Slavic Vikings: Rugian deer, Ruthenian ox, and Khazar wolf

In their articles, some scholars and researchers, as one may find out, tend to attribute certain tribes to specific ethnolinguistic groups without any evidence when the attribution was previously never proved to be valid. But while, in some cases, to confirm the link between a tribe and a language, the use of linguistic means is impossible to avoid - in the others, such a link can be refuted by primary sources even without involving linguistics. An example of the latter that deserves a principal concern is the Norman theory about the origin of Rus'. This myth has not only given rise to a large disinformation field in the historical science, but, along with the non-use of the language as a tool, has affected our understanding of who were the Vikings and whom they were. This video research shows how much we know about them and why so.

Narrated Text (with minor differences; each new timestamp is a new slide on the screen):

(00:00) Hello Dear Viewers. I'm glad to see you and read you on my channel mainly dedicated to the history of Ukraine from the perspective of languages, including Ukrainian, and the history of the Ukrainian language itself. As some of you may recall from my two first videos, we have deciphered about a dozen Scythian words, and most of them have turned out to be Ukrainian or, broadly speaking, Slavic. We have analysed a dozen Khazar, Bulgarian, Avar, and Hunnic titles in total, and each of them has appeared to be a Slavic name. We have shown that various toponyms in Ukraine and on some historical Ukrainian lands that for some unclear reason are supposed to be Turkic have been simply disfigured by some authors and simply consist of Ukrainian words. We have shown that some names of locations and those of people known amongst the so-called Khazars are also Ukrainian. We have shown, in many examples, that the so-called Scythian language and the so-called Khazar language have nothing to do with any Indo-Iranian, nor a Turkic language. And so forth. Given all that, we have proved that Pylyp Orlyk had a defensible reason to derive the Cossacks from the Khazars, as he wrote in his 1710 Ukrainian Constitution. And, in this video, we will show that he also had a defensible reason to derive the Cossacks from the Gets, as the same constitution reads.

In the previous video, I've announced several topics that I planned to include in this video. But I wrongly estimated the amount of material I had - it turned out to be too much (I think you've already noticed that this video is much longer than either of the previous two - that's a partial result of that big amount) - and some other topics that I didn't expect I would be ever immersing myself in are just impossible to avoid. So, for this reason, I've had to cover only a couple of them. But I believe you watch my channel to know something new, not because of some "couple of topics". This "something new" will be presented in this video and will be not less interesting than what I planned before.

In front of you is a fragment from Movses Khorenatsi's "Geography" you already observed in the previous video about the Khazar language. In this piece, we will pay attention to the following things. First, to the river Ethel - or, if we follow the way of pronunciation suggested by the Classical Armenian text, Ethyl (Էթիլ), - whose ancient name is Rha and which is referred to as the river Volga by the translator, but that's a mistaken point and we will show why. The second thing is the Hunnic city of Varachan (Վառաչան), which, for some reason, was transliterated into Latin as "Varhasania". These names will be in our list of words to decipher.

(02:35) We will start our investigation from the document known as the Schechter Letter or the "Cambridge Document", which we've already partly analysed. The value of this document is that it contains several Slavic words relating not just to Khazaria, but, in particular, to Rus' / Ruthenia as well. And these words will be what we will start from because they follow the patterns we will find in the Khazar names in this and another video.

In the passage shown on the screen, Solomon Schechter lists peoples that "rose up against the men of Khazaria". One of these peoples (or nations, as specified in the translation) was a people of some "Painil". Why Solomon Schechter has transliterated this word "Painil" and not "Piinil" is not clear because the Hebrew "yod" ("י") can refer either to the phoneme /i/, the phoneme /ɪ/, the phoneme /e/, or the phoneme /ɛ/, but not /a/. Moreover, in this article of his, titled "An Unknown Khazar Document", he has confirmed that he hasn't been able to identify what this "Painil" means, but has assumed that it could be connected to the tribe of Polans. Another assumption has been made by the Semitologist Павел Константинович Коковцов / Pavel Konstantinovich Kokovtsov who has translated the Khazar Correspondence cycle into Russian. He has supposed that this tribe refers to the Pechenegs. I have a version that seems to be more adequate than the previous ones of what place this "Piinil" - not "Painil" - refers to. First, we will try to identify the sense of this toponym. (04:00) We understand that "-іль", "-иль", "-ілія", "-илія", are some of the standard Ukrainian endings, at least. In Ukrainian dictionaries, we can find the verb "пійняти" meaning "to flood". Then, we may assume that Piinil, or Пійниль (Piinyl') in Ukrainian, may be somewhere near the "land of Macedon" (though not necessarily). To attribute the land of Piinyl' to some location, we will not be looking for a country specifically named, but for a toponym in general, (04:28) until we find the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. According to the English Wiki article about Plovdiv, it's called the Bulgarian "City of the Seven Hills". (Another "City of the Seven Hills" is Rome.) To simplify, it means that this city was likely a capital for some period in olden days and played some crucial role in the state. And Wiki confirms this point: it was the capital of the Roman province of Thracia, and since then, it became a capital several times in different states. (Let's bear this number in mind, "seven".) This article also reads that Plovdiv is situated on the Maritsa river. (05:01) Then, in the section "Etymology", it relates the modern name of the city to the one mentioned by Jordanes, Pulpudeva, which, in the view of some authors, may mean "lake city" in Thracian, and reads that, since the 9th century, Plovdiv was known as Plodiv or Plovdiv, Pladiv, Pladin, and so on. The name "Plovdiv" could be originally spelt with the Greek combination "ου", which could be read as /ou/, /o/, or /u/. In Slavic languages, there is the word "плод" and/or ones similarly spelt and/or pronounced. In Bulgarian, the term "плод" means "fruit" or "crop", and "плоден" means "fruiting". And here is the first connection with the "flood". These two words may share the same root. The phonemes /p/ and /f/ may interchange language by language, like in the following pairs: the English "fire" against the Greek "πυρ", and the English "flame" against the Ukrainian "полум'я". Flood is a huge amount of water. More water is a bigger crop. (06:01) But if we additionally read a description of the Maritsa river, we will find out one more connection:

"The lower course of the river Maritsa/Evros ... is very vulnerable to flooding. For about 4 months every year, the low lands around the river are flooded. This causes significant economic damage ..., which is estimated at several hundreds million Euro."

The name "Maritsa" can be associated with the Ancient Greek "Μᾱ́ρτιος" and Polish "marzec" both meaning "March", the first month of spring. It's a time when sheets of ice on rivers start melting and snowfall is changing into rains. So, Piinyl' could be just one more name for the Bulgarian state applied by the Khazars.

(06:42) Next two words that should be deciphered are found in the following fragment in the Schechter Letter:

"... And from that day there fell the fear of Khazaria upon the nations which surrounded them. And also in the days of my lord, the king Joseph ... when there was the persecution in the days of the wicked Romanus. [And the matter became known] to my lord he trod down many of the uncircumcised. But Romanus, [the wicked,] also sent great gifts to Helgu, the king of [Rus'] [in the text, improperly, - "Russia"; properly, will be "Rus'", "Ruthenia"], and enticed him for his own evil, and he came in the night upon the province of the Sewerians סמבריי and took it by deception. For the commander, the head of the princes, was not there. But when the matter became known to [Болющий / Bolushchyi] [improperly - "Bulshatsi" / "Bulshazi"; explained in the previous video], or Pesah, the Reverer, he marched against the cities of Romanus in fierce anger and smote both man and woman. And he took three cities besides the hamlets very many. And from there he marched against Shorshu ... and fought against it."

How Solomon Schechter produced "Sewerians" is a big mistery, from the word which is clearly spelt, from right to left, with "ס" ("samech"), "מ" ("mem"), "ב" ("bet"), "ר" ("resh"), and two "י" ("yod") letters at the end. This word more likely can be read as "Самборії" (that is "Samborii" or "Samborians" in English) and refer to the Ukrainian city of Самбір (Sambir) in Lviv Oblast or something located nearby. After the Khazar general Bolushchyi marched against the Byzantine cities, he then moved to a place whose name starts with "Shorshu". Solomon Schechter guesses that this word has two extra letters which are missed in the document, "נ" ("nun") and "ו" ("vav") - that is the whole word might be somewhat of "Shorshunu". This "Shorshunu" is mentioned separately after the cities of Romanus, which makes us think that this location was outside the Byzantine Empire and, maybe, north of the Bulgarian Empire: because the Khazar general marched against Shorshunu and people that lived in the Bulgarian Empire probably were not a target of his anger. (08:51) In Ukrainian dictionaries, we can find the word "шурхіт" meaning "rustle", "шурхотіти" - "to rustle" (the translations for these two words are taken from the "English-Ukrainian-English Dictionary of the Scientific Language (Physics and Related Sciences). Part II, Ukrainian-English" of Ольга Кочерга (Olha Kocherha) / Olha Kocherga and Євген Мейнарович (Yevhen Meinarovych) / Eugen Meinarovich from 2010), and "шершень" along with "шершун" meaning "hornet". At the same time, according to the "Dictionary of Russian Patois of Kuzbas (with an addendum)" from 2018 (in the original Russian - "Словарь русских говоров Кузбасса (с дополнением)"), the words "шоршунь" and "шоршун" also mean "hornet". This dictionary narrates that these patois were being developed starting from the 17th century under the influence of several languages including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, and others whose native speakers were exiled to this area, and of local Turkic languages. We will not be now analysing in much detail in what way these two words emerged in these patois, but will say that they likely existed in the Rusyn or Ukrainian language in the period when the "Cambridge Document" was composed. Шоршунь / Shorshun' or Шоршунів / Shorshuniv, as a supposed original name, can be attributed to the present-day city of Chișinău in the Republic of Moldova (in Ukrainian, Кишинів). The Ukrainian "кишіти" means "to infest" or "to be infested" (as reflected in the "English-Ukrainian Dictionary and Handbook of Environmental Engineering" of Тимотей Балабан / Tymotei Balaban from 2000). (The relevant links are found in the video's description.) The verb "кишіти" is commonly applied to insects, and thus the city of Chișinău can refer to the "hornets" we are looking for. The name could simply denote "crowds of people". Today, this city is the capital of Moldova and is the largest in this republic.

(10:35) The "wicked Romanus" is a Byzantine emperor. Pavel Kokovtsov, in his "Jewish-Khazar Correspondence in the 10th Century" (in the original Russian, "Еврейско-хазарская переписка в X веке") from 1932, relates this Romanus to Romanos I Lekapenos, who started reigning in 919, and at the same time doubts about it. According to him, the Byzantine leader should have been a usurper to be called "wicked", whereas Romanos I Lekapenos was a co-emperor to Constantine VII Flavius Porphyrogenitus and thus could not be a usurper, as Pavel Kokovtsov explains. Another problem, which is more relevant, is that Helgu, who is believed to be the knyaz' Oleg (or Oleh) the Prophet, died in 912, before the reign of Romanos I. (11:19) If the "wicked Romanus" is a usurper, a more probable candidate for this person is Romanos II. According to his biography provided by the Wiki community in the English version, "in November 959, he succeeded his father on the throne amidst rumors that he or his wife had poisoned him". And then Wiki continues, "Romanos purged his father's courtiers of his enemies and replaced them with friends." All that resembles an act of the usurpation of power, and those rumors most likely were no rumors. What is also noteworthy is that Romanos II ruled for four years only: quote, "After a lengthy hunting expedition Romanos II took ill and died on March 15, 963. Rumor attributed his death to poison administered by his wife Theophano, but there is no evidence of this ... ", unquote. Wikipedia doesn't report one more version of his death. The source Wiki refers to, which is "Synopsis of Histories" of the Byzantine Greek historian George Kedrenos, says that some of the contemporaries of Romanos II thought that his body was killed by pleasures he used to devote himself to, which means that Romanos II could lead a dissolute life. If the "wicked Romanus" is Romanos II - who is Helgu, then? The only who could be this person is the regent Olga (or Olha) of Kyiv. The period of her reign as a regent (945-964 according to Nestor's Chronicle known as the Primary Chronicle) intersects with that of Romanos II (959-963), and intersects with the reign of the Kovhan (ковган) or the Byk (бик) Joseph (who, according to scholars, ruled at least in around the 950s and 960s), whom the author of this document calls their lord. It means that we can estimate the relations between Olha of Kyiv and Romanos II described in the document as dating to the short period from 959 to 963. (13:13) The most probable explanation, in my view, why the document's author mentioned Olha as a male person (even grammatically in Hebrew) is that the author or a copyist wanted to hide something. The phrase "Romanus sent great gifts to Helgu and enticed him", once being interpreted as "Romanus sent great gifts to Helga and enticed her", like a man enticed a woman, speaks of a possible love affair of Romanos II with Olha of Kyiv. And once having learned about this event, Khazar general Bolushchyi, "in fierce anger", sent the troops he had at his disposal against the Byzantine Empire, which, by his order, started killing the Byzantines and took their "three cities and many hamlets". (13:55) In the following piece, we can find the conversation between Olha and Bolushchyi, which may explain why he was "in fierce anger". We will only replace some words that make us wrongly think about Olha / Helga as a male person:

"... from there he went out to battle against [Helga] and he fought ... months and God subdued [her] before Pesah and [he / she] found ... of the plunder which [she] took from the [Samborians], but [she] said, 'Romanus beguiled me (to do) this.' Then Pesah said to [her], "If this be so, march against Romanus and fight against him as thou didst fight against me, and I will depart from thee, but if not, here I shall die or live until I shall have taken vengeance," and thus [she] marched against [her] own will and fought against Constantinople four months on sea. And [her] mighty men fell there. For the Macedonians prevailed over [her] by fire. And [she] fled but was ashamed to return to [her] land. And [she] went to Persia by the sea and [she] fell there, [she] and all [her] camp. Then the [Russes / Ruthenians] became subdued under the hands of the Khazar."

In this part, the word "Samborians" (סמבריו) is spelt with the Hebrew "יו" ("yod" and "vav") at the end. It seems to be written in the form of the Ukrainian genitive - "Самборів" / "Samboriv" or "Самборіїв" / "Samboriyiv" - that ends with the Ukrainian ending "-ів". As for the "Persia" with the first Hebrew letter being "פ" ("pe"), Pavel Kokovtsov thinks that this word was disfigured from the original "Tiras" with the first "תי" ("tav" and "yod"). If the name "Tiras" (which is the river Dnister) was really written in the original text, it would be spelt without any "י" ("yod") - because the first vowel was different. The so-called "Tyras" is the Hellenised Scythian name of the Dnister river which we will be dealing with later in this video. This passage from the Khazar document suggests that Olha of Kyiv died between 959 and 963, that is before the year of her death recorded in the Primary Chronicle, which is 969. (16:03) The Ukrainian Wiki article about Olha mentions that she lost power in 962 by referring to the Ukrainian translation of "Continuatio Reginonis" (a continuation of the chronicle of Benedictine monk Regino Prumiensis) written by the first Archbishop of Magdeburg and missionary Adalbert of Magdeburg also known as the "Apostle of the Slavs". According to this translation, under the year 959, we can see a piece speaking of Helena (who is supposedly Olha of Kyiv) as about the queen of the Rugians (in the original Latin, "Helena regina Rugorum"). The Rugians are generally believed to be a Germanic tribe, but this is a myth that will be debunked in this video. Under the year 962, the author of the "Continuation" writes the following:

"In the same year Adalbert, ordained a bishop for the Rugians, returned without having done anything of what he had been sent for because he had seen that he had laboured in vain; some who had been with him had been killed, and he himself, with great difficulty, had scarcely escaped; when he met with the king, he was kindly received, and archbishop Wilhelm, loved by God, received him as a brother and endowed him with all sorts of good and benefits in order to reward him for such a difficult journey he had mapped out for him."

The Rugians, Russes, or Ruthenians, could not receive Adalbert because Olha was possibly outside Rus' / Ruthenia - she could be already dead, - and Rus' itself was already subdued by the Khazars. In the Primary Chronicle, no event is recorded under the years from 956 to 963. Under the year 968, the chronicle reports that Olha with her grandsons was surrounded by the Pechenegs in Kyiv. Under the year 969, Sviatoslav I, her son, tells his mother Olha that he doesn't like living in Kyiv and wants to live in Pereyaslavets' (Pereiaslavets') on the Danube. If Olha / Helga really made her way not to Persia, but to the river Tyras, as was supposed by Pavel Kokovtsov, it means her camp and she herself should have died among the Pechenegs, but not in Rus', not in Kyiv - as can be deduced from the Schechter Letter. Whether she was killed (if killed at all) immediately by the Pechenegs once they found her camp or they demanded something (if anything was requested) from Sviatoslav to release her is not clear, but Sviatoslav probably came into contact with the Pechenegs after Olha ended up amongst them. We don't know her destiny afterwards if she had turned out alive. This presumptive course of events suggests that the Primary Chronicle has been falsified in this part under this period.

The Khazar general Bolushchyi could be a lover of Olha who wanted to take his revenge on Romanos II: the "Cambridge Document" only mentions the reaction of this general and that he was the one who sent the troops, but doesn't mention the king Joseph in this part at all. Based on Solomon Schechter's interpretation, the Khazar general is called "the head of the princes" in the document. The same document also reads that there was a title "the great prince" in Khazaria. Such authors as Ibn Rusta and al-Mas'udi wrote in the 10th century that the only person in Khazaria who was allowed to possess troops and wasn't held accountable to anyone but himself for how he could use them was the Byk, the second king in the country besides the Kovhan. And if Bolushchyi had this army and was "the great prince of Khazaria", he was the Byk, and the king Joseph was the Kovhan. (19:37) Romanos II possibly was indeed poisoned for either of two reasons or even both. (Alternatively, he could die of a venereal infection rooted in his lifestyle.) Having become the Emperor, Romanos II, as the same Wiki article about him reads, "to appease his bespelling wife", "excused his mother, Empress Helena, from court and forced his five sisters into convents". It can be interpreted that his wife Theophano was jealous, on the one hand. But on the other, even if she was not, she could have considered the affair of her husband with Olha as infidelity. And thus, she was one of those who could desire to get him poisoned. But there was also a second, collective, player who could do the same. To Romanos II's persecution of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire, the Kovhan Joseph responded symmetrically by "troding down many of the uncircumcised" in Khazaria, but he didn't send any army. The Byzantine elite, the circle of Romanos, didn't expect that his politics would result in Khazar soldiers killing civilians on their land, so they could make a decision to depose such an emperor. For the Byk Bolushchyi - called by the Khazar author "the Reverer" (according to Solomon Schechter) or "the Revered" (according to Pavel Kokovtsov), possibly, in order to present him as a knight or to highlight it - the deed he committed was disgraceful: he had a relationship with a widow, who then, being ashamed after the battle against Constantinople (because she lost it), couldn't return home, who presumably died afterwards, and all this happened because of this, quote unquote, "noble person". That's what the Khazar author didn't want to write about. To do it is to bring shame on Khazaria. And now, we better understand what was next. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin is credited with the following lines about the Khazars, "... Oleg the Prophet is now going to take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars ..." Why Pushkin called them "unreasonable" is what nobody could understand, but what is clear is that the author of these lines didn't much like them, definitely. To understand this piece, we probably need to replace the name "Oleg the Prophet" with "Sviatoslav the Brave". And now I will express my guess. The Khazar general, "the great prince", "the knight", and the Byk of Khazaria, with the pronounced name "Bolushchyi" - which means, in the Ukrainian language, "causing others pain" - was its gravedigger. His act brought Romanos II to his poisoning and Olha of Kyiv to her death or distress. Sviatoslav I of Kyiv indeed took revenge on Khazaria. He avenged the death of his mum. In reprisal for her death, Sviatoslav brought Khazaria to its end. That was the price of the Byk Bolushchyi's mistake. Khazaria disappeared from the political map - its lands were subdued by the Russes. (22:22) As Григорій Кониський / Hryhorii Konys'kyi or Георгі Каніскі / Heorhi Kaniski writes in his "The History of the Russes", "the wars, described by some writers, of the Slavs against the Pechenegs, the Polovtsi, the Kozars, and other Slavic peoples unreservedly claimed foreigners, mean no more than internecine battles of the Slavs against one another for regional borders, for transhumance, and for other claims and quarrels of knyazes they themselves used to make." That the Russes got control over Khazaria is confirmed by Ibn Hawqal, in the 10th century. But the Khazars did not disappear. Either Khazaria was simply incorporated into Rus', or the Khazars just started paying tribute to the Russes. And they pretty much understood one another: they both spoke either one language or two languages resembling two dialects of one (such are the Rusyn and the Ukrainian language). Sarkel - or, to be accurate, Sadybil' (Садибіль) - was neither completely destroyed. And we will be speaking of this Khazar city too, but in another video.

