Hopeless Case Languages
1. Getic (Thracian, Dacian, Daco-Thracian...)
What can we get from Duridanov - http://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_1.html ?
We've got some words recorded in Greek or Latin, but a lot are names for plants, which obviously aren't much use. Midne means a village. There's a village called Poltymbria from which Duridanov derives *poltyn- meaning a wooden fortification. Skalme means a sword. The Thracian nobles are called the Zibythides. There's the tribal name Satrai which is possibly related to Sanskrit and Persian ksat(h)ra and means power or authority, a form of government? There's also the personal name Taruthin/Tarusinas/Tarutinos which apparently meaning "holding a spear" - pluralise that and it's a ready made unit name. But how? All the names are given Greek or Roman dress; there doesn't seem to be any grammar discernable. Thracian inscriptions are very thin on the ground indeed and there are none in Dacian. The longest is from Kjolmen, written in the Greek alphabet. It says:
ILASNLETEDNLEDNENIDAKATROSO
EBA.ROZESASNÊNETESAIGEKOA
NBLABAÊGN
To which I'm forced to say WTF?!
P.Dimitrov (http://www.nbu.bg/PUBLIC/IMAGES/File...13_01_2009.pdf) suggests NBLABÊGN is copied from a Greek formula and means "do not damage/destroy (this inscription)" ASN(E) means "whoever", -e endings are probably genitives and IGEKOA could be a perfect tense before basically giving up after getting il asn' leted n'led ne ni dakatroso Evaroze sas nê n'etesa igekoa - and you can't blame him.
Back to Duridanov, who translates the name Dentusucu/Dentusykos/Dentysykos as "daughter of the clan" which suggests that you might have a nominative ending in -u. But if that's right, why are the Greek forms masculine? Does Thracian have no grammatical gender, like Armenian?
We've only got conjectural words:
bredas - pasture
bur - man
diza - fortress
mezena - horseman
rezas - king
rumba-anga? "curved blade" > rhompaia, falx
skaplis - axe
taru - spear
taruthin - spearman
We can only guess at how plurals were formed, but if we guess at the usual Indo-European sorts of endings we'd have the following unit names, assuming -n- is somehow agentive:
mezenas - generic horsemen
taruthinai - generic spearmen
sklapenai - axemen
rumbanganai - falxmen
zibuthizas - noble cavalry
bres skalmana - shortswordsmen (I'm pushing it now...)
kikanas - skirmishers (tribal name Cicones is said to mean "the quick people")
Building-wise, with no words for temple, it might be necessary to borrow Phrygian kavar "sacred site" and iman "idol" with more made up inflections for deity names. I was quite confident about a reconstructed Getic naming language when I started writing this. Now... meh.
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