03-29-2010, 09:15 PM
Quote:shoddy (he doesn't even consider, no less mention other etymological possibilities for the names). Some of his statements about the Bretons are true head scratchers.ell, I have by no means read the man's full body of work, but I have read History of the Alans in the West, as well as a few other articles of his on the Alans, and have not been especially impressed by his scholarship (Bachrach is the main source of a number of Malcor & Littleton's wilder claims about the Alans and Sarmatians, by the way). His attempts to find Alanic or Sarmatian settlements in every western European place name that even remotely resembles these two ethnic names is notably
Heh Heh..You ll never forgive him for that will you (Malcor etc)?? I do concur, I must say, on that matter. But, Bachrach was a great step forward on Alan history. I wish I were that good. Are you that good?? Its so easy to be dismissive of other's great labours. His work that ties into "things out East" is pretty good.
And, I l ltell you this. The "Alan name thing" has always bugged me but I have tried for years to find better explanations. I have found none. None at all. And in so many of these places, the Alans did settle and were recorded. I travelled for a long time in these regions on business and boy did I try hard to find alternatives. Its like the village Respenda. What else can it be but that??? I study Sarmatians etc and one name stem that also drives me bats and it is AS or Asp. As in Aspar, Asparuch. AS as a name stem crops up all through Alan, Sarmat and Bulgarian history. Yet, it means nothing in any of these languages. It did once, you can be sure. But we dont know it now.
For me, a much more useful resource on Alanic history is Agusti Alemany's "Source on the Alans" (if any of you haven't seen it, you can read a fair amount of it on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=8bZ4c5oZpNAC ). I prefer reading the primary sources, themselves, minus too much speculation (ala Bachrach).
As far as the Breton personal name Alan is concerned (and the English name Alan is likely derived from Breton), it most likely comes from a Common Celtic *elan- or *alan-, a name for a type of young animal (probably either a young deer or pony). Some European placenames containing the elements *asp-, *sarm- or *alan- may be derived from Alanic/Sarmatian names, but many can also be explained through other languages.
Christopher Gwinn
