Российский государственный гуманитарный университет
Институт языкознания Российской Академии наук
Вопросы языкового родства
Международный научный журнал
№ 6 (2011)
Москва 2011
Russian State University for the Humanities
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Journal of Language Relationship
International Scientific Periodical
Nº 6 (2011)
Moscow 2011
Редакционный совет:
Вяч. Вс. ИВАНОВ (Москва – Лос-Анджелес) / председатель
Х. АЙХНЕР (Вена)
М. Е. АЛЕКСЕЕВ (Москва)
В. БЛАЖЕК (Брно)
У. БЭКСТЕР (Анн Арбор)
В. Ф. ВЫДРИН (Париж)
М. ГЕЛЛ-МАНН (Санта-Фе)
А. Б. ДОЛГОПОЛЬСКИЙ (Хайфа)
Ф. КОРТЛАНДТ (Лейден)
А. ЛУБОЦКИЙ (Лейден)
А. Ю. МИЛИТАРЕВ (Москва)
Л. ХАЙМАН (Беркли)
Редакционная коллегия:
В. А. ДЫБО (главный редактор)
Г. С. СТАРОСТИН (заместитель главного редактора)
Т. А. МИХАЙЛОВА (ответственный секретарь)
К. В. БАБАЕВ
А. В. ДЫБО
А. С. КАСЬЯН
О. А. МУДРАК
И. С. ЯКУБОВИЧ
Журнал основан К. В. БАБАЕВЫМ
© Российский государственный гуманитарный университет, 2011
Advisory Board:
Vyach. Vs. IVANOV (Moscow – Los Angeles, Calif.) / Chairman
M. E. ALEXEEV (Moscow)
W. BAXTER (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
V. BLAŽEK (Brno)
A. B. DOLGOPOLSKY (Haifa)
H. EICHNER (Vienna)
M. GELL-MANN (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
L. HYMAN (Berkeley)
F. KORTLANDT (Leiden)
A. LUBOTSKY (Leiden)
A. YU. MILITAREV (Moscow)
V. F. VYDRIN (Paris)
Editorial Staff:
V. A. DYBO (Editor-in-Chief)
G. S. STAROSTIN (Managing Editor)
T. A. MIKHAILOVA (Editorial Secretary)
K. V. BABAEV
A. V. DYBO
A. S. KASSIAN
O. A. MUDRAK
I. S. YAKUBOVICH
Founded by Kirill BABAEV
© Russian State University for the Humanities, 2011
УДК 81(05)
ББК 81я5
Вопросы языкового родства: Международный научный журнал / Рос. гос. гуманитар.
ун-т; Рос. Акад. наук. Ин-т языкознания; под ред. В. А. Дыбо. ― М., 2011. ― № 6. ―
xxvi + 260 с. ― (Вестник РГГУ: Научный журнал; Серия «Филологические науки.
Языкознание»; № 16(78)/11).
Journal of Language Relationship: International Scientific Periodical / Russian State University for the Humanities; Russian Academy of Sciences. Institute of Linguistics; Ed. by
V. A. Dybo. ― Moscow, 2011. ― No. 6. ― xxvi + 260 p. ― (RSUH Bulletin: Scientific Periodical; Linguistics Series; No. 16(78)/11).
ISSN 1998-6769
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Table of Contents / Содержание
Table of Contents / Содержание .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Contributors / Сведения об авторах
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Note for Contributors / Будущим авторам .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Владимиру Антоновичу Дыбо 80 лет (30 апреля 2011 г.)
A l’occasion du 80
ème
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
anniversaire de Vladimir Antonovitch Dybo (30 avril 2011)
Список печатных работ В. А. Дыбо / Bibliography of V. A. Dybo
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vii
ix
x
xi
xiii
xvi
Articles / Статьи
Kirill Babaev. On the reconstruction of some tense/aspect markers in Proto-Mande
. . . . . . . . .
1
[К. В. Бабаев. К реконструкции некоторых видовременных показателей праманде]
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek. On the Burushaski–Indo-European Hypothesis by I. Čašule . 25
[Дж. Бенгтсон, В. Блажек. О бурушаски-индоевропейской гипотезе И. Чашуле]
Alexei Kassian. Annotated 50-item wordlist of the basic lexicon
of the Ancient Greek language (the idiolect of Herodotus)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
65
[А. С. Касьян. Опыт составления аннотированного 50-словного списка базисной лексики
для древнегреческого языка (идиолект Геродота)]
Ilia Peiros. Some thoughts on the problem of the Austro-Asiatic homeland
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
101
[И. И. Пейрос. Некоторые мысли относительно проблемы австроазиатской прародины]
George Starostin. On Mimi
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
115
[Г. С. Старостин. О языках мими]
Gábor Takács. Lexica Afroasiatica XI
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
141
[Г. Такач. Lexica Afroasiatica XI]
Miguel Valério. Hani-Rabbat as the Semitic Name of Mitanni
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
173
[М. Валерио. Хани-Раббат — семитское название Митанни]
Discussion Articles / Дискуссионные статьи
Leonid Kulikov. Drifting between passive and anticausative.
True and alleged accent shifts in the history of Vedic yapresents
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
185
[Л. И. Куликов. Между пассивом и антикаузативом: действительные и мнимые акцентные сдвиги
в истории ведийских -ya-презенсов]
Alexei Kassian. Some considerations on Vedic -ya-presents
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
198
[А. Касьян. Некторые соображения по поводу ведийского -ya-презенса]
В. А. Дыбо. Относительно др.-инд. ya-глаголов
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
200
[V. A. Dybo. On Vedic -ya-presents]
Leonid Kulikov. Reply to replies
[Л. И. Куликов. Ответ на ответы]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
210
Table of Contents / Содержание
Book reviews / Рецензии
Ю. В. НОРМАНСКАЯ, А. В. ДЫБО. Тезаурус: Лексика природного окружения
в уральских языках, 2010
(М. А. Живлов / Mikhail Zhivlov) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
217
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
227
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
234
Angela MARCANTONIO (ed.). The Indo-European Language Family:
Questions about its Status, 2009
(И. С. Якубович / Ilya Yakubovich) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Periodic reviews / Периодика
The Journal of Indo-European Studies. Vol. 37, № 3–4, 2009
(Т. А. Михайлова / Tatyana Mikhailova) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reports / Хроника
Шестые традиционные чтения памяти С. А. Старостина,
Москва, РГГУ, 24—25 марта 2011 г. (Л. В. Клименченко / Lyubov’ Klimenchenko)
. . . . .
238
[The 6th Traditional Conference in Memory of S. A. Starostin, Moscow, RSUH, March 24–25, 2011]
Научные чтения к 80-летию В. А. Дыбо, Москва, РГГУ, 5 мая 2011 г.
(Е. В. Коровина / Evgeniya Korovina) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
241
[Conference in honor of the 80th jubilee of Vladimir Dybo, Moscow, RSUH, May 5, 2011]
VII Международный семинар по балто-славянской акцентологии,
Москва, РГГУ, 7—9 июля 2011 г. (И. П. Котоедов / Ivan Kotoedov) .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
243
[7 International Workshop on Balto-Slavic Accentology, Moscow, RSUH, July 7–9, 2011]
th
Конференция «Изоляты в Африке», Лион, 3—4 декабря 2010 г.
(К. Н. Прохоров / Kirill Prokhorov) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[“Isolates in Africa”, Lyons, Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, December 3–4, 2010]
247
Сведения об авторах
Бабаев Кирилл Владимирович — канд. филол. наук, ст. науч.
сотрудник Сектора компаративистики Института языкознания РАН (Москва),
[email protected]
Бенгтсон Джон — Ассоциация изучения языка в доисторический период, Миннесота,
[email protected]
Блажек Вацлав — проф. Масарикова университета, Брно,
[email protected]
Валерио Мигель — студент археологического отделения факультета социальных и гуманитарных наук Нового Лиссабонского университета,
[email protected]
Дыбо Владимир Антонович — доктор филол. наук, чл.-кор.
Академии РАН, зав. Центром компаративистики ИВКА
РГГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Живлов Михаил Александрович — канд. филол. наук, науч. сотрудник отдела урало-алтайских языков Института языкознания РАН (Москва),
[email protected]
Касьян Алексей Сергеевич — канд. филол. наук, преп. Центра
компаративистики ИВКА РГГУ, н.с. отдела индоевропейских языков Института языкознания РАН (Москва),
[email protected]
Клименченко Любовь Владимировна — студентка Института
лингвистики РГГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Коровина Евгения Владимировна — студентка Центра компаративистики ИВКА РГГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Котоедов Иван Петрович — студент Института лингвистики
РГГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Куликов Леонид Игоревич — канд. филол. наук, Ph.D. (Лейденский университет); доцент Лейденского университета;
докторант сектора типологии Института языкознания
РАН (Москва),
[email protected]
Михайлова Татьяна Андреевна — доктор филол. наук, проф.
