Indo-European languages outside of Europe:

Euphratic

28 Oct. 2014

The Issues

When did the Indo-European (i.e. Indo-Anatolian) continuum end?

Alternatively, when did Indo-European migrations begin?

Where was the (final) Indo-European homeland?

How early are Indo-European languages attested?

How likely is it that some migrations have gone undetected?

Can loanwords be used as evidence?

Does Mesopotamia offer a pertinent case study?

The Sumerian Question

What do we know, or can surmise, about the early linguistic landscape of Mesopotamia?

From what period on are Sumerians present in Mesopotamia?

Are they the original inhabitants of Southern Mesopotamia?

Was the linguistic landscape of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium B.C. less complex than in later periods?

If the Sumerians were not the only or earliest population, what other speech communities may have been present or have preceded them?

Relevant Evidence

Names, especially place names

Lexical data

Elements in the writing system

References in written documents

The language of written documents

Place Names

Landsberger (1974 [1944]): “None of the ancient cities had a Sumerian name”

Edzard (2003): “It cannot be excluded that, within Mesopotamia proper, Sumerian had neighbours who spoke a language – or languages – […] which left their traces in Sumerian proper names (gods, places) and vocabulary”

Michalowski (2005): “One must admit, however, that most of the toponyms in Southern Mesopotamia are neither Sumerian nor Semitic”

Lexical Data

Landsberger (1974 [1944]): lists 30 alleged polysyllabic technical loans, including one brewing term, from a suspected substrate

Salonen (1968): assigns polysyllabic terms to loanword strata on basis of meaning and ending

Civil (1996): “practically all” brewing terms are “foreign”

Rubio (1999): “all” brewing terms are “foreign”

Syllable Structure in Sumerian

Monosyllabic or polysyllabic?

Edzard (2003) and others have sharply criticized what he calls

the “monosyllabic myth”

Phonotactic structure of Sumerian (Whittaker 2005): Category A: mono- and sesquisyllabic terms Category B: polysyllabic

In the Ninmešara of Enheduanak (ca. 2285-2250 B.C.): Category A: 810 words Category B: 54 words (incl. names, loans)

Phonotactic Circularity

Rubio (1999): claims Landsberger’s šidim ‘mason’ has a “well-attested

Sumerian pattern” but fails to note that silim ‘peace’ (from Akkadian) does, too

Edzard (2003) dismisses the “monosyllabic myth” but states:

“divine names such as Nanše or Ĝatumdu … may belong

to a substratum … because these names defy all efforts to

explain them by way of Sumerian etymology”, failing to

notice that it is their polysyllabic shape that disturbs him

Potential Loanwords in Sumerian

Polysyllabic, yet morphologically unsegmentable: hanzalub ‘reed pulp’

Medial cluster: uktin ‘appearance; facial features’

Disharmonic vowels (subject to vowel harmony): tabira ‘joiner; artisan’ > tibira

Multiple variants: lu-um-gi ~ lu-un-ga ~ ni-in-gi-in ‘brewer’ uk-ra ~ u2-še-ra ‘reed bundle’

Elements in the Writing System

Early signs with phonetic values lacking motivation in Sumerian

Sign order not consistent with Sumerian word order

Early sign compounds or groups unexplainable within Sumerian

Lack of correspondence between sign usage in proto-cuneiform and historical Sumerian documents

Where the Debate Stands

Englund (2007: 5-6): “The discussion about the ‘Sumerian Question’ continues,

at least in my mind, and has taken a rough edge of late,

the more so with publication of contributions to a Leiden

Rencontre that, particularly with contributions by Rubio

and Wilcke, added wild speculation to the fairly stale list

of ‘proofs’ that Sumerian phoneticisms were a clear element

in Late Uruk documents.”

Dass nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf

Rubio (1999) mocked: “Indo-European before the Indo-Europeans”

Melchert (n.d., “The Position of Anatolian,” 1st draft): “Suffice it to say that I find most of the claimed

instances of lexical borrowing [in Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995] wholly unconvincing, […]. There is even less merit to

the claims of Whittaker (1998 and elsewhere) of an Indo-European “substrate” [sic] in Sumerian. For a detailed refutation of his proposal see Rubio 2005.”

