Afro-Asiatic is weird
As the title says, I am often perplexed by afro-asiatic. I've learned some Arabic and Hebrew, followed a class on comparative semitic, I have a (hardly looked at) book on Egyptian, and I'm currently following a class on Riffian Berber and general Berber Linguistics.
Studying these languages it seems silly to deny that Proto-Afro-Asiatic must have existed. So I won't. But what always puzzles me, is the fact that unlike Indo-European the 'proof' for Afro-Asiatic is quite the opposite of what kind of proof we find in Indo-European.
Lexical items in Afro-Asiatic that are cognate, are extremely hard to find. This is quite the opposite in Indo-European, where lexical items were the first things to catch the attention of a certain relation between the languages.
But the morphology of Afro-Asiatic is disturbingly similar. Obvious are things like -t suffix for the feminine, but even personal endings of verbs are surprisingly similar in Afro-Asiatic.
This is completely unlike Indo-European. Sure Sanskrit and Greek grammatically are almost clones of each other, but I make it no secret that I believe that the relation between Sanskrit and Greek is a lot closer than some people claim. But reconstructing a uniform image of the verbal system or even morphology when comparing Sanskrit to, say, Germanic, stuff gets a lot more confusing.
And then we're talking about Germanic and Sanskrit. The time depth of Indo-European is a LOT less than that of Afro-Asiatic. Is there something inherent to the way the language's structure which makes morphemes more resistant to change? That seems odd, structurally you could argue Indo-European at an early stage (but post-syncope) was quite similar to Afro-Asiatic languages.
Of course this 'morphological but not lexical' change resistance is more of a 'feeling' I get, then anything I ever measured. So maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe Afro-Asiatic is just as innovating in the morphological department as Indo-European, but just a whole lot more innovating in the lexical department.
This is me just rambling to a point that it's appallingly unscientific, but I guess it'll set some of your brains into motion, and that'll be enough. :-P
Comments
Nice posting. Do you know about these Sanskrit books?
http://www.YogaVidya.com/freepdfs.html
I think two of the problems are that we don't have good subgroupings and intermediate level reconstructions (the same problems plague Altaic). We were lucky with IE (and to a lesser extent, Uralic) in that we didn't need the subgroupings to reconstruct the proto-language. PAA is a very old language (perhaps twice as old as PIE) so a lot of the roots are going to be difficult to find without first reconstruction lower stages.
So reconstructing Indo-Uralic morphology is quite horrible, it seems that reconstructing roots in Indo-Uralic is still easier.
Nevertheless, of course even Indo-Uralic would not yet be at the time depth of PAA.
It's funny though how PAA manages to be quite convincing, while anything else at this time depth is considered something slightly better than quackery :D (I'm not a big fan of attempt to reconstruct Nostratic)
I do accept Indo-Uralic. It's an active area of research for me (I'm merely an amateur, however). I think reconstructing the morphology has been difficult for two primary reasons. First of all, the are unrecognized or mis-recognized sound correspondences. For instance, it's generally assumed that the PIE laryngeals correspond to zero in Proto-Uralic. However, there are few examples of these correspondences and they're all questionable. Instead there are a number of examples of PIE laryngeals corresponding to PU *k and *j (and *p after labials which probably just assimilation, labial+laryngeal > labial+velar > labial+labial). If these correspondences are recognized then somenew morphological correspondences pop out, e.g. plural, dual, and 1st person suffixes).
The other big stumbling block is that Proto-Indo-Uralic was probably an agglutinating language, like Proto-Uralic, and unlike PIE. PIE's fusional morphology contains traces of an earlier agglutinating stage though. Both underwent a degree of grammaticalization too. It's not difficult to see that the PIE verbal primary suffix *i is related to the deictic pronoun *i which is related to the dative-locative suffix *(e)i which is in turn related to the PU deictic pronoun *i. The PU locative *-na is probably a grammaticalized version of the locative adverb found in PIE as *h1en or *h2en. The PU ablative *-ta is probably related to the PIE deictic *t- and/or the ablative *-ed. Fortunately there's also the more transparent participle in *-nt and the accusative *-m.
When it comes to Nostratic I find myself closer to Greenberg's Eurasian Hypothesis (despite his deplorable methodology) minus Ainu.
I consider Glen's Indo-Aegean theory (formerly "Indo-Tyrrhenian") to be **rubbish**. His main contribution is to have pointed out the contact relationships between the ancestor of PIE ("Mid IE") and Proto-Semitic in the Neolithic.
Today I've just discovered that Mid IE *kamës 'hand' (> IE *k^ºmt- 'a fossilized numeral element') was borrowed into Semitic *xams^- '5'.
This root appears to be cognate to AA *kund- 'hand, fist' and Uralic *käme-(ne) 'palm of the hand' (and possibly also to NEC *q'Hw@nt 'knee; elbow').
I also think AA *kund- (through unidentified intermediate languages) got into Germanic *handu- 'hand' and IE *ghe(n)dh- 'to grasp'. My own specialty is identifying this kind of substrate loanwords.
Of course, Glen's proposal of the Germanic word being a borrowing from a Latin reflex of *ghe(n)dh- is plainly ridiculous.
How is this main contribution in any way insignificant? One of the greatest problems with historical linguistics is that we try to explain everything to have come from a proto-language and that all words should be analysable in this proto-language.
This can't be right of course. I think Glen's attempt to differentiate loanwords from real Indo-European words is invaluable for anyone wanting to do deeper reconstruction, since we know that we can't use these words, or at least with extreme caution.
I'm really not sure what to think of this whole hand=five thing. I bet it happens in some language. But I would really like to see the word for 5 to have the element hand in it then. However we habe *penkʷe. Why would you say '10' as 'two hands' but not '5' as 'a hand', while the Semited apparently loaned this from Indo-European.
