Dene-Caucasian
Dene-Caucasian denotes a hypothetical macro-family of languages from Eurasia and North America. The main members are Sino-Tibetan , the North Caucasian languages and Basque . Later, the North American Na-Dene languages were also included.
Sergei Anatoljewitsch Starostin (1984) founded the pre-form of the Eurasian-North American macro-family Dene-Caucasian, from the Sinotibetan, North Caucasian and Yenisian . With the addition of the Na-Dené languages , Sino-Caucasian was then expanded to Dene-Caucasian.
acceptance
Since the Sino-Tibetan proto-language is probably 10,000 years old, a Dene-Caucasian proto-language would have to be at least 20,000 years old, and with its extremely wide geographical distribution probably even older. The majority of linguists doubt that, after such a long time, there are still substantial similarities in phonetics , grammar and vocabulary .
The results of the Dene-Caucasians are therefore heavily discussed in historical linguistics and are not accepted by the majority of linguists.
- Vitaly Shevoroshkin and Alexis Manaster Ramer: Some Recent Work in the Remote Relations of Languages. In: Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (Eds.): Sprung from Some Common Source. Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 1991.
composition
The composition of the Dene-Caucasian is subject to some fluctuations depending on the author. The following list shows the current majority opinion of the "Dene-Caucasians". The components are arranged from west to east.
-
Dene-Caucasian
- Basque
-
North Caucasian
- Abkhazian Adygian (Northwest Caucasian )
- Nakh-Dagestani (Northeast Caucasian)
- Hurrian-Urartian †
- Yenisei (Ket)
- Burushaski
- Sinotibian
- Na-Dené
Some representatives of this structure also include the extinct languages Hattic , Hurrian and Sumerian , as well as Nahali, which is spoken by around 5,000 people in central India . For most Dene-Caucasian people, North Caucasian represents a genetic unit (see, however, the majority opinion in the article Caucasian languages ).
The languages of these macrofamily often show the characteristic of ergativity (. Nominative-accusative languages consistently have a case - the "nominative" - the subject of a sentence and another case "accusative" for the direct object . They correspond to the situation in In contrast, ergative languages have a case “ergative”, which is only used as a subject or agent of transitive verbs, and a further case - usually called “absolute” - which is used both as an object of transitive verbs and as a subject of intransitive verbs. If the ergative-absolute construction in a language is not used equally for all tenses, aspects and persons, one speaks of split ergativity or split-ergative.).
Historical development
As mentioned above, the assumption of a Dene-Caucasian macro family is based on the hypothesis of a Sino-Caucasian macro family founded by Sergei Starostin in 1984. In doing so, he assumed a genetic relationship between the North Caucasian - conceived as a unit - with the Siberian Yenisei and the Sinotibetan , based on his reconstructions of the respective proto-languages . This macro family was later expanded to include some ancient oriental components ( Hurrian - Urartian , Hattic , Sumerian, etc.), Basque (1985) and finally by Sergei L. Nikolajew in 1988 to include the North American Na-Dené languages to form the Dene-Caucasian macro family. In the 1920s, the Americanist Edward Sapir had already described the relationship between Na-Dené and Sino-Tibetan, but not published it.
Other important names that advanced the classification of the Dene-Caucasian in the 20th century were, besides Edward Sapir, Alfredo Trombetti , Robert Bleichsteiner , Karl Bouda , EJ Furnée , René Lafon , Robert Shafer , Olivier Guy Tailleur , Morris Swadesh , Vladimir Nikolajewitsch Toporow , to name the most important names.
