Thracians spoke Balto Slavic language

[Sile]

Don't you know the common definition: "A language is a dialect with a flag and an army"?

yes...very old saying

 

[FrankN]

If Slavic as language and Slavs as people existed before the year 600 why no historian mention Slavs?Baltic people are mentioned,Germans are mentioned,Finnic people are mentioned,Celtic,Romance people,but not Slavs.

That's a very good question, and many people have been scratching their heads about it. My personal theory is that Slavs have traditionally been "water people". To illustrate what I mean, take a look at some of the cities founded by NW Slavs:

Ratzeburg (Ratibor)

Schwerin (Zuarina)

Plön (Plune).

And, for comparison, a contemporary nearby Germanic establishment - Lüneburg

I think the difference is obvious - the Obotrites built their cities near, ideally encircled by, water, while Germanics constructed them at road junctions, often river fords. The Slav's "water focus" is also becoming obvious from tribal names such as "Obotrites" (from the Oder), "Polabians" (at the Elbe) or "Pomore" (at the sea). I take that to imply that the Slavs originally lived water-born, cruising and fishing rivers, lakes and wetlands, especially the large East European river systems. Such a tradition would imply two things:

1. As "water nomads" cruising major rivers and their tributaries, they would cover far larger territories than land-based hunter-gathers, not even speaking of sedentary farmers,. Assuming there are regular conferences (religious festivals etc.) of different tribes, this could ensure linguistic cohesion across a quite extended geographic area.
2. Occupying a different ecological niche, they would remain largely invisible to land-based populations.

Over time, the Slavs of course started to interact with the land population, primarily for trade (clever merchants will quickly have recognised the opportunity to develop far-reaching trade networks by using "water nomads"), later also by settling close to water bodies and engaging in some agriculture. However, Greek and Roman geographers should rather have recorded the name of the people that ran the trade posts on the rivers, than the name of the people actually travelling up and down those rivers.
Not so long ago, somebody in another thread posted a link to a study that had investigated the language of the Veneti. After concluding that old Venetian was somewhere in-between Latin and Celtic, the study investigated the kind of sound changes old Venetian would have inferred on other languages. It concluded that, if the Veneti recorded by antique authors east of the Vistula were indeed linguistically similar to the north Italian ones, they could have brought forward many of the sound changes observed in Slavic languages. That isn't a proof that Italian and Eastern European Veneti were the same people. However, knowing how Venice acted in medieval times, it is also not completely implausible to assume a far longer trading tradition to the Black Sea and beyond.

As such, antique authors may have been correct in recording the (celto-Italian) Veneti in Eastern Europe. They may, however, have overlooked that these, numerically small Veneti were commercially controlling a much larger Slavic population, which. sheltered by water from outside views, remained invisible to them.

 

[Sile]

That's a very good question, and many people have been scratching their heads about it. My personal theory is that Slavs have traditionally been "water people". To illustrate what I mean, take a look at some of the cities founded by NW Slavs:

Ratzeburg (Ratibor)

Schwerin (Zuarina)

Plön (Plune).

And, for comparison, a contemporary nearby Germanic establishment - Lüneburg

I think the difference is obvious - the Obotrites built their cities near, ideally encircled by, water, while Germanics constructed them at road junctions, often river fords. The Slav's "water focus" is also becoming obvious from tribal names such as "Obotrites" (from the Oder), "Polabians" (at the Elbe) or "Pomore" (at the sea). I take that to imply that the Slavs originally lived water-born, cruising and fishing rivers, lakes and wetlands, especially the large East European river systems. Such a tradition would imply two things:

1. As "water nomads" cruising major rivers and their tributaries, they would cover far larger territories than land-based hunter-gathers, not even speaking of sedentary farmers,. Assuming there are regular conferences (religious festivals etc.) of different tribes, this could ensure linguistic cohesion across a quite extended geographic area.
2. Occupying a different ecological niche, they would remain largely invisible to land-based populations.

