In fact when considering material culture, there is a high degree of continuity from the ancient right up until modern times in the Balkan region in general (except for Albania and Greece where the opposite is true).