Fernando López-Menchero Díez A PRACTICAL GUIDEBOOK FOR MODERN INDO-EUROPEAN EXPLORERS PART I: LESSONS 1-30 IEAS Version 1.02 (23rd November 2018) © 2018 by Fernando López-Menchero Díez ACADEMIA PRISCA <https://academiaprisca.org/> Supplementary files and updates are published at the corporative website. Supplementary files include spreadsheets for easy lookup, with: • vocabulary used in the lessons, with relevant gramatical information, and lessons where they appear in the text. • tables with verbal morphology and conjugated examples. • tables with nominal morphology and inflected examples. Official mirror for downloads of English language files: <https://indo-european.info/> Cover image modified from Hans Stoll’s (1930) Erdal-Bilderreihe Nr. 122, Bild 5. Foreword their publication within Academia Prisca, it is evident that they are in essence complex linguistic works condensed and reshaped: from their I found our first mention of a self-learning and introductory course for format to their orthography, they have been devised (or rewritten) for their Modern Indo-European in a blog post from almost eight years ago. ease of use by any willing learner. Fernando’s involvement and eventual take-over of the whole project happened probably not much later than that. Few if any linguist could The self-learning course is divided in fun lessons carefully designed to have dedicated so much time and effort to a project that does not give him introduce the reader to the difficult aspects of the Proto-Indo-European any academic or economic reward whatsoever. grammar, while offering at the same time interesting notes of culture and language usage. After each six lessons there is a recapitulation of the most Fernando is an engineer with international education, a dedicated civil important achievements, which presupposes the daily study of one lesson. servant with field experience in different European countries, he is Each lesson offers thus many examples of few selected grammatical proficient in various modern languages, and a family man with a busy keystones, always built around a common theme that lightens the effort social and cultural life. This makes his consistent and constant dedication of language acquisition, be it scenes of everyday life, a fairy tale, social to this and similar projects on Indo-European linguistics for years even events, or formal religious texts. more remarkable. This book is a testament of a brilliant scholar who has chosen Indo- Fernando’s unpaid labour on Proto-Indo-European reconstruction began European studies as a regular leisure activity, instead of being bound by some twenty years ago with his BA Classics at the Complutense academic and professional goals. In his efforts to bring Late Proto-Indo- University of Madrid, where he learned ancient languages and cultures in European closer to the general public, and to offer a lively reconstruction depth, by undertaking simultaneously a self-imposed project – that is still of this ancestral language, Fernando has constrained his creativity and undergoing improvements – to collect a fully-fledged Late Proto-Indo- opportunities of research and publications, deviating from a path that European lexicon, building upon the objectives of the (then) recent could have led him to an academic tenure. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. He has continued his work by expanding detailed tables of verbal conjugations, nominal and adjectival As a self-taught language learner myself, having studied at least a dozen declensions, and word formation elements, as well as an abridged Proto- self-learning courses more or less successfully – and as many others Indo-European syntax of two hundred and forty pages. unsuccessfully –, I cannot recommend this course too highly. Learning Late Proto-Indo-European through this book is as easy as it is to learn He has been thus formed as a true all-rounder in Indo-European culture modern languages with similar methods. Where inquisitive outsiders and languages. While these works – and his contributions to our common found themselves among the densest and darkest of forests of Indo- grammar – have been labelled as Modern Indo-European material for European manuals – almost designed to lead them as far away as possible 3 from this field –, this book offers the necessary shortcuts to break through Short notice the initial, steep portion of the language learning curve. I would like to thank Carlos Quiles for his very valuable and useful help I would like to think that, similar to Fernando, I have dedicated many in the preparation of this guidebook. His review comments have years to make Late Proto-Indo-European a living language. However, enormously contributed to improving the quality of this work. Obviously, whereas I have focused on the potential of North-West Indo-European as any error, mistake or omission appearing in these pages can only be a learned language in Europe, Fernando has not lost at any time his attributed to my own responsibility. commitment to the stage ancestral to Balkan languages and