(23:20) In the Schechter Letter, we've found a name probably relating to the city of Sambir. There are several interpretations suggested for this word that are known today. But I will add one that was likely not even considered by anybody. To find the sense of the name, we should understand where it comes from. In the Medieval Age and even in the early Modern Age, there was a knowledge that one of the names of the Carpathian Mountains was Sembor. For instance, Jan Jiří Ignác Středovský, who was a historian and a Catholic priest, in his book "Sacred History of Moravia" (1710) writes that the Mount Zabor located near the city of Nitra (today's Nitra being a city in Slovakia) was known by the name of Sembor, Sobor, Sambor. As the author notes, the name "Zobor" (I guess, here, there should be "Zabor" as well as in the main text) was given to this mount by the Hungarians. On Hungarian Wiktionary, we can find that the word "забор" exists in such a Finno-Ugric language as Erzian in the sense of "fence" and in such a, quote unquote, "East Slavic" language as Russian which is so "East" and so "Slavic" that its native speakers copied and pasted the word "забор" into their language without any change; even the original meaning is kept, "fence". I believe some of you got the idea behind the joke. The Finno-Ugric word "забор" is present in the Russian language because the Muscovites themselves, as the indigenous people, belong, by origin, to the Finno-Ugric peoples. Although the Russian language is Slavic, the idea to classify it as East Slavic causes nothing but laughter. The Finno-Ugric name "Zabor" meaning "fence" pretty well applies to the Carpathian Mountains. If the name "Sembor" denotes something similar, the closest word would be the Polish proper noun "Siębor" being a variant of "Siembor". (25:04) "Siębor" consists of the reflexive pronoun "się" and the verb "borzyć" and thus corresponds to the Polish "się borzyć" or "borzyć się". On English Wiktionary, we can find that the Old Polish "borzyć" - or, I would assume, "borzyć się" - means "to fight", "to battle" (as well as the Ukrainian "боротися"). The "fence" and the "fighting" are contextually related terms. We can also pay attention to another Ukrainian word, "боронитися" meaning "to defend oneself", which may share the same root with the word "боротися". In addition, we can even note that the English "fence" and "defence" share the same root as well, but that's less important. The Carpathian Mountains were named "Sembor" or "Sambor" possibly because they defended or separated those who lived at the one side of the mountains from those who lived at the opposite side. If that was the case, the city of Sambir just received its name due to its relative proximity. In that event, the name "Sembor" and "Sambor" would mean the same: the Slavic "sam" and the Polish "się", roughly speaking, are both translated into the English suffix "-self". Before I realised it, I actually had another option. I will express the second hypothesis too as we will deal with a Khazar toponym of the same pattern in another video.

(26:16) In the 1673 "Mirrors for princes" (or "Fürstenspiegel") of the Bohemian jurist Johann Jacob von Weingarten, we can find a mention of the Mount Sembor and its two alternative names: "Sobor" and "Sembri". The latter even more closely resembles today's name of Sambir. Here we should note that Johann Jacob von Weingarten, as well as the previous author, mentions this mount when relating the events of the 9th century. Another event he mentions is seven Hunnic armies having reached the borders of Pannonia near the domains of Svatopluk I of Moravia. And what I thought after I found this passage was that this "Sembor" should be interpreted as the Ukrainian "Семиборії" ("Semyborii") consisting of the Ukrainian "сім" ("seven") and "бір" ("pine forest"). A place's name similar in structure can be found in present-day Belarus - it's the village of Сямісосны (Siamisosny) literally meaning "Seven Pine Trees". Can we connect the seven Hunnic armies to some seven pine trees is not clear and is neither expected. However, the number "seven" was really present in the life of the Slavic tribes, and not only. The Scythians had seven gods; the Avars and the Bulgarians had seven persons bearing the title "Tarhan" ("тарган") / "Tarkan" ("таркан") or "Vul", each of which, as you remember, roughly means "ox"; and so on and so forth, including "cities of the seven hills", etc. But a noteworthy point we can deduce from this passage is that the Huns didn't become extinct in the 9th century, which makes, one more time, the idea of their, quote unquote, "Indo-Iranian" or, even, "Mongolian" origin completely delusional.

(27:49) In the same book, we will read one more piece preceding the one just quoted:

"The king ... knew nothing about the quantity of the Huns and wrongly believed that they, or more specifically, the barbarians, dealt with cattle as if they trained themselves to war, and looked for a place in Pannonia, for example, where, in the vast fields, they could graze their cattle named Roßan [Rossan] ..."

(If you know German and think that my translation is inaccurate, you can leave a comment with a proper translation.) The German word "Leuthe" with "h" whose meaning apparently remained unknown till this moment, can be easily confused with the word "Leute" without "h" which means "people". In Poland, there are several toponyms called "Lutynia" in Polish. In German, they all are known by the name "Leuthen" (with the German "h"). At the same time, the Old Polish adjective "luty" means "fierce". That's why I've translated the German noun "Leuthe" as "barbarians". (Interestingly ... Slavic Barbarians.) But I paid your attention to this sentence for a different reason. We will now attempt to uncover the sense of the names "Rus'", "Ruthenia", "Rugians", and even "Roxolani". (28:56) In the Latin language, there is the word "rus" meaning "country". And this sense is what is kept in the Ukrainian name of Ukraine, "Україна". The Ukrainian words "україна" and "країна" both, as well as the Latin "rus", mean "country". They both have the same etymology: the noun "країна" etymologically relates to the verb "краяти", whereas the noun "україна" relates to the verb "украяти". (The latter, as a hypothesis, already exists.) The only difference between these two verbs is the aspect: "краяти" is an imperfect verb, "украяти" is perfect. "краяти" means "to cut" / "to cut out" or "to be cutting" / "to be cutting out", while "украяти" means "to have cut off". Such meanings come from the root "-край-": "край", being a noun, can be translated as "edge", but also, as "country". That is the nouns "країна" and "україна" denote a piece of land having certain or specified boundaries that make it separate from the adjacent territories or regions. It should not be necessarily a country. That's why in some primary sources one can find the adjectives "Українний" / "Украинный" (roughly meaning "of state importance") applied to cities - because "украяти" can be interpreted as "to give some region a special status", "to distinguish it from the rest". When this word applies to a country, it signifies that the country has the borders which cannot be crossed without permission or without awareness. But is "Rus'" a Latin name? Don't jump to conclusions. (30:19) A reverse translation of the verb "to cut" is "різати", whose root "-різ-" most probably corresponds to the Latin "-rus-". In Ukrainian dictionaries, we can find the term "різа" / "риза" denoting a 3, 6, or 10 morgen parcel of land (one morgen was about not less than 2000 square metres). So the Ukrainian root "-різ-" / "-риз-", the same as the Latin "-rus-", refers to some limited piece of territory which is "cut off" from other lands. But what is truly interesting is that one more word which possibly contains the same root is the Ukrainian name of Christmas, "Різдво". "Interesting" because the Rusyn counterpart of this day's name is "Руздво" with the root "-руз-". (We are now referring to the Carpatho-Rusyn to Russian online dictionary on "slovnyk.rueportal.eu". The dictionary is not complete and is not always precise.) That is the name "Rus'" can simply be the Rusyn "Рузь" ("Ruz'") meaning "country" and can derive from the assumed archaic Rusyn verb "рузати" meaning "to cut". And that may explain why the Bavarian Geographer mentioned the Russes by the name of "Ruzzi" (with the double "z"). But that's not all. We have said that the Ukrainian root "-різ-" relates to "cutting". But this sense can lead us to the thought that the same root may be connected to some sharp object. An example of such a sharp object is a horn, which, as you already know, is translated into the Ukrainian "ріг" (in plural - "роги"). But we haven't said yet, until now, that what is called "ріг" in the Ukrainian language, in the Rusyn language - is called "руг" (in plural, "рогы"), and in Polish - "róg" (in plural, "rogi"). And this word, in theory, may connect the term "Russes" with the term "Rugians". Moreover, the Bavarian Geographer, by the name "Ruzzi", could even record the hypothetical Rusyn word "рузі" / "Ruzi" that, in theory, could be the dual or plural form of the Rusyn "руг" producing the meaning "two horns" or "many horns" respectively. When Johann Jacob von Weingarten was writing that the Huns named their cattle "Roßan" ("Rossan"), he, roughly speaking, confirmed that the name of the Hunnic cattle is derived from the word "ріг" / "руг" / "róg" ("horn") - sort of "рожани" (Rozhany) / "рожань" (Rozhan') - denoting the cattle that have horns on their head. The thing is that, in English, as well as in German, apparently there is no term that would specifically denote "horned cattle". What is called "рогата худоба" in Ukrainian (literally, "horned cattle") is usually translated just as "cattle". The words of Johann Jacob von Weingarten indicate that the Rugians, which are "Rugi" or "Rogi" in Latin, "Ρογοί" in Greek, could be "cattle breeders" or "cattlemen". That's not the only inference we can try to draw from his words, but let's take things one step at a time.

(33:00) Having opened the English Wiki article about the Rugians, we will find the following line, "The name of the Rugii continued to be used after the 6th century to refer to Slavic speaking peoples including even Russians." We definitely have to replace the word "Russians" - which denotes people that didn't exist in the days of the Rugians, nor long time afterwards - with the adequate term "Russes" or "Ruthenians". Otherwise, this sentence makes no sense: in other words, makes nonsense. Tacitus, in his "Germania", as scholars believe, placed them near the Baltic Sea: roughly, in today's Pomerania, being located on the territory of today's Poland and Germany. In his work, the Rugians are mentioned along with the Lemovii, and they both, according to him, carried round shields and short swords. A short sword can be associated with a knife. And we can recall that the Ukrainian term "косак" (most likely being cognate with the Ukrainian "козак", in English - "Cossack") means "large knife". It doesn't say much about the Rugians or the Lemovii yet, but there is a thing that we can notice. (34:00) For some reason - and that's really strange - the Lemovii are believed to be a Germanic tribe. Maybe, those who still believe it don't know, but the ending "-ovii" is clearly Slavic (in the context of Europe). A similar ending, "-owie", exists in modern Polish, and signifies the grammatical plurality. The Lemovii (the root being "-lem-") may refer to the people today called Lemkos (in Polish, "Łemkowie"), an ethnic group living in Carpathian Ruthenia (or Zakarpattia). The Lemovii, or Lemovians, probably dwelt near the Carpathian Mountains too and could be Slavs. (34:34) Tacitus has also recorded the existence of the tribe of Lygii (Lugians). This name may refer to the people that spoke, and speak today, Sorbian, or Lusatian, languages (which, as well known, are also Slavic). (The Soviet author Елена Чеславовна Скржинская / Elena Cheslavovna Skrzhinskaia in her "Jordanes. On the origin and deeds of the Gets" from 1960 connects the Lygii to the Lusatian archaeological culture and agrees that they were Slavs.) The historical region of Lusatia (called in Upper Sorbian, "Łužica", and in Lower Sorbian, "Łužyca") is located near the eastern border of Germany. Furthermore, as can be deduced from Tacitus's text, east of the Lugians (who are likely Slavs) dwelt the Gotones / Gothones (maybe the Goths, maybe not), while, in the 5th century CE, according to Eugippius, another author, the biographer of Saint Severinus of Noricum ("Severin" is a Slavic name), the Goths (which, as we recall, were Slavs according to the Priest of Duklja) resided in Lower Pannonia (Lower Pannonia was east of the Roman province or Noricum). And the Rugians, according to the same Eugippius, in the same 5th century, were situated near the Danube river and, approximately, at least partly, in the north of today's Austria near today's Czechia and Slovakia and the Carpathian Mountains. We cannot simply call the Rugians a Germanic tribe for the following reason. (35:50) The Roman geographer of the first half of 1st century CE Pomponius Mela in his "De situ orbis" places Sarmatia between the river Elbe (Albis) and the river Vistula (Visula). To put in detail, he first writes that the river Albis flows through non-Germanic peoples, and, after that, he gives the following account:

"Above the [river] Elbe [Albis] lies the enormous Codanus gulf [Codanus sinus] thronged with big and small islands. ... Sarmatia, being wider inside than near the sea, being separated by the Vistula [Visula] river from the lands that follow next, extends up to the Danube river where Sarmatia itself goes to the rear. ... [Below this text, Pomponius Mela mentions Sarmatian women whose description can relate to the Amazons and separately mentions the Amazons that lived near the Caspian Sea and were called Sauromatids.]"

We have said in the first video, which is dedicated to the Scythian language, that the Polish gentry derived themselves from the Sarmatians and that the Sarmatians could be Slavs. And these Slavs, based on the words of Pomponius Mela, in the 1st century CE or before, inhabited even the north-eastern part of today's Germany. We can also make an assumption that, in the Sarmatia that Pomponius Mela describes in the piece just quoted dwelt the Rugians. This assumption can be confirmed by a work written by Claudius Ptolemy, who was born in the 2nd century CE - after Pomponius Mela's death.

(37:17) To start, we will open the English Wiki article about the Polish town of Darłowo. Some authors connect this town to the toponym "Rugium" mentioned by Ptolemy in his "Cosmographia" (or "Geography"). I believe you still remember that the Rusyn word "руг" and the Polish word "róg" mean "horn". Because, as informed by Wiki, in the past, Darłowo was known as a fortress "Dirlow" or "Dirlovo", and, in 1270, was a part of the Danish Principality of Rügen whose leader was Wizlaw (or Vislav) II (the name sounds like Slavic). In the Danish language, there is the word "dyr" corresponding to the English "deer" (when it comes to hunting) which denotes an animal having horns on its head (its horns sometimes resemble branches of a tree), and the word "lov" meaning "law", "permission", or "praise". Maybe, as a version, the meaning of the toponym's name ("Dyrlov") was sort of "law of deers", "rule of deers", or "ruled by deers". This version, at least, suggests the etymological connection between the two names of the same location and may substantiate that the Rugians were Slavs. But let's look in much detail into the context, in which the toponym called "Rugium" appears. (38:26) We will open four editions of Ptolemy's "Cosmographia". I will now list them as they are presented on the screen from the first at the top to the last three at the bottom from the left to the right. These editions are as follows: the one from 1401-1457 (the precise year is unknown), the one from 1466-1500, the one from 1490, and the one from 1540. In some of these editions, we can find a mention of the tribe of Ruticlii. The word of a similar kind depends on the year of a published copy of Ptolemy's work. If you compare several random copies, in some of them, you will see "Rutidii" in place of "Ruticlii", in some - "Ruticlei", in some - "Rucidii", "Rundii", "Rutuclii", "Rutiglii", "Rutulii", or even "Runelia". (39:10) The spelling of this appellation in the Greek editions of Ptolemy's "Cosmographia" also varies. In one of them from the late 15th century, it's written down as "ῥουτΐκλοιοι" ("Ruticloii"). And I think this is the right one. It probably consists of the following parts: the Ancient Greek "ῥυτή" used for denoting plants called "rue" and the Ancient Greek "κλοιός" meaning "necklace" or "ornamental collar of gold". On the one hand, the whole word could have meant sort of "bearing an ornamental necklace of rue" or simply "rue-necked". On the other, in Modern Greek, the word "κλοιός", pronounced /kli'os/, is applied to an encircling object in general. If we imagine a rue encircling someone's head instead of their neck (so that the Ruticloii will be "rue-headed" people), we will find a possible explanation why some Slavs were believed to have red or reddish hair. (39:55) Reddish hair can be linked with the red rue. According to a legend preserved by people living in or near the Carpathians, this rue, as Ukrainian Wiki reads, being almost all day long of the yellow colour, becomes red at Ivanа-Kupala Night. If a young woman finds a red rue, she will be happy in love. In the Ukrainian culture at least, in the rite of getting married, young women put a garland of flowers on their head. As described by the Polish ethnographer Henryk Biegeleisen in his book "Weddings" (in the original Polish, "Wesele"), the Poles and the Rusyns had a similar rite as well. According to this rite, after the garland was on the head of a young woman, it was sown with rue. The author doesn't specify whether this rue was red. He only writes that the red colour symbolised virginity in different cultures and describes where it was present in the wedding rites. According to him, during the wedding rite, as the Poles and the Rusyns believed, "Mother of God twisted a garland of red roses for the bride and of sage for the bridegroom". In Slavic languages, the word "rue" is translated as "ruta" which, as well as its Greek counterpart, likely shares the same root with the term "Ruthenian", whereas "Ruticloii" could be just another name for the Ruthenians used by the Greeks for some period. (41:08) Based on Ptolemy's "Cosmographia", the Ruticloii dwelt between the river Viadus (which is the Oder river) and the river Vistula. The part "Viad-" sounds like a phoneme combination inside the Polish term "powiat" (sort of a district). And I think it's one of the following two options. (41:23) The first one suggests that the real word masked by this name is the Polish "kwiat" meaning "flower". And the name "Oder", in turn, could possibly derive from the Latin "odor" meaning "smell", "perfume", or "stench". (I believe everyone can easily intuitively connect flowers with smell - without any specific context.) (41:40) The second option for the "Viadus" is a Polish word derived from the Polish verb "wiać" meaning "to blow" - for example "Wiadziec" or "Wiadek".

The Oder river has a tributary today called "Warta" flowing through the Polish city of Poznań, crucial in the history of Poland. Why am I speaking of this river? (41:57) Poznań has almost the same longitude as Darłowo, and, according to Ptolemy, the mouth of the river Viadus (today's Oder) has almost the same longitude as Rugium (today's Darłowo), which is impossible. It means that the river Viadus could be mistakenly applied to the river Warta which, as imagined by Ptolemy or a predecessor of his, flowed only to the north. It was noted to make a connection to the following matter. The name "Poznań" is normally derived from the Polish "poznać" / "poznać się", "to get to know". But it seems that nobody can explain why it was called that. I think that the philosophy behind the name is what is kept in the name of the city of Kyiv. But we will try to reach the answer gradually. First, I want you to pay attention to the latitude of the mouth of the Vistula river in Ptolemy's "Cosmographia" - it's 56°. In the present-day coordinates, it's about 54°21′ north. The difference between the Ptolemy and present-day latitude is about 1°39′ or approximately 1 and 2/3 degrees. Let's keep that in mind. (42:58) Now we open another page in several editions of Ptolemy's work and find two toponyms - Sarum and Azagarium, which are located near the river "Borysthenes". And, as you can see on the slide, their coordinates depend on the edition. Sarum has the Ptolemy latitude of 54 degrees in some editions, 50 and 1/4 degrees in the second group of theirs, 50 and 1/6 in the third group, etc. But if we look at the toponym mentioned by the name of Azagarium, we will see, in one place and at one instant, several versions of the Universe. That's the honest truth. Azagarium is a teleporting town which existed, as a ghost, at one and the same time at the latitude of 50 and 2/3 degrees, 51 and 1/4 degrees, 51 and 1/6 degrees, and other degrees based on which universe the author of a particular edition came from. ... Moreover, every universe has its own Ptolemy, and every Ptolemy has his own "Cosmographia". ... We've finally understood what's happened. ... In other editions, the situation is even worse. You can find 61 degrees, 41 degrees, and so on, for Azagarium. That's how European authors worked with the primary sources. In the case of Sarum, I think, in the original text, its real latitude by Ptolemy was 50 and 1/4 degrees, and, in the case of Azagarium, Azagarium's latitude might have been between 52 and 1/6 degrees and 52 and 1/3 degrees. It's, of course, a guess based on a disfigurement pattern that can be observed in the numbers in question and on the belief of some scholars that Azagarium is a predecessor of Kyiv. One of them is the Soviet and Ukrainian architect and architectural historian Борис Єрофалов / Borys Yerofalov who wrote the book "Roman Kyiv or Castrum Azagarium at Kyiv-Podil". At the moment, I think this hypothesis is right. Once we deduct 1 and 2/3 degrees in the last case, we will get the latitude between 50 and 1/2 degrees and 50 and 2/3 degrees. The latter corresponds to the same Ptolemy latitude in some of the editions; and the former is the latitude of today's Kyiv, which is 50°27′ north in the present-day coordinates. Ptolemy has also mentioned the toponym called "Metropolis" (the Ancient Greek "μητρόπολῐς" means "mother-city" or "capital city"). The coordinates of Metropolis, applying the same formula, correspond to the island of Small Khortytsia (known as the island of Baida): 49 and 1/2 degrees minus 1 and 2/3 degrees is equal to 47 and 5/6 degrees - everything is correct: the latitude of the island is 47°49′ north. (Alternatively, it could be the island of Khortytsia proper.) (45:26) The Ukrainian word "хортиця" means "female greyhound". Please, keep this word in mind too because it relates to the Scythians.