кафедры германской и кельтской филологии филологического факультета МГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Ослон Михаил Владимирович — канд. филол. наук, сотрудник
Отдела типологии и сравнительного языкознания Института cлавяноведения РАН (Москва),
[email protected]
Пейрос Илья Иосифович — доктор филол. наук, Институт Санта Фе (Нью-Мексико, США),
[email protected]
Прохоров Кирилл Николаевич — сотрудник отдела этнографии
народов Африки, Музей антропологии и этнографии
РАН им. Петра Великого (Санкт-Петербург),
[email protected]
Старостин Георгий Сергеевич — канд. филол. наук, зав. кафедрой истории и филологии Дальнего Востока ИВКА
РГГУ (Москва),
[email protected]
Такач Габор — научный сотрудник отдела египтологии Будапештского университета, Венгрия,
[email protected]
Якубович Илья Сергеевич — кандидат филол. наук, научный
сотрудник Института мировой культуры МГУ (Москва);
Ph.D. (Linguistics and Near Eastern Studies, University of
Chicago),
[email protected]
Contributors
Kirill V. Babaev — candidate of sciences (Philology), lead researcher, Department of Comparative Studies, Institute of
Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow),
[email protected]
John D. Bengtson — Association for the Study of Language in
Prehistory, Minnesota,
[email protected]
Václav Blažek — professor, Masaryk University, Brno,
[email protected]
Vladimir Dybo — doctor of sciences (Philology), corresponding
member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of Center for Comparative Linguistics, Russian State University for
the Humanities (Moscow),
[email protected]
Alexei Kassian — candidate of sciences (Philology), researcher,
Center for Comparative Linguistics, Russian State University for the Humanities; researcher, Department of IndoEuropean Studies, Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy
of Sciences (Moscow),
[email protected]
Lyubov’ Klimenchenko — student, Institute of Linguistics, Russian
State University for the Humanities (Moscow),
[email protected]
Eugenia Korovina — student, Center for Comparative Linguistics,
Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow),
[email protected]
Ivan Kotoedov — student, Institute of Linguistics, Russian State
University for the Humanities (Moscow),
[email protected]
Leonid I. Kulikov — candidate of sciences (Philology), Ph.D. (Leiden University); associated member and lecturer at Leiden
University, Institute of Linguistics; doctorant of Institute of
Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow),
[email protected]
Tatyana Mikhailova — doctor of sciences (Philology), professor,
Department of Germanic and Celtic Philology, Faculty of
Philology, Moscow State University (Moscow),
[email protected]
Mikhail Oslon — candidate of sciences (Philology), Department
of typology and comparative linguistics, Institute of Slavic
Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow),
[email protected]
Ilia Peiros — doctor of sciences (Philology), visiting researcher,
Institute of Santa Fe (New Mexico, USA),
[email protected]
Kirill Prokhorov — researcher, Department of Africa, Peter the
Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (St. Petersburg),
[email protected]
George Starostin — candidate of sciences (Philology), Head of
Department of the history and philology of the Far East, Institute of Eastern Cultures and Antiquity, RSUH (Moscow),
[email protected]
Gabor Takács — researcher, Department of Egyptology, Eotvos
Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary,
[email protected]
Miguel Valério — M. A. student of Archaeology, Faculty of Social
and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon,
[email protected]
Ilya Yakubovich — candidate of sciences (Philology), research associate, Institute of World Cultures, Moscow State University; Ph.D. (Linguistics and Near Eastern Studies, University
of Chicago),
[email protected]
Mikhail Zhivlov — candidate of sciences (Philology), researcher,
Department of Uralo-Altaic Studies, Institute of Linguistics,
Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow),
[email protected]
Note for Contributors
Journal of Language Relationship welcomes submissions from everyone specializing in comparative-historical linguistics and related disciplines, in the form of original articles as well as reviews of recent publications. All such submissions should be sent to the managing editor:
G. Starostin
Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquity
Russian State University for the Humanities
125267 Moscow, Russia
Miusskaya Square, 6
E-mail:
[email protected]
Articles are published preferably in English or Russian, although publication of texts in other
major European languages (French, German, etc.) is possible. Each article should be accompanied with an abstract (not exceeding 300 words) and keywords.
For more detailed guidelines on article submission and editorial policies, please see our Website at:
http://www.jolr.ru or address the editorial staff directly at
[email protected].
Будущим авторам
Журнал Вопросы языкового родства принимает заявки на публикацию оригинальных научных статей, а также рецензий, от всех, кто специализируется в области сравнительноисторического языкознания и смежных дисциплин. Рукописи можно высылать непосредственно заместителю главного редактора по адресу:
125267 Москва
Миусская площадь, д. 6
Российский государственный гуманитарный университет
Институт восточных культур и античности
Г. Старостину
E-mail:
[email protected]
Предпочтительные языки публикации — английский или русский, хотя возможна также публикация статей на других европейских языках (французский, немецкий и т. п.).
К каждой статье обязательно прикладывается резюме (не более 300 слов) и список ключевых слов.
Подробнее о требованиях к оформлению рукописи, редакционной политике журнала
и т. п. Вы можете узнать на нашем сайте по адресу: http://www.jolr.ru, или же непосредственно обратившись к редакции по электронной почте (
[email protected]).
John D. Bengtson
Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory and
Evolution of Human Language Project
Václav Blažek
Masaryk University
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis
by I. Čašule *
The paper deals with a relatively recent hypothesis, put forward by the scholar I. Čašule, according to which the Burushaski language, traditionally considered an isolate, actually belongs to the Indo-European linguistic stock. The authors approach Čašule’s hypothesis from
the comparative side, evaluating phonological, morphological, and lexical arguments in its
favour side by side with the corresponding arguments in favour of the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis, according to which Burushaski forms a separate one-language branch of the vast
macrofamily that also includes Na-Dene, Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, Basque, and
Yeniseian languages.
It is concluded that arguments for the Dene-Caucasian status of Burushaski quantitatively override the Indo-European-Burushaski hypothesis by a very large margin; suggested
Indo-European connections are either highly unsystematic (when it comes to phonetic correspondences), sporadic and insufficient (in morphology), or practically non-existent (in basic
lexicon). Consequently, all of the resemblances between Indo-European and Burushaski
must be ascribed to (a) recent contacts between Burushaski and Indo-Aryan languages,
(b) chance resemblances, or (c) in a very small number of cases, traces of «ultra-deep» relationship that do not represent exclusively «Indo-European-Burushaski» connections.
Keywords: Indo-European linguistics, Burushaski language, macrocomparative linguistics,
Dene-Caucasian macrofamily, language isolates.
Over the last two decades, Ilija Čašule has published a monograph (Čašule 1998) and an article
(Čašule 2003) in which he attempts to show that the Burushaski language — traditionally considered an isolate — is a member of the Indo-European language family. One of the authors
has already published a critique of the 1998 monograph (Bengtson 2000). In this article we
shall mainly be dealing with the 2003 article in JIES, and all page number references will be to
the latter work.
While we agree with Čašule that there are some affinities between Burushaski (Bur) and
Indo-European (IE), we do not consider Bur a part of the IE family, or even of the postulated
deeper macro-family to which IE belongs (Nostratic or Eurasiatic), and we intend to show that
* We are deeply indebted to the work of the late Sergei A. Starostin, who, in the last few months of his life,
worked intensively on the Burushaski language and its relationship with Dene-Caucasian languages. The results
can be seen in his DC phonology and glossary, and EHL/ToB etymological databases (see References). Since his
father’s passing Georgiy (George) Starostin has continued to work with us and we are grateful to him. We are
thankful for useful comments from Elena Bashir, Bertil Tikkanen, and Michael Witzel. We are also deeply thankful
to the Evolution of Human Language Project, Santa Fe Institute, and Murray Gell-Mann, and the Centre for the
Interdisciplinary Research of Ancient Languages and Older Stages of Modern Languages (MSM 0021622435), Masaryk University Brno, for their support.
Journal of Language Relationship • Вопросы языкового родства • 6 (2011) • Pp. 25–63 • © Bengtson J. D., Blažek V., 2011
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
a large part of the resemblances between Bur and IE can be explained as areal, i.e., the results
of long-term contact and borrowing — in both directions — between Bur and surrounding IE
languages.1
However, we shall not simply demolish Čašule’s hypothesis without providing what we
consider a better, more plausible, and more probable alternative for the classification of this
fascinating (Bur) language. We shall present evidence that Bur is more likely a member of the
Dene-Caucasian (or Sino-Caucasian) macro-family. This is of course not a new idea: it was prefigured long ago by scholars such as Karl Bouda, O. G. Tailleur, V. N. Toporov, and others.
Recently this hypothesis has been given a firmer grounding using traditional historical linguistic methods: see, e.g., Bengtson (1997a, 2001a, 2008a), Blažek & Bengtson (1995), Starostin
(n.d., 2005a, 2005b). While it is not possible to present all the evidence for this latter view (see
the references), we think some salient aspects of the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of
Bur are enough to indicate the greater probability of its Dene-Caucasian (DC) affiliation.2
Phonology
At first glance Čašule’s comparison of IE and Burushaski phonology seems impressive.
An ample number of examples is cited, and superficially it seems that Čašule (henceforth “Č”)
has made a good case for a correspondence between IE and Burushaski phonology. However,
on closer examination a number of problems appear.
(a) Some “Bur” words cited for comparison are actually loanwords from Indo-Aryan or
Iranian languages. Thus, dumáṣ ‘cloud of dust, smoke, water’ (p. 31) is clearly borrowed from
Old Indic3 dhūmáḥ ‘smoke, vapor, mist’4 (even the accent is the same); púrme ‘beforehand, before the time’ (p. 34) is isolated in the Bur lexicon and looks like a derivative of OI *purima- >
Pali purima- ‘earlier’ (CDIAL 8286; cf. Eng. former); badá ‘sole, step, pace’ (p. 40) appears to be
from OI padám ‘step, pace, stride’ (CDIAL 7747), and perhaps others.
(b) Some comparisons adduced in support of the correspondences are semantically tortuous if not utterly dubious. For example, IE *dȹeu- ‘to die, to lose conscience (sic)’ ~ Bur diú
‘lynx’ (p. 36); IE *h2er-t-om ‘white (metal), silver’ ~ Bur hargín ‘dragon, ogre’, etc.
(c) The proposed correspondences are not consistent and do not form a coherent system.
