The linguistic groups of the Ancient Near-East

The Ancient Near-East linguistically

From the linguistic point of view the different languages of the Ancient Near-East can be assigned to the following groups:

- Anatolian IE and PIE (stricto sensu): the Indo-European family,

- Hatti and Nakh: North-Eastern Anatolian,

- Hurrian, Urartean, Kaftiu, Carian, Eteo-Cypriot, Kassite: North-Western Anatolian.

This group forms the Proto-Anatolian family. Euphratic, a kind of substrate of Sumerian, probably belongs to this family as well, as it has similar features.

Sumerian seems to be related to Elamite rather closely, and more remotely to Proto-Anatolian.

Semitic is originally not a Near-Eastern family but a group that intruded from Africa ca. -5000 BCE after splitting from Berber.

About the original location of Proto-Indo-European

Original location of PIE in North-Western Anatolia (Before -7000 BCE)

Proto-Indo-European (stricto sensu) is related to Anatolian Indo-European to form the Indo-European family (largo sensu). There is absolutely no indication that Anatolian IE is intrusive in Western Anatolia, even though it grew eastward and replaced Hatti and Kaftiu, with which it is closely related.

Considering the close genetic relationship of PIE with Hatti and Nax, in addition to that with Hurro-Urartean-Kassite on the other hand, it is more or less inevitable to conclude that PIE originates somewhere in Anatolia (or present-day Turkey in other words).

Considering the respective positions of PIE (stricto sensu), Anatolian IE, Hatti and Hurro-Urartean, North-Western Anatolia appears to be the best candidate to locate PIE.

More on Proto-Anatolian and “Chaldean”

The Proto-Eastern-Anatolian family

Several languages once spoken in Eastern Anatolia are genetically related. It is well-known that Hurrian is closely related to Urartean, which acts as the substrate of modern Armenian. This has been conclusively proved by Diakonov. Several other languages have been proposed to belong to the same group:

- Kassite. For example the supposedly Hurrian person name Anum-Herbi involves Herbi, a word not attested in Hurrian but which means En-Lil ‘Sky-god’ in Kassite. King Names like Bur-yaš ‘the lord of the land’ involves nouns similar to Hurrian: ebri ‘lord’ and eše ‘earth’.

- Eteo-cypriot. This language has been repeatedly compared with Hurro-Urartean and it definitely has similarities with Eastern Anatolian languages. Cf. articles by Petit.

- Kaftiu. Because of some connections with Biblical Caphtor(im) and Crete this word Kaftiu has often been proposed to relate to Crete. But another possibility which is more coherent with Egyptian lists of place names is that Kaftiu relates to Cilicia, not Crete.

In that respect it is interesting to compare Kaftiu with a radical Kaft- with the word Chaldean. In later times Chaldean came to mean Assyrian but this word originally applied to Urartean people. It is noteworthy that in Hebrew Chaldean has a lateral fricative śin in Kaśd(im). It is probable that the word Kaftiu contains the same root as Chaldean, Kaśdim, Kassite. To this list the ethnonym Kaska can be added as well.

In a coming post the position of Etruscan on the map will be discussed.

About the close relatives of Proto-Indo-European

There are numerous theories about the original location of Proto-Indo-European, the direct ancestor of English and most other languages of Eurasia. A key-factor in the quest for the homeland is the existence of close relatives of PIE. So far I have identified three of them:

- Hurro-Urartean, once spoken in Eastern Anatolia, and substratic to Armenian. The area where HU was spoken in the Antiquity more or less coincides with the historic Armenian highlands as indicated in the map.

- Hatti, which preceded Hittite in Central Anatolia and which died during the 2nd millenium BCE. Hatti is interesting in particular because it has duh- ‘daughter’, a cognate of PIE *dhugHter.

A third family of languages which appears to be very closely related with PIE is Caucasic Nakh. It is a rather small family that includes three languages: Chechen, Ingush and Batsbi. From a geographic point of view Nakh belongs to the North-Eastern branch of so-called “Caucasic” languages. The genetic relationships between all “Caucasic” languages remain controversial.

The features of modern Nakh which is embryonic in Hatti is the existence of Class-Prefixes. One of them is w- for male and y- for female (human) beings. These prefixes, probably pronouns, appear to suffixed in PIE. This certainly accounts for a set of words described in a previous post:

- *dheH₁l-u- ‘suckling’ (Mallory-Adams 2006:558 a dialectal word).

- *magh-u- ‘young adult’ (Mallory-Adams 2006:544). English maid.

- *man-u- ‘man, male’ (Mallory-Adams 2006:544). English man.

- Cf. the word *pu- ‘child’: Sanskrit putrá ‘son’, Latin puer ‘child’, Greek paFís ‘child’.

- *suh_xn-ú- ‘son’ (Mallory-Adams 2006:556). English son.

- *wet-u- in Latin vetus ‘old’, Balto-Slavic *vẽtusos ‘oldman’. Probably related to *wet ‘year’ (Mallory-Adams 2006:564).

The word magh-u- is quite possibly related with Nakh *nax ‘man’ with a change *m > *n in Nakh, whence the name of the Nakh family is derived.

About the words ‘beaver’ *bebhrus and ‘oak’ *perkus

The Proto-Indo-European language had this adjectival formation with a *u-ending. Two main derivational processes can be identified:

- Type1 is reduplication, like in *bebhru- ‘beaver’, from *bhru- ‘brown’.

- Type2 is suffixation, mostly by *ka, as in whelk from *welu-ka ‘spiral-shaped shell’.

An intriguing set of words relates to the oak-tree: *perkus, *kwerkus: Latin quercus f. ‘oak’; possibly Welsh perth f. ‘bush, hedge’. Another formation is attested in Celtic Hercynia silva from *Perkunia, possibly borrowed in Germanic *ferguniō, O.H.G. Fergunna ‘Erzgebirge (mountain range)’, M.H.G. Virgunt f. ‘mountain range in Bohemia’, Gothic fairguni n. ‘mountain range’, Old Englis firgen ‘mountain forest’.

Derivative with new meaning: Old Indian parkatī- ‘sacred Ficus’ with -ati suffix.

Another deadjectival suffix -ka is shown in Old High German fereheih, langobard fereha ‘horse chestnut’ from *per(i)kika, O.Ice. fjorr m. ‘tree, man’; o-grade in O.H.G. forha ‘pine tree’, Old English furh; Old Icelandic fura f. ‘pine’, fy:ri n. ‘pinetree forest’, O.H.G. *forh-is.  

This suggests that the root *kwerk- was originally some kind of adjective.