Slavic tribes, Scythian language, and Ukraine

Transcript of what was said in the video (minor difference is possible; a new timestamp is a new slide on the screen)

Hello, Dear Viewers. This video is intended to resolve several scientific problems, several historical problems. The Slavic tribes. Some of you probably heard of an issue about how and when the Slavic tribes actually emerged. And that's an issue scientists and scholars are still scratching their heads over as of today. One of existing ideas for a time period of their emergence suggests the first appearance of Slavs be in the CE. But, according to some scholars, if we look at the context, Slavs appeared suddenly on some small piece of land surrounded by the Germanic tribes. On a question of how even these Slavic tribes emerged, no clear answer will follow. But there is one more scientific problem, "What was the language of the Scythians?" One of generally known theories is that they spoke an Indo-Iranian or Iranian language. But in this case, another question arises, "What has happened to those Indo-Iranians? What has happened to the language of the Scythians, say, living on the territory of Ukraine?" In this video, we will see that these two problems and a couple of other related problems can be resolved if we answer the main question, "What language did the Scythians actually speak?" And I suggest you turn on the Subtitles.

Before we start, I'd like to express my deep gratitude to the author of the "История Руси" channel whom I respect a lot for his work. And I'd like to wish him, "Keep going! Without your efforts, my content would probably never come to exist." "История Руси" in Russian means "History of Rus'" or "History of Ruthenia" in English. The channel is hosted by a Ukrainian in the Russian language (but he knows both the languages) and is dedicated to the history of Ukraine. For those who don't know, Rus' or Ruthenia have nothing to do with the Russian Federation, the successor of Rus' or Ruthenia is Ukraine, not Muscovy. It's just a historical fact. The Ruthenian language, which still exists and which is called today the Rusyn language, is very similar to Ukrainian, easy to follow by Ukrainians, and both the Ukrainian and Ruthenian languages are totally not comprehended by Russians. I can't but mention here a Russian author Борис Андреевич Успенский in this regard, according to which "the Russian language is an acceptable deviation from the Church Slavonic language". I should again thank the "История Руси" channel's author who simply revealed this fact (the link is in the description). Unfortunately, at this moment, the videos on that channel are not covered with English subtitles, but I hope it will change one day so that more people will have a better understanding of the real history.

(2:22) Let's continue. One of myths about the Scythians is that they consisted of Indo-Iranian nomadic tribes which walked thousands of kilometers from east to west for an unknown reason and spoke Iranian languages. This myth was and is primarily supported by Soviet and Russian "researchers", and, as you can see, even the English Wiki states the same. One thing I would change here - I would replace the word "researchers" or put it in quotes, because the so-called "third account by Herodotus" simply doesn't exist. We will discuss it in a short time. If you read the whole Wiki article, you will acknowledge that the Iranian theory can't be actually applied to the Scythians. Some people even tried to uphold their belief in the Iranian origin of the Scythians by arguing that there are some archaeological finds somewhere near Afghanistan "similar" to those of the Scythians. "Similar to those of the Scythians" doesn't mean "belonging to the Scythians". If you eat your food with spoons or forks our countries produce, it doesn't mean that we come from the same ancestors or speak the same language. Imagine a situation when, a thousand years later, archaeologists, based on our flatware, will divide the world into two empires: the Chopstickers and the Non-Chopstickers. Even from the perspective of a person living in the 21st century, these archaeologists will look stupid if they try to conclude it. That's the reason why archaeology can't be solely used to prove the origin of any tribe without primary sources, linguistic analysis, etc. It's not the goal of archaeology. Random application of the term "Scythians" to tribes which are not attested as the Scythians by primary sources is a way to turn archaeology into pseudoscience. And that's why, in this video, we will try to investigate, not from the archaeological perspective, but from the historical and linguistic perspective, who the Scythians actually were.

First, I'd like to pay attention to one very interesting place in the Wiki article about the origin of the Scythians. The "Literary evidence" section has surprised me a lot. Especially the so-called "third version by Herodotus". Once I read a piece that, according to one of Herodotus' versions, the Scythians came from Central Asia, my eyes got very big. But once I saw that someone who wrote this provides an exact chapter and paragraph, my eyes got even much bigger.

(4:22) In Herodotus' text (which is available on "sacred-texts"; you can see an English translation by G. C. Macaulay on the left side and the text in Ancient Greek on the right side), we will find nothing about Central Asia. And Herodotus couldn't say anything about Central Asia as in the age of Herodotus this term didn't exist and appeared several centuries later after his death. By Asia, Herodotus meant, roughly speaking, the territory of modern Turkey or territory south of the Phasis (Rioni) river. Several centuries later, say, in the age of Ptolemy, Asia would only begin at crossing the Tanais, or Don, River, which is also not Asia in today's understanding.

(4:56) After meeting with the Scythians, Herodotus clearly noted that their lands end by the Tanais River, and beyond the Tanais begin the lands of Sauromatians. And Herodotus was probably the first known person who wrote about the Scythians. Now, let's open the Ruthenian Chronicle of Nestor in the Hypatian Codex at the very beginning. (5:12) Based on what is written in this text, this fragment can be translated as follows, "To the Slavonic people (meaning "a people" in singular) ... To the Slavonic people, which I already mentioned as one living on the Danube river, from the Skuf, i.e. from the Kozars, those who have a name of the 'Bulgarians' came ..." In this text, you might see the word resembling "Slovenian" instead of "Slavonic", but you should not understand the word "Slovenian" in chronicles as relating to the modern Slovenes. As some of you will note from another fragment, this word rather means "Slavonic" than "Slovenian". The word "Skuf" here resembles "Scythians". Either Nestor, who is supposed to additionally rely on Greek sources to write his chronicle, derived this word from Ancient Greek "Σκύθες", with "υ" transliterated and pronounced in foreign languages either as /i/ or /y/. Or, "-uf" here just resembles the suffix "-ów" existing today in modern Polish, which just means the genitive from a supposed word "Skyii" or similar. As for the Kozars, you know them by the name of the "Khazars". Ukrainian Hetman Pylyp Orlyk, in his 1710's Ukrainian Constitution, derived the Cossacks from the Kozars. And there is no reason to assume that Pylyp Orlyk lied or was wrong. You know that the Cossacks are Ukrainians. The Polish gentry, in their days, considered themselves as descendants of the Sarmatians, and statements, like they didn't know their origin and decided to connect themselves with the Sarmatians just to prove others something, have no ground. The same is applied to Ukrainians. You probably heard that the Kozars are supposed to be of Turkic origin. In a separate video, I'm planning to show you that it's also a myth and that the real language of the Kozars was not Turkic. In this video, we will just attest the connection between the Scythians and the Kozars, as Nestor stated in his Chronicle.

(6:45) In this fragment, Nestor lists several tribes. Only two of them (the Polans and Drevlians), he names "Slovenian" (that is, Slavonic). But according to this text, Nestor says that the lands along the Bug, Dnipro and Danube river and up to the very sea are still associated by Greeks with Great Scythia. (7:00) Little Scythia in turn was mentioned by Strabo. As he wrote in his "Geography", it includes the lands of Taurica, which are the lands of the today's Crimean Peninsula, and, probably, the lands located as far as the Riphean Mountains, where the Dnipro River was believed by Greeks to begin (where it is, I will tell you later). At the same time, as it can be assumed from Herodotus, the lands named Little Scythia by Strabo were held by the Royal Scythians. For your information, the word "Little" is usually applied to the indigenous lands, whereas "Great" means the lands later inhabited when resettling, or added to the indigenous territory as colonies, or considered to be such. (7:34) Leo the Deacon mentions Sviatoslav I of Kyiv, or Sviatoslav the Brave (which he calls Σφενδοσλάβος), as a Taurian. Leo the Deacon, in his "History", also tells us that Tauroscythians and Russes / Rosses, that is, Ruthenians, are just different names of one people or tribe as well as the names "Scythians" and "Huns" are interchangeable. The myth that the Huns are of Indo-Iranian origin is one more myth which has nothing to do with reality. Once the Scythians are proved to be not Iranian, the so-called "Iranian theory" regarding the Huns will be immediately questioned or finally disappear.

(8:06) Before we start deciphering the Scythian language, we will take a look into a full version of the Ukrainian anthem (it's a fragment from Wiki), in which we can see a line with the following phrase, "We will stand, brothers, in a bloody battle, from the Syan to the Don." You can also find on Wikipedia what the Syan River is. On English Wiki, it's mentioned as the San River. What the Don River is - you already know. And the phrase "from the Syan River to the Don River" is a reminder preserved in the Ukrainian song about the western and the eastern borders of Scythia.

And now, we can move to the Scythian language. In this video, I will be referring to some historical sources; and, also, dictionaries provided on such Ukrainian portals as "e2u.org.ua", "r2u.org.ua", "sum.in.ua", and dictionaries on such a portal as "dict.com" from Lingea. You can find links to the sources I'm showing on the screen in the description. A list of the non-English words I'll be explaining and links to the mentioned e-dictionaries are provided in the description to this video as well, so you can check the translation of those words. These dictionaries are very helpful. The creators of those dictionary portals and the authors of the dictionaries themselves have made significant work. And this work will help us to carry out an investigation on the Scythians. And I think some of you will find these portals very helpful too.

I will say in advance that I'm not a linguist. I had some experience with several languages, I can speak several languages, and I'm a native speaker of a couple of them, including Ukrainian. I have some language-related knowledge I gathered during my life on my own. But I think you will see that my conclusions are valid, convincing, and worth to know. Moreover, I believe that you will be definitely astonished once you finish watching the video by the fact that so many Scythian words can be provided with reasonable meanings.

