Was Cimmerian (Old Persian) an Albanized Iranian language?

Cyrus

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As you probably know we see the same sound changes in Old Persian and proto-Albanian languages, such as *ḱ>θ, *ǵ>d/ð, gʷ>g/z, ... in fact the only difference between Old Persian and proto-Albanian is that the sound changes in the first one happend on proto-Iranian but the second one on proto-IE, does it mean both of them originated in the same land but from almost two different cultures?
 
What's your scientific source to claim that Cimmerian was Old Persian? It's not even widely believed that we have enough evidences to claim that Cimmerian was indeed Indo-Iranian, let alone Old Persian, which is a specific language of the Southwestern branch of the Iranic languages: Indo-Iranian > Proto-Iranic > Southwest Iranic > Old Persian. Cimmerian is actually thought by many to have been a sort of intermediary branch between Daco-Thracian and/or Illyrian (mostly the former, as far as I have read) and Indo-Iranian. There was probably such a thing as an "Albanized Iranian language", and in any case it is unlikely that Albanian had anything to do with Cimmerian in terms of recent linguistic origins. What probably happened is simply that the dialect continuum of the IE languages was not completely broken due to the expansion of just a few daughter languages up to the Iron Age, superseding most of the other "middle-ground" dialect groups (IE branches) that existed between them. There was probably a "Germanic-Celtic" language, a "Slavic-Indo-Iranian" language, a "Hellenic-Illyrian" language and so on, but those were not actual mixes of those IE branches, they were actually just dialects that shared features with one end and the other end of the IE dialect continuum. Cimmerian might've been one of the remnants of these extinct IE branches.

Analyzing the connections between two languages based on their supposedly sharing some phonological developments in common is very misleading (and that is assuming that those sound rules are exactly identical, and not just similar in their ultimate consequences - I'm not sure about that). Languages are much more than their phonology, no proper assessment can be done without considering above all the morphology and syntax (and, secondarily, the lexicon too)... in fact there are some sound changes that are pretty common throughout the world under the same or similar conditions, so that they may happen in almost identical ways in different languages, in different times and places, without necessarily one of them having influenced the other, or their having a recent common root. For instance a "satem-like" change happened in Old French, affecting even the /ka, ko, ku/ syllables (not just /ke/ and /ki/ as in most other Romance languages), but that doesn't mean that it must've had some influence from a satem lanuage. The sound changes were completely independent, it just happens that palatalizations and subsequent fricativizations or sibilantization of consonants are a very common development in many languages' evolution. E

ven if the sound change was identical and happened at the same time, that still does not imply necessarily an immediate common origin, because it may just point to areal features in a large Sprachbund, sharing some common linguistic trends.
 
As you probably know we see the same sound changes in Old Persian and proto-Albanian languages, such as *ḱ>θ, *ǵ>d/ð, gʷ>g/z, ... in fact the only difference between Old Persian and proto-Albanian is that the sound changes in the first one happend on proto-Iranian but the second one on proto-IE, does it mean both of them originated in the same land but from almost two different cultures?
Persians origins came from modern Tajikistan/uzbekistan and went to Persia in 1000BC ...............
The Persians, and their closest relatives were the Medes, and both came from the Saka peoples in the central Asian steppe. The Medes and Persians first entered Iran from the Uzbekistan around 1000 BC. They settled the central Iranian plateau, mixing with the Scythian and Kassite migrants who preceded them, as well as with the Elamitic natives. The Persians moved to present-day Fars around 700 BC. The Medes settled in the northwest and today are called the Kurds.
 
What's your scientific source to claim that Cimmerian was Old Persian? It's not even widely believed that we have enough evidences to claim that Cimmerian was indeed Indo-Iranian, let alone Old Persian, which is a specific language of the Southwestern branch of the Iranic languages: Indo-Iranian > Proto-Iranic > Southwest Iranic > Old Persian. Cimmerian is actually thought by many to have been a sort of intermediary branch between Daco-Thracian and/or Illyrian (mostly the former, as far as I have read) and Indo-Iranian. There was probably such a thing as an "Albanized Iranian language", and in any case it is unlikely that Albanian had anything to do with Cimmerian in terms of recent linguistic origins. What probably happened is simply that the dialect continuum of the IE languages was not completely broken due to the expansion of just a few daughter languages up to the Iron Age, superseding most of the other "middle-ground" dialect groups (IE branches) that existed between them. There was probably a "Germanic-Celtic" language, a "Slavic-Indo-Iranian" language, a "Hellenic-Illyrian" language and so on, but those were not actual mixes of those IE branches, they were actually just dialects that shared features with one end and the other end of the IE dialect continuum. Cimmerian might've been one of the remnants of these extinct IE branches.