In my first video I spoke of the Ukrainian roots "-гар-" and "-гор-" relating to fire or flame, and I considered an option that the word "Amazon" could refer to the Polish "małżonka" meaning "wife". It's, of course, a hypothesis, but the main point is that, in some of the Scythian words, to restore the original ones, the first "Α" ("alpha") in their Ancient Greek representation should be removed. In a separate video, we will see another Scythian word this rule may refer to. Now, having removed the first letter from "Azagarium", we can compare the resulting word "Zagarium" to the Ukrainian "загорятися" / "загорітися", "to begin to burn" or "to blaze" (the roots "-гар-" and "-гор-" are considered to be interchangeable without loss of their initial sense). A town or city can bloom like a flower or shine like a star. One of these two senses could be kept in this name. It would sound in Ukrainian as "Загарець" ("Zaharets'"). On the other hand, "Azagarium" (written down in Ancient Greek as "Ἄζαγάριον") can just be the composition of the Ancient Greek adjective "ἄζυγος" ("unpaired" or "unwedded") and diminutive suffix "-ᾰ́ρῐον". "ἄζυγάριον" can denote a small town of unmarried people. The Greek version may pretty well fit several appellations of one place related to the city of Kyiv. (46:41) Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his "De Administrando Imperio" mentions a castle, stronghold, or fortress, called "Κιοάβα" whose one more name was "σαμβατάς". In the rest of his passages, Constantine Porphyrogenitus writes the first name in the form of "Κιόβα" and "Κιάβον". On the one hand, these three names resemble the Polish "Kijowa", the genitive of the Polish name of Kyiv "Kijów". On the other hand, the Greek "οα" or the Latin "oa" exists at least in the Wendish language, but is not characteristic of Polish. For example, the English "water" is translated into the Polish "woda", but into the Wendish "woada". "oa" is also present in the name of the Ruthenian king Odoacer. And another "oa" is present in the Buyla inscription which, for no adequate reason, is believed to be written in a Turkic language. In my view, it's a Slavic inscription which I will later provide my analysis on, but not in this video. I think this "oa" is pronounced as the Polish "ą" /ɔ̃/ or simply /ou/. The name of Odoacer could be read in the original language somewhat as "Wodąkier" corresponding to the Polish "kierujący wodą", "the one who drives water(s)". (We will be considering this version as a first approximation of the possible answer.) Such a name characterises its holder as the sea-God Poseidon, and amongst Slavic leaders, there were several ones whose names are in some way connected to water. (47:58) For example, a Hunnic leader's name "Attila" might refer, though not necessarily, to the Ukrainian "Гатила" / "Hatyla" (alternatively, "Гатило" / "Hatylo"; the last version already exists in the collective consciousness of some Ukrainians). As Hatyla is a person, and not an inanimate object, if this name is really Ukrainian, I think the ending should be "-ила", assuming that this was the rule for such appellations in the past. But today, this rule does not work. The name can be derived from the Ukrainian verb "гатити" which is translated, depending on the context, either as "to build a dike" or "to strike with force". Did he bear the Ukrainian name or not, this precise sense, with higher confidence, is likely kept in the name of the river Atil, or properly Гатиль / Hatyl', whose Hebrew spelling we will see in the Khazar Correspondence. An alternative version for the name "Attila" is "Гачила" / "Hachyla" or "Гачило" / "Hachylo" - from the Ukrainian verb "гачити" meaning "to hook" and "гачок" meaning "hook". For now, we will not be favouring any version that at first glance seems to be possible - moreover, that's not all of those I have. The leader of the Goths recorded by Procopius of Caesarea (who doesn't mention any Ostrogoths either in his "History of the Wars", or in "Secret History", or in "The Buildings"; as well as Eugippius, who knew only about the Goths and no one else with a similar name) Totila also bore a Slavic name, which is "Точила" / "Tochyla". In the Ukrainian language, there is the verb "точити" meaning "to pour", "to grind", "to sharpen". Such names as "Wodąkier", "Hatyla", "Tochyla" connect the violence, the power, and the water. This is a linguistic connection which can be observed within the Slavic language family and which will be deeper analysed on this channel some time later. The ending "-ила" / "-іла" can be found in other Slavic names belonging to some of the historical leaders, though they don't always relate to the water. (49:40) One of the leaders of the Goths, according to Jordanes, bore the name of Gudila and had a daughter called Medopa. "Gudila" is just a Ukrainian or a Slavic name "Гуділа" / "Hudila" sharing the same root with the verb "гудіти" translated as "to buzz", "to hoot". "Medopa" is likely the result of respelling the Latin "Medopha" with "h" and/or the Greek "Μεδόφα". (The Latin digraph "ph" traditionally corresponded to the Greek "φ".) "Μεδόφα" is a Slavic name as well. To make the reverse transliteration, we are allowed to associate the letter "φ" with a phoneme resembling /v/. The Ukrainian feminine adjective "медова" (and the masculine "медовий") literally means "honeyed". We can compare it to the English form of address "honey" used in regard to a person we love. But, as the Slavic name, it can be also connected to the history of the Huns, who, as well known, treated their guests to honey when the latter arrived. Of course, the fact itself that the Gothic elite could bear the Slavic names doesn't mean that the Goths were Slavs, but the place where the Goths were situated from the 1st century CE to the 5th century CE doesn't give much chance to the Germanic version of their origin.

(50:45) But let's get back to the text of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. If the "Κιοάβα" is Wendish, we can try to find another word that probably shares the same root with this name in the French-Wendish dictionary of Jan Potocki - and we will find it. This word is "Kijot" meaning "flower". The Ukrainian analogue is "квіт". These words are usually considered as those having one root and no suffixes. But from the historical point of view, this "-іт" / "-от", in the past, was likely just a suffix. Such an idea normally crosses one's mind after looking at longer words: the Ukrainian "дрімота" ("doze"), "нудота" ("nausea"), "хотіти" ("to want"), "летіти" ("to fly"), etc. The Ukrainian root "-кв-" and the Wendish root "-kij-" can mean not just "flower", but also "to bloom", and in this case, maybe, we should perceive this root as something denoting an action instead of an object. In the Wendish language, there is the adjective-forming ending "-owa" / "-ywa" and the noun-forming ending "-awa". "Kijoawa" could mean, in Wendish - recalling that "kij" can denote an action instead of an object - "blooming place". The word "σαμβατάς", if we pay attention to the letter "τ", may be the Ukrainian "самбач". If "Siębor" is derived from the Polish "borzyć się", "Самбач" / "Sambach" is likely derived from the Ukrainian "бачитися" - "to see each other", and can be connected to the Ukrainian "побачення" - "date". Alternatively, it could be derived from the Rusyn "бачити ся" - "to like", "to be charming". When we are speaking of a date, we quite often imply a romantic meeting between a man and a woman. In the Ukrainian culture at least, when a child was born in a family, the parents planted a tree. It actually supports the expected view on what the ancient towns looked like. The English "town" is believed to come from the Old English "tūn" meaning "garden". The French "ville" meaning "town" or "city" is believed to come from the Latin "villa" meaning "country house" or "farm". The Serbo-Croatian "grad" / "град", the Bulgarian "град", the Macedonian "град" mean "city" or "town", while the Ukrainian "город" means "vegetable garden". The English "fruit garden" will be translated into the Ukrainian "сад", and the Ukrainian "садиба" ("messuage"), in turn, is derived from this word and the verb "садити" ("to plant"). It means that archaeology will not always have the capacity to trace the archaeological evidence of some of the cities (which are called "cities" today). Because what is called today a city was a town. What is called today a town was a village. What became a village was "grown" from a tree. The sense of the term "town" changed through centuries so we cannot easily apply this term to the past. It's a problem of the uneven use of the terminology by historians, archaeologists, and other scientists. They don't always separate what is meant by the "ancient town" from what is meant by the "modern town". Although Constantine Porphyrogenitus speaks of a fortress, the history of its name and/or cognomen could be older. On the other hand, the fortress could receive the name "Sambach" if it was a lighthouse for ships. But this version means that the name "Kijów" could be interpreted by its name givers as fire resembling an aflame flower observed by river travellers looking at it from afar. And in this context, Ἄζαγάριον could refer to the assumed Slavic name "Загарець", though not necessarily. If Ἄζαγάριον just referred to the Roman military camp localised by Борис Єрофалов / Borys Yerofalov, its name could simply mean that the camp consisted of "unmarried soldiers". But what about the legendary Kyi which I've mentioned in my first video? Let's again consider the idea of a man and a woman's date. If Kyi was real, he could be a son of a progenitor of some Slavic dynasty. After he was born, his parents could plant a tree or a flower. (New dynasties traditionally began with a new marriage.) Kyi's name (if he existed) could be Wendish. But that's only one version. (54:26) The name of Kyiv recorded in the so-called "Kyivan Letter" corresponds either to the Wendish name "Kijoawa" / "Kijouwa" / "Kijąwa" or the Polish "Kijów", in which it's spelt with the following Hebrew letters: "ק" ("qof"), "י" ("yod"), "י" ("yod"), "ו" ("vav"), "ב" ("bet") - which may confirm that Constantine Porphyrogenitus didn't write anything much different or anything much new.

Now I'd like you to pay attention to several names in Constantine Porphyrogenitus's "De Administrando Imperio". (54:51) The simplest one is "Milinisca" ("Μιλινίσκαν"). It's just a Greek spelling of the Ukrainian name "Млиницька" / "Mlynyts'ka" or "Млиницьк" / "Mlynyts'k" (after adaptation of this word to modern Ukrainian, of course). It's an adjective formed from the noun "млин" meaning "mill". The toponyms with the name being even closer to Constantine Porphyrogenitus's spelling are located in the south-west of Ukraine and in Poland. I will list several villages only: Млиниська / Mlynys'ka in Lviv Oblast, Млиниська / Mlynys'ka in Ternopil Oblast, Młyniska in Lublin Voivodeship, Młyniska in Wielkopolska Voivodeship, and Młyniska in West Pomeranian Voivodeship. The author speaks of Млиниська / Mlynys'ka or Млиниськ / Mlynys'k as about a castle or a stronghold, but where it's situated is hard to say right now. The presence of the Greek "ι" between "μ" and "λ" can be easily explained. When an original word starts with a consonant cluster - that is, with several consonants in a row - this cluster is not always properly represented in a foreign language. In order to represent such a word, the foreign author will add a vowel - either before this cluster or within it. Some Slavic words start with several consonants without any vowel in between, especially in the South Slavic languages. But this feature is narrow in the Greek language. The choice of the vowel depends on the circumstances. These circumstances can be the vowel in the next syllable which restricts this choice. In order to not much damage the perception of the original word, the first vowel should be chosen in the way that it will become assimilated to the second vowel. That's what happened to the word "Milinisca".

(56:14) Another name, "Tzernigoga" ("Τζερνιγώγαν"), is likely the city of Chernihiv. In my first video I've said that the name is derived from the Ukrainian "Зернігів" / "Zernihiv" which describes the city as a land of grain. But I've not noticed that, along with the word "зерно", in the Ukrainian language, there is also the word "дзерно" meaning the same, "grain". "Tzernigoga" can refer to the Ukrainian name "Дзернігож" / "Dzernihozh" or "Дзерніґож" / "Dzernigozh". That's why it's written with "Τζ" at the beginning. As for the phoneme /ʒ/, in the Greek alphabet, it can be represented at least either with the letter "γ" or with the letter "ζ". This idea can naturally occur to one if one notices the transition between the phonemes /g/, /ʒ/, and /z/, which exists in and between various European languages. Now, assuming that the fricative /ɣ/ or the approximant /ɦ/ can be confused with the approximant /ʋ/, "Tzernigoga" could be also the genitive of "Дзернігів" / "Дзерніґів", which is "Дзернігова" / "Дзерніґова".

(57:07) The so-called "Βουσεγραδέ" is usually associated with today's Vyshhorod (Вишгород), but its historical name could be completely different. Its spelling left by Constantine Porphyrogenitus makes me think that the word consists of two parts. The first part may refer to the Ukrainian verb "вузити" ("to narrow") or the Ukrainian adjective "вузький" ("narrow"). But the second part, to the Ukrainian noun "гря́да" or "гряда́". The first one ("гря́да") has several senses. One of them is "small island lying in a reed bed", another is "place where a river runs through its narrow stream bed and its waves jump up and lap". The full Ukrainian name of this toponym could be "Вузегрядь" / "Vuzehriad'" derived from "вузька гря́да" meaning "place located near or around a narrow stream of a river" or "narrow small island lying in a reed bed". But if the second part refers to the word "гряда́", whose sense is "ridge", the toponym's name could mean "place on a narrowing ridge". But I doubt that either of these options is valid. (58:01) Another idea is that "Вузегрядь" (the full name can be the same) or, alternatively, "Возегрядь" can consist of the Ukrainian "віз" or Rusyn "вуз" meaning "cart" or "wagon" (the root "-віз-" / "-вуз-" can transform into "-воз-" in longer words) and the Ukrainian "грясти" meaning "to quickly and noisily run or drive". If some important routes (say trade routes) crossed this place, the place could bear the name "Вузегрядь" or "Возегрядь" denoting an "area of wagons quickly and noisily passing through it". As for the "Вышегород" or "Вышнегород" mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, this place may have nothing to do with today's Vyshhorod or Constantine Porphyrogenitus's "Βουσεγραδέ".

(58:42) "Teliutza" ("Τελιούτζαν") could be a transcription of the Ukrainian "Тельовці" / "Telovtsi" or "Тльовці" / "Tlovtsi". In the first case, the name will be related to the calf (because "теля" means "calf"), in the second case - to the verb "тлити", "to eat ravenously". Another version is that the original name was "Теліговці" / "Telihovtsi" derived from "теліга", "wagon", but it seems doubtful to me. What can be said for sure is that the name is clearly Slavic and most likely Ukrainian or Rusyn. What should be added is that "Тельовці" / "Telovtsi" also resembles the name of the village of Čeľovce in Slovakia.

(59:13) And finally - "Nemogarda" (or "Νεμογαρδάς" in Greek). It's believed by some people that Nemogarda or Nemogard is Novgorod (meaning "new town" or "new city"). This version is pretty funny, but I suggest you to stop laughing for a while - you will have time to do it after watching the video. To speak seriously, this version was likely invented by the Russian scholars, which are hard to call scholars, except, maybe, a few of them. "Nemogard" can consist of two parts, that's true. But the first part, "nemo", can be connected to the Ukrainian "немолa" meaning "silt": the ending "-ла" can disappear in compound words. But "gard" ... no, it's not "city" or "town" ... The Ukrainian noun "гард" or "ґард" means "series of baffles or fences for fishing" or "baffle of stones across a river" and the verb "гардувати" / "ґардувати" means - as well as "гатити" - "to build a dike". These two words are what can form the composition "Nemogarda" / "Nemogard", but, in the Ukrainian language, it could sound as one of these: "Немогардь" / "Nemohard'", "Немогардя" / "Nemohardia", "Немогардець" / "Nemohardets'", "Немоґардь" / "Nemogard'", "Немоґардя" / "Nemogardia", "Немоґардець" / "Nemogardets'" - whose sense is "barrier built against silt". That is this place could be an obstacle for silt and be located on a river.

Although we are unsure about the location of these toponyms mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in this passage, they seem to pretend to be not much far from the river Dnipro and/or its tributaries. Constantine Porphyrogenitus has also recorded other interesting names - such as those of the Dnipro river's rapids given or used by the Russes. We will analyse them in another video, but I can say in advance that the Normanists will be disappointed - these names are Slavic.

The Dnipro river was previously known by the name of Borysthenes. I think, now, it's time to answer what this name means. Some of you will be surprised, but this name is Scythian. What do we know about this river? According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Russes traveled along the Dnipro on their monoxylons. And that's actually the key to decipher the meaning of this appellation. What is usually meant by a monoxylon today is a boat made from a single trunk. In some another video, I will probably mention one tree which was called "Scythian" in the distant past. It's not about boats, but rather an interesting thing to tell. (01:01:17) In Ancient Greek, the name of the river is written as "Βορυσθένης", the Ancient Greek "beta" or Greek "vita" being its first letter. "Βορυσθένης" corresponds to the Ukrainian "Вористень" / "Vorysten'" or "Вористенець" / "Vorystenets'" (alternatively, "Гористень" / "Horysten'" or "Гористенець" / "Horystenets'"). Movses Khorenatsi has also recorded this name, but in regard to a Hunnic city and in the form of "Varachan" (a similar name can also be found in other historical sources). This city was probably situated somewhere near the Dnipro river: we will distinctly see that at some point, but not in this episode. The first part of "Вористень" or "Вористенець" refers to the Ukrainian or Rusyn noun "ворина" (the root being "-вор-") meaning "pole", "rod", "rail", or "perch", and refers to the collective singular noun "вор'я" / "вір'я" which can be interpreted as the plural form of "ворина" (in Modern Ukrainian, "вор'я" / "вір'я" means "reed fence", but I would pay greater attention only to the fact of the collectivity / plurality); the second part refers to the verb "стенати" ("to groan weeping", as reported by Academic Explanatory Dictionary of the Ukrainian language from 1970-1980). "ворина" can be understood as "small boat" or "raft" (a raft resembles a fence made from rods floating on the water); and "стенати", as "to cry". So we get the compound of these two words depicting the river as "the one crying rafts", "the one crying monoxylons". In the case of "Гористень" / "Horysten'" or "Гористенець" / "Horystenets'", the first part can refer to the Ukrainian "горе", "sorrow", and the whole appellation can mean "the one crying sorrow". It's clearly a Ukrainian (or, maybe, Rusyn) name, though the senses of its parts, possibly, are partly lost in time, but its construction is almost undoubtably obvious - it consists of two Ukrainian (or Rusyn) parts. For the Muscovites, it means really bad news. Because the linguistic analysis of the toponyms of Rus', or, to put simply, those on the territory of Ukraine, are not Russian, at all. No toponym, no name is connected to the Russian language - because the Russian language didn't exist yet. But it should have been clear to everybody even without this analysis. The idea that Muscovy has anything to do with Rus' is just an unhealthy desire of some people incapable of critically thinking.