At the beginning, I will explain a general approach. To decipher Scythian words, we should understand several things. First, the Ancient Greeks, Greeks, and not only, when they spell foreign words, they apply their endings and/or suffixes. It means that the original endings of the original words are replaced, and we should identify the root. But to do that, we have a small problem. The problem is that the Herodotus' text we are referring to is not the original one and was probably respelt by copyists. At this moment, there is no original text of the fourth book titled "Melpomene" on papyrus, you will not find it on the Internet. Based on papyri which survived and were scanned, we only know that Herodotus spelt all words with capital, that is, majuscule, letters. R. A. McNeal in their work "On Editing Herodotus", as of the date when the article was released, pointed out that there were several editions of Herodotus' text, and that copyists used to "normalize" spelling of words and, in some cases, add some notes as a part of the text itself. By this "normalization", we should mean that the copyists could respell the words by following pronunciation standards not of Ancient Greek, but Medieval or Modern Greek, which are slightly different in pronunciation on one hand, but this slight difference is not that slight from the historical perspective. To resolve it, we will try to decipher Scythian words by following one pattern in most cases. Applying the cryptologists' language, if one key is valid for all the cases, the key is most probably correct. But as it is a language, people make mistakes even in their native languages. Exceptions are also possible, and will be, but their amount will be small enough against the whole number of words, for which normal meanings will be provided. In some cases, there will be several options, but these options will be tightly connected to one another.

Sometimes, for some Scythian words, some letters within these words will have to be read according to the standards of the Medieval or Modern Greek pronunciation instead of that of the Ancient Greek pronunciation. For some Greek letters, the pronunciation in Ancient Greek and Medieval/Modern Greek will not differ at all, for some of them - there will be a small difference. You can investigate on your own what the difference is. We will read the words as those of Ancient Greek, but you will personally see where some letters should be read as those in Medieval or Modern Greek, based on the original Scythian words uncovered by the context. For the linguists and historians, it will mean the following. Either the linguists are wrong about the pronunciation which existed B.C.E. (it's still possible; the Ancient Greek pronunciation is a reconstructed pronunciation), or the text is really respelt in some places in a Greek language of a later period than required, or both the Ancient Greek and the Scythian language changed over centuries in the way that the comparison between Ancient Greek and Scythian may be equal to the comparison between Modern Greek and one of modern languages. Whatever option is correct, once we provide the original words and meanings, I think even some linguists will start rethinking what they previously thought about Ancient Greek as well as some historians will start reconsidering historical events.

(12:27) If you read all the suggested interpretations of the Scythian words mentioned in the Wiki article about the Scythian languages, you will find that neither the Indo-Iranian theory works, nor a so-called "Ossetian theory", nor others. Neither of those words can be normally or fully provided with an adequate meaning. I will pay your attention only to the "Herodotus' Scythian theonyms" section. We can see, in this section, that someone wrote that "Papaios" is "father" according to Herodotus. I feel sorry for Herodotus, because he never mentioned this god as a "father". We will check right now what Herodotus actually wrote and how, and even cover some words not mentioned on Wiki. (12:59) We will start from the word "Arimaspoi" that relates to the one-eyed people attested by Herodotus. You can see in the text a word "Ἀριμασπούς", in Ancient Greek, in the accusative plural, which will be "Ἀριμασποί" in the nominative plural. According to the text we believe belongs to Herodotus, this word consists of two parts: "ἄριμα" for "one" and "σποῦ" for "eye". (13:19) On the same Wiki page, it's already noted that some scholars reject Herodotus' etymology. And we will follow this suggestion.

Let's start from the point whether it's really "Ἀριμασποί". (13:27) If we look at the Greek alphabet, we will see that the capital "alpha" ("Α") is similar to the capital "delta" ("Δ"). I think that this word was consciously or unconsciously respelt, and the word which was really written is "Δριμασποί". (13:38) And in this form, this word resembles the Ukrainian "Дрімозбиї" relating to the word combination "збивати дрімоту", where "збивати" means "to interrupt" if it concerns dreams (I'm saying it as a native speaker - Google Translate will not provide you with a good translation here, so you can only check the meaning of the word "збивати" either in an explanatory dictionary, one of which is in the description; or you should just know it), and where "дрімота" (with the root "-дрім-") means "a doze" or "a nap". In Ukrainian, there is an expression "дрімати на одне око" which corresponds to the English phrase "to sleep with one eye open" in the meaning "to sleep lightly so as to know what happens around one". We know that Herodotus mentioned the one-eyed "Δριμασποί" along with the "gold-guarding griffins". Most probably, the "Δριμασποί" were guarding the Scythian gold jointly with the "griffins", or, another option, they were border guards, which also explains why they were one-eyed - they had to nap while they were protecting the gold from unauthorised people or protecting Scythia from enemies, that is, they constantly slept with one eye open. Figuratively, not literally. The word is built up by following word formation rules used at least in a couple of Slavic languages including Ukrainian. This word follows a pattern "noun-first, verb-second". The verb usually resembles either its imperative form or is reduced to the root. And /o/ is used as a connecting letter, as in modern Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian and other Slavic languages. As an exception, a connecting letter "а" can appear in a Belarusian word if it's located in an unstressed syllable. A couple of examples. "korkociąg" (Polish) meaning "ciągnąć korek/korki", that is, "to pull the cork/corks". "korkociąg" is "corkscrew". "хмарочос" (Ukrainian) - "чесати хмари" - "to scratch the clouds". "хмарочос" is "skyscraper". "заканадавець" or "заканадаўца" (Belarusian) - "даваць законы" - "to give the laws" - "lawmaker". We've replaced Greek "α" with Ukrainian "о" because it's a connecting letter. But it can also mean, that the original word was not "Дрімозбиї", but "Дрімазби". For another Scythian word, we will do the same replacement and transformation, so you will understand why so. We've also replaced "σ" with "з" and "π" with "б". The same replacements will be used again later. The thing is that the Greek languages have no separate letter to distinguish the phones /b/ and /v/, and, today, the letter "π" is used to show the phone /b/. As for "σ" and "з", just as a note, the English word "Asia" is translated into Greek as "Ασία" and into Ukrainian as "Азія".

(15:51) Unfortunately, nobody thought about what the word "griffins" means. You can see that this word is written as "γρῦπας". We have to make a small exception here and replace the letter "π" with a Ukrainian letter "в". Though it's an exception, this exception is supported by the English translation provided by G. C. Macaulay who spelt this word by using the letters "f", for some reason. And if we pronounce the root "γρῦπ" as /griv/, we will hear a phone combination resembling Ukrainian "грив", which is present in at least two Ukrainian words: "грива" meaning English "mane" (and probably, initially, this word referred to that of a lion), and "гривня", which you know by its English name "hryvnia", being a currency today used in Ukraine and previously - in Rus', that is, Ruthenia - a Ukraine's predecessor. And Herodotus' "γρῦπας" in the original Scythian language was probably "гривії" or "гривнії". And "гривій" or "гривній" was a person who protected the Scythian gold, which either in those days or later received its name "гривня". As you can see now, the Ukrainian currency "гривня" has a long history from the days of Scythia.

(16:48) "Παπαῖος". On some web-pages, this god is already mentioned as "Бабай". And Babai is a Slavic spirit (16:54) or a character which is usually mentioned by parents if their child doesn't want to sleep. "If you get up from your bed, Babai will take you!" "If you don't sleep, Babai will come!" Below, Wiki suggests that this word has Tatar etymology, but if it's a Slavic creature, why it should have Tatar etymology, I think nobody will answer. Babai was probably associated by the Scythians as a very scary god. His counterpart, according to Herodotus, is Zeus. And if you read about Zeus, about how he abused people, or about what he requested Apollo to do once the former cut Androgynes in half, you will understand why he was scary.

