# Thracian in relation to Slavic and Baltic languages



## Zaldozum

Hi all, new to this forum. I posted the following in another section but thought it was more suited here, as I wish to discuss the relationship shared between Thracian and Balto-Slavic languages. Some efforts have been made to reconstruct the language, but the lack of recorded (deciphered) sentences makes it difficult. One could use a combination of nouns, verbs and particles to reconstruct a short sentence like -

three beasts quickly crawl by the white sea - English
tri zveri bruza laza pi balios mar - Thracian
tri dzverovi brzo lazat po beloto more - modern Macedonian

But problems remain due to a lack of knowledge and research concerning grammar, dialect differences and uncertainty over adequate transliteration in foreign sources and languages. Also, if a Thracian heard a word like 'laza' without another ending or a qualifier, they may only understand it in its specific context (it was recorded as a Thracian word meaning 'a forest clearing'), even though in Slavic languages it relates to an 'animal pathway' and ultimately the 'crawling' which creates that pathway. Nevertheless, there are a number of probable conclusions that have been reached, one of them being the strong connection to Balto-Slavic languages. Aside from the huge majority (relative to the amount of known Thracian words) of common cognates and some word endings, they also share a number of specific sound changes (many also found in Indo-Iranian languages). Thracian also has its own particular sound changes and characteristics that developed independent of kindred languages. 

There is also a theory that tries to link Thracian to Albanian, but aside from a few correspondences there is little to suggest that Thracian evolved into what became Albanian or that it was fundamentally connected to it. One issue is the sound change in Albanian that developed from PIE aspirated consonant *ǵʰ* > *d*, which is not common in any other Balkan language, ancient or modern. The word for 'earth' in PIE, which is supposed to be *dʰé*ǵʰ*ōm, became *ž*emė in Baltic, *z*emlja in Slavic, and *s*emela (from an earlier **z*emela) in Thracian, but in Albanian it became *d*hè. The word for 'winter' in PIE, which is supposed to be **ǵʰ*éimn, became *ž*iema in Baltic and *z*ima in Slavic, but in Albanian it became *d*imër. Although this is not a specific rule, it is common in both voiced/aspirated and palatal/plain velars. Other examples for each would be (barley) **gʰ*érsdʰo > *d*rithë, (tooth) **ǵ*ómbʰo > *d*hëmb and (milk) **g*lag > *d*hallë.

Interested in the thoughts of other people that have looked into this topic.


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## LilianaB

I see a lot of similarities between your sample and Slavic languages. As far as Baltic languages are concerned, the only word that is of Baltic origin here, in my opinion, is balios - it is baltus in Lithuanian- white. It would be balta jura, however, the White Sea. I think this is a borrowing. I don't see any other similarities to Baltic languages in this sentence at fist glance. Pi could possibly come from apie - Lithuanian in the vicinity, near. Balta jura is really the Baltic Sea in Lithuanian, although it means literally white sea. Your sample probably refers to the Baltic Sea, I guess?Or just any sea covered with ice and snow?


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## osemnais

Zaldozum said:


> Nevertheless, there are a number of probable conclusions that have been reached, one of them being the strong connection to Balto-Slavic languages.


Indeed, according to J. Donaldson the language of pelasgians is undoubtedly closest to the slavic ones. 


> tri zveri bruza laza pi balios mar - Thracian


It's interesting that there are many Thracian hydronyms of marshes and swamps named Balto or similiar. And then there was a river called Tsierna.


> One could use a combination of nouns, verbs and particles to reconstruct a short sentence like


There are already documented sentences in Thracian, one can start working from there.
Another interesting thing is that the Thracian ending -int closely resembles the protoslavic *-ent, which was used to form dimunatives of some nouns.



> Your sample probably refers to the Baltic Sea, I guess?


I think he refers to Aegean sea.


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## LilianaB

Baltan is swamp in Old Prussian. It is bala in Lihtuanian.


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## Zaldozum

LilianaB said:


> I see a lot of similarities between your sample and Slavic languages. As far as Baltic languages are concerned, the only word that is of Baltic origin here, in my opinion, is balios - it is baltus in Lithuanian- white.


