Re: [tied] Re: A New language tree

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

From: Richard Wordingham

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 3:45 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: A New language tree

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@......> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@......> wrote:

> > PIE *a, *e and *o fell together as *a in
> > Proto-Indo-Iranian, but traces of the old distinctions are observable
>
> Or what was together elready expanded later as Misra has shown in the
> case of the Gypsy language. The Sanskrit system could be and inmho IS
> the origina.

Curiously enough, many believe that the PIE vowel system itself
derives from one very similar to the Sanskrit system.  The important
point is that the e/o contrast shows a lot of consistency across the
IE languages, and has reflexes in Sanskit and the Iranian languages -
the 'law of palatals'.

***

Patrick writes:

 

Richard describes above what should be understood simply as a similar response to stress-accentual and closural conditions to a vowel potentially *e/o/Ø across many languages.

 

Its variation does not affect the semantic content of the word: *men-/*mon-/*mN-, they all mean the same thing, whichever meaning one cares to start with. That is why there are so many root extensions: to differentiate the various meanings for *me/o/Øn-. This is very inefficient.

 

This is the condition inherited from the monovocalic (or bivocalic, if one allows an allophone) stage of PIE, which is best exemplified by Sanskrit.

 

It is a degradation of the earlier language occasioned by its imposition on those speaking another language and its very flawed acquisition.

Contrast the PIE pattern with Sumerian where min, man, and mun reprsent different, semantically unrelated concepts. More more efficient.

 

Not that PIE is unique in this regard; Proto-Afroasiatic went through a similar process. To use /i/, /a/, and /u/ simply to indicate inflection, necessitated a tri-consonantal root re-formulation, exactly analogous to the first root extension on a PIE bi-consonantal root. PIE CVC roots have only a theoretical not a practical existence. If we had a vowel to differentiate them, they could be real. As it is, they are only real with a root extension; i.e. when  they have become tri-consonantal.

 

I originally was trying to find a way to differentiate C(V)C Egyptian roots when I looked at IE, to see if it could help. Practically speaking, it cannot (except for *g^, *k^, *g^h, *k^(h)) which tells us that the earlier vowel was *e. So, I began loking at Nostratic for those answers, or what we like to call pre-PIE on this list.

 

It is only by reconstructing an earlier stage of PIE that the vowels can be specified, and the CVC roots of PIE differentiated.

 

If it makes Mr. Kelkar feel better, the vowels probably bit the dust when a darker-skinned people (Afro-Asians) imposed their language on lighter-skinned people (Caucasians), who had a very limited vowel repertoire. One of these peoples characterized Caucasians (su-bar: skin-white) as 'swine' and 'servants' with the same word.

 

After the Caucasians learned Afro-Asiatic and mangled it, they headed out of Dodge for the steppes of Russia and later back into Anatolia, and west into Europe.

 

Patrick

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

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