The Indo-European Family of Languages
The Discovery of the IndoEuropean Family of Languages • The Discovery of the Indo-European Family of Languages • Jacob Grimm – Deutsche Grammatic
First Germanic Consonant Shift or Grimm’s Law • • • •
Voiceless plosives became fricatives: *p > f; *t > þ; *k > x Voiced plosives became voiceless: *b > p; *d > t; *g > k Voiced-aspirate plosives dropped the aspiration: *bh > b; *dh > d; *gh > g
Verner’s Law
‘father’ Greek patér ‘over’ Greek hypér ‘mother-in-law’Greek hekurá
Old English fæder Old High German ubar Old High German swigur
The Branches that constitute the Indo-European Family
•
1. Indian
• • • • • • • •
2. Iranian 3. Armenian 4. Hellenic 5. Albanian 6. Italic 7. Balto-Slavic 8. Germanic 9. Celtic
1. Aryan 2. Indo-Germanic 3. Indo-European
Twentieth-Century Discoveries Hittite and Tocharian
Hittite
OLD TESTAMENT
1907
Boghazköi Babylonian cuneiform characters Akkadian
20,000 clay tablets
Saussure’s Hypothesis This linguist proposed for the Indo-European certain sound patterns that did not occur in any of the languages known.
LARINGEALS
Indo-European Syntax • A strong argument can now be made that Hittite and the oldest hymns of the Rigveda represent the Object-Verb structure of Indo-European, which by the time of Classical Greek and Latin had been largely modified to a Verb-Object pattern.
Vocabulary • A large proportion of the Hittite vocabulary comes from a non-Indo-European source. The blending with foreign elements appears to be as great as in Albanian.
INDO-HITTITE INDO-EUROPEAN
HITTITE
TOCHARIAN • Early part of Twentieth century in Western China (Xinjiang Uygur)
TOCHARIAN
HELLENIC ITALIC
Centum language
GERMANIC CELTIC
The Nostratic Theory 1. Indo-European 2. Uralic 3. Afro-Asiatic 4. Altaic 5. Dravidian 6. South Caucasian Beekes (1984) has pointed out a discrepancy that makes him doubt the consistency of the theory: Some phonological changes propounded for this super-family are more simple than the laws governing the phonological changes reconstructed for the Indo-European.
The Home of the Indo-Europeans • What can be learned of these people and their early location?
1. Biological descent
Wide ethnic diversity
2. Location
omit from consideration
Africa British Isles
Australia
The Peninsulas of Southern Europe
America
EARLY LITERARY TRADITION
The earliest books of the Hindus, for example, the Vedas, show an acquaintance with the Indus but not with the Ganges
Mainland of Europe and the Western part of Asia
Indo-Europeans entered India from the Northwest
ASIAN OR EUROPEAN ORIGIN?
Asian origin?
1. Biblical tradition
2. The discovery of Sanskrit 3. Hun and Turk Invasions into Europe
European origin? 1. The larger part of the languages of this family have been in Europe from the earliest times to which our knowledge extendes.
VOCABULARY STOCK
WINTER & SNOW
SEA
INLAND COMMUNITY
FLORA AND FAUNA KNOWN TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY • “There are no anciently common Indo-European words for elephant, rhinocceros, camel, lion, tiger, monkey, crocodile, parrot, rice, banyan, bamboo, palm, but there are common words, more or less widely spread over Indo-European territory, for snow and freezing cold, for oak, beech, pine, birch, willow, bear, wolf, otter, beaver, polecat, marten, weasel, deer, rabbit, mouse, horse, ox, sheep, goat, pig, dog, eagle, hawk, owl, jay, wild goose, wild duck, partridge or pheasant, snake, tortoise, crab, and bee, etc.”
BEECH
This tree is confined to Central Europe (Oak in Greek, elder and elm in other languages)
BEE
A common word for honey.
A common word for the intoxicatin g drink made from honey.
The branches of the Indo-European family fall into two well-defined groups according to the modification that certain consonants of the parent speech underwent in each. A line running roughly from Scandinavia to Greece separates the two. CENTUM
SATEM
(LATIN)
(AVESTAN)
Recent archaeological findings Excavations in Russia and Ukraine in the last decades of the 20th c.
Graves in the steppe area between the River Don and Urals have yielded evidence of an IndoEuropean “Kurgan” culture that existed north of the Caspian Sea from the fifth through the third millennia B.C.
At present it is sufficient to observe that most of the proposed locations can be accommodated in the district east of the Germanic area stretching from central Europe to the steppes of southern Russia.
Material Culture 1 Places of habitation It has been concluded that the Indo-European people did not group themselves in cities. The existence of the word *uiḱ(from this root was derived Latin vīcus ‘neighbourhood’, ‘village’) indicates that there were locations where a family or clan settled down.
2 Houses The word for ‘house’ was *dōm (from this root was derived Latin domus). The fact that in Gothic a word with the same root, timrjan, meant ‘to carpenter’ indicates that the houses were made of wood. The word for door *dhuer- is found in the plural which leads us to believe that houses most probably had two doors. Another characteristic explained by vocabulary of the Indo-European languages was an area of floor around a fireplace (Lat. āra, Hitt. Hassa-).
3 Eating and drinking The verb for ‘cooking’ has been reconstructed pekw-. There was also a word for ‘baking’ bh(o)Hģ-; and another word for ‘meat’ mēms-. Probably they ate acorns, *gwlh2-(e)n-. The word for ‘salt’ *seh2l- is believed to be a very archaic term. They knew the honey which was used for sweetening *méli. There is only one word that refers to fruits, ‘apple’ *h2ebōl. They drank ‘mead’ *medhu. This word also meant ‘the sweet’ and ‘honey’, thus it is concluded that probably was a drink based on honey.
4 Agriculture The linguistic evidence supports the view that the Indo-Europeans were an agricultural civilization. They have words for sowing the land *seh1- and also for ploughing *h2erh3-.
5
Cattle raising and domestic animals The main domesticated animal was the cow, *gweh3us. Milk was an important element in their diet since there is a word for ‘milking’ *h2melģ-. The word for ‘bull’ probably was *teh2uros. A lesser role in the community was that played by ‘sheep’, *h3euis. The word for lamb is also known: *h2egwnos (note the Latin term agnus). A generic word for small livestock was *péḱu, taking into account that in Latin we find the term pecūnia ‘money’, we should conclude that this kind of livestock was used as currency. The most characteristic animal of the IndoEuropeans was the horse: *h1eḱuos, and among their domesticated animals we must include the dog *ḱuōn.
6 Clothing There is a root for ‘naked’ *ne/ogw; another word for ‘clothing oneself’ *ues-. The word *Hou- probably meant ‘putting on footwear’. Beekes seems quite confident when he affirms that ‘wool’ was the basic material for making clothing, *HulHn-.
7
Transport The use of wagons is attested by the existence of the verb *ueģh- ‘to carry, ride’. In De Eese in Drenthe in the northeast of the Netherlands (from about 2400 B.C.) wheels have been found which were made of one piece of wood, which shows that they used huge wheels. Wagons were pulled by ‘oxen’ *uks-ḗn. Beekes points out that the introduction of the horse turned out to be a great advantage since it was much faster. There is a word for ‘ship’ which indicates that transport over water was already in use: *neh2us ‘ship’. The reconstruction of the verb *h1reh1‘rowing’ probably means that they had navigable craft that could be rowed.
