Re: [tied] Re: Indo-European for Indo-European

----- Original Message -----

From: Juha Savolainen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 1:09 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Indo-European for Indo-European

Alexander,

 

Perhaps one should congratulate oneself when one succeeds in turning a serious-minded person as yet another party in an elaborate yet light-hearted joke...:) You see, much of my exchanges with Piotr were not just jokes about the all-important topic of male pride but also on the ridiculousness of pushing chauvinistic agenda in the study of past. But I confess that while Piotr knows perfectly well what I was up to, there was little chance for you to gauge my real intentions and real views...:)

 

All the same, my reply to you was meant in all seriousness, although you quite understandably misunderstood my viewpoint. (Or did I simply fail to see that you seized the opportunity to join the merriment? And should I curse myself for starting something that will refuse to come to an end?)

 

Anyway, here are some boringly matter-of-fact comments to your message.

 

First, I do have an interest to discuss the origins of the Sámi (and the whole Uralic language family) and even willingness to share some of the information that seems to be available only in Finnish language. This is not because I would view myself as a great expert here. Rather, it would be much more preferable to have Pekka Sammallahti, Jorma Koivusalo, Petri Kallio, Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola, Raimo Anttila, Ulla-Maija Kulonen, Kaisa Häkkinen, Tapani Salminen, Mikko Korhonen, Johanna Laakso or some other real expert/scholar to discuss these matters here. Alas, they seem not to have signed for the "Cybalist" and hence some recent and interesting articles related to Indo-European concerns and still available only in Finnish (or while in English, perhaps relatively more difficult to reach outside Finland) may be lost for many participants of this newsgroup. It is just that distilling this new research is a pretty tall order that would take much of my precious time. I will try to do my best, but I can neither promise real-time service on all aspects of these important issues (also for the Indo-European dispersal) nor any profound understanding of some of its aspects. All I can promise is some additonal information on these fascianating questions, mostly as seen from the perspective of recent Finnish research.

 

Your questions were quite good, although they partially continued the joking mode established by the exchanges on ethnonymies. Let us take here a couple of them for discussion.

 

First, did I suggest an (Finno-Sámic) indigenist view on Uralic dispersion? Did I signal my acceptance of a "school who wants it large and wants it early", to quote Mallory´s apt description of that international tradition of silly chauvinism? - Well, those who usually prefer an indigenous origin in (Greater) India for Indo-European language family do not "merely" want it "large and early" but also reject much of the comparative method of historical linguistics. In fact, there are scholars who call themselves "innovationists" within "Uralistics", namely Kalevi Wiik, Ago Künnap, Janos Pusztay, Angelo Marcantonio an Kyösti Julku, who can often enough be taken as both wanting it "large and early" as well as rejecting much of the comparative art. I have absolutely no sympathy for such views.

 

But surely I must be an indigenist in the narrower sense, "wanting it large and early"? - No, that would be a misunderstanding. True, I suggested that " the 'core areas' for the emergence of the distinctive Sámi language (family) and the Sámi culture seem to have been, already 5000 years ago, the very areas they have been living in ever since" - and that phrase was modelled on what Pekka Sammallahti recently wrote about the topic. Of course, Sammallahti is not just a leading specialist on the Sámi language and the culture, but more notoriusly he was the first Uralist who voiced his sympathy in 1995 for the idea of a very early colonization of Finland by Uralic speakers, proposed by Milton Nunez. But this is not the reason why I modelled my suggestion on what Sammallahti argues in his "Saamelaisten juuret" ("The Origins of the Sámi", in "Ennen, muinoin", ed. Riho Grünthal, p. 159-173, Helsinki 2002). Rather, Sammanlahti presents in this article linguistic evidence to back up the idea of Pre-Sámi being where it still is, namely, in northern Scandinavia. This evidence consists of the distribution of Proto-Indo-European loan words (there are around 60 PIE loans in Sámi) in different Sámi languages. The crucial part of his argument relates to the distribution of those PIE loans that are attested only in Sámi languages: a preponderant part of these loans are attested in Luulaja-Sámi, North-Sámi, Inari- Sámi and in Koltta- Sámi, i.e. the distribution is northerly. Sammallalhti infers that these words were borrowed when the Sámi already inhabited northern Scandinavia.

 

I am perfectly aware that the argument of Sammallahti is not conclusive. One can always argue that the northern members of the Sámi language family are more conservative and have retained loans that were replaced in the southern members of the family, not least because there is a parallel debate on the distribution of old Germanic loans in the Finno-Sámic. So, I do not deny by any means that this successful prediction of “Pre-Sámi already in northern Scandinavia around 3000 BCE” - theory could be disarmed by showing that another theory does the job more elegantly and more credibly. I merely hinted that there was intriguing evidence waiting for explanation and that archaeology and genetics seem to suggest continuity. Again, this is not beyond dispute: archaeology and genetics often suggest continuity although we might have good linguistic evidence suggesting discontinuity.   

 

Second, I certainly do not deny the arrival of new cultural influences and also the arrival of new people to Finland. The first post-Ice Age inhabitants in Lapland have been carbon dated to no later than 7960 BCE. There is no reason to believe that these people spoke any languages related to later Uralic languages. In fact, the evidence suggests that their origins might have been in the Ahrensburg culture, hence coming from the “Western divide”. Nor do I believe that the first arrivals from the “Eastern divide” (in Lapland somewhat later than the first “Western immigrants”) were Proto-Uralic. Given the present available evidence, the scholarly mainstream tends to think that the arrival of Finno-Sámic in the Baltic Sea area was related to the Pit-Comb Ware expansion and took place around 4000 BCE. Morover, the new scholarly mainstream views the Volga-Oka area as the Uralic-speaking origin of cultural innovation and population movement that had a decisive influence both on the emergence of Finno-Sámic branch in the Baltic Sea area and also for its later evolution. The first PIE influence on the western Uralic branches seem to have been connected with the spread of the Corded Ware (Battle-Ax) culture to the southwestern Pit-Comb Ware around 3200 BCE.

 

The “New Look” is surely not without its problems, but it cannot be rationally rejected without facing the linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence that created it in the first place. But I fully agree with you that any credible scenario of Uralic dispersal must pay serious attention to all the branches of the family. In particular, scenarios proposing a great time-depth for the arrival of Uralic speakers to the Baltic Sea area must take note of the close linguistic association of the Finno-Sámic branch with Mordva and Mari languages. Hence I think that the implications of the "New Look", suggesting a rapid expansion for both the PIE and the Uralic family needs a lot of critical attention. Having said this, I suggest that you could first study (or comment, in case you have already studied them): 

 

Kallio, Petri: “Prehistoric Contacts between Indo-European and Uralic, 29-44, in Proceedings of the
Thirteenth UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, November 9-10, 2001, Karlene Jones-Bley, Martin E. Huld, Angela Della Volpe, & Miriam Robbins Dexter, eds.

 

and

 

 

Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia 242

Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 242

 

“Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations”. Papers presented at an international symposium held at the Tvärminne Research Station of the University of Helsinki 8–10 January, 1999

Edited by Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola and Petteri Koskikallio
 
Let us resume the discussion after these preliminaries…:)

 

 

Best regards, Juha