Nostratic Dictionary by Aharon Dolgopolsky Foreword
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Foreword Nostratic Dictionary by Aharon Dolgopolsky Foreword To the blessed memory of the great scholars and my dear friends Vladislav Illich-Svitych (1934–1966) and Sergey Starostin (1953–2005) Foreword Foreword Aharon Dolgopolsky This dictionary is a preliminary one. Critical extent. The same applies to the Encyclopedia of remarks of scholars and further research will bring Indo-European Culture, edited by J.P. Mallory & about modifications and more exact etymologies. D.Q. Adams (L./Chic. 1997), which is extremely Therefore I appeal to my colleagues and experts in valuable for its lexical and grammatical entries different fields of comparative linguistics to submit (which are not connected with Mallory”s their critical remarks (both in their papers and in incorrect conception about the homeland personal messages) that will be helpful in checking and early migrations of the Indo-Europeans and improving the etymologies. [Gimbutas”s theory of Ponto-Caspian steppes Today the pace of development in our field of as the homeland that is at variance with obvious science is rapid; therefore at the very moment of linguistic facts: cf. AD IEH, AD CCIE and AD its publication this dictionary (like any other study MAIEH; on the archaeological aspects of the of this kind) is already out of date. Thus is due to problem see Rnf. AL]). The second volume several reasons: of Indo-European and its Closest Relatives by J. 1. Some extremely important studies in etymology Greenberg reached me in July 2002, when the are still in preparation or in print. The recently text of my dictionary was ready. Nevertheless, published Altaic etymological dictionary by in the reference notes of my entries (after S. Starostin, A. Dybo and O. Mudrak was not the signs and ) I have mentioned those available to me (I could only use its preliminary comparisons of Gr. that are (at least partially) versions). This drawback has brought about acceptable. I have paid no attention to those (too another one: I could not pay due attention numerous!) among Gr.”s comparisons that are to the very complicated and controversial untenable or unjustified. proto-Altaic vocalism of roots, so that my 3. Some important dictionaries remained inacces- reconstruction of Nostratic vowels still needs sible to me. Among them the manuscripts checking and revision. Nor have I been able to of the two unedited Goemay dictionaries use the Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian (vols. by E. Sirlinger (Jos, Nigeria, 1937 and 1946); IIIff.) by G. Takács. the Russian-Türkmen dictionary by Alijev 2. Some important papers were published shortly and Borijev (Ashkhabad, 1929); the Chinese before the submission of this dictionary (e.g. dictionaries of the Mongolian languages Baoan, the second Georgian edition of the Kartvelian Dongxiang and Dagur (Beijing, 1981–2); the etymological dictionary by H. Fähnrich and etymological dictionaries of Erzya, Moksha Z. Sarjveladze; the Laz-Turkish dictionary and Cheremis that were published in Saransk by İ.A. Bucaklişi and H. Uzunhasanoğlu; the and Yoshkar-Ola (see Sr. and Srl EG, AB, BuL, latest fascicles of the Dictionnaire des racines LiuZh, Zhong, CygM, KMC and Gord. in the sémitiques by D. Cohen; the new Tuareg-French bibliography). I regret not being able to use the dictionary by K.-G. Prasse, Ghoubeïd Alojaly Gothic etymological dictionary by W. Lehmann and Ghabdouane Mohamed; the French-Berber and the Dictionary of the Irish Language (Dublin, dictionary by M. Dray; the Rendille Dictionary Royal Irish Academy, 1983). by S. Pillinger and L. Galboran; The Dhaasanac 4. Some earlier papers on Nostratic (among them Language by M. Tosco; the Iraqw-English those by A. Bomhard) have not been analysed Dictionary by M. Mous a. o. (MQK); the Grammar although they are likely to contain useful com- of Miya by R. Schuh; The Maale Language by Azeb parisons (in spite of methodological drawbacks Ahma” Essai sur la phonologie du proto-berbère by [cf. AD rTPN] and partially untenable hypoth- M. Kossmann; Comparative Dravidian Linguistics eses of sound correspondences). Analysing by Bh. Krishnamurti; the second volume of them is a lengthy and inefficient procedure the above-mentioned Takács”s Dictionary), so that I could not undertake owing to time that I have not been able to use them to the full constraints. Foreword 5. I have not included in my comparison Eskimo- culture has no exact English equivalent, I have had Aleut, Chukchee-Kamchadal, Etruscan and to present an approximate interpretation (sometimes (almost entirely) Gilyak and Elamite, although with the symbols d ‘a kind of” or ≈ ‘approximately”). these languages do belong (in my opinion) to If the English word is polysemic, I have sometimes the Nostratic macrofamily. The reason is that preferred to use a more convenient Latin, French or the comparative study of these languages is in German equivalent (Latin ‘dorsum” or French ‘dos” its initial stage. At the time of writing there was instead of English ‘back”). no comparative dictionary of Eskimo-Aleut (but I hope very much to make use