Indo-European
Read the passage on Indo-European. Find ten words in your own language that can be traced back to indo-european. How did you select those words? Are any trends visible in teh change of the stems of the words.
The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. Contemporary languages in this family with more than 100 million native speakers each include Hindi, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, French, German and Punjabi. Numerous national or minority languages with fewer than 100 million native speakers also exist. Indo-European has the largest numbers of speakers of the recognised families of languages in the world today, with its languages spoken by approximately 3 billion native speakers.[2] The Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European.[3]
Classification
Indo-European
Indo-Germanic (obsolete)
Geographic
distribution: Before the 15th century, Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia; today worldwide.
Genetic
classification: One of the world's major language families; although some have proposed links with other families, none of these has received mainstream acceptance.
Subdivisions:
Albanian
Anatolian
Armenian
Balto-Slavic
Celtic
Germanic
Greek
Indo-Iranian
Italic (including Romance)
Tocharian
Orange: countries with a majority of speakers of IE languages
Yellow: countries with an IE minority language with official status
The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include (in historical order of their first attestation):
Anatolian languages, earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notably including the language of the Hittites.
Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the mid 2nd millennium BC
Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan, and from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian
Dardic languages
Nuristani languages
Greek language, fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homeric traditions date to the 8th century BC. See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.
Italic languages, including Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), attested from the 7th century BC.
Celtic languages, Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD, see Proto-Celtic language.
Germanic languages (including Old English and English), earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century, see Proto-Germanic language.
Armenian language, attested from the 5th century.
Tocharian languages, extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while skeptical Indo-Europeanists regard Baltic and Slavic as no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
Slavic languages, attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
Baltic languages, attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
Albanian language,; attested from the 15th century; relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.
In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, several extinct and little-known languages have existed:
Illyrian languages — possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
Venetic language — close to Italic.
Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek; some propose relationships to Illyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic
No doubt other Indo-European languages once existed which have now vanished without leaving a trace. Scholars cannot classify the fragmentary Raetian language with any certainty.
Specialists have postulated the existence of further subfamilies, among them Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. Neither of these has achieved wide acceptance. Indo-Hittite refers to the hypothesis that a significant separation occurred to split Anatolian from all the remaining groups.
[edit]
Satem and Centum languages
Diachronic map showing the Centum (blue) and Satem (red) areals. The supposed area of origin of satemization is shown in darker red (Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures).
Many scholars classify the Indo-European sub-branches into a Satem group and a Centum group. This terminology comes from the varying treatments of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Geographically, the "eastern" languages belong in the Satem group: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (but not including Tocharian and Anatolian); and the "western" languages represent the Centum group: Germanic, Italic, and Celtic. The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (which a number of scholars regard as closely related), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that some languages classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). Note that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: we do not need to postulate the existence of a "proto-Centum" or of a "proto-Satem". Areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC) may have spread the sound changes involved.
[edit]
Suggested superfamilies
Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages form part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, and Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory remains controversial, like the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic postulation of John Colarusso.
[edit]
History
See also: Proto-Indo-European, Historical linguistics, Glottochronology.
[edit]
History of the idea of Indo-European
The first proposal of the possibility of common origin for some of these languages came from Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647. Van Boxhorn suggested their derivation from "Scythian". However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.
The hypothesis re-appeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.
[edit]
Reconstructions and hypotheses
Scholars have dubbed the common ancestral (reconstructed) language Proto-Indo-European (PIE). They disagree as to the original geographic location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland") from where it originated. Two main candidates exist:
the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea (see Kurgan)
Anatolia (see Colin Renfrew).
Proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis tend to date the proto-language to ca. 4000 BC, while proponents of Anatolian origin usually date it several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the Neolithic spread of farming (see Indo-Hittite).
[edit]
The Kurgan hypothesis
Main article: Kurgan hypothesis
Marija Gimbutas originally suggested the Kurgan hypothesis in the 1950s. According to the Kurgan hypothesis, chalcolithic steppe cultures of the 5th millennium BC between the Black Sea and the Volga spoke early PIE.
Kurgan hypothesis timeline:
late Proto-Indo-European language in the Kurgan framework
4500 - 4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse.
4000 - 3500: The Yamna culture (prototypical kurgan-building) emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
3500 - 3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture reaches its peak: it represents the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practising animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the early Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artifacts enter Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.
mid-3rd millennium BC distribution
3000 - 2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, but still in loose contact and thus enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups (except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, already isolated from these processes). The Centum-Satem division has probably run its course, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
2500 - 2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects has done its work. Speakers of Proto-Greek live in the Balkans, speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, whose people probably use various Centum dialects. Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers (or alternatively, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic communities in close contact) emerge in north-eastern Europe. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
mid 2nd millennium BC distribution
2000 - 1500: Invention of the chariot, which leads to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Andronovo culture and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian splits into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
1500 - 1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops (pre-)Proto-Germanic, and the (pre-)Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Proto-Italic migration into the Italian peninsula. Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. Flourishing and decline of the Hittite Empire. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
distribution around 250 BC
1000 BC - 500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the formative phase of Proto-Germanic. Homer initiates Greek literature and early Classical Antiquity. The Vedic civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas; rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. The Scythians supplant the Cimmerians (Srubna culture) in the Pontic steppe. Armenians succeed the Urartu culture. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan, and foundation of Rome. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages have speakers in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages suffer extinction.