But now I will explain why the Muscovites are in deep trouble. (01:03:37) That the name of Sviatoslav I of Kyiv was written in Greek letters as "Σφενδοσλάβος" by Leo the Deacon and "Σφενδοσθλάβος" by Constantine Porphyrogenitus reflects the fact that he could bear either the Old Church Slavonic name Свѧтославъ / Svętoslavŭ or the Polish name Świętosław. The Muscovites are in the awkward position now. They have to explain, at least to themselves, why they still hesitate to tell the world that the Russian language branched off from Polish (though no Russian native speaker was born yet), or why they are ashamed of their Polish roots (which they don't have). I'm currently speaking of those Muscovites who believe that the European maps, on which the land called Muscovy is depicted, were invented by the Poles.

But it was just the beginning. We will reveal now how low the level of the Russian historiography is. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the father of Sviatoslav was Ingor / "ἴγγωρ" (whose name is spelt with a double "γ" and with an "ω"). The author of the "История Руси" / "History of Rus'" YouTube channel proposed to compare the name "Ігор" / "Ihor" with the Wendish word "Jagar" meaning "hunter" to discover the meaning for the former. But, in my current view, we should reconsider this version. The letter combination "ingor" can be found in such a Wendish word as "Springor" meaning "grasshopper". The literal translation in English would be "springer"; in Ukrainian, "стрибун" or "пригун". "Springor" is not "Ingor", but "ingor", as a letter combination, can be the last part of some of the Wendish words, which is a crucial thing here. If the name "Ingor" is Wendish, it likely has the root "-ing-" and the suffix "-or-". A similar word, but with a different suffix, can be seen in the name of one of the tributaries of the Bug (Буг / Buh) river. This tributary is called "Інгул" / "Inhul". In the French-Wendish dictionary of Jan Potocki, we can find the word "Inglik" which means "angel" (in translation into Ukrainian, "янгол"). And we can say almost for sure that the name of the river Inhul means "angel" as well. The name of the river Buh, according to one of the existing hypotheses, means "God". The word "God" is translated into the Ukrainian "бог", the Polish "bóg", and the Rusyn "бог" or "буг", so this hypothesis seems to be valid. An angel is a helper of God - a tributary like fills up the main river with water, helping it in flowing. On the other hand, an angel is an intermediary between people and God. On a map of Ibn Hawqal (which we will see a bit later), some river, which can be the river Inhul, connects the Buh with the Dnipro - the Dnipro river also has a tributary of a similar appellation, Інгулець / Inhulets', which, along with the Inhul river, could be believed to be an intermediary between the Dnipro and the Buh. (01:06:09) Here, I think, we should notice an interesting account given by Herodotus in two his passages:

"Now the Scythians say that their nation is the youngest of all nations, and that this came to pass as follows:--The first man who ever existed in this region, which then was desert, was one named Targitaos: and of this Targitaos they say, though I do not believe it for my part, however they say the parents were Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes."

"The third river is the Hypanis, which starts from Scythia and flows from a great lake round which feed white wild horses; and this lake is rightly called "Mother of Hypanis." From this then the river Hypanis takes its rise and for a distance of five days' sail it flows shallow and with sweet water still; but from this point on towards the sea for four days' sail it is very bitter, for there flows into it the water of a bitter spring, which is so exceedingly bitter that, small as it is, it changes the water of the Hypanis by mingling with it, though that is a river to which few are equal in greatness. This spring is on the border between the lands of the agricultural Scythians and of the Alazonians, and the name of the spring and of the place from which it flows is in Scythian Exampaios, and in the Hellenic tongue Hierai Hodoi. Now the Tyras and the Hypanis approach one another in their windings in the land of the Alazonians, but after this each turns off and widens the space between them as they flow."

Hierai Hodoi (Ἱραὶ ὁδοί) means "Holy Ways". According to the historian Володимир Іванович Петрук / Volodymyr Ivanovych Petruk, Exampaios is the river Mertvovod ("мертва вода" means "dead water"), which is a tributary of the Buh lying northwards after the Inhul. He wrote about it in his dissertation "Scythian sacred center Exampaios in the context of the cultural heritage of Ukraine" (in the original Ukrainian, "Скіфський сакральний центр Ексампей в контексті культурної спадщини України"). Some scholars suggest that the Mertvovod was a river where dead Scythian kings were floated downstream by others so that the dead followed their eternal path and/or got the eternal rest. It will be our key to properly interpret what "Exampaios" ("Ἐξαμπαῖος") means. To understand the sense of this Scythian word (this word is Scythian according to Herodotus, not according to us), we need to find out how to properly pronounce the Ancient Greek "ξ". Today, it's assumed that its pronunciation simply was /ks/. But we can safely suppose that this letter could be used to write down the phonemes /xs/, /kʃ/, /xʃ/: on the one hand - for the phonemic proximity; on the other - for the fact that there is no separate letter for the phoneme /ʃ/ in the Greek alphabet. But the list of the presumptive phonemes the "ξ" may correspond to can be extended, and we will now try to discover them by making up a chain of pairs of transitions between phonemes that can be confused by a listener whose language is poor in hushing sibilants. I will list only the voiceless pairs because, given them, the voiced pairs can be reconstructed quite simply. So, starting from the very beginning, here they are: /ks/ - /xs/, /ks/ - /kʃ/, /xs/ - /xʃ/, /kʃ/ - /kʧ/, /xʃ/ - /xʧ/, /xʧ/ - /ʃʧ/, /ʃʧ/ - /ʧʧ/. Another approach we can involve in the analysis is a search for transitions between related words from different languages so that, in one of them, there is the Greek "ξ" or the Latin "x". For example, the English "six", the Polish "sześć", the Ukrainian "шість", all meaning "six", likely share the same root. The cluster /ks/ in the first language corresponds to the cluster /ɕȶɕ/ in the second, and to the /sʲtʲ/ in the third. The Ukrainian cluster /sʲtʲ/ quite often accords with the Polish /ɕȶɕ/ in such pairs. Another example is the Latin "crux" and the Bulgarian "кръст" both connected to a cross. Similar thoughts can cross our mind if we look at another Greek letter, "ψ". The Greek prefix "ψευδο-" denoting something "similar to" or "resembling" a thing named in the suffixed part is likely cognate with the Bulgarian "почти" which means "almost". The consonants /p/, /s/, /d/, in the Greek prefix correlate with /p/, /ʧ/, /t/, in the Bulgarian adverb. Moreover, either the Greek "ξ" or "ψ" could serve as a prototype for the Glagolitic "shta" ("Ⱋ") and/or the Cyrillic "shcha" ("щ"), which finally makes our hypothesis closer to a scientific theory.

(01:10:35) Let's look at the word "Ἐξαμπαῖος" again. If we ask ourselves what this word looks like, some of us will be able to recall two Latin words: "tempus" meaning "time" and "templum" meaning "shrine". They seem to be connected and they, most probably, are connected indeed. But why am I talking about that? Because it's a second key to decipher the word "Ἐξαμπαῖος". Having imagined that the letter "ξ" in the name of this sacred place is pronounced /kʧ/ or /ʧʧ/, having added a fricative or an approximant at the beginning, say the Ukrainian "в", and having removed the ending "-ος", (01:11:06) we will get somewhat of "Векчампай" / "Vekchampai", "Векчамбай" / "Vekchambai", "Веччампай" / "Vechchampai", or "Веччамбай" / "Vechchambai". The words connected to the eternity that can be found in Slavic languages exist in the following forms: as the Ukrainian or Rusyn "вік" and the Polish "wiek" ("age"); the Ukrainian "вічність", the Rusyn "вічность", and the Polish "wieczność" ("eternity" proper). (I can, of course, add that there is an alternation between /i/ and /ɛ/ that happens in some Ukrainian words in some circumstances, but that's not the main point right now.) The second part, "чампай" or "чамбай", is very interesting. Its form suggests that it should be a verb in the imperative. Its infinitive would be sort of "чампати" or "чамбати". (Here I should add a remark. The Greek "μπ" in Greek can be pronounced /b/, but if the original word had the cluster /mp/ or /mb/, Herodotus wouldn't have a choice but to spell the word with "μπ".) The Greeks called Exampaios "Holy Ways". If "Век" / "Vek" or "Веч" / "Vech" is about time and sacrality, then "чамбай" / "чампай" should be about ways or paths. Among the words in non-Slavic languages, we can notice the French "jambe" which means "leg". But in the Ukrainian language, the closest words are "чапати" meaning "to walk slowly" and "чобіт" meaning "high boot". Today, the phoneme combinations /amp/ and /amb/ are generally not present in the Ukrainian words in common usage. The closest analogue can rather be found in the Polish language in the form of the Polish letter "ą" (being written as the Latin "a" with a diacritic sign called "ogonek") in such a word as "dąb" (which means "oak" and whose Ukrainian counterpart is "дуб"). It means that either the Scythian language had some features of other Slavic languages besides those of Ukrainian (and we will see several of them in a few minutes) or Herodotus, by the Scythian language, meant several Slavic languages. But what we can say almost for sure is that this "Векчампай" / "Vekchampai", "Векчамбай" / "Vekchambai", "Веччампай" / "Vechchampai", or "Веччамбай" / "Vechchambai", is a Slavic name meaning "walking slowly eternally" or "walk slowly eternally!" in the imperative. We have finally found the "eternal path" we were so much looking for.

(01:13:09) I know that we should return to Ingor, but we should decipher several other Scythian words with the letter "ξ", finish with these two fragments, and do one more thing. The river Hypanis (Ὕπανις) is the river Buh. This Scythian name is very simple. It resembles the Ukrainian or Rusyn "Гу́бань" or "Губа́нь". "губа" means "lip". Maybe, the name was connected to some sacred rite of kissing either the water or the Scythian kings floating past or floated down the river - which option (if any) is right is not clear, but Herodotus described the taste of the Buh in its different sections, which cannot go unnoticed, along with the fact that the place where the rivers Mertvovod, Inhul, and Buh flow, based on their names and description, was possibly sacred for the Scythians for a long time, though the sacred rites could depend on the time period and some of these names appeared later than the 5th century BCE. As I have previously mentioned the river Tyras - or, to be precise, Tyres (Τύρης), - I will provide the sense of this name as well. In the Ukrainian language, there are the following words: "дзюрити", "зюрити", "цюрити", "чуріти", "чуркати". They mean "to flow", "to trickle", "to gush". There is the Ukrainian word "чурок" which means "torrent" or "cascade". In the Rusyn language, there are words "чурити" ("to ooze") and "чурик" ("trickle" or "jet"). The original name of the Tyres in the Ukrainian manner could be "Чурець". The Dnister river (which is the Tyres) does have some cascades, such as Дівочі Сльози (or Maiden's Tears in English) in Dnister Canyon (Dniester Canyon), but whether the river received its name because of cascades is hard to say right now. What is undoubted is that the name refers to the flow and itself is Slavic (Ukrainian or Rusyn, most likely). According to Herodotus, the Greeks (or the Hellenes) living near the mouth of the Tyres are called Tyritai (Τυρῖται). It's just the Ukrainian or Rusyn name "Чуричі" (the proper noun being in the plural) - the Ukrainian or Rusyn suffix "-ич-" is represented by the Ancient Greek "ιτ". Everything is right.

(01:15:02) Ammianus Marcellinus mentioned the river Danastius which is considered to be the river Dnister and/or the river Tyres. To be accurate, by the Danastius, he meant some river between the Istros (which is the present-day Danube) and the Borysthenes (which is the present-day Dnipro). At the same time, Jordanes mentions the river Danaster as a river separate from the Tyres (and the Danube, at the same time, as "the farthest channel of the Istros"). Constantine Porphyrogenitus, even worse, wrote that the Danapris and the Danastris are the two greatest rivers between the river Danube and the city of Sarkel (whose correct name is Sadybil' as we know), which suggests that today's Dnister cannot be Danaster, but the river Buh can. On the other hand, the river Bogu ("βογοῦ") is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus separately too, but he doesn't highlight it in any special way, he just enumerates it. The word Danastius, oddly, resembles the Ancient Greek "δῠνᾰ́στης" which means "lord" or "ruler" or is an epithet of Zeus or Poseidon. Τhe Modern Greek "δυναστεία" (derived from the Ancient Greek "δῠνᾰστείᾱ") means "dynasty". The replacement of the Greek "υ" with the Latin "a" is what we suspected in the case of the toponym Azagarium. In my view, the Ancient Greek term "δῠνᾰστείᾱ" can be connected to a number in Slavic languages. An example is the Slovak "dvanásť" meaning "twelve". How did this idea even occur to me? (01:16:25) The patriarch of the Israelites Jacob had twelve sons, one of which was named Dan. At the same time, "Δᾱ́ν", in the Aeolic dialect of Ancient Greek, is a form of the name of Zeus. In the Ancient Greek language, we can also find such words as "ᾰ̓στήρ" meaning "star" and "ἀφρός" meaning "foam" or "froth". "Danaster" may consist of the Ancient Greek "Δᾱ́ν" and "ᾰ̓στήρ" and mean "Zeus's star" or "Zeus's stars". "Danapris" - or, maybe, "Danaphrus" - is probably derived from a respelt Ancient Greek name that consists of "Δᾱ́ν" and "ἀφρός" which, compounded in one word, means "Zeus's foam". (01:17:01) In the Greek mythology, Aphrodite Urania "emerged from the sea foam" (as written on Wiki) and, as we remember, was born from Uranus's genitals. And as for Zeus, another epithet of his was Zeus Lykaios which means "wolf-Zeus". (Just recall for a while the island of Small Khortytsia.) Furthermore, by Achaeus of Eretria, as Wiki continues, Zeus was called "starry-eyed". The river Danastius, as well as the river Danaster, was probably today's river Buh. But even if we assume that the present-day Dnister is the historical Danastius and the historical Danaster, regardless of whether it's true or not, we now better understand the words of Herodotus who said that Targitaos's parents were "Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes". Herodotus, firstly, has indicated the lands of Great Scythia limited by the Danaster and the Danapris. We can recall the Ukrainian anthem, in which Scythia was "from the Сян (Syan, San) to the Don". The Ukrainian word "сяти" / "сяяти" means "to shine". As an alternative version, the river Сян / San is what could be the Danaster, based only on its name. (01:18:05) From the historical perspective, the Scythians from Little (or Lesser) Scythia that inhabited the territory of Great Scythia, formerly being a "desert", were a new generation. Just as children are younger than their parents, so Great Scythia is younger than Lesser Scythia. That's why Herodotus writes about the "desert" and the Scythians "being the youngest of all nations". He didn't write about all the Scythians in this passage, but only of those who resided on the lands from the Danaster to the Danapris. Targitaos is likely a Ukrainian name which is related to the verb "тарготіти" (the root being "-тарг-") meaning "to prattle", "to chatter". In the original language, "Targitaos" ("Ταργιτάος") would be probably "Таргича". The approximate meaning of this name is "the one who speaks", which confirms that he, Таргича / Tarhycha, first of all, was a Slav. This name is an example, in which we can see a clear vowel alternation between /i/ and /o/ or between /ɪ/ and /o/ being a peculiarity of the Ukrainian language. In the Rusyn language, the analogical alternation happens between /u/ and /o/. The fragment about the origin of Tarhycha's parents can be reread in one more way. The daughter of the river Borysthenes could be foam, and the foam refers us to Aphrodite Urania. Aphrodite Urania could be the mother of Tarhycha, his father supposedly being Zeus. Both Zeus and Aphrodite Urania were sky-gods. That may explain why the Scythians called themselves "соколяти" ("young falcons"). Because, possibly, they were born, according to them, by the skies. That could be a reason why they spoke of themselves as about the birds. But what else does the fact that Aphrodite Urania emerge from the sea foam tell us? The answer lies in the connection of the foam with the genitals of Uranus. The foam is sperm or semen. The river Borysthenes could relate to the genitals, but not of Uranus - of Zeus. The river Danaster was the eyes of Zeus. And if the river Danaster is today's Dnister, the river Губань / Huban' was the lips of Zeus. And the river Tanais, logically, was the legs or feet of Zeus. Herodotus's account about Scythia may suggest that the territory, roughly speaking, from the Carpathian Mountains to the Caucasus Mountains was the body of Zeus. But that's not the only thing he writes of. (01:20:15) He also provides us with the account of the origin of the Scythians given by the "Hellenes who dwelt about the Pontus":

"... Heracles came to the land now called Scythia; and as a storm came upon him together with icy cold, he drew over him his lion's skin and went to sleep. Meanwhile the mares harnessed in his chariot disappeared by a miraculous chance, as they were feeding.

"Then when Heracles woke he sought for them; and having gone over the whole land, at last he came to the region which is called Hylaia; and there he found in a cave a kind of twofold creature formed by the union of a maiden and a serpent, whose upper parts from the buttocks upwards were those of a woman, but her lower parts were those of a snake."

Afterwards Herodotus will say that this woman would have three sons by Heracles, the youngest of which would be called Skythes (Σκύθης), or likely Скитець / Skytets' in Ukrainian, the name meaning "the one who chatters" or, simply, "the one who speaks" and being derived from the Ukrainian noun "сокіт" ("chattering") and the verb "сокотати" / "сокотіти" ("to chatter"). The creature that is half a woman and half a serpent points to a rusalka, a female entity in Slavic folklore having a fish tail instead of legs. To put simply, a mermaid. As a mermaid, this woman could be the daughter of the river Borysthenes, and the river Borysthenes, as a mother of this mermaid, could be a siren. (01:21:36) The sirens are mythical creatures that use their alluring voices to make nearby sailors wreck their ships. According to English Wikipedia, "in early Greek art, they were represented as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet". Then - as the article reads - at some point, they began to be imagined as having fish tails instead of legs. As we remember, the Scythian counterpart of Aphrodite Urania is Arghibasa (Ἀργίμπασα), the goddess of voice and hearing. As a Scythian sky-god, Arghibasa could be a siren believed to be half a woman and half a bird; her tears could be the river Borysthenes; and, in these tears, her mermaid daughter was probably born. The Hellenes could remember the legend of the Scythians' origin more precisely than the Scythians living in Great Scythia. But both the Scythian and the Hellenic legend tell the same story. Heracles, as well known, was a son of Zeus. To be a grandson of Zeus's is the same as to be a son of his, because a son of a son is also a son. The Scythians are sons of Tarhycha and/or Skytets' (whether it's one and the same person is not clear, though it's possible - "таркотати" is a synonym of "сокотати" / "сокотіти"). Skytets' is a son of Heracles, of a son of Zeus; and Skytets' is a son of a mermaid, of a daughter of the siren Arghibasa. The Hellenes' belief that Skytets' was a son of a mermaid is reflected in the image of Epiktetos from the 6th century BCE that we saw in the very first video, in which a Scythian archer is depicted in a fish suit.

The name "Hylaia" was likely the Scythian "Гуляя" / "Hulaia" - the corresponding Ukrainian verb is "гуляти", "to walk". (I don't think that this word comes from the Ancient Greek "ὑλαῖος" meaning "belonging to the forest" - as it doesn't match the context.) In this video, I will only say that the region of Hulaia where Heracles came to was probably located on the Crimean Peninsula. There are at least two reasons for this region to have such a name. Either it was a walking place for Heracles and his partner, or was a "walking place" for the cattle to feed. In another video, we will give the second version a closer look. According to Сергей Михайлович Соловьев / Sergei Mikhailovich Solovev, as some of you may already know or may remember, the Russes lived on the island Вабія / Vabiia. Why this island can be the Crimean Peninsula will be shown another time as well, but there is an interesting thing in this regard that I will share right now. One could have thought that the English word "wave" connects two unrelated senses: one is about water and the other is about someone moving their hand. But a link between them does exist. It can be imagined as a mermaid standing amid water waves and waving her hand or as a wave being a mermaid's hand touching a male person. For this reason, the English "wave" can be cognate with the Ukrainian verb "вабити" ("to lure"). In other words, the root "-wav-" in "wave" may correspond to the root "-ваб-" in "вабити".

