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Main article: Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses There are several competing hypotheses about when and where PIE was spoken. The Kurgan hypothesis is "the single most popular" model,[1][2] postulating that the bearers of the Kurgan culture of the Pontic steppe were the hypothesized speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language.[3] Alternative theories include an Anatolian urheimat.[4][page needed] The satemization process that resulted in the Centum-Satem isogloss probably started as early as the 4th millennium BC[5] and the only thing known for certain is that the proto-language must have been differentiated into unconnected daughter dialects by the late 3rd millennium BC. Mainstream linguistic estimates of the time between PIE and the earliest attested texts (ca. nineteenth century BC; see Kültepe texts) range around 1,500 to 2,500 years, with extreme proposals diverging up to another 100% on either side. Historically, some proposed models postulate the major dispersion of branches in: the 4th millennium BC (excluding the Anatolian branch) in Armenia, according to the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory); the 4th or 5th millennium BC in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, according to Marija Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis; the 6th millennium BC or later in Northern Europe according to Lothar Kilian's and, especially, Marek Zvelebil's models of a broader homeland; the 6th millennium BC in India, according to Koenraad Elst's Out of India model; the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia (the 5th, in the Balkans, excluding the Anatolian branch), according to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis; the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia (6th excluding the Anatolian branch), according to glottochronological studies;[6][7][page needed] before the 10th millennium BC in the Paleolithic Continuity Theory. Most linguists accept Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis. Renfrew's archaeological hypothesis assumes the Proto-Indo-Europeans brought agriculture to Europe long before the domestication of the horse, and is not accepted by most linguists. The Out-of-India and Northern-European hypotheses are fringe theories past their vogue. History Main article: Indo-European studies Indo-European studies began with Sir William Jones making and propagating the observation that Sanskrit bore a certain resemblance to classical Greek and Latin. In The Sanscrit Language (1786) he suggested that all three languages had a common root, and that indeed they might further all be related, in turn, to Gothic and to the Celtic languages, as well as to Persian. Jones' third annual discourse before the Asiatic Society on the "history and culture of the Hindus" (delivered on 2 February 1786 and published in 1788) with the famed "philologer" passage is often cited as the beginning of comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies. This is Jones' most quoted passage, establishing his tremendous find in the history of linguistics: The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family. This common source came to be known as Proto-Indo-European. The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1833) to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmann's Grundriss published from the 1880s. Brugmann's junggrammatic re-evaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of the laryngeal theory may be considered[by whom?] the beginning of "contemporary" Indo-European studies. PIE as described in the early 20th century is still generally accepted today; subsequent work has largely refined and systematized the field, as well as incorporating new information, such as the Anatolian and Tocharian branches unknown in the 19th century. The laryngeal theory, in its early forms discussed since the 1880s, became mainstream after Jerzy Kuryłowicz's 1927 discovery of the survival of at least some of these hypothetical phonemes in Anatolian. Julius Pokorny's magisterial Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch ("Indo-European Etymological Dictionary", 1959) gave a detailed overview of the lexical knowledge accumulated up until that time, but neglected contemporary trends of morphology and phonology (including the laryngeal theory), and largely ignored Anatolian. The generation of Indo-Europeanists active in the last third of the 20th century (such as Calvert Watkins, Jochem Schindler and Helmut Rix) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie, understanding of the ablaut. From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became certain enough to establish its relationship to PIE; see also Indo-Hittite. Method Main articles: Historical linguistics and Indo-European sound laws There is no direct evidence of PIE, because it was never written. Linguists have reconstructed all PIE sounds and words from later Indo-European languages using the comparative method and internal reconstruction. An asterisk is used to mark reconstructed PIE words, such as *wódr̥ 'water', *ḱwṓ 'dog' (English hound), or *tréyes 'three (masculine)'. Many of the words in the modern Indo-European languages seem to have derived from such "protowords" via regular sound changes (e.g., Grimm's law). As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, according to various sound laws in the daughter languages. Notable among these are Grimm's law and Verner's law in Proto-Germanic, loss of prevocalic *p- in Proto-Celtic, reduction to h of prevocalic *s- in Proto-Greek, Brugmann's law and Bartholomae's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian, Grassmann's law independently in both Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, and Winter's law and Hirt's law in Balto-Slavic. Relationships to other language families Proposed genetic connections Many higher-level relationships between Proto-Indo-European and other