The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[Talskubilos]

As for the idea that PIE was related to Afroasiatic, I did indeed entertain for a while the notion that the "Caucasian" substratum in PIE could be related to Semitic, with the hi-conjugation descending from the latter's suffixal conjugation. But that is all that at first glance seems to match here, and it does not really do so all too well, and I now think the substratum contributed by the Caucasian ancestors of the Yamnaya people was probably related to NW Caucasian. It is of course not out of the question that IE and Semitic share Neolithic Wanderwörter, such as the much-discussed 'bull'-word.

The Kurgan cultural package (horse, wheel, the numeral '5', etc.) is mostly of NE Caucasian origin, while loanwords from NW Caucasian, as the numeral '2' or the metallurgic Wanderwort reflected in Greek khalkós 'copper', Balto-Slavic *geleǵ- 'iron' are more restricted. On the other hand, Semitic Wanderwörter like the numeral '7' are rather widespread, but the cultural package of Neolithic farmers also included 'plough' as well other agricultural items.

[Lērisama]

As for the idea that PIE was related to Afroasiatic, I did indeed entertain for a while the notion that the "Caucasian" substratum in PIE could be related to Semitic, with the hi-conjugation descending from the latter's suffixal conjugation. But that is all that at first glance seems to match here, and it does not really do so all too well, and I now think the substratum contributed by the Caucasian ancestors of the Yamnaya people was probably related to NW Caucasian. It is of course not out of the question that IE and Semitic share Neolithic Wanderwörter, such as the much-discussed 'bull'-word.

The Kurgan cultural package (horse, wheel, the numeral '5', etc.) is mostly of NE Caucasian origin, while loanwords from NW Caucasian, as the numeral '2' or the metallurgic Wanderwort reflected in Greek khalkós 'copper', Balto-Slavic *geleǵ- 'iron' are more restricted. On the other hand, Semitic Wanderwörter like the numeral '7' are rather widespread, but the cultural package of Neolithic farmers also included 'plough' as well other agricultural items.

Do you have any evidence for these assertions?

[Talskubilos]

Do you have any evidence for these assertions?

NE Caucasian loanwords into IE were first proposed by Sergei Starostin in an old Russian article (1988), although he (rather prudently) called "isoglosses". An English version can be found in Mother Tongue, XXI (2016).

[Lērisama]

Do you have any evidence for these assertions?

NE Caucasian loanwords into IE were first proposed by Sergei Starostin in an old Russian article (1988), although he (rather prudently) called "isoglosses". An English version can be found in Mother Tongue, XXI (2016).

Apart from the fact that Starostin's comparisons look dubious, and he doesn't have the best form with such things, he does not say what you're citing him for¹. An ‘isogloss’ is not directional. It is not prejudiced as to which direction the borrowing takes place, or even if it is due to a genetic relation². I'm not saying don't share your theories, but when you do, please don't present them as the absolute truth, because they're not.³

¹ That pdf viewer was actively antagonistic though, so I may have missed something
² Although that is of course highly unlikely in this case
³ I'm not saying it's definitely wrong either, to be clear, although it seems unlikely to me.

[Ketsuban]

I do so love when Talskubilos (né Octaviano) shows up again to spew more Starostin idolatry, assertions based on nothing and flagrant misuse of words like "Wanderwort".

Kurgan cultural package […] the numeral '5' […] loanwords from NW Caucasian, as the numeral '2' […] Semitic Wanderwörter like the numeral '7'

I feel like it has to count against loanword hypotheses for 7 that other loanword hypotheses for Indo-European numerals don't seem to hold much water. Blažek reviews them in passing for every numeral and only fails to reject any for 7 because there is no consensus on an internal derivation (the best he can find is the idea that *septḿ̥ is clipped from *septm̥mo-, a superlative derived from the root of Sanskrit सपति [sapati] "worships" and Greek ἕπω which he reconstructs as 'the most honourable' and gestures to "the prominent position of the numeral 7 among Indo-Europeans").

[Talskubilos]

I do so love when Talskubilos (né Octaviano) shows up again to spew more Starostin idolatry, assertions based on nothing and flagrant misuse of words like "Wanderwort".

Kiss my ass!

[Talskubilos]

Apart from the fact that Starostin's comparisons look dubious, and he doesn't have the best form with such things, he does not say what you're citing him for¹. An ‘isogloss’ is not directional. It is not prejudiced as to which direction the borrowing takes place, or even if it is due to a genetic relation². I'm not saying don't share your theories, but when you do, please don't present them as the absolute truth, because they're not.³

¹ That pdf viewer was actively antagonistic though, so I may have missed something
² Although that is of course highly unlikely in this case
³ I'm not saying it's definitely wrong either, to be clear, although it seems unlikely to me.

