Wednesday, September 1, 2021

For some time I started to doubt that the term Alarodi-oi in Herodotus denotes Urartu.

 For some time I started to doubt that the term Alarodi-oi in Herodotus denotes Urartu. I noticed Zimansky also assume that Alarodi was a distinct group from Urartians. The term is attested only in Herodotus and no any other source knows them. The other strange thing about them is that they are described as having similar clothes and weapons with Saspeires and Colchians. Which almost certainly was not the case for Urartians.


Another possibility is that Alarodi was the the name of Uduretiu with d>l shift. Uduretiu-ni was a locale Etiunian term most probably meaning Water Etiuni. It almost certainly was present in ancient Armenia before the arrival of Scythians. 

 

as far as I know d>l shift is unknown for Armenian. But such shift seems to have occur in Scythian languages.


We know now that it was Scythians and possibly their allies Etiunians who are to blame for the Urartian infrastructure destruction in modern Armenia. After Urartu lost the control of modern Armenia Scythians must have create few polities here. One of them could be centered around lake Sevan and had picked up the locale name Uduretiu which after the Scythian shift could become something like Ulureti or Alaredi.


This theory can work if the d>l shift occured before Herodotus lived. So it would be interesting to hear the opinion of linguists on this subject.


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 A late Scythian sound change from /d/ to /l/ established the Greek word Skolotoi (Σκώλοτοι), from the Scythian *skula which, according to Herodotus, was the self-designation of the Royal Scythians

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

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