(17:27) "Ἀπί". Some Ancient Greek feminine nouns can end either with the letter combination "ίς" pronounced as /is/, or with the stressed "eta" ("ή") pronounced as /e/. The word "Ἀπί" is expected to be a feminine noun. Probably, the stressed "ί" in the word "Ἀπί" appeared as a result of a later respelling by a copyist of "eta" ("ή"), which is currently called "ita" and pronounced as /i/, or by respelling of "ίς". If "eta" ("ή") or "ίς" is an ending, the root of the word is "Ἀπ". In Ukrainian, there is a root "ваб". The reason why the Ukrainian letter "В в" can be at the beginning is due to the fact that this letter is fricative, not plosive. It resembles, to some extent, Belarusian "у нескладовае" ("Ў ў") and Polish "Ł ł". (18:07) One of possible original names is "Вабія" which comes from a Ukrainian verb "вабити" meaning "to attract", and in this context - "to attract men". "Вабія" is a female noun and name derived from the corresponding verb and means, as a female noun, "the one who attracts". According to Herodotus, she is a Scythian goddess of the earth. And the goddess of the earth is usually associated, in different cultures, even today, with pregnancy. And pregnancy is tightly connected to the relations between a man and a woman in terms of how children appear and what the couple does (or wants to do) to get them. And "-ія" is one of standard endings for Ukrainian feminine nouns. (18:42) Сергей Михайлович Соловьев, in his work "History of Russia since the most ancient times", by referring, probably, to al-Maqdisī or al-Muqaddasī (seems he distorted his name and spelt it as "Муккадези") mentions an island "Вабія". Of course, no Russia existed in the Ancient period. In the age of the Russian Empire (RE), authors and scholars tried to connect Ruthenia with the RE to the best of their abilities, but the word "вабити" never existed in Russian and breaks the myth about their miracle connection. By island, the Arabian author, if it was his words, probably meant the Crimean Peninsula which was mistakenly called the island by foreigners. (19:16) A Russian translation of a fragment of Al-Maqdisī's work "The Best Divisions for the Knowledge of the Regions" on a Russian site "Eastern Literature" mentions a town, which is either named "Баба ал-Абваб" or "Баб ал-Абваб", a place "ал-Баба", and a place "Барда". (19:31) A Russian translation of a piece from a work of another author, Ibn Hawqal, titled "The face of the Earth", mentions the "ар-Рус" River, which is known, according to this source, as the "Атил" River (the Etel River in turn is a river of the Kozars, which are also mentioned here); an island "Сийах Куйа", the second part of which name resembles the city's name "Kyiv", the first part either resembles a Ukrainian word "сІяти" ("to sow") or a word "сяяти" ("to shine"); a town "Барда" (by the way, this word also exists in Ukrainian; "барда" means a tool for cutting wood and is called in English "an adz(e)" or "a broad-axe"); an island "Баб ал-Абваб"; and "ал-Баба" as both a town and an island. It's very interesting, because other options I'd like to suggest for the word "Ἀπί" are "Бабка" and "Баба". Once we start our investigation on Amazons, we will see that this option is also possible. (20:19) In modern Ukrainian and the Ukrainian literature, the word "бабка" means "an old woman" or "a grandmother", the word "баба" has several meanings: "grandmother", "wife", "old woman", "woman" (but some people can perceive it negatively), and so on. We know that she is the wife of Babai, which confirms the possibility of this option, and in such a case, the words "бабай" and "баба" probably come from the same root which is rather Slavic than Turkic. Moreover, I guess that the words "вабити" and "баба" are also derived from the same root for the betacism (that is, the occurrence of the transition between the phones /b/ and /v/ which took place historically in some languages). And this hypothesis is supported by the presence of the word "ваба" in Ukrainian, which means "charm", "attraction", "lure", or similar.

(20:57) "Ταβιτί". It's a counterpart of Hestia being the Ancient Greek goddess of the hearth, "which swore herself to perpetual virginity", as Wiki reads. (21:06) The word "virgin" here leads us to the term of "platonic love" and to the heart. We previously replaced Greek "π" with Ukrainian "б". Now, we will replace the letter "beta" ("β") with a Ukrainian letter "в". The letter "beta" ("β"), which is supposed to be pronounced in Ancient Greek as /b/, is now called "vita" and pronounced as /v/. I think this occurrence will be interesting for linguists, because here is a place where we should spell one letter as it's pronounced in Medieval or Modern Greek. As for the letter "τ", you probably know that in the Greek languages, there is no letter for such a phone as /ʧ/, and the first letter Greeks would probably try to spell this phone with would be "τ". Moreover, scholars seem to agree that the phone /sh/ is spelt as "σ". In some Greek dialects, as far as I know, the letter "σ" is pronounced as /sh/. From the phonological perspective, the difference between /ʧ/ and /t/ is a matter of a physiological brink between them, on which a small movement of your tongue transforms /ʧ/ into /t/ and vice versa. (21:56) Thus, we have the following words, similarly to the case of the word "Ἀπί": "Чавитія" and "Чавичка". The Ukrainian word "чавити" can be translated into English as "to squeeze" ("to press with fingers or hands"). When constructing a noun from the verb "чавити", the ending "-ти" will disappear as in the case of the word "Вабія" derived from "вабити". The whole word may consist of two parts, and the second part is "-тія" from the verb "тіяти". "тіяти" can be translated as "to undertake" or "to project". If the second part is a verb, the first part is probably a noun. And in Ukrainian, there is a word "чави". In the 20th century, this word was used as a technical or a technological term, but even this meaning is connected with pressure as well as the word "чавити" is, which has the same root. "Чавитія" means "тіяти чави", that is, "to undertake or to project squeezes". The verb "тіяти" is somewhat connected to the context of someone's playing with your heart. When you are in love, worrying, or upset, the goddess "Чавитія" plays with your heart by slightly squeezing it with her fingers or hands, and your heart starts either to play or to tighten. In the case of "Чавичка", this word will be just a feminine noun with suffixes and an ending "-ичка", and the whole word will mean "the one who squeezes". If she were a man, she would be called "Чавич" in this option.

(23:05) "Γοιτόσυρος", a counterpart of Apollo. You probably know that Apollo is a god of healing, and other things. (23:11) To understand what "Γοιτόσυρος" means, we need to pay attention to his other counterparts. One of them is Apollo Vindonnus, a "god of healing, and especially of the eyes". And several other counterparts are connected to the sun, which you cannot look at directly, because you will get blind. (23:25) We can say that "Γοιτόσυρος" is "Гойтозір" meaning "гоїти зір", which is literally translated as "to treat vision or eyesight". This word follows another pattern, where a verb is first and a noun is second. This pattern exists in such names like Ukrainian "Володимир" or Polish "Włodzimierz"; Polish "Kazimierz", the Ukrainian spelling of which is "Казимир", and so on, where the second part is the word "мир" meaning "peace", and the first part is a verb depending on the name. Another name where this pattern can be likely found is a Ukrainian toponym. (23:53) On the Ukrainian Wiki page about the Zhytomyr city, there are several versions for the etymology of this word. Some authors suggest that the name of the city is connected to a person ZhytomYr (and maybe we should pronounce "ГойтозІр" instead of "ГойтОзір"), some authors break the word into two nouns "жито" and "мир". And finally, someone suggested an option I expected to see - "жити в мирі" meaning "to live in peace". And the last option is applied to both the city and the male name. But there is one thing I didn't get. What is the reason behind giving an explanation for this word by deriving it from "животомир"? Maybe some editors of this Wiki page hesitate to recognize that the Ukrainian language has a long history? But modesty is not a fine thing here. "Житомир" is just "жити в мирі". Simple. Easy. Ukrainian language.

(24:34) The gods "Ἀργίμπασα" and "Θαγιμασάδας", we will decipher simultaneously. Both these words have the letter "γ" which, once replaced with "χ", produces two Greek or Ancient Greek parts. (24:44) In the Greek languages, there is a prefix "‎αρχι-" meaning in our case "very", a word "ταχύς" meaning "quick" or "fast", and a part "μπασα" being either a feminine adjective meaning "bass" or a plural noun meaning "basses". Ἀργίμπασα is a counterpart of Aphrodite Urania. (24:59) Aphrodite Urania, according to Hesiod (as written on English Wiki), were born from severed genitals of Uranus. Musicians probably know that for a man, in olden days, to have a сontra tenor voice in adulthood, he had to, say, get rid of one thing "responsible" for the basses. "Ἀργίμπασα" means either "very low bass" as a feminine singular adjective or "the very low basses" as a plural noun. Whatever it is, it perfectly describes this god or goddess. (25:24) As for the second god, I spent a lot of time to finally understand that the first letter might not be "μ". In Greek, there is a word "αμαξάδα" of a meaning "a drive, especially by horse drawn vehicle". (25:35) Poseidon, a counterpart of the Scythian god Θαγιμασάδας, is not just a god of the sea, as you might think, but also, it's a god of horses. And previously, people used horses to quickly get to a certain distant place. And "Θαγιμασάδας" means either "fast moving" as a participle or "the fast movement" as a noun (I think Greeks can correct me), which perfectly represents Poseidon and the Scythian god being its counterpart.

I would also express my assumption that the Scythian gods are somewhat connected to the main organs, senses and feelings. Вабія or Баба / Бабка is connected to the sexual aspect of love. Чавитія or Чавичка - to the heart and the platonic love. ГойтОзір or ГойтозІр - to the eyes and the sight, and probably, to the skin and the touch. Ἀργίμπασα - the voice and the hearing. Babai - the fear and/or the intuition. Θαγιμασάδας - the smell (if it's true, it may explain a possible connection between the water and the fast-moving). (26:25) And the Scythian Ares - the brain, head, and/or mind. In Ukrainian, there is a noun "голова" which means "head". The adjective "головний", which shares the same root, means "main". And the Scythian Ares was probably their main god because "they didn't make images, altars or temples to any except him".

As for the gods Ἀργίμπασα and Θαγιμασάδας, these words can be deciphered by using the Greek languages. But even Ancient Greek is not Indo-Iranian. The Indo-Iranian theory about the Scythians, which can't provide reasonable meanings for the Scythian words, is just getting destroyed right before our eyes. By the way, the difference between the capital letters "Ξ" and "Σ" is the same as between capital "Δ" and "Α". It was just a hint. One more thing, in this video, I don't pronounce Greek letters in the English manner, consciously.