You're right, the sample above is more akin to Slavic, but enough cognates exist to reconstruct several more short sentences that resemble Baltic or both Baltic and Slavic. On its own such a method is of limited value, but collectively Balto-Slavic cognates with Thracian far outweigh those shared with Greek and Albanian. Baltic in particular has many similarities with Thracian in both stems and suffixes. Some Thracian verbs with Baltic cognates are (swell) brink-brinkti, (transverse) skarsas-skersinis, (break, disturb) traus-traus, and (spinning) vairas-vairas. As for the reference to white sea, it was meant for the Aegean.


> Baltan is swamp in Old Prussian. It is bala in Lihtuanian.


A cognate for swamp in Macedonian is blato (< balto prior to metathesis), in Russian boloto, in Polish błota. 


osemnais said:


> Indeed, according to J. Donaldson the language of pelasgians is undoubtedly closest to the slavic ones.


Which words does he cite in support of this? I would be interested to know as Pelsgian is not well attested, especially when compared to Thracian.


> Another interesting thing is that the Thracian ending -int closely resembles the protoslavic *-ent, which was used to form dimunatives of some nouns.


Can you name some examples?


> There are already documented sentences in Thracian, one can start working from there.


The longest inscriptions are on a ring from Ezerovo (5th century B.C) and a stone plate from Kjolmen (6th century B.C). Neither have been successfully deciphered, at least not completely. For the purpose of making a very basic reconstruction, it is easier to use known words found in shorter inscriptions or foreign sources.


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## Kartof

Wow, when I inquired about Thracian in another thread, I had no idea that there would be so many similarities to Slabic languages!  The sentence in the first post seems completely understandable to me as a Bulgarian speaker.  I have heard that only 4 inscriptions in Thracian have been found with 26 words in context while >180 words have been derived as roots from toponyms in Bulgaria and elsewhere in the region with no other explainable origins.


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## Zaldozum

Kartof said:


> The sentence in the first post seems completely understandable to me as a Bulgarian speaker.


The further back one goes towards Proto Slavic and Proto Balto-Slavic (making it more contemporary with Thracian as it was recorded in antiquity and during Roman times), the more similar they appear. By the time of OCS, a number of developments had taken place which set Slavic apart from both Baltic and Thracian.

*Bergas/Bergos* - "coast" in Thracian and Proto Slavic
*Bergǔ* - loss of -as/-os case ending and replacement with ǔ in Slavic
*Bereg *- vowel inserted after the liquid consonant to address closed syllable. There is some debate if this took place prior or after metathesis *
Breg* - metathesis er > re in Slavic

This is just a simple example. There are other complexities that need to be considered for many Thracian words that don't appear as obvious Balto-Slavic cognates. One is the inconsistency of devoiced consonants. The word for gold in Thracian has been recorded as *s*al*t*a, this may relate only to specific regions or dialects, or the word was poorly transliterated when first recorded. Even if this is to be accepted as a Thracian characteristic, it doesn't appear to be uniform, as words such as *s*al*t*a ultimately stem from an earlier **z*al*d*a, hence the Thracian placename _*Zaldapa*_ (golden river) which has a Baltic equivalent in _*Zelta-upe*_. Even today, the devoicing of such consonants is not unknown in the various Balto-Slavic languages, see - PIE. *e*ǵ*h₂om > PBSl. *e*ź*Ham (by Winter's law) *ē*ź*Ham > PSl. *jā*z*un, OCS. a*z*ъ, Slovene. ja*z*, Bulgarian a*z*, but Macedonian ja*s*, Lithuanian a*š*, and Latvian e*s*. The circumstances leading to such a sporadic process (perhaps not entirely sporadic, I haven't researched any specific rules when devoicing may apply) in both Thracian and Balto-Slavic languages may or may not have been similar, it could have something to do with simplification as the replacement of *z* with *s* makes certain words 'flow' better in some dialects.


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## LilianaB

Saltas is cold in Lithuanian, I do not know if these two could somehow be cognates. Zoltyj is yellow in Russian: I think these two are cognates. Gold-yellow. In Lithuanian gold is auksinis and yellow is geltonas. The Yellow River is Zelta Upe but, I think, zelta is a borrowing from the Slavic languages. Another word similar is zaltys- a grass snake which has some yellow spots. I do not know if these could be related somehow, but they might. The coast or bank is krantas in Lithuanian. There are some other words to but not cognates of bereg. I think Thracian is really very similar to Slavic languages in many respects.


