Pontic Scythian was a Scythian language formerly spoken in western Asia and eastern Europe between the 6th and 1st centuries BC by the Scythians.
The Pontic Scythian language possessed the following phonemes:
This article uses cursive theta to denote the Scythian voiceless dental fricative (IPA ), and regular theta to denote the Greek aspirated, voiceless dental plosive (IPA ).
The western dialects of the Scythian languages had experienced an evolution of the Proto-Iranic sound into the Proto-Scythian sound , which in the Cimmerian and Pontic dialects of Scythian became the sound . Scythian shares the evolution of Proto-Iranic sound into with all Eastern Iranic languages with the exception of Ossetian, Yaghnobi, and Ishkashimi; and the later evolution of into is also present in several Eastern Iranic languages such as Bactrian, Pashto, Munjani, and Yidgha.
The primary sources for Scythian words remain the Scythian toponyms, tribal names, and numerous personal names in the ancient Greek texts and in the Greek inscriptions found in the Greek colonies on the Northern Black Sea Coast. These names suggest that the Sarmatian language had close similarities to modern Ossetian.
Recorded Scythian personal names include:
Recorded Scythian tribal names include:
Some scholars believe that many toponyms and hydronyms of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe have Scythian links. For example, Vasmer associates the name of the river Don with an assumed/reconstructed unattested Scythian word *dÃÂnu "water, river", and with Avestan dÃÂnu-, Pashto dand and Ossetian don. The river names Don, Donets, Dnieper, Danube, and Dniester, and lake Donuzlav (the deepest one in Crimea) may also belong with the same word-group.
Recorded Scythian place names include:
The Greek historian Herodotus provides another source of Scythian; he reports that the Scythians called the Amazons Oiorpata, and explains the name as a compound of oior, meaning "man", and pata, meaning "to kill" (Hist. 4,110).
Elsewhere Herodotus explains the name of the mythical one-eyed tribe Arimaspoi as a compound of the Scythian words arima, meaning "one", and spu, meaning "eye" (Hist. 4,27).
Pliny the Elder's Natural History (AD 77âÂÂ79) derives the name of the Caucasus from the Scythian kroy-khasis = ice-shining, white with snow (cf. Greek cryos = ice-cold).