At the beginning of the video, I said about the existence of a scientific problem of Slavic tribes' emergence. But if you look at what we've already deciphered (and we've not finished yet), you will realise that the Slavic tribes rather didn't suddenly appear in the CE. Probably, they existed on their lands already, and for a very long period. Before we proceed, I will tell you a few more historical issues in order for you to understand the scale of the problem concerning the Slavic tribes and the context that will follow. I previously mentioned R. A. McNeal's work "On Editing Herodotus". The work names several German and French authors who either worked with Herodotus' text, or provided an analysis for this text, or were disfiguring it. And in this regard, I have to say that it's not the only or the first case when European authors, in particular, German or Germanic ones, are mentioned in terms of, or are connected to, or involved in the distortion of history. A couple of examples. Some time ago, a tribe named the Gets was considered to be a Germanic tribe, currently, as far as I know, it's not. Moreover, the Gets are hard to name Germanic, as according to the Latin text of Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution, Cossacks, which were previously called Kozars, are descended from the Gets. But there is another tribe called Goths, which is still supposed to be a Germanic one, but at the same time, in the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, the Goths are mentioned as Slavs (and this problem should be definitely analysed). Odoacer or "Ὀδόακρος", which is supposed to have a Germanic origin, was a king of Ruthenians, Gepids, Goths, and others. "Odoacer Rex Rhuthenorum, Geppidi, Gothi" and so on. This text is preserved on a marble slab in catacombs of the Mönchsberg mountain in Salzburg, Austria. And here, I again thank the author of the "История Руси" channel, and the links concerning the Priest of Duklja and Odoacer are also added to the description to this video.

Юрий Иванович Венелин in his work "The Ancient and Modern Bulgarians" criticized several Germanic authors for calling the Kozars and Bulgarians the Tatars. His work was written in the Russian Empire and passed the censors. Venelin put, of course, some lies in the text, but as for the point that the Kozars are not Tatars, at least, he was actually right. The Russian Empire significantly distorted the history of Slavic tribes as well. Catherine II (by the way, which according to the official historiography has Prussian roots) created a commission, the purpose of which was to compose a great history of the Russian Empire. Among the members of this commission was Gerhard Friedrich Müller, a German historian, who had access to the state archive. Starting from that period, not only the history of the Slavic tribes was distorted, but so the history of the Finno-Ugric tribes was. To at least partially understand the scale of the falsifications, you can read "Memoirs of Khrapovitsky, State Secretary of Catherine II".

Later, Soviet scholars didn't like pretty much what their predecessors already composed, and again recomposed their vision of history. In such a way that, if in the Russian Empire, Russians were considered to be somewhat between the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes by origin, in the Soviet Union, Russians suddenly became Slavs. And the Turkic theory, which their predecessors didn't want to be in any way connected to, they started to apply to the Cossacks and Kozars as well as continued to disseminate the myth of the Indo-Iranian origin of the Scythians (this myth was previously expressed in some works of Germanic authors before the Soviet Union even came to exist; who started it, Europeans or Moscovites, is not much relevant - sources from both sides should be read very carefully). Now, in the Russian Federation, there is a new trend. They merged the Scythian and Sarmatian language into one group and derived the Ossetian language from this group. But they didn't stop, they even applied this theory to the Kozars when they tried to decipher some runic inscriptions as those written in Ossetian. (30:23) But even English Wiki is crying here and saying that the Ossetian language is hard to apply, and it was said in the previous century. I should say that Moscovites have definitely surpassed their former colleagues. The Russian historiography right now is a total mess and has nothing to do with history as a science. But this historical drivel was and partially is supported today by others. The similar thoughts about Europe were expressed by Karl Marx in his "Diplomatic History of the 18th Century" (by the way, prohibited in the Soviet Union). If Europeans had known the history better, there would have been no so many terrible events that have already happened in at least the 21st century. What I'm trying to convey is that the whole history, from the Ancient period, should be totally reconsidered. Especially in relation to the Slavic and Germanic tribes. Because the history you learn in your schools and universities is distorted, partially by Moscovites and partially by Germanic and some other European authors. Unfortunately, we have to recognize it.

I will show you one more example now. I think the Indo-Iranian theorists will appreciate it. There is an English author, John William Donaldson, but we can fairly call him a Germanic author. (31:23) John William Donaldson wrote an interesting book titled "The New Cratylus". We will look into 1850's edition, which is supposed to be tjhe second edition. The first edition seems to not contain the fragment we are interested in, at all. And in the second edition, the chapter, in which this interesting piece is located, was renamed and extended. But, in the 19th century, John William Donaldson knew about some Slavo-Scythians. He calls them the pseudo-Scythians, but the real Scythians, according to him, can be called the Teutono-Scythians and are connected to the Gets which are totally unrelated to the Germanic peoples as was already said. Now, you can judge on your own to what extent he, as an author, was honest with you on this particular matter. The only thing which will be here relevant for us is that the terms "Sauromatae" and "Slavo-Scythians" are the same for him.

(32:06) "Οἰόρπατα", a Scythian name for the Amazons. It's a tricky word, in which we will apply two ways to decipher, one of which will be different to those we used before. If we assume that this word should be pronounced as a Medieval or Modern Greek word, then the word "Οἰόρπατα" is actually "Ιόρπατα". Let's start from the second half "πατὰ" which is expected to mean "to kill" or "to slay". (32:26) If it's a Ukrainian verb, the reconstructed version will be "батАти". There are several words which start with "бата" or similar set of letters: "батава" (meaning "a fight" or "an enclosed fighting column") and "ватага" ("a formation of Cossack detachments in a campaign" in its old meaning). These two words probably derive from a common root for the betacism and the transition between the fricatives "в" and "г". But we will concentrate on the option "батава". (32:48) The reconstructed word "батАти" doesn't exist in the meaning "to kill" or, say, to "beat", but there is a word "бАтати" in the meaning "to roll over". A synonymous of the word "бАтати" in Ukrainian is the word "перевалювати" which has the root "-вал-". The root "-wal-" exists in Polish in such words as "walka" ("a fight") and "walczyć" ("to fight"). Ukrainian "вал" has a meaning "a rampart". There is an ancient fortification called "Serpent's Wall" which in Ukrainian is called "Змієві вали". If you look at the images of Serpent's Wall on the Internet, you will find that they resemble the form of horizontal cylinders. And this form in turn is connected to the words "бАтати" and "перевалювати" ("to roll over"). But at the same time, these words can be historically connected to the fight or war. Thus, we have a reason to assume that in olden days the word either "бАтати" or "батАти" meant "to kill" or "to beat". (33:34) The first part "οἰὸρ" will be read as "ἰὸρ", which resembles a Ukrainian name "Ігор". And here, I need to again thank the same person I already mentioned several times. The author of the "История Руси" channel has made a remarkable work regarding the meaning of two words: a Slavic name "Ігор" and a word "варяг" relating to the English word "Varangian" (and relating to those Varangians who lived in Rus' / Ruthenia and were associated by the Novgorodians with Ruthenians). You already know where you can look for the links. The author of that channel thinks that the word "Ігор" is connected to an analogue in the Wendian language, known as a Slavic language, and means "a hunter". And this word can refer to a man or husband - a person who brings home prey, food, etc. But the original word Herodotus might hear was different. (34:15) I think that he heard one of two Ukrainian words: either "вороб'ята" or "гороб'ята" meaning "young sparrows", where the first phone in both the cases is fricative. He could think that the one of the letters "о" was a connecting letter. He split the original word into two parts: "вор" or "гор", which he interpreted as "Ігор", and "бата", which he assumed to be a reduced version of the verb "бАтати" or "батАти". And then, he just again merged these two parts by Ancient Greek rules (that is, without any connecting letter in between).

A second version of how "Οἰόρπατα" appeared in the text is, "Οἰόρπατα" may be a respelt version of "Οροπιάτα" which resembles the same words: "вороб'ята" and "гороб'ята". Either of these words can be applied to the Amazons for the following reasons. At least in Ukrainian literature, folklore and everyday life in the past (and even today), young men and women who are in love called one another names of different birds: "Oh my falcon!" ("мій соколе" in vocative), "Oh my pigeon!" or "Oh my dove!" ("мій голубе" in vocative). As for the word "Amazon" itself, there is no common agreement on what it means. There are several options based on Slavic etymology as well. Ukrainian philologist and slavist Костянтин Чехович in his work "Oleksandr Potebnia. Ukrainian thinker and linguist" mentions a version suggested by Russian author Пётр Алексеевич Бессонов, and we will consider it now, but from a different point of view. (35:28) The word "Amazon" in English is "Amazonka" in Polish and "Амазонка" in Ukrainian. Polish "małżonka" (or, sometimes, "малжонка" appearing in Ukrainian literature) means "a (female) spouse". According to the source I mentioned, the connection between the words "амазонка" and "малжонка" is what was suggested by Петр Бессонов. I couldn't find an explanation on which parts the word "małżonka" consists of. But I think that the word "małżonka" comes from "mała żona" or "mała żonka" in the meaning of "a young wife or "a young woman". This meaning corresponds to that of "young sparrows". The reason why the prefix "a" emerged cannot be answered unambiguously in this case. Venelin in his work, mentioned previously, expressed a thought that Greeks sometimes added this prefix for easy pronunciation. At the same time, in the Greek languages, this prefix is used for the negation of the initial word meaning. In such a case, "Amazonka" can mean, as a word misinterpreted by Ancient Greeks, "the one without a husband": she can be a bride or just a single, for example, which also fits this etymology, or "a widow" (her husband could just die on the battlefield). Another option, this prefix is an analogue of the prefix /o/ or /ob/ in Slavic languages which doesn't much change the main meaning of the original word, but is used for composing a new word: "лице" - "обличчя" ("a face"), "значити" - "означати" ("to mean"). But anyway, there is one more reason to think that the word "sparrow" is correct. This reason will be explained in another context a bit later.