A strength of the Kurgan hypothesis lies in the fact that part of its proposed mode of spread (military conquest by horsemen) agrees with historical reports about the spread of early Greek and early Indo-Aryan peoples.
post- Roman Empire and Migrations period distribution
late medieval distribution (after Islamic, Hungarian and Turkic expansions)
[edit]
The Anatolian hypothesis
Main article: Anatolian hypothesis
Colin Renfrew in 1987 suggested [4] an association between the spread of Indo-European and the Neolithic revolution, spreading peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor (Anatolia) from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, all the inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European tongues, and the Kurgan migrations would at best have replaced Indo-European dialects with other Indo-European dialects.
According to Renfrew [5], the spread of Indo-European proceeded from "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" in 6500 to Archaic PIE in 5000 BC, with the historical Indo-European families developing from 3000 BC from "Balkan PIE".
The main strength of the farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with an archeologically known event that likely involved major population shifts: the spread of farming (though the validity of basing a linguistics theory on archeological evidence remains disputed).
While the Anatolian theory enjoyed brief support when first proposed, the linguistic community in general now rejects it. While the spread of farming undisputedly constituted an important event, most see no case to connect it with Indo-Europeans in particular, seeing that terms for animal husbandry tend to have much better reconstructions than terms related to agriculture. The linguistic community further notes that linguistic evidence suggests a later date for Proto-Indo-European than the Anatolian theory predicts.
[edit]
Other hypotheses
Tamaz Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 placed the Indo-European homeland on Lake Urmia [6]. They suggested that Armenian stayed in the Indo-European cradle while other Indo-European languages left the homeland and migrated on a route that led them along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the steppe north of the Black Sea. This migration route allegedly explains the existence of Tocharic, and the assumed early contacts between Indo-European and Uralic languages. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov also originated the Glottalic theory.
Some people have pointed to the Black Sea deluge theory, dating the genesis of the Sea of Azov to ca. 5600 BC, as a direct cause of Indo-European expansion.[7] This event occurred in still clearly Neolithic times and happened rather too early to fit with Kurgan archaeology. One can still imagine it as an event in the remote past of the Sredny Stog culture, with the people living on the land now beneath the Sea of Azov as possible pre-Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Other theories exist, often with a nationalistic flavour, sometimes bordering on national mysticism, and typically positing the development in situ of their proponents' respective homes. For a prominent modern example of such, note the Indian theories that derive Vedic Sanskrit from the Indus valley civilization, postulating that Vedic Sanskrit essentially equates to Proto-Indo-European, and that all other dialects must ultimately trace back to the early Indus valley civilization of ca. 3000 BC (see Aryan Invasion Theory and Out of India theory for a discussion). Various nationalistic European groups in the 19th and early 20th centuries espoused other theories along these lines. For example, a suggested location of the proto-language in Northern Europe became involved in justifying the view of the German people as "Aryan". For a modern version of the hypothesis of European origin of PIE see the Paleolithic Continuity Theory (proposed by Italian theorists) that derives Indo-European from the European Paleolithic cultures.
[edit]
Sound changes
Main article: Indo-European sound laws
As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, changing according to various sound laws evidenced in the daughter-languages. Notable cases of such sound laws include Grimm's law in Proto-Germanic, loss of prevocalic *p- in Proto-Celtic, loss of prevocalic *s- in Proto-Greek, Brugmann's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as well as satemization (discussed above). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law may or may not have operated at the common Indo-European stage.
[edit]
References
Leszek Bednarczuk (ed.), Języki indoeuropejskie. PWN, Warsawa. 1986 (in Polish). .
Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
Ryan, William; Pitman, Walter (1998). Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-85920-3.
August Schleicher, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-08250-6.
[edit]
Cited references
^ 449 according to the 2005 SIL estimate, about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch.
^ the Sino-Tibetan family of tongues has the second-largest number of speakers.
^ in terms of geography (stretching from the Caucasus to South India), as well as of variety (308 languages according to SIL) and of speakers (more than one billion).
^ Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archeology and Language. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-521-38675-6.
^ Renfrew, Colin (2003). “Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European”, Languages in Prehistoric Europe. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9.
^ Gamkrelidze, Tamaz V.; Vjacheslav V. Ivanov (1995). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014728-9.
^ Ryan and Pitman 1998:208-213
[edit]
See also
Language family
Indo-European studies
Proto-Indo-European language
List of Indo-European roots
List of Indo-European languages
List of languages
[edit]
External links
[edit]
Databases
The Indo-European Database
IE language family overview (SIL)
Indo-European at the LLOW-database
Indo-European Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin
[edit]
Lexicon
Indo-European Roots, from the American Heritage Dictionary.
Indo-European Root/lemmas (by Andi Zeneli)
The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. Contemporary languages in this family with more than 100 million native speakers each include Hindi, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, French, German and Punjabi. Numerous national or minority languages with fewer than 100 million native speakers also exist. Indo-European has the largest numbers of speakers of the recognised families of languages in the world today, with its languages spoken by approximately 3 billion native speakers.[2] The Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European.[3]
Classification
Indo-European
Indo-Germanic (obsolete)
Geographic
distribution: Before the 15th century, Europe, and South, Central and Southwest Asia; today worldwide.
