Talk:List of Dacian towns

Original sources
It would be great if for each city we'd have the exact source -- from which ancient writing, archeological studies we know name. Bogdan | Talk 13:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC) Also a localization for each of them (if known) should be added. Bogdan | Talk 14:17, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * This is on what I've been working on the last few months. I am also creating articles for each town. I am still at letter A. See Acidava, Argidava, Amutria etc. Any help would be appreciated. --Codrinb (talk) 18:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Because they sometimes overlap, a List of ancient Thracian cities would also be useful. I've been trying to track down the sources for all these names, but it's not easy due to limited information available in libraries and on the net. I know that Procopius' De aedificis ("Of Buildings"; the Latin name of the Greek text, known as Peri Ktismaton) is considered the single greatest resource for Thracian toponyms, even though it's a relatively late work from Byzantine times, and seems to contain a few Slavic toponyms mixed up in it. It is available in English translation on the net (see the Procopius article, then go to the "Of Buildings" link) and Sorin Olteanu has a study of its toponyms on his site (see his index). If I remember right, Procopius is the sole source of many toponyms. Alexander 007 11:05, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Zaldapa, a Satem toponym
Thracologists interpret Daco-Thracian Zaldapa as being from PIE *ghel- (Zald-) and PIE *ap- (-apa). Unless I'm mistaken, there is no such word as "zald" (golden, yellow) in Albanian,


 * No. They borrowed it from Latin "galbinus" -> "gjelbër", with the meaning "green" and "verdhë" (borrowed from Latin "verde") means "yellow" :-) Bogdan | Talk 13:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

though there are such words in Baltic (Lith. geltas etc.) and Slavic (modern Slavic zlato, zoloto, etc.). Does this prove that Daco-Thracian was close to Baltic or Slavic? In itself, not at all: if you took the Latin word galbinus (yellow; also from *ghel) and satemized it, it would be zalbinus; and if you took English gold (also from *ghel) and satemized it, it would be zold. It just shows satemization. AFAIK, There is no such word as apa (water) in Slavic (voda). Alexander 007 11:25, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * There is an Iranian word "ab" (Kurdish "ab", Persian "âb", Urdu "āb"). bogdan 19:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * There is also Sanskrit āpah, "waters". My point was to distance Dacian from Slavic, by pointing out their words for "water" are from a different root, PIE *wed-, *wod-. This one difference is not meant to prove anything either way. I'm wondering if Albanian has words derived from PIE *ghel-, "to shine" and PIE *ap-, "water". Alexander 007 19:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * For water, it has ujë (from *wed ?) and vadis (verb, borrowed?) bogdan 19:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * To shine is "shkëlqej". bogdan 19:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Pokorny under PIE *ghel- for Albanian gives only dhelpër, "fox", semantic development explained as a fox being "der Gelbe", the yellow creature. Variant forms being dhelpra, dhelanë, dhelbun(e). Demiraj apparently doesn't accept this etymology, which means there may be no surviving Albanian words from *ghel-. Alexander 007 23:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Fortresses
We should include fortresses: I added Sarmizegetusa to the list. Alexander 007 12:54, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

These toponyms
I wonder how many of these toponyms have sound etymologies. A problem may be that many of these towns were named after a person, and an ancient Indo-European people's stock of anthroponyms is notorious for having loans and pre-IE names, pre-IE names being almost impossible to crack without more evidence. Itadeba may have been named after a person named Ita, and Ita may be a pre-IE name, for example. Alexander 007 11:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Redirect to List of Ancient Thracian Cities

 * I proposed to Redirect to List of ancient Thracian cities.Megistias (talk) 11:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And any material not already in List of ancient Thracian cities to be included in the Dacian sectionMegistias (talk) 11:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)