Uralic, PIE and motivatited borrowings.

[Ante Aikio]

(Steve Long wrote:)

[snip]
> Also, I'm reminded of Andrew Sheratt's newer theory that the large vats of
> the Bandkeramik were perhaps meant to hold malted beverage - a possible
> by-product of agriculturalism and a possible tool of assimilation.  Do these
> borrowed words - 'water' (drink?) and 'bring' (six-pack?) possibly look like
> they may reflect this kind of regular contact and 'motivated' borrowing?

Speaking of alcoholic beverages, it is interesting that also PU *juxi-
'drink' might be an IE loan (*g´uH- 'pour'; semantic parallels have been
pointed out). I also seem to recall that some researchers have proposed
that the early spread of agriculture had (at least in some areas) more to
do with brewing than food production. But still, connecting 'water',
'drink' and 'bring' with prehistoric alcohol trade is of course quite
hypothetical... :) But at any rate, some items in the borrowed vocabulary
point quite clearly to trade (see e.g. *mexi- and *wosa- below).

> Perhaps these PIE borrowings can be made to yield some coherent picture when
> taken together rather than one at a time.

I'll present a list of the most convincing PIE > PU loans below. Most are
from Koivulehto, but there are a couple of unpublished ones that will
appear in a forthcoming article of mine. A note on the reconstructions: PU
*d is a voiced dental spirant; *x was probably a voiced velar fricative.

PU:				PIE:
-- 				----
*(x)aja- 'drive'		*(H)ag´-
*kaja- 'sun, dawn'		*kay- 'heat'
*kelki- 'must, have to'		*skelH- / *sklH- id.
*kerä- 'bunch; collect'		*ger- 'collect etc.'
*koki- 'see, find'		*Hokw- 'see'
*kosi- 'cough'			*kwa:s- id.
*kota- 'hut, house'		*kot- 'Wohnraum'
*kulki- 'wander, go, flow'	*kwelH- 'wander etc.'
*käl(x)i-w- *brother/sister-in-law'
				*glHi- id.
*käwdi- 'rope'			*Haw-dh- 'flechten, binden' (cf Armenian
				z-aud 'Band', Old Norse vádhr 'Seil,
				Schnur')
*meti- 'honey'			*medhu- id.
*mexi- 'sell, give'		*mey-gw- 'exchange'
*mos´ki- 'wash'			*mozg- id.
*nimi 'name'			?*nmen id.
*näxi- 'woman, wife'		*gwnaH- 'woman'
*orpa(s)- 'orphan'		*orbho(s)- id.
*pel(x)i- 'fear'		*pelH- 'frightening etc.'
*pexi- 'cook'			*bheH- 'roast etc.'
*pitä- 'attach, hold, bind'	*ped- 'fassen'
?*pow(x)i- / *poxi- / *puxi- 'tree' (reconstruction problematic)
				*bhowH- 'grow' (with derivatives meaning 
				'tree')
*pun(x)a- 'plait'		*(s)pn(H)- id.
*pur(x)a- 'drill'		*bhr(H)- id.
*pärtä- 'board'			*bhrdho- id.
*s´ada- 'rain, fall'		*k´ad- id.
*s´alka- 'pole, rod'		*g´halgho- id.
*s´ola- 'gut'			*k´olo- (> Greek kólon; IE root *k´el-
				'cover')
*suxi- 'row'			*suH- 'put in motion'
*syxni- 'vein, sinew'		*sHi-nu- id.
*teki- 'put, do'		*dheH- id.
*toxi- 'bring, give, sell'	*doH- 'give'
*tuxli- 'feather, wing; wind; mood; to blow'
				*dhuH-li- (< *dhewH- 'stieben, wirbeln,
				wehen, blasen usw.')
*weti- 'water'			*wed- id.
*wetä- 'pull, lead'		*wedh- 'lead'
*wixi- 'take (somewhere)'	*weg´h-
*wosa- 'merchandise'		*wos- id.


The list contains 35 words, which is at least 10% of the reconstructed PU
vocabulary. The loans seems to have a slightly western distribution: e.g. 
31 of them are present in Finnic, while only 19 appear in Samoyed. This
suggests that the contacts were even at the Proto-Language stage more
intensive in the western area than in the eastern (I recall Steve Long
asking if / suggesting that the direction of loaning would not have been
South > North but rather West > East). The western part of the early (P)U
language area seems to have had more intensive contact with
Indo-Europeans, but there are also some independent IE loans in Samoyed,
too. This points towards multiple contact points between Uralians and
Indo-Europeans at an early stage, both in the east (Southern Urals??) and
the west (Volga?). I will get back on this (and the linked question of the
location of U Urheimat) in more detail later.

(A note: perhaps at least two of the loans might be pre-PIE, because they
show PU front *ä as a substituent of IE *a adjacent to *h2 (*gwneh2- /
*gwnah2- > U *näxi-, *h2ewdh- / *h2awdh- > U *käwdi-). Could this reflect
some intermediate stage (*ä??) of the change *h2eh2 > *h2ah2?)

 Ante Aikio