(01:24:24) Let's now check that the rule about the letter "ξ" really works before we get back to the knyaz' Ingor. Herodotus reports that Targitaos had three sons: Lipoxaïs (Λιπόξαϊς), Arpoxaïs (Ἀρπόξαϊς), and Colaxaïs (Κολάξαις). Colaxaïs was the youngest son. Then he adds:

"In the reign of these there came down from heaven certain things wrought of gold, a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a cup, and fell in the Scythian land ..."

When the eldest sons Lipoxaïs and Arpoxaïs approached these things, "the gold blazed with fire". Colaxaïs was the only person who could take these things: when he approached them, "the flame was quenched". "The elder brothers then, acknowledging the significance of this thing, delivered the whole of the kingly power to the youngest." The idea behind this story is that the youngest will not use these things to kill somebody or to destroy something. Because, as well known, "children are innocent". Here we should also recall that the Hellenes derived the Scythians from the youngest son of Heracles. This fact can be connected to a tradition that existed in the Common Era in Europe called "appanage". What should be additionally noted here is that the axe is usually associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans or just early Indo-Europeans and is considered, by some scholars, to be one of their main tools or weapons. As Colaxaïs, likely, was allowed to use the things from heaven as tools and not weapons and because of the plough and the yoke among them, his name could relate to agriculture. That means that "Κολάξαις" can be the Ukrainian "Колач(и)ч" / "Kolach(y)ch" (alternatively, "Колащ" / "Kolashch" or "Колаща" / "Kolashcha"). Although the Greek "ξ", by default, is a consonant cluster, a short sound like /ɪ/ between the inner consonants is also expected. The noun "колач" has no exact translation - in English, it's also called "kolach". Broadly speaking, it's bread. Going into some details, it's a type of pastry. What is noteworthy is that the term "appanage" is considered to derive from the reconstructed Latin "*appanare" meaning "to give bread". No extra word is necessary, I believe, at this stage. Except one. The appellation "Колач(и)ч" / "Kolach(y)ch" has the noun-forming suffix "-ич" which usually denotes affiliation to a family, kin, clan, gens, profession, occupation, etc. (the present-day analogue is the surname), or the fact of descendancy from the, quote unquote, "father" to the, quote unquote, "son" (as in the present-day patronymics). To put simply, "Колач(и)ч" / "Kolach(y)ch" can literally mean "the son of Колач / Kolach". It suggests that the original name of the youngest son of Tarhycha could be "Колач(и)к" / "Kolach(y)k", but his successors - in other words, quote unquote, "sons" - could bear the name of "Колач(и)чі" / "Kolach(y)ches".

(01:26:58) As for Lipoxaïs / Λιπόξαϊς, we know that the Scythians descended from him were called Auchatai (Αὐχάται). To discover what these two words mean, we can try to guess if these two names are related etymologically. If we look at the problem from this angle, in order for these two words to be related, we need to recall the case of the tribe of Arimaspoi, in which we had to replace the capital "Α" with the capital "Δ". And if we do this replacement in "Αὐχάται", and get "Δυχάται" instead, we will be able to see, again, two Ukrainian words: "Ліпоч(и)ч" / "Lipoch(y)ch" (alternatively, "Ліпощ" / "Liposhch" or "Ліпоща" / "Liposhcha") and "духачі" / "Dukhachi" (the singular will be "духач" / "Dukhach"). "ліпок" is a plant that is called "Galium odoratum" in Latin. (The Latin "odor" means "smell".) In English, the plant is called "sweet-scented bedstraw". The main thing about this plant is its fragrance. And that's the key. The Ukrainian noun "дух" means "spirit", "breath", "smell", "odour", or "fragrance", the adjective "духмяний" means "fragrant" or "sweet-scented". Apparently we have properly deciphered these two words: both "Ліпоч(и)ч" / "Lipoch(y)ch" and "духачі" / "Dukhachi" relate to the smell. As an extra, but still important, note, the Ukrainian noun "душа" means "soul". When a person dies, the soul leaves their body, and, when the person is dead, their body smells bad. I'm currently expressing my thought that the words "дух", "духмяний", "душа", share the same root - "-дух-" / "-душ-" / "-дус-". At least in some of the Slavic languages, the phonemes /x/, /ʃ/, /ʂ/, /ɕ/, /s/, can alternate.

(01:28:30) The last word is "Arpoxaïs" ("Ἀρπόξαϊς"). You will be surprised, but here we should replace "Α" with "Δ" too. The result will be "Δρπόξαϊς". This word is an example of a feature that is mostly observed in South Slavic languages. The feature I'm talking about is the presence of words in their vocabularies that can start with a consonant cluster containing up to five consonants, if not more. But if we project this word onto the Modern Ukrainian language axis, we will have to add vowels like /ɪ/, /i/, /u/, or something in between. "Δρπόξαϊς" corresponds to the Ukrainian "Др(і)боч(и)ч" / "Dr(i)boch(y)ch" (alternatively, "Др(і)бощ" / "Dr(i)boshch" or "Др(і)боща" / "Dr(i)boshcha"). The verb "дріботати" / "дріботіти" / "дроботіти" means "to talk very fast", "to chatter". The Scythian tribes that, according to Herodotus, are derived from the brother Dr(i)boch(y)ch are called Κατίαροί and Τράσπιες. As we are already sufficiently experienced people, these words should be easy for us. "Κατίαροί" is either the Ukrainian "кавчарі" / "Kavchari" (the singular is "кавчар" / "Kavchar") - the verb "кавчати" means "to squeak", "to scream", "to whine", - or the Ukrainian "качинярі" / "Kachyniari" or "качнярі" / "Kachniari" (the singular is "качиняр" / "Kachyniar" or "качняр" / "Kachniar" respectively) - the collective noun "качня" means "ducks". The second version better explains why this word was written down as "Κατίαροί" in Ancient Greek: the phoneme combination /ɲa/ pretty much resembles /ja/. As for the tribe of "Τράσπιες", its original name could be "ч(и)ряспії" (the singular is "ч(и)ряспій"). It consists of the noun "чиря" meaning "teal chick" and the verb "співати" meaning "to sing". "ч(и)ряспії" means "singing teal chicks" or "young teals that sing". Just look how the senses of these words are connected to that of the name "Dr(i)boch(y)ch"! Unbelievable! Moreover, these names provide a clear link between the speech and the birdsong we surmised in regard to the Scythian culture before.

Though in these examples we observed only the missing vowels /ɪ/ and /i/ and in one case /o/, such vowels as /o/ and likely /u/ can also be missing in the Scythian words. That's what we actually already observed in such words as "Σκολότοι" ("соколяти") and "Σκύθες" ("сокити", derived from "сокіт"). At the beginning I thought it was a copyist's mistake or conscious distortion, but now, in regard to the missing vowel, I think it could be a natural transformation within the Ukrainian language. The missing /o/, for example, can be found even in Polish. The Ukrainian "дорога" (which means "road") corresponds to the Polish "droga"; the Ukrainian "поріг" ("threshold"), to the Polish "próg"; and so on.

So, we've at least confirmed that the Greek "ξ" can correspond to a consonant or semi-consonant cluster containing the phoneme /ʧ/ at the end and that the consonant that can precede /ʧ/ is /ʧ/ or likely /k/. The rest of possible combinations can be built up intuitively based on what was already said in this video. As for the letter "ψ", in another video, we will try to confirm that the last consonant of the cluster represented by this letter can also be /ʧ/.

We've said that the Wendish "Inglik" means "angel" and we've supposed that the name of the river Inhul can mean the same. (01:31:27) If the name of the knyaz' Ingor of Rus' is Wendish and means "angel", this could suggest that at least one of his parents should have been a Christian. The Primary Chronicle only knows that his father was the so-called Rurik (in the text itself, "Рюрик"). But if "Rurik" or "Рюрик" was a personal name, it would rather be derived from the Polish noun "rura" or the Ukrainian noun "рура" meaning "pipe" or "tube". This "pipe" could imply a musical instrument. If the name "Rurik" were Ukrainian - that is, if it were "Рурик" / "Ruryk", the suffix being "-ик", - it could speak of its holder as a "singing person" or a "person producing a melody" - in other words, as of a Slav. Additionally, there is a Latin version regarding his name which suggests that the name could be formed from the Latin "ruris" which is the genitive of the Latin "rus". But I will not be considering it now. From the Primary Chronicle, we also know that Rurik had two brothers: Sineus and Truvor. In the list of all the three brothers, Rurik is placed first, Truvor is placed last. In old documents, it was common to list sons in the order from the eldest to the youngest. Moreover, in the Primary Chronicle, Rurik is explicitly designated as being the eldest, Sineus as the second son, Truvor as the third one. It means that Truvor was likely the youngest of them. But let's start from the name "Sineus" ("Синєоусъ"). Ukrainian native speakers will probably think that this word consists of two parts, but I doubt that this version is right. We know that Nestor, to compose the Primary Chronicle, communicated some knowledge preserved in Greek sources. If we try to reconstruct the Greek spelling of this name ("*Σινεους.."), we will be able to consider a version that the original name could be the Ukrainian "Синюк" / "Syniuk". This version is based on the idea that the Greek "ε" doesn't always represent a vowel, but can be used to palatalise the preceding consonant. Another word, in which this effect can be witnessed, is the name of a rapid of the river Borysthenes written down by Constantine Porphyrogenitus as "λεάντι". "λεάντι" is a transliteration of the Ukrainian or Rusyn name "Ллянці" ("Lliantsi") derived from the verb "лляти" or "лити" and refers to, quote unquote, "high temperature". You can treat this information as a spoiler about another video. Now, the name "Синюк" / "Syniuk" denotes a bird known as the tit, the great tit, or the blue tit. Ιt's only a version, but this version is in line with the name "Ruryk", assuming the latter is Slavic. The blue tit and sometimes the great tit are birds of blue and yellow colour, like the colour of the flag of Ukraine. And in this context, the sense of the third name, "Truvor", or "*Τρυβορ.." in the Greek spelling, can look even more astounding. My first thought was that the original name was "Трубар" / "Trubar": the Ukrainian noun "труба" for "pipe" or "tube" and thus "трубар" for "trumpeter" (like "трубач"). But then I had seen that, maybe, the original name could be "Тривор" / "Tryvor" or "Тригор" / "Tryhor". If his name was "Тривор" / "Tryvor", I would derive it from the noun "тривога" meaning "alarm" or "alert"; if "Тригор" / "Tryhor", from the words "три" meaning "three" and "горіти" meaning "to burn" or "to flame" so that the whole word could mean "three-flamed". From the linguistic perspective, the last version is the best match, but there is a remarkable thing we can find out in all of them. All the versions may refer to fire at once. The noun "тривога", in my current view, could historically consist of two parts, "три" for "three" and "вогонь" for "fire". (I've significantly simplified my thought to make it more clear.) As today's "тривога" means "alarm" or "alert", I would consider a hypothesis that, formerly, it denoted some visual signal given with something resembling, for example, a "three-flamed" candle. (The English word "candle" can be cognate with the Ukrainian "сандоля" and/or "сандова", the meaning of which I will provide in another video.) But I would focus our attention on the name "Тригор" / "Tryhor" which seems to be more expected. The name can speak not only of the "three flames", but of a link between its holder and some "three-headed dragon" or the "third head of some dragon", and the "three heads of some dragon" resemble a trident that is present, for example, on the coat of arms of Ukraine. There is a possibility, of course, that this version can turn out to be wrong. But I doubt that it's a coincidence because the link between the person and the dragon is closely tied to the history of the Khazars and the Cimmerians. This topic will be covered another time. However, even without this knowledge, looking at the name "Тригор" / "Tryhor", we can make the following assumption. From the perspective of the Ukrainian language (though the same logic applies in different Slavic languages), the noun "горло" (with the suffix and the ending being "-ло") meaning "throat" and the verb "горіти" (with the suffix and the ending being "-іти") meaning "to burn" or "to flame" most likely share the same root "-гор-". From the perspective of the Slavic language family, the throat of the person can be the throat of the dragon. And this idea is supported by historical sources.

We've not found a connection between the names "Rurik" and "Ingor", and Rurik's name doesn't speak of him as a Christian - we either don't know a Christian name of Rurik if he was a Christian or, if Rurik wasn't a Christian, the mother of Ingor could be a Christian instead, but we cannot firmly confirm it. What if we look not at the father of Ingor, Rurik, but at his predecessor, the knyaz' Oleh? For some reason, this name is believed by some to be derived from the Old Norse "Helgi" which means "holy" or sort of that. But if "Oleh" really meant "holy", it would mean that he was baptised and should have probably borne a Christian name. The thing I will tell now will astonish some of you because the knyaz' Oleh seems to have really been baptised. (01:36:44) We will start from the point that the feminine analogue of the name "Oleh" is "Olha". In the Ukrainian society, it's known to everybody that "Оля" / "Olia" is a shortened form of the name "Ольга" / "Olha". Wiktionary doesn't show that unfortunately. But at the same time, in the Polish society, - and it's also known to everybody - the name "Ola" is a shortened form of another name, "Aleksandra" whose Ukrainian counterpart is "Олександра" / "Oleksandra". Furthermore, as written on English Wiktionary, the male name corresponding to the Polish "Ola" is "Olek" which, being a shortened form of the Polish "Aleksander" whose Ukrainian counterpart is "Олександр" / "Oleksandr", resembles the name "Oleh" or "Oleg". Such names as "Ola", "Olga", "Olha", "Olek", "Oleg", "Oleh", "Oleksandra", "Aleksandra", "Oleksandr", "Aleksander", "Олексій" / "Oleksii", "Aleksei", "Alex", "Alexander", either in full or in their first part, are derived from the Ancient Greek "ἀλέξω" ("I defend", "I protect"). Oleh was a Christian, he bore a baptised name. But a more surprising thing is that Oleh, according to the Primary Chronicle, really was a "protector" of the knyaz' Ingor (or Ihor) while the latter was too young. Moreover, in the same chronicle, it's clearly stated that Oleh belonged to the Rurik family. If Rurik was a Slav, then Oleh was a Slav as well. The idea that Oleh was a Christian is supported by the Russian historian Андрей Юрьевич Чернов (Andrey Chernov) / Andrei Iurevich Chernov who provided his analysis in his work "The Prophetic Oleg: the baptism and the death" (in the original Russian, "Вещий Олег: крещение и гибель"). As can be inferred from this analysis, after he returned from Constantinople and was named "Prophetic" in 906-907 according to the Primary Chronicle, he was already baptised.

That Oleh highly likely became a Christian means that we should check whether Ingor (or Ihor) was baptised as well. (01:38:36) Based on the Primary Chronicle, when the latter went to war against Byzantine for the first time, the treaty from 911-912 concluded by Oleh with the Greeks was still in place. After Ihor lost this war and went again to take revenge in 943-944, Romanus I Lekapenos (in the Primary Chronicle, "Roman") offered him a tribute greater than the one that used to be previously given to Oleh - Ihor agreed. As the Primary Chronicle continues, in 944-945, Romanus I Lekapenos, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and Stephen Lekapenos, sent envoys to Ihor in order to restore the former peace between Rus' and Byzantine. Both the last peace treaty concluded by Oleh and the new one concluded by Ihor were signed "upon the Holy Cross". What is different, besides the main text, is that the treaty concluded by Oleh was also signed "in the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity"; in the new treaty, these words are absent. Here arises the following question. Was Ihor ever a Christian? The Primary Chronicle conveys that, before the new treaty was signed, he wasn't baptised yet. Then it reports that Ihor and his retinue went after tribute to the Drevlians two times (in the chronicle, "to Dereva"). After he asked some of his retinue to bring the collected tribute home and went with the rest of them back to the Drevlians for the third time, the Drevlians killed him. This event describes Ihor as a greedy person. In the Latin language, the word "ingero" means "I pile up" or "I pour into" - simply "I accumulate". And, in "Antapodosis" of Liutprand of Cremona, the name of this knyaz' (or king - "rex") is really recorded as "Inger". So what has happened? The version number one: Inger, "Greedy Person", became baptised at some stage of his life. Number two: "Inger" was his Latin nickname. Number three: his original personal name, which we don't know, was translated into Latin as "Inger". In either case, this name is more likely to be Latin than Wendish, and if it's not Wendish, we should doubt whether the name of Kyiv really comes from a Wendish word. Perhaps Greek authors respelt the Latin suffix "-er" and replaced it with the Greek "-ωρ.." or "-ορ..", and then the Greek spelling simply transformed into the Church Slavonic "Игорь". Besides the attested Latin name "Inger", this work of Liutprand tells us what the term "Norman" meant in the 10th century CE. The Russes were called "Nordmani" or "Nortmani" because they lived north of Constantinople and north of Cremona (which is located in present-day Italy). The Normanists believing in a Scandinavian origin of Rus' seem to not even understand it. Liutprand doesn't say anything about Scandinavia. In the description, you can find the link to a video made by "История Руси", in which he exposes a bit more details about the "Norman myth".

(01:41:20) Olha of Kyiv also likely was a Christian before she supposedly became Helena or Olena. (In the Hypatian Codex and the Laurentian Codex, her name is recorded as "Ѡлена" / "Olena" with the Cyrillic "omega" ("Ѡ"); today, "Олена" / "Olena" is a name borne by some women in Ukraine.) According to "De Cerimoniis" attributed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, she visited Constantinople along with all apocrisiaries of knyazes of Rus' (an apocrisiary is sort of an ecclesiastical diplomat), her relatives, merchants, and a priest Gregorius. The Soviet and Russian historian Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov, in his work "The Birth of Rus'", suggests Olha may have been baptised prior to her visit to Constantinople that supposedly took place in 957. The Soviet and Russian historian Andrey Nikolayevich Sakharov, in his work "Diplomacy of Ancient Rus'", considers the possibility that Olha was baptised twice: the first time outside Constantinople, and the second time in it. But both of them don't explain why she is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus by her non-Christian name. The possible answer is, "Her name wasn't non-Christian." It's true that her name in "De Cerimoniis" is recorded as "Elga", but this problem can also be resolved. We need to assume what was the male name that would likely correspond to the female "Elga". Once we suppose that this name could be "Eleg" or "Elek", we will be immediately able to find such a Greek word as "έλεγχος" which means "control", "check", "audit". "audit" is what pretty well describes Olha's personality as she is known for reforming the tax collection system of Rus'. The fact that the name "Olena" in Ukraine is a counterpart of the names "Helen", "Elena", "Helena", etc., outside Ukraine, on the one hand, could hint why, in the Greek sources, we observe "Elga", while, in the Ruthenian sources, "Olga" is written instead. But I would add one more version in regard to the first Greek name of Olha. "Olga" (or "Olha") and "Elga" can be different names. In theory, Nestor could respell her name if, at the moment when the chronicle was being written, the name "Olga" or "Olha" was very common among Christians in Rus'. Today, it's impossible to meet a Ukrainian called "Elga" or "Elha". However, the full and right answer as to why this spelling difference even exists is currently hard to provide.

