Why the Proto-Indoeuropean numerals are not motivated within IE?
Hello, I am a medecine student but I know 8 languages and read hundreds of linguistic books (especially works of the great professors Dolgopolsky Bomhard Bernal Blazek Hodge Fournet Levin Cohen Lipinsky Gamkrelidze&Ivanov)
First of all thank you very much for this very enlightening and highbrow forum from wich we learn a huge amount of informations and I think that Kartvelian, Indo-European and Afrasan are connected at an early neolithic timedepth node (of course all languages descend from a sole common language but the Kartvlian-Indeuropean-Afrasan node is rather recent than let's say Sinic-Indeuropean node) as the 3 phyla are inflective ablautic languges with laryngeals , glottals and bi+triconsonantic roots as well as dual, feminin markers and of course share many genetical (and not by borrowing as it's the case of the roots-as well as shared grammatical that were acquired by uralic and altaic speakers throughout sprachbund and superstratun and creolisation) features those 3 phyla share with Uralic and Altaic
And genetically the timedepth of the westasian-caucasian-european divergence of the caucasoid type is 80 k years more recent (at around 15-20 k years ago) that the caucasoid-mongoloid (encompassing Altaic and Uralic) divergence
What stroke me when readig Blazek's book about the etymology of numerals across various language phyla is that he did not deal with Semitic numerals (albeit dealt with Egyptian and Berber numerals)
The SECOND thing that rose my attention is the fact that the book was unable providing us with convincing or even logical etymologies for the proto Indoeuropean numerals!!
I propose Afrasian etymology for some of the reconstructed proto Indo-European numerals
According to Koenrad Elst
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/indo-european-urheimat-elst.html
"Semitic (and by implication also the Chadic, Kushitic and Hamitic branches of the Afro-Asiatic family, assumed to be the result of a pre-4th-millennium immigration of early agriculturists from West Asia into North Africa) is suspected to spring from a common ancestor with IE, even by scholars skeptical of Nostratic adventures. The commonality of some elementary lexical items is striking, and includes the numerals 6 and 7 (Hebrew shisha, shiva, Arabic sitta,
sab'a, conceivably borrowed at the time when counting was extended beyond the fingers of a single hand for the first time), arguably even all the first seven numerals."
First of all, here below the Proto Semitic, proto Libyc and proto Egyptian numerals compared with the IE ones
Egyptian numbers
1oye 2snaw 3kham 4fdaw 5daw 6sws 7shaf 8hamn 9pisd 10met 100shet
Libyc numbers
1wan 2sen [spirantization of Semitic "tn"=2?] 3krad 4okkoz 5smus[satemization of
Semitic "kamsa"=5?] 6sas
7sab 8shmun 9tsu 10mar
Indo-European numbers
1sem/yed/h1oino/prw 2dwo 3trei 4kwetwor 5penkwe 6sueks 7septm 8h2okto
9h1newn/newn 10dekm(t) 100kmtom 1000gheslo
Semitic numbers (Proto Semitic was a CCVC [BUT CVC WHEN THE ROOT WAS BIRADICAL] language like modern Aramaic and not a CVCVC language like modern Arabic, V stands for vowel and C for consonant)
1ad 2swen/twen (andnot tnayn because ayn is the oblique case of the dual ending) 3thle (and not tlat because the final ath is the broken plural ending) 4arb 5kmas 6ses 7sab 8sman 9tsa 10asr 100myet
Etymologie des nombres:
Il est interessant que les nombres 6&7 ont des valeurs phonetiques similaires dans tout les familles linguistiques originaires ou en contact avec le moyen orient(Kartvel,Basque,Hurri,indo-europeen,afro-asiatique,uralique,eskimo....).
On sait que dans la tradition semite dieu a cree le monde en six jours et s'est repose le septieme jour.
Sept en français,sebe en babylonien,shabta en hebreux,hepta en grec,seven en anglais,haft en persan ... sont tous connectes a la meme racine lislakh/nostratique ou plus correctement Kartvelo-Afraso-Indeuropan
Mais seuluement en Semitique,ces nombres ont une etymologie,par exemple le
nombre 2 en langues indo-europeenes(dwa du hindi,two de l'anglais)descend ou est
connecte au semitique taw qui veut dire jumeau(twin en anglais dhidhime en grec
tawam en arabe toma[qui a donne le nom thomas]en Arammeen).
De meme 7 vien de sab qui veut dire l'indexe(etant le 7 eme doigt),arabe
sabbaba,geez shebbot....
Comme vous savez snow anglais,neve italien,neige français descendent de la meme
proto racine irano-hittite sneg qui a son tour est apparentee a la racine
semitique salng(l nasal)qui elle aussi veut dire neige(arabe thaldj,ancien arabe
salg,akkadien tsalgu,hebreux selg...)
Ce qui est interessant est que:
En connection semantico-phonetique avec sang,on a zalg(glisser)en semitique et
sleg(glisser en indo-europeen)et aussi gald(gel,froid)en semitique et
gwold(gel,froid)en indo-europeen.
Cette connection semantico-phoneticale est presente dans presque la totalite des
racines indo-europeenes et nord afro-asiatiques.
Par exemple,asfur(oiseau,sparrow en anglais),saffar(siffler,whistle).
HERE BELOW A NORAFRASAN ETYMOLOGY OF INDO-EUROPEAN NUMERALS
IE/NORAFRASAN NUMERALS
1 jeden/iden=lonely in norafrasan
2 dwa/taw=twin in norafrsan (toma in Aramaic, tawam in Arabic)
3 tri/tle=triplet (ie triple twin)
4 ketwor/arb(season) do not fit but we have anatolian mou=4
5 pank/kap(fist,fus in berber and by metathesis kap in semitic although semitic number is khamsh=animal hand in Semitic=5 fingers)
6 seks/sis (means protruding finger in Semitic ie 6 th finger)
7 sept/sabt(index finger in semitic)
8 oktm/samn by satemization (means 2 of 10 in Semitic)
9 is a proto ie innovation and means initially new (taboo not to say the number of pregnancy months ie 9)and again this pie number has no reflex in Anatolian branch
norafarsan tis means 1 of 10
10 dak/as
NOTE THAT PERSIAN FOR 6 IS THE SAME OF HEBREW 6 (SHESH) BUT VERY DIFFERENT THAN, SAY ARMENIAN FOR 6 WICH IS VETS (ALTHOUGH ARMENIAN VETS TOO DOES DESCEND FROM PIE) AND SAME CASE FOR 7,1,3,2,8 NUMERALS WITH OFTEN THE CASE OF SEMITIC NUMERALS 1,2,3,6,7 (AND EVEN SOMETIMES 5&8) BEING AKIN TO SOME IE REFLEXES THAN TO OTHER IE ONES (ESPECIALLY ARMENIAN)