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Bryges or Brigi was said by Herodotus and others to be the name by which the Phrygians were known before they crossed the Hellespont into Anatolia, possibly associated with the collapse of the late Bronze Age. The Brigi were supposed to have inhabited Mygdonia, which became a part of Macedonia, and may have originally been a Thracianised tribe of Illyrians.

Geography

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Tribal Name and Origin

The Bryges either owned their name as a prehistoric tribe located somewhere else, such as the plains of Asia, or they received it at their Mygdonian location or near it. There is no certain derivation for the name and tribal origin of the Bryges. Speculations are long-standing and tempting, but they cannot all be right.

Because Armenian descends from the language of the Bryges and Armenian is an Indo-European language the name of the Bryges is generally presented as Indo-European. In that case it can come only from a few roots, all of which have at one time or another been proposed. The major hypotheses are presented below.

Highlanders

The "highland view" is that Bryges belong to the "highlander" synonymy of the Macedonia region. A recent work by John Shea presents their name as deriving from Macedonian breg, "hill, mountain".

This view partially explains the similarity of the name to the names of distant tribes, such as the Celtic Brigantes, "highlanders" in that case, but a different highland and a different acquisition. The highland etymology of the Brig-/Breg- class of Celtic names is venerable and focuses on the hilly, or mountainous regions of the Grampian Mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees. It was only a matter of time before a connection to the Bryges was made; for example, the Reverend Robert Owen postulating an ethnic substrate from Asia called the Kymry interprets Bryges as the same as Welsh brig-wyr, "hill-men."

On the other hand, if Brigantes were named after the goddess Brigantia, a form of the Celtic goddess, Brigid, other cultural factors may have been operant; after all, the Phrygians, an Anatolian offshoot of the Bryges, were noted for their worship of Cybele, a to them mountain goddess.

Neither the Kymry nor Brigit's status as a mountain goddess have stood the test of time. The linguist, Julius Pokorny, offered a derivation of many of the names from Indo-European *bhereĝh- "hoch, erhaben", English "high, elevated, noble, illustrious." The Brig-/Breg- forms must come from the zero-grade (drops the root -e-): *bhṛghu-, which is responsible for Armenian berj "altitude" and such names as Thracian Bergoulē, Illyrian Berginium, Macedonian Berga. Pokorny mentions various others such as Gallic Brigantes, Germanic Burgundians, Pergamum and Bornholm but he happens to omit Bryges.

The history sources say that the Bryges substituted Phryges for Bryges on migrating to Anatolia. If this statement implies a linguistic change, and Bryges is "highlanders", then Armenian berj should not have retained the b, but other factors may have been effective.

Keepers of the sacred flame

On the eastern side connections between various identities of the Rig Veda and western tribes have been proposed, one of which is the Bhrigus. They fought in the Battle of the Ten Kings and were the source of the Vedic fire-priests of the same name. Their most likely etymology is the Sanskrit root *bhrij-, "to burn, roast", having especially to do with lightening. According to Lanman the etymology is the same as that of English flame, from Indo-European *bhel- "to shine, flash, burn." Noting that Greek phrugein, "to parch", comes from this root and that Brigid is a goddess of fire, one is tempted into a far-flung speculation of an Indo-European synonymy based on the worship of fire, which would include a large number of tribal names meaning "bright", such possibly as Hellenes. Apart from more limited connections the validating research remains to be performed.

Brigands

An alternative for Brigid is the goddess of war, Old Irish brīg and others from Celtic *brig-, from which English brigand, brigantine and brig. The root is the same as for the highland interpretation, but instead of the landforms being great the people are. "Warriors" would be one translation, as the people are great in war (which is consonant with the reputation of the Macedonians), but there is also a connotation of brigandage. The alternative etymology of the Dorians as the "people of the spear" (doru) would be relevant in this case.

Language

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Prehistory

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History

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Notes

1. Shea, John (1997). Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. page 46. ISBN 0786402288. {{cite book}}: |page= has extra text (help)
2. Owen, Rev. Robert (1891). The Kymry: Their Origin, History and International Relations. Carmarthen: W. Spurrell and Son. pp. page 230. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
3. Pokorny, Julius. "Indogermanisches Etymologisches Woerterbuch". University of Leiden. pp. pages 140-141. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help) Do a search on Page 140. The notes are German-language but with German dictionary the English-only speaker should be able to translate the brief entries.
4. Johnson, Linda (1999). The Living Goddess: Reclaiming the Tradition of the Mother of the Universe. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Yes International Publishers. pp. page 76. ISBN 0936663286. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
5. Ragozin, Zenaide A. (2005). Vedic India as Embodied Principally in the Rig-Veda. Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. pp. page 364. ISBN 1417944633. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
6. ^ Lanman, Charles (1955). A Sanskrit Reader: Text and Vocabulary and Notes. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. page 209 under *bhrāj-. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
7. "bhel-(1)". The American Heritage Dictionary: Appendx I: Indo-European Roots.
8. Partridge, Eric (1983). Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. New York: Greenwich House. pp. Under Brigade. ISBN 0-517-414252.

See also

• Armenia
• Macedonia
• Moschoi
• Mygdonia
• Phrygia
• Thrace

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