sign in sign up
<<
Home , Andic languages, Burushaski, Georgian language, Hattic language, Lazica, Nakh languages

11-06-25

The Caucasian , their relatives and neighbors

• A. Long-range genetic relations • A1. Japhetic & Ibero-Caucasian Einführung in die kaukasische • A2. North Caucasian & Nostratic Sprachwissenschaft • A3. Relations to Near Eastern languages 12. The Caucasian languages in genetic and • B. The as a Sprachbund, or multiple regional context mini-Sprachbünde? Kevin Tuite • C. Conclusion Universität Jena April-June 2011

The evolution of Caucasian Tsarist-period Caucasology comparative-historical • Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745–1781) • Julius von Klaproth (1783-1835) • (i) Colonial period: ethnographic philology in the • Marie-Félicité Brosset (1802–1880) service of the : Güldenstädt, Klaproth, • Anton Schiefner (1817–1879) Brosset, Schiefner, Uslar • P. K. Uslar (1816–1875) • (ii) Indigenization and institutionalization: The emergence of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis in the historical projects of , Ivane Javaxishvili, • Research of peoples, languages, cultures of Caucasus Arnold Chikobava, and their disciples undertaken in context of Russian colonial expansion • (iii) Post-colonial period: Ethnographic philology and • First generation of Caucasologists largely from Germany, ethnic politics; Neogrammarians and long-rangers; later succeeded by Russians such as Uslar Ibero-Caucasianism • Motivated by Leibnizian program of deep historical ethnology

1 11-06-25

Dolgopolsky’s list of 15 words least susceptibIe to Güldenstädt’s 1773 classification replacement : Kartvelian, Abkhaz-Adyghean of the languages of the Caucasus

• I. “Georgianische Mundarten” (= Kartvelian or South Caucasian family) • II. “Mizdschegische Mundarten” (= Nakh group of Northeast Caucasian family) • III. “Lesgische Sprache” (= Daghestanian group of Northeast Caucasian family) • IV. “Abchasetische oder Abasaische und Tscherkessische Sprache” (= Abkhaz- Adyghean or Northwest Caucasian family)

Dolgopolsky list: Nakh-Daghestanian Caucasian studies in St. Petersburg • M.-F. Brosset (1837): French Orientalist, founded Studies program in St Petersburg • Brosset worked with in Russia, paved the way for Georgian academics • Davit Chubinashvili (1845): lexicographer • Aleksandre Tsagareli (1871): Kartvelian historical- comparative linguistics • Nikolai Marr (1900)

2 11-06-25

Indigenization and institutionalization of Marr’s Japhetidology Caucasian studies • Kartvelological period (1908–1916): Japhetic (= Kartvelian & “pre-Aryan” languages of ) as • (1) the central importance of Caucasian languages to branch of Noetic family with Hamitic and Semitic Marr’s linguistic theories • Caucasological period (1916–1920): Japhetic “layers” • (2) the foundation of a Georgian- university and the mixed heritages of the North and South in in 1918 Caucasian languages • (3) the Soviet policy of “indigenization” (korenizacia) • Mediterraneanist period (1920–1923): The “third ethnic • (4) institutional decentralization of Caucasology: element” (neither Indo-European nor Hamito-Semitic) in Leningrad, , Academy of the creation of Mediterranean culture: Etruscan, Basque, Sciences (Georgian Linguistic Institute; ASSR and AO Pelasgian etc. institutes of language, literature and history) • The New Theory of Language (1923-1950): Japhetic goes global as universal evolutionary stage or ‘system’

Japhetidology in 1930 ethnographic philology and Ivane Javaxishvili’s History of the Georgian People • The original nature and relation of the Georgian and Caucasian languages (1937) as second of three projected introductory volumes • First rigorous demonstration of the Ibero-Caucasian hypothesis • 44 etymologies supporting ancient • stages, systems replacing language families category of gender in Kartvelian • four-element theory and imaginative etymologizing of • Evidence that the distant ancestors of tribal & place names the and the other indigenous Caucasian peoples “were • language origins: gesture preceding oral language; closely-related tribes” (ɣvidzli modzme role of magical rituals & “master-mages”, etc. etc. t’omebi)