Genetic
classification: One of the world's major language families; although some have proposed links with other families, none of these has received mainstream acceptance.
Subdivisions:
Albanian
Anatolian
Armenian
Balto-Slavic
Celtic
Germanic
Greek
Indo-Iranian
Italic (including Romance)
Tocharian
Orange: countries with a majority of speakers of IE languages
Yellow: countries with an IE minority language with official status
The various subgroups of the Indo-European language family include (in historical order of their first attestation):
Anatolian languages, earliest attested branch, from the 18th century BC; extinct, most notably including the language of the Hittites.
Indo-Iranian languages, descending from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, attested from the mid 2nd millennium BC
Iranian languages, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan, and from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian
Dardic languages
Nuristani languages
Greek language, fragmentary records in Mycenaean from the 14th century BC; Homeric traditions date to the 8th century BC. See Proto-Greek language, History of the Greek language.
Italic languages, including Latin and its descendants (the Romance languages), attested from the 7th century BC.
Celtic languages, Gaulish inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Old Irish texts from the 6th century AD, see Proto-Celtic language.
Germanic languages (including Old English and English), earliest testimonies in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century, see Proto-Germanic language.
Armenian language, attested from the 5th century.
Tocharian languages, extinct tongues of the Tocharians, extant in two dialects, attested from roughly the 6th century.
Balto-Slavic languages, believed by many Indo-Europeanists to derive from a common proto-language later than Proto-Indo-European, while skeptical Indo-Europeanists regard Baltic and Slavic as no more closely related than any other two branches of Indo-European.
Slavic languages, attested from the 9th century, earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic.
Baltic languages, attested from the 14th century, and, for languages attested that late, they retain unusually many archaic features attributed to Proto-Indo-European.
Albanian language,; attested from the 15th century; relations with Illyrian, Dacian, or Thracian proposed.
In addition to the classical ten branches listed above, several extinct and little-known languages have existed:
Illyrian languages — possibly related to Messapian or Venetic; relation to Albanian also proposed.
Venetic language — close to Italic.
Liburnian language — apparently grouped with Venetic.
Messapian language — not conclusively deciphered.
Phrygian language — language of ancient Phrygia, possibly close to Greek, Thracian, or Armenian.
Paionian language — extinct language once spoken north of Macedon.
Thracian language — possibly close to Dacian.
Dacian language — possibly close to Thracian and Albanian.
Ancient Macedonian language — probably related to Greek; some propose relationships to Illyrian, Thracian or Phrygian.
Ligurian language — possibly not Indo-European; possibly close to or part of Celtic
No doubt other Indo-European languages once existed which have now vanished without leaving a trace. Scholars cannot classify the fragmentary Raetian language with any certainty.
Specialists have postulated the existence of further subfamilies, among them Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Aryan. Neither of these has achieved wide acceptance. Indo-Hittite refers to the hypothesis that a significant separation occurred to split Anatolian from all the remaining groups.
[edit]
Satem and Centum languages
Diachronic map showing the Centum (blue) and Satem (red) areals. The supposed area of origin of satemization is shown in darker red (Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures).
Many scholars classify the Indo-European sub-branches into a Satem group and a Centum group. This terminology comes from the varying treatments of the three original velar rows. Satem languages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars. The centum languages, on the other hand, lost the distinction between palatal velars and pure velars. Geographically, the "eastern" languages belong in the Satem group: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (but not including Tocharian and Anatolian); and the "western" languages represent the Centum group: Germanic, Italic, and Celtic. The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (which a number of scholars regard as closely related), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features. Some scholars think that some languages classify neither as Satem nor as Centum (Anatolian, Tocharian, and possibly Albanian). Note that the grouping does not imply a claim of monophyly: we do not need to postulate the existence of a "proto-Centum" or of a "proto-Satem". Areal contact among already distinct post-PIE languages (say, during the 3rd millennium BC) may have spread the sound changes involved.
[edit]
Suggested superfamilies
Some linguists propose that Indo-European languages form part of a hypothetical Nostratic language superfamily, and attempt to relate Indo-European to other language families, such as South Caucasian languages, Altaic languages, Uralic languages, Dravidian languages, and Afro-Asiatic languages. This theory remains controversial, like the similar Eurasiatic theory of Joseph Greenberg, and the Proto-Pontic postulation of John Colarusso.
[edit]
History
See also: Proto-Indo-European, Historical linguistics, Glottochronology.
[edit]
History of the idea of Indo-European
The first proposal of the possibility of common origin for some of these languages came from Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647. Van Boxhorn suggested their derivation from "Scythian". However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.
The hypothesis re-appeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline.
[edit]
Reconstructions and hypotheses
Scholars have dubbed the common ancestral (reconstructed) language Proto-Indo-European (PIE). They disagree as to the original geographic location (the so-called "Urheimat" or "original homeland") from where it originated. Two main candidates exist:
the steppes north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea (see Kurgan)
Anatolia (see Colin Renfrew).
Proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis tend to date the proto-language to ca. 4000 BC, while proponents of Anatolian origin usually date it several millennia earlier, associating the spread of Indo-European languages with the Neolithic spread of farming (see Indo-Hittite).
