Piotr to Dennis:
>While keeping an eye on your Semitic connection, I'll try to see if
> >anything can be done on the IE side.
Since there are some interesting ideas being tossed around on IE mythos and
such, I may as well speak of this one that I've been contemplating as of
late on the language aspect.
I've been wondering if there was an areal influence between NWC,
Indo-Tyrrhenian and Kartvelian, such that for a time being, their respective
vowel systems turned out pretty much the same. Something like:
i u
@
a
Now, I know that NWC is reconstructed with two vowels, not five. On the
other hand however, we can take NWC *@i and *@u as being our phonetic
realisations of *i and *u. Similarly, while technically IE *i and *u are
zero-grade versions of *ei and *eu and that it's evident that the latter set
was the immediate original of the bunch, we see the same pattern arising as
in NWC. Again, we may take Early IE *ei and *eu as phonetic realisations of
our otherwise missing *i and *u.
All we have to do is postulate that all instances of *e (as well as the
metaphonic *o) derive from *@ and we have an identical vocalic situation to
NWC whereupon the vowel system technically has only two vowels, *a and *@.
Another language which seems to me to bear relation to the above phenomenon
is Kartvelian which is often noted for having similar ablaut patterns to IE.
We also find many roots of a *CeC structure as in IE. We may even see
tattle-signs of an overloading of previous qualities of an original vowel
(especially labiality) onto the surrounding consonants as in the development
of IE where *ku -> *kW@ -> *kWe.
Now, in reconstructed Kartvelian, we find the vowel system reconstructed
as...
*i *u
*e *o
*a
... just like we find in Common IE. Again, we have to wonder whether the *e
is derived from *@. If so, how do we explain *o? Certainly, qualitative
ablaut is not a feature of Kartvelian. Rather, the *o would be from another
source, a fallen version of *u that arises in specific circumstances (For
instance *?u -> *?W@ -> *?o). In the end, we arrive at the same vowel system
arising in NWC, Kartvelian and IE.
Checking back to my linguistic map, we see NWC intermediate between Middle
IE, buffered by a swarm of IndoTyrrhenian dialects covering the north and
east, and Early Kartvelian in the Caucasus.
If NWC is more closely related to SinoT and NaDene (via SinoDene, based
around Mongolia), then there are reasons to believe that NWC's reduced vowel
system is inherited from SinoDene, arising from a stress accent shift to
second syllable. SinoDene would have been in the vicinity of Mongolia even
before Proto-Steppe had arrived from the southwest just before 9000 BCE. I
find it unclear yet whether the arrival of Steppe was part of the reason for
the physical split between NWC and Na-Dene.
By 8000 BCE, Early IndoTyrrhenian would have began to push NWC westwards as
it spread to the Pontic-Caspian, cornering the language into the Caucasus.
This early contact and continuous overtaking of previous NWC areas, all the
way to the IE homeland, is an excellent source for the apparent change in
the vowel system whose earlier qualities can be seen in Uralic, Altaic and
EskimoAleut where *i and *u in closed syllables have not merged to *@.
In this yummy scenario, Kartvelian would have been affected much later,
starting at 5500 BCE, when IE and NWC arrived in the Caucasus and reversed
the previous direction of cultural flow. This would give about two thousand
years for NWC to work it's magic on Kartvelian phonology.
Now, if this plate of pancakes isn't tasty enough, here's the whipped cream.
Both Kartvelian and IE, as I've said, have many *CeC- roots... It has led
many to suspect that it is more than just coincidental. How would *@ become
*e in two seperate languages? We may further speculate that NWC was also the
source of this development and that *e had become *@ in this NWC first,
later, filtering the change into IE AND Kartvelian somewhere around 4750 BCE
(+/- 750 years).
Like that one? Well, if you have problems with these scenarios, let me know.
It's a complex theory of protolinguistic and archaelogical interaction
combined with the Nostratic theory and thoughts on DeneCaucasian
linguistics...
... and I could very well have missed the boat completely.
- gLeN
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