As for the god Ares the Scythians had, for this god, Herodotus didn't provide any name that would be different from the Ares the Ancient Greeks had. Moreover, this word, in the same form, is put in other parts of the Herodotus' text. Herodotus declenses this name as a name of the Greek god "Ἄρης". If this name was used by both the Ancient Greeks and the Scythians, the root of this word, "Ἄρ", can be very archaic by itself. (37:02) In Hebrew, there is a word "אַרְיֵה" /aRjE/ which means "a lion" (in my opinion, the term "Indo-Aryan languages" as a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages should be reconsidered as well). The lion is connected to two Ukrainian words already mentioned: "грива" - "a mane (probably, of a lion)", and "гривня" - the Scythian gold. The lion itself can be intuitively interpreted as a symbol of war, and/or power, and/or wealth; and as a king of animals or just a king.

Another Hebrew word is "הַר" /haR/ which means "a mountain". (37:28) A Wiki page about the Ancient Greek Ares reads that there was a "mount of Ares". And the Scythians may have had their mount for their Ares, which I think could be the Riphean Mountains, which were also called "the Ruthenian Mountains" by past foreign authors. (37:41) Herodotus also mentioned that the Scythians heaped up brushwood and piled new brushwood every year, on which they set up a sword, a symbol of Ares. It seems like the Scythians tried to imitate a mountain - another possible symbol of Ares (a kind of Scythian Mount Olympus). According to the "История Руси" author, the Riphean Mountains are Donets Ridge in Ukraine. Sites near these mountains are known to have deposits of silver. In previous centuries, some deposits of gold were reported. (38:06) If we read an article about Arimaspoi (that is, "Дрімозбиї" or "Дрімазби") on Wiki, we will see that they lived near the Riphean Mountains (that is, Donets Ridge). So we can say with a higher confidence that they protected the Scythian gold. It is what we assumed already previously.

But we expect that Scythians spoke a Slavic language. The Hebrew word "הַר" /haR/ ("mountain") is translated into Ukrainian as "гора". (38:26) Some of you probably know that the first inscriptions were consonant-based. For that reason, the Hebrew word and the corresponding Ukrainian one for the meaning "mountain" may be derived from one archaic root. Herodotus could even hear some word, which he spelt as Greek word "Ἄρης" afterwards, but the original word could be different. The Ukrainian word "горіти" means "to burn" or "to flame"; "гарячий" can be translated as "hot", a Polish counterpart is "gorący"; "згарок" is "a bit of a candle" or "a butt (end) of a cigarette". For the last meaning, the Polish counterpart is "ogarek". The roots "гар" and "гор" were likely historically interchangeable. Ancient Greeks' Ares is a god of war. The fire is one of symbols of war. In this case, the Scythian Ares could have a name either "Гарій", or "Гарік", or "Гарик", or "Гарек", "Гарок". There are more possible options actually. The interesting part about the Scythian Ares is in his connection to the sword. The "История Руси" channel's author pointed out that the word "варяг" probably means "a swordsman". The root of this word is "вар". Previously, we considered the word "Вабія" as one of the equivalents to the word "Ἀπί". The word "Варій" (or alternatively - "Варяг") could be potentially spelt by the Ancient Greeks as "Ἄρης". A few more options I have in my mind regarding this god, I think, are better to cover in a separate video.

(39:28) Now, I want to say a couple of things which some of you will think it's out of topic, but it's necessary. For the author of the "История Руси" channel, I think it will be interesting to know that the word "варяг" can have another meaning which is more connected to the Scythians. Петр Григорьевич Бутков's book "Defense of the Nestor's chronicle against the slander of skeptics", published in 1840, reads that the word "Варанги" (the text is in Russian of the 19th century) is the same as "Секироносцы", that is, "axe-bearers". The word "Варяги" or "Варязи" is the same as "Оруженосцы", that is "squires" (instead of "swordsmen"). But in both these cases, the root "-вар-" connects the sword and the axe. And connects the Varangians to the Scythians. The word "варязи" has obviously a Ukrainian pronunciation. Previously, in Ukrainian, when the dual form existed (besides singular and plural), some nouns in dual had a similar ending. If you take a Ukrainian word "варяги" and form an adjective, you will get a word "варязький", in which you can see the transition between Ukrainian "г" and "з" which never existed in Russian. "Варяги-Русь" means "Varangians-Russes" or "Varangians-Ruthenians". And now, the most interesting part. "Варнаги, см. Славяне", that is, "Varnagi, see Slavs", and "Варнак, море и народ" - "Varnak, a sea and a people". The word "Варнаги" will be spelt in Ukrainian as "Варняги" or "Варняки", Ukrainian "варнякати" means "to babble" or "to prattle", whereas the English word "Slavs" is the Ukrainian word "слов'яни". Some people believe that the latter comes from the word "слово" which means "a word" in English. And they are right. We have just proved that the word "Slavs" in Ukrainian, Polish and some other Slavic languages, where this word is spelt with /o/, is derived from the word "слово". "Слов'яни", i.e. "Slavs", means "the people who speak". This Russian source connects the word "Варнак" with a sea and a people, whereas the Novgorodians called the Black Sea the Varangian Sea. Even from this source, we may also conclude that the Varangians are Slavs and Ukrainians, or Varangians-Ruthenians.

Now, I'd like to switch to the Sauromatians and Sarmatians. We will start from reading what is written on English Wiki about the Sarmatians. (41:20) In advance, I will point out a third spelling of Sarmatians' name. We will get back to this word a bit later. Now, let's read what English Wiki quotes about the Sauromatians. "Any idea that the name derives from the word lizard (sauros), linking to the Sarmatians' use of reptile-like scale armour and dragon standards, is almost certainly unfounded." When someone provides an etymology for the first part, they should provide an etymology for the second part of the word. (41:42) If the word "Sauromatian" comes from Greek, it probably consists of two parts. The second part is probably "μάτι" meaning "eye". But the first part is pretty interesting. "σαύρα" in Greek means "lizard". But at the same time, there is an Ancient Greek word "σαῦρος" which means either "a lizard" or "a horse mackerel". And I think I know where I saw it. (42:00) In the 6th century BCE, there was a painter Epiktetos. Among his works, we can find one where a Scythian archer is painted. You can see a person dressed in a fish suit. On the quiver, you can see something resembling the fish scales. And probably, this fish is named either "a horse mackerel" or just "a mackerel". The word "horse" in this word combination in English may be preserved from olden days and may just confirm that the Scythian archers, the Scythians, or some of them were horsemen. And that's expected. The Scythian archers, as archers, must have been very mobile and they likely didn't have any armour - any metal armour.

English "horse mackerel" is "ставрида" in Ukrainian. "Таврида" is Taurica. "ставрида" probably means "з Тавриди", or "from Taurica". "ставрида" is "a fish from Taurica". The Scythian archer was associated with Taurica, the place where the Ancient Greeks had direct contact with the Taurians, or the Scythians, or the Tauroscythians. In Oxford Dictionaries, you can find a definition for the "mackerel" naming mackerel a fish with blue-green bands on its body. "Sauromatian" probably means "blue-eyed" because the blue colour was associated with the colour of the sea and, maybe, this fish in particular. In olden days, foreigners described Ruthenians and Kozars as blue-eyed people. That's likely the case.

The Scythian archer can be very well described with the word "sparrow". (43:13) In Ukrainian, there is a colloquialism "стріляний горобець" which is literally translated as "a sparrow shot many times" and means a person who has a lot of experience. This "sparrow" ("горобець") is the Scythian archer. An experienced Scythian archer is an archer who participated in many battles and is called "shot" because he was shot many times by enemies and survived.

But what does "Sarmatian" mean? (43:33) If we open English Wiki again, we can find a line which reads that the word "Sarmatian" relates to reddish hair. Let's open the source where this idea about the reddish hair comes from to understand the context. (43:43) It's a book published in 1760 and titled "A Supplement to the English Universal History". The author is Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, a German Protestant theologian and historian. If you read the full title of the book, this book was intended to analyse the texts written by Herodotus and Pliny the Elder. I will just read a quote. I think the Indo-Iranian theorists will appreciate again what I do.

"Sauromatae is a general appellation comprehending many nations; and Herodotus does not distinguish those of whom he speaks, by any particular name; but an attentive view of the circumstances, shows them to have been the Budini; WE ARE TOLD, that there was something particular in their persons, namely, that they had blue eyes, and red hair; SOME affirm of the Sarmatae, that they also had red hair, and that they even owe their name to it. In my opinion, the word Budini speaks itself to be originally Sarmatian, Wodan in that language signifying water; now the country which the Budini inhabited lies towards the sea, and is full of lakes, fens, and morasses."

Even in this fragment he put some lies. But even he affirmed that the word "Wodan" is of Slavic origin (though he didn't say it explicitly). The original word is "wOda" or "wodA" meaning "water". In Polish, it's "woda", in Ukrainian - "вода", and similarly in other Slavic languages. Let's correctly spell the name of the tribe mentioned by Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten. (44:59) It's "Βουδῖνοι" resembling Ukrainian "водини". Ukrainian suffix "-ин-" or Polish "-in-" in modern languages are present in names of nationalities or names tied to the place where a person is living or was born. Several examples in Ukrainian: "татарин" - "a Tatar", "грузин" - "a Georgian", "болгарин" - "a Bulgarian", "мордвин" - "a Mordvinian", "русин" - "a modern Rusyn" or "a citizen of Rus'", "a Ruthenian"; "литвин" - "a citizen of Lithuanian-Ruthenian Duchy besides Ruthenians" (it has nothing to do with the modern Lithuanians, the modern Lithuanian is "литовець"), "громадянин" - "a citizen", "львів'янин" - "a citizen of Lviv", "киянин" - "a citizen of Kyiv", "житомирянин" - "a citizen of Zhytomyr", "заморянин" - "a person living/coming from overseas". And "водин" - "a person living near water".