[edit]
The Kurgan hypothesis
Main article: Kurgan hypothesis
Marija Gimbutas originally suggested the Kurgan hypothesis in the 1950s. According to the Kurgan hypothesis, chalcolithic steppe cultures of the 5th millennium BC between the Black Sea and the Volga spoke early PIE.
Kurgan hypothesis timeline:
late Proto-Indo-European language in the Kurgan framework
4500 - 4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse.
4000 - 3500: The Yamna culture (prototypical kurgan-building) emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
3500 - 3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture reaches its peak: it represents the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practising animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora and Baden cultures. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the early Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artifacts enter Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.
mid-3rd millennium BC distribution
3000 - 2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe. The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, but still in loose contact and thus enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups (except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, already isolated from these processes). The Centum-Satem division has probably run its course, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
2500 - 2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects has done its work. Speakers of Proto-Greek live in the Balkans, speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the Sintashta-Petrovka culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, whose people probably use various Centum dialects. Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers (or alternatively, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic communities in close contact) emerge in north-eastern Europe. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
mid 2nd millennium BC distribution
2000 - 1500: Invention of the chariot, which leads to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Andronovo culture and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian splits into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
1500 - 1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops (pre-)Proto-Germanic, and the (pre-)Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Proto-Italic migration into the Italian peninsula. Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. Flourishing and decline of the Hittite Empire. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
distribution around 250 BC
1000 BC - 500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Northern Europe enters the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the formative phase of Proto-Germanic. Homer initiates Greek literature and early Classical Antiquity. The Vedic civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas; rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. The Scythians supplant the Cimmerians (Srubna culture) in the Pontic steppe. Armenians succeed the Urartu culture. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan, and foundation of Rome. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages have speakers in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages suffer extinction.
A strength of the Kurgan hypothesis lies in the fact that part of its proposed mode of spread (military conquest by horsemen) agrees with historical reports about the spread of early Greek and early Indo-Aryan peoples.
post- Roman Empire and Migrations period distribution
late medieval distribution (after Islamic, Hungarian and Turkic expansions)
[edit]
The Anatolian hypothesis
Main article: Anatolian hypothesis
Colin Renfrew in 1987 suggested [4] an association between the spread of Indo-European and the Neolithic revolution, spreading peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor (Anatolia) from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, all the inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European tongues, and the Kurgan migrations would at best have replaced Indo-European dialects with other Indo-European dialects.
According to Renfrew [5], the spread of Indo-European proceeded from "Pre-Proto-Indo-European" in 6500 to Archaic PIE in 5000 BC, with the historical Indo-European families developing from 3000 BC from "Balkan PIE".
The main strength of the farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with an archeologically known event that likely involved major population shifts: the spread of farming (though the validity of basing a linguistics theory on archeological evidence remains disputed).
While the Anatolian theory enjoyed brief support when first proposed, the linguistic community in general now rejects it. While the spread of farming undisputedly constituted an important event, most see no case to connect it with Indo-Europeans in particular, seeing that terms for animal husbandry tend to have much better reconstructions than terms related to agriculture. The linguistic community further notes that linguistic evidence suggests a later date for Proto-Indo-European than the Anatolian theory predicts.
[edit]
Other hypotheses
Tamaz Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 placed the Indo-European homeland on Lake Urmia [6]. They suggested that Armenian stayed in the Indo-European cradle while other Indo-European languages left the homeland and migrated on a route that led them along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the steppe north of the Black Sea. This migration route allegedly explains the existence of Tocharic, and the assumed early contacts between Indo-European and Uralic languages. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov also originated the Glottalic theory.
Some people have pointed to the Black Sea deluge theory, dating the genesis of the Sea of Azov to ca. 5600 BC, as a direct cause of Indo-European expansion.[7] This event occurred in still clearly Neolithic times and happened rather too early to fit with Kurgan archaeology. One can still imagine it as an event in the remote past of the Sredny Stog culture, with the people living on the land now beneath the Sea of Azov as possible pre-Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Other theories exist, often with a nationalistic flavour, sometimes bordering on national mysticism, and typically positing the development in situ of their proponents' respective homes. For a prominent modern example of such, note the Indian theories that derive Vedic Sanskrit from the Indus valley civilization, postulating that Vedic Sanskrit essentially equates to Proto-Indo-European, and that all other dialects must ultimately trace back to the early Indus valley civilization of ca. 3000 BC (see Aryan Invasion Theory and Out of India theory for a discussion). Various nationalistic European groups in the 19th and early 20th centuries espoused other theories along these lines. For example, a suggested location of the proto-language in Northern Europe became involved in justifying the view of the German people as "Aryan". For a modern version of the hypothesis of European origin of PIE see the Paleolithic Continuity Theory (proposed by Italian theorists) that derives Indo-European from the European Paleolithic cultures.
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Sound changes
Main article: Indo-European sound laws
As the Proto-Indo-European language broke up, its sound system diverged as well, changing according to various sound laws evidenced in the daughter-languages. Notable cases of such sound laws include Grimm's law in Proto-Germanic, loss of prevocalic *p- in Proto-Celtic, loss of prevocalic *s- in Proto-Greek, Brugmann's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as well as satemization (discussed above). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law may or may not have operated at the common Indo-European stage.
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References
Leszek Bednarczuk (ed.), Języki indoeuropejskie. PWN, Warsawa. 1986 (in Polish). .
Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
Ryan, William; Pitman, Walter (1998). Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-85920-3.