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## Zaldozum

A number of words that exist in both groups follow similar sound changes from the PIE root **ǵʰ*el (shine), such as Macedonian *ž*olto (yellow), *z*lato (gold) and *z*eleno (green), also related to *z*elenilo (greenery), *z*elenčuk (vegetables) and *z*elka (cabbage). In Baltic there is *ž*alia or *z*aļš (green), *ž*ilė (gray, *z*ilas in Thracian) and *z*elts (gold), but also the more conservative *g*eltona (yellow). I don't think the word for gold was borrowed from Slavic into Baltic, it must have been present during the time of Proto Balto-Slavic.


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## LilianaB

I don't support the theory of Proto-Balto-Slavic, being a follower of the theory fewer linguists support that there was PIE and then Slavic languages and Baltic languages as separate branches with frequent contact. However, I am not dealing with any details related this theory at this stage of my life since I am mostly working on various translations, book translations and some old manuscripts. Maybe in the future I will try to find more feasible arguments to support the theory I believe in. A few linguists put forward the theory of those branches being separate, one Latvian linguist among them, Janis Endzelins. I am not trying to convince you about this theory. It is not the place and time. I just wanted to mention it. I think zelata is a borowing from Slavic languages, and more precisely from Russian, Old Russian. The river could have been named by some Russian travelers. Zoltaya Reka and only the reka part was translated into upe. The word for gold in Lithuanian comes from Latin: auksinis- Adj.


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## Zaldozum

No problem Liliana, I don't wish to impose my theories on anybody either. From what I have seen, Baltic and Slavic share more than just a few lexical similarities. The_ Balto-Slavic case system is nearly identical to that of Indo-Aryan, with the exception that it has no genitive-ablative dichotomy in any declensional type_ (Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literatures, University of Helsinki). I am not sure if the 'frequent' contact' theory addesses these and other similarities.


			
				Liliana said:
			
		

> I think zelata is a borowing from Slavic languages, and more precisely from Russian, Old Russian. The river could have been named by some Russian travelers. Zoltaya Reka and only the reka part was translated into upe.


The river had a Thracian name, not a Slavic one, and in its actual form (_Zaldapa_) it is closer to a reconstruction in Baltic (_Zelta-upe_) than Slavic (_Zlat[n]a-reka_).


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## LilianaB

Yes, upe is a river, I just think the first part of the name comes from Slavic. There are probably many borrowings in Thracian from Baltic languages, from what I can see. Did the Thracian people ever live close to the Balts? I know they lived in Southeastern Europe probably close to Southern Slavic tribes. Can you start reconstruction from just about 30 words? I even started a thread about it in the etymology forum, but nobody answered so far. This is really a fascinating subject.


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## osemnais

Zaldozum said:


> *Bergas/Bergos* - "coast" in Thracian and Proto Slavic
> *Bergǔ* - loss of -as/-os case ending and replacement with ǔ in Slavic
> *Bereg *- vowel inserted after the liquid consonant to address closed syllable. There is some debate if this took place prior or after metathesis *
> Breg* - metathesis er > re in Slavic



Even more obvious is gord/grad. And then you have Zemela, who was the goddess of Earth(zemya/zemlya).
The name of Odesa, a marine city(actually there used to be two of them with such name) is quite close to the word voda.
Selimbria is another Thracian city which seems to be made of two parts - selim (сельмъ) = of the villagers and bria = place in which people live (probably related to бьрати = to gather)
The name of the ancient city of Serdika shows even more obvious connection, since the reconstructed form of the word средица (diminutive of среда=center, middle) matches completely with it.


> Can you name some examples?


The ones I can think of right now are Corinth and Tyrinth, but afaik there are others, too.


> Which words does he cite in support of this? I would be interested  to know as Pelsgian is not well attested, especially when compared to  Thracian.


According to V. Duruy the Pelasgians and the Thracians were considered to be of the same origin. So their languages must have been related one to another also.


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## Zaldozum

LilianaB said:


> There are probably many borrowings in Thracian from Baltic languages, from what I can see. Did the Thracian people ever live close to the Balts? I know they lived in Southeastern Europe probably close to Southern Slavic tribes.


Historically, Thracians lived in a large territory that included much of the Balkans and the regions north of the Danube river. If it is to be assumed that Thracian and Baltic (& Slavic) languages came from a common proto language, then the original linguistic contiuum would have extended from the Balkans to the Baltic regions. These peripheral regions remained more conservative (hence the reason why certain word forms in Baltic have almost exact correspondences in Thracian), whereas the "central" (Slavic) areas were more innovative (hence the changes in case endings, metathesis, etc).


