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But alaunts were a more recent thing. The alani people didn't call their dogs "alaunts", I'd wager they called them whatever the alani word for "dog" was. The spanish and to a lesser extent the british and french called their big game hunting dogs alaunts around 14-1600 AD. Apparently as a homage to some notorious dogs from the alani people, but only incidentally partly descended from them and by then very different in form and function.
By the way I guess most Spanish people didn´t call their dogs Alaunts either. The dogs "we" know call Alaunt Gentil, due to the French guy who classified certain types, they just called Lebrels, Mastiffs used to guard & defend livestock against wild predators they called Mastins, similar to the English word Mastiff and the name Dogo is used for what the French called Dogue and the Germans called Dogge. The word "Alano" probably doesn´t even come from the word Alaunt and isn´t named after the Alani, at least this is what most linguists say. So i guess we have to be careful with the thought that a word, just because it starts with "Al" is named after the Alani tribes.
Yes alaunt wasn't that widespread or popular of a term, the "alaunts" had many other names in many different regions. I'm not that attached to the word at all but it's what you seem to be using at the moment so I'm working with it. My point is simply that the dogs which were famously called alaunts by the odd person (and alaunt gentils and alaunt veantres and etc) weren't alani dogs, but medieval hunting dogs used at the final stage of a hunt.
Yeah, I agree here. The "Alaunt name" in Shepherds´ Mastiffs, just to clarify that, is used for a certain type of Shepherds´ Mastiff/Volkodav/Flock Guardian, no matter which name you use of the three (they are all the same type of dog). It is a type of LGD you find in some parts of Europe and in Central Asia. (The Caucasus also belongs to Europe, what most people don´t know.) These Volkodavs (Shepherds´ Mastiffs) differ quite a lot in type from LGD types like they for example have in East Asia. They are also closer realted to other European dogs. Way closer than the Tibetan Mastiff is realted to any Europen dog, if the TM is related to them at all!
You will probably see it yourself:
So the "Alaunt name" in Volkodav types, just means that the dog goes back to the original Alaunt type, the dogs the Alani used to guard them & their cattle against wild predators. (Nothing wrong to use this name for these dogs, it even makes more sense than calling every Beisser an Alaunt. So Alaunt for me doesn´t mean "better" or "cooler" or what ever,) Probably the Alani used their "Alaunts" as all purpose dogs too, but their main function was to defend and protect against wild animals.
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