It's a fancy idea, yet I think there's not enough evidence to actually support the theory.
I also find the idea that a Afro-Asiatic word ended up in Germanic (through unidentified intermediate languages) highly unlikely. In the Indo-European period, languages were still close enough for loanwords to take place. But do you seriously believe people traveled all the way up north to tell the Germanic people about this fancy new word for 'hand'? If Germanic people would seriously even consider loaning a word for hand, you would expect an enormous amount of Afro-Asiatic loanwords in Germanic, which is the same thing I told Glen. If he wans the word *handu- to come from Latin, he'd better be prepared to find a lot of early loanwords from Latin in Germanic.
Of course, Glen's proposal of the Germanic word being a borrowing from a Latin reflex of *ghe(n)dh- is plainly ridiculous.
Without proper argumentation why you find this ridiculous this is just ad hominem. I find it astounding that you can propose a Afro-Asiatic loanword in Germanic, and then say a Latin loanword in Germanic is ridiculous. They used to live a whole lot closer to each other, and it is a fact that there was intensive contact between those cultures.
That comment was under the belt. I am willing to give you a chance on my blog, unbiased from whatever Glen says about you. The more the merrier, more ideas lead to more discussion.
But you should really reconsider the way you present your ideas.
How is this main contribution in any way insignificant? One of the greatest problems with historical linguistics is that we try to explain everything to have come from a proto-language and that all words should be analysable in this proto-language.
This can't be right of course. I think Glen's attempt to differentiate loanwords from real Indo-European words is invaluable for anyone wanting to do deeper reconstruction, since we know that we can't use these words, or at least with extreme caution.
The thing is I don't agree with Glen's theory about IE relatives. He proposes an "Indo-Aegean" phylum which is part of a "Proto-Steppe" (aka Eurasiatic) larger one. But I'm not sure IE is actually being related to Uralic, Altaic, etc., although there's a lot of substratum items from that origin in IE languages.
My own view, which is still in progress, is that Aegean languages belong to the same Vasco-Caucasian phylum that others languages like Hurro-Urartian or Basque. I also think IE possibly belongs to that phylum, although much work has still to be done.
I also find the idea that a Afro-Asiatic word ended up in Germanic (through unidentified intermediate languages) highly unlikely. In the Indo-European period, languages were still close enough for loanwords to take place. But do you seriously believe people traveled all the way up north to tell the Germanic people about this fancy new word for 'hand'? If Germanic people would seriously even consider loaning a word for hand, you would expect an enormous amount of Afro-Asiatic loanwords in Germanic, which is the same thing I told Glen. If he wans the word *handu- to come from Latin, he'd better be prepared to find a lot of early loanwords from Latin in Germanic.
I disagree. To begin with, Germanic has a lot (perhaps up to a 30%) of lexicon without IE etymology. Among these there are adstrate loanwords from various sources like Uralic, Altaic or even Kartvelian. But another part is due to substrate borrowings from Vasco-Caucasian.
When I proposed AA *kund- as the possible source of Germanic *handu-z, I didn't know of PNC *qqemtV 'palm of hand, handful', which it would fit nicely.
This root could be also the source of PIE *ghe(n)dh- 'to grasp'.
IE *penkWe '5' is related to PNC *fimk'wV 'fist'. The meaning shift from 'fist' to '5' is quite straightforward.
The other issues have still to worked.
But you should really reconsider the way you present your ideas.
Yes, I see other people doesn't think or behave like myself.
The other day I was in a hurry and Glen's overreaction made it worse.
The issue of PIE *ḱ́ºmt-óm '100' = 'handful' and *tuHas-ḱ́ºmt-jós- '1000' = 'fat handful' seems to me a reasonable one. But I recognize this doesn't work so well for '10', so I drop my previous hypothesis.
On the other hand, the pre-Proto-Semitic ancestor of *xam(i)s^ '5' would be something like *kamës (Glen's reconstruction), which I think it's related to one these roots which mean 'hand', like Uralic *käme-(ne) 'palm of hand; hollow of the hand', for example.
The big problem in historical/comparative linguistics is how to differentiate native lexicon from substrate/adstrate borrowings. For modern languages with a long writing history, like English, this can be done rather easily. But how about whole language families?
I'm sure an important part of the PIE lexicon is due to borrowing. Only by identifying these, can we hope to get at the true native lexicon. Unfortunately, Nostratic theories (I use the plural on purpose) have misunderstanding the importance of borrowings.
According to Bomhard (2008), Gothic hinþan 'to seize' is derived from a pseudo-PIE root *kem-t- related to AA *kam- 'to seize, to grasp'. I take this is a AA borrowing into PIE cognate to *ghe(n)dh- 'to take'.
So here we've got a pair *ghe(n)dh- ~ *kemt- similar to the ones you reviewed some time ago. Another example is *ghabh- (Latin habeo:) ~ *kap- (Latin capio:).
I don't know what to think of the pair *kem-t ~ *ghe(n)dh. If the *n is an infix, and *m part of the root, I fail to see how these are to be related. Because you're actually trying to connect *kem- to *ghedh-. One with a stem extension *t, and one with a nasal infix *n (and needless to say, not *m, Indo-European has never seemed to had big issues with *m before dentals either *dḱmto-m for example). Also if the *t extension in *kem-t- is exclusively found in Germanic, how do you expect that AA had it, or PIE appended graded suffix *-dh- when the AA root is simply *kam.
I'm unconvinced.
You're right, I just run too fast. Forget AA *kam- for the moment.
It's odd we've got a PIE root *ghe(n)dh- (Latin prae-hendo:) with nasal in several families except Germanic and a pseudo-root **kemt- exclusively made up to explain Germanic (Gothic hinþan). What's happening here?