Etymology and the European Lexicon Proceedings of the 14th Fachtagung der Indog

Etymology and the European Lexicon Proceedings of the 14th Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, 17–22 September 2012, Copenhagen Edited by Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen, Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead, Thomas Olander and Birgit Anette Olsen Wiesbaden 2016 Reichert Verlag The Pre-Greek substratum revisited Biliana Mihaylova Sofia University The problem of the Pre-Greek substratum has been an important point of debate from the late nineteenth century until now. Here, I am not going to review all the theories that appeared on this subject: Mediterranean and non-Indo-European substratum, Anatolian and the so-called Pelasgian Indo-European Substratum. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the most probable etymologies supporting the theory on the existence of an Indo-European Pre-Greek substratum, i. e. the so called Pelasgian theory, elaborated by Vladimir Georgiev. Considering the phonetic features typical of the Pre-Greek (Pelasgian) language reconstructed by him, I have compiled a list of 23 lexemes with reliable cognates within the Indo-European family and with Indo-European patterns of word formation. Some questions are closely related to the problem of the Pre-Greek Substratum: 1 The problem of the population of Neolithic Europe and the Balkans 2 The problem of the ethnogenesis and homeland of the Indo-Europeans 3 The problem of the ethnogenesis of the Paleo-Balkan peoples It is obvious that these questions do not yet have an unambiguous answer. As there are no written testimonies, nor reliable archaeological data, every theory regarding the Pre-Greek substratum is more or less a speculation. We cannot be sure what type of language contact occurred between Greek and the non- Indo-European and/or Indo-European languages spoken in the Balkans before the arrival of the Greeks.1 The data extractable from the Greek lexicon and Balkan onomastics do not allow us to affirm that there was any real sub- or adstratum influence as we cannot identify any in­ fluences on the phonetics, the morphology or the syntax of the Greek language. In his works from 1937 and 1941 Vladimir Georgiev attempted to reconstruct an unattested Pre-Greek language that he later called Pelasgian. Georgiev analyzed a number of words from the Greek vocabulary that could not be explained by the rules of the Greek historical phonet­ ics and compared them to cognates from other Indo-European languages. On the basis of several etymologies he established the phonetic laws of this unattested Indo-European lan­ guage and continued to increase its lexical corpus. Georgiev’s hypothesis provoked opposite reactions. Unfortunately, over the years the so-called “Pelasgian theory” has been seriously discredited by the incontrollable extent of the etymological imagination of its adherents. In recent years R. S. P. Beekes, following Kuiper and Furnée,2 has tried to prove the exis­ tence of a non-Indo-European substratum in Greek. By analyzing Greek words that deviate from Indo-European phonetics and word formation, he endeavors to demonstrate that these particularities could not be due to pure hazard. In his opinion certain phonetic and morpho­ logical characteristics appear repeatedly and give evidence of a different structure from that of the Indo-European languages. In the chapter “Pre-Greek loanwords in Greek” in his Ety­ mological dictionary of Greek he states: “The ‘Pelasgian’ theory has done much harm, and it is 1 See on this point Hajnal 2005. 2 See GED, p. XIV. Biliana Mihaylova 308 time to forget it.” (GED XVI). In 2009 Beekes mentions the Luwian etymology of Παρνασσός proposed by West3 and declares: “… there were in my view no Luwians in Greece. We should be spared a new disaster as with ‘Pelasgian’ . Pre-Greek is a completely non-Indo-European language.” (Beekes 2009: 194). Like Georgiev’s hypothesis, Beekes’ reconstruction of an unknown non-Indo-European substratum language or languages has the advantage of allowing the explanation of a very large corpus of words without etymology. Another shared feature is that the majority of criti­ cal observations addressed to Georgiev’s theory could be assigned to Beekes’ theory as well. However, the reconstruction of an unknown language family seems much more hypothetical than the reconstruction of Georgiev’s Pre-Greek Indo-European which has a rich base of comparison. As the famous Bulgarian historian Alexander Fol (1981: 54) notices, the theory of the presence of a non-Indo-European population is clear and simple, but it is based on presupposed conclusions and not on real results. As for the Anatolian substratum in Greece, which Beekes definitely rejects, I would like to quote the results of a recent genetic research study (King et al. 2008) demonstrating that the data collected from Neolithic