User talk:+JMJ+

I reverted your etymology at because it's simply impossible for an ancient name to have come from a language that wasn't attested until around 1,700 years after the name was first recorded. I don't speak Lithuanian, but looking at the source you linked to I note the sentence "Trečioji gentis buvo vadinama beveik lietuviškai: bastarnai – „basi tarnai“ ". My best guess at a translation is "The third people were named in what is almost Lithuanian: bastarnai – 'barefoot servants'" You seem to have conveniently overlooked the word beveik-"almost".

It's theoretically possible that the Βαστάρναι‎‎ spoke a language related to an ancestor of Lithuanian (or at that least the people who came up with that name did), but you'd need a lot more evidence to support that before stating anything along those lines as unqualified fact as you did there.

I've provided the standard welcome template so you can click on the links to learn our rules and practices. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:05, 19 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the welcome! I'll write something along the lines of "Some note the similarity of Βαστάρναι‎‎ with the Lithuanian "basi tarnai", to accommodate room for doubt. I hope that suits you. After all, the similarity is astounding and should be somehow included if not as a direct fact, then as trivia. Best - Itzhak Rosenberg (talk) 09:38, 19 September 2020 (UTC)