For example, IE *, *ȹ are said to correspond to Bur g (voiced velar stop) or ġ (voiced uvular
fricative) (p. 39), apparently in free variation, but in Bur bérkat ‘summit, peak, crest; height’
(pp. 30, 35) IE *ȹ is matched with Bur k (voiceless velar stop), in Bur buqhéni ‘a type of goat’
(p. 31) IE * is matched with Bur qh (aspirated uvular stop or affricate), and in Bur je, já ‘I’
(p. 72) IE *ȹ is matched with Bur j [ = dź]. IE *kw is said to correspond to Bur k (voiceless velar
stop) (p. 38), but in Bur śóġut ‘the side of the body under the arm; bosom’ (p. 30) it is matched
with Bur ġ (voiced uvular fricative), while in Bur waq ‘open the mouth, talk’ (p. 38) it is
matched with Bur q (voiceless uvular stop). PIE *w (* ) becomes Bur w in waq ‘open the mouth,
The authors accept Nostratic/Eurasiatic and Dene-Caucasian as working hypotheses that represent, in our
opinion, the best available explanations for language classification in northern Eurasia (see, e.g., Bengtson 2008b,
Blažek 2003, 2008).
2 For some history of the DC hypothesis see e.g. Bengtson (1994), Blažek & Bengtson (1995), Peiros (1988),
Ruhlen (1996, 1998a, 2001).
3 Old Indic (OI) here encompasses Vedic and Classical (Sanskrit) forms of OI.
4 H. Berger (p.c. to author Bengtson) regarded Bur dumáṣ as a loanword from Indic (CDIAL 6849). See Bengtson (2001b, p. 185).
1
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
talk’ (p. 38),5 but b in buḍóo ‘rinsing water; water that becomes warm in the sun’ (p. 31).6 For Č
the Bur uvulars (q, qh, ġ) are merely variants of the velars and do not form an historical class of
their own (but see [d.3] below).
(d) Č totally overlooks (or minimizes) many distinctive features of the Burushaski phonological system. These features include (1) the retroflex stops, (2) the phoneme /ỵ/, (3) the uvular
consonants, (4) the tripartite sibilant contrast /ṣ ~ ś ~ s/, and (5) the cluster lt, and the t- ~ lt- alternation (corresponding, we think, to Dene-Caucasian lateral affricates). We reproduce below
(with minor modifications) the table of Burushaski consonants presented by Berger (1998, I: 13):
uvular
velar
retroflex
dental
qh
kh
ṭh
th
q
k
ṭ
t
ġ
g
ḍ
d
ŋ
h
retroflex
palatal
laminal
ṣ
ś
s
h
ćh
ch
ph
ć
c
p
j
z
b
n
r
l
labial
Table 1
m
ỵ
(1) The retroflex stops. Č (pp. 26–27) claims “We do not know the genesis of the retroflex
consonants in Bur … we cannot know with certainty whether Bur originally possessed aspirates and cerebrals or whether these phonemes were acquired from IndoAryan.” Although Č
does not discuss it, the DC hypothesis provides a ready explanation for at least some of the
retroflex consonants in Bur: 7
• Bur *giṭ ‘anus; vulva; intestines with inner fat’ < *girt or *gilt ~ Caucasian: PEC *ḵwǸlṭV
(Dargwa ḳulṭa ‘belly, stomach’, Agul guṭul ‘kidney’, etc.)8 ~ PY *gǸʔd ‘fat’: Ket, Yug kǸʔt,
Kott kīr, Arin ki (NCED 711, CSCG 119)
• Bur *phaṭ ‘gizzard, stomach of fowl’ < *phart ~ Caucasian: PEC *pHVrṭwV (Bezhta pirṭi
‘lung, bladder’, Archi pạrṭi ‘large intestine’, etc.)9 ~ Basque *e-purdi ‘buttocks, rump’
(NCED 871, CSCG 160)10
• Bur *ġiṭ ‘slime’11 < *ġirt ~ Caucasian: PEC *wirdǸ (Avar xwerd ‘pus’, Agul furd ‘dung’, etc.)
~ Basque *lirdi ‘drivel, saliva’ ~ PST *lt ‘mucus, phlegm’ (Tibetan lud ‘phlegm, mucus;
manure, dung’, etc.) (NCED 763, LDC 19, CSCG 132)
See CSCG (p. 8) for an alternative comparison with DC.
Cf. instead OI *buḍyati ‘sinks’, Marathi buḍbuḍ ‘sound of bubbling’, etc. (CDIAL 9272).
7 It is important to note that *ṭ in Nikolaev’s & Starostin’s Caucasian reconstructions does not denote a retroflex stop but rather a glottalized stop (similarly with other glottalized obstruents: , , , , , ḳ, . On the other hand,
in this paper ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ṣ, , h, , ỵ in Burushaski words always denote retroflex obstruents.
8 Some Caucasian words, e.g. Udi gurdak ‘kidney’, Tabasaran gurdum id., seem to reflect influence of Persian
gurde ‘kidney’. Perhaps in some cases there is a blend of the Persian word with Proto-Lezgian *k:wǸrṭ- (k:wǸlṭ-?)
(thanks to E. Bashir, pc.).
9 ạ represents a pharyngealized vowel, also (confusingly) written aI, where I represents the paločka in the Cyrillic orthography of Caucasian languages (Catford 1977: 296).
10 Assuming a semantic development such as ‘large intestine > colon > rectum > buttock’ in Basque. Cf. OI
gudá- ‘intestine, entrail, rectum, anus’, Sindhi guī ‘anus, posterior’, etc. (CDIAL 4194).
11 ‘Schlamm (feucht oder ausgetrocknet)’ (Berger 1998). E. Bashir (pc.) suggests possible Indo-Aryan origin:
cf. Panjabi giḍḍ ~ gidd ‘matter that accumulates in the corner of the eye’.
5
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John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
• Bur *ćhaḍ-úm ‘narrow’12 < *ćhard- ~ Caucasian: PEC *HVrdV ‘narrow’ (Avar :edera-b,
Dargwa Akushi ạrṭa, etc.) ~ PY *toʔd- (~ *coʔd) ‘shallow (of a river)’ (NCED 387, CSCG 199)
• Bur *gaṭú ‘clothes’ < *gart- ~ Caucasian: PEC *gwĭrdwV ‘a kind of clothing’ (Avar gordé
‘shirt’, Dargwa Akushi gurdi ‘dress’, etc.) ~ PY *χʔt(Ǹr1) ‘cloth, felt’ > Arin qot, kot ‘trousers’, etc. (NCED 449, CSCG 223)
These examples suggest that the Proto-DC intervocalic clusters *lt, *rṭ, *rd- regularly
correspond to Bur retroflex consonants. While this process does not account for all occurrences
of retroflex consonants in Burushaski, it does indicate a very old origin of the retroflex series
that is analogous to the origin of retroflexes in Indo-Aryan.13 (See below for the development
of a new cluster /lt/ in Bur.).
(2) The Bur phoneme /ỵ/. Č (p. 25) briefly mentions Bur /ỵ/, but it has no real place in his
IE-Bur phonology. As far as we can see, /ỵ/ figures in only one of Č’s Bur-IE comparisons, that
of Bur ġuỵ-aŋ ‘hair’ with IE *go r- ‘hair’ (p. 32). Č provides no explanation of why IE *r becomes Bur /ỵ/ in just this one case.14 This seems to us a very unsatisfactory treatment of this
important Bur phoneme. Before presenting our view of the genesis of /ỵ/, some further information is necessary:
Burushaski and Ḍomākí (an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Burushaskispeaking area)15 have an unusual consonant [ỵ], variously described as “a fricative r, pronounced with the tongue in the retroflex (‘cerebral’) position” (Morgenstierne 1945), “a kind of
ṛ ḷ ỵ and ẓ̌” (Lorimer 1937: 72), “a voiced retroflex sibilant with simultaneous palatal-dorsal
narrowing” (Berger 1998), “a curious sound whose phonetic realizations vary from a retroflex,
spirantized glide, to a retroflex velarized spirant” (Anderson, ms.). Because of the elusive
character of this sound, it has been transcribed in various ways; for example, the word for ‘my
father’, transcribed here as áỵa, is found in the literature as aiyah, álya, āgha, aỵa, or a!a.
As noted by Morgenstierne (1945), Bur [ỵ] in loanwords from Indo-Aryan derives from
the retroflex sound *ṛ, which in turn can come from *ṭ, *ḍ, *ḍh. Morgenstierne and Berger cite
the examples:
•
•
•
•
Bur (H,N) daỵ ‘fat, strong, robust’ < OI dṛḍha- (Beiträge 36, no. 3.35)
Bur (H,N) báỵum ‘mare’ < *vaḍam- = OI vaḍabā- (Beiträge, ibid.)
Bur (H) páaỵo, (N) páỵo, (Y) pálu ‘wedge’ < OI pāṭaka- (Beiträge 24, no. 3.13)
Bur (H, N) kiláaỵ ‘beesting curds’ = Late OI kilāṭa ‘cheese’ (but see further below)
Note also:
• [ỵ] is heard in the Hunza and Nager dialects, but not in Yasin (“Werchikwar”), where [ỵ]
either corresponds to zero (as in ba for baỵ ‘millet’) or a different phoneme: Yasin pálu
‘wedge’ ~ (H) páaỵo, (N) páỵo; Yasin kha" ‘(stony) shore, bank’ ~ (H, N) khaỵ, etc.;
The variant (Y, H) ć(h)an-úm appears to be contaminated by the verb du-ć(h)an.
“The development *lt > retroflex is evident also from early Indo-Aryan, and later again in the Prakrits.
Nostraticists explain Dravidian retroflexes in the same way. This areal tendency should probably not be attributed
to influence of Dravidian (which is not seen in the early Rgveda), but as an areal feature of the Northwest (of
Greater India), as seen in Bur, Pashto, Old Indic of the Rgveda, and later also Khotanese Saka.” (M. Witzel, pc.)
14 /ỵ/ is also seen in Č’s comparison of Bur biỵ ‘butter’ with IE *p- ‘fat’ (p. 40), though no IE suffix corresponding to Bur ỵ is proffered.
15 Ḍomākí, an endangered language, is spoken in the village of Mominabad (Hunza) and in a couple of villages in Nager (B. Tikkanen, p.c.).
