Proto-Indo-European

skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
edited January 2011 in Life
Is anyone else here interested in Proto-Indo-European? For some reason the idea just fascinates the fuck out of me. That there was in fact a single unified language that led to languages that are found natively all they way from Ireland to India is just such a cool idea, I think. I especially enjoy the linguistics that we have done to try and pin it down, and it's really clarified a lot of entomology for me. I especially would like to know how it sounded, and sometimes I wonder why everything has an h- in the front of it.

Comments

  • StrykerStryker New Arrival
    edited November 2010
    Yup. Indo-European was the granddaddy of most of the western European lingoes.

    There were Indo_European, (West Europe), Indo-Sinetic (East Europe, Asia--including the Native American languages except for Navaho and Korean) and Kokatuan (the languages of sub-equatorial Africa).

    The exception in Europe is Euskari (Basque) is a the remains of the old Mediterranean language (Etruscan) long deceased. And Renatu (an odd language spoken by some people in the south of Lithuania--a Tocharic lingo.).

    Korean is an ancient language that was once spoken throughout the south of China and there is no other language related to Navaho.

    That's enough to take in for now (I'm a Bachelor of Philology).
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited November 2010
    Yup. There are like, n+1 families. Semitic, Japonic, etc. etc. The thing that fascinated me the most about Indo-European is that the Celtic languages started in Poland with the Hallstatt Culture, and they ended up on the far west of the continent as they were overrun eventually. Oh, and the theories about the Basque languages being related to a number of other proposed languages or being in a number of proposed families are very fascinating.
  • StrykerStryker New Arrival
    edited November 2010
    The original Celts came from the south of Russia and Ukraine. The Greeks called them "Keltios" meaning those people (not us). In the east they were known as the Scythians and incidentally gave us some great agricultural tools that are still used today. e.g. the scythe (which hasn't changed on 2500yrs), the mould-board plough, again still basically the same implement. They were grain growers and developed Wheat, Oats, Rye and Barley. They migrated across the south of Europe for more agricultural land.

    The Saxons came from the south of Poland and they had blue eyes and golden hair. The name (Roman) simply means "people with straw-coloured hair".

    The Greco-Armenics (proto Greeks) came from the south of Russia too at the end of the last Ice Age. As did the Latini (Romans) a bit later. The Romans were essentially Scoti (Cattle-herders). Short: the men were about 5'5'' tall and the women were about 5'0'' with light brown hair and light coloured eyes.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited November 2010
    Hmm, you seem pretty knowledgeable on this subject. What, then, can you tell me about the Dacians?
  • StrykerStryker New Arrival
    edited November 2010
    The Dacians were a branch of the Greco-Armenics and settled on the eastern side of what became ancient Greece. Their language was a dialect of Tocharic. Ultimately it evolved (with some outside influence) into the Serbo-Croat group today.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited December 2010
    Oh? I thought they had something to do with the Albanians, although those are more likely the Thracians or Illyrians.
  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited December 2010
    http://www.ping.de/sites/systemcoder/necro/info/sumerian.htm
    i know i know its got sum words from the dam necronomicon (stupid ass txt) but the language of the sumerians is the language that interests me most. so i thought id share a dictionary of sumerian words. it is still in the process of completion but there is alot of txt.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited January 2011
    JestA wrote: »
    http://www.ping.de/sites/systemcoder/necro/info/sumerian.htm
    i know i know its got sum words from the dam necronomicon (stupid ass txt) but the language of the sumerians is the language that interests me most. so i thought id share a dictionary of sumerian words. it is still in the process of completion but there is alot of txt.

    I'm going to see if I can show this to my Western Civilization class, thanks a lot! :thumbsup:
  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited January 2011
    no prob man. im glad i could help.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited January 2011
    However, I'm pretty sure that Sumerian was not Indo-European. :P. I myself don't know what to make of it, Wiki has a lot of different theories listed like Dravidian (which I personally don't see possible) or Nostratic.
  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited January 2011
    skyclaw441 wrote: »
    However, I'm pretty sure that Sumerian was not Indo-European. :P. I myself don't know what to make of it, Wiki has a lot of different theories listed like Dravidian (which I personally don't see possible) or Nostratic.

    lol im new 2 the whole dead language scene. i start college in like 3 days 2 start 2 study dead language translation and marine bio. i just thought the Sumerian language was iteresting.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited January 2011
    JestA wrote: »
    lol im new 2 the whole dead language scene. i start college in like 3 days 2 start 2 study dead language translation and marine bio. i just thought the Sumerian language was iteresting.

    Haha, nice one. I myself am still a senior in high school, I'm going to study computer science at uni next year (because there's no real money in linguistics anyway, but it's good for a minor). Anyway, it is interesting, because it's an isolate. Those are the fun ones. ;)
  • RolfRolf Regular
    edited January 2011
    Stryker wrote: »
    Yup. Indo-European was the granddaddy of most of the western European lingoes.

    There were Indo_European, (West Europe), Indo-Sinetic (East Europe, Asia--including the Native American languages except for Navaho and Korean) and Kokatuan (the languages of sub-equatorial Africa).

    The exception in Europe is Euskari (Basque) is a the remains of the old Mediterranean language (Etruscan) long deceased.

    Thou forgot the Finno-Ugric languages, the main ones being Magyar (Hungarian), Suomi (Finnish) and Eesti (Estonian). And Rolf has not heard of Euskari being a part of the Tyrsenian family, hmm, Rolf thought it isolate, interesting theory states Rolf.
    skyclaw441 wrote: »
    I especially would like to know how it sounded, and sometimes I wonder why everything has an h- in the front of it.

    They say that Lithuanian is the modern language most like the PIE language as it retains some of the archaic features that the other languages lost, states Rolf.
  • skyclaw441skyclaw441 Regular
    edited January 2011
    Rolf wrote: »
    They say that Lithuanian is the modern language most like the PIE language as it retains some of the archaic features that the other languages lost, states Rolf.

    Ah, indeed the Baltic languages are.

    Related: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/

    University of Texas at Austin's Linguistics Research Center, an awesome visit.
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