August Schleicher, A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European Languages (1861/62).
Watkins, Calvert (2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-08250-6.
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Cited references
^ 449 according to the 2005 SIL estimate, about half (219) belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch.
^ the Sino-Tibetan family of tongues has the second-largest number of speakers.
^ in terms of geography (stretching from the Caucasus to South India), as well as of variety (308 languages according to SIL) and of speakers (more than one billion).
^ Renfrew, Colin (1987). Archeology and Language. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-521-38675-6.
^ Renfrew, Colin (2003). “Time Depth, Convergence Theory, and Innovation in Proto-Indo-European”, Languages in Prehistoric Europe. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9.
^ Gamkrelidze, Tamaz V.; Vjacheslav V. Ivanov (1995). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014728-9.
^ Ryan and Pitman 1998:208-213
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See also
Language family
Indo-European studies
Proto-Indo-European language
List of Indo-European roots
List of Indo-European languages
List of languages
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External links
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Databases
The Indo-European Database
IE language family overview (SIL)
Indo-European at the LLOW-database
Indo-European Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin
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Lexicon
Indo-European Roots, from the American Heritage Dictionary.
Indo-European Root/lemmas (by Andi Zeneli)
posted by TRB | 2:16 PM
14 Comments:
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Here’s a list of Spanish words with Indo-European roots. I used the American Heritage Dictionary Online (because, I have to be honest, I don’t exactly have a mental list of Indo-European roots) and searched to the list to find some roots, then thought of Spanish words that contained them. Sometimes, I found small leaps of logic were necessary to see the link between the root and the modern definition, most of the connections were pretty evident. For example, in the case of “elegir” (meaning to choose) and its root “leg-” (meaning to collect) it could be concluded that a choice is made from a collection of data or evidence. Another slight stretch occurs with “catarata” (waterfall) and “kat-” (down); to understand the link, one must remember that water falls down a waterfall (okay, not exactly the greatest leap in logic). The example of “catarata” also shows a spelling change that occurred when “kat-” evolved with the Spanish language; Spanish seldom uses the letter /k/, except in loan words, so the hard /k/ sound in “catarata” has been replaced by a /c/. (When paired with /a/, /o/, and /u/, the Spanish /c/ makes a /k/ sound). As for pronunciation changes, it appears that some of the Indo-European roots assimilated into the Spanish pronunciation system and took on its spelling scheme. For example, “aumentar” (to increase) drops the /g/ in its Indo-European root “aug-” (also to increase), which makes sense because the sound combination “au” is much more common than “aug” in Spanish. The word “señor” (mister or sir) is an interesting sound change from the Indo-European “sen” (old), which changes the /n/ in “sen” to a nasal sound, similar to the /ni/ in “onion.”
I didn’t notice any rigid patterns in the words I selected, but I did notice that most of the sound changes that occurred were with vowel sounds. For example, the /e/ in the Indo-European “dent-“ (tooth) became /ie/ in the Spanish “diente” (tooth), the /e/ in “dem-” (house, household) became /o/ in “domicilio” (home), and the /n/ in “sen-” gained a /y/ sound after it in “señor.”
Spanish Word Indo-European Root
1. elegir- to choose, elect/ leg- to collect
2. madre- mother/ māter- mother
3. pelo- hair/ pel- skin, hide
4. comedor- dining room/ ed- to eat
5. aumentar- to increase/ aug- to increase
6. diente- tooth/ dent- tooth
7. domicilio- home/ dem- house, household
8. catarata- waterfall/ kat- down
9. mente- mind/ men- to think
10. señor- mister, sir/ sen- old
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html
Ten words! I'm going to do English, seeings as that's "new" in some respects compared to our former assignments. Extensive use of oed.com was in order. Also, if you'd like a super read, look at the OED's etymology for the verb "to know." It's really long for this blog, but it's cool because it talks about the merging of the verbs "to know" and "to recognize" which is something hundreds of language have in common, yet English fails to readily make this distinction. But anyways...
languid - Latin, languid-us
indiscrete - Latin, indiscretus
share - O. Teutonic, *skaro
try - Latin, triare
talk - EFris, talken
away - German, awei
sweet - Indo-eur. swad-, in Skr. svdús sweet, svádati to be sweet, Greek, with characters I can't type...
rest - Old Norw., rast (the first a is actually a crazy character I can't type.
new - Basically related to about 30 different languages, including Hittite and Sanskrit. The OED did not give one clear root.
if - Gothic, ibai
There aren't very many "rules" for English, unless you separate by the language. For example, the "th" sound coming from Gothic, the silent "e" just loses sound over time, etc. Most English is derived from German (Germanic tongues, ie Frisian, Swedish, etc.), Latin, and French, with some Greek thrown in.
I selected words randomly from a song.
The Portuguese first arrived in Japan around 1540. Japan was known to Portugal since the time of Marco Polo. Although whether the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan is uncertain, Portuguese traders started negotiating with Japan earlier than 1550, and established a base at Nagasaki. By then, trade with Japan was a Portuguese monopoly, under the rule of a Captain. Also, many Portugese missionaries began to arrive in Japan to preach the gospel around this period.
Perhaps this explains why many of the commonly used Japanese words today originate from Portuguese or other Indo-European languages.