12
13
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
• Berger (1998 I: 22, note 8) also finds [ỵ] similar to the Tamil sound commonly transcribed as ḻ;
• Place names confirm the ancient affinity of [ỵ] with [l] or other laterals: Bur Námaỵ = Nomal; Puny$ãỵ = Punial (Lorimer 1937: 73);
• The Bur word (H, N) kiláaỵ ‘Quark aus Biestmilch’ is found in Vedic as kīlāla- ‘beestings, a
sweet drink’ (Witzel 1999: 3), also in Khowar as kiḷāl, kiḷāri;
• Some Indo-Aryan dialects (including those of some Vedic texts) have/had a retroflex ḷ corresponding to the ḍ of Classical OI,16 as in Ved. nīḷá- ‘nest’ = Skt. nīḍa- < PIE *nizdó.
With that background, we propose that Burushaski [ỵ] — apart from loanwords — ultimately derives from laterals (*l,*ł) and clusters involving laterals (e.g., *lć, *lč, *lχ, *ɦl) in ProtoDC. The following examples support this interpretation:
• Bur *ġaỵ ‘thread, strand (in weaving)’ ~ Caucasian: Lezgi 'al = ġal ‘thread’, etc. < PEC *(āłV
‘sinew, thread’ (NCED 1067) ~ Basque: *ha[l]i ‘thread, yarn, filament, wire’
• Bur *khiỵ > (H,N) khiỵ ‘leaf’, (Y) khi-áŋ ‘(fallen) leaves’ ~ Caucasian: Tindi koli, Abkhaz
a-ḳ)la ‘sheaf’, etc. < PNC *ḵ+wł (NCED 690).
• Bur *qhiỵé > (H,N) qhiỵé ‘(single, small) stones, gravel’ ~ Caucasian: Archi ,ɀil ‘rock, cliff’,
Abkhaz a-,ɀa-rá ‘rocky river bank’, etc. < PNC *,wił0 (NCED 939)
• Bur *baỵ, (Y) ba ‘(small-grained) millet’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen borc ‘millet’, etc. < PNC
*bŏlćwĭ (NCED 309, CSCG 15)
• Bur *huỵ- ‘to dry’17 ~ Caucasian: Dargwa Urakhi =ir-/=u- ‘to roast, fry’, etc. < PEC
*=i[l]čwĚ ‘to roast, fry, dry’ (NCED 633, CSCG 103)
• Bur *huỵóo > (H,N) huỵóo ‘wool animal, sheep’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen ȥāχa-r ‘lamb’, Andi
iχo ‘sheep, ewe’, etc. < PNC *ȱīlχU (NCED 247, CSCG 265)
• Bur *ġuỵ ‘hair’18 ~ Caucasian: Chechen ēχang ‘woollen thread, yarn’, Rutul arχ̣ ‘spring wool’,
Tsakhur arχ̣ ‘autumn wool’, etc.19 < PEC *ȱālχV ‘wool’ (NCED 242) ~ Basque *ulhe ‘hair, wool’
• Bur *ġaqáỵ(um) ‘bitter; unsweetened; sour’ > ġaqáỵ(um) (H,N), qaqám (Y) ~ Caucasian:
Archi ,ala ‘bitter’, Khinalug ,ilez ‘salty’, Ubykh ,a,) ‘sweet’, etc. < PNC *,ĕɦlV (~ ł)
(NCED 912) ~ PY *qVqVr ‘gall; bitter’ ~ Basque: *kerać ‘bitter, sour; stench’ (CSCG 236)20
The following examples indicate DC lateral suffixes (*alV, *ulV, *ilV) with the reflexes
/aỵ/, /uỵ/ in Bur:
• Bur *tumáỵ ‘shell of nut, fruit stone’ ~ Caucasian: Archi ṭummul ‘grape’, Budukh ṭombul
‘plum’, etc. < Proto-Lezgian *ṭum(:)ul (beside suffixless Chechen, Ingush, Batsbi ṭum ‘marrow; kernel of fruit, nut’) < PNC *ṭŭmhV ‘kernel, nut, fruit-stone; marrow’ (NCED 1004,
CSCG 205)
“The Rgveda originally did not have [retroflex l] but acquired it only during [oral] transmission, by c. 500
BCE. And Pāṇini also does not have it in his grammar … He does not even have the vowel l [], just the vowel r [ ].
The later Vedic (Post-Rgveda) record is quite checkered [in regard to retroflex l]. The Delhi area and some texts
east and south of it had such a retroflex. … [retroflex l] is now found in the mountain area of Indo-Aryan, from the
Afghan border to the western Nepalese border.” (M. Witzel, p.c.).
17 (H, N) b-úỵ, (Y) b-u, du-hu.
18 (Y) ġóyaŋ, (H,N) ġuyáŋ ‘hair’ (both with ordinary /y/), (N) thóġuỵ ‘fine hair of small children’, also in (H)
phul-ġúuỵ, (N) phur-ġúuỵ ‘feather’.
19 /χ/ denotes the Caucasian pharyngealized voiceless uvular affricate = NCED /χI/.
̣
20 For semantics, cf. Albanian ëmbël ‘sweet’, Armenian amokh ‘sweet’, maybe cognate with Latin amārus ‘bitter’, Old Swedish amper ‘sauer, scharf, bitter’, etc.
16
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John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
• Bur (N) pháġuỵ ‘stick, walking-stick’ (beside [H] pháġo) ~ Caucasian: Andi moq’:ol ‘ceiling’ (beside suffixless Avar moq’: ‘pole’, Tsez mạq ‘short stick, rod’,21 etc.) < PNC *bħ>n?
‘pole, post’ ~ Basque *makiła ‘stick, cane’ (beside Bizkaian mak-et ‘club’, with a different
suffix)22 (NCED 295, CSCG 14)
• Bur qarúuỵo (H), ġarúuỵo (N) ‘heron’ ~ Basque *ku@V(lo) ‘crane’ (Bizkaian, Gipuzkoan
kurrillo, kurlo, Zuberoan khürlo, vs. suffixless Low Navarrese kurru, Roncalese kurri);23
Caucasian words for ‘crane’ display a variety of suffixes and reduplications: cf. Chechen
'ar'uli = ġarġuli, Andi ,:urru, Karata ,:uru-n‚ Adyge q:araw ‘crane’, etc. < PNC *?>r>,wV
beside the simplex *?wVrV (NCED 914–5, CSCG 237).
We believe we have shown that the Bur phoneme /ỵ/ is an integral feature of the language, and that only the DC model provides a plausible explanation of its origin.
(3) The uvular consonants. The Bur uvular consonants, as a class, are totally ignored by
Č, to whom /q/, /qh/, and /ġ/ are simply erratically occurring variants of /k/, /kh/, and /g/. We
intend to show that the Bur uvulars constitute a class of importance and long standing in the
language, and can be derived from the DC uvulars.24
• Bur qarúuỵo ~ ġarúuỵo ‘heron’ ~ Basque *ku@V(lo) ‘crane’ ~ PNC *?>r>,wV / *?wVrV ‘crane’
(see above)
• Bur *qVt- > qat (H), qhat (N), qet-araŋ (Y) ‘armpit’ ~ Caucasian: Avar me-héd ‘brisket
(chest of animal)’, Bezhta 'ade = ġade ‘brisket’ < PEC *qVdV (NCED 897) ~ PY *qot- (~χot)
‘in front, before’ (cf. Eng. abreast, etc.) (CSCG 170)
• Bur *qorqor- > (H) qorqór ‘soft porous stone’, (N) qoqór ‘small stones’ ~ Caucasian: Dargwa
q:arq:a ‘stone’, etc. < PEC *GŏrGV 25 ~ Basque *gogo@ ‘hard’
• Bur *quś- > (Y) quś ‘armpit (of clothing)’ ~ Caucasian: PNC *?HwaǸ ‘hole, hollow’ >
Chamalal ,:ua ‘vagina’, Lezgi ,u ‘armpit’, etc. (NCED 922, CSCG 176)
• Bur. *qaq- ‘dry, hungry’ ~ PY *qV[(ʔ)G]i- ‘dry’: Kott xújga, Arin qoija, etc. ~ PNC *BwiBwĂr:
Lak q’a-q’- ‘dry’, etc. (CSCG 223)
• Bur *qhaś- > qháśiŋ (H,N) ‘hind end, arse’, xáśaŋ (Y) ‘female sex organ’ ~ Caucasian: Udi
qoš ‘behind’, etc. < PEC *VEV (NCED 1026)
• Bur *qhát- > qhát (H,N), xát, xat (Y) mouth’ ~ Caucasian: Lak qịṭ (dial. qɀịṭ, qụṭ) ‘Adam’s
apple, beak’, etc.26 < PEC *qwJṭi (NCED 905, CSCG 172)
• Bur *qhurc ‘dust’ ~ Caucasian: Tsez, Khwarshi ,ec ‘dirt, mud, slush’, Lezgi χanc’ ‘a layer of
hardened dirt’, etc. < PNC *qānVKwV (NCED 884, CSCG 169)
/ạ/ denotes a pharyngeal vowel = NCED /aI/.
The supposed derivation of *makila from Latin bacilla (pl.) ‘sticks’ (Trask 2008: 281) seems to us to be rather
a case of chance resemblance. Lat. bacilla cannot account for the Bizk. form maket. Lat. bacillum, baculum are themselves suspect, having the rare PIE phoneme *b, and reflexes of PIE *bak- (if it existed) are found only in western
IE languages for which hypothetical DC-like substrata have been supposed.
23 One could suspect derivation of the Basque words from Romance (cf. Latin grūs, Italian gru, French grue,
Spanish grúa, grulla), but the Basque words always have initial /k/ vs. Romance /g/, and in Romance a lateral suffix
is found only in the Castilian variant grulla, where we can suspect Vasconic influence, or a blend of Romance grúa
+ Basque kurrillo. The Basque simplex forms Low Navarrese kurru, Roncalese kurri are parallel to the Caucasian
simplex forms such as Andi :urru, Karata :uru-n ‘crane’ (NCED 915).
