Germanic substrate hypothesis

The Germanic substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the purportedly distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European languages. Based on the elements of Common Germanic vocabulary and syntax which do not seem to have cognates in other Indo-European languages, it claims that Proto-Germanic may have been either a creole or a contact language that subsumed a non-Indo-European substrate language, or a hybrid of two quite different Indo-European languages, mixing the centum and satem types.^{[ citation needed ]} Which culture or cultures may have contributed the substrate material is an ongoing subject of academic debate and study.

Contents

• Supporters
• Possible substrate cultures
• Objections
• Grimm's law
• Linguistic conservatism
• Current scholarship
• See also
• Notes
• References
• Sources

Supporters

The non-Indo-European substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the anomalous features of Proto-Germanic as a result of creolization between an Indo-European and a non-Indo-European language. A number of root words for modern European words seem to limit the geographical origin of the Germanic influences, such as the root word for ash (the tree) and other environmental references suggest a limited root stream subset, which can be localized to Northern Europe. ^[1] The non-Indo-European substrate theory was first proposed in 1910 by Sigmund Feist, who estimated that roughly a third of Proto-Germanic lexical items came from a non-Indo-European substrate and that the supposed reduction of the Proto-Germanic inflectional system was the result of pidginization with that substrate. ^[2]

Germanicist John A. Hawkins set forth in 1990 some more modern arguments for a Germanic substrate. Hawkins argued that the Proto-Germans encountered a non-Indo-European speaking people and borrowed many features from their language. He hypothesizes that the first sound shift of Grimm's law was the result of non-native speakers attempting to pronounce Indo-European sounds and that they resorted to the closest sounds in their own language in their attempt to pronounce them. ^[3] The American linguist John McWhorter supported essentially the same view in 2008, except considered that it might have been a superstrate instead of substrate situation (i.e., non-Indo-European speakers struggling to learn Indo-European). ^[4]

Kalevi Wiik, a phonologist, put forward a hypothesis in 2002 that the pre-Germanic substrate was of a non-Indo-European Finnic origin. Wiik claimed that there are similarities between mistakes in English pronunciation typical of Finnish-speakers and the historical sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. ^{[5] [6]} Wiik's argument is that only three language groups were widespread in Neolithic Europe: Uralic, Indo-European, and Basque, corresponding to three ice-age refugia. Then, Uralic speakers would have been the first to settle most of Europe, and the language of the Indo-European invaders was influenced by the native Uralic population, producing Proto-Germanic. ^{[5] [6]}

Existing evidence of languages outside these three refugia (such as the proposed Tyrsenian language family or the undeciphered Vinča symbols) potentially creates a complication for Wiik's hypothesis that Uralic languages dominated the Proto-Germanic Urheimat . Moreover, his interpretation of Indo-European origins differs from that of the academic mainstream. ^{[lower-alpha 1]} On the other hand, the Germanic language family is believed to have dominated in southern Scandinavia for a time before spreading south. This would place it geographically close to the Finnic group during its earliest stages of differentiation from other Indo-European languages, which is consistent with Wiik's hypothesis.

Theo Vennemann put forth the Vasconic substrate hypothesis in 2003, which posits a "Vasconic" substrate (ancestral to Basque) and a Semitic or "Atlantic Semitidic" superstrate in Proto-Germanic. ^{[8] [ page needed ] [1]} However, his speculations have found little support in or have been outright dismissed by the broader community of academic linguists, especially by historical linguists. ^{[9] [10]} (See also: Vasconic substrate hypothesis § Reception.)

However, some other modern linguists, including McWhorter (2008), have supported (without any Finnic or "Vasconic" connections) the hypothesis of a Semitic superstrate on proto-Germanic – particularly Phoenician/Punic, via primarily maritime contact. ^[4] The general outline of the idea of Semitic (or more broadly Afroasiatic) influences on northwestern Indo-European languages (including, in different ways, both Germanic and Celtic) long pre-dates McWorter, Vennemann, Wiik, and Hawkins. It was first proposed by the Welsh lexicographer and translator John Davies in 1632, then revived and developed by Welsh grammarian John Morris-Jones in 1912, and Austrian-Czech philologist Julius Pokorny in 1927 and 1949. ^[9]