> Can you start reconstruction from just about 30 words? I even started a thread about it in the etymology forum, but nobody answered so far. This is really a fascinating subject.


It is possible to reconstruct the language to a certain degree. First one would need to categorise Thracian words according to nouns, verbs, adjectives, particles, etc, and then match them with their closest cognates in other languages (most of which will be either Baltic or Slavic, or both). Second, they would need to conjecture grammatical rules, in which case Baltic languages may again be useful (so long as Baltic grammar has remained as conservative as its general vocabulary). The lack of lexical variety means that a complete paragraph in Thracian is unlikely, but that doesn't mean short sentences can't be reconstructed.


osemnais said:


> Even more obvious is gord/grad.


I am not sure if it was recorded as a Thracian word, although I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be, given the existence of placenames like Gordinia which have been found in Macedonia and Phrygia. I think Phrygian was much closer to Thracian and other Paleo-Balkan languages prior to their migration east. There is also the hydronym of Granicus in Asia Minor, which could also be a Thracian or Phrygian word. It looks very close to the Slavic word Granica (border), and would appear to make sense as rivers form natural boundaries.


> And then you have Zemela, who was the goddess of Earth(zemya/zemlya).


This is probably one of the best examples. One of the few other IE languages that has a similar word (from what I have noticed) is Persian zam (earth). However, it lacks the same word ending that is present in Thracian/Phrygian zeme*la* and Slavic zeme*lja*.


> The name of Odesa, a marine city(actually there used to be two of them with such name) is quite close to the word voda.


As it was often recorded in Greek sources, the initial -v/w appears to have been neglected. Something similar may have happened with the Odrysians in Thrace. This was the Greek variant of a local Thracian tribal name that sounded more like _*Udrusi*_, which was based on a semi-aquatic creature known in English as an 'otter', in Thracian as _*udra*_, in Baltic as _*ūdra*_ and in Slavic as _*vidra*_. This Thracian tribe resided in the Odrin region, and their main town was known as Uskudama (literally water-home or -water-settlement, but probably meaning settlement by the water). The second component of the word is likely related to Slavic _dom_ and Greek _thaimos_. The development of the first component is quite interesting and can be somewhat familiar from the perspective of somebody who speaks a Slavic language, it would have been something like *wed > ud > *udsko > *utsko > usko.


> Selimbria is another Thracian city which seems to be made of two parts - selim (сельмъ) = of the villagers and bria = place in which people live (probably related to бьрати = to gather)


The -bria ending is interesting. Duridanov claims that it is related to Tocharian ri and riye, but бьрати does look very similar. What is the PIE root of селo? 


> The name of the ancient city of Serdika shows even more obvious connection, since the reconstructed form of the word средица (diminutive of среда=center, middle) matches completely with it.


I agree. Could the word среде have derived from срьдьцє, given that the heart is located in the centre of the upper body?


> The ones I can think of right now are Corinth and Tyrinth, but afaik there are others, too.


If you're able to post some examples of these Thracian sentences that would be great.


> According to V. Duruy the Pelasgians and the Thracians were considered to be of the same origin. So their languages must have been related one to another also.


In my opinion, most if not all Paleo-Balkan languages belonged to the same sub-group of IE languages. Of course, it is not simple to reconstruct a common proto language due to fragmented evidence, but enough of it exists to draw some conclusions. The current trend by much of mainstream scholarship to ignore the relationship between Balto-Slavic and Paleo-Balkan languages and favour some vague Albanian-Illyrian connection is pitiful, and will hopefully be reversed in the coming years as more research is done on this topic.


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## LilianaB

One of the meanings of uz can be by in Lithuanian. Kuda- means _where to_ in Russian. I don't know if these can be related: Uzkudama. I think they may even find a different classification for Albanian one day. Right now it is considered a distinct language among the Indo-European. I read somewhere that it has many features of some other group or language. I have to look for the source. I think it could have been Basque, but I have to double check. Seima is also a family in Lithuanian, if this may help somehow. Zeme is the Earth.


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## osemnais

> I agree. Could the word среде have derived from срьдьцє, given that the heart is located in the centre of the upper body?


They're not derived one from another; instead, they have developed simultaneously from the same root, but with different ablaut:
from root *sØrd > *srdike > *srdice > срьдьце > сърдце > сърце
from root *serd > *serdā > *srēdā > срѣда > среда


> If you're able to post some examples of these Thracian sentences that would be great.


