Alans???

Originally posted by Zagros Thanks for the clarification bro, I always wondered why Georgians called Alans Ossetian. Also do you know about the Alans who settled in the Zagros? They are known as Alans still but their language has changed to Kurdish. By the way, have you heard of Dr Kaveh Farrokh? He is an Ossetian/Alan scholar specialising on Iranic culture, empires and people. I think I heard that he is a professor at Vancouver Uni.

No, unfortunately I am not familiar with his work. But you surprised me about Alans in Zagros. Do they still have their language? I haven't heard, but I would like to know more. I would appreciate if could give me some links where to find more. Actually the European Alans may be different as I think the name Alans were quite general covering different tribes maybe of different origin. Maybe the European Alans are the real and last Alans. Those Alans of Caucasia are might not be the real "Alans" but "Asi". I also do not know why Georgians do not have the term Alan but they are the most source of information about Alans. It also might be the late Alans differ from the early ones. I know more about Caucasia and I know too little about other places.

Originally posted by Janissary ok, so I gess that there are 2 nations there Karachays and Balkars, And Balkars were more clother to Osetins Am I right? Ok, I guess I agree with u that Alans were Iranian, but I think that they were not Persian Thank u

Yes, you are right. Balkars as I believe were Ossetians of Digor tribe. As I understood there is no anthropological and genetically difference between Digors and Balkars. Even family names have same origins. I would say Balkars were assimilated by maybe some Turks (maybe Bolgars, Nogays, etc.) recently. They still keep Digorian way to count (Digorians count by two ways: by tens and by twenties). Iron Ossetians little differs from Digors and Balkars anthropologically and genetically. South Ossetians are more different. Karachays are completely different by Mt-DNA from Iranians and Caucasians.  However there is still question about origins of Karachays. Those are difficult questions. All Ossetian nations, Balkars and Karachays are anthropologically aborigines of Caucasia (only Iron Ossetians little differ). Alans, I think, were not Persians. Ossetic language is quite distant from Farsi, it is closer to Pushtu and very close to Yagnobi (tribe in Tajikistan). That cause problem to explain origins of Ossetians by any other way unless Alans.

 

Edited by Anbalan

Originally posted by Zagros I first heard about the Alan presence after mentioning the Alans of Caucasus to an Iraqi Kurdish friend and he said there is a Kurdish tribe called Alan who are descended from ancient migrants living there. This is all i could find on the internet, but i will see if I can get more information for you (books, etc).  Do you have pictures of Alans in traditional dress and can you describe any unique festivals and the traditional music?

Thank you for interesting information. It might be true. There is very little information about Alans in any accurate descriptive way. From all information it is very difficult to tell anything about what belongs to Alans and what is adopted from other nations. I think modern Ossetians have very little culture elements from Alans. Dress and architecture and folklore are rather local Caucasian influence. However the mythology goes very long time ago and I would say it is almost only source, which could carry some elements from culture of Alans. There are few tales also about prehistoric migration. About dress I could not be be so descriptive. I couldn't find anything from internet. There are some dress samples in museums, but I cannot describe details. 

Edited by Anbalan

Originally posted by Nagyfejedelem Other Alans settled down in Hungary-they were called J�sz's. Nowadays the Ossetians are the inheritors of the Alans.

Thanks for comments. I have read a story from Al Garnati [http://vostlit.by.ru/Texts/rus4/Garnati/text1.htm]. It is in Russian translation. There is a paragraph there about Hungary. As I can translate:

///Then I arrived into country of Unkuria (Hungary), and there is a nation there, which is called bashkird (Hungarians), which is first from those, who came from country of Turks and entered into country of franks and they (Hungarians) are brave and there is no count of them (so many). And country of them, which is known Unkuria, consists from 78 cities (provinces). Each of those cities has many fortresses, countries, villages, mountains, gardens. And they live there thousands of "Margibinians" (Pachaniks). And they live there thousands of Chorasmians, which also cannot be counted (so many).///

Are those Chorasmians Alans? Before Al-Biruni also described Asi-Alans as ancient Chorasmians. Is there any written Hungarian historical documents or inscriptions telling about language of Jaszs? Once I read another name for Jaszs - Iassons or Jassons. Digor Ossetians call Balkarians "Asson". I have also read some story about some Ossetians who were hired by Russians during war against Turkey, they could understand "some Hungarians", when they were in Hungary (Russian military reports). Professor Abaev has reffered to some words from Jaszs, which coinside with Digor Ossetian dialect. But I haven't found any details. I would appreciate much if you could give me any information about Jaszs.

 

Edited by Anbalan

Originally posted by Janissary Yeah, And Qumilyov wrot the connections between turks and alans That is why i thought that may be they're Turkish hm

It is very confusing. There are some sources pointing Alans or part of them were Turks. But those sources are about late Alans, about 13-15 centuries. Some sources confuce Alans with others. Even now you see some descendents of Alans are Turkish (Balkarians and Karachaians). 

Originally posted by Janissary Yeah, And Qumilyov wrot the connections between turks and alans That is why i thought that may be they're Turkish hm

There are huge sililarities between the cultures of all the steppe people who practiced pastoral nomadisim.  As such many ancient writers assumed they were all the same, so they refered to a new group in terms of one their readers would have some awareness of (be that Scythian, Saurmation, Hun, Turk etc...).
Add to this that there was little ethnic difference as all tribes deliberately got brides from other tribes (good genetics and diplomacy) and men would take their families to serve under a charismatic leader even if he was of another clan, tribe, race etc...
So you are left with language as a differentiator.  This is difficult to determine as all the Turkish, Mongol and Tinguistic languages are  closely related, all of these share loan words with the Iranian and Tibetan languages, and hardly  any of these people  left written records..

So even for a major group like Attila's Huns we  resort to names of people and places to  make the judgement that they spoke a language that was  probably Turkish !

Huns, all of them, were 100% turkish

I can very easily understand Hun words

tenqri--God

Kisi-Human

Turemis-was borned

ulmik-To die

U know Turkish, I think u can understand them, Seko

 

J�szs mainly settled in Hungary after the Mongol invasion in 1241/42. But J�szs only in the end of the 13. century were in Hungarian documents written in Latin.

And the name of theirs 'land' was Ber�nysz�k.

What an interesting topic, well I do not consider Alans Turks, my great great grandfather came from Ossetia and he came to Iran During the Russo-Persian wars, when Cathrine the great took northern Caucas regions and Iranians took it back, etc etc so they fleed the war and the other males fought but hay in the End we are what we want to be. I am Iranian, not Turkish or Russian........