Possible substrate cultures

Archaeologists ^{[ who? ]} have identified candidates for possible substrate culture(s), including the Maglemosian, Nordwestblock, and Funnelbeaker culture, but also older cultures of northern Europe like the Hamburgian or even the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician culture.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Battle Axe culture has also been proposed as a candidate for the people who influenced Germanic with non-Indo-European speech. Alternatively, in the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, the Battle Axe culture may be seen as an already "kurganized" culture, built on the substrate of the earlier Funnelbeaker culture.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Battle Axe culture spread through a wider range of regions across Eastern and Central Europe, already close to or in contact with areas inhabited by Indo-European speakers and their putative area of origin, and none of the Indo-European proto-languages thus produced or their succeeding languages developed along the much larger line of extension of the Battle Axe culture (Celto-Italic, Illyrian, Slavic, Baltic, and others) appear to have been affected by the same changes that are limited to the Proto-Germanic.^{[ citation needed ]}

Objections

Grimm's law

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Against the theories regarding substrata, a profound sound change in the Germanic languages, Grimm's law, has been put forward as evidence^{[ by whom? ]} for the Germanic languages being non-substratic, i.e. having changed by their own accord away from other branches of Indo-European.^{[ citation needed ]} Grimm's law affected all of the stops that were inherited from Proto-Indo-European.^{[ clarification needed ]} The Germanic languages also share common innovations in grammar as well as in phonology: the Germanic verb has been extensively remodelled and shows fewer grammatical moods and markedly fewer inflections for the passive voice.^{[ clarification needed ]}

To the contrary, Hawkins (1990) ^[3] and McWhorter (2008) ^[4] both saw Grimm's law as strongly supporting at least a superstrate if not substrate hypothesis, precisely because of the extent of the changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, which they characterized as likely the results of the struggles of speakers of one language to adapt to an unrelated and very different other one, with the more sibilant-heavy non-IE language's consonantal features being adopted systematically and IE grammar being simplified, especially through loss of most of the case system.

Current scholarship

In the 21st century, treatments of Proto-Germanic tend to reject or simply omit discussion of the Germanic substrate hypothesis.^{[ citation needed ]} For instance, Joseph B. Voyles's Early Germanic Grammar makes no mention of the hypothesis. ^[13] On the other hand, the substrate hypothesis remains popular with the Leiden school of historical linguistics. This group influenced the four-volume Dutch dictionary (2003–2009) ^[14] — the first etymological dictionary of any language that systematically integrated the hypothesis into its material.

Guus Kroonen brought up the so-called "Agricultural substrate hypothesis", based on the comparison of a presumably Pre-Germanic and Pre-Greek substrate lexicon (especially agricultural terms without clear IE etymologies). Kroonen links that substrate to the gradual spread of agriculture in Neolithic Europe from Anatolia and the Balkans, and associates the Pre-Germanic "Agricultural" substrate language with the Linear Pottery culture. The prefix *a- and the suffix *-it are the most apparent linguistic markers by which a small group of "Agricultural" substrate words - i.e. *arwīt ('pea') or *gait ('goat') – can be isolated from the rest of the Proto-Germanic lexicon. ^[15]

According to Aljoša Šorgo, there are at least 36 Proto-Germanic lexical items very likely originating from the "Agricultural" substrate language (or a group of closely related languages). It is proposed by Šorgo that the "Agricultural" substrate was characterized by a four-vowel system of */æ/ */ɑ/ */i/ */u/, the presence of pre-nasalized stops, the absence of a semi-vowel */j/, a mobile stress accent, and reduction of unstressed vowels. ^[16]

See also

• Ancient Belgian language
• Atlantic (Semitic) languages
• Haplogroup I-M170
• Germanic parent language
• Goidelic substrate hypothesis
• Language shift
• Old European hydronymy
• Pitted Ware culture
• Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate
• Pre-Indo-European languages
• Scandinavian hunter-gatherer

Notes

Related Research Articles

Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives *β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ. The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877.

A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form, and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fledged language with native speakers, all within a fairly brief period. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar. Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.

The European Neolithic is the period from the arrival of Neolithic technology and the associated population of Early European Farmers in Europe, c. 7000 BC until c. 2000–1700 BC. The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year – this is called the Neolithic Expansion.

In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a historical layer of language that influences or is influenced by another language through contact. The notion of "strata" was first developed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (1829–1907), and became known in the English-speaking world through the work of two different authors in 1932.

Old Europe is a term coined by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic and Copper Age culture or civilisation in Southeast Europe, centred in the Lower Danube Valley. Old Europe is also referred to in some literature as the Danube civilisation.