I don't think all Starostin's correspondences are significant, but some of them clearly reflect a cultural package from the Pontic-Caucasian steppes. The most important one is 'horse', reconstructed as *ɦɨ[n]tʃwi (~ -e) (NCED 211), a Wanderwort which spread to IE *h₁eḱw-o- as well as Hurrian eššǝ 'horse' and Sumerian anše 'donkey'. I trace it back to Uralic *ki(n)tʃe/*ky(n)tʃe 'nail, fingernail, claw', so my guess it would have first been applied to some Pleistocene ungulates. As pigs, sheep and goats -which together with cattle made up the Near East Neolithic package- were first domesticated around 9,000-8,000 BC in the Taurus-Zagros mountains area, i think it would be reflected in Afrasian *ʕi(n)ʒ- 'sheep, goat' (Semitic, Cushitic) and *χu(n)ʒ(-ir-) 'pig' (Semitic, Chadic)', likely with phonosymbolism on the initial consonant.

[bradrn]

Why, hello again, Talskubilos. Haven’t seen you around for a while.

[Talskubilos]

Why, hello again, Talskubilos. Haven’t seen you around for a while.

Hello, bradrn.

[Talskubilos]

On the other hand, Semitic Wanderwörter like the numeral '7' are rather widespread, but the cultural package of Neolithic farmers also included 'plough' as well other agricultural items.

There're also borrowings related to animals, such as *kapr-o- 'male goat' (but Greek kápros 'boar') ~ Arabic ɣafr-, ɣufr- 'young of deer or goat, goat kid' and *h₁epr-o- 'boar' ~ Arabic ʕifr-, ʕufr- 'pig, boar; piglet'. There's also English crab < Germanic *krabbō ~ Arabic ʕaqrab 'scorpion'.< Semitic *ʕa-kˀrab-.

[Lērisama]

I do so love when Talskubilos (né Octaviano) shows up again to spew more Starostin idolatry, assertions based on nothing and flagrant misuse of words like "Wanderwort".

Yeah, I tried, but I'm giving up now.

[Talskubilos]

I do so love when Talskubilos (né Octaviano) shows up again to spew more Starostin idolatry, assertions based on nothing and flagrant misuse of words like "Wanderwort".

Yeah, I tried, but I'm giving up now.

What's your point exactly? Perhaps the purported speakers of PIE (aka Kurgans) domesticated themselves the horse, invented the wheel, etc. and so they coined these words independently of other people?

[bradrn]

I do so love when Talskubilos (né Octaviano) shows up again to spew more Starostin idolatry, assertions based on nothing and flagrant misuse of words like "Wanderwort".

Yeah, I tried, but I'm giving up now.

Join the club. At one point I thought that there was a possibility of at least understanding what he’s trying to say; after several attempts I’ve given up too.

[Talskubilos]

I feel like it has to count against loanword hypotheses for 7 that other loanword hypotheses for Indo-European numerals don't seem to hold much water. Blažek reviews them in passing for every numeral and only fails to reject any for 7 because there is no consensus on an internal derivation (the best he can find is the idea that *septḿ̥ is clipped from *septm̥mo-, a superlative derived from the root of Sanskrit सपति [sapati] "worships" and Greek ἕπω which he reconstructs as 'the most honourable' and gestures to "the prominent position of the numeral 7 among Indo-Europeans").

Summarizing a rather long and detailed article in a single phrase is grossly inaccurate, not to say plainly incorrect.

*d(w)oh₁ '2' is likely from NWC *t-qˀHwæ̅ '2'.
*penkʷe '5' comes from NEC *fVmkˀwV 'fist' (where f ~ Xw).
*septm '7' comes from Semitic *šabʕ-at- '7' (femenine), while Germanic *sibun comes from the masculine *šabʕ-.
The numerals '10', '20', etc. up to '100' derive from a root *ḱmt- 'hand' (~ Germanic xandu-z), related to Semitic *χamʃ '5'.
*kʷet-wor '4' derives from *kʷet- 'to group in pairs' > Slavic *četá: ‘couple’, Baltic *kek(e)tā ‘troop’ (with reduplication) -> Uralic *kakta/kæktæ '2' -> IE *h₁oḱte-h₃u '8' with a fossilized dual suffix -h₃u.

