Neander97 / Historical Trivia: The oldest words in the English language harken back to Indo-European, the mother tongue of most modern western languages. Experts believe that this parent language began to fragment into different languages over the period 3,000-2,000 B.C.E. It is thought that Indo-European evolved from an even earlier language group, which experts term Nostratic (our language), that existed some 14,000 years ago.
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A MOTHER-TONGUE
It is believed that the ability to speak first evolved in humankind sometime between 50,000 and 30,000 B.C.E. The oldest words in the English language harken back to Indo-European, the mother tongue of most modern western languages. Experts believe that this parent language began to fragment into different languages over the period 3,000-2,000 B.C.E. It is thought that Indo-European evolved from an even earlier language group, which experts term Nostratic (our language), that existed some 14,000 years ago. Because Nostratic lacked words for domestic animals, it thought that it was the tongue of gatherer-hunter peoples. Nostratic, it is posited, may be the offspring of what was the ultimate mother tongue of all of the world's existing languages, which experts refer to as Proto-World.
As Indo-European evolved (or devolved as the case may be) into its "modern" component tongues, some words remained remarkably the same as in the parent language. These words not only evince their origins, but have changed so little as to remain cognates in modern languages. The Indo-European bhrat, thus appears in Sanskrit as bhratr; Greek phrater; Latin frater; Old Irish brathir; Old Norse brothir; Old Saxon brothar; Old Prussian brati; Dutch broeder; Russian brat; Modern German as Bruder; Swedish broder (bror): and modern English brother. According to research completed in the 1980s, perhaps as many as 40 words of this Indo-European mother tongue still survive in modern English, among them apple as apal; bad as bad; gold as gol; and tin as tin.
In 1786 Sir William Jones, a British judge serving in Indian, while studying Sanskrit noted that many words in this ancient Indian tongue shared "a stronger affinity with Greek and Latin than could have been produced by accident . . . and they had to spring from a common source." And thus the search was on for Indo-European. It was Jacob Grim, of fairy tale fame, who verified the connection between "modern" tongues and Indo-European with his theory that "p, t, and k in Indo-European became ph, th, and kh in proto-Germanic, and f th, and h in English." Thus we suspect that fish (Modern English), pisk (Cornish and Breton), and piscis (Latin) was most probably peisk in Indo-European.
Our reconstruction of Indo-European have allowed us to make many educated guesses as to the origins and habits of the people who spoke this tongue. As no Indo-European root-word exists for sea--except for their word mori, which is thought to represent a small body of water--we theorize that they originated in a land-locked region. However, from mori we obtained the Latin mare (meaning sea), which provides us with marine, maritime, and (in Italian) marinara sauce. The Indo-European navigated his small bodies of water in nau, which came into the Latin as navis--and as we all know nautical experiences can lead to seasickness and nausea. Because Indo-European contains root-words for such beech, willow, and snow (sneigwh) but no roots for olive, cypress, or palm, we suppose that the people originated in a northern clime. Thus one theory is that the Indo-European people originated in a land-locked, northern region--perhaps in Central Asia. Skeptics of this theory, however, take delight in pointing out that Indo-European and many of its daughter tongues contains a root-word for elephant, and ask if this does not mean that these peoples came from a tropical or sub-tropic region?
THE GERMANIC LANGUAGES
A brief excerpt from the Gothic Bible compared with other Germanic group languages. Hairda 'flock' is to be compared with the English herd as well as the Sanskrit sardha, and the Lithuanian kerdzius. As the word nahts 'night' is a part of the most basic of vocabularies, we find it well attested to across the broad spectrum of Indo-European languages, i.e. Hittite, nekut, Sanskrit nakt, Greek nyks, Albanian nate, Latin nox, Old Irish in-nocht, Lithuanian naktis, and Old Church Slavonic, nosti.