In the same work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, we can see that the adjective "Ruthenian" is represented by the Greek "Ῥωσένη". In this regard, I have an extra thought that may help better understand the term "Rus'". The Ukrainian noun "рожен" means "pike". Its Polish counterpart "rożen" means "spit (for cooking meat)" and formerly did "rapier (sword)". These two words, each coming from its own language, expose a link between the sharp object and the fire, and this link may be important. The author of the "История Руси" channel has made a cycle of videos dedicated to the legend about three brothers Рус / Rus, Чех / Chekh, and Лях / Lakh (in English, "Rus, Czech, and Lech"). As the author of that channel narrates, this legend is based on the real events that took place in the late 3rd century CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus. In the description, you will be able to find the links to his three videos of that cycle. If the sense of the name of the legendary person called Rus meant "swordsman" or "knivesman", the meaning of the name of the legendary Kyi can be related not to the Wendish "Kijot" meaning "flower", but to the Ukrainian "кий" meaning "cudgel" or "staff". But the personal name connected to some staff looks nonsensical, unless this staff is a sword, for example. A thing that can etymologically connect the two meanings in the Polish word "rożen" - "spit" and "rapier" - is a flaming sword or a flaming staff, whereas a possible link that can be noticed between the Ukrainian "кий" and the Wendish "Kijot" is a flowering or a shining staff or sword. "Rus" and possibly "Kyi" can be names denoting a flaming weapon in the form of a sword, a sabre, or a knife, or a person being its bearer. That the meaning of the name "Rus" is connected to the swordsman is supported by the Primary Chronicle, in which there is a passage reading that the Russes received their name from the Varangians, who were "swordsmen". As you remember, the Wendish "Warang" means "sword".

To summarise, we've started with the Rugians and have finished with Oleh being a Christian. We've also shown that the main representatives of the Ruthenian elite could be Slavs starting from Rurik or Рурик / Ruryk. The Normanists' myth about the Scandinavian origin of the so-called "Rurikids" and especially of Rus' and/or the Russes can now be considered to be also debunked. But we've not understood what is the difference between the Rugians, the Ruthenians, and the Russes. I think that the term "Ruthenians", as well as the term "Rugians", was initially applied to different Slavic tribes including Polish-speaking people and maybe Rusyn-speaking and/or Ukrainian-speaking people. This model could explain why, at some stage, the Russes started to be called the Rugians and the Ruthenians. But as of the 2nd century CE, based on and referring to Ptolemy's "Cosmographia", by the Rugians, and, maybe or maybe not, the Ruthenians, the Greek authors likely meant the Poles or people in whose language there was a word similar either to the Polish "kwiat" ("flower") or the Polish "wiać" ("to blow"). The author of the "История Руси" channel, in his cycle of videos about Rus, Czech, and Lech, has expressed the point that the Rugians, whom he relates to the Russes, adopted Arian Christianity from the Goths, and that that was the way Christianity first appeared in Rus'. But I have to correct this model a bit. If the Rugians adopted Arian Christianity from the Goths, the Russes could adopt it either from the Rugians or directly from the Goths separately from the Rugians.

The idea that the Polish language could exist in the 2nd century CE as a separate language shouldn't be much surprising. And here is why. (01:47:01) Herodotus mentions a tribe of Budinoi in the following context:

"The Budinoi are a very great and numerous race, and are all very blue-eyed and fair of skin [the Ancient Greek "πῠρρός" can be translated as "flame-coloured", "yellowish-red", "red-haired", "redheaded" instead of "fair of skin"]: and in their land is built a city of wood, the name of which is Gelonos, and each side of the wall is thirty furlongs in length and lofty at the same time, all being of wood; ... for the Gelonians are originally Hellenes, and they removed from the trading stations on the coast and settled among the Budinoi; and they use partly the Scythian language and partly the Hellenic. The Budinoi however do not use the same language as the Gelonians, nor is their manner of living the same: for the Budinoi are natives of the soil and a nomad people, and alone of the nations in these parts feed on fir-cones; but the Gelonians are tillers of the ground and feed on corn and have gardens, and resemble them not at all either in appearance or in complexion of skin. However by the Hellenes the Budinoi also are called Gelonians, not being rightly so called. Their land is all thickly overgrown with forests of all kinds of trees, and in the thickest forest there is a large and deep lake, and round it marshy ground and reeds."

We've said in the very first video that the name of the Budinoi, or, in Ancient Greek, reading "β" as /β/, Βουδῖνοι, is Slavic. It means this tribe could be Slavic-speaking as well. The word "Gelonos" ("Γελωνός") - which should not be confused with the name of the Gelonians or other similar names outside the lines we've just read - resembles the Polish "zielony" which means "green" and thus its original name could be "Zieloniec" or "Zielonek". According to Herodotus, they "feed on fir-cones" and "their land is all thickly overgrown with forests". Into Polish, the word "forest" is translated as "las" (in the locative, "las" becomes "lesie"). A word derived from "las" is "лях" / "Liakh" (in English, "Lech"), which is the name of the legendary Lech and one of the names, by which the Poles were formerly known. To compare, the word "green" in Belarusian is "зялёны", in Ukrainian is "зелений", in Slovak is "zelený", in Czech is "zelený", in Wendish, either "green" or "green colour" - this is what is not clear - is "grena". The tribe of the Βουδῖνοι - unless Herodotus himself has mixed them up with the Gelonians - could be a Polish-speaking tribe or include a Polish-speaking tribe in the 5th century BCE. Moreover, Herodotus doesn't say that their language was Scythian. This version is supported by one interesting observation. In comparison to Belarusian or Ukrainian, the Polish language sounds more shibilant. A good natural enviroment for wind to emit clear shibilant sounds is forest. And if some people, generation by generation, lived in forests for a very long time while their language was still developing, their speech, in my view, could get affected in the way the Polish language probably became so shibilant for the same occurrence. So, what is the conclusion? The hypothetical split of the hypothetical Proto-Slavic language into several other Slavic languages - which then developed, either immediately or not, into Ukrainian, Rusyn, Belarusian, Polish, and so on - possibly occurred before the 5th century BCE. In the Modern Polish language, the tribe of Βουδῖνοι would be called "Wodzini". But why this name was written down as "Βουδῖνοι" requires a separate analysis. When the Polish gentry believed that they were descended from the Sarmatians, they had at least some ground, while the Indo-Iranian myth about the mythical Indo-Iranian origin of the Scythians, Sauromatians, Sarmatians, and all the rest on the list, has no ground at all.

(01:50:31) The name of the Rugians likely shares the same etymology with the name "Roxolani". Ptolemy places the Roxolani along with the Iazyges near the Maeotis, by which the Sea of Azov is usually meant. He also mentions the Scythian Alauni dwelling somewhere near the Roxolani and the Iazyges. These Alauni are generally believed to be the Alans. And if it's true, it changes a lot. (I believe Ukrainian native speakers understand what I mean.) In this video, we will not be analysing the language of the Alans, but one thing will be said just right now. The historical Alans, the real Alans, have nothing to do with today's Ossetians. It's also about one of the Indo-Iranian myths. (01:51:05) Getting back to the Roxolani - Jordanes, who was born a few centuries after Ptolemy, placed them, roughly, on the territory of today's Romania:

"... This Gothia, which our ancestors called Dacia and now, as I have said, is called Gepidia, was then bounded on the east by the Roxolani, on the west by the Iazyges, on the north by the Sarmatians and Basternae [or Bastarnae] and on the south by the river Danube. The Iazyges are separated from the Roxolani by the Aluta river only."

Somebody will connect the change of the location with a possible migration of the Roxolani. But I would also consider a version that this name could denote an occupation. The author of the "История Руси" channel thinks that the Roxolani are the Russes. There are reasons to think in this way. Some of them are expressed by this author in one of his videos, the link to which I've put in the description. Even if you don't understand what he says, you still can understand what is written on a couple of maps that he shows. In particular, on the map of Andreas Pograbius "Partis Sarmatiae Europae" from 1570, Roxolania is a synonymous name for Rus' / Ruthenia. And on the map "Sarmatiae Europaeae Delineatio" of Philippus Brietius from 1649, Roxolania is depicted on the territory of present-day Ukraine. On my part, I will highlight only the main point. As the Roxolani were situated near the Sea of Azov in the 2nd century CE, they are expected to be either the Rusyns or the Ukrainians. The name of the mentioned Iazyges resembles today's Carpatho-Rusyn "язык", the Macedonian "јазик", and the Serbo-Croatian "jazik" in the Chakavian regiolect. All these words mean "language" or "tongue". Thus, "Iazyges" means "Those Who Speak". The idea that the word "Iazyges" is Iranian, being what some people really believe, is what should have made me burst into laughter. I will not be even making any remarks about the persons suggesting this version. The word "Roxolani" contains the Latin "x" which corresponds to the Greek "ξ" ("ῥωξολάνοι"). But in this case, it's not necessarily a voiceless cluster. Though the combination of two words the word "Roxolani" consists of may produce it, the last consonant of the first word is rather voiced. "Roxolani" can be the Ukrainian or Rusyn "рогчоляни". In Modern Ukrainian, people would call such people "рогочолі" instead. The Ukrainian word "ріг" and the Rusyn "руг" mean "horn". The word "чоло" in the Ukrainian and Rusyn language means "forehead". People that were called "рогчоляни" / "Rohcholiany" can be those "who have horns on their head". The Roxolani and the Rugians could be Slavic Vikings. (01:53:27) In the English Wiki article about the Vikings, there is a section titled "Intermixing with the Slavs":

"The Vikings significantly intermixed with the Slavs. Slavic and Viking tribes were 'closely linked, fighting one another, intermixing and trading'. In the Middle Ages, a significant amount of ware was transferred from Slavic areas to Scandinavia, and Denmark was 'a melting pot of Slavic and Scandinavian elements'. The presence of Slavs in Scandinavia is 'more significant than previously thought' although 'the Slavs and their interaction with Scandinavia have not been adequately investigated'."

In the section "Common misconceptions", in the sub-section "Horned helmets", we can read the following:

"Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets ... no depiction of the helmets of Viking warriors, and no preserved helmet, has horns. ... Historians therefore believe that Viking warriors did not wear horned helmets; whether such helmets were used in Scandinavian culture for other, ritual purposes, remains unproven."

The section "Etymology" provides a context for the term "Viking":

"The etymology of 'viking' is uncertain. In the Middle Ages it came to mean Scandinavian pirate or raider, while other names such as 'heathens', 'Danes' or 'Northmen' were also used. [As we remember, Liutprand called the Russes "Nordmani" or "Nortmani".] ...

"In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term generally referred to Scandinavian pirates or raiders. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general. The word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. ...

"The term 'Viking' that appeared in Northwestern Germanic sources in the Viking Age denoted pirates. According to some researchers, the term back then had no geographic or ethnic connotations that limited it to Scandinavia only. The term was instead used about anyone who to the Norse peoples appeared as a pirate. Therefore, the term had been used about Israelites on the Red Sea; Muslims encountering Scandinavians in the Mediterranean; Caucasian pirates encountering the famous Swedish Ingvar-Expedition, and Estonian pirates on the Baltic Sea. Thus the term "Viking" was supposedly never limited to a single ethnicity as such, but rather an activity. [Here Wiki refers to the work "«Vikings» and the Viking Age" of the historian John Howard Lind.]"

I will not be reading all the lines because you can do it on your own if you wish, but I will notice several things. The primeval Vikings could be Slavs. According to Leo the Deacon, Sviatoslav was a Taurian and the Russes were the Tauroscythians (the Ancient Greek "ταῦρος" meaning "bull"). The so-called "bident of Sviatoslav" imprinted on his seal is an image of an ox. We also know that the Bulgarians and the Avars had such Slavic titles as тарган / Tarhan or таркан / Tarkan, вул / wół / vůl / Vul, воля / Volіa, and so forth; the Khazars had the title бик / Byk. These appellations, in general terms, mean "ox", "bull", or "bullock". And they could serve as a reason why the Slavs or some of them could be called the Vikings by the Germanic foreigners. Another possible reason is that these Slavs were just cattle breeders or cattlemen grazing their "horned cattle". On the other hand, the second point could lead to the first: as the cattle breeders or cattlemen, these Slavs could develop the title system, in which they found a place for such that relates to the ox, though why the Vikings are usually imagined as people having horns on their head should be probably deeper analysed. I will share my hypothesis about the meaning of the term "Viking". The Latin "vicinus" means "neighbouring". But at the same time, the Latin word "vicus", which "vicinus" is considered to derive from, means "village" or "farm". The term "Viking", before it supposedly started to denote pirates, could, at the beginning, mean "farmer" or "neighbouring farmer", who could be the cattle breeder or the cattleman; and then, it could start to mean "neighbour" or "foreigner". I will not entirely cover this topic at this stage, but we now have at least some initial thoughts on this matter to continue with in future.

The insufficient level of today's historical science is clearly evident and clearly reflected in the mess you can find, in particular, on YouTube in the form of the drivel like some mythical Russia coming from some Scandinavia, though even the Russian historiography confirms at least that no Russia existed in that period. But who really cares? As nobody cares, this ignorance keeps evolving and the people that spread such myths about the non-existing Russia or the Normanists' myth participate, consciously or unconsciously, in distortion of history. They spread historical disinformation the same as the Russian media spread their lies on TV and the internet. Just remember that. The result of spreading such lies can even be found in Kevin Alan Brook's book "The Jews of Khazaria". For example, Kevin Alan Brook mentions a person named Rizhko who was a tax collector living in Kyiv during the 1480s. He has translated this name as "East Slavic for 'red-haired'". What is the so-called "East Slavic language" in the late 15th century is what he, of course, does not explain, notwithstanding that, in that time, there was the separate Ukrainian language and the separate Belarusian language, and the Russian language didn't exist yet. Moreover, a red-haired person, in the Ukrainian language, would rather be called "рудий" than "рижий". But the crucial feature of this name is the stressed ending "-ко" which never existed in the Russian language (it's stressed because I, as a Ukrainian and Russian native speaker, can clearly see it). Such names are usually derived from verbs, and "Rizhko" / "Ріжко" is one of such examples. It's derived from the Ukrainian verb "різати", "to cut", in which the letter "з" alternates with "ж". This person, as a tax collector, "cut taxes out of the gross income" - that's why he was called Rizhko / Ріжко, not because of his hair. Here I should give advice to some authors - especially to those, in whose imaginary world the only language they are aware of is Russian. If you have found some word in some Russian dictionary, don't rush to claim it to be "East Slavic". Otherwise, the result will be like this joke about Rizhko / Ріжко.

(01:59:16) At long last we can return to the "Cambridge Document". We will now use it for a couple of things: to answer several scientific questions and to confirm that the Gets were most probably Slavs:

"Behold, I make it known to my lord that the name of our land as we found it in books is Arkanus, and the name of the royal city is Khazar, and the name of the river that passes through its midst is Atel אטיל [or Atil, or, properly speaking, Гатиль / Hatyl'] and it is south of the sea that comes from ... through which thy messengers came to Constantinople. And I believe that it starts from the Great Sea. But our province is distant from that sea two thousand and one hundred and sixty ris, and between our land and Constantinople is nine days by sea and twenty-eight days by land, and the land of the dominion of my lord is fifty days. Behold, (these are) those who fight against [or along with] us. Asia, Bab al abwab, Zibus, Turkey [this "Turkey" doesn't necessarily refer to a Turkic people; at this stage, we don't know yet], and Luznu."

We've already suggested in the previous video a possible sense for the name of the city of Khazar (קזר). The original word could be the Ukrainian "козир" meaning "royal suit". It's enough for us at the moment so we can switch to the rest of the quoted piece.

In one place in this fragment, several Hebrew letters have been lost. According to Pavel Kokovtsov, the whole word with the missing part was "from your land" ("מארצכם"). According to Solomon Schechter, it could be "from the kingdom" ("מהמלכות"). But I would consider another, interesting, version - "from the gulf" or "from the bay" ("מהמפרץ"). Also, in Solomon Schechter's translation, there is an error. In the original text, the author hasn't written "south of the sea", he has written, literally, "right of the sea". Pavel Kokovtsov also translates this place as "right of the sea". And here is what we get now:

"... and it is right of the sea that comes from [the gulf] through which thy messengers came to Constantinople."

As we remember from the previous video, the "Cambridge Document" was found in the Cairo Geniza - that is present-day Egypt. The gulf through which one can arrive in Constantinople from Egypt is the Sea of Marmara which really "starts" from the Great Sea (the Great Sea is the Mediterranean Sea). Thus, the sea, near which the Khazars dwelt, (which is usually called the Khazar Sea) should be located between Constantinople and Khazaria. The fact is that there are two such seas if we imagine them as two parts of a whole. The first one is the Black Sea, the second one is the Sea of Azov which is connected to the former. And once we recall that the Khazars, according to Theophanes the Confessor, emerged from the land of Верзилія / Verzyliia next to the Sea of Azov, we will understand that the river Hatyl' is not the Volga. The river Hatyl', first of all, is the river Don. But why has Solomon Schechter provided the wrong translation "south of the sea" instead of "right of the sea"? He, as well as many other scholars, mistakenly believed that the so-called Khazar Sea is the Caspian Sea. But, as we have just shown, that's not true. (02:02:03) On Russian Wiki about the Khazar Sea, we can find a poorly described clarification of this mistaken belief:

"The hydronym first appeared in Arabic geographical writings from the 9th century (Ibn Khordadbeh and his successors Ibn al-Faqih and Qudama ibn Ja'far). The Khazar Sea used to be attributed to the Black Sea and, less often, to the Sea of Azov (at that time, the Khazars' positions in Crimea were strong). Starting from the 10th century, the name was being established to designate the Caspian Sea. A less common variant of the name was 'buhayra al-Khazar' - 'the Khazar Lake' (al-Muqaddasī)."

When Solomon Schechter translated the text, he likely imagined himself standing on the Volga's mouth and looking towards the Caspian Sea. For him, as an observer, the south coast of the Caspian Sea will be on the right. But in our case, I don't think we should imagine ourselves located on a river's mouth. As the Khazar Sea is the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea at one and the same time, on the right side of them will be the river Don which is the Hatyl' river or part of it according to the author of the "Cambridge Document". (02:03:03) A confirmation of the fact that the Khazar Sea is both the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea can be found in the Russian translation of al-Istakhri's work "Routes of the Realms" provided by the orientalist Николай Александрович Караулов / Nikolai Aleksandrovich Karaulov in his series of books titled "Knowledge of Arabic authors about the Caucasus, Armenia and Aderbeijan" (in the original Russian, "Свѣдѣнія арабскихъ писателей о Кавказѣ, Арменіи и Адербейджанѣ"):

"This sea doesn't join any other of the seas on the earth's surface; indeed, if someone goes around this sea, they will return to the point, from which they began to go, and no obstacle will appear in their way, except for some freshwater river that flows into this sea. This sea is salty and is affected neither by rising nor by falling tide. The bottom of this sea is dark and silty, in contrast to the sea of Kulzum [present-day Red Sea] and the entire Persian Sea; and in some places of the Persian Sea, its bottom is visible due to the purity of the white stones lying under its water. No precious stones are extracted from this sea, such as pearl, or red coral, or anything else that is extracted from other seas. The only product of this sea is fish. Across it ply the merchants from the Muslim lands to the land of the Khazars and the regions of Арран [Arran], Джидя [Dzhidia], Табаристан [Tabaristan], and Джурджан [Dzhurdzhan]."

Al-Istakhri didn't differentiate well between the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and, maybe or maybe not, the Caspian Sea. When he reports that the sea of the Khazars "is affected neither by rising nor by falling tide", he speaks of the Black Sea. Here is what the article about the Black Sea on Russian Wikipedia reads:

"It should be noted that, due to the obstructive interchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean and the relatively small size of the sea itself, the magnitude of the Black Sea's tides is very small and can be indicated only by gauges."

But when al-Istakhri reports that someone can go around the Khazar Sea and return to the same point and that the bottom of the sea is dark and silty, he mainly speaks of the Sea of Azov. And when he says that it's salty, he speaks of the Black Sea. (02:05:04) We can find the support for this point in the description of the Sea of Azov on Russian Wiki:

"The salinity of the sea before the Don river was brought under control was three times less than the average salinity of the ocean. Its value on the surface varied from 1‰ at the mouth of the Don to 10.5‰ in the central part of the sea and 11.5‰ near the Kerch Strait. ...

"In the northern part of the Sea of Azov, the water contains very little salt. For this reason, the sea freezes easily, and therefore, before the invention of icebreakers, it wasn't navigable from December to mid-April. The southern part of the sea doesn't freeze and the temperature remains moderate.