language families have been proposed, but these hypothesized connections are highly controversial. A proposal often considered to be the most plausible of these is that of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this consists in a number of striking morphological and lexical resemblances. Opponents attribute the lexical resemblances to borrowing from Indo-European into Uralic. Frederik Kortlandt, while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while Lyle Campbell denies that such relationship exists[citation needed]. Other proposals, further back in time (and proportionately less accepted), link Indo-European and Uralic with Altaic and the other language families of northern Eurasia, namely Yukaghir, Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh, Ainu, and Eskimo–Aleut, but excluding Yeniseian (the most comprehensive such proposal is Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic), or link Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic to Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian (the traditional form of the Nostratic hypothesis), and ultimately to a single Proto-Human family. A more rarely mentioned proposal associates Indo-European with the Northwest Caucasian languages in a family called Proto-Pontic. Etruscan shows some similarities to Indo-European, such as a genitive in -s. There is no consensus on whether these are due to a genetic relationship, borrowing, chance and sound symbolism, or some combination of these. Proposed areal connections The existence of certain PIE typological features in Northwest Caucasian languages may hint at an early Sprachbund[8] or substratum that reached geographically to the PIE homelands.[9] This same type of languages, featuring complex verbs of which the current Northwest Caucasian languages might have been the sole survivors, was cited by Peter Schrijver to indicate a local lexical and typological reminiscence in western Europe pointing to a possible Neolithic substratum.[10] Phonology Main article: Proto-Indo-European phonology The phonology of Proto-Indo-European has been reconstructed to a large extent. Some uncertainties still remain, such as the exact nature of the three series of stops, and the exact number and distribution of the vowels. The notation used here for the phonemes is traditional in Indo-European studies, but should not necessarily be interpreted as the corresponding IPA values. Most saliently, *y is traditionally used to represent IPA /j/, not any sort of front-rounded vowel. In addition, the traditional names and symbols for the dorsals and laryngeals should not be taken as more than a vague suggestion of their actual values. Consonants Labial Coronal Palatal Dorsal Laryngeal "palato-velar" "plain velar" "labiovelar" Nasal *m *n Plosive voiceless *p *t *ḱ *k *kʷ voiced *b *d *ǵ *g *gʷ aspirated *bʰ *dʰ *ǵʰ *gʰ *gʷʰ Fricative *s *h₁, *h₂, *h₃ Liquid *r, *l Semivowel *y *w Alternative notations: The aspirated stops are sometimes written as *bh, *dh, *ǵh, *gh, *gʷh; for the palatals, *k̑, *g̑ are often used; and *i̯, *u̯ can replace *y, *w. The following are the main characteristics of PIE consonants: PIE had a large number of stops, but few fricatives. The traditional (pre-laryngeal) reconstruction included only one fricative, *s; however, the modern theory includes three additional fricatives, commonly known as laryngeals and assumed to have been pronounced far back in the mouth (i.e. velar, uvular[disambiguation needed], pharyngeal and/or glottal[disambiguation needed]). Laryngeals disappeared from all PIE languages except (to some extent) the Anatolian languages, but reveal themselves in their effects on nearby sounds. For example, short *e adjacent to *h₂ and *h₃ is colored to *a and *o, respectively, and short vowels preceding a laryngeal are usually lengthened. The exact pronunciation of the laryngeals is disputed; some linguists[who?] have asserted that *h₁ might not have been a fricative at all, but a glottal stop. Both the number of dorsal consonants (k-type sounds, i.e. stops pronounced in the back of the mouth) and their actual pronunciation are sources of controversy. In particular, the existence of the "plain velar" series as phonemically distinct consonants has long been a source of contention. The traditional theory, which most linguists still adhere to, calls for three series of dorsals, traditionally termed "palatovelar", "plain velar" and "labiovelar". These terms should be viewed as notional rather than expressing any particular commitment to the actual pronunciation of the sounds: in particular, a number of linguists[11][12][13][page needed] have argued that the pronunciations implied by the traditional terms are unlikely given later developments, and that a more likely pronunciation was as plain velar, uvular, and labialized velar, respectively. The dispute over the status of the traditional plain velar series concerns the fact that this is the least-common series; is mostly confined to specific environments (e.g. before /a/ or /r/), and the palatovelar series is not often found in these same environments; and is reflected identically to one of the other two series in all, or nearly all, of the daughters. This has led some linguists to reconstruct only two series, with the distinction between "palatovelar" and "plain velar" a secondary distinction that arose as an areal feature in some of the daughters (especially the "satem" languages) - although this latter view, according to Ringe (2006:7), is now considered to have been disproved in view of Luvian reflexes and of certain phonotactic constraints in PIE. PIE is traditionally reconstructed with three types of voicings for its stops: voiceless, voiced, and breathy-voiced (traditionally termed "voiced aspirated"). This is typologically uncommon, and in fact the reconstructed breathy-voiced series appears as such only in Indo-Aryan languages. Thus, some linguists have proposed the glottalic theory, which proposes a very different reconstruction of these