The Pontic Steppe vs. the Bactrian Homeland of the Indo-Europeans
Dienekes, the confused blogger from my previous post, continues to be confused and confusing. In the comments section of Razib’s Discover Blog, he concedes:
“As of late, I am rather more willing to give even Johanna Nichols’ 1997 model of a Bactria-Sogdiana homeland … serious thought.”
“As of late” means within the past couple of days because as recently as July 3 he believed that “Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the Transcaucasus.”
Ironically, I was the one who apparently introduced Dienekes to Johanna Nichols’s Bactrian theory of Indo-European homeland. It was in April of 2011. I’m honored to personally know Nichols and I do admire her academic contributions. And I did use her research to back up the Out-of-America hypothesis. Dienekes immediately attacked me for my out-of-America theory of modern human origins and Johanna Nichols for her theory: “Having read the theory, I see absolutely no value to it.” Apparently, in Dienekes’s world of primitive mentality in which ideas are judged by their deictic association with other ideas, if a scholar thinks that modern humans may have expanded from the New World into the Old World, rather than vice versa, his appreciation of another scholar’s theory of Indo-European homeland makes this latter theory just as unlikely. Dienekes 2011 continued his typical scienzoid rant:
“Nichols’ hypothesis is not parsimonious because it proposes a mysterious drang nach Westen for Proto-Indo-Europeans. Parsimony dictates that Indo-European dispersals would not have a directional preference, and, barring natural obstacles, would radiate in all directions from the homeland. Plus, there is no archaeological evidence for it. On the contrary, pastoralism spread West->East across Eurasia, and agriculture spread from West Asia. There is absolutely no reasonable agent that could have affected a replacement of languages all the way to the Atlantic from an origin in Bactria.”
It looks like Dienekes 2012 is now willing to drop his “parsimonious” West Asian theory for the Bactrian theory. It’s always good to see amateurs evolve. But enough of Dienekes.
Just like out-of-America reverses the conventional logic of modern human origins but retains all of its geographic anchors, Nichols’s out-of-Bactria reverses the conventional logic of Indo-European dispersals but is just as consistent with Indo-European dialect geography. Just like out-of-America challenges the assumption that greater intragroup genetic diversity means greater age of the population on such grounds as, for example, the fact the recent colonization of the Americas post 1492 has resulted in the stupendous accumulation of world-size genetic diversity in the most recently colonized continent, Nichols showed that the diversity-equals-age assumption in linguistics is demonstrably false in the areas occupied by Indo-European and Turkic languages. (This fact also may eventually put a question mark next to the out-of-Taiwan theory of Austronesian dispersals.) She, therefore, turned her attention to the opposite pole of Indo-European dispersal zone, the easternmost one marked by Tocharian A and B attested in western China and Indo-Aryan attested in India, and suggested a Bactrian homeland for the Indo-Europeans. The apparent dialect uniformity found in the eastern extremes of Indo-European geography is explained as the product of the later sweeping expansion of Iranians across Central Asia, the Caucasus and northern Iran, which resulted in the obliteration of ancient Indo-European dialect diversity in Central Asia. (In the out-of-America model, this logic of diversity extinction manifests itself in the diversity-reducing effect of “Mongoloids,” who evolved in northern North America, in the Beringian refugium or in Northeast Asia at the end of the Ice Age, on the American Indian populations further down south.)
In Nichols’s model, Proto-Indo-European first expanded westward toward the Caspian Sea as a continuous wave and then split into two branches – one took the northern route via the steppe and spawned Slavic, Italic, Celtic and Germanic branches, the other one the southern route into Anatolia resulting in the chain of such dialects as Anatolian, Phrygian, Greek, Armenian, Thracian, Illyrian and Dacian. Both waves converged in the Balkans, which resulted in the high diversity of Indo-European languages there. Indo-Aryans went down to colonize the Indian subcontinent, while Tocharians stayed behind in close proximity to the ancestral homeland. At a later point, the expansion of Iranians sequestered the northern dialects from the southern dialects and the easternmost dialects from the more western ones. In addition to the reversal of the diversity-equals-age argument, Nichols based her theory on the observation that Mesopotamian loans were not borrowed by Indo-Europeans directly but only via a third party (contra a West Asian source of the Indo-Europeans), that there are very few loans between Indo-European and North Caucasian languages (contra the Pontic Steppe theory of Indo-European homeland).
The latter observation is important in light of Matasovic’s recent paper supporting the Pontic Steppe theory on the grounds of multiple typological similarities (consonant-to-vowel ratio, tonal accent, number suppletion in personal pronouns, two-stem inflection, the presence of gender and the morphological optative and, possibly, the presence of glottalized consonants and ergativity) between Indo-European and Northeast (and less so Northwest and even less so South) Caucasian languages. Matasovic also admits that lexical loans between Indo-European and North Caucasian are surprisingly few. I counter it by highlighting three possible loans in the tight domain of affinal vocabulary suggesting marital exchange between Proto-Indo-Europeans and North Caucasians. But this may not be enough to justify the Pontic Steppe theory on linguistic grounds. Ultimately, as Matasovic admits, some of his shared typological markers depend on the kind of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) reconstruction a scholar adheres to. For instance, the presence of glottalized consonants in PIE is postulated by the Glottalic Theory but not by others. Other putative typological parallels may be accidental. For instance, how similar really is two-stem inflection in PIE (e.g., PIE *yekwr (NOM and ACC SG) vs. *yekwns (GEN SG) ‘liver’) and North Caucasian (e.g., Dargi nes ‘mother’, oblique nes-li (dative nes-li-s), plural nes-ani, oblique plural nes-an-a– (dative nes-an-a-s)? In a stark contrast to Matasovic, Nichols, who is a foremost specialist in Chechen, believes that “Northwest Caucasian is radically unlike any other Eurasian stock in most respects” (“Modeling Ancient Population Structures and Movement in Linguistics,” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 [1997], 377).
Phylogenetically speaking, in my opinion, the very fact that Tocharian competes with Anatolian for being the most divergent Indo-European language, while being attested from a much later historical period, should have generated an “eastern” theory of Indo-European homeland even prior to Nichols’s sophisticated analysis. When you have two extinct and divergent languages found in the opposite extremes of a language family’s geographic range, it means it’s just as likely that Indo-Europeans came from West China as from Anatolia or the Pontic Steppe. This means some dialects went extinct or got absorbed by a superstratum and their record may never be found. The Pontic Steppe theory was originally built on archaeological grounds and the Kurgan cultures are millenia older than the attestation of Hittite. Hence, it’s likely that the Indo-European language spoken by the inhabitants of Yamnaya and other sites would have been even more divergent than Hittite or Tocharian if we had any record of it.
A decisive test to the Pontic Steppe vs. Bactrian theories of Indo-European homeland will come from Ilija Cašule’s hypothesis of phyletic kinship between Indo-European and Burushaski. Cašule’s belief in the special relationship between Burushaski and Phrygian aside, the proposed kinship between Indo-European and Burushaski may prove Nichols absolutely right. Burushaski’s location between Tocharian in the northeast and Indo-Aryan in the south, its ostensible archaisms (laryngeals are attested, the Indo-European kinterm suffix –ter is still productive) and the layers of loans confounding the “essentially Indo-European” lexicon may serve as a remarkable confirmation of Nichols’s thesis that the original Indo-European dialect diversity in the east was obliterated by later population expansions. Ilija Cašule has kindly shared with me a draft of his upcoming paper on Indo-European and Burushaski kinship terms but asked not to discuss it on the web prior to is publication. His proposal is indeed intriguing on many levels but it’s far from proven.
Genetically, Burusho score high frequencies of Y-DNA R1b (27.8%) followed by a host of minor lineages (Firasat, S. et al. (2007) “Y-chromosomal evidence for a limited Greek contribution to the Pathan population of Pakistan,” European Journal of Human Genetics 15 (1): 121-126.). Tarim mummies, the possible proxies for Tocharians, showed up as Y-DNA R1a1a. Both R1b and R1a are found among many Indo-European-speaking populations of Europe, with the marked concentration of R1b in Western Europe vs. R1a in Eastern and Central Europe. Y-DNA hg J, with clear links to West Asia/Near East, is a standout genetic marker in southern European populations. Could it be that Proto-Indo-Europeans who resided in Bactria or the Pontic steppe were R1a/R1b-dominant, while hg J got picked up along the way from a non-Indo-European-speaking Caucasian or Central Asian source?
