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Proto-Indo-Iranian language

Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan,[1] is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are often connected with the Sintashta culture of the Eurasian Steppe and the early Andronovo archaeological horizon.

Proto-Indo-Iranian was a satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from its ancestor, the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from Vedic Sanskrit (of the Rigveda)[2] and Old Avestan (of the Gathas), its descendants.

It is the ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages, and the Nuristani languages, predominantly spoken in the Southern Asian subregion of Eurasia.

Descriptive phonology

In addition to the vowels, *H, and *r̥ could function as the syllabic core. In many reconstructions, instances of *iH and *uH occur instead of *ī and *ū.

Two palatal series

Proto-Indo-Iranian is hypothesized to have contained two series of stops or affricates in the palatal to postalveolar region.[3] The phonetic nature of this contrast is not clear, and hence they are usually referred to as the primary or first series (*ć *ȷ́ *ȷ́ʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European palatovelar *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ) and the second or secondary series (*č *ǰ *ǰʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European plain and labialized velars, *k, *g, *gʰ and *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ, in palatalizing contexts). The following table shows the most common reflexes of the two series (Proto-Iranian is the hypothetical ancestor to the Iranian languages, including Avestan and Old Persian):[4][5]

Laryngeal

Proto-Indo-European is usually hypothesized to have had three to four laryngeal consonants, each of which could occur in either syllabic or non-syllabic positions. In Proto-Indo-Iranian, the laryngeals merged as one phoneme /*H/. Beekes suggests that some instances of this /*H/ survived into Rigvedic Sanskrit and Avestan as unwritten glottal stops as evidenced by metrics.[6]

Accent

Like Proto-Indo-European and Vedic Sanskrit (and also Avestan, though it was not written down[7]), Proto-Indo-Iranian had a pitch accent system similar to present-day Japanese, conventionally indicated by an acute accent over the accented vowel.

Historical phonology

The most distinctive phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law, Bartholomae's law, and the Ruki sound law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian.

A fuller list of some of the hypothesized sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Indo-Iranian follows:

  • Following a consonant, and preceding a consonant cluster
  • Following a consonant and word-final

Subsequent sound changes

Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilants *z, *ẓ, *ź; among those to Proto-Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates.

Morphology and basic vocabulary

Proto-Indo-Iranian has preserved much of the morphology of Proto-Indo-European (PIE): thematic and athematic inflection in both nouns and verbs, all three numbers (singular, dual and plural), all the tense, mood and voice categories in the verb, and the cases in the noun.

Personal pronouns (nominative case)

Pronouns, nouns and adjectives are inflected into the eight cases of PIE: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, ablative, locative and instrumental (with also a comitative/sociative meaning).

Three examples of verbs

In verbs, the chief innovation is the creation of a passive conjugation with the suffix *-yá, with middle inflection.[20]

The following examples lack the dual plural and are conjugaten in the present tense.

Examples of noun declension

Despite Proto-Indo-Iranian preserves much of the original morphology of Proto-Indo-European, an important innovation in the noun is the creation of a genitive plural ending *-nām used with vowel stems. [21]

The following examples lack the dual number.

Masculine noun

Feminine noun

Neuter noun

An example of adjectival declension

The morphology in adjectival declension is identical to the one in noun declension. The following example lacks the dual number.

Numerals

See also

References

  1. ^ Peter Bellwood; Immanuel Ness (10 November 2014). The Global Prehistory of Human Migration. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-97059-1.
  2. ^ Hock, Hans Henrich (2015). "Proto-Indo-European verb-finality: Reconstruction, typology, validation". In Kulikov, Leonid; Lavidas, Nikolaos (eds.). Proto-Indo-European Syntax and its Development. John Benjamins.
  3. ^ Burrow, pp. 78–79
  4. ^ Ramat, Anna Giacalone (1998). The Indo-European Languages (illustrated ed.). London ; New York: Routledge. p. 134. ISBN 0-415-06449-X.
  5. ^ Cardona, George; Dhanesh Jain (2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. London ; New York: Routledge. p. 24. ISBN 0-7007-1130-9.
  6. ^ Beekes (1988), p. 50
  7. ^ Beekes, p. 55
  8. ^ Burrow, pp. 74–75
  9. ^ a b c Fortson, p. 182
  10. ^ a b Fortson, p. 181
  11. ^ F. B. J. Kuiper. 1976. "Old East Iranian dialects." Indo-Iranian Journal 18, p. 242.
  12. ^ Burrow, p. 91
  13. ^ Burrow, pp. 92–94
  14. ^ Fortson, p. 183
  15. ^ Beekes, pp. 85–86
  16. ^ Lubotsky, p. 53
  17. ^ get ref
  18. ^ Beekes, pp. 88–89
  19. ^ "Indo-Iranian Languages." Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Ed. J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. pp. 305.
  20. ^ Fortson p. 205
  21. ^ Fortson p. 205

Bibliography

Further reading

Contacts between Indo-Iranian and Uralic

External links