Analyzing the connections between two languages based on their supposedly sharing some phonological developments in common is very misleading (and that is assuming that those sound rules are exactly identical, and not just similar in their ultimate consequences - I'm not sure about that). Languages are much more than their phonology, no proper assessment can be done without considering above all the morphology and syntax (and, secondarily, the lexicon too)... in fact there are some sound changes that are pretty common throughout the world under the same or similar conditions, so that they may happen in almost identical ways in different languages, in different times and places, without necessarily one of them having influenced the other, or their having a recent common root. For instance a "satem-like" change happened in Old French, affecting even the /ka, ko, ku/ syllables (not just /ke/ and /ki/ as in most other Romance languages), but that doesn't mean that it must've had some influence from a satem lanuage. The sound changes were completely independent, it just happens that palatalizations and subsequent fricativizations or sibilantization of consonants are a very common development in many languages' evolution. E

ven if the sound change was identical and happened at the same time, that still does not imply necessarily an immediate common origin, because it may just point to areal features in a large Sprachbund, sharing some common linguistic trends.

I have talked about Cimmerians in some other threads, as I said I am a historian and I don't care what nationalists say, there is absolutely no evidence which shows Persians lived in Iran before the arrival of Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, it is clear who established Parsua kingdom in the northwest of Iran, destroyed Ellipi kingdom and conquered Anshan (Persia), ...
I strongly believe that sound changes didn't happen in languages without any reason, there are some important reasons for these changes, like phonology of native languages, it is possible that for example "d" is changed to "t" in two different languages in two different places but when we talk about a group of different sound changes, especially in different places of articulation, it is difficult to believe there is no relation between them.
 
As you probably know we see the same sound changes in Old Persian and proto-Albanian languages, such as *ḱ>θ, *ǵ>d/ð, gʷ>g/z, ... in fact the only difference between Old Persian and proto-Albanian is that the sound changes in the first one happend on proto-Iranian but the second one on proto-IE, does it mean both of them originated in the same land but from almost two different cultures?

What historical mechanism would have been required for Iranian to become Albanized?
 
What historical mechanism would have been required for Iranian to become Albanized?


It is difficult to explain what happened, many Persian and Albanian words seem to be the same with just different vowels, for example:

Proto-IE: *g'eus-
Meaning: to choose

Old Indian: jóṣati
Avestan: zaoš
Old Persian: dauš
Old Greek: géuomai
Germanic: *kiús
Latin: gustāre
Celtic: gusi
Albanian: deša

Persian and Albanian words actually mean "to love".

Proto-IE: *gʷen-, *gʷnā-
Meaning: woman, wife

Tokharian: śäṃ
Old Indian: gnā́
Avestan: gǝnā
Persian: zan
Armenian: kēn
Old Greek: günǟ́
Slavic: *ženā́
Baltic: *gen-ā
Germanic: *kwin
Celtic: *guenā
Albanian: zónjë

Albanian is actually neither Centum, nor Satem, in fact the proccess of Palatalization ([k] > [kʲ], [c], [tʃ], [ts], [ʃ], ) has been stopped at [ts] and then it has been changed to [th].

For example from Proto-IE déḱm "ten", there are:

Italic: *dekem
Celtic: *dekam
Hellenic: *dékə
Tocharian: śäk
Germanic: *texun
Old Indian: dáśa
Avestan: dasā
Old Persian: datha
Albanian: djeth
Armenian: tasn
Balto-Slavic: *dešimtis

[k] > [kʲ], [c] (proto-Indo-Iranian), [tʃ] (proto-Iranian), [ts] (proto-Albanian), [ʃ] (proto-Balto-Slavic), (Indian/Iranian)
 
Zonjë is for lady, grua is for woman, but can stand. Number ten in Albanian is dhjetë, not djeth. When you talk, you can "forget" the ë in the end and you can say simply dhjet. dh is like this meanwhile j is like yes in English.
In Albanian there is the word hallë for the aunt from the father side, because in Albanian we have two different words to distinguish the sister of the mother from the sister of the father, the same is even for the uncles, again two different words.
This word hallë is similar with the Iranian word for aunt, i don't remember now the exact word in iranian. Some say that is borrowed from Persian through Turkish, but i think is not a borrowing but a native word of the Albanian language.
 
