Re: non-Indo-european roots

From: DEROUBAIX YVES
Are the non-Indo-european roots in Germanic languages related with roots in
non-Indo-european or non-Nostratic languages?

The original figure applies to non-IE roots. About 30% of the most ancient Germanic word-stock is NOT attributable to any IE source.

 

Probable IE words which are attested in only a single branch of the language family tend to signal their presence by their structure. Someone else will give the exact formula (or you can nag me to go dig out the books), but PIE words follow a rather stereotyped pattern of how consonants and vowels are brought together. Equally, IE affixes can also be giveaways. It's rather like  word-terminal -ing being a giveaway for an English word, or word-terminal -ski being a dead giveaway for a Slavic (and probably Polish) noun specifically, a family name.

 

At a very distant level, certain words are undoubtedly related to other known language-families. The numbers come to mind; this 'relatedness' is something that is quite nearly pan-IE and is often attributed to 'Eurasiatic' or 'Nostratic'.

 

It should be stated that Germanic has been borrowing words all through it's life. There are some very early Celtic borrowings, and somewhat later, some Balto-Slavic and even Uralic borrowings. We are speaking of the very earliest stratum for which no cognate in any other language can be found.

 

There are also studies done on the semantic areas these words fall into.
If you prowl through Rick McCallister's web pages, you'll see that the certain words fall in specific areas. Two, which I mentioned earlier, involve aquatic and seafaring terminology, as well as kingship terms. It is very clear that the pre-proto-Germans were unfamiliar with seagoing ships, and in fact, this jibes with the usual model that has the PIEs being inland, well away from any oceanic body. Germanic still has the raj/rex/rix word, but it shows up in a word such as reich, and in names such as Heinrich. The word for 'king', however, cannot be explained by any other language.

 

This is a fertile area for further research. McCallister's collation is a genuinely important resource.

 

Mark.