Cf. Melchert (1998) on an unrelated matter: “I would like to see a genuine debate on this issue,

not a summary dismissal based on … prejudice”

Euphratic and the Euphrateans

Scenario 1a: A pre-Sumerian language and population

(present by the mid-4th millennium B.C. at the latest,

and a Sumerian-period substrate or superstrate)

Scenario 1b: Or a Sumerian-period superstrate from the beginning of Uruk IV (ca. 3400-3100

B.C.) onwards

Scenario 2: Involved in the so-called Uruk expansion(ca. 3700-3200 B.C.) and thus responsible for

early Indo-European loanwords in Egyptian and Semitic

Scenario 3: Influenced or initiated the development of proto-cuneiform (ca. 3400-2900 B.C.)

Gender

Is there any evidence for gender in Euphratic?

If so, was it an animate-inanimate opposition, as in Anatolian?

Or was there a further differentiation of animate into masculine and feminine?

Sumerian preserves a series of polysyllabic (mostly disyllabic)

terms ending in –ah

Terms in -ah

Almost all of these are nouns: nerah ‘snake; Nerah (god); Nerah (city)’

But there is also an adjective: dara4(h) ‘dark-coloured, dark red’ (cf. Old Sumerian derih in sign name derihum at

Ebla)

Thus, concord indicating the presence of (feminine) gender

Case MarkingSingular

Nominative (-s, -os): semed ‘(value of sign ONE)’ < *sem-s ‘one’

lugud ‘pus (written BLOOD+WHITE)’ < *louk-ó-s ‘bright’

lugud2 ‘miscarriage’ < *lógh-o-s ‘childbirth’ lugud4 ‘place to put things’ < *lógh-o-s ‘storage place’

Accusative (-i-m, -o-m, -eh2-m): gilim2 ‘rat (Old Sum., Ebla); mongoose’ < *glh1-i-

m ‘rodent’ aktum ‘garment’ < *h2nt-ko-m ‘garment, cloak’anzam ‘large drinking vessel’ < *h2ens-eh2-m

‘strap handle’

Vocative (-e): lu-bi/be2 ‘o dear, o darling’ < *léubh-e ‘o dear, o

darling’

Case MarkingPlural

Locative (-su): apsu ‘subterranean waters (used in divine

epithets such as ‘child of the waters’; ‘king of the waters’)’ < *h2ep-su ‘in the waters’ (cf. Vedic divine

epithets ‘child in the waters’; ‘king in the waters’)

Instrumental (-bhi): -BI ‘(Old Sum. scribal convention for -da with

instrumental/comitative plural)’ < *-bhi ‘(instr. pl.)’

EYE(der.) (IGIgunû)

sig7 ‘(phonetic value)’ < *sekw- ‘follow’ (cf. Germ. see)

agar4/ugur2/ukur5 ‘(phonetic values)’ < *h3okw- ‘eye’

imma3 ‘physiognomy, (facial) features’ < *h2im- ‘copy’ (cf. Hittite himma- ‘imitation, substitute, replica’

< *h2im-no-?; Lat. imāgō ‘image’)

EYE(der.)+FORM(IGIgunû.ALAN)

uktin ‘appearance, facial features’ < *h3kw-ti-m (acc.) ‘appearance;

expression; sight’

ulutim2/ulutin2 ‘appearance, form, facial features’ < *wl-ti-m (acc.)

‘appearance, facial features’ (cf. ulutim/ulutin ‘written notice, notice of

intentions’ < *wlh1-ti-m (acc.) ‘wishes’)

NAIL/CLAW

umbin ‘nail, claw’ < *h3ngwh- ‘nail, claw’

umbin ‘(container for animal fat)’ < *h3ngw-en- ‘fat, salve’

umbin ‘wheel’ < *h3nbh-en- ‘navel’

DUNG

šed6 ‘shit’ < *skeid- ‘shit (vb.)’

šurum ‘dung, droppings’ < *skor-(o-m) ‘shit, dung’