Common pronominal morphemes
meaning | Proto-Dene Caucasian |
Proto- Basque |
Proto- Caucasian |
Proto- burushaski |
Proto- Sinotibetan |
Proto- Yenisische |
Na-Dené |
Proto- Salishan |
Proto- Algisch |
Sumerian |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. sg. | / ŋV / | / ni /, / n / - | / nɨ / [1] | / a / - | /n / A/- | / ŋ / | / nV / | / nˀV / - | / ŋa (e) / [2] | |
/ d͡zV / | - / da / -, - / t / | / zoː / | / d͡ʑa / | / ʔad͡z / | [3] | - / t͡s (a) / -, - / s / [4] | ||||
/ KV / | / gu / [5] , / g / - (pl.) | / ka / - | [6] | |||||||
2. so. | / KwV / | / hi /, / h / -, - / ga / - [7] | / ʁwVː / | / gu / - ~ / go / - | / Kwa / - | / (V) k (V) / | [8th] | / ʔaxʷ / | / k̕V / - | |
/ u̯Vn / | - / na / - [9] | / u̯oː-n / | /U.N/ | / na- (ŋ) / | / ʔaw / | [10] | / wV / | |||
3rd sg. | / w / - or / m / - | / be-ra / | / mV / | / mu / - [11] | / m / - | / wV / | [12] | |||
2. pl. | / Su / | / su /, / s / - | / ʑwe / | / t͡sa (e) / [13] |
Footnotes : 1 From a Caucasian perspective alone, the word cannot be reconstructed for a Proto-Caucasian or even Proto-East Caucasian language; it is only found in the Lacic and Dargin languages (Bengtson 2008: 94) 2 The final sound / e / was found in Sumerian pronouns and represented an ergative ending. In the Sumerian Emesal dialect / ma (e) / . 3 Proto-Athapaskan languages * / ʃ / , Haida dii / dìː / . 4 Likewise in Proto-South Wakashan . 5 1st pl .. 6 Tlingit x a / χà / , Eyak / x / -, / xʷ / . 7 masculine verb prefix . 8 Proto-Athapaskan languages * / χʷ / -, Tlingit ÿi / ɰi / > yi / ji / = 2nd pl .; Tlingit i / ʔì / , Eyak / ʔi / "thou". 9 Feminine verb prefix. 10 Proto-Athapaskan * / ŋ̰ən / -, Haida dang / dàŋ /, Tlingit wa.é / waʔɛ́ / , where the hypothesis of a connection between forms of Proto-Athapaskan and Haida on the one hand and the other languages on the other requires assimilation at first glance and dissimilation (Bengtson 2008: 94). 11 Feminine. 12 Proto-Athapaskan languages * / wə / -, Eyak / wa / -, Tlingit wé / wɛ́ / , Haida 'wa / wˀà / . 13 2nd sg.
literature
- The journal Mother Tongue regularly covers Deno-Caucasian topics. The articles in issues I – V (1995–1999) are particularly important.
- SA Starostin: Gipoteza o genetičeskij svjazjax sinotibetskix jazykov s enisejskimi i severnokavkazskimi jazykami. Moscow 1984.
- Vitaly Shevoroshkin (Ed.): Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1991.
(Contains the English translation of Starostin's original Russian article on Sino-Caucasian from 1984 and the article Sino-Caucasian Languages in America by Sergei Nikolajev, in which the Na-Dené languages are added to Sino-Caucasian.)
- Georgij A. Klimov : Introduction to Caucasian Linguistics. German adaptation by Jost Gippert, Hamburg 1994 [1]
Web links
- The Dene-Caucasian Family. Evolution of Human Languages An international project on the linguistic prehistory of humanity, coordinated by the Santa Fe Institute
- "The preliminary phylogenetic tree" (PNG), The Tower of Babel (Evolution of Human Language Project), May 28, 2006
- Graphic for a hypothetical overview with a timeline : A family tree of all the languages of Eurasia. From: Ulf von Rauchhaupt : Do you speak Nostratisch? FAZ , June 15, 2016 ( [2] on www.faz.net)
Individual evidence
- ^ John D. Bengtson: Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages. (2008) Aspects of Comparative Linguistics 3, Moscow: RSUH Publishers, pp. 45-118
- ↑ SA Starostin: Gipoteza o genetičeskij svjazjax sinotibetskix jazykov s enisejskimi i severnokavkazskimi jazykami. Moscow 1984.