Over time, the Slavs of course started to interact with the land population, primarily for trade (clever merchants will quickly have recognised the opportunity to develop far-reaching trade networks by using "water nomads"), later also by settling close to water bodies and engaging in some agriculture. However, Greek and Roman geographers should rather have recorded the name of the people that ran the trade posts on the rivers, than the name of the people actually travelling up and down those rivers.
Not so long ago, somebody in another thread posted a link to a study that had investigated the language of the Veneti. After concluding that old Venetian was somewhere in-between Latin and Celtic, the study investigated the kind of sound changes old Venetian would have inferred on other languages. It concluded that, if the Veneti recorded by antique authors east of the Vistula were indeed linguistically similar to the north Italian ones, they could have brought forward many of the sound changes observed in Slavic languages. That isn't a proof that Italian and Eastern European Veneti were the same people. However, knowing how Venice acted in medieval times, it is also not completely implausible to assume a far longer trading tradition to the Black Sea and beyond.

As such, antique authors may have been correct in recording the (celto-Italian) Veneti in Eastern Europe. They may, however, have overlooked that these, numerically small Veneti were commercially controlling a much larger Slavic population, which. sheltered by water from outside views, remained invisible to them.

Confused
You are leaving out bronze-age, iron-age and the Roman period to reference the Obotrites who appeared only ~750AD in mecklenburg ( most likely an earlier proto-slav people). Clearly the Romans knew about Mecklenburg lands in detail and did not mention this "unique" people.

In regards to Venedi ( baltic people) and Veneti ( alpine people) and Veneti ( gaulish in western france )
There is a paper on Venedi language being Finnic mariners ............which is why they also settled in Latvia and Estonia

On Veneti.......Havard are investigating recent finds and skeletons that Veneti origins came from modern Turkmenistan pre migration to Anatolia and pre migration to the alps.
As you say a language paper on language stated it being cetlic-latin but that was ~550BC

I do not know where you are going with this Thracian language in/on the baltic sea unless you have read that ancient Greek paper stating Thracians where from coastal Poland, central europe and south in the balkans until modern Albania and Macedonia which where Dorians ..............I refer to middle bronze-age

 

[gyms]

Yes Sile.It seems that Venedi was Finnic people.When the Slavs took over the territory they took over the name Venedi too.
Yes both Balts and Slavs have been and continue to be called Wends. But this does not mean that the Vistula Veneti were Slavs. Baltic and Slavic were close enough to make it plausible that their neighbours could not always tell the difference. So I have no problem with Jordanes saying that the Antes and Sclaveni had both been called Veneti at one time. But as I pointed out, the Balts were called Veneti = Wends in the Middle Ages and retain that name in some place/river names.
The Balts gradually took over territory which had previously been the home of Uralic speakers, pushing the latter northward.(Jean M)

http://www.anthrogenica.com/archive/index.php/t-2366.html

 

[Alan]

I can't say much about their language but their Haplogroups with U3 and HV* is pretty similar to that of Iranic speakers.

 

[FrankN]

Confused
You are leaving out bronze-age, iron-age and the Roman period to reference the Obotrites who appeared only ~750AD in mecklenburg ( most likely an earlier proto-slav people). Clearly the Romans knew about Mecklenburg lands in detail and did not mention this "unique" people.

Yes, of course I was leaving out bronze-age, iron-age and the Roman period, as hardly anybody knows what the Slavs were doing during these periods. I took their 10t/11th century towns in northern Germany to illustrate their assumed water-oriented character, which is by the way also attested in East Roman accounts on warfare against Danubian Slavs.

gyms: Yes both Balts and Slavs have been and continue to be called Wends. But this does not mean that the Vistula Veneti were Slavs. Baltic and Slavic were close enough to make it plausible that their neighbours could not always tell the difference. So I have no problem with Jordanes saying that the Antes and Sclaveni had both been called Veneti at one time. But as I pointed out, the Balts were called Veneti = Wends in the Middle Ages and retain that name in some place/river names.