Ironically, I was the one who apparently introduced Dienekes to Johanna Nichols’s Bactrian theory of Indo-European homeland
You did not introduce me to the theory.
And, while I am willing to now _consider_ the theory, does not think that I consider it as the most likely one, for all the reasons stated in my original post.
Science proceeds by adapting to the evidence. The evidence, such as it is in July 2012, as opposed to April 2011, has shown a lack of the West_Asian component in several ancient European DNA samples down to 5ka. This indicates, on one hand, that this component may have been added to parts of Europe post-5ka, and on the other, it has implications about the state of affairs in West Asia itself, the source of the early Neolithic migrations.
It now appears more likely that West Asia itself may have changed in the last few thousand years, because if the West_Asian component was distributed there as it is today, then it is strange that it did not accompany early Neolithic farmers into Europe, like the “Southern” component did. The same can be said for a variety of Y-haplogroups that are very frequent in West Asia today (such as J) that are lacking in early Neolithic samples.
So, the data-driven recognition of possible changes in West Asia has made even a homeland hypothesis east of the Caspian along the southern dispersal route _possible_ and _worthy of consideration_, although still not particularly parsimonious for all the reasons given in my original comments.
“Science proceeds by adapting to the evidence.”
Science – yes, you don’t. Nichols’s theory is from 1997 and it was built on evidence, a different kind of evidence from the one you began to work on in the late 2000s, but evidence nonetheless. Her evidence was of the linguistic kind, which is the first kind of evidence one needs to study if one if interested in the origin of the “Indo-Europeans.” You don’t first trash and then revive a serious scientific theory because your thinking about some not-yet-fully objective “genetic components” is in flux. You absorb the theory, study all the details, then try to apply it to novel data.
And don’t pretend you had knwn Nichols’s theory before I introduced it to you – you’ve been blogging since 2004(?) and you’ve never referenced it. You ignored it. These are two different things.
“And, while I am willing to now _consider_ the theory, does not think that I consider it as the most likely one.”
The Kurgan theory remains the best one, I agree, followed by the Bactrian one. It has nothing to do with likelihood, though. Just with the objective preservation of the data that’s needed to prove or disprove it.
You don’t first trash and then revive a serious scientific theory because your thinking about some not-yet-fully objective “genetic components” is in flux.
It is not a matter of my “thinking” about genetic components, but rather of the fact that there was zero ancient autosomal DNA evidence in April 2011, as opposed to half a dozen samples today.
And don’t pretend you had knwn Nichols’s theory before I introduced it to you – you’ve been blogging since 2004(?) and you’ve never referenced it. You ignored it. These are two different things.
I ignored it because I didn’t consider it had merit, and while I still reject it, the latest evidence for massive genetic changes over time has made me more open to giving her ideas “serious thought”.
But, if you want to think that you brought it to my attention, go ahead and flatter yourself.
“It is not a matter of my “thinking” about genetic components, but rather of the fact that there was zero ancient autosomal DNA evidence in April 2011, as opposed to half a dozen samples today.”
What does Nichols’s Bactrian theory have to do with ancient DNA? It has its own legs to stand on (Tocharian, loans, diversity-equals-age argument falsification, language extinction). At least with our present menu of knowns and unknowns about the prehistory of Eurasia.
“But, if you want to think that you brought it to my attention, go ahead and flatter yourself.”
That I introduced Nichols’s Bactrian theory to you is a simple fact. It’s irrelevant if you, as a private individual, had harbored some awareness of it in the back of your head. You can’t prove this and even if you knew about it it had no effect on your actions or public statements. Publicly and as a researcher you ignored it without a good reason. Instead you trumpeted the Anatolian homeland theory recently supported by pseudo linguistic or naive statistic studies. You can get full credit for that. I was first one to bring it up on your blog in a public forum as something that has science value to it. Only then you picked it up in a different public forum as having a value. And I’m not flattered by it. It’s just a cause-effect relationship. Anthropologists study/observe human beings just like human beings study/observe the physical universe.
There’s not much more to be said; if you want to believe you “introduced me” to Johanna Nichols’ Bactria-Sogdiana hypothesis, go ahead and believe what you want. Since you don’t know the contents of my mind or the volumes in my bookshelf, this is a completely arbitrary assumption, which you may continue to harbor if it pleases your ego.
I will simply note that Nichols’ hypothesis has been in the Wikipedia IE Urheimat page long before you supposedly “introduced me” to it, and so it was in the book on Indo-European origins by John V. Day that I reviewed even before I had a blog.
Onto more substantial business: let me introduce you to the part of my quote that you saw fit to put in … :
>> As of late, I am rather more willing to give even Johanna Nichols’ 1997 model of a Bactria-Sogdiana homeland -which she considered closest to the Ga&Iv model- serious thought” <<
and, in the words of Johanna Nichols herself (The epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread):
"Of the proposals in the literature, the PIE homeland of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1984, 1994) is most like the locus described here. Their homeland is south of the Caucasus, near ancient Mesopotamia, and near Proto-Kartvelian. My locus is not south of the Caucasus, but it is along the southern trajectory; it is not near to Mesopotamia, but in its sphere of influence and near a trajectory mainstream; it is not far from Proto-Kartvelian, but not adjacent to it.”
Go on believing in your steppe kurgan Indo-Europeans, but apparently Nichols herself considered the Transcaucasian model of Ga&Iv more alike her own than any other model.
“it was in the book on Indo-European origins by John V. Day that I reviewed even before I had a blog.”
And no mention of Nichols there… Must be the reverse of a Freudian slip. Enough of that – the bottomline is that you need to have the right training before embarking on your own research, then you wouldn’t miss a theory that will help you think efficiently once you get your own data. A professional pointed an amateur in the right direction – it’s a natural course of events and you don’t need to be defensive about it.
When you begin parading out-of-America on Razib’s blog, don’t claim that my book had been on your shelf even before I wrote it. (smiley face)
“in the words of Johanna Nichols herself.”
She translated I/G into English. We all were at some point fascinated by them. Ivanov is a rare genius and a son of one. They challenged the traditional PIE phonological reconstructions. They broke a new ground. They are Hall of Famers. They inspired her thinking and she wants to be like them. But she suggested an alternative to G/I because of all the facts and thoughts collected since 1984. This is the moment of progress in science and you ignored it. Why persistently ignore an alternative suggested by an admirer of the original?
“Go on believing in your steppe kurgan Indo-Europeans”
I don’t “believe” in anything. Unlike Nichols’s theory, the Kurgan theory is based on an interdisciplinary consensus. And it keeps being consistent with new data, including your “West_Asian component,” which means it’s still a good BS filter. I can’t dismiss it. But I would love to see Nichols right (because her theory is so subtle), as you may have noticed from the tone of my writing about Casule’s Indo-European-Burushaski.
Unlike Nichols’s theory, the Kurgan theory is based on an interdisciplinary consensus.
It seems you pick and choose “consensus”. I wonder what kind of “interdisciplinary consensus” exists about your own Out-of-America, oh, no, I forgot, in that case genetics and anthropology be damned, it’s all about “kinship”.
As for the status of the Kurgan theory, your enthusiasm for it notwithstanding, here is what its chief contemporary proponent J.P. Mallory had to say about it:
“The challenges and problems outlined are quite formidable and some may
find it difficult to imagine that the steppe hypothesis is the best solution to the
Indo-European homeland problem. On the other hand, it does include serious
proposals that, if verified, can explain the distribution of all the Indo-European
languages. And when compared with the competing theories, it is still probably
to be reckoned the ‘least bad’ of the various theories and is still well worth investigating further.”
Doesn’t sound like a confident endorsement to me. Well, Mallory is a true IE professional, and he’s appropriate humble about his own theory, unlike the second-handers such as yourself who consider it a slam dunk.
[Индоевропейская история в свете новых исследований (Сборник трудов конференциипамяти профессора В.А. Сафронова)]
Incidentally, В.А. Сафронов was also one of those people who proposed an Anatolian homeland.
