Translating Getica (Scythae)

[ualarauans]

To find a proper Gothic equivalent of the name of Scythians is a 
more difficult task than it may seem. Yes, there's an attested word 
Skwþus translating SKUQHS "Scythian" in Col. 3:11, but this clearly 
was a newly borrowed name, unheard of before the Bible translation. 
When we are dealing with parts of Getica that apparently go back to 
the lost Gothic epics (such as the story of the migration into Oium, 
for example) and mention "Scythia" and "Scythians", a native Gothic 
term is to be found. In fact, Jordanes recorded several East 
European ethnonyms in the form presumably close to spoken Gothic 
variant: these are e. g. Antes (Go. *Anteis pl.) and Spali (Go. 
*Spalos or *Spalans pl.). Further there is the list of peoples 
conquered by Ermanaric in Getica 116 where the mysterious 
Golthescytha thiudos are mentioned. The most plausible of many 
different interpretations of this name first suggested by von 
Grienberger (1895) and supported by Stender-Petersen (1927) and 
Korkkanen (1975) views it as a Latino-Gothic hybrid Gotth[a]e or 
Gotth[ic]e Scytha-thiudos, that is "Scythian peoples [subjected] to 
the Goth (= Ermanaric)" or "peoples of Scythia in the Gothic 
language". This is followed with eleven heavily distorted names of 
these peoples. The word Scytha-thiudos pl. (cf. Gut-þiuda) seems to 
comprehend the element Skwþa-, but this is most likely a later 
conjecture made by Cassiodorus or Jordanes.

Currently there are several suggested etymologies of the name of 
Scythians. The one I find most convincing explains Greek SKUQAI as a 
phonetic approximation of OIr. *Skuda- or *Skuða- derived from the 
PIE stem *skeu(d)- "to throw", "to shoot", "to push". Scythians are 
thus "archers" literally (see for details Oswald Szemerenyi's Four 
Old Iranian Ethnic Names:..., 1980:20ff). The Germanic reflex of the 
same stem is PG *skeutan "to shoot", "to cast a missile" >
ON skjóta, OE scéotan, OHG skiozan, Crimean Gothic schieten etc.
The attested nomen agentis in the historical languages – ON skyti, 
OE scytta, OHG skuzzo – points towards
PG *skutjan- M.-an "shooter", "archer" (ibid.), but cf.
ON andskoti "opponent", "adversary" which < *anda-skutan-, lit.
"one who shoots back (or against smb.)", without -j- in the suffix.
Hence we can reconstruct Go. *skiutan st. v. 2 "to shoot"; *skutja 
M.-an "archer" and its variant *skuta M.-an. The last form is the 
closest analogue of the Scythians' ethnonym possible. Semantically 
it's a perfect designation for a people of steppe nomads with 
mounted archers comprising next to 100% of its war power.

By the time of the Gothic migrations the epoch of the Scythians 
dominating the steppes north of the Black Sea was long over. They 
had been effectively replaced by kindred Iranian-speaking tribes of 
Sarmatians, Alans, Iazyges and others. Their ethnonym must have gone 
away with them, although the Graeco-Roman authors continued to use 
it indiscriminately for all nomadic peoples of the Northeast, 
including the Goths. Thus we are far from being sure of an immediate 
genetic succession between Scythian self-name *Skuða-ta pl. and 
hypothetical Go. *Skutans. If the latter was ever used for Iranian 
(and probably Hunnish as well) neighbors of the Goths, it could well 
have occured independently. Still, for translation purposes I'd 
suggest *Skutans and *Skuta-þiuda (*Skuta-land), not Skwþus and its 
derivatives, whenever it comes to render Scythae and Scythia in the 
passages of Getica taken from the Gothic oral tradition.

Ualarauans

P.S. To compare with *Skuta-þiuda is OHG folk 
sceotantero "Schützenvolk" in Hildebrandslied 51.

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