That's incorrect. Germans only referred to Slavs as Wends, but never to Balts. Actually, differentiation was made between Wends (West Slavs) and Winden (Slovenes), though the etymological root is in both cases the same.
Bats were referred to as Esten (Aestii), the German term "Ostsee" for the Baltic Sea may be related to this. Early German geographers usually located the Esten (Aestii) to the NE of the Vistula. The Wendish crusade of 1147 was directed against Slavs up to the Oder. Seventy years later, in 1224/1226, official documents on the establishment of the State of the Teutonic Order in Baltic lands refer to "Prussians", not to Wends, even though the term Wends for West Slavs has been in use up to at least the middle 16th century.

Since Germans knew quite early how to distinguish Slavs (Wends) from Balts (Esti, Prussians), I have serious doubts that the Vistulan Veneti were actually Baltic.

Just to complicate matters a bit more: Tacitus described the Aestii (i.e. tribes NE of the Vistula) as "having customs and manners similar to the Suevi, but a language close to that of the Britannii". That sounds pretty celtic to me...

In short, I have gained the impression of various people speaking languages related to Celtic setting up trade networks along the Eastern European river networks (Veneti on the Vistula, Aestii further East) during Roman times, while the much more populous "natives" (Slavs, Balts, possibly also some Finno-Ugrians) remained largely invisible to antique authors. Over time, these traders took over the language of the "natives", during the process also inserting some of their vocabulary into these languages. Along these lines, the various parallels between Thracian and Lithuanian might have been brought forward as well.

German Wikipedia has an extensive list of Thrakian words with parallels in Lithuanian, South Slavic languages, but also German, Latin and Celtic, and IE languages in general. I haven't done a detailed word count, but my overall impression is a quite remarkable similarity to Lithuanian. There is quite a number of parallels to South Slavic, but I have found a similar number of parallels to German (interestingly, more to Low German and English, and also to Swedish, than to High German, which could indeed indicate linguistic exchange along the Baltic Sea coast). And several words, including many of those already presented in this thread, have obvious IE roots.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrakische_Sprache

 

[Sile]

That's incorrect. Germans only referred to Slavs as Wends, but never to Balts. Actually, differentiation was made between Wends (West Slavs) and Winden (Slovenes), though the etymological root is in both cases the same.

That's wrong, Wends meant easterner anyone east of the Germanic tribes, noted by Hammerstein and Paul the Deacon........as they state, Wends are eastern neighbors of the longobards, to be Wandals. ( vandals ).......and you will know Vandals was not one tribe but a confederation of small tribes

Bats were referred to as Esten (Aestii), the German term "Ostsee" for the Baltic Sea may be related to this. Early German geographers usually located the Esten (Aestii) to the NE of the Vistula. The Wendish crusade of 1147 was directed against Slavs up to the Oder. Seventy years later, in 1224/1226, official documents on the establishment of the State of the Teutonic Order in Baltic lands refer to "Prussians", not to Wends, even though the term Wends for West Slavs has been in use up to at least the middle 16th century.

Since Germans knew quite early how to distinguish Slavs (Wends) from Balts (Esti, Prussians), I have serious doubts that the Vistulan Veneti were actually Baltic.

archeology has dozens of flat-bed burials in Venedi and Aestii lands, clearly defining these people as the same, clearly stating they belong to west-baltic culture.
I have even read that they are the same people , just given different names by different historians. We do know one thing though, they emerged at the same time, lived in the same area and disappeared from history at the same time..........!!

Just to complicate matters a bit more: Tacitus described the Aestii (i.e. tribes NE of the Vistula) as "having customs and manners similar to the Suevi, but a language close to that of the Britannii". That sounds pretty celtic to me...

as above

In short, I have gained the impression of various people speaking languages related to Celtic setting up trade networks along the Eastern European river networks (Veneti on the Vistula, Aestii further East) during Roman times, while the much more populous "natives" (Slavs, Balts, possibly also some Finno-Ugrians) remained largely invisible to antique authors. Over time, these traders took over the language of the "natives", during the process also inserting some of their vocabulary into these languages. Along these lines, the various parallels between Thracian and Lithuanian might have been brought forward as well.