“It seems you pick and choose “consensus”. I wonder what kind of “interdisciplinary consensus” exists about your own Out-of-America, oh, no, I forgot, in that case genetics and anthropology be damned, it’s all about “kinship”.”
It’s a fair push. In a nutshell, any theory needs to be validated from top to bottom by anthropology, linguistics, genetics, archaeology, etc. But this doesn’t mean that any interdisciplinary consensus is automatically right because what often happens is that a lead discipline forces its conclusion on a “weaker” discipline. What we get in this case is a totalitarian consensus, not a “true” consensus.
Kinship studies was the core of anthropology for the first 100 or so years. Critical thinking has been the core of anthropology for the last 40 years. Kinship studies is consistent with linguistics (150 stocks in America vs. 20 in Africa), folklore motif distribution (e.g., earth diver motif is more archaic in North America than in Siberia, motif diversity is the highest in the Americas), ethnomusicology (“canonic-echoic” in South America could be ancestral to the Pygmy-Bushmen vocal style), shamanism (undifferentiated in South America, specialized in the Old World). So potentially there’s an interdisciplinary consensus here as well. Importantly, all this “cultural” evidence is organically interconnected, unlike the mechanical paleobiology-archaeology-genetics consensus in the study of the origin of American Indians that you are referring to. (E.g., no archaeological culture(s) have been identified that account for the putative spread of Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups to the Americas, there’s no ancient DNA from any AMH fossils in Africa, etc.). Most importantly, all the data favoring out-of-America pertains to human symbolic culture, which is a defining feature of our species. Genetics got originally messed up by its holding up a mirror to archaeology as supposedly the discipline that provided an answer to the peopling of the Americas. But, as we now know, Clovis is from Texas and not from Chukotka. The totalitarian consensus achieved in the subject of the peopling of the America is no more grounded in reality. The Kurgan theory has never been disproved archaeologically or linguistically.
As I mention on this blog, I tend to be comfortable with mainstream scientific theories that purport to account for events that took place in the last 5,000 years (e.g., the Bantu expansion) because that’s where archaeology and historical linguistics are the strongest. Anything earlier than that should be open to a wide variety of contrasting theories. To base a theory of modern human origins or of the peopling of the New World on archaeology and paleontology (as it has been done since the very beginning) is insane, as this kind of data gets more and more fragmentary and generic as millenia go by. It needs to be taken into account but it can’t play the first fiddle to more systematic fields such as genetics, linguistics, kinship studies, etc.
“Doesn’t sound like a confident endorsement to me. Well, Mallory is a true IE professional, and he’s appropriate humble about his own theory, unlike the second-handers such as yourself who consider it a slam dunk.”
I know Jim, he’s a very pragmatic person. He goes with what works, not with what glistens. I don’t consider KT a slam dunk. So far it has worked but I don’t have strong emotions for it. One problem with Anatolia and Transcaucasus as IE homeland is that, once you start pooling the data to support it, it turns out that the Kurgan theory is capable of accounting for it, too. Remember, I was the one who introduced you to the Nichols’s alternative. Because I think it’s very promising. And it’s clearly differentiated from the Kurgan theory, just like out-of-America is clearly differentiated from out-of-Africa (unlike your own hypotheses). We just need to demonstrate the validity of the Bactrian theory by using non-linguistic methods. You should get off your Anatolian horse and give the Bactrian homeland a fair assessment using the autosomes.
IMHO, the flaw inherent to *all* the theories about PIE homeland is they wrongly assume the IE family is the result of a single linguistic event, whatever it was.
But actual data points to *multiple* language replacement processes happening over an exceeding long period of time, since the Mesolithic to the Iron Age. In fact, the Spanish IE-ist Francisco Villar, in Villar et al. (2011): Lenguas, genes y culturas en la prehistoria de Europa y Asia suroccidental, detects several dialects of a paleo-IE phylum by studying the ancient toponymy and hydronymy of Europe and SW Asia.
I think the “PIE” IE-ists is rather a cross-section of the last (post-Neolithic) stages of the IE family, to which the language spoken by the nomadic shepherds of the Pontic Steppes (which I call Kurganic) highly contributed. However, they’re wrong in identifying Kurganic with PIE.
AFAIK, Kurganic was in contact with NEC languages (if actually not part of the same Vasco-Caucasian phylum), so they’ve got a significant number of lexical isoglosses studied by Sergei Starostin in old Russian article (http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/iecauc.pdf), apparently missed by Matasović. Interestingly, innovations such as ‘horse’ and ‘wheel’, attributed by IE-ists to “PIE speakers” are actually Kurganic words of Vasco-Caucasian origin.
This is interesting, thanks for the references. I didn’t know about that paper by Starostin and after having looked at the data, I’m surprised that Matasovic overlooked this data. It’s at least good enough for a hypothesis of an IE-NC Sprachbund, if not for a hypothesis of common origin between the two.
I have no problems with multiple IE waves, with the Kurganic one being the latest. But I assume we have only substratum evidence for the earlier ones, right? Because all the attested IE languages can be derived from the unattested Kurganic PIE?
Not exactly. Kurganic would be only the direct ancestor of the Indo-Greek group. Other IE languages would have a Kurganic superstrate resulting from élite dominance processes.
But the “PIE” reconstructed by IE-ists is actually a “potpourri” of elements from various origins (not only Kurganic) found in the IE family.
How do you define the Indo-Greek group in terms of shared lexical, phonological, etc. innovations?
Why wouldn’t the centum-satem division work as the linguistic expression of the Paleo-IE vs. Kurganic IE contrast? Kentum languages have a broader distribution stretching from Tocharian to Anatolian to Celtic, suggesting greater antiquity, while satem languages look like a later overlay on kentum?
It’s not a quiz, just bouncing some ideas…
Indo-Greek has a very rich morphology, especially in verbs. I also consider words whose initial consonant is a voiced palatal fricative (usually reprresented by as /y/) as Kurganic (not exclusively, but mainly Indo-Greek). The so-called “thorny clusters” are also characteristic of Indo-Greek.
I also think the centum/satem isogloss isn’t an adequate representation, because comparative evidence shows that palatal consonants in “satem” languages can be either original or the result of secondary palatalization (i.e. satemization). Likewise, velar consonants in “centum” languages can be either original or the result of secondary velarization (i.e. centumization). This way, centumization would be an innovation of some IE languages, while several forms of satemization are found in paleo-IE and other language families.
To quote an example, the word for ‘horse’ is a typical Kurganic word whose reconstructed “palato-velar” stop k´corresponds to a post-alveolar affricate *tʃ in Starostin’s Proto-NEC, thus implying it was centumized in “centum” IE languages.
I can see your point regarding the centum-satem division, but you still admit that there is core satem vs. centum lexicon going back to PIE phonemes k’ and kW, right? Additional words got centumized or satemized by analogy because there was a phonetic phenomenon in place.
Your “horse” example is also an interesting one. Indo-Iranian attests *k’ (asva, aspa), while greek and Latin attest kw. The affricate in NC words matches satem s- better. So, how do we know that the word was borrowed into IE from NC and not into NC from IE? The form of Greek ippos suggests to me, without consulting etymological dictionaries, the same suffix -wo- as in IE *suH2-wo- ‘pig, boar’. So, *ekwo- could be from *ek’/kW-wo-. Tocharian also shows y- in yakwe, which I don’t know how to explain.
Not exactly. A satem consonant can derive either from an original palatal or a palatalized (i.e. satemized) velar. The problem is that traditional PIE reconstructions conflate both into the so-called “palato-velars”. That is, the traditional model doesn’t differentiate between “passive” (i.e. conservation) and “active” (i.e. satemization/centumization) processes.
In the case of the ‘horse’ word, macro-comparative evidence shows we’ve got a palato-alveolar affricate followed by a labial glide: tʃw. There’s no such suffix -wo- because -o- is an IE thematic vowel and thus doesn’t belong to the lexeme.
It’s also noteworthy that Greek híppos (don’t forget /h/) has retained the original glottal fricative as well as the high vowel. This could haven’t happened if the word had been part of the inherited lexicon. Also possibly Tocharian ya- reflects a former e-, as this kind of vowel collapse is found in other language families such as NWC and Chadic.