3 11-06-25

Arnold Chikobava and Ibero-Caucasian linguistics

Ibero-Caucasian etymology? • Stalin’s advisor in 1950 Pravda discussion on Soviet linguistics • Javaxishvili (1937: 419) on *q’o/q’w “two”: • Revised Javaxishvili’s model of • Kartv. /or-/ “two” < *q’o=r- (/-r/ = Class IV suffix) Ibero-Caucasian • Same root in Geo. /t’q’ub-/ “twin”, /t’q’uč’-/ “twinned • Followed third “historicist” path fruit or nut” < *d=q’w- (/d-/ = inanimate class prefix); — neither Marrist paleontology cp. Ubykh /t’q’wa/ “two”, Ingush /tq’o/ “twenty” nor Neogrammarian sound laws — which took account of the • Favorable reception by Vogt (1942), Lomtatidze distinctive topography of the (1955), Kuipers (1963: 334), Shagirov (1977 II: 86-7); Caucasian cultural landscape Klimov (1969: 68) more sceptical • Ibero-Caucasian theory hardened into dogma, despite lack of new evidence

“North Caucasian” = “North Caucasian” cognates Ibero-Caucasian lite? • Phase I: etymological analysis yields promising indications of relatedness (Javaxishvili, Trubetzkoy) • Phase II: further research fails to provide convincing proof (Chikobava et ., Starostin et al.) • Phase III: linguistic grouping proves useful in ethnopolitical polemics: pan-Caucasian vs. Russia- border

4 11-06-25

“Ibero-Caucasianism” and “Eurasianism” The Nostratic megafamily (Illitch-Svitych, Dolgopolsky, Bomhard, Greenberg) • organic, family-like relationship among diverse peoples in a geographic region • ethnopolitical unity transcending differences in language, religion • union in contrast to the dominant civilizations of the continent (Trubetzkoy’s Eurasians vs. “Romano-Germanic” ; Gamsaxurdia’s Ibero-Caucasians distinct from Russia, Western Europe, and Turkey)

Nostratic pronouns

5 11-06-25

Some Nostratic etymologies (Bomhard) The Déné-Caucasian mega-mega-family

• Proposed by Starostin, Nikolaev, Bengtson, Ruhlen, et al. • Core group comprises Basque, (West & East) Caucasian, • Recently, Edward Vajda published a convincing demonstration of a genetic link between Yeniseian and Na-Déné, but no comparable arguments have been made regarding relationship of other families

Déné-Caucasian pronouns

6 11-06-25

The “Pontic” hypothesis of John Colarusso: Pontic pronouns West Caucasian & Indo-European

Proto-Pontic would have existed around 9000 BC.

Pontic etymologies The Alarodian hypothesis

• I. Diakonoff & S. Starostin proposed that the languages of the Hurrians (c. 2200-1200 BC) and Urarteans (c. 1200-600 BC) are related to the East Caucasian family

7 11-06-25

Alarodian pronouns Alarodian etymologies

The Hattic typological & etymological evidence linking Hattic to language of West Caucasian (Ardzinba, Dunaevskaia, Diakonoff) and West Caucasian

• (i) polypersonal with numerous prefixal slots, including directional/locative prefixes, reflexive morpheme preceding person marker; vowel alternations (ablaut?) in verb root • Hattic: language of ritual texts cited in Hittite documents • (ii) shared between “” and “” (head- (14th-13th c. BC). Probably the language of the autochthonous marking languages with verb-like nominals) population of central Anatolia. • (iii) collective- morpheme /wa-/ • The philologist and Hittitologist V. Ardzinba (later first president • (iv) locative prefix /ta-/ “in” of ) found intriguing parallels between Hattic and • (v) ethnonyms from Bronze-Age Anatolia: Kaška (cp. Old Geo Abkhaz. kašag “Circassian”), Abešla (cp. Gk Apsilai, Abkhaz Apš-wa)

8 11-06-25

The Caucasus as Sprachbund? Trubetzkoy’s 1928 definition of Sprachbund

• Definition of Sprachbund • Features shared by all or most languages of the Caucasus: phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexicon • Caucasian linguistic diversity in historical perspective: the Near East and Europe before • Trubetzkoy applied the term Sprachbund to the emergence of the spread of Indo-European & Turkic common syntactic, morphological, phonetic and lexical features • Mini-Sprachbünde within the Caucasus through the longstanding contact of speech communities • Note that the definition includes negative as well as positive features, in order to exclude genetically-related language groups from consideration as Sprachbünde