Some words that have been borrowed from Indo-European languages include:
1. Alcohol - アルコール (pronounced: arukōru)- Alcool (pre-modern Portuguese) – álcool (modern Portuguese)
2. England (United Kingdom) - イギリス (pronounced: igirisu) – inglez (pre-modern Portuguese) – ingles (modern Portuguese)
3. Bread - パン (pronounced: pan) – pão (pre-modern and modern Portuguese) [*This word is usually incorrectly thought to have originated from pan (Spanish), or pain (French).]
4. Jacket - チョッキ (pronounced: chokki) – jaque (pre-modern Portuguese) – jaqueta (modern Portuguese)
5. Jesus Christ - イエス・キリスト (pronounced: iesu kiristo) – Iesus (pre-modern Portuguese) – Jesus (modern Portuguese)
6. Trousers – ズボン (pronounced: zubon) – jibão (modern Portuguese)
[*This word may have been originated from French: Zubon]
7. Velvet – ビロード (pronounced: birōdo) – veludo (modern Portuguese)
[*This word may have been originated from Spanish: Velludo]
8. Tempura – 天ぷら (pronounced: Tenpura) – tempero (modern Portuguese)
[*Tempero is Portuguese for spice or seasoning, but the Japanese tempura is battered and deep-fried fish or vegetables.]
9. Part-time job - アルバイト (pronounced: Arubaito) – Arbeit (German)
[*The original meaning of Arbeit is just "work", but in Japanese it signifies a casual part-time job.]
10. Chocolate – チョコレート (Chokoreto) – Chocolat (French)
The main pattern that can be identified in the Japanese language is that the large portion of Japanese vocabularies which are derived from foreign words are usually written in katakana. Each syllable in the foreign word is broken up into its own piece and is pronounced separately.
However, it is interesting to note that “tempura” (word #8) is written in kanji and hiragana and not in katakana. Perhaps this is because the word has been used for a very long time in Japan that it adopted itself to the Japanese culture. (When you hear “tempura,” you would probably think of a Japanese dish rather than a Portuguese batter.) Thus, it may be highly possible that there are indeed other Japanese words (that are now written in kanji and/or hiragana) that might have originated from a different language.
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http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq2/portugese.html
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq2/german.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_words_of_Portuguese_origin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_III_of_Portugal#Portuguese_arrival_in_Japan
Lisse-smooth: *lei-(slimy)
Secret-secret: *krei-(To sieve, discriminate, distinguish)
Main-hand: *men-(hand, to take one’s hand)
Lumière-light: *leuk- "light, brightness"
Plancher-floor: *plat-(to spread)
Dormir- to sleep: *dre-(to sleep)
Porter- to carry: *prtu- (a going, a passage)
Dire- to say: *deik- “to point out"
Voir- to see: *weid- "to know, to see"
Nourriture-food: *(s)nu- "flow, let flow,"
In selecting words to use for this assignment, I tried to use words that describe objects and concepts that have been around throughout human history. Things like food, light and body parts. They do not relate to technology, or a specific cultural concept. I felt that these were most likely to clearly reflect an Indo-European root, as they would not have been invented, or have changed in their use significantly since the language was spoken.
I was able to notice a few trends in the differences between modern french and Indo-European. It seems that in many cases, both vowels and consonants have been added in the middle of a IE root. In addition, the k’s have often been softened, to a c or an r, which in french is pronounced in a similar place to a k.
Roots were found thanks to www.etymonline.com
and the american heritage online dictionary's list of indo-european roots.
Spanish words that can be traced to Indo-European:
I selected these words because they descend from Latin and not from another language source outside of PIE (such as Arabic, Basque or pre-Roman indigenous languages).
1) la mente (the mind) *men-
the vowel does not change, plosive dental ending is adding
2) el pecho (the chest) *peg-
the vowel does not change, g changes to palatal ch with masculine ending
3) querer (to want) *ka-
vowel opens and infinitive verb form is added
4) tener (to hold) *ten-
Vowel does not change, infinitive verb form is added
5) amar (to love) *am
vowel does not change, infinitive verb form is added
6) la visión (vision/sight) *weid-
w changes to v (which changes to b), dipthong is simplified to i and d softens to fricative with nasal ending
7) la puerta (the door/port) *per
vowel dipthongizes to ue, adds dental ending
8) la música (music) *men-
both vowel and consonant structure of root change
9) la miel (Money) *melit
vowels metathesize, t-ending drops as l becomes final consonant
10) la barba (beard) *bhardh-ā
vowel does not change, dh moves from dental to bilabial b
It is difficult to determine patterns from the listed stem changes. For instance, the PIE *e can appear in Spanish as e or as ue, and in other cases as ie or u. Verbs closely resemble their PIE predecessors, with the addition of appropriate endings (am > amar). In general, consonants are more prone to change than vowels, although both change quite a bit between PIE and Spanish. Interestingly, the first consonant sound in the Spanish word is almost always identical to the consonant in the PIE construction. The majority of changes occur at the end of words and, in some cases, in the middle. This might tell us something about the nature of PIE, that it was inflectional, or agglutinative to the right.
Source: Watkins, Calvert, ed. 2000. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company).
Classical Greek
I looked at Wikipedia’s page on Indo-European roots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indo-European_roots#m) to find roots that are applicable to Greek, and checked them against their Classical Greek word with Liddell and Scott’s Intermediate Greek Lexicon.