About the origin of the ‘horse’ word, there can be no doubt it’s linked to the domestication of the animal in the Pontic Steppes, after which it acquired the status of Wanderwort like other names of domesticated animals. This is an output of an older root which designated wild ungulates (deer ~ boar) and found e.g. in Kartvelian *eʃw- ‘pig’ and Paleo-IE *k/gap-r-o- ‘male goat’, *(w)ep-er-o- ‘boar’ as well as two different sets of Afrasian outputs for ‘goat’ and ‘pig’, one from the Near East Neolithic and more widespread, and the other related to paleo-IE and restricted to Semitic (and more specifically to Arabic in the case of ‘pig’). In the case of goat/pig, the initial consonant underwent a differentiation parallel to the semantic specialization, possibly involving some kind of phonosymbolism.
Given the Celtic form *sukko-, I’d reconstruct the IE word for ‘pig’ as *suqu, with an uvular voiceless stop /q/ which then became a fricative /X/, corresponding to /H2/ in your reconstruction. But unlike the case of the ‘horse’ word there’s no labial glide here, but rather an “impure” (from the ortodox perspective) labiovelar.
I forgot to say that I think the labial stop in the Paleo-IE words for ‘male goat’ and ‘boar’ (also with Altic cognates) is the result of reduction of the cluster *tʃw. But even if that wasn’t true, there’s still a likely relationship to an Eurasiatic root ‘hoof’ which can be approximately reconstructed as *qop- from its outputs in several language families.
About the origin of IE “labiovelars” (properly speaking, labialized velars), I think they reflect the assimilation of velars (but also uvulars in “impure” cases like the forementioned one) to a following back vowel, in a similar processes to the one happened in NWC. For more information I refer you to Chirikba (1996): Common West Caucasian. The Reconstruction of its Phonological System and Parts of its Lexicon and its Morphology.
Not sure I can see how *k/gap-r-o- ‘male goat’, *(w)ep-er-o- ‘boar’ can be linked to *H1ek’w-o-. It seems to require to many ad hoc developments. Gk hippos can go back to *yekW- (as we can see from Skrt yakrt and Greek hepar ‘liver’ spiritus asper can reflect IE *y) just like Tocharian yakwe. Would this reconstruction be consistent with the NC form for ‘horse’?
As Paleo-IE belongs to a different phylum (Eurasiatic) than NC (Vasco-Caucasian), these correspondences would be quite remote, possibly 20,000 years or even older.
The problem with your proposal is there’s no actual evidence of *y- (actually a palatal fricative [ç] like in German ich ‘I’) outside Tocharian, as Greek h- can have other origins. Neither I’d expect it from a glottal fricative [ɦ] (which in the other hand would nicely fit IE *H1) like the one reconstructed for NC.
Unless I’m missing something, Tocharian y is a palatal semivowel, not a fricative. It’s true that the Greek-Tocharian y-carrying isogloss would be unique in the IE cognate set for ‘horse’. It could be that IE *H1 yields y in some environments and in some branches just as H2 and H2 yield consonantal h in Anatolian.
Using the NC form as a direct influence on the rather anomalous-looking Greek form hippos (I assume that’s what you’re proposing), on the other hand, runs into the problem of why the Greek form took its h- and its -i- from the NC form without any change but turned the affricate into a -pp-cluster. Also, if h- in hippos is not from IE *y, then it must be from IE *s-, and the s > h change is Greek-internal and may be too late for the Kurganic era when the borrowing supposedly occurred.
Of course, I meant that *y is a palatal fricative in IE reconstructions, not in Tocharian.
As regarding the Greek word, Mycenean /q/ in the form iqo indicates a labiovelar. IMHO there can be also little doubt that Greek /h/ continues the former glottal fricative corresponding to H1 in the IE reconstruction. I also think there’s little point in using symbols such as H1,H2 without assigning them a phonetic value, albeit approximate.
H1, H2, H3 is a shorthand.
The Greek form is all problem. I can see that H1 > Gk h is the easiest solution and it may be right, I just don’t know of any other examples where H1 (normally lost without a trace everywhere including Anatolian) gives h in Greek.
Mycenean iqo attests to kW, which suggests that either PIE had k’ vs. kW variation in this root, or that in proto-Mycenean-Greek k’w turned into kW. In any case, we have a velar stop in PIE, which corresponds to the affricate in the NC form. And I’m just not sure which way borrowing went.
This said I like the comparison between IE *H1ek’-w- and the NC form.
You must have already noticed I’m quite critical about traditional “PIE” reconstructions, so I don’t see the point in following them to the letter.
The labialized velar *kW in Greek, Latin and other “centum” languages must come from the phonologization of the segment /kw/, where the velar stop is in turn the result of the centumization of the former affricate *tʃ, which became a palatal fricative in “satem” languages as expected.
I must insist in the fact horses were domesticated in the Pontic Steppes, where the Kurgan people (whose language is wrongly equated to “PIE” by most IE-ists) came from. Also the question whether the word ‘horse’ was native to Kurganic or not is linked to the affiliation of this language.
I’m perfectly fine with alternatives to traditional PIE reconstructions.
*tʃ is phonetically closer to /sh/ in Lithuanian and Indic, but the latter is derived from *s found in other “satem” languages.
I’m more comfortable with interpreting the IE-NC ‘horse’ link as evidence of borrowing from IE to NC and the shift from *k to *s and *kW in various branches of IE and from *k to *tʃ in NC. Just seems to be smoother.
I think you forgot the comparative data from Starostin’s article, which is just more than just one correspondence. From these evidence, I’ve deduced NEC palatal affricates became velar stops in IE-centum but sibilants in IE-satem, as IE lacked true palatal consonants.
I’m sure there were cases were an original velar stop became palatalized (i.e. satemized) in IE-satem, but I don’t think it was so in the ‘horse’ word.
That’s fair. There are quite a few lexical items that Starostin claims were borrowed from NC into IE. I don’t know their current status with specialists in IE and NC languages. I do know that Starostin added a few affinal terms to the list of NC-to-IE borrowings that are not part of the paper you linked me to. Judging by Matasovic, many probably don’t know about them. But assuming they are mostly correct, it does appear likely that the horse word was borrowed from NC into IE. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
This supports my contention that IE and NC maintained close linguistic, cultural and genetic exchange and does appear likely that in all those cases it was NC that influenced IE, not the other way around.
Do you have any other examples of NC affricate to IE palatovelar/labiovelar correspondences?
Hmmm. Don’t forget the labialized velar (i.e. “labiovelar”) in the IE-centum ‘horse’ word surely reflects the original labial glide.
An interesting example of such correspondences I’ve found out myself is NC *ts’änʔV ‘new’ ~ IE *g´enH1- ‘to bear a child; to be born’.
On the other hand, I think there’s an affinity between Vasco-Caucasian (an extension of Starostin’s NC) and Kurganic speakers, because both appear to be agropastoralist societies predominantly patrilocal/patrilineal.
I’m not entirely “sold” on the glide as the cause of the labiovelar. Gk hippos, Myc iqo (=ikkwos, per EIEC), Lat equus seem to point to the kW-w- cluster. Tocharian is a centum language, too, and Toch B yakwe could come from yekW-w-.
The other example you give is interesting, although semantically loose, I have to say.
The glide -w- can be found in *both* NC and IE reconstructions. But apparently you’re confusing it with the IE thematic vowel -o-, which regularly shows up as Latin /u/ .
On the other hand, the exampled I’ve given you is actually a kinship word. For example, in Basque we’ve got *s´eni > sein ‘child’, sehi ‘child; servant’, as well as *sen(i)- in compounds such as senar ‘husband’, senikide ‘relative’, senide ‘relative; brother’, senikera ‘kinship; family, relatives’.
No, I’m not talking about the thematic vowel. Of course -us in Latin is from -os. But in Gk and Myc the labiovelar is reduplicated suggesting possibly *hekW-Kw-o- assimilated from *hekW-w-o- or *hekW-w-o- > *hep-w-o- > *heppo-.
Sorry if I was unclear.