The Balkan Sprachbund The Caucasus as Sprachbund (Chirikba)

• The Balkans as site of best-known Sprachbund • Diagnostic features shared by Balkan languages, but not their close relatives outside the region • Inventory of over 30 features said to be • Example of postposed articles: Other shared by the three Caucasian language have prefixed articles, and most Slavic languages lack them families, and in some cases other languages altogether. Note that the articles are made of etymologically- spoken in the region unrelated morphemes.

9 11-06-25

Interpretation of shared features The spread of glottalization • All three Caucasian language families have a series of glottalized • 1. Truly areal features, shared by all languages of the (ejective) stops & , contrasted with voiced, aspirated and (in Caucasus region, including non-autochthonous (such as many East & West Cauc languages) plain or geminate obstruents. Armenian, Ossetic, Karachay-Balkar). Example: glottalized • Presence of glottalized obstruents in non-Caucasian languages: consonants. • Armenian (dialects of Tbilisi, , Artanuj, Agulis, etc.): • 2. Features shared by unrelated languages within a subregion glottalization of inherited plain voiceless stops of the Caucasus, which are likely to have been spread by • Ossetic: full series of glottalized obstruents, comprising loanwords, contact. Examples: harmonic consonant clusters (West & South also some inherited words (e.g. /k’udi/ “tail” < Georgian; but also Caucasian + Nakh languages); Kartvelian-like features of native Iranian /k’ona/ “hearth”) Armenian; regionally-diffused lexemes • Karachay-Balkar: glottalized consonants adopted with loanwords (/ • 3. Remnants of more widespread linguistic profiles, from a time tapq’a/ or /tapxa/ “shelf”) preceding the expansion of Indo-European and Turkic • Kumyk: glottalized consonants in loanwords (/q’anc’/ “vinegar”), also languages into the Near East and Europe. Examples: ergativity, occur in some native words (/q’yrq/ “40”) numerals, high level of • Azeri Turkish: dialect of Lower Katrux in contact with Lak; many ejective and pharyngealized consonants occur in loanwords & native vocabulary (e.g. /t’avšan/ “rabbit”, /sap’un/ “soap”)

Harmonic consonant clusters Abkhaz-Mingrelian contacts • Both speech communities likely present in early West Caucasian state formations: , , Abkhazian Kingdom (8th-11th c.) • Bilingualism: knowledge of Mingrelian widespread among southern . Among the , Abkhazian was known by the nobility, as well as peasants in the frontier province of Samurzaq’ano • Until the late 19th c., Abkhaz & Mingrelian royalty and noble families had the practice of giving children to be • Two- and three-consonant groups that pattern as single C segments in West and raised by families from other ethnic groups. In this South Caucasian, also marginally in East Caucasian • Initial C in clusters anterior (labial or dental-alveolar), followed by more posterior C. way, elite Mingrelian children learned Abkhaz and • Clusters seem old in W and S Cauc; appear to be an innovation in Nakh and Xinalug vice-versa. (under areal influence?)

10 11-06-25

Abkhazian influence on Mingrelian lexicon & morphology The Caucasus as a reserve of linguistic diversity • Many of the features listed by Chirikba are only distinctive in comparison to the current linguistic landscape of . • Before the large-scale spread of the Indo-European and , there was doubtless a greater diversity of language types, as evidenced by the ancient languages of the Near East, and isolated remnants such as Basque and Burushaski. • The ancient Near East languages (Sumerian, Elamite, Hurrian- Urartean, Akkadian, Egyptian) tend toward greater agglutination, and many have ergative-absolutive alignment (as do Basque and Burushaski). • The ancient Hamito-Semitic languages had consonant systems with uvular & pharyngealized obstruents. • Vigesimal (base-20) counting systems are attested in Basque, Burushaski and many other now-marginal Eurasian languages