GOTHIC (A.D. 4th Century)
Jah hairdjos wesun in thamma samin landa thairwakandans jah witandans wahtwom nahts ufaro hairdai seinai. Ith aggilus fraujins anaqam ins jah wulthus fraujins biskain ins, jah ohtedun agisa mikilamma.
OLD ENGLISH (A.D. 10th/11th Century)
& hydras waeron on tham ylcan rice waciende. & niht-waeccan healdende ofer heora heorda. Tha stod drihtnes engel with hig & godes beorhtnes him ymbe-scean. & hi him mycelum ege adredon.
MIDDLE ENGLISH
And schepherdis weren in the same cvountre, wakinge and hepinge the watchis of the nyzt on her flok. And loo the aungle of the Lord stood by sydis hem, and the clerenesse of God schynedet aboute hem; and thei dredden with greet drede.
LOW GERMAN (A.D. 15th Century)
Unde de herden weren in der suluen iegenode wakende. Unde helden de wake auer ere schape. Unde seet de engle des heren stunt by en unde de clarheit godes ummevench se vruchteden sick myt groten vruchten.
HIGH GERMAN (A.D. 16th Century)
Und es woren Hirten in derselbigen Gegend auf dem Felde bei den Hurden, die huteten des Nachts ihrer Herde. Und siehe, des Herrn Engle trat zu ihnen, und die Klarhheit des Herrn leuchtete um sie; und sie furchteten sich.
SWEDISH
I samma nejd voro da nagra herdar ute pa marken och hollo vakt om natten over sin hjord. Da stod en Herrens angle framfor dem, och Herrens harlighet kringstralade dem; och de blevo mycket forskrackta.
MODERN ENGLISH
And shepherds were in that same land abiding and keeping watch by night over their flocks. But the angel of the lord approached them and the glory of the lord shone about them, and they feared greatly.
AN INDO-EUOPEAN FABLE
Owis ekwoskwe, a fable from the reconstructed Indo-European, re-interpreted by Winfred Lehmann and Ladislav Zgusta (1979) from Avis akvasas ka (August Schleicher, 1868).
Owis ekwoskwe
(Gwarei) owis, kwesyo wlhna ne est, ekwons espeket, oinom ghe gwrum
woghom weghontom, oinmkwe megam bhorom, oinomkwe ghmenm oku
bherontm.
Owis nu ekwobh(y)os ewekwet: Kludhi, owei, ker aghnutoi nsmei widntbh(y)os: ner, potis, owiom r wlhnam sebhi gwhermom westrom kwrneuti. Neghi owiom wlhna esti.
Tod kekluwos owis agrom ebhuget.
A quite literal translation might read:
[The] Sheep and [the] Horses
[On a hill] [a] sheep, on which wool was not, saw horses, one [a] wagon heavy pulling,
[another] one, [a] load great, one, [a] man swiftly carrying. [The] sheep to the horses
said: heart pains me seeing [a] man horses driving.
[The] horses to the sheep said: listen sheep, hearts pain us seeing: man, [the] master, wool of the sheep makes for himself [a] warm garment and to the sheep the wool not is.
That having heard, [the] sheep to the plain fled.
A freer translation might read:
The Sheep and the Horses
[On a hill] a sheep that had no wool saw horse -- one pulling a heavy wagon, another one a
great load, and another swiftly carrying a man. The sheep said to the horses: it pains me
to see a man driving horses.
The horses said to the sheep: listen sheep, it pains us seeing man, the master, making a warm garment for himself from the wool of sheep, when the sheep has no wool for itself.
On hearing this, the sheep fled to the plain.