Indo-Iranian. For this reason, all his published materials are as useful for the student of Fernando López-Menchero Díez Indo-European linguistics as for the occasional language learner. BA Classics Consequently, this self-learning course is also an inclusive introduction to Late Proto-Indo-European, displaying the difficult equilibrium that only Fernando could achieve when using a phonology and morphosyntax Pronunciation guide intermediate between the Late Proto-Indo-European stage and his frequent nods to European vocabulary and culture. This work, as all his c /gu̯ / previous ones, promises to be of long-lasting value in the field. I hope that ch /gu̯ h/ the common reader can recognise that it is so; I am certain that the dh /dh/ specialised reader will do it. bh /bh/ gh /gh/ Carlos Quiles j, w /i̯ /, /u̯ / djo, tjo, kje, bhje /di̯ o/, /ti̯ o/, /ki̯ e/, /bhi̯ e/ LL.B., B.B.A., M.D., M.Sc., Ph.D. in Medicine dwo, two, kwe, bhwe /du̯ o/, /tu̯ o/, /ku̯ e/, /bhu̯ e/ qa, qe, qi, qo, qu /ku̯ a/, /ku̯ e/, /ku̯ i/, /ku̯ o/, /kwu/ gt, ght, kt /kt/ bt, bht, pt /pt/ ss /ss/ /s/ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 4 Index of contents Esmi, eimi, dhídhēmi, edmi. Lesson 8 Verbs with preposition. Middle voice bhəmai and bhūjā̆ i. Adverbs; sū and dus. Eti, we, dom, aw, taw particles. Some numerals. 1 Professions. Verb to be in the present (I). Pronouns (singular). Demonstratives (singular). Gender. 9 Stative verbs. Locative of demonstratives. Middle voice. Mention to athematic verb group. Anticausative of the type gerjā̆ i. Instrumental case. Deponent verbs seqā̆ i ‘to follow’ and jijái ‘to ask, to try to have’. Ablative 2 Verb ‘to be’ in the present (II). Pronouns (plural). Demonstratives case. (plural). How? Mention to thematic verb group. Total questions. Affirmation. Negation. Possessive meghei and tebhei: to me and 10 Parts of the body. Nominative-vocative-accusative dual. to you. Instrumental dual. Dual of the verbs in the present tense (I). Locatival adjectives. -téwijo- participle. 3 What?. where?. Nominative, accusative and locative in the singular. Thematic and athematic verbal groups. Adjectives and 11 Kinship names. Genitive case. Polu as a noun and polús as an disjunction. Adversative aw. adjective. The perfect forms stéstōwa. *bheH2 ‘to appear, shine’ in the active, versus ‘to speak’ in the middle. The interrogative 4 Nominative and accusative in the singular. Total questions. pronoun qis. Active present and perfect participles in -ont- and - Thematic and athematic adjectives. wos-. Medio-passive -mno- participle. 5 Dative, locative and ablative in the singular. Third person plural. 12 Stative -ḗje/o- verbs. Progressive -ske/o- verbs. The pronoun Ad and ad podí + noun. Esti, senti/sonti indicating existence. neqos, neqā, neqod. 6 Nominative and accusative in the plural. Accusative of direction. 13 The interrogative pronoun qis, qid. To take and to give. When? Parts of the day. Eimi and didhēmi present active. Nominative and accusative. R(e)/R(ø) versus R(e)/R(e) athematic verbs. Dual of the verbs in the present tense (II). Vocabulary of 7 Main phonemes. Demonstratives and lack of article. Gender. Form marriage. Vocabulary for singing. Suffix -ro- in adjectives. and use of nominative, accusative, dative and locative. Nominative, accusative and dative of personal pronouns. 14 Dual of the verbs in the present. Thematic and athematic middle Nominative of demonstratives ko, kā, tod or so, sā, tod ‘this’; eno, endings series and -hi series. Stative verbs and preterite-present enā, enod or oiso, oisā, oisod ‘that’; edqis, edqid ‘someone, verbs. Genitive, ablative and instrumental case. Nominative, something’. vocative and accusative dual in nouns and pronouns. Particles, conjunctions and adverbs. Word order. Review of thematic and athematic verbs in the present effective of indicative. Present active of: trebhō, kluwējō, adejō, lubhjō, 5 15 Basic greetings: gheuse and qota wəlḗjesi?. The vocative case. The 23 The -lo- aorist participle. Aorist protelative forms. Aorist independent relative pronoun jos, jā, jod in the nominative case. protelative stem ē̆ sā-. Present participle of simultaneity. Abstract The possessive suffix -wént-. Effective and protelative incession nouns in -sr̥ and -wr̥ . The thematic suffix -mo- in substantives. in the present. The accusative of extension. Middle and passive aorist forms. The ablaut of forms in (o/e)nt-. 16 Passive voice. Instrumental of cause. Instrumental of agent. The 24 Active versus middle voice in aorist effective and aorist protelative perfect āuga. The kn̥ sējō versus the kn̥ sejō formation. Ablative forms. Finality clauses with monsō + genitive. The particle immō. case to form adverbs. Periphrastic perfect gnë̄ tos esmi. The -to- aorist passive participle. Several basic compounds. The - mon- para-participle of capability. 17 Toneless possessive pronouns in the singular. The -no participle. Parts of the house. Several compounds. Keti and kosmēd. Qer, 25 Aorist stative and middle forms. Protelative pluperfects with -sā- je(p) and dheh1 ‘to make, to do’.