24 In Basque all DC uvulars become velars /k, g/ or the spirant /h/; in a few cases *Gw > *gw > /b/.
25 < *GŏrqV or *qŏrGV?
26 /ị/, /ụ/ denote pharyngealized vowels = NCED /iI/, /uI/.
21
22
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
• Bur *qhái ‘revenge’ ~ PY *χV(ʔ)j- ‘to be angry’ ~ Caucasian: Udi χuj ‘anger’, Dargwa qạ
‘oath’, etc.27 < PEC *qwĕj (NCED 901, CSCG 171)
• Bur qhúrpat (H,N), xórpet (Y) ‘lung’ ~ ? Cauc.: Tsez χoṭori, Lak hutru, etc. ‘lung’ < PEC
*Ew0lθV(rM) ~*(w0lθV(rM) (NCED 901) ~ ? Basque *hauśpo ‘bellows, lungs’ (LDC 22)28
• Bur *qhVltá ‘sack, pocket’ > (H) qhiltá, (N) qhaltá, (Y) xalt(y)á ~ Caucasian: Akhwakh ,:ẽQe
‘sack, pillow’, etc. < PEC *GHRrSwV (NCED 457, CSCG 55)
• Bur *ġaqáỵ(um) ‘bitter; unsweetened; sour’ ~ PNC *,ĕɦlV ~ PY *qVqVr ‘gall; bitter’ ~
Basque *kerać ‘bitter, sour; stench’, etc. (see above)
• Bur *ġul ‘grudge, enmity, hatred’ ~ Caucasian: Avar 'wel = ġwel ‘gossip, rumor; abuse’,
Khinalug qol ‘offence’, etc. < PEC *Gwāłħo (NCED 465) ~ PY *q0(ʔ)r- (χ) ‘angry’ ~ Basque
*bVrhao / *bVraho ‘curse, blasphemy’ (CSCG 55)
• Bur *cháġur ‘chest or box for grain or meal’ ~ Caucasian: Avar ca'úr = caġúr ‘corn bin,
barn’, Chechen cχar ‘penthouse’, etc. < PEC *cVGVr- (NCED 328, CSCG 189)
• Bur ġónderes, ġondoles (Y) ‘water that runs over many stones’ ~ Cauc.: Botlikh 'adaru = ġadaru
‘stream, brook’, Lak ạtara ‘mountain stream’, etc. < PEC *GHwadVrV (NCED 478, CSCG 185)
• Bur *ġórqu- > ġúrqun (H), ġúrquc (N), ġórkun (Y) ‘frog’ ~ Caucasian: Tindi ,or,:u, ,o,:u,
Khinalug ,ur,or, Kabardian ħand0r-q:wāq:wa, etc. ‘frog’ < PNC *?wVrV,M (NCED 942) ~ PY
*x0ʔr- ‘frog’ > Ket, Yug Tʔl, Arin kere (CSCG 243)
• Bur *ltaġ > taġ (Y) ‘branch, shoot’29 ~ Caucasian: Avar W:oχ: ‘stubble’, etc. < PEC *SɦwāχV
‘stick, chip’ (NCED 778, CSCG 137)
• Bur *ġaỵ ‘thread, strand (in weaving)’ ~ PEC *(āłV ‘sinew, thread’ ~ Basque *ha[l]i ‘thread,
yarn, filament, wire’ (see above)
The Bur uvulars are thus far from being merely peripheral and erratic variations of the
velars: they constitute an integral series in the Bur phonological system that cannot be understood apart from the DC context from which they arose.
(4) The tripartite sibilant (and sibilant affricate) contrast. A sibilant contrast with three
points of articulation that carries through to sibilant affricates, though ignored by Č, is a significant
feature of Burushaski phonology that did not exist in Proto-IE,30 but is characteristic of Caucasian
languages as well as of Basque. Below is the Burushaski system as outlined by Berger (1998, I: 13):
laminal
palatal
retroflex
s
ś
ṣ
ch
ćh
h
c
ć
z
j
Table 2
/ạ/ denotes a pharyngeal vowel = NCED /aI/.
A questionable comparison. At the very least, there have been some irregular changes and/or contaminations, e.g. Basque *hauśpo with *hauć ‘dust’, etc.
29 See below for the correspondence of Bur t- with Caucasian lateral affricates.
30 Unlike most IE languages, Old Indic had a triple contrast (s, ś, ṣ). We suggest that this was an areal feature
acquired by early Indic as its speakers sojourned in the Hindu-Kush area. “A good point again about the three
sibilants in IA: Iranian only has two (š and s). I agree with your assessment as an areal feature: again the NW
[northwestern Greater India]. Note that many other forms result from the NW predilection for ‘bending back the
tongue’: (PIE) *rēk’s > *rāćš > *rāçṣ > (Skt) rāṭ (nom. ‘the king’).” (M. Witzel, p.c.).
27
28
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John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
This is very similar to the slightly more complex system reconstructed for Proto-Caucasian
(NCED, p. 40; palatal = hissing-hushing):
hissing
palatal
hushing
s
ś
š
z
ź
ž
c
ć
č
ʒ
ǯ
Table 3
And cf. the more simplified system of Basque (Hualde 1991):
Table 4
laminoalveolar
apicoalveolar
palatal
s
ś
š
c
ć
č
In the Basque orthographic system the sounds /s/, /ś/, /š/, /c/, /ć/, /č/ are denoted by the
letters z, s, x, tz, ts, tx, respectively.
We think it interesting that this characteristic DC pattern has been maintained to the present day in widely separated descendant languages. Naturally, there have been extensive
changes, but the systems as a whole have remained.
The following comparisons are typical of the Bur system of sibilants and affricates and
their relationship to those of other DC languages. Note that some of the phonetic correspondences are complex, and CSCP (Starostin 2005b) should be consulted for the details.
• Bur *´s ‘heart, mind’ ~ Caucasian: Ubykh p-sa ‘soul, spirit’, Bezhta, Hunzib has ‘sky,
cloud, fog’, etc. < PNC *ȱămYa ~ Basque *ɦaise ‘wind’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *ʔes ‘God, sky’
(NCED 243, CSCG 263)31
• Bur *´so[m] ‘kidney’32 ~ Caucasian: Chechen sam-g ‘sausage (made from a large intestine)’,
Akhwakh s:e ‘sinew, muscle’, etc. < PEC *YēħmV / *ħēmYV ~ Basque *sain ‘vein, nerve, root’
(NCED 959, CSCG 187)33
• Bur *sZsVn ‘elbow’34 ~ Caucasian: Udi sun ‘elbow’, Lak s:an ‘foreleg, paw’, etc. < PEC
*YJnŏ ~ Basque *san-ko ‘leg, calf, foot, paw’, etc. (NCED 963, CSCG 187)
• Bur *sán ‘spleen’ ~ Caucasian: Archi s:am ‘gall’, Dargwa *sumi ‘gall, anger’, etc. < PNC
*Kw[jmĕ ~ Basque *beHa-su[m] ‘gall’ (NCED 329, LDC 18, CSCG 22)
For semantics, cf. Rumanian inimă ‘heart, soul, mind,’ etc. < Latin anima ‘wind, air, breath, spirit, mind’, etc.
Underlying m found in the plural form ´-somuc.
33 Starostin (CSCG 187) adds the following Sino-Tibetan forms: PST *sim ‘heart, soul’ > Old Chinese *sm
‘heart’; Tibetan sem(s) ‘soul; think’, b-sam ‘thought’; Burmese simh ‘to conceive, be in the charge of’; Lushai thiam
‘to know’; Lepcha a-sóm ‘spirit, breath’, etc. For semantics, cf. e.g. Skt. híra- ‘band, strip, fillet’, hir ‘vein, artery’;
Gk. χορδή ‘gut, cord, string’; Lat. hīra ‘empty gut’; Lith. žarnà ‘intestine, small intestine’; Ger. Garn ‘yarn, thread,
net’, Eng. yarn, etc. (IEW I: 604); Turkish böbrek ‘kidney’; Proto-Tungus-Manchu *pugi- / *puki- ‘intestines, stomach’
Proto-Japanese: *púnkúri ‘testicles’ (ToB).
34 (Y) sésen, (H, N) súsun.
