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Roots of Europe Course

Explore the deep roots of Indo-European languages through sound correspondences, loanword methodology, substrates, and semantic fields. Discover the interconnected linguistic evolution of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Germanic languages.

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Roots of Europe Course

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  1. Guus Kroonen Roots of Europe Course 18 November 2014 Copenhagen University

  2. A source that no longer exists “The Sanskrit language […] is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity […] that could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists.”

  3. Regular Sound Correspondences

  4. Is this the whole story? “There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit.”(also William Jones, 1786)

  5. Linguistic Substrates (A>Ab>aB>B)

  6. How Indo-European is Germanic? • 0% non-Indo-European (Schuhmann 2012): “No word that can only be explained as a substrate word. The myth that in Germanic there is a particularly high percentage of substrate words should be given up once and for all.” • 15% without a clear IE etymology, 4-5% non-Indo-European (Kroonen 2013) • 10-50 % non-Indo-European (Roberge 2010) • 33% non-Indo-European (Hawkins 2009) • 60% non-Indo-European (Beekes, p.c.)

  7. Vennemann: Atlantic/Semitidic

  8. Vennemann: Vasconic

  9. Methodological fallacies • Baldi& Page (2006): • Considering known/attested languages only • Absence of systematic sound correspondences • Downplaying of semantic differences • Lexical cherry-picking • Ergo: Vennemann’s corpus probably largely consists of false positive matches: • Old Norse Baldr (a god), Hebr.Baᶜal‘lord’ • G Rabe, E raven < *hraban-, Arab. ġurāb- ‘raven’ • E knife, OFr. canif,Bsq. kanibet • G Eis-vogel, Bsq. *iz‘water’

  10. Lexical Cherry-Picking (Trask 1997) Sixty “matches” after only a couple hours of work! Conclusion: without regular sound correspondences you can probably link any two languages.

  11. Prehistoric Loanword Methodology • No clear Indo-European etymology • Beekes (passim) • Specific semantic domains (e.g. local flora & fauna, geographical terms, etc.) • Polomé (1986), Hawkins (2009), Schrijver (1997) • Discrepant phonotactics vis-à-vis Indo-European • Polomé (1986, 1989, 1990), Hamp (1979), Huld(1990), Salmons (1992, 2004), Boutkan (1998), Lubotsky (2001), Matasović (2012) • Recurring non-Indo-European patterns: • Kuiper (1995), Schrijver (1997, 2007; 2012), Witzel (1999), Kroonen (2012), Beekes (2014)

  12. Prehistoric Loanword Methodology • Comparison of three pre-historicloanword case studies in currenthistoricallinguistics: • Germanic • Celtic • Saami • Greek • Vedic • Three more linguisticallyfalsifiable tools: • Recurring sound alternationswithina language • Recurringnon-inheritedmorphs • Irregular sound correspondenceswithinlanguagesub-group or withinrelatedneighboringlanguages

  13. Lacking etymology = loanword • More than half of the Germanic lexicon is of non-IE provenance (Beekes, p.c.) • Because the IE etymology is lacking • Heggarty (2013, TalkingNeolithic Workshop, MPI-EVA): “Why does a word without anetymology have tobe a substrate word?” • An IE word may have been preserved in one single daughterlanguageand lost elsewhere

  14. Isolating Semantic Fields • Seafaringterminology without clearetymologiesJ.A. Hawkins (2009): • *nurþra-‘to the north’ • *saiwi- ‘sea’ • *baita- ‘boat’ • *segla- ‘sail’ • *skipa- ‘ship’ • etc.

  15. Isolating Semantic Fields • Seafaringterminology without clearetymologiesJ.A. Hawkins (2009): • *nurþra-‘to the north’, cf. Gr. enérteros ‘lower’ • *saiwi- ‘sea’ < PIE *séikw- ‘todrip, flow’ • *baita- ‘boat’ < PGm. *bītan- ‘todig out’ • *segla- ‘sail’, cf. OIr. séol‘sail’ < *segh-lo- • *skipa- ‘ship’ << Lat. scyphus << Gr. σκύφος ‘vessel’ • etc. • Virtuallyallexamples are falsenegatives(cf. Schuhmann 2012)

  16. Non-Inherited Phonotactics • PIE did not have a *b, so all Proto-Germanic words with *p (Grimm’s Law) must befrom a non-Germanic , non-Celtic Indo-Euroepan language (Kuhn’s “Nordwestblock”, 1959; 1962) • *plōga- ‘plow’ • *piþan- ‘pith; root’ • *pissōn- ‘to piss’ • Note the iconicity problem • *pinka- ‘littlefinger’ (= PIE *penkwe ‘5’?)

