ENG 121: Indo-European Languages
September 8, 1997
Sept 08, 1997
ENG 121: The Flux of Language/Indo-European Languages
1. Need to have study groups formed by Friday, Sept 12th.
2. QUIZ #1 on FRIDAY (sept 12). Quiz will cover Barber 1-99, SOE, Chap 1.
HW #1 returned and discuss.
3. Discuss 5 questions from SOE #1 (5-10 minutes). Key points need to be clear.
4. Continue quickly with Flux of Language issues to be sure students understand
the importance of this topic. Students need to reread Flux of language
chapter; then outline and recall the main mechanisms and processes of
language change:
1. Fashion, prestige, and group solidarity (creating new words)
2. Contact with other languages
3. War and invasion
4. Trade and commerce
5. Borrowing
6. Changing social values
7. New social developments and technologies
8. Psychological "ease of effort"
9. Sound changes occur very commonly
10. Assimilation
11. Weakening
12. Analogy
13. Changes to parts of a system
14. Shifting of a system
5. Begin with Indo-European Languages (only 58-64 required reading). Most
European and Indian Languages.
A. All Indo-European languages come from Proto-Indo-European perhaps
spoken first in the region of the southern Ukraine from about
4500 BC to 3500 BC. Main source is Sredny Stog culture--
4500-3500 BC. The initial spread through southern Europe and
near Asia happened from 3500 on to about 2500 BC. From 3200 to
2200 BC most of northern and central Europe was covered by the
Corded-Ware culture that probably descended from the earlier
indo-European culture. Southeast Europe and a bit of Turkey
was covered by the Balkan-Danubian complex, another Indo-European
expansion. Between the two early cultures, the early proto-
languages of most of Europe can be acconted for. The emergence
of specific Indo-European families of languages only begin at
around 2000 BC (maybe a bit earlier for a few--Greek). Most
proto-language families only strongly separate by about
1200-1000 BC.
B. See maps from Mallory (1989) and Oxford Encyclopedia and discuss
briefly (Indo-European, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Italic, Baltic).
C. Evidence for Indo-European first presented in 1786 at the Royal Society
by Sir William Jones, who noted overwhelming correspondences
among Greek, Latin, English, and Sanskrit.
Germanic Examples:
D. The text points out the resemblances among English, German, and Swedish;
"stone, bone, oak, home, rope, goat, one" (Barber 58)
/o:/, /ai/, /e:/
E. The text also uses the same words to compare Old English Gothic
(East Germanic), Old High German, and Old Norse (North G)
(circa 1000 AD). (Barber 59)
/a:/, /ai/, /e:/, /e:/
F. Sound correspondences between related languages are sometimes obscured
by later borrowings, or by dependent sound changes (a change is
dependent on another sound in the word) in one of the languages.
(Barber 60-61)
No "hoath" in English
Ha i Hae i Hae Heath
G. English and French are both Indo-European but from different families
(Germanic vs. Latin-Italic). Comparing modern English and
French, however, is misleading because there have been centuries
of borrowings between the two languages. Core words (family,
food, numbers, body-parts) in the two languages indicate a more
distant relationship between the two languages.
H. The relations between Indo-European languages are well illustrated by
comparing Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic, and Old English.
"two" duo, duo, dvau, twai, twa.
"seven" septum, hepta, sapta, sibun, seofon
Some regular changes that have occurred:
Germanic substitutes /t/ for /d/
Germanic substitutes /h/ for /k/
Germanic substitutes /f/ for /p/
Greek substitutes /h/ for /f/
Sanskrit substitutes /au/ for /o/
Of course, it turned out in investigations throughout the 19th
century that many more languages were related. Thus, the
Indo-European language family was established. The various
members of this family descended from Proto-Indo-European.
6. More on Proto-Indo-European (Barber pages; and from Mallory 1989).
A. Branches are indicated in the handout maps Indian, Iranian, Greek,
Italic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, Tocharian,
Germanic, Anatolian.
B. Who were the Indo-Europeans?
A common culture at around 6000 BC, pastoral and early
agricultural people, maybe somewhere in the Ukraine Steppe
country. Dispersal probably began around 3000 BC. Most
appearances of Indo-Europeans in early records come after
2000 BC.(Cf. Renfrew vs. J. Mallory)
Greeks by 2500 BC, Hindi by 2000 BC, Baltics and Slavs by
1500 BC, Germanic by 1000 BC, Celts by 1000 BC, Italic by
1000 BC. These are rough estimates.
C. The Proto-Indo-European Vocabulary:
PIE Had words for horses, cheese, cattle, sheep, dog, wheel,
axle, yoke, copper, bronze, house, door, wolf, bear, otters,
mice, hares, beavers, beech tree, eel, salmon, river, stream.
No words for ocean, lion, tiger, camels, tents. The common words
suggest a place of origin with a temperate climate, and not near
an ocean. There were also common northern animals and trees in
their source language (and location).
D: Origins in southern Russia and Ukraine (Show Maps) also fit with what
is known of the Kurgan culture of 4500 to 4000 BC, which later
spread, perhaps in all directions.