31
32
32
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
• Bur *sú[m] ‘umbilical cord, navel’35 ~ Caucasian: Dargwa zu ‘navel’, Khinalug c’um id.,
etc. < PEC *\ŏnʔŭ (NCED 1096, CSCG 249)
• Bur *sa ‘sun, day, month’ ~ Caucasian: Lak s:aw ‘sky’, Botlikh ziwu ‘day’, etc. < PNC *ʒ+wR
(NCED 1092, CSCG 248)
• Bur *sum ‘sprout, shoot; tail; spout (of a vessel)’ ~ Caucasian: Lak c’un ‘spout (of a vessel)’,
Chechen c’om ‘trunk’, etc. < PEC *^ūmV (~ *\ūmV) (NCED 367, CSCG 249)
• Bur *sesin- ‘clear, clean’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen c’ena ‘clean, pure’, Abaza b-zi ‘good’, etc. <
PNC *Hă\Ĕm- ~ Basque *susen ‘right, correct, just’ (NCED 552, LDC 189, CSCG 64)36
• Bur *sqa ‘(on one’s) back’ ~ Caucasian: Proto-Abkhaz-Tapant *z0kwa ‘back’ ~ Basque *biska-@ ‘back; crest, hill’ ~ PY *suga / *ʔuska ‘back, backwards’ (ToB)
• Bur *bus ‘sheaf (of grass, hay)’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen buc ‘grass’, Adyge w0c0 id., etc. <
PNC *wJcM (NCED 1053, CSCG 219)
• Bur *kūs ‘wonder, sorcery’ ~ Caucasian: Ingush kust ‘bearing, appearance, figure’, Archi
kus ‘habit’, etc. < PEC *kwJjKV ~ Basque *hoć ‘noise, sound; fame, reputation; longing, mania’, etc. ~ Yeniseian: PY *k[uʔu]s ‘idol, ghost’ (NCED 710, CSCG 118)
• Bur *bas ‘wooden plow’ ~ Caucasian: Karata bec:e ‘wooden plow’, Abkhaz a-p)za ‘plowshare’, etc. < PNC *pVrVKĔ (NCED 877, CSCG 164)
• Bur *mos ‘mud avalanche’ ~ Caucasian: Agul mes ‘mould’, etc. < PEC *mäYwV ~ PY *puʔs
‘mould’ (NCED 296 [note], CSCG 141)
• Bur *śi ‘fireplace, hearth’ ~ Caucasian: Ingush c’i ‘fire’, Lak c’u id., Abkhaz á-m-ca id., etc. <
PNC *"ăjR ~ Basque *śu ‘fire’ (NCED 354, CSCG 23)
• Bur *śe[m] ‘wool’37 ~ Caucasian: Lezgi r-"am ‘eyebrow’ (< *‘eye-wool’), Chechen "o",am id.,
etc. < PEC *"ɦwĕme ~ Basque *sama-@ ‘fleece, mane; chamarra’, etc. ~ Yeniseian: PY *c0ŋe
‘hair’ ~ PST *chām ‘hair (of head)’ > Kanauri cam ‘wool, fleece’, etc. (NCED 364, CSCG 27)
• Bur *śulú ‘driftwood’38 ~ Caucasian: Tindi c:ela ‘rod’, Abkhaz á-c’la ‘tree’, etc. < PNC *^+łV
~ *^ŏłV ~ PST *Cal ~ *C0l ‘wood’ (NCED 362, CSCG 26)
• Bur *śáŋ ‘limbs, body parts’ ~ Caucasian: Lezgi "um ‘shin-bone’, Bezhta õc ‘knuckle-bone’,
etc. < PEC *H^wējn+ ~ Basque *śoin ‘shoulder, upper back’, etc. (NCED 555, CSCG 66)
• Bur *śon ‘blind’ ~ Caucasian: Lak "an ‘darkness’, Ubykh ǯ´a ‘black’, etc. < PNC *"ĂwnV
(NCED 352, CSCG 24)
• Bur *śóq-um ‘wide, broad’ ~ Caucasian: Dargwa Chirag čaqw- ‘high’, Kabardian šxwa ‘big’,
etc. < PNC *H0qwV ~ Basque *aśko ‘much, many’, *aśki ‘enough’ ~ PST *ćŏk ~ *}ŏk ‘enough,
sufficient’ (NCED 386, CSCG 36)
• Bur *śúśun ‘(child’s) penis’ ~ Caucasian: Lezgi "u" ‘spout (of a tea-pot)’, Kryz "Ǹ" ‘clitoris,
ring-stone’, etc. < PEC *"ŏ"V ~ Basque *soc ‘spigot, faucet’ (NCED 367, CSCG 28)
• Bur *śō ‘dried leaves, stalks, roots’, etc. ~ Caucasian: Avar š:wají ‘small chaff’, Khinalug pšä
‘bread’, etc. < PNC *wĭʔē ~ Basque *osi ‘germ of grain, shoot that becomes a head of grain’
~ PST *sej ‘seed, fruit’ (NCED 977, CSCG 195)
• Bur *quś- ‘armpit (of clothing)’ ~ Lezgi ,u ‘armpit’, etc. (see above)
• Bur *aúśi- ‘guest’39 ~ Caucasian: Chechen ħāša ‘guest’, Ubykh p´a id., etc. < PNC *HMwĔ ~
PY *ʔ0ča (*ča) ‘guest’ ~ Basque *ɦauso ‘neighbor’ (NCED 612, LDC 179, CSCG 83)
35
36
Underlying m found in the plural form súimuc.
The semantic values in some languages apparently reflect the development: ‘clean > pure > good > correct,
right’.
Underlying final m found in the plural form śémiŋ.
“consider Kalasha [ṣułá] ‘firewood’ … with an IA etymology (T 12349 [< OI śalkā f. any small stake or
stick’])” (E. Bashir, p.c.).
37
38
33
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
• Bur *śi / *ṣi / *ṣu ‘to eat’ ~ Caucasian: Tsez, Khwarshi =a"- ‘to eat’, Tindi c:a- ‘to drink’, etc. <
PEC *=V^V ~ Basque *auśi-ki ‘to bite’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *sī- ‘to eat’ ~ PST *ʒha id. (NCED
1017, CSCG 209)
• Bur *ṣuqúr ‘sour, to sour’ ~ Caucasian: Andi ":iḳ:u ‘sour’, etc. < PEC *^ǟḳwV ‘sour, raw’ ~
PST *săk ‘bitter, pungent’ (NCED 356, CSCG 24)
• Bur *ṣúli ‘tube, pipe’40 ~ Caucasian: Avar (dial.) šulu ‘pipe’, Hunzib šelu ‘horn’, etc. < PEC
*wōł(H)V ~ Basque *sulɦo ‘hole, cave’ (NCED 978, CSCG 195)
• Bur *ṣiŋ ‘milk’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen šin ‘udder’, Andi š:iwu, š:imu ‘milk’, etc. < PNC
*[mʔV ~ Basque *e-Sene ‘milk’ ~ PY *de(ʔ)n ‘nipple, milk’ (NCED 982, CSCG 196)
• Bur *ltiṣ > *tiṣ ‘wind’ ~ PEC *Q[a]rV ‘movement of air’ > Khwarshi λaca ‘wind’, Tindi
λač:u ‘voice, shout’, etc. (NCED 767, CSCG 134)
• Bur *hiṣ ‘breath’41 ~ Caucasian: Chechen ħožu ‘odor’, Ingush ħaž, Batsbi ħai < Proto-Nakh
*ħa ‘odor’ ~ Basque *hać ‘breath; stench’ (LDC 17)
• Bur *´meṣ ‘finger, toe’ ~ Caucasian: Kryz miek ‘nail, claw, hoof’, etc. < PEC *(H)miV ~
*(H)miV ~ Yeniseian: Ket bεs-taq5 ‘index finger’ (NCED 819 [as *miV ~ *miV], LDC 38,
CSCG 77)
• Bur *muṣ- > muṣk (H, N, Y) ‘wood, thicket’, muṣ-qú (H, N) ‘branches with leaves’ ~ Caucasian: Dargwa mur ‘rod, stick, vine’, Abkhaz a-m) ‘wood, firewood’, etc. < PNC *muU˘ /
*umU ~ Basque *mośko@ ‘trunk of a tree’ < *moś-ko-@ (NCED 833, CSCG 147)
• Bur *´ci- ‘to kindle’ ~ Caucasian: Abkhaz a-cá ‘hot’, Rutul =isa- ‘to roast (grain)’, etc. <
PNC *=ĕrKĂ ~ Basque *i-se-(ki) ‘to set fire, kindle, burn’, etc. ~ PST *cha ‘hot’ (NCED 415,
CSCG 48)
• Bur *ca- ‘to stand’ ~ Caucasian: Lak =a-c’a- ‘to stand’, Akhwakh heč’- ‘to stand up, raise’,
etc. < PEC *Hĕr"V- ~ Basque *e-aśV (standard jaso, jasan) ‘to lift, raise, support, bear’, etc. ~
Yeniseian: PY *ta, *pa-ta- ‘to stand up’ (NCED 562, CSCG 67)
• Bur *bácin ‘shank, hind leg above the hock’ ~ Caucasian: Chamalal becw ‘knee (of animal),
thigh’, Tsez besi ‘fist’, etc. < PEC *b[0]KV ~ Basque *borc ‘five’ (< *‘hand’) ~ Yeniseian: PY
*baʔt- ‘knee’ ~ PST *pŭt(s) ‘knee’ (NCED 291, CSCG 19)
• Bur *bac ‘small terrace between mountains, grown with grass’ ~ Caucasian: Akhwakh beča,
Tindi besa ‘mountain’, etc. < PEC *wJce ~ Basque *baśo ‘forest, desert’ (NCED 1053, CSCG 217)
• Bur *´ncu ‘paternal aunt’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen nēca ‘maternal aunt or uncle’, Abkhaz áca
‘sister-in-law, daughter-in-law’, etc. < PNC *nEKV ~ *KEnV ~ Basque *neś-ka ‘girl, unmarried young woman’ (NCED 322, CSCG 153)
• Bur *jḗc- ‘to see’42 ~ Caucasian: Hunzib =ã"-- ‘to see’, Ubykh "´a- ‘to know’, etc. < PNC
*=ăm"Ĕ ~ Basque *e-ncu-n ‘to hear’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *ʔVt- ‘to know’ ~ PST *si0(H) ‘to know,
think’ (NCED 262, CSCG 4)
• Bur *phunc ‘dew’ ~ Caucasian: Lak pi" ‘dew, sweat’, Dargwa pen" ‘resin’, etc. < PNC
*pĭn^wĂ ~ Yeniseian: PY *piʔt ‘glue’ (< ‘*resin’)
• Bur *qhurc ‘dust’ ~ Caucasian: Tsez ,ec ‘dirt, mud, slush’, etc. (see above)
(Y) aíśen, aúśin, pl. aúśu, (H, N) oóśin, pl. oóśo. “The word is also present in Shina õṍśo ‘guest’, where it is
most probably < Burushaski (despite highly dubious derivation in Turner 427 < Skt. *apadeśya)” (CSCG 83). “I think
that this is probably an IA element. There are a considerable number of words in Khowar in which the initial awelement is related to a meaning of ‘separateness, distance’, e.g. a(u)werik ‘to take away’ or awižá ‘relative’, which
seem to show the IA apa- element. This again would seem to be more likely to be an old IA loan” (E. Bashir, p.c.).
40 ‘Gewehrlauf; Schnabel (an einem Gefäß); Rohr zum Anblasen des Feuers’ (Berger 1998).