  17. Partraige in Ireland (Schrijver 2000) • Part-raige means ”Crab People”, cf. part-án ’crab’ (with suffix as in e.g. scat-án ’herring’) • Together with Catt-raige ”Cat People”, Art-raige ”Bear People”, Gab-raige “Goat People” etc.they appear as so-called aithechthuatha, i.e. ’vassal-peoples’ = subjected tribes • The Partraige populated the infertile and mountainous region round Loch Mask which has the hallmarks of a refuge area. • NB: This is almost exactly where the last Irish speaking communities are located in our time

  18. Loch Mask in Co. Mayo and Co. Galway

  19. Words with p and unlenited stops • part-án ’crab’, pell ’horse’, petta ’pet’, pluc ’cheek’, pata ’hare’ • NB: In Latin loanwords, p is substituted by kʷ until the fifth century as Irish did not have this sound: • Lat. Pascha >> OIr. Cásc, purpura >> corcur, Patricius >> Cothriche, planta >> clann ’offspring’ • From the sixth century onwards, p is retained: • Patricius >> Pádraic ’Patrick’, pācem >> póc ’kiss’

  20. Language of the ”Crab People” • A non-Indo-European language spoken in the marginally habitable areas of Ireland • It survived until at least the sixth century • Otherwise **cortán is expected for actual partán • It is was the source of many Irish words containing p or unlenited stops • The number of items belonging to fishing terminology is strikingly high, cf. bradán ‘salmon’, scadán ‘herring’, gliomach ‘lobster’

  21. Non-Saami Layer (Aikio 2012) • 1/3 of the Saami lexicon is non-Uralic • Semanticfields: local flora & fauna, topography, climate • Non-Uralicphonotactics in North Saami: • uffir‘rockyseashore’, skuolfi‘owl’, fierbmi‘fishing net’ (no *f in PFU) • skávdu ‘2-year old seal’, spáhčču ‘bunch of sinew-thread’ skier’ri‘dwarfbeech’ (initial clusters notallowed in PFU)

  22. Non-Saami Layer (Aikio 2012) • Irregularsimplification of clusters in the dialects: • N láhhpuvs. L sláhhpo ‘thicksinew-thread’, N liessu‘lair of a fox’ vs. S plieasoe‘den, lair’, etc. • Irregularalternation of s andš between West and East Saami: • S saasne‘rotten tree’ vs. N šošnn‘dead pine-tree’, S satnje‘fishing net’ vs. Sk. šaannj‘rag’, etc. • Identification of non-Saamimorphs: • *-ērē‘mountain’: N top. Gealbir, Hoalgir, Jeahkir, Nuhppir, Nussir, Ruohtir, Váhčir, etc.

  23. A. Aikio, 2012, An essay on Saami ethnolinguistic prehistory, p. 64.

  24. Conclusions (Aikio 2012) • A non-Uralic language spoken in Lapland when the different Saami languages arrived there around before 500 AD. • Words adopted from this language by the Saami were contemporaneous with the latest Old Norse loanwords (600 AD at latest) • It is possible that preaspiration spread from this language to both Saami and Nordic. • For preaspiration, cf. Icelandic rokk [rᴐʰk] ’rock’.