three series. However, this theory is not widely accepted today. A notable characteristic is that the resonants /r/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /y/ and /w/ could appear as vowels as well as consonants, specifically when not adjacent to another vowel. The same is usually held to be true of the laryngeals, as well. This has led to some dispute as to whether PIE should be reconstructed with phonemes /i/ and /u/, or whether these should be considered allophones of /y/ and /w/; however, there is some evidence that /i/, at least, could occur in the same environments as /y/. Vowels Short vowels Front Back Close (*i) (*u) Mid *e *o Open (*a) Long vowels Front Back Close (*ī) (*ū) Mid *ē *ō Open (*ā) The only vowels that are generally accepted as such among linguists are the mid-vowels *e, *o, *ē and *ō. Of all "vowel-like" sounds, these were the only ones that clearly behaved as vowels in all contexts. Sometimes a colon (:) is employed instead of the macron sign to indicate vowel length (*e:, *o:). The high vowels *i and *u were vocalic allophones of the consonants *y and *w respectively. They were thus not "true" vowels in the phonological sense, although they were probably pronounced as simple vowels /i/ and /u/. There were also vocalic allophones of other resonants, *m̥, *n̥, *l̥, *r̥. The laryngeals could also stand between consonants and thus have a "vowel-like" role, with a pronunciation resembling a schwa-like sound (so-called schwa indogermanicum). This is sometimes noted as *ə₁, *ə₂, *ə₃ or *h̥₁, *h̥₂, *h̥₃. It is not agreed upon whether *i and *u could also occur as independent vowels. There were certainly some roots and morphemes in which the consonantal allophones never appeared, giving the impression of a vowel, but whether these were underlyingly consonants or vowels is unclear. Long *ī and *ū are occasionally included, but these were very rare. The vowel-poor nature of Proto-Indo-European may be compared to the Northwest Caucasian languages, which similarly may have as few as two unambiguous vowels but a large number of labialized and palatalized consonants. The potential existence of independent *a (and possibly *ā) is a particular source of dispute. *a commonly occurred as an allophone of *e when next to the laryngeal *h₂, but there is no agreement on whether it could also occur independently. It is often suggested that all *a originated in this way, but Mayrhofer,[14] Ringe[13][page needed] and a number of others have argued that PIE did in fact have the phoneme *a (and possibly also *ā) independent of *h₂. Some new phonemes arose due to compensatory lengthening already in the proto-language, according to processes such as Szemerényi's law and Stang's law. This introduced *ā (separate from possible independent occurrences) and long variants of vocalic allophones *m̥̄, *n̥̄, *l̥̄, *r̥̄, *ī, *ū. These latter sounds properly belong to the "post-PIE" stage, and behaved differently in different branches of Indo-European. They are not usually included in reconstructions of PIE proper. Proto-Indo-European did not have diphthongs as such. Instead, it had sequences of a mid vowel (or possibly an open vowel) followed by the consonantal allophone of a resonant. This thus included: Diphthongs *e *o *ē *ō (*a) (*ā) + *y *ey *oy *ēy *ōy (*ay) (*āy) + *w *ew *ow *ēw *ōw (*aw) (*āw) + *l *el *ol *ēl *ōl (*al) (*āl) + *r *er *or *ēr *ōr (*ar) (*ār) + *m *em *om *ēm *ōm (*am) (*ām) + *n *en *on *ēn *ōn (*an) (*ān) In some sources, diphthongs ending in *y or *w are written ending in *i or *u instead, such as *ei or *ou. This is purely a notational difference and does not imply any change in the reconstruction. The long-vowel diphthongs were often shortened when not word-final, according to Osthoff's law. This occurred after the common PIE period and did not affect all languages. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be widely accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language and it is by far the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. During the 19th century, the vast majority of linguistic work was devoted to reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European or its daughter proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic, and most of the current techniques of linguistic reconstruction in historical linguistics (e.g. the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction) were developed as a result. Scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BC, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than a millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis, which postulates an origin in the Pontic-Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. The existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones, who observed the similarities between Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin. By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are still accepted today (with some refinements). The largest developments of the 20th century have been the discovery of the Anatolian and Tocharian languages and the acceptance of the laryngeal theory. The Anatolian languages have also spurred a major re-evaluation of theories concerning the development of various shared Indo-European language features and the extent to which these features were present in PIE itself. PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology that included inflections (suffixing of roots, as in who, whom, whose), and ablaut (vowel alterations, as in sing, sang, sung). Nouns used a sophisticated system of declension and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation. Relationships to other language families, including the Uralic languages, have been proposed but remain controversial. There is no written evidence of Proto-Indo-European, so all knowledge of the language is derived by linguists from later languages using the comparative method and internal reconstruction. |
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