δρῦs (drus) ‘tree’ - *doru-
κάκκη (kakkei) ‘dung’ - *kakka-
λείπω (leipo) ‘to leave’ - *leikʷ-
καρδία (kardia) ‘heart’ - *kerd-
κρᾱτήρ (krateir) ‘mixing-bowl’ - *kerH2- ‘to mix’
κλέπτω (klepto) ‘to steal’ - *klep-
κογχύλιον (konkhulion) ‘shell’ - *kon-
λευκόs (leukos) ‘light’ – *leuk-
ἕρπω (herpo) ‘to creep’ - *serpe-
ἅλs (hals) ‘salt’ - *sol-
I did notice that a few Greek words dropped the initial vowel from the stem if it were between a consonant and an ‘r’ (*doru- > δρῦs; *kerH2 > κρᾱτήρ), but this pattern did not follow through with *kerd- > καρδία. The dropping of the vowel could have be based on what follows the ‘r’, but I didn’t take the time to go deeply into that. I also noticed that an initial ‘s’ would drop out before a vowel but leave an aspiration, leaving an /h/ (rough breathing mark over the vowel) in Greek. This happened to both *serpe- > ἕρπω and *sol- > ἅλs, but the two examples I found are hardly enough to form a pattern from. From my sample I couldn’t see any pattern to changes in the vowels, but the consonants all stayed pretty much the same.
Italian words with Indo-European roots:
Agraria (agriculture): agro- (field)
Agro (bitter): ak- (sharp)
Cadere (to fall): kad- (to fall)
Dente (tooth): dent- (tooth)
Gelato (frozen, ice cream): gel- (cold, to freeze)
Magro (thin, slim): māk- (long, thin)
Potere (power, to be able): poti- (powerful, lord)
Quando (when): kwo- (stem of relative and interrogative pronouns)
Rubare (to steal): reup-, also reub- (to snatch)
Segare (to saw): sek- (to cut)
Like Leah, I used the American Heritage Dictionary’s list of Indo-European Roots at http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html. I browsed through their entries, finding several different connections, from the very clear dente/dent- derivation, to the quando/kwo- one, which takes a little bit more filling-in. One pattern that I noticed and then began specifically looking for as I compiled my list was the vocalization that occurred from some root /k/’s that turned them into /g/’s in Italian. Agro, magro, and segare all follow this pattern. I find it interesting that two words that look so similar, agraria and agro, each have different roots. Also, the fact that the roots of some Italian words are virtually unchanged from their Indo-European roots is pretty amazing. Perhaps this stems from the fact that since the days of Latin, the Italian language and its predecessors have not done a lot of moving around?
Please forgive my non-HTML; Blogger's comment system wouldn't accept super- or subscript tags.
PIE -> Modern French
*pH(sub)2(/sub)tér- -> père (father)
*déiw-o- -> dieu (god)
*dwi -> deux (two)
*séH(sub)2w(/sub)-l/n -> soleil (sun)
*nok(sup)w(/sup)t -> nuit (night)
*H(sub)2(/sub)nos -> nez (nose)
*leb(sup)h(/sup) -> lèvre (lip)
*k'erd -> cœur (heart)
*mori -> mer (sea)
*pel -> peau (skin)
I compiled a list of basic words I expected to be able to find the PIE roots of; mostly, I included the words for family members, body parts, numbers, and elements of nature. My thought was that words for ordinary, everyday things, people, or concepts would be easier to trace and identify. I used Wikipedia’s list of PIE roots to help me confirm the history of some of the words I chose.
The sound H(sub)2(/sub) disappeared from French (from Latin, too), and so have sounds represented by (sup)w(/sup), (sup)h(/sup), or H(sub)2w(/sub). Initial Ds stuck around; in fact, most of the initial sounds survived. With only ten words, it’s hard to describe any broad patterns of sound change; I can’t properly identify the rules for the many and varied vowel shifts, for example.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indo-European_roots
Below I have ten Proto-Indo-European roots with Spanish words that I believe to be related underneath and indented
*deru- to be firm, solid, steadfast
Duro - hard
*dent- tooth
Dientes - teeth
*pilo- hair
Pelo - hair
*laku- body of water
Lago - lake
*prek- to ask
Preguntar – to ask
*peisk- fish
Pescado - fish
*medhyo- middle
Medio - middle
*dlk-u- sweet
Dulce - sweet
*kai – heat
Calentar – to heat
*poti- powerful
Poder – power
I found these words by looking through a dictionary of Indo-European roots (the American Heritage version, to be precise) and looking for roots that looked like Spanish words I knew. One pattern I noticed was that the ‘k’ in *laku and *prek changed to a ‘g’ in the Spanish words. However, this is not uniform, so there are other rules other than just the existence of a ‘k’ motivating this change.