Regarding Basq *s´eni > sein ‘child’, sehi ‘child; servant’, as well as *sen(i)- in compounds such as senar ‘husband’, senikide ‘relative’, senide ‘relative; brother’, senikera ‘kinship; family, relatives’, my immediate reaction (which can be totally wrong) is that it fits both IE *g´enH1- ‘to bear a child; to be born’ and Hitt hansatar ‘progeny, kin, family’. The semantic fit is stronger than NC *ts’änʔV ‘new’.
I honestly don’t know much about Basque-IE proposals, which you probably consider as coming from “crackpots,” and I’m not an expert in any of these languages, but the Basque form you quoted is intriguing precisely because of its IE connections (borrowing or common descent), not the NC one. I would leave *ts’änʔV ‘new’ out altogether, especially since phonologically the correspondence between an affricate in NC and a voiced palatovelar in IE is not supported by any other examples. The ‘horse’ example involves a voiceless palatovelar.
On the other hand, Burushaski is NOT an IE language, despite Cašule’s claims to the contrary. Its morphology and its core lexicon (including numerals) are highly un-IE (for more information I refer you to this paper: http://dickgrune.com/Summaries/Languages/Burushaski.pdf). And although it could possible for Burushaski to have IE loanwords, I find most of Cašule’s proposed correspondences to be questionable.
As the IE family is widely attested and offers plenty of comparative data, from time to time some *crackpots* are tempted to link (officially) isolated languages such as Basque and Burushaski to it (for example, I’ve seen up to 3 different “proofs” that Basque is an IE language).
However, the possible relationship between the fossilized suffix *-tēr (please notice the long vowel) found in the IE words for ‘father’, ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ and Burushaski -taro, if confirmed, would point not to Burushaski being part of the IE family (which is utterly impossible) but rather to Kurganic being part of the same Vasco-Caucasian phylum then NC and Burushaski.
On this we’ll need to wait. I haven’t made up my mind, as I’ve only read Casule’s earliest works (which didn’t impress me). But he came out with a lot of comparisons over the years but I haven’t caught up on the yet.
I know that IE *swesor has an interesting parallel in NC. I mention it here: http://kinshipstudies.org/2012/07/07/indo-european-and-north-caucasian-linguistic-typology-kinship-terms-and-autosomal-genetics/
The semantic parallel is not perfect but possible. Again, in this case I can’t say which way the borrowing went. I’m not satisfied with Casule’s comparison with the Burushaski term *yas(t) on the formal side but the semantics are perfect.
Hmmm, I’ve just found your comment here: http://www.ahnenkult.com/2012/07/03/ancestral-burusho-in-the-tarim-basin/
IE *swesōr ‘sister’ readily compares to NC *sswēsǝ ‘bride’, to which Starostin proposed Burushaski *dasén ‘girl, young woman’ to be cognate.
The question of the geminated stop -pp- in Greek híppos reminds me of other puzzling cases such as Greek lákkos ‘pool, cistern’ and Celtic *yekkā ‘cure’, *sukko- ‘pig’. In these cases, it looks like -kk- reflects a former labiovelar, although by intermediation of another IE language, possibly Illyrian.
As you might already know, in the “PIE glottalic theory”, traditional voiced stops are reformulated as *glottalized* ones, so in this case we’ve got a NC *glottalized* affricate *ts’ corresponding to an IE *glottalized* palatized velar *k’´. So the phonetical match is perfect.
By contrast, Cašule’s comparison is nasty (to put it mildly). From Burushaski -yás(t) ‘sister of a man’, Starostin reconstructs a root *-st- which he links to Nakh *dzut’- ‘bitch, woman’ and Hurro-Urartian *sit’- > Hurrian šid-u/ori ‘maid(en)’. Neither the supposed suffix *-(s)taro exists, because it’s actually the *plural* form of *-st-.
http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/sinocauc/buruet&text_number=+500&root=config
The NC *ts’ ~ IE (glottalic) *k’´correspondence is indeed neat phonetically. I just can’t accept the semantic link between “new” and “give birth.” Could NC *ts’änʔV ‘new’ underlie IE *newos ‘new’ through something like zero-grade *k’´newo- with the loss of the glottalized stop before a nasal stop?
Starostin’s reconstruction of *-st- for a whole host of kin categories is not convincing. One issue with comparativist treatment of kinship terms is that they admit all kinds of semantic transformations and meaning “dumps.” At least Casule (in an unpublished paper that he sent me) is trying to match every form from Starostin *-st- collection to a separate IE form. (Again, it doesn’t mean he’s right, but at least his kinterm reconstructions are semantically stringent and easy to analyze.) His publisher requested that I don’t discuss his unpublished etymologies until the volume is out, so, unfortunately, I can’t share them with you at this moment.
His link from Bur *yast ‘sister of a man’ to IE *swesor ‘sister’ is appealing on semantic grounds because this is precisely how sibling sets evolve cross-linguistically (see The Genius of Kinship), namely by progressive removal of distinctions. It’s disappointing that he postulates an irregular dissimilation to explain the phonetics here.
As a side note, Burushaski sibling set is surprisingly similar semantically to the Basque one. They are both built on the principle of relative sex and Speaker sex (man’s sister, woman’s sister, man’s brother, woman’s brother, with some reductions). This kind of set is cross-linguistically very rare and is found in Eurasia only in Svan (the most divergent Kartvelian dialect). Both IE “brother-sister” set and NC single stem (‘sibling’ with gender modifiers) model can easily be derived from the Burushaski-Svan-Basque one (all other Kartvelian dialects besides Savn shifted to the IE model).
I understand it’s a weak argument, but kinship term structures can be very conservative, and I wouldn’t be surprised if what we have here is a retention from some kind of western Nostratic-Vasco-Caucasian proto-language that survived unchanged in Basque, Burushaski and Svan but got modified along regular semantic lines in IE, non-Svan Kartvelian and NC. One challenge here (among many others) is that eastern Nostratic (Uralic, Altaic, etc.) have a radically different sibling set, namely the one based on relative age (older brother, older sister, younger brother, younger sister).
On the other hand, the fossilized suffix in some IE kinship words is actually *-H2tēr, not **-ter. Interestingly, ‘daughter’ appears to be related to an IE root ‘to suck, to milk’, something which wouldn’t be surprising in an agro-pastoralist society.
I also think the view of most IE-ists is *biased* when comparing IE data with other families such as NC (even you seem to hesitate about “the direction of borrowing”). I’d call this “IE-centrism”.
I could never understand the reasons behind the *-H2tēr reconstruction.
I don’t see *dhugH2ter from ‘to suck, to milk’ as compelling. Kinship terms are relational nouns with a strong deictic function and it’s hard to see how they can be derived from a form with an absolute meaning. Paul Frierdich has a nice review of Szemerenyi in which he challenged the Indo-Europeanist practice of deriving kin terms from verbal roots as naive. Although there are some unmistakable connections between verbal roots and kin terms, overall an etymology for a kin term is strong if it derives it from an earlier kin term, not a verbal root. Also, phonetically we should reconstruct *dhwegH2ter in view of Lycian cbatra < *dwe(g)tra where -a- is not from a laryngeal but from Lyc *e (Kloekhorst).
You make a good point about IE-centrism. I agree, we need to be able to place IE in a broader Eurasian picture.
Of course, the purported connection between ‘daughter’ and ‘to milk’ is just one more of a long series of intra-IE etymologies proposed by IE-ists. They’re themselves isolationists, relying exclusively on IE data and so ignoring external relationships. Sadly enough, Gamkrelidze-Ivanov are no exception to this habit.
Interestingly, Eskimo-Aleut *paniɣ ‘daughter’ is related to other Eurasiatic words referring to small mammals: Tungusic *pün´- ‘jerboa, flying squirrel, mole; weasel; hedgehog’, Mongolian *hünegen ‘fox’, Turkic *enük (~ *ünek) ‘young of a wild animal, puppy’, etc. This semantic pattern is also seen in Etruscan seχ ‘daughter’, cognate to NEC *tʃ’æku/*tʃæk’u ‘young (of animals), boy’, Kartvelian *tś’uk’- (Georgian c’uk’-an-a ‘very small’, Megrel č’uk’- ‘mouse’), Afrasian *Sakw- ‘a k. of small animal’, Basque sagu ‘mouse’.
The latter could be the origin of IE ‘daughter’, assuming the sibilant affricate collapsed to a dental stop as proposed by Bomhard.