As for the red hair, if the word "Sarmatian" means "red or reddish hair", the only word combination fitting this meaning I managed to find is Latvian "sarkani mati" - "red or reddish hair". "The red hair and the blue eyes" is how Ruthenians and Kozars were described by foreigners, and probably the only ones who applied such names to the Sarmatians and Sauromatians were foreigners. The Polish gentry (and not only) would not derive themselves from non-Slavic-speaking tribes.

(46:05) In one of editions of Pliny the Elder's book (and not in the first or the second one), there is the word "Syrmatae" we saw on Wiki. Some of you read it as /sɪrmatai/, but it's incorrect. We will cite an English Wiki page about the Latin phonology and orthography. (46:19) The article says that the letter "y" (the name of this letter is not a coincidence) was pronounced by educated speakers as /y/, and by others - as /i/ or /u/. (46:28) Improper pronunciation we can find in a book of Андрей Казимирович Мейер, a Russian historian, a Saxon by origin, as Russian Wiki reads about him, in which he tries to connect this word with a Russian one. (46:39) But we will pay attention to how he described the Sarmatians:

"For my statement that the Scythians called themselves the "Сыромяты" and that the Greeks - when they heard this word and at the same time saw them both wearing and, according to Pliny, selling skins - gave them a name of the Fur-Coaters, I could provide you with numerous evidences."

(46:56) In another fragment, he also calls the Sarmatians the name "Сыромяты". Мейер probably saw the word "Syrmatae" in some Latin or even Greek texts, in which this word was spelt either with Latin "y" or Greek "υ", which he spelled as Russian "ы". Another mistake or distortion he made is an added vowel between "r" and "m" not present in the word "Syrmatae". Мейер also tells us that the Sarmatians lived, in particular, in Taurica and ravaged Athens under the name of the Scythians.

(47:22) Let's again cite John William Donaldson. In his "Varronianus", he wrote an interesting point,

"The Sarmatae or Sauromatae, an old Sclavonian tribe, who under the slightly modified name of Syrmatae, dwelt near the Indus."

"Sclavonian" here means "Slavic" (the author calls these tribes "Low-German"). Moreover, he mentions Sclavonian Wends, and we know that Wends are Slavs. We have one more confirmation that "Syrmatae" is the same as "Sarmatae" and "Sauromatae". (47:47) Another source, which appeared almost half a century before the "Varronianus", is "A Dictionary of Ancient Geography" by Alexander MacBean, in which he wrote:

"Syrmatae, Eudoxus; the same with the Sauromatae"

And now, we will open (47:59) "Notae et castigationes in Stephani Byzantii Ethnica" by Lukas Holste, or Lukas Holstenius, written even earlier, in the 17th century, and which reads:

"Συρμάται, οί Σαυρομάται ..."

And we can also see a Latin piece of the text, which I've translated as follows, "From the exterior sea over Taurica to the Azov Sea dwells a tribe of the Surmatians, and the Tanais River divides Asia and Europe". This "mare exterum" ("exterior sea") is probably the Black Sea, whereas "Mare Externum" ("External Sea") appears in some sources in the meaning of the Atlantic Ocean. The "Surmatians", according to this source, lived on the Crimean Peninsula. And thus, we can confirm that in olden days, one and the same tribes were called differently. Either as Scythians, or as Sauromatians, or Sarmatians, or Surmatians. (48:45) But what does the "Συρμάται" mean? In singular, this word will be likely spelt as "Συρμάτος", or similar, and resembles the Ukrainian word "сурмач" - "a trumpeter", "a player of сурма". (48:54) Referring to Wiki, surma-horn is a type of a shawm, a woodwind instrument, used in Cossacks' armies. The Scythian archers or other sharp-eyed Scythians probably used the surma-horn to give commands to one's troops or to report an enemy coming to the border. This word seems to have a long history coming from BCE, so now, having what we've already deciphered so far, we have a reason to assume that this word is also of Slavic origin. The word "сурмач" has a Ukrainian ending which is present in different Ukrainian words. "трубач" - "a trumpeter"; "глядач" - "a viewer", "a spectator"; "слухач" - "a listener"; "спостерігач" - "an observer"; "діяч" - "a public figure", "a doer", and non-exact "an activist"; "переписувач" - "a copyist"; and so on. The real name of the Sarmatians or Sauromatians is "Surmatians". They were called the Sauromatae for their blue eyes; may have been called Sarmatae for their red hair; and were Syrmatae because they are "сурмачі" - "the surma-horn trumpeters".

Now, let's switch to such an author as Pliny the Elder, who lived in the first century of the CE. Some of you know that he wrote the book "Natural History" or "Naturalis Historia". (49:56) But less people know that this book was edited several times, maybe even more times than Herodotus' text. And I'm talking about the Latin text, not translations even. You can clearly see that from the Latin Wiki page about "Naturalis Historia". (50:07) Let's compare the same fragment in several editions. The top fragment is from 1469's edition (which is supposed to be the second edition, not counting the original Pliny's text), the middle one is from 1470's edition (probably the third edition; BTW, in this edition a Latin word "Syrmate" appears), and the bottom one is from 1933's edition which is a reprint of 1905's edition as declared on the site on which this text is typed.

In the top fragment, we can find the word "icorsarus", which is how the Scythians called the Persians. In the other fragments, we can find the word "Chorsaros". (50:38) A digraph "ch" in Latin is pronounced as aspirated plosive /kH/. I'm currently referring to Wiki. Don't look for any "horses" here, as this option is illogical. The Scythians had their own horses, and nobody would call their enemy or neighbour which is not similar to them a name which can be applied to themselves. Moreover, the suffix "-ar-" is not English at all. (50:57) This word is simply the word "корсар" which exists in Ukrainian and is translated into English as "a pirate" or "a corsair". From Wiki, a corsair is an individual "who, having permission from their belligerent state, used an armed ship to capture enemy's merchant ships or neutral states". The name "корсари" ("corsairs") for the Persians is more expected, though there is likely no particular event for it. According to Herodotus, to fight with the Scythians, the Persians used ships to transport their troops. At least, we can say that sending troops by ships to perform an assigned task was a practice known to the Persians. The Persians did lose their war with the Scythians, but the reason for such wars also implies an idea to control waterway trade roots (straits, in particular), and maybe, after the war, they kept using their corsairs to capture merchant ships plying, say, between Greece and Scythia, given the fact that Greece was also of interest to the Persians for a long period. The original meaning of this word in those days could be slightly different, but it rather relates to attacks from the sea or on water. I'm not saying whether the word itself is of Slavic origin, but this word was already present in the Scythian language and remained unchanged in modern Ukrainian.

(51:58) To proceed, we need to pay attention to another fragment in the same Wiki article which reads, quote:

"Some Greek words beginning with the voiceless plosives /p t k/, when they were borrowed into colloquial Latin, were spelled with the graphemes used to represent voiced plosives /b d ɡ/", comma and examples.

(52:14) Now, we can return to the editions of Pliny's text. I think it's a masterpiece. In the top, the name of Caucasus Mountains is spelled as "Graucasum", in the middle - "Graucasum" as well, in the bottom - "Croucasim". I think I should not even comment on it. We will use the version "Graucasum" of course and change it to "Craucasum" for the occurrence pointed out on Wiki. And we will get a Ukranian word "Кравкаси". Pliny the Elder provided an etymology for this word - "nive candidum", which simply means "white snow", not "white with snow" as some of translators write, just "white snow". If you open a Latin dictionary, you will be able to find that "candidum" is "white of an egg". It can be understood as "white up to shining". The shining can be different. It can be white, it can be yellow, it can be blue, it can be red. We are interested in the "white-shining" colour. To understand how to split the word "Кравкаси", we need to speak it as "Кравкосяй". (53:04) The words "сяти" and "сяяти" mean "to shine", the word "кравка" is either a derived or a parent word for the word "окравка" meaning "a selvedge". In modern Polish, there is a word "krawędź" meaning "an edge". And the word "кравка" probably meant "a brink". "Кравкаси", or, say, a plural form of "Кравкосяй", means "кравки, що сяють" - "brinks that shine", "white brinks", that is, "white brinks of snow", which the Ancient Greeks misinterpreted as "white snow". A quick note: an alternative form of the word "окравка" is "окрайка". I'd assume that the word "крайка" also existed and meant the same as did the word "кравка". We can doubt about the exact meaning of the Ukrainian word "кравка", but the formula is totally valid because this formula will help us to answer a question, "What is the real etymology behind the name of the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy?"

By this moment, there are several versions of the etymology for "Cherkasy". One of them suggests a Turkic etymology by deriving this word from Turkic "chyry kyshy" or "chyry kysi" meaning "people of power". But I will tell you that neither this option, nor other suggested options known by this moment are correct. There was news about when the city of Cherkasy appeared. Two Ukrainian archaeologists Дмитро Куштан and Валерій Ластовський, authors of the book "Archaeology and early history of Cherkasy", in which they wrote some of their thoughts, in a public scientific discussion caused by the release of this book and which took place in Cherkasy several years ago, suggested that Cherkasy, as a city, appeared not in the 13th century as previously supposed, but in the 14th century. According to them, the city appeared as a Lithuanian border castle and, thus, the etymology should be based on the words from European languages, not from Asian languages. They think that the name itself appeared a long time ago in the Carpathian region and was composed from Illyrian words "chrha" meaning "a black river" and "kas" meaning "clean" or "transparent". But I can say that this etymology is wrong.