The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non-pulmonic stops, *pʼ *tʼ *kʼ, instead of the plain voiced ones, *b *d *ɡ as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions.

The Paleo-Balkan languages are a geographical grouping of various Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. In antiquity, Dacian, Greek, Illyrian, Messapic, Paeonian, Phrygian and Thracian were the Paleo-Balkan languages which were attested in literature. They may have included other unattested languages.

Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld is a German historical linguist known for his controversial theories of a "Vasconic" and an "Atlantic" stratum in European languages, published since the 1990s.

Old European is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy in Central and Western Europe.

Kaino Kalevi Wiik was a professor of phonetics at the University of Turku, Finland. He was best known for his controversial hypothesis about the effect of the Uralic contact influence on the creation of various Indo-European protolanguages in Northern Europe such as Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic. He also based much of his hypothetical structures on results of genetics of his time. Ludomir R. Lozny states, "Wiik's controversial ideas are rejected by the majority of the scholarly community, but they have attracted the enormous interest of a wider audience."

The Atlantic languages of Semitic or "Semitidic" (para-Semitic) origin are a disputed concept in historical linguistics put forward by Theo Vennemann. He proposed that Semitic-language-speakers occupied regions in Europe thousands of years ago and influenced the later European languages that are not part of the Semitic family. The theory has found no notable acceptance among linguists or other relevant scholars and is criticised as being based on sparse and often-misinterpreted data.

The Vasconic substrate hypothesis is a proposal that several Western European languages contain remnants of an old language family of Vasconic languages, of which Basque is the only surviving member. The proposal was made by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, but has been rejected by other linguists.

The Armenian hypothesis, also known as the Near Eastern model, is a theory of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, initially proposed by linguists Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov in the early 1980s, which suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the 5th–4th millennia BC in "eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia".

Kluge's law is a controversial Proto-Germanic sound law formulated by Friedrich Kluge. It purports to explain the origin of the Proto-Germanic long consonants *kk, *tt, and *pp as originating in the assimilation of *n to a preceding voiced plosive consonant, under the condition that the *n was part of a suffix which was stressed in the ancestral Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The name "Kluge's law" was coined by Kauffmann (1887) and revived by Frederik Kortlandt (1991). As of 2006, this law has not been generally accepted by historical linguists.

The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric linguistic homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). From this region, its speakers migrated east and west, and went on to form the proto-communities of the different branches of the Indo-European language family.

The pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe, Asia Minor, Ancient Iran and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-European language texts are Hittite and date from the 19th century BC in Kültepe, and while estimates vary widely, the spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the 3rd millennium BC. Thus, the pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than or, in some cases, alongside the Indo-European languages that ultimately displaced almost all of them.

The Vasconic languages are a putative family of languages that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes tentatively included.

Pan-Illyrian hypotheses or pan-Illyrian theories were proposed in the first half the twentieth century by philologists who thought that traces of Illyrian languages could be found in several parts of Europe, outside the Balkan area. Such ideas have been collectively termed pan-Illyrianism or pan-Illyrism.

The Proto-Uralic homeland is the earliest location in which the Proto-Uralic language was spoken, before its speakers dispersed geographically causing it to diverge into multiple languages. Various locations have been proposed and debated, although as of 2022 "scholarly consensus now gravitates towards a relatively recent provenance of the Uralic languages east of the Ural mountains".

The Paleo-European languages, or Old European languages, are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in Europe prior to the spread of the Indo-European and Uralic families caused by the Bronze Age invasion from the Eurasian steppe of pastoralists whose descendant languages dominate the continent today. The vast majority of modern European populations speak Indo-European languages, but until the Bronze Age, it was the opposite, with Paleo-European languages of non-Indo-European affiliation dominating the linguistic landscape of Europe.

References

Sources

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations . Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations.(July 2024) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )

• Beekes, Robert S. P. (1995). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN   1-55619-505-2.
• Kroonen, Guus (2013). Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Leiden: Brill.
• Kuzmenko, Yury K. (2011). Ранние Германцы И Их Соседи: Лингвистика, Археология, Генетика [Early Germanics and Their Neighbours: Linguistics, Archaeology, Genetics](PDF) (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Linguistic Studies) / Nestor-History. ISBN   978-5-98187-870-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 January 2012.
• Robinson, Orrin W. (1992). Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages. Stanford University Press. ISBN   0-8047-2221-8.
• Watkins, Calvert, ed. (2000) [1985]. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN   0-618-08250-6.