There are no sentences, just seperate toponyms and names.


> What is the PIE root of селo?


 I dont know, but it must have been something close to *sel since the reflex of short e in Psl is e.


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## nonik

I dont know, but it must have been something close to *sel since the reflex of short e in Psl is e.


derive from PIE ..SED-LO-M........cz = sedlo, sídlo, (seděti-to sit) , germ. siedlung

d>l, sedlo>selo


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## Zaldozum

Thanks Osemnais/Nonik, looks like it is also the root for the English word 'settle'.


osemnais said:


> They're not derived one from another; instead, they have developed simultaneously from the same root, but with different ablaut:
> from root *sØrd > *srdike > *srdice > срьдьце > сърдце > сърце
> from root *serd > *serdā > *srēdā > срѣда > среда


Doesn't that same root ultimately stem from PIE *ḱḗr (heart)?


> There are no sentences, just seperate toponyms and names.


Ok, just that in your first post you said "_There are already documented sentences in Thracian, one can start working from there."_


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## nonik

Zaldozum said:


> Thanks Osemnais/Nonik, looks like it is also the root for the English word 'settle'.
> 
> 
> 
> yes, it is.


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## LilianaB

Is there any chance that Thracian is just another unknown Slavic language? What is the basis for it to be classified as a language somehow related to Albanian?


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## osemnais

> Doesn't that same root ultimately stem from PIE *ḱḗr (heart)?


 I didnt know it was with ḱ, so yes, it should be more something like this:
from root *ḱØrd > *ḱrdike> *srdike > *srdice > срьдьце > сърдце > сърце
from root *ḱerd > *ḱerdā > *serdā > *srēdā > срѣда > среда
Im not sure about tones and lengths in the reconstructed forms


> Ok, just that in your first post you said "_There are already documented sentences in Thracian, one can start working from there."_


I was refering to the ring of Ezerovo.


> Is there any chance that Thracian is just another unknown Slavic language?


It's early to tell(due to so little documented from it), but its somewhat likely, since Thracian toponyms and names can be explained with protoslavic.


> What is the basis for it to be classified as a language somehow related to Albanian?


Few Albanian words that seem to be related to Thracian. However they may be loanwords.


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## Zaldozum

Omesnais said:
			
		

> I was refering to the ring of Ezerovo.


Ok, I misunderstood. So you made reference to Corinth and Tyrinth as Thracian/Pelasgian placenames. Xanthi could also be another one, as all placenames with -nth are apparently non-Greek. Can you name some Proto Slavic nouns with *-ent as a diminutive? I have also read (don't recall where at the moment) that -nth could have represented a hard *d* consonant, similar to how modern Greek uses -nt for the same.


> It's early to tell(due to so little documented from it), but its somewhat likely, since Thracian toponyms and names can be explained with protoslavic.


One thing that has held back progress is the habit of people linking our languages to the first mention of 'Slavs', even though our languages in the region clearly predate the introduction of such a term in written record.


			
				LilianaB said:
			
		

> What is the basis for it to be classified as a language somehow related to Albanian?


There is no real basis. The only reason why this view continues till today among certain scholars is because Albanian is an IE language isolate. These geniuses have concluded that it must therefore be an indigenous language of the Balkans connected to Illyrian or Thracian or both, despite all of the linguistic (and other) evidence that says otherwise.


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## osemnais

> Can you name some Proto Slavic nouns with *-ent as a diminutive?


Every noun that in Old Bulgarian ended in ѧ, i.e. which has nt-theme comes from such a diminutive, e.g. āgnent, avičent, žerbent.



> Xanthi could also be another one, as all placenames with -nth are apparently non-Greek.


 One can be suprised from the number of Greek cities that have no etymology in Greek. For instance, according to Chadwick, the name of Athens can not be explained in Greek.


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## Zaldozum

I tend to agree with the views of Russu and Paliga that Illyrian and Thracian formed a common linguistic branch and were mutually intelligible to a significant degree, much like south Slavic languages today. There are a number of Illyrian words that correspond with Balto-Slavic such as _bra_ (brother) - _brat_ in Macedonian, _teuta_ (people) - _tauta_ in Lithuanian, _rinos_ (fog) - _rinǫti_ in OCS, these also have relatively similar cognates in other languages. But there are also words that aren't all that common in other languages, like *_tergi_ (market) - _tirgus_ in Latvian, and *_osseria_ (lake) - _ozero_ in Russian.


