To: All Msg #42, Feb1693 12:37PM Subject: My Update NostraticReferences List Here are some

From: Loren I. Petrich To: All Msg #42, Feb-16-93 12:37PM Subject: My Update Nostratic-References List Organization: LLNL From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) Message-ID: <1lrj9l$cjd@s1.gov> Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.anthropology,sci.archaeology,talk.origins Here are some references on some interesting recent work on Indo-European, Nostratic, and related subjects: Indo-European: Scientific American, March 1990, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, "The Early History of Indo-European Languages" [A departure from the Kurgan hypothesis; the IE homeland was in the Kura-Araxes area. It also presents some of their revisions of IE phonology.] Scientific American, October 1989, Colin Renfrew, "The Origins of Indo-European Languages" [presenting the hypothesis discussed in more detail in his book, see below] Mallory, J.P., 1989, _In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archeology, and Myth_ [a comprehensive discussion of the Indo-European question, relating linguistics to historical and archeological evidence.] Renfrew, Colin, 1988 _Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins_ [an alternative proposal: a much earlier departure from the Indo-European homeland than the standard (Kurgan) picture would allow. I personally think that the evidence he presents most likely fits an earlier, pre-Indo-European, dispersal; the "Old Europeans" of Marija Gimbutas. His knowledge of linguistics also seems rather weak.] The American Heritage Dictionary [a good intro: it includes about 1500 Indo-European roots (about all those that are ancestral to English words listed in it) and a guide to what can be reconstructed of the culture of the Indo-European speakers, judging from what they had words for, such as their worship of a god named "Father Sky".]. Baldi, Philip, _An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages_ [a good comparative discussion of the older members of the various Indo-European subfamilies.] Gimbutas, Marija, _The Journal of Indo-European Studies_ (several articles over the years) and _The Civilization of the Goddess_ [An abundance of work on the archeology of the Kurgans, whom she proposes as Proto-Indo-European, as well as reconstructions of their culture; she has also done (some admittedly speculative) reconstructions of the culture of the pre-IE Europeans, the "Old Europeans".] Macro-linguistics: Nostratic, Sino-Caucasian, Proto-World, and related subjects. Proposed members of Nostratic: Indo-European Kartvelian (S Caucasian) Afro-Asiatic Semitic Egyptian Berber Cushitic Chadic Uralic (with Yukaghir) Dravidian (with Elamite) Altaic Turkic Mongolian Manchu-Tungus Korean Ryukyu Japanese Chukchi-Kamchatkan Eskimo-Aleut Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic includes all of Nostratic except Kartvelian, Afro-Asiatic, and Dravidian, but includes: Ainu Gilyak a.k.a. Nivkh NOTE: Afro-Asiatic could well be a group comparable to the rest of Nostratic and to Sino-Caucasian, as some Nostraticists have concluded. Discrepancies in proposed schemes like this are probably not fatal; similar problems have existed for a long time in well-known language families. Sino-Caucasian (or Dene-Caucasian): North Caucasian NE Caucasian (incl. Hurrian-Urartian and Etruscan) Abkhazo-Adyghian (incl. Hattic) Sino-Tibetan Yeniseian Burushaski Basque Sumerian Na-Dene "Iberian" "Pelasgian" Nahali (?) Chukchi-Kamchatkan (?) Some other Native American languages (?) There are other big groupings proposed, such as Amerind (most Native American languages), Austric (Austro-Thai and Austro-Asiatic), and Congo-Saharan (Niger-Congo, Kordofanian, and Nilo-Saharan). Archeological correlations? For the most part, there seems no clear correlation between the archeological evidence and macro-linguistic grouping, with the possibile exception of the Americas, where there is evidence of three migrations from the Old World which correspond rather roughly to the Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut families. But to me, the most interesting is the possibility of resolving the question of the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe. Basque and a lot of European "substratum" vocabulary would appear to be Sino-Caucasian, and the estimated date of Sino-Caucasian's breakup is approximately that of the beginning of the European Neolithic dispersion. So we might conclude that the European Neolithic farmers spoke SC languages before the IE speakers arrived. Likewise, it has been proposed that the early-Neolithic Natufians of Syria-Palestine were speakers of the ancestral Afro-Asiatic language. The ultimate in large-scale groupings is all of humanity's languages, whose hypothetical ancestor has been named Proto-World. However, this last subject has been a natural magnet for an assortment of enthusiasts and crackpots, and some Nostraticists would prefer not to make too big an issue out of Proto-World for that very reason. Although any current or historically attested language can confidently be ruled out, due to the inevitability of linguistic change, proposed candidates in the past have included Phrygian Hebrew Arabic Irish Dutch Sanskrit Japanese Turkish The New York Times, November 24, 