The german historian Wilbald Pirckheimer (1470) stated the Venedi on the baltic spoke an ancient Illyrian tongue on the baltic sea

Vandali, alias Vuandali, et Venedi Illyrico sermone utuntur, vide supra in illyriis

Only the Vuandali are mentioned in lists of slavic languages

 

[Yetos]

"Is not a good thing to try find cognates between current Slavic languages and Thracian,try better to find a book with Proto-Slavic
(is said Old Church Slavonic is closest to Proto-Slavic),or Old Russian and search cognates there."

The Church Slavonic language was artificially created from all Slavic languages and dialects - as a parasitical language, to spread the Christianity and to destroy the old Slavic faith. If you compare Freising manuscripts in old Slovene which was probably written in 9th century and was "inspired" by the older language it has almost nothing in common with so called "1. Slavic language", Christian Church Slavic language. All other documents in Slavic which were not part of Christian cults, religion, were intentionally destroyed or rewritten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freising_manuscripts

By Cyrill we know that church Slavonic is the dialect of Great Moravia,
Neither Kyrillos neither Methodios imagine a language, simply they were familiar to such sounds from south Slavic, and wrote in the Great Moravian dialect of that time mixing also some south Slav.
the artificially enter later with Kyrillou alphabeton (Cyrillic)
In order Cyrill to help expand the writting and teaching of the language created an alphabet, upon which Slavic were taught,
means that some phongeus sounds etc could not exist or fit in some Slavic dialects but in order to write Slavic as one language letters took the power to 'change a little bit' the dialects to one, but that help also Slavic to closer forms of language

 

[Alan]

Cimmerians lived in the lands of Sarmatia prior to Samatians arriving from Kazahstan. They, the cimmerains left their southern Ukraine homeland around 700BC, clearly these people where speaking some language and it was not Iranic nor proto-slavic.

The Goths put an end to Samatians when the Goths arrived on the black sea, they where put to the sword unless they yielded. Then the Goths stayed there for over 200 hundred years, clearly Samatians did not exist as a tribe anymore but some as part of a new gothic race.

Cimmerians with high probability spoke an Iranic tongue with Thracian elements. Cimmerianswere usually regarded as the same or similar stock as the Scythians in Assyrian records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians

 

[Yetos]

well
my opignion to thread is NO,

ever the effort of Duridanov who did an excellent work to connect Thracian with Balto-Slavic failed,
for example the word MUCA means sons clan like Scottish Mac,
the word Polje with Greek Polis
-bria which cognates wwith Germanic burg
ktistai, kalafatis (wall builder-architecture)

Slavic is mixed Language that created by mixing Thracian and Scythian.

 

[Besa]

They might of come into contact with balto-slavs and Sarmatians, the Dacians of the carpathians lived next to both. or it could be vice versa, balto-slavic was influenced by Thracian-Dacian.

 

[Melancon]

It's interesting that I stumble upon this thread. I don't know why I did not see it before! I studied Thracian fairly recently; and actually came up with a very very similar analogy/conclusion. I was a bit amazed and perplexed at how similar the words in Thracian were written linguistically; to many modern Baltic languages. I don't speak any Baltic languages; but I've researched Balto-Slavic and was a bit surprised at how similar Thracian and pre-Balto-Slavic seemed to be. In one instance; I found the pronunciation of ancient Thracian had the letter Z being used for the english "J" sound (as seen in Polish) and it also seemed to me to be very similar not just to Baltic or Slavic in general; but to the Western Slavic dialects as well.

Can anyone comment on that?

 

[Diurpaneus]

"MEZENA" is an extremely reliable Thracian word,it has everything:


-it is attested in an inscription,we can actually see the horse

http://groznijat.tripod.com/thrac/thrac_6.html


-knowing the Thracians' habits,





it's highly unlikely that this word would have been borrowed from another language.