  25. Preaspiration in Northern Europe

  26. Non-Inherited Layer in Greek • “1000 Pre-Greeketyma” (Beekes 2010) • Semanticfields: local flora & fauna, “landscape terms”, agriculture, architecture, socialstratification, religion, names • A widevariety of non-IE features in the phonotactics, e.g. non-IE geminates, CVCVC-root structure instead of PIE CVC-: • thálatta‘sea’ • Odusseús‘Ulysses’ • bélekkos ‘chickpea’

  27. Irregularities Alternations • Many forms of obscure dialectal alternations: • dáphnē : láphnē ‘laurel’ (d:l, cf. Lat. laurus) • blẽkhnon : blẽkhron ‘fern’ (b, cf. OSw. brækne) • abrutós : ámbruttos ‘sea urchin’ (prenasalization, irregular gemination) • kolúbdaina : kolúmbaina ‘kind of crab’ (bd:mb) • agerrakábos : agrákabos : agerrákomon ‘bunch of grapes’ (b, m:b, single:double r)

  28. Non-Inherited Morphs • The suffix -inth- / -īth- / -īd- (prenasalization): • gálinthos: gálithos: gélinthos : gérinthos ‘chickpea’ • hélmis, gen. hélminthos : hélmingos: acc. hélmitha: pl. líminthes ‘intestinal worm, helminth’ • trémithos: términthos: terébinthos ‘turpentine tree’ • huákinthos ‘hyacinth’ • labúrinthos: Myc. dapurito ‘labyrinth’ • áglis, gen. áglithos‘garlic’ • órobos : erébinthos ‘pea; chickpea’ (suffixation)

  29. Comparing Neighboring Substrates • By tracing irregular correspondences between related languages, you can identify non-Indo-European elements (as in the Saami family) • Schrijver (1997) discovered that quite a few non-Indo-European words have an a-prefix in one language, but zero in another. • G Amsel ’blackbird’ < *a-msl : Lat. merula < *mesl- • ON ørt ’ore’ < *a-rud : Lat. raudus < *raud- • Welsh erfin ’turnip’ < a-rp- : Lat. rāpum < *rāp- • NB: prefixed forms may lose their root vowel

  30. PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN GREEK … GERMANIC CELTIC ITALIC LANGUAGE X (with a-prefixation) SCAND. C.EUR.BALKANS ANATOLIA

  31. Comparing Neighboring Substrates Note that Pre-Gm. *md > PGm. *nd: *hunda- ‘100’ < *ḱmt-ó- vs. G sanft < *sam(f)þ- < *sóm-t-

  32. Comparing Neighboring Substrates The suffix of kábouros was no doubt remodeled after índouros ‘mole’, skíouros ‘squirrel’, kíllouros ‘wagtail’, kóllouros ‘a fish’; sílouros ‘catfish or sturgeon’. Ru. zubr <*dzumbr, dial. izubr < *(u)i-dzumbr, Lith. stum̃bras < *stumbr, Latv. sumbrs < *(t)sumbr (Kroonen 2012)

  33. Comparing Neighboring Substrates a-prefixation: *CVC - *a-CC Georg. sam-qura ‘clover’, lit. “3-ear”: a false-positive? Borrowing as *semh₁r- / *smeh₁r- conceivable?

  34. Vedic Substrate • Roughly 4% of the Vedic lexicon is non-IE (Kuiper 1955) • Semanticfields: local flora & fauna, agriculture, artisanship, names • Non-IE features in the phonotactics, e.g. non-IE syllablestructure orlack of regular retroflexion of s after r, u, k, i: • busa- ‘chaff, fog?’ • bīsa- ‘oven/pit with coals, volcanic cleft’ • musala 'pestle’ • kusīda- ‘lending money’

  35. Recurring Non-IE Morphs • Possible non-IE prefixes: • jar-tila ‘wild sesame’, Atharvaveda tila ‘sesame’ • kumāra ‘boy, young man’,kuliśa ’axe’,kuluṅga‘antelope’,kulāya’nest’ • kimīda’demon’,śimidā’female demon’, kīnāśa’ploughman’ • kākambīra’a tree’, kakardu’wooden stick’, kapardin’with a hair-knot’, karpāsa’cotton’, kavandha’barrel’ • Compared to the article in Khasi (Austroasiatic), masc. u-, fem. ka-, pl. ki-(Pinnow1959: 14; Kuiper 1995; Witzel 1999)

  36. A Universal LW Detection Method

  37. Discussion • Roland Schuhmann (University of Jena): “No word that can only be explained as a substrate word.” • Martin Haspelmath (MPI-EVA): “According to Indo-Europeanists, when a word can be either an inherited word or a loanword, an Indo-European origin must always be preferred.”

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