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17 Aug 2008
A list of possible Proto-Semitic loanwords in PIE
I decided to get organized and produce a pdf that I plan on updating as new information comes forth concerning Proto-Semitic (PSem) loanwords in Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Hopefully, if anything, it will provoke interesting discussion or cause one to ponder on the exact cultural and linguistic relationship between Proto-Semitic and Proto-Indo-European during the Neolithic... or perhaps disgust and ire from the peanut gallery. Oh well, it's worth a try:
Labels:
indo-european,
language,
late ie,
linguistics,
mid ie,
neolithic,
pre-IE,
semitic
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Great! I've been wondering what you were up to ;)
ReplyDeleteAll forms are pretty interesting. Although I'm not quite sure what to think of the numerals 3 and 6 yet.
I find it striking that seven somehow retained its mimation while 3 and 6 didn't. But maybe that's because I don't know enough about Proto-Semitic numerals. But from an Arabic point of view there's no reason for 3 and 6 not to retain it.
Personally a lack of updates on my blog is because I've been busy picking up my Japanese again. I'm determined to finally learn all those damn Kanji!
I will want to write an article in Hittite soon, which some people claim to have an Aorist. I find this rather odd, but there's some interesting *s-infixing in some verbs that I'd like to discuss. So keep your eyes peeled for another update soon ;)
Some of these are well-known and some are doubtful. Just for now I wanted to add:
ReplyDelete(1) *H2el- vs. PS *('ayn)el- 'rise/be high'...maybe relation to Georgian ma-ghal-i (uvular voiced fricative 'gh') 'tall/high'??
(2) Question on *weid-...Semitic languages show an initial w-/y- alternation with Canaanite languages being mostly y- (in this case I think the Akkadian shows a i- so your PS stem is correct). However, I am pretty sure I have only seen *y- as 3rd person singular (masc.) prefix. Therefore, I would like to know whence you took *waydi('ayn).
Obviously, Semitic philology is not my field, much less IE. But this mostly looks quite plausible. Where are you quoting Proto-Semitic forms from? The rigid CáCiC perfect and CaCāCa (ā!) present both seem strange to me, but I assume you have some citation for them.
ReplyDeletebarru: this would probably have had a feminine form for use as a count noun - I don't know your sound shifts, but maybe barratu- or bartu- or something could explain the s.
qaṣiṣ, madid: most (all attested?) Semitic languages have a 3rd person form without a vowel between the two identical consonants, which would make a better source.
ša "himself": surely this should be šuwa?
waydi` "he knows": where's that wa- coming from? The waw-consecutive, I suppose? Seems an unlikely thing to reconstruct for Proto-Semitic, given that it's basically just Canaanite or at best NW Semitic, but who knows.
A bit off this topic, I'm afraid, but have you written a review of van der Meer's Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis 2007? And if not, why not? :-)
ReplyDeleteI've searched your blog, but couldn't find more than your discussions of very specific LLZ issues, not related to this recent publication.
Holy cow! I left the blog for one day and you're all really responding to the issue of Indo-European/Semitic loans. There are more paleoglots online than I thought! :)
ReplyDeletePhoenix: "I find it striking that seven somehow retained its mimation while 3 and 6 didn't."
Do you think it's really that striking? A numeral can often act both as a noun and a quantifying adjective for another noun. I reckon that Semitic *sabʕatum would have been used as a noun on its own meaning "(a group of) seven" while non-mimated forms would have been used to quantify other optionally-mimated nouns. Am I wrong?
In that way, both the mimated and non-mimated forms could equally have a chance of showing up in Pre-IE.
Maxime: "(1) *H2el- vs. PS *('ayn)el- 'rise/be high'...maybe relation to Georgian ma-ghal-i (uvular voiced fricative 'gh') 'tall/high'??"
Yes, I've come across that before but I'll have to look into that further before adding. Thanks.
Maxime: "However, I am pretty sure I have only seen *y- as 3rd person singular (masc.) prefix. Therefore, I would like to know whence you took *waydi('ayn)."
Lameen: "waydi` "he knows": where's that wa- coming from? The waw-consecutive, I suppose? Seems an unlikely thing to reconstruct for Proto-Semitic [...]"
Two against one. The battle begins. You two really don't like this reconstruction and I admit I kinda pulled that one out of my magic hat based on my as-yet insufficient understanding of Proto-Semitic grammar.
