Sunday, August 1, 2021

Let's discuss Dahae.

 Let's discuss Dahae. After all Arshakids were from this tribal confederation so it's an important place for Armenian history.

Is the Dahae related to Balkano-Armenian term Dao/Dacian/Diau/Tao/Dauni meaning wolf? If yes then how? 


Dahae has no clear etymology in Iranian languages. In no any Iranian language it means wolf but at last in one language it means man , also low class men.

We could stop here but there are other theories also.


 Some had proposed that Indian Dasa and Dahae are cognates then this mean that the original form was *dasa which with regular Iranian shift s>h became daha.

 The meaning of Dasa is also quite obscure. But in general it means hostile, enemy , low class people. Some suggested that they could be locale BMAC people whom Aryans despised. Once more there is no mention of wolf. Even more this root *dasa moves further away from Balkanian dau because if they had common origin then the disparition of s needs an explanation.


And finally a theory was proposed where Dahae is derived from PIE *dhau meaning strangle from which Phrygian coined the word daos meaning wolf. In this contexts Dahae would mean stranglers. While the link with wolf is explained with neighbouring ( notice neighbouring not themselves ) term Vrkana meaning Wolf land in Iranian languages.

Btw the term Gorg meaning wolf ( from which Georgia is derived ) is a Middle Persian period term so it must have occured late. After a v>g shift occured.


My personal opinion is that the Dahae term meaning wolf is based on shaky grounds .

It could mean men 

It could be locale non Aryan tribe name which was initially called Dasa and became Daha.

And finally from the root strangle *dhau but even in this case the link with wolf is indirect via the Vrkana / Hyrcania.

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