The Caucasian substrate(s) of Armenian

• inventory nearly identical to Georgian: 3 series of obstruents, 2 series of fricatives; 7 vowels • Absence of • Loanwords from Urartean & Kartvelian; some of the latter closer to Mingrelian-Laz prototypes: /č’anǰ/ “fly (mouche)” = Mingr /č’anǰ-i/< PKrt *(m)c’er-; /lak’ot/ “small dog” = Laz /lak’-i/ “puppy” < PKrt *lek’v-; /očxar/ “sheep” = Proto-Zan */čxvar/ (before Zan vowel shift *a > o)

11 11-06-25

East Armenian phonology and morphology Diffusion of lexical items in the Caucasus

• Consonant inventory nearly identical to Georgian and Laz- Mingrelian • Agglutinative , with plural suffix preceding case suffix: later innovation of both Armenian & Kartvelian (convergence?)

The root for daughter-in-law in the Caucasus Daughter- and son-in-law in East Caucasian

• Loanword adopted into all three Caucasian families. • In WC and SC, only Circassian & Laz adopted *nusa for “daughter-in-law”. In Ubyx and some , the root /nusa-/ has taken on special meaning. • In Ancux Avar and the , /nusa/ denotes “child’s spouse”; in some languages it adds a class suffix to distinguish gender • The older Indo-European descendants of the root *snuso-, as well as • Note variant with initial /s/ most of the Caucasian equivalents, can also denote “sister-in-law” or in the Lezgian branch indeed any woman marrying into one’s family or clan

12 11-06-25

Possible transmission pathways for *(s)nusa from Ancient Wanderwörter from Near Eastern languages (Johanna Nichols) Ponto-Caspian steppes • (map shows invasion routes of Cimmerians & Scythians in 8-7c. BC). • Lexeme more widespread in (Daghestan and Circassia) than South. • Adoption of foreign word for “daughter-in-law” conditioned by linguistic taboos surrounding in- marrying women

Conclusion: Where were the Caucasian languages spoken in prehistory? Les régions géo-écologiques • West and East Caucasian share numerous features (especially phonetic), and possibly ancient isoglosses (regarded as evidence of common genetic origin by Trubetzkoy) • Kartvelian shows less resemblance to Caucasian phonological profile. • Commonly-stated hypothesis (Klaproth, Javaxishvili, Kavtaradze) that Kartvelian originated south or southwest of present-day Georgia. • The principal river systems, often corresponding to archaeological culture areas. • Could this aid in search for Caucasian linguistics Urheimats?

13 11-06-25

Archaeology and language distribution Southwestern origin of Kartvelian?

• West Caucasian: likely link with Bronze Age • Javaxishvili, Kavtaradze (and Klaproth) place the Kartvelian “Dolmen Culture” of Kuban basin (and possibly Urheimat to the southwest, in the or further westward in Anatolia. the Maikop Culture of the earlier period) • Svan was the first community to split off, migrating into the • East Caucasian: Schulze & others argue for Colchis lowlands in the 3rd millennium (Chirikba). Colchis was Urheimat in vicinity of . Could it have probably sparcely populated at this time • The ancestor of the Zan (Laz-Mingrelian) community were the been spoken in Early Bronze Age -Araxes next to migrate into Colchis, pushing the northward into culture area, then later spread northward? the upper Inguri and Cxenis-C’q’ali valleys • Kartvelian: unclear where to place it in Early • The last group of Kartvelian migrants spread northeastward into eastern Georgia, possibly accompanied by linguistic Bronze Age. No obvious link to archaeological of East Caucasian speakers culture before Late Bronze

Two possible Bronze-Age sites of Kartvelians Or perhaps northeastern origin of Kartvelian?? • Another scenario — which so far has not been presented by archaeologists or historians — is that proto-Kartvelian came from the Basin • The ancestors of the Kartvelians could have been related to the Neolithic Chokh-Ginchi culture of highland • The Kartvelian language would have also been in contact with early Indo-European at this time (evidenced by isoglosses and similarities of morphological structure) • The spread of Kartvelian to the south — initially southwest? — Caucasus could have been due to demographic expansion (new food-production techniques), which spread from highland to lowland areas [Kushnareva: 21]. • Another stimulus might have been the expansion of the (East- Caucasian-speaking?) Kura-Araxes culture into the Terek region.

14