1987, p. C1, "Linguists Dig Deeper into the Origins of Language" Natural History, March 1987, The First Americans series: "Voices from the Past", by Merritt Ruhlen Joseph Greenberg, 1987(?), _Language in the Americas_ [His controversial work on Native American language classification; it also contains attempts to justify his methodology by doing some Indo-European examples.] I.M. Diakonov and S.A. Starostin, 1986, _Hurro_Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian language_ [peripherally mentions other such comparisons, for example, with Hattic, Etruscan, and the non-Indo-European component of the Greek vocabulary]. Brown, R.A., 1985, _Pre-Greek Speech on Crete from Greek Alphabetic Sources_ [attempt to find features of (a) pre-Indo-European language(s) there, using borrowings in Greek, Cretan place names, and Eteo-Cretan inscriptions. Etruscan and various borrowings elsewhere are also discussed in it; the author proposes an "Aegeo-Asianic" family, which survived in the languages discussed.] Sorin Paliga 1989 and Martin Huld 1990, _The Journal of Indo-European Studies_ [two articles on attempts to reconstruct some pre-Indo-European roots from European languages.] Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell 1991, _Sprung from some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Language_ [Papers for the 200th anniversary of that famous statement by Sir William Jones about the Indo-European languages; topics include his career as a linguist, Indo-European religious vocabulary and possible connections with other language families, the question of the relatedness of the Altaic languages, Japanese, and Korean, and mathematical methods for constructing family trees and for long-distance comparison.] Annual Reviews of Anthropology, 1988, Mark Kaiser and Vitaly Shevoroshkin, "Nostratic" [A detailed discussion of the results of the Soviet Nostratic school; it includes some vocabulary and a lot of sound correspondences.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin and T.L. Markey, eds., 1986, _Typology, Relationship, and Time; A Collection of Papers on Language Change and Relationship by Soviet Linguists_ [A rather technical collection, but it does feature an interesting statistical study by Dolgopolsky of what words are least replaced in languages over time.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin and M. Kaiser, late 1980's, _The Journal of Indo-European Studies_ (The Journal of Indo-European Studies: v13, n3/4, p377, 1985 and v14, n3/4, p365, 1986) [Some discussions of Indo-European phonology in the light of Nostratic comparisons.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed., 1988, _Reconstructing Languages and Cultures_ [Several papers on Nostratic and other such protolanguages, including Proto-World, most by known advocates. It includes 600 Nostratic roots.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed., 1989, _Explorations in Language Macrofamilies_ [More such papers; though mostly on details of comparison.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed., 1990, _Proto-Languages and Proto-Cultures_ [Still more such papers, on such subjects as Etruscan as a Northeast Caucasian language, Uralic-Dravidian comparisons, and Greenberg's Eurasiatic.] Vitaly Shevoroshkin, ed., 1991, _Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages_ [Papers on that subject, covering primarily North Caucasian, Burushaski, Basque, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dene.] The Sciences (NY Academy of Sciences), May-June 1990, Vitaly Shevoroshkin, "The Mother Tongue". [A good introduction to Nostratic and Proto-World, from the point of view of an advocate.] Scientific American, April 1991 [A rather brief discussion of the controversy that Nostratic and Proto-World have started.] The Atlantic, April 1991 [A more detailed discussion of this controversy.] Here is a poem in reconstructed Nostratic composed by the late Nostraticist Vladislav Illich-Svitych: K'elHa" wet'e-i `aK'u-n ka"hla Tongue time-of water-of path/ford k'ala-i palhV-k'V na wete gone-of dwelling-to us lead(s) s'a da 'a-k'V 'ejV 'a"la" he but there-to come(s) no(t) ja-k'o pele t'uba wete which-who fear(s) deep water Language is a ford through the river of time It leads us to the dwelling of the ancestors But he does not arrive there Who is afraid of deep water Note: V is an uncertain vowel, K is k/q, a" is a with " on top, and s' is s with ' on top. The ' after a stop consonant (t, k, etc.) denotes a glottalized consonant (with a stricture in the throat). Several of these words have Indo-European cognates; I give them both in the traditional transcription and a modified one closer to Nostratic due to Shevoroshkin et al, following a /, when it is different. I will give only the more common offshoots; the Latin and Greek words should be familiar from borrowings. You may have fun looking for other offshoot words. `aK'u IE akwa- / akwha- Latin: aqua, "water" palhV IE pelH- / phelH- Greek: polis, "city" na IE nes, nos English: us; Latin: nos wete IE wedh- / wed(h)- English: wed k'o IE kw(o/i)- / kwh(o/i)- English: who, what, other wh's; Latin: qu- t'uba IE dheub- / d(h)eup- English: deep wete IE wed- / wet- English: water, wet; Greek: hudor, hudr-, "water"; Russian: voda, "water" -- /Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster /lip@s1.gov