-as for the analogies,none of them is Balto-Slavic(no offense!) :



PIE mend-, mond-,to suck (brost), to feed; brost

Alb. ment “ suckle, suck”, mezej “ suckle “; mes, mezi m. “Fullen”, mezat “young
bull, Tierjunges”, mezore “young cow
Messap. Juppiter Menzana

Ger. Tirol Manz, Menz “unfruchtbare cow”, rheinland. Minzekalb, Basque mando “mulus”, etc.); M.Ir.
menn (*mendo-), mennan “young animal, calf, Fullen”, secondary bennan “Kalbchen, kid,
Hirschlein”, Ir. binnseach, gael. minnseach “young goat, kid”, Welsh mynnan “kid”, Corn.
min “haedus”, Bret. menn “young animal”, menn gavr “young goat, kid
O.H.G. manzon m. pl. “teat, udder"(Pokorny)


the closest ones:Albanian mez,Romanian mânz(a colt,foal,stallion),messapic Jupiter MENZANA

 

[Garrick]

"MEZENA" is an extremely reliable Thracian word,it has everything:


-it is attested in an inscription,we can actually see the horse

http://groznijat.tripod.com/thrac/thrac_6.html


-knowing the Thracians' habits,


View attachment 7281


it's highly unlikely that this word would have been borrowed from another language.


-as for the analogies,none of them is Balto-Slavic(no offense!) :



PIE mend-, mond-,to suck (brost), to feed; brost

Alb. ment “ suckle, suck”, mezej “ suckle “; mes, mezi m. “Fullen”, mezat “young
bull, Tierjunges”, mezore “young cow
Messap. Juppiter Menzana

Ger. Tirol Manz, Menz “unfruchtbare cow”, rheinland. Minzekalb, Basque mando “mulus”, etc.); M.Ir.
menn (*mendo-), mennan “young animal, calf, Fullen”, secondary bennan “Kalbchen, kid,
Hirschlein”, Ir. binnseach, gael. minnseach “young goat, kid”, Welsh mynnan “kid”, Corn.
min “haedus”, Bret. menn “young animal”, menn gavr “young goat, kid
O.H.G. manzon m. pl. “teat, udder"(Pokorny)


the closest ones:Albanian mez,Romanian mânz(a foal,stallion),messapic Jupiter MENZANA

This word exists is in Serbian.

(I think this word is not in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish..., I don't know for Lithuanian and Latvian.)

Thracian mezena = Serbian mezimac (none)

Mezimac is child or animal (often young), someone's minion (for animals = pet).

And Serbian verb maziti (present tense: mazim, mazis, mazi, mazimo, mazite, maze) is connected with mezena, it means: cuddle, pet.

 

[arvistro]

In Latvian too Mazs is small. Mazais - the small one.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mazs
From Proto-Baltic *maž, from Proto-Indo-European *meǵʰ-, *moǵʰ- (“big, small, i.e., size extremes)”). Cognates include Lithuanian mãžas, Sudovian maz, Old Prussian massais ([mazais], “smaller”), Scythian maz(a) (“big”), Gothic ?????????????????????????????? (magus, “boy (i.e., little)”), Old English micel (“large, big, great”) (English much), Albanian madh (“big”), Old Armenian մեծ (mec, “great, large”), Sanskrit मह (mahá, “great, mighty, strong, abundant”), Old Irish maige (“great, large”), Ancient Greek μέγας (mégas, “big, large”), Latin magnus (“big”).^[1]

p.s.
"Slavic is mixed Language that created by mixing Thracian and Scythian." - how this pearl lost me I am not sure )

 

[Amelda]

Simply common indo-European roots shared with other languages.

 

[Diurpaneus]

Simply common indo-European roots shared with other languages.

Would you please develop a little bit,Amelda?

I would really appreciate it.

 

[Diurpaneus]

There are two distinct SEMANTIC paths:

Serbian mezimac is related to Old Slavic mezinu(younger),Russian mezinyi,Ruthenian mizynyi(small),Romanian mezin(of Slavic origin,it means "younger brother")and to Latvian mazs,mazais.
Their SEMANTIC origin can't be any more clearer:from "small",the words' distribution points to Balto-Slavic.