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## LilianaB

Yes, tauta means people in Lithuanian, or nation. Doesn't it come from PIE, though. I think is cognate with folk in some Germanic languages. Ezeras is a lake in Lithuanian, so also a cognate of the Slavic ozero- Russian. Turgus is a market, like targ in Polish. I do not know where these words come from, the ones related to a market place. There are different opinions as to the origin of the word targ in Polish. It most likely comes from the Old Russian torg - a place to trade goods, which may come from the word nord - for some strange reason, the North. People most likely travelled North to sell goods. This is according to one dictionary. The word is most likely a Slavic word, and the Baltic words are most likely borrowings. It is torg in Swedish, in fact, I just remembered.


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## Zaldozum

Here are some Thracian names recorded in Greek script from around the 3rd century A.D.

- Αυλουζενις Διζου (_Avlovzenis Dizov_)
- Αυλουκενθος Ταρσου (_Avlovkentos Tarsov_)
- Αυλουτραλις Σιγου (_Avlovtralis Sigov_)

The patronymic surnames have equivalents in some Slavic languages (Дизов, Търсов & Зигов), but I am not sure of their origin or how common they are. The Slavic -ov is often transliterated as -ou when written in Greek letters (Ѓорѓи Павлов > Γιώργος Παύλου), so it is possible that Thracian pronounced the -u as -v or -w in certain cases. Greek also uses the -ou as a genitive case (nom. Φίλος, gen. Φίλου). 

The initial component of Αυλου- (Авлов-) is repeated for each of the first names listed. Could this be a possessive adjective in Thracian? There are more such examples like Ρεσκουπορις (Ресков-порис), Ρηβουκενθος (Рибов-кентос) and Μεντουτραλις (Ментов-тралис). Compare these to Slavic Братовчед, Петровден, Тодоровден, etc. Although the latter aren't used as personal names, they are nevertheless nouns and apply the -ov to form possessive adjectives.


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## osemnais

> it is possible that Thracian pronounced the -u as -v or -w in certain cases.


 Protoindoeuropean didnt have the v sound, only w, so yes, it's quite likely that Thracian v came from an earlier w.


> The initial component of Αυλου- (Авлов-) is repeated for each of the  first names listed. Could this be a possessive adjective in Thracian?  There are more such examples like Ρεσκουπορις (Ресков-порис),  Ρηβουκενθος (Рибов-кентос) and Μεντουτραλις (Ментов-тралис). Compare  these to Slavic Братовчед, Петровден, Тодоровден, etc. Although the  latter aren't used as personal names, they are nevertheless nouns and  apply the -ov to form possessive adjectives.


This may have been a kind of system for naming people equivalent to today's firstname, surname and familyname, who knows. These three people may have been brothers or relatives.


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## LilianaB

Family names first appeared around the 13th century, if I am not wrong.


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## Zaldozum

osemnais said:


> This may have been a kind of system for naming people equivalent to today's firstname, surname and familyname, who knows.


I think so, as there is a clear a pattern with the -ou. The initial component Αυλου- must have been a possessive adjective based on a personal name or some other word.


> These three people may have been brothers or relatives.


They were found in different locations.


			
				LilianaB said:
			
		

> Family names first appeared around the 13th century, if I am not wrong.


Family names in one form or another have existed well before the 13th century, but that doesn't apply to all cultures. Thracian patronymics, like those in Slavic, may not have necessarily been used as family names in all (or most) cases.

Here are some more examples of the genitive (possessive) case in Thracian, this time instead of the -ou / -ov it is the -in(os) / -in.

- Βέσσοι (_Bessi_: Thracian tribe), Βεσσοπαρα (_Bessopara_: Thracian settlement) > Βεσσοπαρηνος (_Bessopar*in*os_: A person of _Bessopara_)
- Αθυπαρα (_Atupara_: Thracian settlement), Σάβαζιος Αθυπαρηνος (_Sabazios Atupar*in*os_: _Sabazios_ of _Atupara_, an epithet to a Thracian god)
- Σαλδηνος (_Sald*in*os_/_Zald*in*os_: Thracian name) < *Σαλδας (_Saldas/Zaldas_: Thracian name?)