[Ketsuban]

"*penkʷe '5' comes from NEC *fVmkˀwV 'fist'" is gibberish; half of "*fVmkˀwV" is shrug segments where Starostin the creator threw a bunch of sounds into a blender and hoped someone else would tackle tricky details like "the vowels". There's clearly a root in common between *pénkʷe "5", *penkʷ-ró-s > PGmc *fingraz (English finger) and *pn̥kʷ-sti-s > PGmc *funstiz (English fist). (If you say the words "folk etymology" I will scream.)

Remember who's supposed to have spoken the languages ancestral to the Indo-European family: nomads of the Eurasian steppe. They already have the concept of counting because the number of their flock is important to their social status (hence Latin pecūnia "money, wealth" and English fee from pecū "cattle"), they don't need it introduced to them from the Caucasus or, even less plausibly, the Levant.

[Talskubilos]

"*penkʷe '5' comes from NEC *fVmkˀwV 'fist'" is gibberish; half of "*fVmkˀwV" is shrug segments where Starostin the creator threw a bunch of sounds into a blender and hoped someone else would tackle tricky details like "the vowels".

I disagree.

There's clearly a root in common between *pénkʷe "5", *penkʷ-ró-s > PGmc *fingraz (English finger) and *pn̥kʷ-sti-s > PGmc *funstiz (English fist). (If you say the words "folk etymology" I will scream.)

That's right, but it doesn't explain the origin of '5'.

Remember who's supposed to have spoken the languages ancestral to the Indo-European family: nomads of the Eurasian steppe. They already have the concept of counting because the number of their flock is important to their social status (hence Latin pecūnia "money, wealth" and English fee from pecū "cattle"), they don't need it introduced to them from the Caucasus or, even less plausibly, the Levant.

I don't think '5' is related to *pek'u- if you're suggesting that. IE languages have cultural loanwords and Wanderwörter relative to domesticated animals and plants as well as other techonological innovations.

[Ketsuban]

That's right, but it doesn't explain the origin of '5'.

It does, though; you write the root *penkʷ- in your Indo-European notebook with "five", "finger", "fist" (etc.) underneath it, speculate that it may have meant "finger" or whatever, and move on. If you wanted to go on to argue for common descent with another language family you should first solidly reconstruct words in both candidates ("*fVmkˀwV" is very much not a solid reconstruction) and then show systematic sound changes which derive the two from a common ancestor. If you wanted to argue for a loanword you'd need to reconstruct the word from which it was loaned and show that the two languages existed in close enough proximity for a loan to happen (or demonstrate the existence of intermediary languages to transmit it from A to C, for a long-range loan as with Blench's paper showing the spread of the Trans-New Guinea word for "banana" into medieval Latin).

Starostin's chimeras do not meet the standard of historical linguistics.

[Talskubilos]

It does, though; you write the root *penkʷ- in your Indo-European notebook with "five", "finger", "fist" (etc.) underneath it, speculate that it may have meant "finger" or whatever, and move on. If you wanted to go on to argue for common descent with another language family you should first solidly reconstruct words in both candidates ("*fVmkˀwV" is very much not a solid reconstruction) and then show systematic sound changes which derive the two from a common ancestor. If you wanted to argue for a loanword you'd need to reconstruct the word from which it was loaned and show that the two languages existed in close enough proximity for a loan to happen (or demonstrate the existence of intermediary languages to transmit it from A to C, for a long-range loan as with Blench's paper showing the spread of the Trans-New Guinea word for "banana" into medieval Latin). Starostin's chimeras do not meet the standard of historical linguistics.

Given the context of other similar loanwords, I take his reconstruction is solid enough to posit a loanword from NEC 'fist' into IE '5', as both semantic and phonetics match pretty well. Of course, you're free to disagree, but historical linguistics isn't limited to the std PIE model.

[WeepingElf]

So we are getting that fun again Talskubllos can be amusing, but he can also be annoying. Ketsuban's note on the PIE words for '5', 'finger' and 'fist' is IMHO correct; while it is not impossible that this word family was constructed around a loanword from another language, there is no reason to assume that. (But is has nothing to do with *peḱu.) And PIE *k^wek^wlos has an impeccable inner-IE etymology; it is formed from root *k^wel- 'to turn' which appears to have cognates in other Mitian languages.

[Talskubilos]

So we are getting that fun again Talskubllos can be amusing, but he can also be annoying.

Not really.

And PIE *k^wek^wlos has an impeccable inner-IE etymology; it is formed from root *k^wel- 'to turn' which appears to have cognates in other Mitian languages.

Unless it's a Wanderwort, as such a technical innovation would suggest.