Am not sure about the Eskimo-Aleut “daughter” form. Haven’t worked with those languages. If the connection is real, I would interpret the Eskimo meaning as original, with a metaphorical extension to animals. (There are many examples of kin term to animal name semantic change or phonetic assimilation due to folk etymology in IE languages.)
As to the IE term for ‘daughter’, I do have a suspicion that the anlaut is more complicated there than people think. As you know, I think we should begin by reconstructing *dugH2ter or *dwegH2ter and not *dhugHter. Then I also noticed that there’s potentially a d-/s- alternation in IE dialects. E.g., 1) IE *deH2iwer- ‘husband’s brother’ (Lith dieveris, Slav diever) and IE (regional) *sieH2ur- ‘wife’s brother’ (Skrt. syaala, Slav *syur-) both plausibly derived from a form with an affricate-like initial sound; 2) IE *yug- ‘to bind; yoke’ (Gk zugon shows a consonant in the anlaut, which frequently corresponds to IE *d) and IE *syu- ‘to sew’, both derived from *C-yuH1-; 3) Hitt ishahru ‘tear’ and IE *(d)ak’ru- ‘tear’.
To push it further, under this analysis, the insurmountable phonological difference that seems to exist between IE *dhugH2ter ‘daughter’ and IE *suH2- ‘son’ seems to dissipate, as both forms may derive from *C-weH-, which looks similar to Etruscan seχ ‘daughter’, NEC *tʃ’æku/*tʃæk’u ‘young (of animals), boy’.
the details would need to be worked out, but I’m intrigued by the potential.
I don’t think the meaning ‘daughter’ is primary, but rather on the contrary. Incidentally, the root is also found in Western Europe languages, e.g. Catalan rat penat, rata pinyada ‘bat’.
Probably there was a semantic drift from ‘small’ to ‘daughter’ as in the other root, which in some families (Kartvelian, Dravidian, Altaic) has partially merged with ‘small’. In fact, semantic shifts from animal names to ‘small’ seem to be common in pastoralist societies. For example, Basque txiki ‘small’, Spanish chico ‘boy; small’ (both with expressive palatalization) is cognate to Germanic *tikka- ‘kid’.
As for IE ‘daughter’, the ablaut -we- is only found in Anatolian (Lycian and Luwian), so it makes no sense to reconstruct it for the rest of IE languages. Neither I think ‘daughter’ and ‘son’ are etymologically related.
Yes, from a more elementary “small, child” to “daughter” is natural, but not from fully baked animal semantics to daughter.
About NC *ts’änʔV ‘new’, I don’t think semantics would be a big problem, as semantic shifts are just part of language evolution (although apparently not all historical linguists share this opinion). Also there’s no point in positing a link to IE *newo- ‘new’.
Cašule’s proposed link between Burushaski *yast and IE *swesor is utterly *untenable* on phonetic grounds, no matter how “good” the semantic correspondence could be. I’m afraid this kind of “comparisons” are typical of crackpot’s works, and I won’t be surprised his new paper goes along this line.
I agree with you in that Burushaski and Basque seem to share a similar kinship system, but the Kurganic (i.e. IE) one would correspond to a patrilocal/patrilineal society much like NC, where for example the concept ‘sister of a man’ doesn’t exist.
The semantics of ‘daughter’ would be linked to the concept ‘foster’, which in Spanish is expressed as “de leche”, i.e. ‘from (the same) milk’, as in e.g. “hermano de leche” ‘foster brother’. In Basque, the corresponding term is ugatz ‘tit, maternal milk’, probably derived from the formentioned IE root ‘to suck, to milk’.
I had a similar impression of Casule’s earliest works on the IE-Burushaski link but I do want to study his latest works first.
You’re right – ‘man’s sister’ is not found in either IE or NC languages. Both families neutralized Ego Gender as part of a shift to patrilineality/patrilocality. Cross-linguistically, however, the type of sibling set shared by Basque, Burushaski and Svan is so infrequent that it’s hard to build correlations with descent and locality. I would venture a hypothesis that it’s more appropriate for an ambilineal/ambilocal society (comp. the important social role of mother’s brother among Kartvelain peoples), which could have preceded patrilineal/patrilocal in Western Eurasia.
BTW, how would IE ‘sister’ ~ NC ‘bride’ and IE ‘daughter’ ~ ‘foster’ fit your model?
I’m not ready to accept the ‘daughter’ ~ ‘foster’ link semantically (they look superficially similar but from the point of view of kinship categories, they are very distinct). Regarding ‘sister’ ~ ‘bride’, the formal side is perfect. Semantically, it points to marital exchange between IE and NC speakers, so that IE ‘brothers’ gave their ‘sisters’ as brides to NC husbands. This is consistent with genetic sharing between the two groups. (And suggests that the borrowing – at least in this case – went from IE to NC.)
The Basque form ugatz ‘maternal milk, tit’ is interesting as a pair to IE *dhugh- ‘to give milk’. Is the loss of d- common in Basque? One of my etymologies of Latin uxOr ‘wife’ is from *dwegH2ter ‘daughter’ (IE* dhwegH2ter), with the loss of d- as in duenos > bonos, suaduis > suavis, etc. and subsequent we- > u-. The ending got from -tEr to -sOr under the influence of *sosOr 'sister'. There are still fairly minor phonetic issues here, but, semantically, it's a nice fit with what Roman jurists used to say about uxor (Usu in manu conveniebat quae anno continui nupta perseverabat: nam velut annua possessione usucapiebatur, in familia viri transibat filiaeque locum obtinebat). The loss of d- in Latin reminded me of your example of Basque ugatz.
I disagree. There’s no such “loss of d-” in Latin bonus, suāvis but a reduction of the cluster /dw/ into a labial /b-, -v-/. Also in the ‘daughter’ word we’ve got f- in Italic, as in Oscan futír. So your proposed etymology is highly unlikely.
On the other hand, uxor can be analized as *uk-so(:)r, possibly with the same compound element as in *swe-sōr. The problem is we don’t have a reliable etymology for *uk-.
UxOr from *uk-sOr is unacceptable precisely on the grounds you’ve identified. Plus -sor is poorly attested as a form with the meaning ‘woman’.
I agree that the “loss of d” is rather a cluster simplification (Sihler, 180-181).
I don’t think Osc fu(u)tir proves uxOr can’t be from *dhwegH2ter. There’s evidence that Grassmann’s Law operated in Latin as can be seen in **farba (< *bhardha), glaber ‘bald’ (< *ghladhro-), bēstia ‘animal’ < *dhwēzdhīa, gradus < *ghradhus, grunda < *ghrondhā, and trahere ‘to carry’ (< *dhragh-). I admit that there are some ostensibly minor but rather thorny issues with the derivation I proposed. But next to all other options, *uxOr from *dhwegH2ter seems to be better because it's more motivated in terms of both phonetics and semantics.
Even with Grassmann’s Law (although I don’t support the reconstruction of “voiced aspirated” for “PIE”), on phonetic grounds there’s no way uxor could be derivated from ‘daughter’. I’m afraid this isn’t a “minor” issuse but a major one.On the other hand, *-sōr ‘woman’ would be a *fossilized* word in the same way than *-H2tēr.
Not sure why your paragraph came out crossed out.
IE *sOr- ‘woman’ is only attested in Anatolian words such as nanasri (and it’s an interpretation, which is not necessarily correct) and it doesn’t have the pervasiveness of *-ter/H2ter.
If *uk- has an unknown meaning and *-sor is so fossilized that it’s poorly attested, then it’s a non-starter as an etymology. On balance, *uxOr from *dhwegH2ter looks better.
