Proto-Pontic language

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Proto-Pontic is a postulated proto-language.

Proto-Pontic has at least two daughter languages: Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian, the proto-languages of the Indo-European (IE) and Northwest Caucasian (NWC) language families. The linguist John Colarusso (1997) postulated this proto-language after observing a number of similarities between these two proto-languages in the areas of phonology and morphology. Critics consider these resemblances to be superficial.

Examples of similarities that have been noted include:

Nasal negating particles in both families:
- PIE *n-: Germanic un-, Romance in-, Russian ne-.
- NWC: Ubykh m-, Abkhaz m-.
A case variously named "accusative", "oblique" or "objective", marked with nasal suffixes:
- PIE accusative *-m: Latin luna 'moon' (nom.) vs lunam (acc.).
- NWC: Ubykh k^wæy 'well (water source)' (abs.) vs k^wæyn (obl.).

The Proto-World theorist Patrick C. Ryan views Proto-Pontic as the ancestor of Proto-Nostratic (another postulated proto-language whose descendants include IE, Uralic, Altaic and possibly some other languages such as Sumerian and Afro-Asiatic). In this interpretation, the daughter families of Proto-Pontic would include, on the one hand, NWC and, on the other hand, the entire Nostratic macrofamily in which IE is one component.

[edit] See also

Pontic language is a Greek language which was spoken in the Pontus, and has no special relationship to Proto-Pontic.

[edit] Reference

Colarusso, John (1997). "Proto-Pontic: Phyletic links between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian". Journal of Indo-European Studies 25: 119–51.