Zonjë is for lady, grua is for woman, but can stand. Number ten in Albanian is dhjetë, not djeth. When you talk, you can "forget" the ë in the end and you can say simply dhjet. dh is like this meanwhile j is like yes in English.
In Albanian there is the word hallë for the aunt from the father side, because in Albanian we have two different words to distinguish the sister of the mother from the sister of the father, the same is even for the uncles, again two different words.
This word hallë is similar with the Iranian word for aunt, i don't remember now the exact word in iranian. Some say that is borrowed from Persian through Turkish, but i think is not a borrowing but a native word of the Albanian language.

I talk about Old Albanian language, there are certainly many Persian and Arabic words in Albanian, mostly through Ottoman Turkish, like xale "aunt" that you mentioned. Albanian dhjetë https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dhjetë is from *djeth + -të, from Proto-Albanian *detsa.
 
@ Cyrus @ Ygorcs

I have nothice long time ago about the common aspiration that they have,
but I consider it as Scythian connection from minor Scythia,

Is ithis possible?
 
@ Cyrus @ Ygorcs

I have nothice long time ago about the common aspiration that they have,
but I consider it as Scythian connection from minor Scythia,

Is ithis possible?

Scythian was an eastern Iranian language, one of its descendant is Ossetian, for example the Ossetic word for "ten" is dæs, or zimæg means "winter", compare Avestan zǝm but Old Persian daim and Albanian dimër, zinon "yesterday", Avestan zyō but Old Persian diya, ...
 
I talk about Old Albanian language, there are certainly many Persian and Arabic words in Albanian, mostly through Ottoman Turkish, like xale "aunt" that you mentioned. Albanian dhjetë https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dhjetë is from *djeth + -të, from Proto-Albanian *detsa.
I thought you were talking about Albanian and not Proto-Albanian.
I don't think that the word hallë is a borrowing from Persian.
Anyway, the discussion is another. There are plenty of theories similar with yours. Here you have another theory:
http://www.lituanus.org/1993_2/93_2_05.htm
All these reconstruction of proto languages, etc, are simply theories, including the theory of the Indo-European languages which is an scientific theory based on..... Bible.
 
It is difficult to explain what happened, many Persian and Albanian words seem to be the same with just different vowels, for example:

Proto-IE: *g'eus-
Meaning: to choose

Old Indian: jóṣati
Avestan: zaoš
Old Persian: dauš
Old Greek: géuomai
Germanic: *kiús
Latin: gustāre
Celtic: gusi
Albanian: deša

Persian and Albanian words actually mean "to love".

Proto-IE: *gʷen-, *gʷnā-
Meaning: woman, wife

Tokharian: śäṃ
Old Indian: gnā́
Avestan: gǝnā
Persian: zan
Armenian: kēn
Old Greek: günǟ́
Slavic: *ženā́
Baltic: *gen-ā
Germanic: *kwin
Celtic: *guenā
Albanian: zónjë

Albanian is actually neither Centum, nor Satem, in fact the proccess of Palatalization ([k] > [kʲ], [c], [tʃ], [ts], [ʃ], ) has been stopped at [ts] and then it has been changed to [th].

For example from Proto-IE déḱm "ten", there are:

Italic: *dekem
Celtic: *dekam
Hellenic: *dékə
Tocharian: śäk
Germanic: *texun
Old Indian: dáśa
Avestan: dasā
Old Persian: datha
Albanian: djeth
Armenian: tasn
Balto-Slavic: *dešimtis

[k] > [kʲ], [c] (proto-Indo-Iranian), [tʃ] (proto-Iranian), [ts] (proto-Albanian), [ʃ] (proto-Balto-Slavic), (Indian/Iranian)


Alb. "Dua/due " (to want / to love) comes from
*duām, from Proto-Albanian *duēs-mi, from Proto-Indo-European *deus- (compare English tire, Ancient Greek δεύομαι (de?omai) ?to lack?)
 
It is difficult to explain what happened, many Persian and Albanian words seem to be the same with just different vowels, for example:

Proto-IE: *g'eus-
Meaning: to choose

Old Indian: jóṣati
Avestan: zaoš
Old Persian: dauš
Old Greek: géuomai
Germanic: *kiús
Latin: gustāre
Celtic: gusi
Albanian: deša

Persian and Albanian words actually mean "to love".