Compare that to Бугарија > Бугарин (_Bugar*in*_: of Bulgaria), Србија > Србин (_Srb*in*_: of Serbia), Русија > Русин (_Rus*in*_: of Russia), etc. There are also personal names like Дојчин (_Dojč*in*_) and Ѓурчин (_Ǵurč*in*_), surnames like Радин (_Rad*in*_) and Рацин (_Rac*in*_), and other terms like Домаќин (_Domaḱ*in*_: [man] of the house, host) and Граѓанин (_Graǵan*in*_: [man] of the city, citizen), all of which appear to be constructed in a similar manner.


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## neonrider

How about English _bald_ vs. Lithuanian _baltas_?


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## neonrider

"...Slavic word Granica (border)..."

Not at all. Slavs/Russians borrowed German "grenze" and it became "granica".


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## neonrider

LilianaB said:


> Yes, tauta means people in Lithuanian, or nation. Doesn't it come from PIE, though. I think is cognate with folk in some Germanic languages. Ezeras is a lake in Lithuanian, so also a cognate of the Slavic ozero- Russian. Turgus is a market, like targ in Polish. I do not know where these words come from, the ones related to a market place. There are different opinions as to the origin of the word targ in Polish. It most likely comes from the Old Russian torg - a place to trade goods, which may come from the word nord - for some strange reason, the North. People most likely travelled North to sell goods. This is according to one dictionary. The word is most likely a Slavic word, and the Baltic words are most likely borrowings. It is torg in Swedish, in fact, I just remembered.



Lithuanian "rinktis" (to gather) vs. Russian "rynok" (marketplace) or Russian "torg" (marketplace or flea market) which the latter one (torg) was borrowed from turko-mongolic languages.


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## fdb

Zaldozum said:


> One could use a combination of nouns, verbs and particles to reconstruct a short sentence like -
> 
> three beasts quickly crawl by the white sea - English
> tri zveri bruza laza pi balios mar - Thracian
> tri dzverovi brzo lazat po beloto more - modern Macedonian



Is this a real Thracian document, or did you invent it?


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## itreius

neonrider said:


> "...Slavic word Granica (border)..."
> 
> Not at all. Slavs/Russians borrowed German "grenze" and it became "granica".



I've never heard of this etymology, where'd you find it? Also, what's the origin of Slavic _grana_ then?

All the sources I've checked claim that German _Grenze_ (as well as Dutch _grens_) come from Slavic.


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## neonrider

itreius said:


> I've never heard of this etymology, where'd you find it? Also, what's the origin of Slavic _grana_ then?
> 
> All the sources I've checked claim that German _Grenze_ (as well as Dutch _grens_) come from Slavic.



I remember reading it or even being taught. Yes, it could be the other way as well. That would not surprise me.


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## neonrider

three beasts quickly crawl by the white sea - English
tri zveri bruza laza pi balios mar - Thracian
tri dzverovi brzo lazat po beloto more - modern Macedonian
trys zverys greitai sliauzia prie baltu mariu - Lithuan

Compare it to Lithuan and Thracian sounds likeit is a "mix" of Slavic, Baltic and Greek.


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## berndf

neonrider said:


> three beasts quickly crawl by the white sea - English
> tri zveri bruza laza pi balios mar - Thracian
> tri dzverovi brzo lazat po beloto more - modern Macedonian
> trys zverys greitai sliauzia prie baltu mariu - Lithuan
> 
> Compare it to Lithuan and Thracian sounds likeit is a "mix" of Slavic, Baltic and Greek.


Before jumping to conclusions before fdb's question is answered. Since so little is known about Thracian the likelihood is that it isn't an authentic text. ;-)


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## neonrider

berndf said:


> Before jumping to conclusions before fdb's question is answered. Since so little is known about Thracian the likelihood is that it isn't an authentic text. ;-)



Why would he do that... oh well.... no problem. I'm not a linguist, just talking.


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## berndf

neonrider said:


> Why would he do that... oh well.... no problem. I'm not a linguist, just talking.


My apologies. He said this in the beginning:


Zaldozum said:


> One could use a combination of nouns, verbs and particles to reconstruct a short sentence


That's ok then.


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## neonrider

LilianaB said:


> Is there any chance that Thracian is just another unknown Slavic language? What is the basis for it to be classified as a language somehow related to Albanian?



When I was comparing old Albanian with Lithuanian I found many cognates. Could Dacian and Thracian be  the missing links between Baltic and Slavic languages?


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## apmoy70

I've done my necromantic rituals in the past myself, but..eight years!


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