THRACIANS

First and foremost, it is necessary to establish—once and for all—the correct pronunciation of the name of this historically significant tribe. There have never been any “Thracians” per se. The tribe was called Traki, as is clearly evident from the Greek spelling of the name: Θρᾳκός. The initial letter, theta (Θ), was pronounced in Classical Greek as an aspirated [tʰ], not as [f]. The pronunciation [f] is a much later development, and its use in transliteration is primarily the result of erroneous influence from Russian-speaking scholars and popularizers who imposed modern phonetic values retroactively.

As for the root “traki,” it's the Georgian word თრაკი (traki) meaning “buttocks.” In the Svan language, the derivative word თრაკიაი (trakiai) refers to a person who is overweight or heavily built—literally, a “fat-bottomed” individual.

Let us now turn to primary sources for ethnographic descriptions of the Thracians. Plutarch writes that the Thracians “were of large build.” Xenophanes similarly describes them as “large men of powerful build,” adding that they had a natural tendency toward corpulence. In this light, the seemingly crude epithet “fat-assed” may, in fact, be an accurate descriptor, rooted in both linguistic and anthropological observation.

Further corroboration comes from the name of the tribe Tolistobogii, who migrated from Thrace to Anatolia in the 3rd century BCE. Interpreting their name through a Slavic linguistic lens—толстобокие (tolstobokiye)—yields the meaning “fat-sided.” This interpretation aligns with ancient descriptions of Thracian physique. Additional evidence appears on Ptolemy’s map (2nd century CE), where a tribe named Costoboci (костобокие, meaning “bone-sided” or “thin-sided”) is located in the region corresponding to modern-day Romania. The dichotomy between толстобокие (“fat-sided”) and костобокие (“bone-sided”) is unlikely to be coincidental. Rather, it suggests a naming system rooted in Slavic descriptive language.

Such a pattern provides a strong historical argument not only for the accuracy of these ethnonyms but also for the presence of Slavic lexical elements as early as the 2nd century CE—some 1100 years prior to the first officially recognized Old Church Slavonic texts.