Proto-IE: *gʷen-, *gʷnā-
Meaning: woman, wife

Tokharian: śäṃ
Old Indian: gnā́
Avestan: gǝnā
Persian: zan
Armenian: kēn
Old Greek: günǟ́
Slavic: *ženā́
Baltic: *gen-ā
Germanic: *kwin
Celtic: *guenā
Albanian: zónjë

Albanian is actually neither Centum, nor Satem, in fact the proccess of Palatalization ([k] > [kʲ], [c], [tʃ], [ts], [ʃ], ) has been stopped at [ts] and then it has been changed to [th].

For example from Proto-IE déḱm "ten", there are:

Italic: *dekem
Celtic: *dekam
Hellenic: *dékə
Tocharian: śäk
Germanic: *texun
Old Indian: dáśa
Avestan: dasā
Old Persian: datha
Albanian: djeth
Armenian: tasn
Balto-Slavic: *dešimtis

[k] > [kʲ], [c] (proto-Indo-Iranian), [tʃ] (proto-Iranian), [ts] (proto-Albanian), [ʃ] (proto-Balto-Slavic), (Indian/Iranian)


Likewise, as Laberia pointed out, you have chosen zonj?, when it doesnt share the same root as the other words its being compared to. Grua/Grue is the cognate of those.

Zonj? is cognate with Potnia, the goddess in mycanea
 
Alb. "Dua/due " (to want / to love) comes from
*duām, from Proto-Albanian *duēs-mi, from Proto-Indo-European *deus- (compare English tire, Ancient Greek δεύομαι (de�omai) �to lack�)

Those are what linguists say, not me, of course it is poosible that some linguists also have different theories about them but I don't think that anyone denies proto-IE *ǵ is changed to d/dh in Albanian.
 
I thought you were talking about Albanian and not Proto-Albanian.
I don't think that the word hallë is a borrowing from Persian.
Anyway, the discussion is another. There are plenty of theories similar with yours. Here you have another theory:
http://www.lituanus.org/1993_2/93_2_05.htm
All these reconstruction of proto languages, etc, are simply theories, including the theory of the Indo-European languages which is an scientific theory based on..... Bible.

xale "aunt" is from Arabic, not Persian, in Arabic it is female equivalent of xal "uncle".

There can be certainly different theories about contacts and relations between Indo-European languages, these theories can help us to find more info about the history of these people.
 
As I mentioned in another thread I think Cimmerian migration to Pontus and west Persia relates to haplogroup R1b-Z2103: https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml

Haplogroup-R1b-Z2103.png
 
I have talked about Cimmerians in some other threads, as I said I am a historian and I don't care what nationalists say, there is absolutely no evidence which shows Persians lived in Iran before the arrival of Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, it is clear who established Parsua kingdom in the northwest of Iran, destroyed Ellipi kingdom and conquered Anshan (Persia), ...
I strongly believe that sound changes didn't happen in languages without any reason, there are some important reasons for these changes, like phonology of native languages, it is possible that for example "d" is changed to "t" in two different languages in two different places but when we talk about a group of different sound changes, especially in different places of articulation, it is difficult to believe there is no relation between them.

That doesn't prove that Cimmerian is Old Persian, especially when we know that Persian is just one language among many other Southwestern Iranic languages, and that they're clearly related to Northeastern Iranic languages of Central Asia. You're just assuming that the Cimmerians had a linguistic impact, while all the Iranic movements into South-Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau didn't. It's absolutely clear that Persian was not spoken near literate civilizations in Iran before the Early Iron Age (that's all we can say for sure, it may in fact have been spoken in parts of the Iranian Plateau that didn't have close and frequent contacts with the societies who left us written records), but I think you're making a leap of faith by assuming that that necessarily means it was brought by Cimmerians.

Well, you may believe that, but there are documented evidences of unrelated languages, even belonging to different language families in territories completely apart from each other, having experienced the same phonological trends, and in my opinion that's even more likely to not involve any common origin or mutual influence when the change affected different places of articulation, because then that indicates that those languages, independently or not, began a phonological trend that ended up causing consequences to several different consonants and/or vowels. There is no evidence at all that similar sound changes, triggered by the same geneneral processes, imply a common descent.

For instance, Brazilian Portuguese and Canadian French dialects independently evolved palatalization followed by fricativization of /t/ and /d/ before the vowel /i/, and that in fact also happened in Japanese. That doesn't mean that they had to have been in close contact (and since the change in Canada and Brazil happened much more recently we actually know for a fact that they weren't), it just means that a similar trend in the articulation of sounds ended up leading to similar final effects: /ts/ and /dz/ in Canada, /tsh/ and /dzh/ in Brazil.
 