41 (Y, H, N) hiṣ ‘breath’, (Y) also héṣ ‘breath’, (H, N) hĩĩṣ ‘sigh’ (with secondary nasalization).
42 “The reconstruction of Bur. ‘to see’ would probably be *jeéc. The double vowel suggests that there may
once have been a consonant (probably /g/ or /h/) between the vowels.” (B. Tikkanen, pc.)
39
34
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
• Bur *cháġur ‘chest or box for grain or meal’ ~ Caucasian: Avar ca'úr = caġúr ‘corn bin,
barn’, etc. (see above)
• Bur *chigír ‘goat’ ~ Caucasian: Lak "uku ‘goat’, Andi ":eḳir ‘kid’, etc. < PEC *\ĭk / *ḵĭʒ ~
Basque *sikiro ‘castrated ram’ (NCED 1094, CSCG 187)
• Bur *chul- ‘male breeding stock’43 ~ Caucasian: Andi ora ‘heifer’, Agul lu ‘heifer’, etc. <
PEC *HwJlM ~ *HlJwM ~ Basque *čahal ‘calf’ (NCED 556)
• Bur *ć(h)íki > (Y) ćíki ‘small’ ~ Caucasian: Tabasaran žiq:i ‘short’, Chamalal iḳ:u-b ‘small,
short’, etc. < PNC *ĭḳwĂ ~ Basque *čiki ‘small’ ~ Yeniseian: Kott thūki ‘short’ (NCED 1108,
LDC 194, CSCG 197)
• Bur ć(h)argV > (Y) ćargé ‘flying squirrel’ ~ Caucasian: Adyge c0'ɀa = c0ġwa ‘marten, mouse’,
Chechen šaṭ,a ‘weasel’, etc. < PNC *cārwV ~ Basque *śagu ‘mouse’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *saʔqa
‘squirrel’ ~ PST *sreŋ(H) ‘we asel, squirrel, mongoose,’ etc. (NCED 322, CSCG 21)44
• Bur *mićil / *bićil ‘pomegranate’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen ħamc ‘medlar’, Khinalug mǸč ‘apple’, etc. < PNC *ȥamćō ~ Basque *mahanć ‘grape’ (NCED 237, CSCG 267)
• Bur *ćhap ‘flesh, meat’ ~ Caucasian: Bezhta šebo ‘liver’, Chechen žim ‘kidney’, etc. < PNC
*ǯăwV ~ Basque *śab-el ‘belly’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *tVpVĺ- ‘spleen’ (NCED 1106, CSCG 196)45
• Bur *ćhemil ‘poison’ ~ Caucasian: Tsakhur Jrima-n ‘sour’, Khinalug mi" ‘sour’, etc. < PNC
*ɦmVjwĂ / *ɦwVjmV ~ Basque *śamin ‘bitter, pungent, piquant; choleric’ (NCED 521,
CSCG 93)
• Bur *ćhaḍ-úm ‘narrow’ ~ Caucasian: Akushi ạrṭa, etc. (see above)
• Bur *ćhaġé-: (Y) ćaġé ‘jackdaw’, (H) ćhaġén ‘crow with a red beak’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen ē'ag
= ēġag ‘magpie’, Lezgi a' = aġ ‘jackdaw, rook’, etc. < PEC *ām'ā (NCED 381, CSCG 35)
• Bur *ćhiṣ ‘mountain’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen iž ‘amulet (stone)’, Lak ua ‘small stone’, etc.
< PEC *[wV ~ Basque *činča ‘small stone, pebble’ ~ Yeniseian: PY *čǸʔs ‘stone’ (NCED
382, LDC 114, ToB)
• Bur *ćhaṣ ‘thorn’ ~ Caucasian: Akhwakh žaža ‘thorn, prick’, Ubykh caca ‘spit’, etc. < PNC
*ʒāʒĕ ~ Basque *śa(r)śi ‘bramble, thorn’ (NCED 1090, CSCG 248)46
• Bur *}ām ‘distant relative’ ~ Caucasian: Tabasaran ǯam ‘bridegroom’, Ingush zame ‘best
man’, Lak mač:a ‘kinsman’, etc. < PEC *}ămV / *mă}V (NCED1101, CSCG 251)
• Bur *}al- / *́al- ‘(long) hair’47 ~ Caucasian: Godoberi žali ‘fringe, forelock’, Bezhta žaro
‘horse’s mane’, etc. < PEC **}ăłhJ (NCED 1101, CSCG 251)
• Bur *mu}-óq ‘fringe, bunch of hair (on cow’s tail)’ ~ Caucasian: Chechen merz ‘hair (in
horse’s tail)’, Archi moor ‘beard’, etc. < PEC *mēuri (NCED 800, CSCG 150)
• Bur *́ó- ‘to come’48 ~ Caucasian: Kabardian ž0- ‘(to move) back’, Avar =a-in- ‘to come’,
etc. < PNC *=i"´wĔ ~ Basque *e-uci ‘to let, leave, permit’ (NCED 627, CSCG 101)
(Y) culá ‘fertile billy-goat’, culdár ‘bull’, (H, N) chulá ‘billy-goat, drake’, chindár ‘bull’.
This etymon exhibits a wide range of semantic variation, though all pertaining to rodents or mustelids.
Within the Caucasian family the meanings include ‘weasel’, ‘marten’ and ‘mouse’. According to NCED (p. 322)
Georgian ciq’wi ‘squirrel is a loanword from East Caucasian. In Basque the stem *śagu or its variant *śat- (prob.
from *śag-t, with a fossilized oblique marker) is used for other animal names, such as *śagu-saha" ‘bat’ (lit. ‘mouseold’), *śat-hor ‘mole’ (lit. ‘mouse-dog’), *śat-iću ‘field-mouse’ (lit. ‘mouse-blind’).
45 This etymology may not hold together in all its parts, because of phonological difficulties. See the note in
CSCG (p. 196).
46 This root, with two successive sibilant/affricates, has apparently been subject to various assimilations and
dissimilations. Cf. also Spanish zarza ‘bramble, blackberry bush’ (OSp sarça), probably of Vasconic origin (the 17th c.
Basque writer Oihenart had çarci: Trask 2008: 337).
47 (Y) jaláṣ ‘hairy’, (H) ´- al ‘strip (of cloth)’, aléi, alíi ‘beard (of goat)’, (H, N) jalli-miŋ ‘long hair (of people)’.
48 (Y) o, (H, N) u- (with retroflex //.
43
44
35
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
(5) The cluster /lt/, and the t- ~ -lt- alternation. In the course of a thorough study of Bur
phonology one becomes aware of the cluster /lt/ and the fact that in certain verbs as well as
nouns there is a frequent alternation of initial dental stops /t, th-/ with medial lateral-dental
clusters /-lt-/. The dental stops occur in both noun and verb stems in word-initial position,
while the lateral-dental clusters occur in the same stems when they occur after a prefix. For
example, in Bur (H, N) ltúr ‘horn’ is a bound morpheme and can only occur with a possessive
prefix, such as a-ltúr ‘my horn’, gu-ltúr ‘thy horn’, while in the Yasin dialect ‘horn’ is simply
tur, a free morpheme. The underlying form of all these is *ltúr ‘horn’ (thus Starostin, ToB). In
a verb such as turú- ‘fall apart, disintegrate’ the cluster /lt/ appears in prefixed froms such as
(absolutive or converb circumflex) nultúr ‘having fallen apart’ (with analogical variants nutúr,
nutúru). The underlying root is thus *ltúr- ‘to fall apart’, etc. (Starostin, ToB).
It should be noted that Klimov & Ėdeľman (1972; see also Beiträge p. 80, no. 10.9) formulated
an ingenious hypothesis that several of the words discussed here, and others that denote paired
nouns (*ltúr ‘horn’, *ltúmal ‘ear’, *lten ‘bone’, etc.) contain a prefix *lt- derived from the numeral ‘two’ (see below under Numerals). While we admit this solution is inventive, we think it
is an example of the dangers of relying solely on internal reconstruction. For example, the existence of external cognates to Bur *ltúr ‘horn’, namely Avar Q:ar ‘horn’, Basque *ada@ ‘horn’, and
others (see below), would require that this prefixing of the numeral ‘two’ must have taken place
already in Proto-Dene-Caucasian. Furthermore, the existence of other Bur words with initial (or
underlying) *lt, and no semantic content of pairing, e.g. Bur *ltús ‘grave’, *ltap ‘leaf’,49 and of
words for paired body parts such as Bur *qVt- ‘armpit’, qhúrpat ~ xórpet (Y) ‘lung’, *´so[m] ‘kidney’, *sZsVn ‘elbow’ (see above) that lack the supposed *lt- prefix, indicates to us that it is
probably only fortuitous that some words with initial *lt- denote paired objects.
The following examples show both the internal Burushaski alternation of the initial dental
stop t- with the medial clusters lt, and the regular correspondence of both with Caucasian
lateral affricates. In the following comparisons // denotes a voiceless lateral affricate = [tł], //
denotes a glottalized lateral affricate = [tł̉], and /Ł/ denotes a voiced lateral affricate = [dl]:
• Bur *ltúr ‘horn’ > (Y) tur / (H, N) ltúr ‘horn’ (bound form) ~ PEC *wRrV ‘horn; braid, mane’
(Avar Q:ar, Chechen kur, etc.)50 ~ Basque *ada@ ‘horn’ (< *a-rda@) (NCED 771, CSCG 134)
• Bur *ltén > (Y) ten ‘bone’ / (H, N) ltín ‘bone’ (bound form); (Y) tanc, (H, N) ltánc ‘leg’ ~
PEC *SwVnʔV ‘groin; part of leg’ (Avar W:an ‘groin’, etc.) ~ PST *l0ŋ ‘shin, ankle’ (NCED
785, CSCG 139–140)
• Bur *ltap > (Y) tap ‘leaf’, (H, N) tap ‘petal, page’ / (Y) du-ltápi, (H, N) du-ltápu- ‘to wither’ ~
PNC *Wăpi ‘leaf’ (Lak ai ‘leaf’, etc.) ~ Basque *lapa@ ‘bramble’51 ~ PY *j>pe ‘leaf’ ~ PST *lăp
‘leaf’ (NCED 774, CSCG 136)
• Bur *ltopo, *(l)tultopo > (H, N) tópo, tultópo ‘a kind of thin bread of leavened dough’ ~ PEC
*HārāV (Tsez Weeli ‘a pastry made of barley flour’, Lak ạrč:ap ‘a food made of barley
flour, curds, butter, and rice’, etc.) (NCED 546, CSCG 63)
• Bur *ltúr- > (H, N) turú- / nu-ltúr / túr(u), (Y) túr, du-ltúr- ‘to fall apart, disintegrate, be
cut into pieces’, etc. ~ PEC *=ēWwV(l) ‘to burst, tear’ (Hunzib =uW, etc.) ~ Basque *lehe@ ‘to
The underlying form *ltap is indicated by the verb *du-ltápV- ‘to wither’.