However, I notice that the initial semivowel of the triliteral *[wd`] is uncertain. If it were a I-w verb like *[wθb] "to sit", then the *w would simply be part of the triliteral. There may also be a way around explaining the diphthong *ei in PIE by appeal with the example of *treis = Sem *θalāθ- where a long Semitic vowel appears to be reinterpreted as Mid IE *ei (because MIE didn't have long vowels yet, as I theorize). I suppose then I need to pursue the possibility of a form like... *wādʕu? Is this a wild goose chase? I seem so close to something but I don't know what it should be.
Judith Weingarten: "A bit off this topic, I'm afraid, but have you written a review of van der Meer's Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis 2007? And if not, why not? :-)"
ReplyDeleteThank you! <:) I'll have to track it down then and see what I can say about it. I've been largely doing my own independent research into the Etruscan language and finding my own patterns in these documents because I've grown so dissatisfied with what is available on the topic of the language. I discuss certain details of artifacts as I learn more and discover new patterns.
The one case of PS *q > PIE *ḱ seems to imply that both were still velars at the stage of loaning. The other however generates a glottalic velar (plus obvious labialization). This could be an older loan, preceding the voicing of IE ejectivs.
ReplyDeleteBut then there's a PS *ṭ > MIE *d. The correspondence PS medial voiced stop > MIE medial glottalic stop is also starting to seem fairly general. Where are those coming from? We'd need a fairly long timeframe to make room for all these by way of internal phonation changes.
Also *ḫ becomes PIE *h2 in one word, *h3 in another; or *ʔ > *h2 here, *h1 there?
Still from clear-cut, but it's also far too much to dismiss…
And now that I have time, to respond to more comments already posted...
ReplyDeleteLameen: "qaṣiṣ, madid: most (all attested?) Semitic languages have a 3rd person form without a vowel between the two identical consonants, which would make a better source."
Yes it would but I still need to find out what the mainstream view is on that. Afterall, the general pattern overall is *CaCiC, no? Is *CVCC a legal word shape in Proto-Semitic though? As far as I was aware, this was only valid as a shape of a stem.
Lameen: "ša "himself": surely this should be šuwa?"
Yes, thanks for correcting me. It still doesn't affect the plausibility of the connection however since there seems to be a larger correlation of PIE *sw- with Proto-Semitic *š- which hints at concommitant rounding of the Semitic fricative similar to what happens when English speakers pronounce "sh" in "ship".
Tropylium: "The one case of PS *q > PIE *ḱ seems to imply that both were still velars at the stage of loaning.
ReplyDeleteBased on my own "internal reconstruction safari" into the heart of Mid IE, /k/ and /q/ were at this stage only allophones of *k depending on the height of the neighbouring vowel. So the place of articulation of Proto-Semitic *q should have been more or less unimportant to the ears of Mid IE speakers as a result.
Tropylium: "The correspondence PS medial voiced stop > MIE medial glottalic stop is also starting to seem fairly general."
Okay, let's explain everything on my interpretation of Proto-Semitic stops (at least through the lens of Mid IE).
My current theory of Mid IE is so far telling me that Proto-Semitic's coronal stops were alveolar, not dental. The voiced stops also had a long VOT like in English. The long VOT of these voiced stops would tend then to be reinterpreted in loanwords into Mid IE as _creaky stops_ which also have longer VOT (what you are calling "ejective" according to Glottalic Theory). It would naturally be atypical for a foreign speaker to attempt pronouncing a stop with a long VOT by using one with short VOT when one with long VOT is already available in the native language. Proto-Semitic didn't have this creaky/plain contrast however, so perhaps we should expect an odd abundance of creaky stops in MIE loanwords from Proto-Semitic rather than plain stops.
Tropylium: "Also *ḫ becomes PIE *h2 in one word, *h3 in another; or *ʔ > *h2 here, *h1 there?
In MIE, *h2 and *h3 would have been pronounced as velar fricatives /x/ and /xʷ/ respectively. So their shared correlation to Semitic *ḫ should be unsurprising.
As for MIE *-ʔ- in mediofinal positions, I suspect there was a point where this phoneme developed an allophone /h/. So if this had already occurred by the time of Proto-Semitic contact, there would only be two reasonably good matches for Proto-Semitic laryngeal -ʔ-, namely glottal *-h- (> PIE *h1) or velar *x (> PIE *h2).