The words from my list, follow these SEMANTIC changes:


"to suckle"-->"weaned"(un-suckle)-->"mule","foal","stallion","kid"



And, of course,only FOUR... have a HORSE.

 

[Diurpaneus]

http://www.differenzatra.it/differenza-tra-manzo-e-vitello/

In Italian, "manzo" means "steer,young ox".

 

[Garrick]

Alinei theory does not present evidences of how come Romanians are speaking a Romance language,which can be explained only if the people that were in Dacia,before Dacians came and conquered them,were speaking some Celto-Italic dialect.
As for "Slavic genes" thing is,there is lots of Italic admixture in South Slavs,on K36,I highly doubt Roman Empire brought so many colonists from Italy there,to explain so much Italic admixture.
Only if Illyrians were speakers of a Centum language and a population related to Italians,can explain so much Italic admixture in South Slavs.
After Roman Empire conquest,lots of Dacians moved South of Danube and since Dacians were more than natives,this is how South Slavic was adopted in Serbia,Croatia,Montenegro,Bosnia .And Albanians were just another Dacian tribe,who moved South of Danube so this why Albanians are also speaking a Satem language.

Some Romanian scientists as possible tribes suggest Carpi and Costoboci which moved from (modern areas) Eastern Romania/Moldavia/South West Ukraine (5th-10th century) to Albania (although more tribes can be candidates).

Name Carpi seems to be connected to the place where they lived, meaning 'rock' or 'mountain' (Albanian karpë='cliff', 'rock').

The name of Carpathian mountains is probably derived either from their name or vice versa.

They lived in today's areas Eastern Romania, Moldavia and South West Ukraine.

It is interestng, in these areas there are a lot of toponyms not only Carpathian/Karpë which can be Albanian origins.

Only small portion:

(Mol.) toponym in Moldavia; (Rom.) toponym in Romania; (Ukr.) toponym in Ukraine

Lapushna (Mol.) Lapushnik (village in Kosovo)

Bălți (Mol.)baltë (Alb.)
Clay (Eng.)argilă (Rom.) glina (Pol.)

Trinca (Mol.) trinë (Alb.)
Instep (Eng.) căpută (Rom.) podbicie (Pol.)

Fundurii Vechi (Mol.) fund uri (Alb.)
End hunger (Eng.) sfârșit inaniţie (Rom.) koniec glodu (Pol.)

Ungheny (Mol.) ungji (Alb.)
Uncle (Eng.) unchi (Rom.) wujek (Pol.)

Shirauti (Mol.) shirit (Alb.)
Tape (Eng.) bandă (Rom.) tasma (Pol.)

Grimăncăuți (Mol.) (root) grimë (Alb.)
Bit (Eng.) pic (Rom.) kawalek (Pol.)

Tabani (Mol.) Taban (Alb.)
Subsoil (Eng.) subsol (Rom.) podglebie (Pol.)

Bajura (Rom.) bajukë (Alb.)
Mallard (Eng.) rață sălbatică (Rom.) dzika kazcka (Pol.)

Taraclia (Mol.) tarallak (Alb.)
Naive (Eng.)naiv (Rom.) naiwny (Pol.)

Gura Humorului (Rom.) gur (Alb.)
Boulder (Eng.) bolovan (Rom.) glaz eratyczny (Pol.)

Pădureni (Rom.) padurim (Alb.)
Eagerness (Eng.) nerabdare (Rom.) gorliwosc (Pol.)

Hudum (Rom.) hudhurim (Alb.)
Bitterness (Eng.) amărăciune (Rom.) gorycz (Pol.)

Bucecea (Rom.) bucelë (Alb.)
Keg (Eng.) butojas (Rom.) beczka (Pol.)

Havarna (Rom.) havan (Alb.)
Mortar (Eng.) mojar (Rom.) mozdzierz (Pol.)

Kelmentsi (Ukr.) Kelmendi (Klimenti) region in Albania

Gertsa (Ukr.) gjeras (Alb.)
Breadthwise (Eng.) in latime (Rom.) wszerz (Pol.)