IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

Due to the interruption of mailing list traffic and my impression
that this message was addressed to me only, I answered privately
to Wolfgang Schulze' message close to a month ago.

Here is another response.

<W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal schrieb:

>> I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
>> primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.
>> The Northern Caucasus is a "residual zone", in Johanna Nichols'
>> terminology.  It contains the linguistic residue of the peoples
>> that were once dominant in the neighbouring "spread zone" (the
>> steppe).

>Do you have any LINGUISTIC proof or at least some indications that would
>justify such an assumption?

My argument was not specifically linguistic, but
historico-geographical.  It is a matter of simple observation
that the North Caucasian zone harbours the linguistic residues of
what once were the predominant populations in the steppe zone to
the north of it.  The predominant language now is Slavic, but we
find Mongolian (Kalmuck) and Turkic (Nogai, Balkar etc.) enclaves
in the North Caucasus zone.  Ossetic remains as the residue of
the Scytho-Sarmatian predominance in the steppe zone before the
coming of the Turks.

The logical next step is to think that NWC and NEC are also North
Caucasian remnants of populations that were once predominant in
the steppe *before* the coming of Iranian and Indo-European.
Especially so if one, like me, rejects the notion of a steppe
homeland for PIE.

Of course, if one accepts the steppe homeland hypothesis, the
thought that NWC and NEC might also be "residual" pre-IE
populations never crosses one's mind, which is why Johanna
Nichols herself ("The Epicentre of the IE Linguistic Spread" [in:
Blench/Spriggs, "Archaeology and Language", 1997]) uses NWC and
NEC linguistic data (borrowings from ANE languages) as a *fixed*
reference point to measure the distance of "mobile" PIE and
PKartv from the Near East, as if it were a given that PWC and PEC
had been in their present positions "forever".

That being said, what LINGUISTIC evidence would we expect to find
for a former presence of NEC and/or NWC in the Pontic-Caspian
steppe?  I don't think the "horse" word is relevant: horses were
domesticated in the steppe by Indo-European speakers after the
supposed replacement of PEC and PWC speakers by IE speakers.
This replacement would have been one by (Sub-)Neolithic
pastoralists/agriculturalists (IE) of prior Mesolithic (PWC/PEC)
populations, which requires very little contact between the two
groups (the Mesolithic population just gets instantly
outnumbered), so I wouldn't expect PWC/PEC toponyms surviving or
a significant amount of PWC/PEC borrowings into Eastern IE.

The only linguistic arguments would be if NWC or NEC could be
linked up to languages to the north and east of the
Pontic-Caspian steppe.  In that sense, Starostin's Sino-Caucasian
interests me for the consequences it may have for the PIE
homeland.  I don't know enough about Caucasian and Sino-Tibetan
linguistics to evaluate the proposals, even if I had seen all of
them.  However, my mind was somewhat prepared to consider
Sino-Caucasian as a possibility because, before I had ever heard
of Sino-Caucasian or Starostin, I had discovered for myself some
interesting parallels between NWC, NEC and ST numerals.  For
instance:

   Tib      Lak   Lezg    Ubyx   Adyghe
1. g-cig    ca    sa      za     z@
2. g-nis   [k.i   q.we    tq.wa  t.w@]
3. g-sum    s^an [pu]     ssa    s^@
4. b-zhi   [muq.  q.u]    pL'@   pL'@
5. l-nga   [xxyu  wa      s^x'@  tf@]
6. d-rug    ryax  rugu   [f@     x'@]
7. b-dun   [arul  iri     bl@    bL@]
8. br-gyad  myay  mu"z^u" g'w@   y@
9. d-gu     urc^. k.u"    bg'@   bg'w@
10. b-cu    ac.   c.u     z^w@   ps.'@

There may be something there.  Not that this, if true, proves a
genetic connection (numerals are easily borrowed), but it may at
least suggest ancient contacts between the NC groups and
(S)Tib, and the only logical place for this to have happened is
the Central Asian steppe.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam

[ Moderator's note:
  This is moving away from Indo-European; perhaps a shift to the Nostratic list
  is indicated for follow-ups other than to the IE portions above.
  --rma ]