Proto Indo-European, Balto-Slavic, Common Slavic

Summary

Languages; Area; Centum and satem branch; The structure of Proto Indo-European; Common Balto-Slavic features; The Structure of Common Slavic

Homework

HW # 2 (due end of Week 2): Part 1: Go either here or here and find five common Indo-European roots. Identify phonetic correspondences between Slavic and Germanic languages. Then, go to Vasmer's dictionary and identify correspondences between at least five Slavic languages in those five roots you have selected. If you have problems with downloading the pages, e-mail me at: Danko.Sipka@asu.edu and I will send you the materials; Part 2: Study the table of Indo-European Languages and read Indo-European dictionaries to get a general idea about Proto Indo-European. Also, read the sections about Proto Indo-European, Balto Slavic and Common Slavic from either of your two textbooks.

Map Quiz - in class

Q # 1 (first 10 minutes of Week 3): Map quiz. You will be asked to identify IE families and Slavic Languages on a map.

Proto Indo-European (PIE)

• Reconstructed common language of the Proto Indo-Europeans.

  If you are interested, take a look at the the Wikipedia article about Indo-European stdiess and Indo-European database. U. of Texas Indo-European Documentation Center is yet another usefull resource.

• The reconstruction is based on structural and lexical similarities

  The 19th century linguistic texts where the PIE is postulated are here Click here to explore common Indo-European lexical roots or take a look at the on-line Indo-European etymological dictionaries.

• This proto language gave raise to most living and extinct European languages (not Basque, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Turkish), as well as Iranian, Armenian, and Indian languages

  See the table of Indo-European (IE) Languages. In-depth information about IE families is here.

• India and Europe are the final points of the present day geographical distribution of these languages, hence the name Indo-European

• Principal structural differentiation (dialectal in the PIE period) on centum and satem languages

  *k', *g' > velar (centum languages), dental (satem languages), e.g.:
  Slavic Languages (satem): sto 'hundred' vs. Latin (centum): centum [kentum] 'hundred'
  Slavic Lnaguages (satem): Polish ziarno, S-Cr zrno, Rus зерно 'grain' vs. English grain

  Satem (the word for one hudred in Avestan): Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian
  Centum (the word for one hundred in Latin): Germanic, Celtic, Italic, Helenic, Tocharian

• Different homeland areas posited, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe

  See the Indo-European Archive for the discussions about the homeland

• Different timelines postulated, most commonly: unity until the third millennium BC, migrations and the differentiation of Indo-European families in the second and first BC

  Here is one possible timeline.

• Structural characteristics: rich vocalism, quality and quantity independent variables in the vocalic system, rich velar oppositions, liberal sylabic organization, rich inflection

Balto-Slavic (BS)

• There is a disputed idea that Slavic people entered a period of linguistic unities with Baltic people (ancestors of today's Lithuanians, Latvians and extinct Old Prussians) toward the end of the PIE period. The dispute over the existence of the common Balto-Slavic has produced huge body of literature. The participants were Brugman, Meillet, Porzezinski, Endzelin, Rozwadowski, Vaillant, and others.

• The common Balto-Slavic is postulated based on the following similarities between Slavic and Baltic languages, which make them distinct from ohter IE languages:
  • PIE s > ch (Slavic) and š (Baltic)
  • Identical development of the diphtong eu̯
  • Simple de-aspiration, e.g., bh, dh > b, d
  • _v{r,l}* > _{r,l}*
  • *m_ > *n_
  • *d{m,v}* > *{m,v}*
  • *[labial]v* > *[labial]*
  • widely used predicative instrumental
  • Genitive of negation
  • PIE vocalic r,l,n,m change into the groups ur,ir,ul,il,un,in,um,im, which are retained in the Baltic languages while evolving furhter in Slavic
  • de-gemination after both short and long vowels
  • -i̯o as the formant of the definite adjectival form
  • -mus (Lithuanian), -mъ in the Dative Plural of the Nouns
  • various other correspondences in the inflectional endings

Click here to learn more about Lithuanian and its dialects. Click here to learn more about Latvian.

Common Slavic (CS)