sites in mainland Greece show strong affinity to Balkan data, while those from Crete show affinity with Central/Mediterranean Anatolia. I believe that the Pre-Greek layer is heterogeneous. We could accept a non-Indo-European layer in Greece and in all of Europe; this hypothesis fits well with the Kurgan theory which presupposes that Old (Neolithic) Europe was inhabited by a non-Indo-European population. Even in this case nothing contradicts the idea that Indo-European tribes inhabited the area of the Balkan Peninsula and the Aegean islands before the first Greeks, e.g. in the last centuries of the third millennium BC. We find in Greek a group of words sharing a set of common phonetic developments and showing an Indo-European pattern of word formation. In his etymological dictionary Beekes does not provide a satisfactory explanation for these words and often marks them with a question mark <?>. For the time being the best explanation for them remains within the framework of Georgiev’s theory.4 The main phonetic features of the Pre-Greek, Indo-European language reconstructed by Georgiev (1981: 100) are: · IE *o > PGk. a · IE *r̥, *l̥, *m̥, *n̥ > PGk. ur/or, ul/ol, um/om, ur/ol · Application of Grassmann’s Law · Consonant shift posterior to Grassmann’s Law (MA > M, M > T, T > TA) · Preservation of IE *s in initial position before a vowel and in intervocalic position · IE *su̯- before a vowel > PGk. s- · Palatalization of velars in the position before a front vowel · Delabialization of labiovelars · IE *ei̯ > PGk. ī Before I present a list of lexemes with certain or very probable etymologies belonging to the Indo-European Pre-Greek layer, I have to make a few notes. In the following, we should bear in mind that 3 This etymology is well known from Palmer’s book “Mycenaeans and Minoans” (1961). 4 In my opinion the denomination “Pelasgian” is purely conventional and I shall avoid it because of its negative reputation. The Pre-Greek substratum revisited 309 1 Some fluctuations, as for example between the vowels u/o, are due to the fact that foreign phonemes that did not have exact Greek correspondences are transmitted with Greek script. 2 Pre-Greek stems could be adapted in Greek with Greek or grecized suffixes. 3 In many cases it is difficult to distinguish Pre-Greek substratum words from borrowings from other Paleo-Balkan languages like Thracian, Phrygian or Macedonian. From the pho­ netic viewpoint the difference between Georgiev’s Pre-Greek and Thracian consists in one single phonetic feature: Grassmann’s Law which is а regular development in Pre-Greek, while the deaspiration in Thracian is late and eventually occurs subsequent to the conso­ nant shift, cf. Pre-Greek πύργος ‘tower’ < *burg̑h- < *bhr̥g̑h-, the place name Πέργαμος, -ν, -η <*berg̑h- <*bherg̑h- vs. Thrac. Βεργ- in place names like Βεργούλη, Βεργέπολις < *bherg̑h-. The Thracian consonant shift has been recently doubted by Yanakieva (2010). If her hy­ pothesis is correct, this would be another difference between the two idioms. 4 It is difficult to set the chronological framework within which the Pre-Greek IE bor­ rowings penetrated the Greek lexicon.5 It is certain that these borrowings postdated the weakening of IE *s > h (which is a pre-Mycenaean phenomenon). We could suppose that Grassmann’s Law still operated in Greek as it took place in the Pre-Greek loanword ταχύς ‘swift, quick’ < *thakhu- from IE *toku-. The comparative degree θάσσων preserved the as­ pirate and this is a clear indication that the deaspiration occurred on Greek ground. There are some indications that Grassmann’s Law postdates the Mycenaean period (Ruijgh 1967: 44–46). The main criteria for inclusion in the list of the most probable Pre-Greek words of Indo- European origin are: · Presence of phonetic feature(s) of the Pre-Greek language · Reliable cognates in other IE languages · IE pattern of word formation My aim is to be as conservative as possible, and for this reason I have not included onomas­ tic elements, phytonyms and words containing suffixes which are usually claimed to be Pre- Greek such as -νθ-, -σσ-, -γγ-, etc. The secondary productivity of the suffixes increases the risk of mere root etymologies. Below each entry I have indicated the author of the etymology. However, many of these etymologies have been essentially reviewed and updated according to recent achievements in Indo-European linguistics. 1. Wordlist 1 ἄδδεε· ἐπείγου. Hesych. ‘to press, urge, hurry’ The second part of this compound corresponds exactly to the Greek imperative θέε from θέω ‘to run’ derived from the IE root *dʰeu̯- ‘to run, flow’ (IEW 259–260, LIV 147–148). The treatment *dʰ > d is typical of Pre-Greek. The first part of the compound uploads/Ingenierie_Lourd/ mihaylova-2016.pdf

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Ingénierie pre-greek greek indo-european features: consonant
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