This brings us to the question of voiced aspirates. I agree with you that they must be derived in IE. My hypotehsis that they are derived in the parallel way to voiceless aspirates in India from a combination of a voiced stop + laryngeal. One of my examples is IE *bhreH2ter ‘brother’ that I derive from *mreH2ter (IE root *mer- as in Lat marItus, Gk meirax, Gmc. brUdi ‘bride’, etc.) through an laryngeal throwback (*merH2ter > *mreH2ter > *breH2ter (a plausible change before -r- with supporting examples from Greek, Germanic and Latin) > *bH2reH2ter > *bhreH2ter > *bhrAter. Comp. Latv marsa ‘brother’s wife’ (*martiya < *martriya) which is a perfect match to Lat fratrIa 'brother's wife'. So, for the IE 'daughter' term we don't even need a voiced aspirate in the onset, as it can be derived from *dwegH2ter, with different dialects then choosing between *dhwegter (Gk thugatEr, Osc fu(u)tir, etc.) or *dweghter (Skrt duhitA, Lat uxOr). Since Grassmann's Law is attested in Tocharian (Toch B tsaik- vs. Lat. fingō), Toch ckacar (if from tskacar), next to tkacar, can be interpreted as the form derived from a non-aspirated onset, just like Lat uxOr and Skrt duhitA. In the end, Grassmann's Law may not be a law of desaspiration but a law of non-cooccurrence of two aspirated stops in one syllable, as, I think, Ivanov and Gamkrelidze suggested. As laryngeals were reanalyzed as sometimes vowels, sometimes consonants, this rule filtered their distribution within a word.
Of the examples you mentioned, glaber, gradus and grunda can’t be the result of Grassmann’s Law, as we’d have **parba,**claber,**cradus,**crunda. These words kept the original velar stop because it was part of a stop+liquid cluster.
Also bēstia is remarkable because: 1) it can’t native but a loanword from another IE language and 2) it displays dw- > b-.
Thanks for this. I haven’t really revisited evidence for Grassmann’s Law in Latin. Paul Kiparsky, I remember, referred me to an old paper by Walde from whom I picked the examples above.
I agree that if uxOr is from *dwegH2ter/*dweghter, then we would expect, all other things being equal, **bexOr. It’s one of those thorny phonetic things. I still consider this etymology a “keeper” (maybe at the earliest stage *dwe in Latin gave *we- as it always treated this cluster in mid-word and then already in historic times *be-) but it does have some issues that could sink the ship in the long run.
Sorry, but I still find your etymology of Latin uxor as *inadequate* in phonetic terms. I’m also sure you remember my former comments on Cašule’s work.
Wirh regard to the so-called “voiced aspirated” stops, macro-comparative evidence points to them being *plain voiced*. The fact they become voiceless aspirated stops in Greek and later voiceless fricatives in Italic must be explained by contact with other languages.
Fair enough. I can’t accept the existing proposals semantically, but my own solution apparently is inadequate phonetically.
We should probably keep uxOr as a word without an etymology or a substrate word. Similarly to Latin urbs ‘city’, which has proven so intractable that Cowgill finally derived it from IE *bhrgh- (Germ Burg) via a unique sequence of changes (*forb-s (*gh > b after r [Stuart-Smith 2004, 53]) > *furb-s > *burb-s (assimilation) > *urbs (dissimilation)).
Not really. Mallory & Adams (2006): “The Oxford Introduction to PIE and the PIE world” derive urbs from *worP-o- ‘enclosure’ (e.g. Hittite warpa ‘enclosures’, Tocharian A warp ‘enclosure’).
The problem with this one is that the distribution is very skinny. The Tocharian and Hittite forms clearly belong together but the Latin one looks like a semantic outlier. But phonetically it’s a home run. Cowgill nevertheless remains unconvinced and prefers the perfect semantic match with Germ Burg.
The evolution from ‘enclosure’ to ‘city’ is rather straightforward and seen in other languages. Although some linguists don’t seem to be aware of it, semantic shift is part of language evolution.
On the other hand, Cowgill’s etymology is simply *untenable*.
Semantic transformations are regular only in some selected lexico-semantic domains (e.g., kinship terms). Otherwise, seemingly natural semantic connections may be illusionary. On the formal side, btw, do we have any other examples of IE *we- > Lat u-? Generally, IE *we gives o in Latin.
I agree, though, that Cowgill’s solution is rather fanciful.
I don’t think semantic transformations could be “regular” at all (at least in the same sense than sound changes), but nevertheless they’re part of language evolution. In fact, the older is a word, the wider is their descendants’ semantic latitude. Also Wanderwörter are semantically much more stable than inherited lexicon.
Also, in Latin u- doesn’t come from **we- but *wo-, as in *wod-eh2 ‘water’ > unda. Don’t take this as a personal offence, but you seem a bit confused as regarding historical/comparative linguistics.
An example of a regular semantic change is Albanian motre ‘sister’ (from IE *meH2ter) and vella ‘brother’ (from *awentlo- as in Lat avunculus ‘mother’s brother’). Or have a look at http://kinshipstudies.org/2012/07/31/svan-terms-for-sister-and-the-kartvelian-term-for-mother-with-notes-on-basque-and-burushaski/)
I’m one of the very few people who actually knows enough of anthropology and enough of historical linguistics to advance both. My etymology of IE *breH2ter ‘brother’ < *mer- is an example when the two come together nicely, as anthropology predicts that consanguineal and affinal meanings blended together in the past. I don't know everything of course (who does?) but I do have a semantic filter that historical linguists usually don't have. That's why they've produced zillions of phonetically safe etymologies of IE kin terms but most of them are no good semantically. And then you begin to look deeper and find that the phonetics was messed up, too. (e.g., the old derivation of Lat fIlius 'son'/fIlia 'daughter' from *dhe- 'suck, suckle' but in reality the protoform should be reconstructed as *dheH1, which kills the naive semantic link with 'suckle'). When you say that semantic latitude increases with time, this signals to me the desire to have a carte blanche to produce etymologies with wild swings of meaning (like your 'new' and 'be born' example). Both phonetic and semantic laws/rules/patterns become more complicated as reconstructions become deeper and deeper in time, but neither of them should become a free for all. BTW, for some reason I missed Lat unda 'wave'. Thanks.
I see your point, although apparently your “revised” reconstructions use a different convention that the traditional PIE ones, where plain voiced stops become “voiced aspirated” as in e.g. the ‘brother’ word. Thus I’d recommend you not to mix both notations, as this would lead to confusion.
Neither I think there’s such “wild swing of meaning” in that example, as the evolution ‘be born’ > ‘young’ > ‘new’ is quite straightforward. This has nothing to do with a supposed “carte blanche” for arbritrary semantic shifts.
Also the kinship IE words appears to be from Kurganic, and thus more recent than other parts of the lexicon. So IMHO the fact you’ve tuned your methodology to a particular lexical field (i.e. kinship) doesn’t mean it would work with the *whole* lexicon of a given language family (not to speak of larger groupings).
I mean that the labial stop in ‘brother’ corresponds to a traditional “voiced aspirated” (actually plain voiced) and not to a “voiced” (actually voiceless).
I will reply to both of your comments here.
Sorry, I’m not completely following your objection to my etymology of IE *bhreH2ter. What I’m proposing is that bh in *bhreH2ter reflects a secondary “throwback” from the medial laryngeal. The model for this change is Indic where H2 is known to produce voiced aspirates (and voiceless aspirates) from voiced stops (and voiceless stops).
I also propose that the reconstructed *breH2ter is, in itself, a natural phonetic development (attested in Greek, Latin, Germanic) from *mreH2ter. We have, for instance, Lat brevis from *mreg’hu- or Germ brUdi ‘bride’ from mer-, etc.
Phonologically, my reconstruction just generalizes certain changes attested in individual branches onto the PIE level. This is of course debatable and I need to come up with further examples (*dugH2ter is another one) but leaving room for discussion is the exciting part of scientific inquiry.
I’m currently playing around with the following comparison: IE *medhu ‘honey, mead’ and IE *swedu- (Lat suAvis, Gk hEdus, etc.). It’s a bit of a convoluted example, but I think it’s worth considering. So, the underlying protoform is *wedH2we-, which split into *wedhwe- > *medhu, with dissimilation, and *weH2dwe- > *swEdwe- with s-mobile. I understand that I have to postulate two irregular changes, or maybe even three, if *wedH2we- > *swEdwe- involves a laryngeal metathesis, but these irregular changes are very common in IE and there seems to be quite a bit of phonetic and morphological regularity otherwise, with H2 affecting the quality of the vowel in one set and the quality of the consonant in the other set, both forms having -we- /-u- for a suffix. Mind you that the semantic link is more than natural and it provides the adjectival source for the “honey, mead” noun. But they are nevertheless distinct, so formal and semantic variation “colluded” to make the cognation between the two forms intractable for a simple visual inspection.