"During the 20th century, almost all large rivers flowing into the Sea of Azov were dammed to create reservoirs. This led to a significant reduction in the discharge of fresh water and silt into the sea. ...

"Being three times less salty than in the ocean and many other seas, the water of the Sea of Azov (as well as the Baltic Sea) is practically harmless for quenching thirst for a short time in the absence of fresh water in emergencies. ...

"The transparency of the Sea of Azov's waters is low. ... The influx of a large amount of turbid river waters, the fact that the bottom silt is rapidly stirred up when the sea rises in waves, and the presence of significant masses of plankton in the Azov water define its low transparency."

Though the Sea of Azov could be that dark sea al-Istakhri writes about, the fact of its bottom's darkness was apparently preserved in the name of the Black Sea instead. And it could happen due to the confusion between these two seas back then. "No precious stones are extracted from this sea" likely refers to the Sea of Azov as well, though this description is what can make some people think of the Caspian Sea. (02:06:48) The thing is that the Hebrew "כַּסְפִּי" /kaspi/ means "financial", "monetary", "pecuniary". But the Caspian Sea could receive this name simply because of trade routes lying on it, not because of precious stones on its bottom (if such stones really ever existed there). Moreover, the name "Caspi" is known at least as early as the 5th century BCE. It can be found in Herodotus's "History" as a part of the name of the Caspian Sea and the tribe of Caspians. Yes, the Caspian Sea was known by the same name in the 5th century BCE too.

The easy freezing of the Sea of Azov near the Don's mouth is very well connected with the Scythian name of the Don "Τάναϊς" because "Τάναϊς" is the Ukrainian appellation "Тана" / "Tana", "Таная" / "Tanaia", or "Таня" / "Tania" (don't confuse it with the Greek female name "Τατιάνα"). It's derived from the verb "танути" meaning "to thaw" or "to melt". In such a context, the name "Гатиль" / "Hatyl'" also fits well. Though the verb "гатити" has two senses which seem to be unrelated - "to build a dike" and "to strike with force" - in fact, they are likely related if we imagine this dike in the form of ice which is a natural obstacle that has to be destroyed to pass it.

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in his "De Administrando Imperio", mentions the river Etel and the river "Κουζοὺ" (or probably "Κουζὸς"). The Romanian-born American archaeologist and historian Florin Curta, in his book "Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500-1300)", has expressed the point that "Etel" and "Kouzou" (which is Κουζὸς) are two different names of one and the same river. And that's a very interesting problem. It might have seemed that the river Etel is the Khazar river Hatyl', and, in fact, this assumption will be valid. But Constantine Porphyrogenitus speaks of a river that passes through the land of the Pechenegs, which is most likely the river Danube. When he wrote his work, he probably relied, as we already said previous time, on some information that came from foreign sources - for example from those written in Arabic and/or Persian. Besides the fact that the oriental authors of the 10th century confused the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov with the Caspian Sea, they also confused the rivers Danube, Don, and Volga. Given the fact that the river Volga (which was called "Itil" or "Atil" by some of these authors) runs to the western shore of the Caspian Sea, some features of this river were extended to the river Danube, which also runs to the western shore of the sea it flows into (which is the Black Sea). (02:09:09) For example, a narrow strait at the side of the so-called "Siyah Kuh" (imagine it as an island) mentioned by al-Istakhri in his "Routes of the Realms" should have been regarded by us either as the Kerch Strait near the Don river, or as the Don river, or as the Volga river. But he also specifies that ships plying in this strait are in danger of crashing due to the wind. Such a description is characteristic of the Danube river: according to Ukrainian Wiki, on this river occur winds being very dangerous to navigation, and some types of winds can even affect the direction of the river's flow. For this reason, the Khazars called the river Danube the name "Дуня" / "Dunia" or "Дуна" / "Duna" (from the Ukrainian verb "дути" meaning "to blow") and the Scythians called this river "Вистрець" / "Vystrets'" (recorded as "Ἴστρος" in Ancient Greek) - the last name is a noun meaning sort of "wind-howling": it's compounded from the verb "вити" for "to howl" and the noun "стрий" for "wind". It's another spoiler. If that's the case, we can understand the next words of al-Istakhri. As he continues, if a ship crashes, the debris will be captured by the so-called "Turks". As well known from "De Administrando Imperio" of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the so-called "Turks" (or properly "Torks"), back then, migrated from about the territories belonging to the Finno-Ugric tribes to about the territory on the river Danube. As some scholars believe, these "Turks" (or properly "Torks") in the text of Constantine Porphyrogenitus were most probably the Hungarians. And when al-Istakhri also mentions some "Turks" or "Torks" that control lands located approximately near the Danube river, he, as well as Constantine Porphyrogenitus, most likely speaks of the Hungarians as well. And when al-Istakhri, in the next lines, writes that the river Itil (or Atil) - which should have been the river Don - comes from the country of the Russes and the country of the Bulgarians, he speaks - just imagine! - of the river Danube, the river Don, and apparently the river Volga, at one and the same time. Al-Istakhri places the Bulgarians where they should be - that is, on the river Danube. And he wasn't alone in doing this. (02:11:06) Al-Mas'udi, in his work "The Meadows of Gold", writes that the Nitas sea and the Maeotis sea as a single unit (which is the Black Sea along with the Sea of Azov) was known as the sea of the Bulgarians and the sea of the Russes. Al-Mas'udi knew that the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are two different bodies of water, but he regards them as two parts of one sea and applies the names of each of the waterbodies to this whole sea consisting of the two, believing it is the right thing to do. To describe each waterbody separately, he calls one of them the Nitas sea, and the other the Maeotis sea, but at this stage, he confuses what is called what. That's why, by the Maeotis sea, he can mean the Black Sea, and by the Nitas sea, the Sea of Azov. Al-Mas'udi himself believed that the Khazar Sea was the Caspian Sea. In his "Meadows of Gold", he has even expressed his surprise at the fact that, in his days, there was an opinion that the Khazar Sea connected with the Maeotis, and even assumed that, by the Khazar Sea, those people meant the sea of the Russes and the Bulgarians. By the Bulgarians, al-Istakhri and al-Mas'udi means the Slavic Bulgarians. In those texts that were translated and provided by Nikolai Karaulov, neither al-Istakhri, nor al-Mas'udi, nor even Ibn Hawqal, who also gave an account about the Bulgarians, neither of them, writing in the 10th century, mentions any Volga Bulgars. They mention only and exclusively the Slavic Bulgarians that lived on the Danube river. Moreover, the Bulgarians never were a Turkic people, they simply could not. Only those not thinking logically and those being falsifiers would suggest the Bulgarians are a Slavicised Turkic people. When I said "logically", I meant that no historical source is required to understand it. No Turkic language is able to become any Slavic language, no Slavic language is able to become any Turkic language - it's nearly impossible. Today, such an event is even unlikely within a single language family. The Bulgarians were Slavic-speaking people in the past and they remain them today.

So, "Κουζὸς" is a river of the Khazars. And do you know what? It's also a Ukrainian name. It relates to the verb "ковзати" meaning "to slide" or "to skate". The original name could be "Ковзая" / "Kovzaia", "Ковзець" / "Kovzets'", or "Ковзань" / "Kovzan'". In another video, we will see that the last option is what the Khazars themselves likely called this river - it will be proved on behalf of the Kovhan Joseph. But is this river the river Don or does it at least include the Don as well? (02:13:21) The answer seems to be positive. Al-Mas'udi, in his work "The Meadows of Gold", mentions a stream that tends to completely freeze and is situated between the river Khazar and a channel of the Nitas sea. The channel of the Nitas sea is likely the Kerch Strait; the river Khazar in al-Mas'udi's text is likely the river Volga (the geographical knowledge of al-Mas'udi can be judged a totall mess) - al-Mas'udi describes this river as large and watery, and, as we may recall, its name may be somehow connected with the Hungarian "völgy" meaning "valley". In this case, the stream connecting the Kerch Strait with the Volga is likely the river Don, which tends to completely freeze and is called "Ковзань" / "Kovzan'" (that is, "the Slippery River") in the Khazar language. In another video, we will confirm one more time that the river Kovzan' really formerly referred at least to the Don river. We've reached almost the same conclusion as has Florin Curta, but the idea that the river Don could be a segment of the river Hatyl' and/or the river Kovzan', or, conversely, the idea that the Hatyl' and the Kovzan' could be two segments of one river or of something that was believed to be a river, can also be considered. If the Hatyl' and the Kovzan' were adjacent segments of some one river, and the Kovzan' river was the whole Don for example, then the Hatyl' could be even the Kerch Strait. (For some time, the Kerch Strait was really believed to be a river.) But we can say almost unambiguously that it flowed, first of all, near the lands of present-day Ukraine and is related, first of all, to the river Don.

(02:14:46) To support the last point and that about the location of the Khazar Sea, we will refer to the oriental author Ibn Hawqal. When he described the Khazar Sea, he wrote almost the same as did al-Istakhri. In his work "The Face of the Earth", he calls it either salty or calm (it depends on which edition is correct in this part) and adds that the Khazar Sea is stinky. What should be noted here is that al-Istakhri's "Routes of the Realms" served as a basis for Ibn Hawqal's "The Face of the Earth". Al-Istakhri thought that his maps contained errors, so he asked Ibn Hawqal, who traveled a lot, to correct them, though, regarding the description of the Khazar Sea, nothing has much changed. Both the authors wrote their works in the 10th century, but, while al-Istakhri wrote his work supposedly before the Khazars were defeated by the Russes (approximately in 930 according to Nikolai Karaulov), Ibn Hawqal supposedly did after that (in about the 970s).

(02:15:38) Let's look at Ibn Hawqal's map of the Khazar Sea. I've rotated it in order for its head to point approximately north or north-east. We can see three rivers. One of them is related to the Hatyl'. Next to it, we can see a city of the same name spelt with the Arabic "ا" ("ʾalif"), "ـتـ" ("tāʾ"), and "ـل" ("lām"). The rest of the rivers are "نهر الرس" / "nahr ar-Ras" (literally written as "nahr al-Ras") and "نهر الكر" / "nahr al-Kur". "nahr ar-Ras" can be translated as "the river Ras", and "nahr al-Kur" as "the river Kur". In the Arabic language, there is the word "رأس" /raʔs/ which has the senses "leader", "chief", "chieftain". And if this interpretation of the river's name is right, we can connect it to that of the river Buh or Boh whose name means "God" - because God is the chieftain. The river Kur, in this case, should correspond to the river Dnipro whose Scythian name - "Vorysten'", "Vorystenets'", "Horysten'", or "Horystenets'" - means "the one crying rafts", "the one crying monoxylons", or simply "the one crying sorrow". And we can find the corresponding word in the Persian language. The Persian "کور" /kur/ means "blind". If one gets a mote in one's eye, this eye stops to be able to see; if dust gets to one's eyes, one becomes blind. And while one is crying, one is temporarily unable to see as well. If the river is tears of some creature, the rafts floating down the river can be associated with motes the creature is trying to get rid of by crying. In the Ukrainian language, there is an expression, "You see a mote in an eye of another's, but you don't notice a stump in your own," ("У чужім оці порошину бачиш, а в своєму пенька не помічаєш,") which means sort of "Before looking for flaws in others, first pay attention to your own." What was the context for this phrase to appear is not clear, but we will presume this phrase to be somehow related to the Vorysten' or Vorystenets' river. The river that connects the previous two mentioned can be a system of the rivers Inhul and Inhulets', though, in fact, there is no connection between them.

(02:17:28) Next on this map, we can see two islands in the Khazar Sea. The first island is called "Bab al-Abwab" or "Bab ul-Abwab" (written in Arabic as "جزيره باب الابواب" / "jazira Bab al-Abwab"). The Arabic "بَاب الأَبْوَاب" / "bab al-abwab" is usually translated as "gate of the gates". But the application of this name wasn't unambiguous. Oriental authors of the 10th century, by Bab al-Abwab, meant either a part of the Caucasus Mountain massif or the Crimean Peninsula. For example, Ibn Khordadbeh applied this name to ways out of the Caucasus Mountains' gorges. But in the case of the Crimean Peninsula, "gate of the gates" can be reinterpreted as "port of the ports", and this interpretation fits pretty well with Crimea as a port peninsula or a port island. The second island in this Khazar Sea is what actually confirms that the Khazar Sea is the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov at once. Some scholars think that this inscription should be read as "Siyah Kuh" and be translated from Persian as "black mountain". In fact, the literal reading of this phrase is "جزيره سیاه کويه" / "jazira Siyâh Kuyah", that is "the island of Siyâh Kuyah". In my first video, which was mainly dedicated to the Scythian language, I've compared "Siyah Kuyah" to a combination of two Slavic words that looked similar. But if I had tried to build a hypothesis, or, yet worse, a theory, based on this comparison, it would have finally failed. However, it's a good experience, because now you will see, one more time, that both the historical and linguistic science require approaches of sufficiently high precision. Present-day history and linguistics seem to not much and always satisfy this crucial requirement. The first part "سیاه" / "siyâh" really means "black" - this part of the translation is right. But the second part is not "کويه" / "kuyah". In the Persian alphabet, there are two letters that resemble the Arabic "ك" ("kāf"). They are "ک" ("kâf") and "گ" ("gâf"). But, if the Persian "ک" ("kâf") directly corresponds to the Arabic "ك" ("kāf"), an analogue for the Persian "گ" ("gâf") in the Arabic alphabet is just absent. In the case of loanwords, the phoneme /g/ can be represented by the Arabic "ك" ("kāf"), "ق" ("qāf"), "غ" ("ghayn"), or "ج" ("jīm"). As the word "kuyah" is expected to be Persian (because "siyâh" is Persian), the original first letter could be the Persian "گ" ("gâf"). Whether, on Ibn Hawqal's map, the first letter is already Persian or is simply Arabic doesn't matter. What matters is that, in the Persian language, there is the word "گویا" / "guyâ". It means "capable of speech". "سیاه گویا" / "siyâh guyâ" means, literally, "blackly-speaking". And this interpretation is right because this and the previous points make up a system of arguments convincing us much more stronger about the Khazar Sea. Siyâh Guyâ is the Taman' Peninsula, on which there was the historical city or town known by the name of "Тьмуторокань" / "T'mutorokan'", which means, the same way literally, "blackly-speaking" as well. The first part refers to the word "тьма" meaning either "darkness" or "great quantity". The second part is one of the following: "торохтіти" for "to prattle", "to chatter"; "торкотати" for "to babble", "to rumble"; "турукати", "туркотати", "туркотіти" for "to babble", "to coo", "to mutter". "Тьмуторокань" / "T'mutorokan'" can mean either "speaking in many voices", or "speaking in no voice" (because, "in darkness, nobody speaks - it's scary"), or "speaking in a hissing voice (like a snake)". Which option is right is not clear at this moment - according to al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawqal, people didn't inhabit the islands in the Khazar Sea, including Siyâh Guyâ.

(02:20:35) One of the spellings of T'mutorokan's name can be found in The Tale of Igor's Campaign. In this source, it's present in the following forms: "Тьмуторокань" / "T'mutorokan'", "Тмуторокань" / "Tmutorokan'", "Тьмуторакань" / "T'mutorakan'". The last form can be rejected as mistaken because the first two are present in the Primary Chronicle, the third one is not. One passage from this tale mentions some "Тьмутораканьскый блъванъ". Among scholars of the so-called Russian Empire, there was an opinion that the historical T'mutorakan' was the city or town of Ryazan'. The author of the "История Руси" channel has made several videos dedicated to the problem of when Ryazan' really ceased to exist. The problem lies in the simple fact that Ryazan' was not devastated in the 13th century and kept existing for several more centuries. This point is confirmed by various historical sources which this person shows on his channel. The opposite point that Ryazan' was really devastated in the 13th century is a clear example of the fact that today's Russian historiography has nothing to do with reality. On Wiki - including English Wiki - you will, of course, find this opposite point. Russian, or Muscovitian, lies can be found in different Wiki articles, starting from those on politics, ending with those on history, from text to images. And if we add a human factor in the form of some individuals' incapability of validating corrections and/or checking primary sources, can we much rely on Wiki? Of course not. Wiki is not a source of the truth, Wiki is a source of the information - along with the disinformation and along with the lies. And because the historical sources can lie, Wiki can lie as well. The author of the "История Руси" channel suggested that, if Ryazan' was really T'mutorokan', then this "блъванъ" in The Tale of Igor's Campaign can be a toponym Болвановье / Bolvanovie situated on a road that connected Moscow with Ryazan' in the late 15th century. To explain that this version is possible, he refers to the fact that "Тьмутораканьскый блъванъ", according to The Tale of Igor's Campaign and an existing interpretation of it, was a "land unknown to the Russes". (You can find more details by following the corresponding link in the description.) But I will suggest a different view. "блъванъ" resembles the Bulgarian word "балван" meaning "boulder" or "big rock" and the Polish "bałwan" meaning "snowman". Regardless of whether it's a Bulgarian word (which is more expected) or Polish, in either case, this word apparently relates to the Caucasus Mountains, which is both the T'mutorokanian Boulder and the T'mutorokanian Snowman. As we remember, the Scythians called the Caucasus Mountains "Кравкаси" / "Kravkasy" which means either "white selvedge or selvedges of snow" or "white brinks of snow". I've previously favoured the second option, but there is a reason to consider the first option to be more appropriate. In the Arabic text of Ibn Hawqal's "The Face of the Earth" provided by the Dutch orientalist Michael Jan de Goeje in his "Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum", the name of the Caucasus Mountains is mainly spelt (except for some places in some of the editions mentioned in there) with three Arabic letters: "ق" ("qāf"), "ب" ("bāʾ"), and "ق" ("qāf"). A word that seems to be the closest to this spelling and its reading is the Persian one consisting of the Persian "ق" ("qâf"), "ب" ("be"), and "ک" ("kâf"). (I've also underlined the word combination "سیاه کويه" / "Siyâh Kuyah", or "Siyâh Guyâ", on the slide.) "ک" ("kâf") is a diminutive Persian suffix, "قبا" / "qabâ" is a Persian word for a long garment, a cloak, or a frock. The so-called "قبق" / "Qabq", as a Persian name for the Caucasus Mountains, can simply mean sort of "thin long dress", and it's one more argument that the sense of the Scythian "Kravkasy" is "white selvedge". The fact that both the Persian and the Scythian name seem to relate to cloth is impossible to treat as a coincidence.

(02:24:01) There is one more thing the so-called "Тьмутораканьскый блъванъ" may tell us. Qudama ibn Ja'far in his "Book of the Land Tax" mentions some Anushirvan ibn Kubad - probably being the Persian king Khosrow I Anushirvan, a son of Kavad I - who, according to Qudama ibn Ja'far, in order to prevent future attacks of the Khazars on Armenia, ordered to build a wall from blocks of stone and lead between some sea and the Caucasus Mountains and then to throw stones into that sea until the embankment rises above the surface of the water. The final construction included an iron gate hung on this wall and a movable tower. Khosrow I Anushirvan is considered to be the person responsible for building the so-called Derbent Wall. What is called today the Fortifications of Derbent is located near the Caspian Sea. But now we have a reason to raise a question about whether the historical Derbent Wall built by the order of Khosrow I Anushirvan is the same present-day Derbent. Because the three black stones depicted on Ibn Hawqal's map can be this historical Derbent, and, on this map, this "Derbent" is located west of or in the west of the Caucasus Mountains near the Khazar Sea (which is the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov as we already know). The problem of the historical Derbent should be definitely deeper analysed. But regardless of whether these three black stones on the map are Derbent or not, they still can relate to the "Тьмутораканьскый блъванъ". I definitely suggest reading Qudama's "Book of the Land Tax", especially to Ukrainians, because this source shows how Anushirvan won a victory over the Khazars. Anushirvan used against the Khazars the same weapon as that the Russian Federation is utilising against Ukraine today on a much larger scale. A cautionary tale to learn from.

