02-28-2013, 07:21 AM
I found this text, from an Asian website (slow!) so I quote it here
Quote:The Sakas were a population of Iranian nomadic tribesmen residing in and migrating over the plains of Eurasia from Eastern Europe to Xinjiang Province, China, from the Old Persian Period to the Middle Persian Period when they were displaced by or integrated with Turkic language speakers during the Turkic migration. In the Achaemenid Empire much of their range was made a satrapy, Saka, named after them. They also resided in other provinces of ancient Iran.
The ancient Greeks called the Sakas the Scythians but recognized that in the language of the Persian Empire they were called more nearly Sakai. To them the name Sakai in addition to meaning all the Scyths meant explicitly also the ones of Central Asia and the Far East. These latter lived in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, parts of Iran, the Altay Mountains, Siberia in Russia, and Xinjiang Province of China in the centuries before 300 AD, the start of the Middle Persian period. Hence the Romans recognized both Sacae and Scythae.
The Scythians were recognized in ancient languages at either end of their range. They were known to the Chinese as the Sai. On the west they were among the first Iranians to enter the Middle East. The Assyrians of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza. Hugo Winckler was the first to associate them with the Scyths and the identification remains without serious question. They were closely associated with the Gimirrai, who were the Cimmerians known to the ancient Greeks. These Scythians were mainly interested in settling in the kingdom of Urartu, which later became Armenia (Eastern Anatolia).
By the time of the Middle Iranian period, the Scyths had either dissimilated into peoples of other names, such as the Sarmatians, Alans and Roxolani, or had been displaced by or assimilated to the Huns. The Scythian language is considered by mainstream historians and linguists as one of the Iranian languages. The Saka speakers were gradually conquered and acculturated by the Turkic expansion to Central Asia beginning in the 4th century.