Pre-Indo-European languages

Pre-Indo-European languages are any of several old languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in prehistoric Europe and South Asia before the arrival of speakers of Indo-European languages. The oldest Indo-European language texts date from 19th century BCE in Kültepe in modern-day Turkey, and while estimates vary widely, spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the third millennium BCE (see Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses). Thus the Pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than, or in some cases alongside, the Indo-European languages.

A handful of these languages still survive. Some of the pre-Indo-European languages are attested only as linguistic substrates in Indo-European languages. A few others (such as Etruscan, Minoan, Iberian, etc.) are also attested from inscriptions.

Terminology

Before World War II, all the unclassified languages of Europe and Near East were commonly referred to as Asianic languages; the term encompassed several languages that were later found to be Indo-European (such as Lydian), and others (Hurro-Urartian, Hattic etc.) were classified as distinct language families. The term pre-Indo-European is not universally accepted, as some linguists maintain the idea of the relatively late arrival of the speakers of these unclassified languages to Europe, possibly even after the Indo-European languages; they prefer to speak about non-Indo-European languages. A new term, Paleo-European, was coined relatively recently. The latter term is not applicable to the languages that predated or co-existed with Indo-European outside Europe (in Iran or India).

Surviving languages

Surviving pre-Indo-European languages are held to include:[1]

Languages that contributed a substrate to Indo-European languages

Examples of suggested or known substrate influences on specific Indo-European languages include:

Attested languages

Languages which are attested in inscriptions include:

Later Indo-European expansion

Languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European in ancient times must be distinguished from languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European languages in more recent times. In particular, the vast majority of the major languages spread by colonialism have been Indo-European, and this has in the last few centuries led to superficially similar linguistic islands being formed by, for example, indigenous languages of the Americas (now surrounded by English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French), as well as of several Uralic languages (now surrounded by Russian).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Peter R. Kitson, "Reconstruction, typology and the original home of the Indo-Europeans", in (ed.) Jacek Fisiak, Linguistic Reconstruction and Typology, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1997, p. 191.
  2. ↑ Aikio, Ante (2012). "An essay on Saami ethnolinguistic prehistory" (PDF). Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. Helsinki, Finland: Finno-Ugrian Society. 266: 63–117. Retrieved 5 July 2017.

Bibliography

Archaeology and culture

Linguistic reconstructions

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