Towards the Designation of Amazons

[Etymological study]

Abstract

I think that a  trace of the Georgian language is seen in the “amazon” stem which supported  by several arguments worth mentioning; in particular, Appian’s evidence on “warrior women being called Amazons by local  barbarians”, which indicates the non-Greek origin of this name. Simultaneously, in the nominal  stem we have to distinguish the Chan –on affix which diachronically  had the functions of expressing possessing  and multiplicity of similar subjects. According to Herodotus,  the Scythian designation “Oiorpata” of the Amazons appears to be a word of complex composition and it is translated into Greek as “people killers”, of these “oior” meant a “man”  (//brave) and “pata”  “killing, to kill” [Herodotus]. In my opinion,  the first segment of the Scythian  complex stem must be calque  which may have appeared in the Scythian language through the  influence of the Georgian languages.

                  Hence, I think that by its origin is the lexeme “amazon-[i] Kartvelian and in it  the prepositional “m” consonant, could have got lost because of lack of  knowledge of the semantic meaning of the word in the Greek-speaking  world; i.e. the Georgian *mamats-on-[i] in the Greek language would give us the versions amats-on-amaz-on//amadz-on; It follows that the word means nothing anything else but a group of  brave men (here of brave women), their army.