Greek is a Satem Language!

Okay, Greek isn't really a satem language, but it is a good introduction to this post. First, let me point out that I have no idea whether people have researched the theory I'm about to propose before. I'm guessing that I'm in all likelihood not the first one to notice this.

Traditionally we like to split up Indo-European into two main dialectal groups. The Central and Peripheral group. The central group are the so called satem languages, due to the result of the velars in these language. The Peripheral group are the centum languages.

For more information on what actually distinguishes satem from centum read my older blog entry: One Hundred

Now then, let's get to the point. It is true that there is definitely a tendency of Centum languages to be more similar to each other, and similarly Satem languages to be more similar. Nevertheless, I don't believe that the Satem-Centum differentiation was a big enough shift to completely disconnect the two groups as two main dialects not able to influence each other any more.

I even believe that Greek, a Centum language, shares far more feature-isoglosses with the Indo-Iranian languages than it distinguishes itself from those. Therefore, I would like to propose a Graeco-Iranian dialect, rather than an unlikely incredibly similar development of Greek next to Sanskrit without any influence on each other.

Note, that I will not go as far as saying that these languages should be considered a 'branch' of the Indo-European language family. Family trees are starting to become painfully outdated, and are only an easy abstraction when talking about very general groups.

Let me explain why I believe there was a Graeco-Iranian (henceforth G-I) Indo-European dialect.

1. Productive reduplicated perfect

Traditional Indo-European linguistics tells us that the standard form of creating a perfect was reduplication of the first consonant and a o-grade in the root.

The perfect stem of *gen- 'to be born' thus be comes: *ge-gon-. This is terribly biassed towards Greek and Sanskrit (which is a very typical fault in traditional Indo-European reconstructions I must add). Greek and Sanskrit clearly show this system as being the productive one. The most well known perfect that doesn't have reduplication is *ueid- 'to see'
which in the perfect is *uoid- 'to know' (Compare Dutch 'weten', and Gothic 'waitan').

In itself it's very mysterious both Greek and Sanskrit share this as a non-reduplicated perfect, although there's next to no other verbs that do this.

So from a Sanskrit-Greek bias we conclude reduplicated perfect is the Proto-Indo-European form.

If we look at other languages though, we get a very different view of how the perfect is formed. First let's point out that Anatolian has no indication that there was reduplication at that point in Indo-European when the Anatolian languages split of. There clearly was a distribution of verbs with either e or o vocalism though. But this is of lesser importance, we can conclude that reduplication was a later development. Tocharian (one of the other early differentiating languages in Indo-European) there's already proof of reduplication, but solely in the Perfect Participle.

Now we get to Germanic, which will be one of the important branches that will support my theory of a close relation between Greek and Indo-Iranian, and the terrible bias towards those to languages in our reconstructions.

Germanic as we know it today has next to no proof of reduplication. Except for of course, the preterite of do: did <*deda. Old English apparently has some words which might be traced to reduplication, but it's hard to tell.

What Germanic does have though, is o-vocalism in the preterite stems of the strong verbs. almost strong verbs have o-vocalism except for the classes I'll get to later. Know that Indo-European *e often becomes Germanic i, and *o always becomes a.
Examples of o-vocalism in English:
give ~ gave
see ~saw
bear ~bore
lie ~ lay

Gothic though, as the only Germanic language retains a productive category of a reduplicating preterite.
For example
saian ~ saiso 'sow, sowed'
waian ~ waiwo 'blow, blew'
letan ~ lailot 'let, let'

Nevertheless, this is only one of the seven classes of preterites. But etymologically this can be brought back two two classes. Non-reduplicating perfects and reduplicating perfects. It's not unlikely for a language to get rid of its reduplication. But retaining two productive systems is highly unlikely. In Gothic the reduplicating class was a minority class, but definitely an existing one.

I therefore believe that Indo-European had two types of perfects reduplicating perfects, and non-reduplicating perfects. And I tend to believe that the non-reduplicating perfect was the normal variant, whereas Graeco-Iranian had made the reduplicating perfects the productive class.

2. Grassmann's law

Both Greek and Indo-Iranian languages undergo the so called, Grassmann's law. This law says that no two aspirated consonants can follow each other. The first consonant will lose its aspiration. These laws only take place after Greek devoices its aspirates. therfore we have trikhos from earlier thrikhos. And we have Sanskrit Bodhati from erlier bhodhati.

That this law took place, and spread itself over both the Indo-Iranian group and the Greek language is not unlikely. I do not think that the initial differentiation of Greek's aspirate devoicing is enough for the two very similar dialects to lose touch. I thus believe that Grassmann's law was not a law that developed in two different branches, but rather its 'wave' spread itself over both dialectal regions, simply having a different effect due to their initial differentiations.

For more information about this 'wave' theory of dialectology and linguistic differentiation I refer you to Language waves and the satem innovation in PIE.

This is it for now. I had a lot more in my head, and it has currently flow out of my head (remind me to make notes from now on!). There is some stuff on the pronominal system in Greek and Sanskrit that makes me go Hmmmmm, but it is difficult to prove. I also believe that maybe the 8-case system as seen in Sanskrit is a Graeco-Iranian innovation. Although Classical Greek only has 4 cases (and a vocative), there's clear indications of older cases. But these are all speculations. I will write more once I get to it. Personally though, I think the productivity of the reduplicating perfect is a very strong indication of a seemingly close relationship.