of critical remarks now see Fortescue, M., S. Jacobsen & L. Kaplan, of scholars in order to improve the etymologies 1994, Comparative Eskimo Dictionary, Fairbanks of this dictionary. New comparative material and (AL): Alaska Native Language Center; and modifications of Nostratic etymologies will later be Fortescue, M., 2005, Comparative Chukoto- published as Addenda and Corrigenda to the Nostratic Kamchatkan Dictionary, Berlin & New York (NY): Dictionary. Therefore critical remarks by experts Mouton de Gruyter). The only comparative in different fields of comparative linguistics and dictionary of Chukchee-Kamchadal (by O. related fields are most welcome. Mudrak) was only published shortly before the present dictionary was submitted, and Acknowledgements hence could not be used. Therefore for the time being I cannot evaluate Greenberg”s interesting No words can express my gratitude to Professor comparisons concerning EA, CK, Gil and Ai. Colin Renfrew who encouraged my research, to the For all these and other reasons this dictionary McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research does not claim to be an exhaustive list of all and to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who made Nostratic words. I am already aware of some possible the publication of this opus vitae meae. possibly reconstructible words that need further I am greatly indebted to my dear friend, the investigation. Other Nostratic words may be found founder of modern Nostratic linguistics Vladislav in recently published and forthcoming papers on Illich-Svitych (1932–64), from whom I learned the descendant languages. I hope to mention them in basic methodology of long-range comparative future papers. linguistic research. He discovered the main sound The greatest practical drawback of the present correspondences between Nostratic languages dictionary is lack of indexes. Their preliminary and the phonetic laws that underlie these version does exist, but could not be included in correspondences. In his Essay of Comparison of this dictionary because it would have increased its the Nostratic Languages (IS I, II, III) and his earlier volume immensely. I am planning to publish them paper ‘Material for comparison of the Nostratic separately as soon as possible. languages” (IS MS), he proposed more than 600 One of the weakest points in the dictionary is the Nostratic etymologies. Almost all of them (in a supposed Chadic cognates. Unfortunately, they had revised form) have been incorporated in the present to be adduced without previous detailed analysis dictionary (with reference notes ‘IS” and ‘IS MS”). of the phonological prehistory and history of the Among other linguists who contributed much Chadic languages (beyond the precious results to the crystallization of mature Nostratic studies, achieved by O. Stolbova in her recent papers). I must gratefully mention Vladimir Dybo, Igor Actually Chadic historical phonology, morphology Diakonoff and my predecessors and friends Björn and etymology are in their infancy. I have adduced Collinder and Karl-Heinrich Menges. Chadic cognates hesitantly and tentatively. They may I am grateful to those colleagues who helped me serve as raw material for establishing sound laws in to interpret material of the Altaic and Samoyedic the prehistory and history of the Chadic languages. languages, Greek, Egyptian, etc.: Sergey Starostin, Probably an additional inconvenience for some Anna Dybo, Eugen Helimski, Juho Janhunen, Yulia readers will be my approach to semantic definitions Krivoruchko, Gábor Takács. of the lexical items. In many cases I prefer to My deep gratitude and homage to those many preserve the German, French, Italian, Spanish and scholars who dedicated their life, talent and energy Latin definitions from the sources in order to avoid to record and register the lexical stock of ancient, inaccuracy in semantic interpretation of the data living and dying-out languages, to preserve their (due to polysemy of words in the sources and the precious Wortschatz, to establish etymologies inevitable arbitrariness in my English translation of and to discover laws of their historical phonology these). In some cases I had to achieve accuracy by and morphology. This dictionary is built on their quoting the sources in Russian, Swedish or other shoulders. ‘exotic” languages (accompanied by an English No research in comparative linguistics is possible translation). If the name of an endemic plant or without access to professional literature. Therefore animal, of an object or phenomenon of some ethnic the present study would have not been feasible Foreword without support of my colleagues and friends who Vladimir Orël, Letas (Mykolas) Palmaitis, Ilya provided me with their own papers and books Peiros, Karel Petráček, Barukh Podolsky, Viktor and with those of other authors, as well as with Porxomovski, Valentina Postovalova, Chaim copies of unpublished manuscript dictionaries and Rabin, Jens E. Rasmussen, Colin Renfrew, Hayim research papers. I want to express my profound Rosén, Otto Rössler, Mstislav Rostropovich, Merritt gratitude to all of them, especially to Aleksandra Ruhlen, Helmut Satzinger, Russell G.