The Japanese language is filled with many words which have been borrowed from other languages. China remains the most influential country as kanji, one of the Japanese writing systems, entered Japan during the 5th and 6th centuries AD and is used to represent both Chinese loan words and native Japanese morphemes. In addition to this enormous influence, Japanese has also been influenced by the Indo-European languages. What follows is a brief sample of Indo-European words found in the Japanese language.
supagetti – spaghetti (Italian - spaghetto )
semina – seminar (German – seminar, originally from Latin s min rium)
fianse – fiancé (French - fiancé, fiancée)
puro – professional person (French – professionnel)
konpyuutaa – computer (French - compute-r, originally from Latin comput -re)
menyuu – menu (French - les menus)
resutoran – restaurant (French – restaurant, from restaurer)
nyusu – news (French - nouvelles)
fairu – file, portfolio (Italian – portafogli, originally from French - portefeuille )
repoto – report (French - raport)
These foreign words are represented in writing using katakana, and their pronunciations in Japanese generally copy those of the original languages. Because of this, there generally appears to be little change in the stems of these borrowed words.
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Similar to Japanese, the only Korean words that have Indo-European root are those that are borrowed from mainly English and Portuguese. Western European countries led by Portugal began exchange of goods from 17th century. After World War II, the presence of the United States in South Korea was a predominant reason for borrowed words from the Romance language. Most of these borrowed words are related to technology such as “computer,” “printer,” or “mouse,” which are hard to trace back to the Indo-European roots.
So, I decided to choose English words for numbers and compare them with Sanskrit, Latin, and old German.
One – (‘eka’ in Sanskrit, ‘ūnus’ in Latin, ‘ein’ in old German)
Two – (‘dva’ in Sanskrit, ‘duo’ in Latin, ‘zwene’ in old German)
Three – (‘tri’ in Sanskrit, ‘trēs’ in Latin, ‘dri’ in old German)
Four – (‘catur’ in Sanskrit, ‘quattuor’ in Latin, ‘feor’ in old German)
Five - (‘pañca’ in Sanskrit, ‘quinque’ in Latin, ‘fimf’ in old German)
Six - (‘sas’ in Sanskrit, ‘sex’ in Latin, ‘sēhs’ in old German)
Seven - (‘sapta’ in Sanskrit, ‘septem’ in Latin, ‘sibun’ in old German)
Eight - (‘asta’ in Sanskrit, ‘octō’ in Latin, ‘ahto’ in old German)
Nine - (‘nava’ in Sanskrit, ‘novem’ in Latin, ‘niun’ in old German)
Ten - (‘daśa’ in Sanskrit, ‘decem’ in Latin, ‘zēhen’ in old German)
Hundred – (‘śata’ in Sanskrit, ‘centum’ in Latin, ‘hunt’ in old German)
Thousand - (‘sahasram’ in Sanskrit, ‘mīlle’ in Latin, none available for old German)
English is closest to old German of the three ancient languages present above. ‘Four’, ‘seven’, ‘eight’, ‘nine’, and ‘ten’ are words that are pronounced almost the same as old German, but not so much in Sanskrit or Latin. With the exception of three and six, all the number words in English seem to vary greatly from Sanskrit and Latin. However, other English words that are related to numbers use words that sound very much alike with the equivalent in Sanskrit and Latin. ‘Octopus’ for eight, ‘century’ for hundred, ‘millimeter’ for thousand are such examples. Lastly, words that have a ‘d’ sound in Sanskrit became a ‘t’ sound in English as seen in two and ten.
I used Indo-European roots from Wikipedia to find out about these words.
It seems that Chinese is completely out of the realm of Indo-European languages. So, here are some English words that can be traced back to Indo-European:
WATER-- Water is wet, even etymologically. The Indo-European root of water is *wed-, “wet.” *wed-, which by Grimm's Law became *wet- in Germanic, we have Old English w t, “wet,” which became modern English wet.
SUN-- Middle English, from Old English sunne. in Indo-European Root is s wel-
MOON-- Middle English mone, from Old English mOna; akin to Old High German mAno moon, Latin mensis month, Greek mEn month, mEnE moon
HUMAN- Middle English humain, from Old French, from Latin h m nus. in Indo-European Root is dhghem-.
RUN-- Middle English ronnen, alteration of rinnen, verbi. (from Old English iernan, rinnan & Old Norse rinna) & of rennen, verbt., from Old Norse renna; akin to Old High German rinnan, verbi., to run, Sanskrit rinAti he causes to flow, and probably to Latin rivus stream
SIT- Middle English sitten, from Old English sittan; akin to Old High German sizzen to sit, Latin sedEre, Greek hezesthai to sit, hedra seat
WALK-- partly from Middle English walken (past welk, past participle walken), from Old English wealcan to roll, toss, journey about (past weolc, past participle wealcen) and partly from Middle English walkien (past walked, past participle walked), from Old English wealcian to roll up, muffle up; akin to Middle Dutch walken to knead, press, full
LOVE-- Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lEof dear, Latin lubEre, libEre to please
MAKE -- Middle English, from Old English macian; akin to Old High German mahhOn to prepare, make, Greek magEnai to be kneaded, Old Church Slavic mazati to anoint, smear
FOOD -- Middle English fode, from Old English f da, akin to Old High German fuotar food, fodder, Latin panis bread, pascere to feed. Indo-European Root is p -
EAT -- Middle English eten, from Old English etan; akin to Old High German ezzan to eat, Latin edere, Greek edmenai
In selecting these words, I try to think of the basic movements, observations and substances that could and should exist even in the most primitive circumstances.
In terms of the change of the stems of the words, I get the sense of the phonetic simplification. For example, I notice the frequent dropping of the ending consonants or vowels. But in general, the changes are not so dramatic in my opinion.
Source: www.dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary
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