This example may also “prove” or at least illustrate how my “method” can yield etymologies outside of the kinship domain. IE kinship terms very well may be “Kurganic” by origin, but if voiced aspirates indeed derive from voiced stops + laryngeals then this must be a pre-Kurganic development.
As regarding chronology, the “PIE” traditionally reconstructed by IE-ists is roughly the same thing than my “Kurganic”. But my own approach differs from the traditional one in that a very large part of the IE lexicon don’t stem form Kurganic but rather from the paleo-IE languages replaced by it. This is why I won’t label Kurganic as “PIE”.
Also from macro-comparative evidence, I think that (in general) “voiced aspirated” have nothing to do with “laryngeals” (most of which aren’t true phonetic laryngeals, i.e. glottals), but rather ALL voiced stops became aspirated in Kurganic.
I won’t be able to meaningfully discuss whether voiced aspirates can or can not be from laryngeals, but I do see that in Indic both voiceless aspirates and voiced aspirates are associated with laryngeals. Kurylowicz proposed this evolutionary path for voiceless aspirates as a whole class of phonemes, which makes me think that nothing prevents us from applying the same logic to the whole class of “voiced aspirates” provided there’s good etymological evidence. Once the change occurred in a few words, all other instances of voiced consonants may have become voiced aspirates by analogy.
Unfortunately, the actual data doesn’t support your view.
You should also be aware the “laryngeal” H2 is actually either an uvular or a pharyngeal voiceless fricative.
Neither I agree with your proposed etymology of IE *medhu- and *swedu-.
The real phonetic value of a “laryngeal” can’t contradict what I’m proposing because we know from Indic that there’s some connection between a “laryngeal” and aspiration on stops.
I agree, however, that etymological connections are subject to different interpretations, so mine may not be right. For instance, it’s possible that what we need to reconstruct for the *medhu ~ *swEdu pair is a glottal(ized) stop as in *wet’we-, whose loss in one case lengthened the preceding vowel in *s-wEdu and reflected as a plain -d- and in the other case didn’t affect vowel quantity but resulted in an aspirated -dh-. But in any case, IE *dh is derived and I believe it can be shown with examples from IE without invoking broader groupings.
But as I said before, ther’e many examples of such “aspirated” stops were no “laryngeal” is to be found.
Also IE *medhu- is linked to NEC *middzV ‘sweet’.
“IE *medhu- is linked to NEC *middzV ‘sweet’”.
This could indicate borrowing from IE to NEC. There’s also a Dravidian form (Tamil mattu ‘honey’) and proto-Finno-Ugrian *mete ‘honey’. Those will all be borrowings unless one could argue that IE *swedwe- ‘sweet’ comes from *medH2we- with, first assimilation and then s-mobile.
On voiced aspirates, one needs to comb through the whole IE vocabulary to see what the frequency is of reconstructible laryngeals in words carrying an attested voiced aspirates. This will put my speculations on a firmer footing. Then, depending what the rate is, one could argue that those words that have a voiced aspirates without any laryngeal around got the aspiration by analogy.
Going back to your earlier example of PIE *worP-o- ‘enclosure’ (e.g. Hittite warpa ‘enclosures’, Tocharian A warp ‘enclosure’, Lat urbs ‘town’), I’d like to venture a hypothesis that may further illustrate how my “method” works when it comes to voiced aspirates and “laryngeals.”
Morphologically, we find in this set a clear case of dual or pluralia tantum suffix -eH2. This is Hittite warpa. The Hittite and Tocharian forms are in clear morphological agreement but they form a unique isogloss. Latin urbs is potentially another member of this set but even if it’s included the set is very limited in distribution, as if the other members got lost or two cognate sets have been artificially divorced from each other.
Another IE form comes to mind that’s semantically similar and has the same morphological formant for dual/pluralia tantum nouns. It’s *dhwer- ‘door, yard’ with -eH2- attested in Gk thurA. Unlike *worP-o-, cognate set *dhwer- is attested in all the branches of IE.
The labial in Tocharian and Hittite warp, warpa can easily be from IE *bh, as the ambiguous P in the reconstruction above indicates. So we have two roots: *werbh-o- and *dhwer-, both taking on -eH2- and both having a voiced aspirate.
If we reconstruct PIE *dwerbo- ‘door, yard, enclosure’ and add -eH2- to it, we end up with the same root going two different ways:
1. dwerb(H2)-eH2- > dwerbh-
2. d(H2)werb-eH2 > dhwerb-
The first root simplified the initial dw-cluster to w- but added aspiration to medial -b-, the other root did the opposite – strengthened d- to dh but lost medial -b-.
Under this model, Latin foris ‘door’, forIs ‘outside’, forum ‘public place’ and Latin urbs ‘town’ will be cognates and products of differential treatment of “laryngeals” bi-consonantal roots in PIE.
Gk thUra may need to be reconstructed as *thurFa by analogy with Latv durvis, with the *-w- going back, hypothetically (as I don’t have further examples) to *bh.
This etymology may further validate my proposal to derive Lat *uxOr ‘wife’ (next to Osc fu(u)tir) from *dwegH2ter ‘daughter’. Just like the Lat form “lost” *dh, the Oscan form retained *dh > f but “lost” the medial velar. The simplification of the cluster dw-, then, was an ancient phenomenon in early IE that stemmed from other phonetic factors than the later simplification of dw- into b- and first occurred in bi-consonantal roots.
If this is correct, then it’s likely that the differential loss of consonants in PIE biconsonantal roots stemmed from the fact that these consonants were glottal stops and hence only one was allowed per root. Then it’s not so much that a “laryngeal” got affixed to a word and created this consonant “swirl” but that glottalization was added to the root that already had one glottal(ized) stop in it.
“This could indicate borrowing from IE to NEC.”
I’ve lost count of the times you said so. This word is apparently a Neolithic *Wanderwort* of Vasco-Caucasian origin.
Also -a- in Hittite warpa is the thematic IE wovel *-o-. It has nothing to do with *-eH2.
EIEC, 199 marks Hitt warpa as a plural form and translates it as “enclosures.” Melchert considers -a in warpa a plurale tantum eH2, the same as in Gk thurA. See Melchert, Craig. 2011. The PIE Collective Plural and the “τὰ ζῷα τρέχει rule”. In Thomas Krisch and Thomas Lindner (eds.), Indogermanistik und Linguistik im Dialog. Akten der XIII. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft vom 21. bis 27. September 2008 in Salzburg, 395–400. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
We do have our respective hangups – my borrowings from IE and your Vasco-Caucasian Wanterworter.
I think you hold the same “IE-centrist” view than most IE-ists.
Maybe. But I’m open to alternatives, unlike most IE-ists.
The thing is that IE is much more known than other language families, so it’s no wonder the view of many linguists is biased. However, I think Starostin’s article should have ring you some bells.
It did. Let’s see what else comes up.
I’ve just seen Casule’s article on JIES and my former impressions have been confirmed: definitely it’s a *crackpot* work.
I’ve just read it, too, and I remain unconvinced myself. I wouldn’t call him “crackpot,” it’s just his “criteria for success” are too loose.
He would be lucky if he had got one or two matches in his whole proposed cognate set, although given his poor method, pure chance will be more likely.
On the other hand, although I’m not a supporter of the “Out of America” theory, I’ve just learn about Dennis Stanford & Bruce Bradley’s book “Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of the America’s Clovis Culture”, where they propose a Solutrean migarion from West Europe to North America. Although I haven’t read the book, here’s an article from the same authors: http://www.naturaleater.com/science-articles/north_atlantic_ice-edge_corridor.pdf
I remember this connection was proposed by Stephen Oppenheimer with regard to the mt-DNA X haplogroup, although he didn’t go into further detail.
Thanks Octavia. I don’t support Stanford and Bradley’s theory, but is is a somewhat misguided attempt to create a revolution in a field that desperately needs one. As for Oppenheimer, he captivated many a mind with his book, but I for some reason quickly bucketed him as “conjectural history” and don’t really use him very much. mtDNA hg X is an all-around puzzle and a trans-Atlantic journey doesn’t solve it.