(54:46) There are several toponyms of similar names appearing in Polish source "Geographical dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic countries": a village "Czerkas", a village "Czerkasy", and a city "Czerkasy". We will look into the description of the village "Czerkas". This source reads, "It's a village on a small river flowing into the Ros River, located in ten versts from the White Church city (about 10.7 km). It once belonged to the White Church starosty." "Starosty" or "starostwo" was such an administrative unit associated with crown land in the Kingdom of Poland. From this fragment, if we conclude that "Черкаси" means "White Churches", we will be actually right. I think the people who are surprised the most now are Ukrainians, because the word "church" is translated into Ukrainian as "церква". Stay surprised, because now we will prove it again. This phenomena can happen if a Ukrainian word was spelt in another language. Even if it was not, the other language can help in the identification of the etymology. (55:37) If we take a close look at the Ukrainian word "церква", we will note a letter combination "кв". This combination resembles a combination "qu" which exists in languages using the Latin script. If we respell this word with the Latin script letters, but at the same time replacing Ukrainian "ч" with Latin "c", we will get a word "C-e-r-q-u-a-s-i" which would be pronounced as /cherkwasi/, say, in Italian. A transition between the phones /ʧ/ and /ts/ is not something uncommon. For instance, both the phones will be spelt in the Greek language equally. In Polish, for some reason, the digraph "cz" is pronounced as /ʧ/, which shows a connection and possible transitions between phones /ts/, /z/, and /ʧ/, from the historical perspective, as well as the fact that Polish "c" before Polish "i" is pronounced as /ʧ/. In modern Italian, the letter "c" is not pronounced as /ts/ in any position in a word. It means that this spelling likely came from another language, in which this letter is pronounced as /ts/. Let's first check what we can find about the letter "c" ("ci") at the beginning of the sought word "Cerquasi" in Italian. (56:30) We can find a mention of this city, but in a bit different form, in the 10th volume of "New universal statistical, historical, commercial geographical dictionary" published in 1833. In Italian, this city is spelt in two ways. In the first way, it's spelt with Italian "c" ("ci") which in Polish is pronounced as /ts/. Let's check whether there is a Polish source mentioning this city and naming it similarly to the first Italian option. And such a source exists. And not the only one. (56:53) In the book "From a chronicle of the European Sarmatia" by Alexander Gwagnin, with Marcin Paszkowski being a translator from Latin into Polish, a city of "Cerkasy" is mentioned along with other Ukrainian toponyms: Kyiv, Kaniv, Putyvl. (57:06) Now, we will switch to another Polish source, the 11th volume of Krakow's Academy of Learning's work "Hearings" (in original - "Rozprawy") published in 1879. You can see that the name "Cerkasy" is mentioned along with the name "Czerkasy". Here, there is also one more interesting pair, "Sokotni" - "Sokolnia", I will cover once we review "Czerkasy". But now, let's make a final move. (57:25) It's a book in the series published in the Russian Empire under the title of "Readings in the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at the Moscow University". Now, I'll say in advance that once you hear a word "князь" or "knesius" I'll be reading, you can perceive either word as the word "prince".

Quote, "(In Russian) Черкасский князь (Cherkasian knyaz) Михаил Алегукович, (now, in Polish) Knesius Michael Lehugowicz Tzerkaski, в другом месте (in another place), Cerkow," comma and other titles. That is, "Knesius Michael Lehugowicz Tzerkaski" is the same as "Knesius Michael Lehugowicz Cerkow". This source has just attested that "Knesius Tzerkaski" is the same as "Knesius Cerkow". (58:07) And we can confirm it once again. "Князь Михаил Черкасский (Cerkow)" - "Князь Cerkow". "Cerkow" is the genitive plural of the Ukrainian word "церква" ("a church"), "церков" means "of churches", "князь церков" is "a knyaz of churches". "Черкаси" is "Церкаси", that is, "Церкосяй" in plural, meaning "Churches-That-Shine", or "White Churches". (58:26) A quote from Ukrainian Wiki about the Cherkasian Castle,

"According to 17th-century Ottoman traveler Evly Chelebi, who visited Cherkasy in October 1657, Cherkasy already had a brick fortress and civil houses built of hewn stone, but most of the dwellings were village houses covered with thatch and shingles. Three wooden Cossack churches towered over the one-storey building."

The village Cherkas previously mentioned was located on the Ros River. Another Ukrainian city, Bila Tserkva (meaning "White Church"), is also located on the Ros River. And one and the same tribe or people is expected to apply similar names to similar objects and to similar locations. Some of Ukrainian native-speakers probably have a question why the city of Cherkasy is not Tserkvasy, but Tserkasy. Let's look at this word from a linguistic perspective. What is the root of this word? As you remember, the genitive plural of the word "церква" is "церков". "-ов-" is a suffix, the forms of which exist in different Slavic languages. Thus, in the word "церков", the root is "-церк-". (59:21) If we look at derived words - "церківка", "церківник", "церковний", and others - their root is "-церк-". At the same time, the letter "в" is either a suffix or a part of the root being at the same time an inseparable part of the digraph "кв", which is an analogue of "qu" in the Latin script. For historical reasons, the digraph "qu" in different languages and/or different positions within a word is pronounced either as /k/ or /kw/. Ukrainian "кв" can transform to "ч" (because "к" can transform to "ч" in the Ukrainian language) in such a word as "моква", which transforms to "мочити". But whether the letter "в" is a suffix or not, it can be debated.

Now, a couple of words about "Sokotni" - "Sokolnia". (59:58) A similar pair we can find in the Herodotus' text when he says that the Scythians are called "Scolotoi", after the name of their king, and "Scythians" is a name given to them by the Hellenes (or the Ancient Greeks). Given the case of "Кравкаси", or even just applying logical thinking, we can assume that these two words are connected in some context or may have similar meanings. Some scholars think that the word "Scolotoi" is disfigured by copyists, and, actually, I have an option of what the original name was. (1:00:24) "Sokotni", probably corresponding to Greek "Σκύθαι", relates to Ukrainian words "cокіт" ("a chattering") and "сокотати" / "сокотіти" ("to chatter"), "Sokolnia", corresponding in turn to Greek "Σκολότοι", relates to Ukrainian word "соколи" ("falcons"). And we can make a conclusion that "Scolotoi" is actually "соколяти" or "соколята" - "young falcons" or even maybe "children of a falcon" - because they likely considered themselves, that's to say, "children" of a person they are named after. And the name of this person was "Сокіл" ("Falcon"). The Scythians called their Amazonian wives the "young sparrows" ("гороб'ята"), the Amazons called their Scythian husbands the "young falcons" ("соколяти"), or just "falcons" ("соколи") meaning also "darlings". I also think that the Scythians related their language to the birdsong. Ukrainian writer Voloymyr Sosiura, in his poem "Love Ukraine ...", wrote, "Любіть Україну у сні й наяву, ... і мову її солов'їну" - "Love Ukraine in dreams and waking hours, ... and do so her nightingale language." The Scythians are Slavs, they are "those who speak", they are "those who sing", like so do birds.

(1:01:23) Besides, I have a good option for the word "Παραλάται" even. I think this word is also disfigured. If we move the first "α" out from "Παραλάται" and to "Σκολότοι" after moving the stressed "ό" in the latter to the appropriate place within the latter, we will get Greek words "Πραλάται" and "Σοκολάτοι". We already know what the second word means. But the first word in turn resembles one of two Ukrainian options: either "прАвлячі" or "правлячІ". It's the same effect occurring in the word "Amazonka", from which we got the Polish word "małżonka", by adding Polish "ł" being, roughly speaking, a counterpart of fricative Ukrainian "в". The Ukrainian word "правлячий" means "ruling" which is tightly connected to the word "royal". And it's expected that the Royal tribe would be called either "the ruling ones" ("прАвлячі") or "the rulers" ("правлячІ").