Notice Schleicher's use of theme similar to that from Aesop which reflects the role of man and his domesticated animal servants:
Discouraged after an unsuccessful day of hunting, a hungry Wolf came upon a well-fed Mastiff, the Wolf asked what the Dog had to do to earn his food. "Very little," replied the Dog, "Just protect my master's house and family and be obedient to his demands." The Wolf pondered this quite carefully--for he had to risk his own life almost daily to earn his food, and then with little assurance of success. The Wolf, who was tempted to adopt the Dog's mode of living, then happened to notice that the hair was rubbed bare from about the Dog's neck. The Wolf asked what caused this affliction, the Dog replied that it was of no significance, "It's just the place where my collar and chain rub." The Wolf abruptly stopped and exclaimed, "Your Chain! You mean you are not free to come and go as you please?" "No," responded the Dog, "but what does that matter?" "A great deal," replied the Wolf as he trotted away into the forest, "A great deal.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Translations of the 23rd Psalm illustrating the evolution of the English language over the past 1,000 years.
OLD ENGLISH
Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan.
A he me gest on swythe good feohland.
And fedde me be waetera stathum.
MIDDLE ENGLISH
Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal
defailen to me.
In the sted of pasture he sett me ther.
He norissed me upon water of fyllyng.
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
MODERN ENGLISH
Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
In meadows of green grass he lets me rest.
To the waters of repose he leads me.
LITHUANIAN
It has long been thought that the Lithuanian language remained very true to its Indo-European roots. This is, perhaps, best evinced by the close kinship demonstrated between Lithuanian, Sanskrit, and Latin as seen in this Lithuanian proverb.
LITHUANIAN: Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos.
SANSKRIT: Devas adadat datas; Devas dat dhanas.
LATIN: Deus dedit dentes; Dues dabit panem.
ENGLISH: God gave teeth; God will give bread.
THE CELTIC LANGUAGE
The people who made up the various tribes of concern were called Galli by the Romans and Galatai or Keltoi by the Greeks, terms meaning "barbarian." It is from the Greek Keltoi that Celt is derived. Since no soft 'c' exists in Greek, Celt and Celtic and all permutations should be pronounced with a hard 'k' sound. It is interesting to note that when the British Empire was distinguishing itself as separate from the rest of humanity, it was decided that British Latin should have different pronunciation from other spoken Latin. Therefore, one of these distinguishing pronunciational differences was to make many of the previously hard k sounds move to a soft s sound, hence the Glasgow Celtics and Boston Celtics.
There was a unifying language spoken by the Celts, called not surprisingly, old Celtic. Philologists have shown the descendence of Celtic from the original Ur-language and from the Indo-European language tradition. In fact, the form of old Celtic was the closest cousin to Italic, the precursor of Latin. The original wave of Celtic immigrants to the British Isles are called the "q-Celts" and spoke Goidelic. It is not known exactly when this immigration occurred but it may be placed sometime in the window of 2000 to 1200 BC. The label q-Celtic stems from the differences between this early Celtic tongue and Italic. Some of the differences between Italic and Celtic included that lack of a p in Celtic and an a in place of an the Italic o.
At a later date, a second wave of immigrants took to the British Isles, a wave of Celts referred to as the "p-Celts" speaking Brythonic. Goidelic led to the formation of the three Gaelic languages spoken in Ireland, Man and later Scotland. Brythonic gave rise to two British Isles languages, Welsh and Cornish, as well as one surviving on the Continent in the form of Breton, spoken in Brittany.
The label q-Celtic stems from the differences between this early Celtic tongue and the latter formed p-Celtic. The differences between the two Celtic branches are simple in theoretical form. Take for example the word ekvos in Indo-European, meaning "horse". In q-Celtic this was rendered as equos while in p-Celtic it became epos, the q sound being replaced with a p sound. Another example is the Latin qui "who". In q-Celtic this rendered as cia, while in p-Celtic it rendered as pwy. It should also be noted that there are still words common to the two Celtic subgroups.
As an aside, take note that when the Irish expansion into Pictish Britain occurred, several colonies were established in present day Wales. The local inhabitants called the Irish arrivals gwyddel "savages" from which comes gef dil and goidel and thus rose the term Goidelic.
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