pata, meaning "to kill" (Hist. 4,110). Most scholars associate oior "man" with Avestan vīra- "man, hero", Sanskrit vīra-, Latin vir (gen. virī) "man, hero, husband", PIE . Various explanations account for pata "kill": Persian pat- "(to) kill", patxuste "killed"; Sogdian pt- "(to) kill", ptgawsty "killed"; Ossetian fædyn "cleave", Sanskrit pātayati "fell", PIE "fall". Avestan paiti- "lord", Sanskrit páti, PIE , cf. Lat. potestate (i.e. "man-ruler"); Ossetian maryn "kill", Pashto mrəl, Sanskrit mārayati, PIE "die" (confusion of Greek Μ and Π); Alternatively, one scholar suggests Iranian aiwa- "one" + warah- "breast", the Amazons believed to have removed a breast to aid drawing a bow, according to some ancient folklorists, and as reflected in Greek folk-etymology: a- (privative) + mazos, "without breast". Elsewhere Herodotus explains the name of the mythical one-eyed tribe Arimaspoi as a compound of the Scythian words arima, meaning "one", and spu, meaning "eye" (Hist. 4,27). Some scholars connect arima "one" with Ossetian ærmæst "only", Avestic airime "quiet", Greek erēmos "empty", PIE ?, and spu "eye" with Avestic spas- "foretell", Sanskrit spaś-, PIE "see". However, Iranian usually expresses "one" and "eye" with words like aiwa- and čašman- (Ossetian īw and cæst). Other scholars reject Herodotus' etymology and derive the ethnonym Arimaspoi from Iranian aspa- "horse" instead. Or the first part of the name may reflect something like Iranian raiwant- "rich", cf. Ossetian riwæ "rich". Scythian theonyms Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder's Natural History (AD 77–79) derives the name of the Caucasus from the Scythian kroy-khasis = ice-shining, white with snow (cf. Greek cryos = ice-cold). Aristophanes In the comedy works of Aristophanes, the dialects of various Greek people are accurately imitated. In his Thesmophoriazusae, a Scythian archer (a member of a police force in Athens) speaks broken Greek, consistently omitting the final -s () and -n (), using the lenis in place of the aspirate, and once using ks () in place of s (sigma); these may be used to elucidate the Scythian languages. Alanian The Alanian language as spoken by the Alans from about the 5th to the 11th centuries AD formed a dialect directly descended from the earlier Scytho-Sarmatian languages, and forming in its turn the ancestor of the Ossetian language. Byzantine Greek authors recorded only a few fragments of this language. See also Getae Dacian language Notes Bibliography Harmatta, J.: Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians, Szeged 1970. Humbach, Helmut & Klaus