There is one more small topic left. This topic doesn't closely relate to the Scythians, but does to the word "Cherkasy" in terms of the correct spelling. We already know the etymology behind the name of Cherkasy, but we still don't know what the name of the Chernihiv city means. (1:02:19) One more Italian dictionary titled "Universal dictionary of geography, containing the most necessary articles of physical geography", published in 1862, spells this name in three ways. The first way already hints to Ukrainian native-speakers what it is. In Italian, it can be read as /tsernigov/ or /dzernigov/. In Polish, it would be read as /zernigof/. Pay attention to the fact that the second spelling of Chernihiv with "cz" seems to be borrowed from Polish with subsequent replacing Polish "w" with Italian "vu" or "vi" ("v"). (1:02:47) Now, we will refer to a French source. This is a book written by Carlo Denina, titled "Pierre-le-Grand" meaning "Peter the Great", and published in 1809 (that is, before the previously mentioned book). Carlo Denina is an Italian historian who wrote several his books in French. As a person who knew both Italian and French, he spelt the name of this city in French as "Zernigov" (by the way, he mentions it along with another Ukrainian town - Baturyn, located in today's Chernihiv Oblast). At least, we can attest that this form of spelling via the Latin script was already known in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. According to Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, Carlo Denina was a canon in Warsaw for some time (a canon is such a priest), which means that he could know the original city's name as well. To have greater confidence in the original pronunciation and to clarify the meaning of the word "Чернігів" spelt as "Zernigov", let's look into another source. (1:03:36) It's also a French one, and it spells this word as "Tzernigov". This source was published in 1827, that is, in between the publication dates of the two previous sources mentioned. This book is the first edition of a French universal geographical dictionary which points out a city of Tzernigov in the context of another site, Priluki being "a city and an administrative centre of the circuit of Poltava Governorate, located on the Uday River, in 33 French lieues south-east of Tzernigov". The distance between today's Чернігів (Chernihiv) and today's city of Прилуки (Pryluky) is really 33 French lieues. A question is, "What was the reason to mention some toponym Tzernigov when providing a definition for an absolutely different city?" Moreover, Tzernigov, in this dictionary, is not covered separately at all. There is no any provided definition or specification for Tzernigov. There is no any administrative connection between Priluki and Tzernigov specified in this fragment. Such a situation can appear when documents one refers to are falsified for example. This dictionary came to exist when Ukrainian lands were already occupied by the Russian Empire. In the Russian Empire, Moscovian scholars had a favourite game to rename cities and countries. For instance, "Belarus", meaning "the White Rus", is not a historical name of modern Belarus. The term "the White Rus" first appeared as an addition to the word "Muscovy", and probably, as pointed out by the author of the "История Руси" channel, was connected to a tradition in the Golden Horde to attribute colours to its parts. The historical name of Belarus is rather "Литва" (that is, "Lithuania" in the Middle Ages). The reason why Priluki and Tzernigov are mentioned in one context can be a historical connection between these names. For example, the names "Tzernigov" and "Priluki" can have related etymologies as well as Cherkasy and Bila Tserkva have. If it were just an administrative connection, that would be likely specified. Ukrainian words "лУка" and "луг" mean "meadow" in English, "при" is a preposition meaning "near" or "next to". Thus, "Прилуки" means "Near-the-Meadows". Some meadows, with sufficient humidity, become a place for cereals. The city of Chernihiv is located near the Desna River. A probable semantic connection between these two locations is the following: the city of Pryluky is located near Chernihiv's meadows. Probably, that's the meaning. Thus, the city of "Чернігів" is actually "Зернігів" as two first sources hinted. A Ukrainian word "зерно" is translated into English as "grain" in one of its declensions. Two related locations are named by one and the same tribe or people with similar names. (1:05:48) Let's check what the Polish "Geographical dictionary" tells us about Chernihiv. It reads:

"Czernihiv Governorate is assigned for farming due to the fertility of its land, the flat aspect of the terrain, the distance from the sea, the minor river shipping, and so on; therefore the farming here is the main occupation for the inhabitants."

So we can confirm now that the original name of the city is "Зернігів". The city of Zernihiv could receive its name for an unknown tribe "зерніги" ("zernihy") or for a group of people called like that for their profession or activity. This word has an ending "-іги" as in a word "печеніги", which you improperly call Pechenegs. Improperly because it's a Russian spelling which doesn't exist even in the Ruthenian chronicles. In the Ruthenian chronicles, they are called "печеніги" or "печенізі" and have endings similar to those of the words "варяги" and "варязі". Such suffixes as "-яг-", "-іг-", "-як-" are noun-forming. They produce, in particular, names of tribes, peoples, or groups of people: "поляки" - "Poles", "варняки" or "варняги" - "Slavs", "варяги" or "варязі" - "swordsmen", "печеніги" or "печенізі" - not covered in this video, but for this moment, you can relate them to baked food, "зерніги" - "those who eat and/or produce and sell the grain". The suffix "-ів-" means a place belonging or relating to a tribe or means a place named after or in honour of a particular person or oneself. Zernihiv - is a land probably connected with a group of people "Zernihy". Kyiv - is a city regarded as that of an ancient leader of Ruthenia known as Kyi. Lviv (formerly, one of capitals of Ruthenia) - is a city relating to a Ruthenian knyaz Lev, whose name is an analogue of "Leo" or "Leon" and means "a lion". Or else, the name just indicates a city being a capital for the lion is a symbol of power and wealth. Formerly, on some maps, the city of Lviv was also denoted as "Leopolis" meaning "lion's city".

Now we can finally say. The Scythians spoke an archaic version of the Ukrainian language which preserved various words used today in Modern Ukrainian. And I think we can fairly call the Scythian language the Ancient Ukrainian, as the Ukrainian language, as it seems to be, is very likely the closest one to Scythian. The Scythian language is neither Indo-Iranian, nor Germanic, nor Turkic. And, of course, nor even Russian, because the Russian language appeared several centuries later after Church Slavonic had even come to exist, and because virtually all the deciphered words never existed in Russian at all. I think it's good news for the Moscovites, because now they can put more effort into looking for their non-Slavic roots. The Finno-Ugric tribes deserve to be remembered and deserve to know their own real history. Remember that,

From this video, we can conclude that the age of the Ukrainian language is, at least, two and half thousand years.

And now, a couple of final questions for linguists to crack. Is such transition as the betacism and the one between fricative phones /w/ (/в/) and /gh/ (/г/) a sign of antiquity of a language, especially if its alphabet preserves all these three phones or phonemes as first letters after the first vowel /a/? And, were the Ancient Greek letters "beta" and "gamma" non-fricative?

Leave your comments, especially if you enjoyed this video. It was Daniel Haidachuk, also known as Daniel Poirot.

Links:

Dictionaries:

- English-Ukrainian Dictionaries on "e2u.org.ua"

- Russian-Ukrainian Dictionaries on "r2u.org.ua"

- Ukrainian Explanatory Dictionary "Словник української мови: в 11 томах. Академічний тлумачний словник (1970—1980)"

- Dictionaries on "dict.com" (including Hebrew-English dictionaries)

Wiki Articles (as of Sep 16, 2020):

- Wikipedia:

-- en: Scythians, "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina", Scythian languages, Greek alphabet, Apollo, Aphrodite Urania, Ares, Arimaspi, Sarmatians, Epiktetos (Image: Epiktetos' "Scythian archer", 520-500 BCE), Latin phonology and orthography, Surma-horn -- uk: Житомир, Корсари, Черкаський замок -- ru: Мейер, Андрей Казимирович -- la: Naturalis_historia_(Plinius) - Wiktionary: -- en: αρχι-, ταχύς, αμαξάδα, σαῦρος, μάτι -- el: μπάσος, μπάσο -- fr: Syrmatae

Works on the "History of Rus" ("История Руси") channel mentioned:

русский язык и Россия / Russian language and Russia

Рус Чех и Лях часть вторая НОРИК / Rus Czech and Lach part two NORICUM

Одоакр король Русов / Odoacer King of Ruthenians

Варяги это Украинцы ! / Varangians are Ukrainians !

Кто такие Варяги? Кто такой князь Игорь? / Who are the Varangians? Who is knyaz Ihor?

Herodotus' History, tr. by G.C. Macaulay, 1890

Hypatian Codex / Літопис руський (Іпатський список)

Strabo's Geography, Book 7, Ch. 4

Google Books:

- Leonis diaconi Caloënsis Historia scriptoresque alii ad res Byzantinas pertinentes: ... 1819 - pp. 11, 38, 47

- Sergiei Mikhailovich Solov'ev. Istoriia Rossii S Drevnieishikh Vremen, Volume 1. 1866 - p. 336

- John William Donaldson. The New Cratylus ... 1850 - p. 136

- Petr Grigorʹevich Butkov. Оборона лиетописи русской, Несторовой от навиета скептиков. 1840 - p. VIII after p. 462

- Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten. A Supplement to the English Universal History: ... 1760 - p. 30

- John William Donaldson. Varronianus: ... 1844 - p. 29

- Alexander MacBean. A Dictionary of Ancient Geography: ... 1773 - look for the word "Syrmatae"

- Lukas Holste. Notae et castigationes in Stephani Byzantii Ethnica. 1684 - p. 308

- Nuovo dizionario geografico universale statistico, storico, commerciale, Volume 10. 1833 - p. 620

- Alexander Gwagnin. Z kroniki Sarmacyi europskiej ... 1860 - p. 66

- Rozprawy, Volume 11. Akademja umiejetności w Krakowie. Wydzial historyczno-filozoficzny. 1879 - p. 335

- Čtenija v Imperatorskom obščestve istorii i drevnostej rossijskich pri Moskovskom universitete. 1867 - pp. 338, 373 (look for "Cerkow" in "Указатель"and "Список кораблей царскаго флота")

- Dizionario di geografia universale, contenente gli articoli più necessari della geografia ... : 2.2, Volume 2. 1862 - p. 2155

- Carlo Denina. Pierre-le-Grand. 1809 - p. 87

- J.-G. Masselin. Dictionnaire universel des géographies, physique, historique et politique, ... 1827 - p. 386

Андрей Казимирович Мейер. Повественное, землемерное и естествословное описание Очаковския земли: ... 1794 - pp. 44-45, 50 (the link is for p. 44)

Pliny the Elder. Historia Naturalis, Book VI:

1469, 1470, 1933 (reprint of 1905's ed.)

Eastern Literature / Восточная Литература

- Шамс Ад-Дин Ал-Мукаддаси "Лучшее разделение для познания климатов"

- "Каспийское море в арабских источниках"

Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom I. 1880-1914 - pp. 802, 827 (replace the last number with a necessary page number)

By Daniel Haidachuk, aka Daniel Poirot

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From Ukraine to Scythia and deeper in time

Slavic tribes, Scythian language, and Ukraine

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