(02:25:39) A city that is considered to be T'mutorokan' has also been mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his "De Administrando Imperio". It's commonly believed that Constantine Porphyrogenitus called it "Ταμάταρχα". The name could have been derived from the phrase "тамувати торки", "to restrain small rafts": "тамувати" for "to restrain", and "торок" for "small raft". This version suggests a parallel between the name of the Taman' Peninsula and "Ταμάταρχα": the word "тама" meaning "dam", "dike", or "barrier", the name "Тамань" / "Taman'" could have denoted a place where some ships had or needed to stop. But in one place, Constantine Porphyrogenitus has written down this name as "Ταμάρταρχα". In this spelling, the first part "Ταμάρ" could refer to the verb "тьмарити", "to make dark". The letter "α" can appear between two consonants before a syllable with another "α" for the same reason as "ι" can do before a syllable with "ι". The variety of this name in Constantine's text prevents us from an unambiguous interpretation, but, in Carl de Boor's Notitia Episcopatuum, in the list of bishoprics, we can find one more similar appellation - Τυμάταρχα with a "υ". If this "υ" was added in this name to just palatalise the preceding consonant, we should conclude that, possibly, "Тьмуторокань" / "T'mutorakan'", "Τυμάταρχα", "Ταμάρταρχα", and, maybe, "Ταμάταρχα", are just one and the same name literally meaning "blackly-speaking".

However, there is yet another version for the name "Ταμάταρχα". To understand the idea I'm going to present, we need to cover one related topic - namely, what the so-called Kuyaba is. (02:27:06) Kuyaba is believed to be a name for the city of Kyiv. At the same time, we've concluded that the island of Siyâh Guyâ is the Taman' Peninsula. Accepting the point that Kuyaba is Kyiv, the following phrase from Ibn Hawqal's "The Face of the Earth" becomes meaningless, "... in the lands of the Russes, the Bulgarians, and Kuyaba." Most probably, this Kuyaba is Kuban' or the Caucasus Mountains so that the phrase should sound the following way, "... in the lands of the Russes, the Bulgarians, and Kuban'." And now, the same phrase, but in accordance with the original text and with commentary - "... in the lands of the Bulgarians [which are the Danube Bulgarians, which are Slavs], the Russes [which are Slavs], and Kuyaba [which is Kuban']." "Kuyaba" should be likely read as "Guyâbâ" - "گویا" / "guyâ" means "capable of speech", "با" / "-bâ" is a Persian suffix meaning "soup". This "soup" could have meant sort of "great quantity" so that "گویابة" / "guyâbâ" meant "great quantity of people", "great quantity of voices", or "great quantity of languages". As reported by Ibn Hawqal, there were three hundred and sixty languages spread on the Caucasus Mountains each spoken in its respective city or town. "سیاه گویا" / "siyâh guyâ" and "گویابة" / "guyâbâ" could have had the opposite senses: the former could have denoted the "speechless" peninsula of Taman' in the Khazar Sea, the latter could have denoted the vast "speechful" plain of Kuban' north of the Caucasus Mountains or, alternatively, the Caucasus Mountains proper. But the reality is much more complicated. According to Carl de Boor's Notitia Episcopatuum, as we already said, "Τυμάταρχα" was a bishopric. In Modern Greek and/or Ancient Greek, there are words "τάμα" and "ἀρχός". The first one means "vow", "oblation", "votive offering", or "ex-voto". Its genitive is "τάματος". The second one, "ἀρχός", means "ruler" or "leader". Combining these two pieces together, we will possibly receive sort of "crucial or main place for oblations". Oblation is connected to the Christian sacrament of Eucharist, known as Lord's Supper. What may be relevant to us and can be used as a hint is that the English word "supper" is considered by some to derive from the word "soup". Whether the context for the appearance of such a connection (if it does exist) was religious is hard to say right now, but this assumed connection paradoxically correlates with the following thought. The Last Supper - after which the term "Lord's Supper" emerged - was supposedly held on the evening or night before the Jesus Christ's crucifixion day. While the name "Guyâbâ" (literally meaning "black soup") could refer to some meal eaten in the evening (the Eucharist entails sacramental bread and sacramental wine), though the previous assumption about the "great quantity" can still apply, the name "Siyâh Guyâ" (literally meaning "blackly-speaking") could refer to people saying prayers during the sacrament of Eucharist, also in the evening. An alternative view is that "blackly" meant "sorrowly". The idea is based on the Eucharist's essence, which is to remind the faithful about Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Christianity started to be spread on the Taman' Peninsula and/or Kuban' not later than the time of the emergence of the bishopric of Τυμάταρχα - that is, not later than the 8th century CE. Therefore, the possibility that the name "Ταμάταρχα" is really related to Christianity should not be surprising.

(02:30:08) Next on Ibn Hawqal's map, we can find a toponym that we can refer to the so-called "Barda", which I've also compared to a Slavic word in my first video. There does exist a context, in which the name "Barda" can be considered as Ukrainian, but this context is not to do with this map. The word written down on the map can be interpreted as the Arabic "بَرْذَعَة") "برذعة") / "barḏaʿa" meaning "packsaddle", but whether the original word was somehow connected to any packsaddle or packsaddles is subject to a more detailed investigation. I will only guess that this Barḏaʿa may refer to the present-day port city of Бердянськ (Berdiansk, Berdians'k, Berdyansk, Berdyans'k) in south-eastern Ukraine.

(02:30:40) In the previous video, we've said that the two leaders of Khazaria had the two Ukrainian titles: "Kovhan" and "Byk". And we will prove it now strongly. In the work "Routes of the Realms" of al-Istakhri, we can find the following piece:

"The king ... is called in their language 'Bek', and he is also called 'Bak'".

The so-called title "Bek" ("بك") is spelt only with two Arabic letters: "ب" ("bāʾ") and "ك" ("kāf"). It means that the vowel between these two consonants can be any, so the Ukrainian "Byk" can be a valid version. But the second word is not "Bak" ("باك"). In the text of Yaqut al-Hamawi, this title is written down as "Yak" ("ياك"). In Nikolai Karaulov's copy of the Arabic text, this title is also written as "Yak" ("ياك"). The thing is, that in the Arabic alphabet the letters "ب" ("bāʾ") and "ي" ("yāʾ") can be easily confused because the only difference between them is one dot. The word "yak" is found in different languages and denotes an ox-like mammal. (In Latin, some of its species are called "Bos".) And, as we remember, the Ukrainian word "бик" also means "ox". So we've not been mistaken. (02:31:36) But what about the second title? Al-Istakhri writes:

"When some grave peril befalls them [the Khazars], they [the Khazars] bring the Khakan; and as soon as someone from the Turks [not clear who they are] or the neighbouring peoples of the 'kafirs' sees him [according to Nikolai Karaulov, these 'kafirs' are those not being Muslims, nor Jews, nor Christians, by religion], they immediately turn to flight, and none of them dares to fight against him because of the great respect for him."

Without an additional context, this passage doesn't seem to tell us much. Let's now look into the work of al-Mas'udi:

"When the king wages a war against Muslims, they [the Muslims of Khazaria] stay separately in his camp and do not fight against their coreligionists, but fight together with the king against other kafir peoples."

So, the Khazars could fight against Muslims outside Khazaria, but it's still not enough. Yet another passage from the work of al-Istakhri:

"I was told by one person, whom I trust on this, that he saw a young man selling bread in one of their markets, and Khazars said that, after the death of their Khakan, no one would have more rights to be a Khakan than this young man, unless he is a Muslim, because the right to be a Khakan is given only to those who profess the Jewish religion."

For some reason, al-Istakhri hasn't said what would happen if this young man were a Christian, though we might have expected that a Christian also could not be a Khakan because only adherents to the Jewish religion had this right according to al-Istakhri. The fact that he puts an emphasis on Muslims seems to be expected and clear, but there is one detail. In the first passage I've quoted, al-Istakhri speaks of the so-called "Turks" and the kafir peoples discretely. If we assume that these "Turks" were Muslims, we will reach a possible answer why they ran away once they saw the Khakan, which is the Kovhan. As we remember, the Ukrainian word "ковган" means "wild boar". For Muslims, the pig could be a symbol of death (that may explain why, at some stage, they ceased using it for food; here I should add that the problem of Muslims' taboo on eating swine became a subject for debate among scholars), and the public appearance of the Kovhan could be a sign for them that they will anyway die: if not at the battle, then after the battle. Of course, we don't see the full picture. We don't understand what event made it possible that the "Turks" and even kafir peoples were so much scared of the Kovhan if al-Istakhri's account is true. But this version, notwithstanding, in my view, is the second "nice shot". The Khazars indeed had two Ukrainian titles. But why, in Arabic texts, is this title ("כגן") recorded as "Khakan" ("خاقان") and the word "Kozar" ("קזר") as "Khazar" ("خزر")? It might be a transliteration tradition, according to which the Hebrew "כ" ("kaf"), pronounced either /k/ or /x/, could tend to be respelt as the Arabic "خ" ("khāʾ"), the Hebrew "ק" ("qof") as the Arabic "خ" ("khāʾ") similar in pronunciation, the Hebrew "ג" ("gimel") as either the Arabic "ـكـ" ("kāf") whose medial form looks similar to its Hebrew counterpart with a subsequent replacement with the Arabic "ق" ("qāf") or directly as the Arabic "ق" ("qāf"). The letter representation of such phonemes as /k/, /x/, /h/, /g/, /ɣ/, /ɦ/, etc., is usually unpredictable, and such words as "Kozar" and "Kovhan" fall into this precise case.

(02:34:45) In the previous video, I've also expressed a view that the original name of Koktebel was Bukhtybil' and shown a scheme of how the original name could be misread or miscopied based on its possible original spelling in Hebrew. But now I will suggest a version that looks much closer to, and probably is, the right answer. This toponym may have nothing to do with the Khazars and could develop from the Crimean Tatar "Kökçebel" consisting of "kökçe" for "bluish-white" and "bel" for "spit". (We are now looking into the online bidirectional Crimean Tatar to Russian dictionary on the portal "medeniye.org/lugat".) And this version supports even much stronger the point that the name "Kökçebel", "Bluish-White Spit", was indeed initially applied to Cape Chameleon (Мис Хамелеон). In the same dictionary, we can find an interesting Crimean Tatar word "qaz" which is translated into the Russian "гусь" meaning "goose". Interestingly, why, in the Russian language, in the so-called Russian Empire, was the term "Cossack" initially written as "козак" / "kozak", and why, then, did it start to be written as "казак" / "kazak"? And what is the connection between the Russian word "гусар" / "gusar" (in English, "hussar") and the Russian "казак" / "kazak", which, contrary to the Ukrainian language, may have the Turkic root "-qaz-"? Very interesting!

(02:36:00) Now we can switch to the Gets. The question is, "How can the 'Cambridge Document' relate them to Slavs?" Directly, there is no way to do so. But the document contains one word that can be a part of one puzzle supporting this course of thoughts. This word is "Arkanus". The Latin adjective "arcanus" means "secret", "hidden", or "mysterious". The hypothesis that the author of the document has spelt the Latin word with Hebrew letters cannot be simply left out, but, in addition, I would consider a different view because, at first glance, it seems doubtful that the lands of a people or tribe could be named by anybody in this way. I think that this "Arcanus" could be the Ukrainian "Гаркань" derived from the verbs "гаркати" and "гарчати" meaning "to growl" or "to snarl". This verb is perceived, first of all, as that referring to dogs. But it's not just a coincidence. In Pliny the Elder's "Naturalis Historia", in the same fragment in the same editions we already saw in the very first video, we can find out that the Persians called the Scythians "Sagas". Not "Sacas" - in the earliest editions, the copyists have written down this name as "Sagas". Here I should wave my hello to those Indo-Iranian fantasisers who connect the Scythians to the Sacae. They will be very happy right now because the original word written in Latin as "Sagas" most probably corresponds to the Persian word "سگ" / "sag" meaning "dog". Let's make them even more happy. In the Ukrainian language, there is an interjection "гець" used to set a dog on. But the most interesting part is that, besides this interjection, in the "Dictionary of Ukrainian scientific and vernacular names for vascular plants" from 2004 compiled by the Ukrainian botanist Юрій Кобів / Yuriy Kobiv, we can find a mention of a plant called "гечі-печі", the Ukrainian "піч" or "печі" meaning "stove". The Latin name for this plant is "Rosa canina", the English name is "dog rose". This plant, as well as other types of rose, have thorns which can be treated as teeth of some animal - for example, a dog or a wolf. It could be a reason why, in Latin and in English, this plant was named, respectively, "Rosa canina" and "dog rose". The term "гечі-печі" can be interpreted as "canine stove" or "stove of the dog's or the wolf's teeth". And there is a logic behind such a name. Once one's hand is stung with thorns, one will feel pain like a dog has bitten it or like one has put it in a stove, in which, instead of fire, one's hand has collided with the teeth of some animal like a dog or a wolf. That's how it can be figuratively imagined. One important thing in this idea is that, in another video, I will present my vision in regard to the etymology of the name of one character of one Ukrainian fairy tale. But now, we can conclude that we've confirmed what we wanted to confirm - the Gets were probably Slavs so Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution seems to read the truth about the Cossacks' origin. The word "гет" / "Het" most probably meant "dog", "wolf", or "tooth". In Modern Ukrainian, it seems not to have been preserved as a single term. But there are languages, in which a similar word can be found - for example, those belonging to the Turkic family: in the Bashkir and Tatar language, "dog" will be translated as "эт". Of course, it doesn't mean that we need to consider the Gets as a Turkic people. First of all, the first phoneme in the original word has to be the consonant /g/, /ɣ/, /ɦ/, or one of their variations, and we've found derivative words in the Ukrainian language. Second, historical sources deny a possibility that the Gets were a group of Turkic people, and we've partly justified this just right now. Moreover, in another video (I hope it will be the next one, we will see), I will show that the Massagetae were likely Slavic-speaking people as well. The Ancient Ukrainian word "гет" could possibly survive in the Cossack title "гетьман" ("het'mаn") / "Hetman". If so, the second part should also be Ukrainian or at least Slavic - for example, it can be the Ukrainian verb "манити" meaning "to beckon" (the root is "-ман-"). If that's the case, "гетьман" can literally mean "the one who beckons dogs or wolves" - in other words, denote a "person followed by soldiers", who was a "leader of dogs or wolves". In such a context, the fact that the Huns had the title "вівгура" / "Vivhura" meaning "wolfman" and the fact that, in the Ruthenian poem "Маруся Богуславка" ("Maria Boguslavka") conveyed to us by the Ukrainian writer Пантелеймон Куліш (Panteleimon Kulish), the cognate term "вовгура" / "Vovhura" was applied to the Cossacks, receive a completely new angle. We can perceive now way differently the fact that the name of the island of Small Khortytsia relates to a female greyhound. We can view now way differently the fact that the Greeks probably thought the territory of Ukraine and possibly Kuban' was a body of Zeus Lykaios whose name is translated as "wolf-Zeus". When I was a child, every time I saw the map of Ukraine, the silhouette of its borders always reminded me of a dog. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe not. But the fact that we find way too many "dogs and/or wolves" in the history of Ukraine cannot be ignored. This list, by the way, is not complete. To the people deriving the term "гетьман" from the German "Hauptmann" without critically thinking, I would advise to answer the following questions: "Can you name the primary source suggesting this idea for the first time?", "What historical event could make it happen?", and "How was this idea proved linguistically?". I'm almost sure that the vast majority of those people will be able to answer not a single one of these questions.

In the next video, we will find out more evidences that the Khazar language is Ukrainian. Besides - and I hope it will be also included in the next video - we will reveal that the history of the Khazars is much more closely linked to the history of the Scythians than it looks at first sight and dates back to the pre-Scythian if not to an earlier epoch. It was Daniel Haidachuk, also known as Daniel Poirot.

Links:

Dictionaries:

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

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

- Dictionaries on "dict.com"

- Carpatho-Rusyn to Russian dictionary on "slovnyk.rueportal.eu"

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

- Crimean Tatar to Russian on "medeniye.org/lugat"

Google Books:

- Mosis Chorenensis. Historiae Armenicae (1736) - pp. 355-356

- Jan Jiří Ignác Středovský. Sacra Moraviae Historia (1710) - p. 413

- Johann Jacob von Weingarten. Fürsten-Spiegel (1673) - pp. 326-327

- Pomponius Mela. De situ orbis (1509) - search for "Sarmacia"

- Claudius Ptolemaeus. Geographia Universalis (1540) - pp. 23,42,43

- Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. De administrando imperio (1611) - pp. 15,124,130-133

- Jan Potocki. Voyage Dans Quelques Parties De La Basse-Saxe Pour La Recherche Des Antiquités Slaves Ou Vendes (1795) - pp. 47,50,52,61

- Liutprandi Ticinensis ecclesiae Leuitae Rerum gestarum per Europam ipsius praesertim temporibus (1514) - books I,V: search for "Rufios" and "Russos"

- Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae (1754) - pp. 343,345

- Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum, ed. M.J. de Goeje, Vols 1-2 (1870, 1873) - al-Istakhri: pp. 220,224; Ibn Hawqal: p. 249

An Unknown Khazar Document

Wiki Articles (as of Jul 29th 2021):

- Wikipedia:

-- en: Plovdiv, Maritsa, Romanos_II, Rugii, Lemkos, Sorbian_languages, Darłowo, Kyiv, Jacob, Aphrodite_Urania, Zeus, Siren_(mythology), Vikings, Caspian_Sea (Ibn Hawqal's map), Kuyaba

-- uk: Ольга_(княгиня), Червона_рута, Дунай

-- ru: Хазарское_море, Чёрное_море, Азовское_море

- Wiktionary:

-- en: Siembor, Siębor, borzyć, się, rus, dyr, lov, ῥυτή, κλοιός, περιδέραιο, odor, μητρόπολις, azygos, -άριον, tempus, templum, δυνάστης, Δάν, ἀστήρ, ἀφρός, apanage, Оля, Ola, Olek, Олександр, ingero, έλεγχος, rożen, πυρρός, язык, јазик, jazik, vicinus, vicus, با ,قبا ,ک ,گویا ,سیاه ,کور ,رأس, τάμα, ἀρχός, برذعة, yak, سگ

-- hu: забор

-- el: κλοιός

Георгій Конискій / Георгий Конисский. Исторія Русовъ, или Малой Россіи (1846) - quoted page

Publius Cornelius Tacitus. De origine et sitv Germanorvm

Claudius Ptolemaeus. Cosmographia:

- 1401-1457 - pp. 34,35,49 of 140

- 1466-1500 - pp. 45-47,62 of 231

- 1490 - pp. 127,173,175 of 636

- XV, XVI - p. 30 of 190

Jordanes. The origin and deeds of the Goths in English version. (Iordanis De Origine Actibusque Getarum.) Translated by Charles Christopher Mierow (1908)

Herodotus. History. Translated by G.C. Macaulay (1890) - Book 4

Ammianus Marcellinus. Res Gestar A Fine Corneli Taciti (4th century A.D.) - Book XXXI

Літопис руський за Іпатіївським списком (1908) - quoted page

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

- Rus' the Scandinavian

- Cycle "Rus, Czech, and Lech": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

- Roxolani and Russes

- city of Ryazan Bolvanovie as facts of the falsification of history of Russia

Николай Александрович Караулов. Сведения арабских писателей X и XI веков по Р. Хр. о Кавказе, Армении и Адербейджане:

- Ал-Истахрий. Из книги путей царств

- Мас'уди. Из книги: "Луга золота и рудники драгоценных камней"

- Ибн-Хаукаль. Из «Книги путей и царств»

Слово о плъку Игоревѣ, Игоря сына Святъславля, внука Ольгова

Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia - Book VI

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

By Daniel Haidachuk, aka Daniel Poirot