It is difficult to explain what happened, many Persian and Albanian words seem to be the same with just different vowels, for example:

Proto-IE: *g'eus-
Meaning: to choose

Old Indian: jóṣati
Avestan: zaoš
Old Persian: dauš
Old Greek: géuomai
Germanic: *kiús
Latin: gustāre
Celtic: gusi
Albanian: deša

Persian and Albanian words actually mean "to love".

Proto-IE: *gʷen-, *gʷnā-
Meaning: woman, wife

Tokharian: śäṃ
Old Indian: gnā́
Avestan: gǝnā
Persian: zan
Armenian: kēn
Old Greek: günǟ́
Slavic: *ženā́
Baltic: *gen-ā
Germanic: *kwin
Celtic: *guenā
Albanian: zónjë

Albanian is actually neither Centum, nor Satem, in fact the proccess of Palatalization ([k] > [kʲ], [c], [tʃ], [ts], [ʃ], ) has been stopped at [ts] and then it has been changed to [th].

For example from Proto-IE déḱm "ten", there are:

Italic: *dekem
Celtic: *dekam
Hellenic: *dékə
Tocharian: śäk
Germanic: *texun
Old Indian: dáśa
Avestan: dasā
Old Persian: datha
Albanian: djeth
Armenian: tasn
Balto-Slavic: *dešimtis

[k] > [kʲ], [c] (proto-Indo-Iranian), [tʃ] (proto-Iranian), [ts] (proto-Albanian), [ʃ] (proto-Balto-Slavic), (Indian/Iranian)


It's a mistake to believe that all "satem-like" changes are the same and necessarily happened at the same time. If we go by that token, and we didn't knew anything about Old Italic languages, we'd think that Romance languages were a "satemized" (Iranianized, Albanianized?) language family, but in fact we just know that palatalization of vowels, especially before front vowels, is very common, so that change may happen independently in place and time. [k] > [kj] > [ts], [tsh], [th], in Romance languages is pretty "satem-like", but we know that it happened mostly in the last 1500 years, and has nothing to do with similar developments much earlier in other IE branches.
 
Scythian was an eastern Iranian language, one of its descendant is Ossetian, for example the Ossetic word for "ten" is dæs, or zimæg means "winter", compare Avestan zǝm but Old Persian daim and Albanian dimër, zinon "yesterday", Avestan zyō but Old Persian diya, ...

To be fair we actually don't know if Scythian languages were all Eastern Iranic. We know almost nothing about them, and most of the evidences about those that we do come from the southern part of Central Asia (Sogdian, Saka Khotanese), but barely anything about the actual steppe languages, especially those in the western portion of it. Considering the genetic heterogeneity that has been found in the Scytho-Sarmatian DNA samples, I highly doubt they all spoke the same language, and I actually think it's highly likely that Indo-Aryan, Southwestern Iranic, Dardic (Indo-Iranian branches) came from the lands that would become generically known as "Scythian". So I think it's probable they spoke related languages, and maybe Eastern Iranic prevailed over the others, but they might've spoken several Indo-Iranian subgroups at least originally, before the consolidation of a more homogeneous Scythian cultural complex roughly after 700-800 B.C.
 
I have talked about Cimmerians in some other threads, as I said I am a historian and I don't care what nationalists say, there is absolutely no evidence which shows Persians lived in Iran before the arrival of Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, it is clear who established Parsua kingdom in the northwest of Iran, destroyed Ellipi kingdom and conquered Anshan (Persia), ...

So far two cimmerian samples have R1b1a and Q1a with lots of east asian admixture, and the east asian admixture also at the iron age of anatolia. Likewise, there is a possibility that greek bronze would have the east asian admixture also. So I just think cimmerian originated in altai, and maybe persian too.

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?16669-ZEUS-and-altai-petroglyph
https://indo-european.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/damgaard-south-asia.jpg
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat4457

Anyway, do you know where the Darius tomb culture came from?

Tomb_of_Darius_I.jpg

Tomb_of_Darius_the_Great


china late bronze:
http://www.ancient-encounters.com/AESE/Discovery_files/ r1.jpg

mesoamerica:
http://www.ancient-encounters.com/AESE/Discovery_files/-s1-filtered.jpg
 

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