In Avar (and Andian and Tsezian languages, and Archi) Proto-Caucasian lateral affricates are, by and
large, preserved as such. In Nakh, Lak, Dargwa, Khinalug, and Lezgian languages (except Archi, which has velarized lateral affricates) lateral affricates have largely been replaced by lateral resonants, velars, or uvulars
(NCED); cf. Catford (1977), Starostin (2005b). However, under certain conditions there are velar reflexes in the first
group of languages as well.
51 For the semantics, cf. the IE etymology that includes Skt. t#́ṇa- ‘grass, herb, straw’ and Eng. thorn, etc.
49
50
36
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
•
•
•
•
•
•
burst, smash’ ~ PY *ʔil ‘to break, split’ ~ PST *rūł ~*ruał ‘to demolish, ruin’ (NCED 413,
CSCG 105)
Bur *ltá- > (H,N) tá- / ltá, (Y) tá- ‘to follow,’, etc ~ PEC *=VmWV ‘to go, come’ (Hunzib
=ẽW- ‘to go, walk’, etc.) ~ Basque *urten ‘to go out, leave’ (NCED 1026, CSCG 212)
Bur *ltál- > (H, N) ltáli, (Y) ltâli ‘to wind, turn’, tálen- / ltálen- ‘to go round’, etc.52 ~ PNC
*QwJri ~ *rJQwi ‘wheel, vehicle’ > Chechen lāra ‘oval cradle runners; fan of the mill wheel’,
Agul fur ‘wheel’, etc. ~ PST *r[ua]ł ‘round, roll, wheel’ (CSCG 134)
Bur *ltul- > (H, N)-ltúl, (Y) túl- / ltúl- ‘to saddle’, tilíhaŋ, teléhaŋ ‘saddle’, (H, N) tilíaŋ id. ~
PEC *Swiłē ‘saddle’ (Avar W:ili, Lak ḳili, etc.) (NCED 783, LDC 160, CSCG 139)53
Bur *ltán- > tan- (tán) / ltán- ‘to pound (objects)’ ~ PEC *=VSVw ‘to beat, hit’ (Avar W:ab‘to beat, hit; burst, shoot’, Andi W:a-hun, W:a-ṭun to burst, shoot’, etc.) ~ Basque *labu@
‘short’ (< *‘pounded down’) (NCED 1023, ToB)
Bur *lté- > (Y) té- / lté- ‘to swear’ / (H, N) te-ṣ ‘oath’ ~ PEC *HiV ‘to say’ (Ingush le, al- ‘to
say’, Hunzib iQ- ‘to call’, etc.) ~ PY *ʔV(ʔ)ĺ- ‘to speak’ ~ PST *l+ ‘speak, speech’ (NCED 572,
CSCG 70)
Bur *ltá- > tá- / ltá- ‘to put on (shoes, stockings)’ ~ PEC *=ōmV ‘to put on (trousers,
shoes)’ (Andi =iW:in- ‘to put on [shoes, footwear, trousers], etc.) (NCED 861, CSCG 130)
In the following examples the Burushaski initial dental stop t- corresponds with ProtoCaucasian lateral affricates:
• Bur. *(l)tam54 > (H, N) tam dél- ‘to swim, bathe, wash’ ~ PEC *HwemV ‘liquid’ (adj.) > Avar
Q:ami-ja, Archi λ:ạma-t:u- id., etc. ~ Basque *limuri ‘moist, humid; slippery’, etc. ~ PST
*li0m ‘to soak’, etc. (CSCG 134)
• Bur *(l)tiṣ > *tiṣ ‘wind’ ~ PEC *Q[a]rV ‘movement of air’, etc. (see above)
• Bur *(l)tul > (Y) tul ~ (H) tol ‘snake’ ~ PEC *wHōrQwVłV ‘snake’55 (Avar boróx ‘snake’, Lak
Vikhli bạrčalu ‘snail’) ~ PY *ʔurol ‘leech’ ~ PST *rūl ~ *rūł ‘snake’ (NCED 1048, CSCG 218)
• Bur *(l)tal > tal ‘palate; eyelid’56 ~ PEC *H0lV ‘mouth, jaw’ (Tindi erQ:i ‘jaw’, Tsakhur,
Rutul γal ‘mouth’, etc.) ~ PY *jiĺ- ‘gills’ (NCED 589, CSCG 75)
• Bur *(l)tal > *tal ‘dove’ ~ PEC *SeWē (Avar W:iW:í ‘a kind of songbird’, Lezgi ḳek ‘cock’, etc.)
(NCED 776, ToB)
• Bur *(l)tal > (H) tal ‘belly, stomach’ ~ PEC *HlaWV / *HWalV ‘liver’ (Avar ṭul, Tindi relaQ:,
Lak t:iliḳ, Lezgi le,, etc.) (NCED 586, CSCG 76)
With other derivatives: see Berger (1998).
This comparison raises interesting questions about the spread of horsemanship and the saddle, implying
that this was prior to the diaspora of the western Dene-Caucasian languages. If the split between Vasco-Caucasian
and Burusho-Yeniseian took place about 10 kya (see below: Postscript), and domestication of horses only ca. 6 kya,
with the saddle even later, it is difficult to reconcile genetic transmission of the word in both Caucasian and Bur.
Another, probably likelier, possibility is that an equestrian culture bequeathed a word such as * uli, *tl̉uli ‘saddle’
to both Cauc and Bur separately, with subsequent usual developments in each language.
54 The notation *(l)t- means that the /l/ is only assumed from circumstantial evidence, since the correspondences are the same as in known Bur alternations of t- / lt.
55 This appears to be an old compound. Only the second element is compared with Bur *tul.
56 “Skr. tālu- ‘palate’ [is] exactly matching Burushaski tal ‘palate’ — which is usually regarded as borrowed
from Indian, but in fact also would be quite a regular reflex of [PDC] *H'(l)” (CSCG 75–76). The Sanskrit word,
which has no clear Indo-European etymology, is thus probably one of the words adopted from Burushaski when
Proto-Indic speakers entered the Indian subcontinent. See Witzel (1999).
52
53
37
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
• Bur *(l)tápi > (H,N) tápi ‘stone terrace’ ~ PEC *WĕM (Chechen laba ‘shed, peak of cap’, Avar
Web ‘stone’, etc.) ~ Basque *lape ‘shelter under an eave’57 ~ PST *t-lēp ‘flat, tablet, etc.
(NCED 777, LDC 32, CSCG 137)
• Bur *(l)tur ‘cross-beam in door’ > (H) tul, (N) tur ~ PEC *Ww>rHV (Tsez e ‘bridge, stairs’,
Tindi, Karata W:eru ‘bridge’, etc.) (NCED 783, ToB)
• Bur *(l)taġ > taġ (Y) ‘branch, shoot’ ~ PEC *SɦwāχV ‘stick, chip’ (see above)
• Bur *(l)tharén- > (H, N) tharén-um ‘narrow’58 ~ PNC *=iWRlV ‘thin’ (Avar ṭeréna-b, Agul
ḳille-f, etc.) ~ Basque *lirain ‘slender, svelte, lithe’ (NCED 639, CSCG 105)
• Bur *(l)tan- > (H, N) táno ‘colon (lower bowel of animal)’, táno, tanéelo ‘bastard, of lowly
birth’59 ~ PNC *HWŏnŭ ‘bottom’ (Avar ṭinu ‘bottom’, Archi, Lezgi ḳan id., etc.) ~ PST *t-lăŋ
‘floor’ (NCED 590, LDC 169)
• Bur *(l)talí > (H) talí ‘slope (of a mountain)’ ~ PEC *Wăłŭ ‘stone’ (Avar ṭálu ‘rock, rocky
plateau’, Bezhta Walo ‘stone’, etc.) (NCED 773, CSCG 136)
• Bur *(l)téne > (Y) téne ‘year before last’, (H, N) tén-dili ‘last year’ ~ PNC *HWwĭnM ‘winter,
year’ (Avar W:in ‘winter’, Bezhta Qi ‘year’, etc.) (NCED 591, CSCG 76)
• Bur *(l)tur- > (Y) tur-ćún, (H, N) tur-śún ‘marmot’ ~ PNC *ărV ~ *WărV ‘hare’ (Ingush lerg,
Karata W:an-ḳala, etc.) (NCED 788, ToB)
• Bur *(l)ter > (H, N, Y) ter ‘summer pasture, mountain pasture’ (‘Hochweide, auf die das
Vieh im Sommer getrieben wird’) ~ Avar lol ‘open enclosure (for sheep)’, Archi Qoli ‘yard,
place in front of the house’, etc. < PEC *ŁwĕłV (NCED 791) ~ Basque *la@e ‘pasture,
meadow’ ~ PST *răl ‘fence, framework’ (CVST II: 56, no. 204)
• Bur *(l)tar- > (H, N, Y) tar-íŋ ‘skin bag’ ~ PNC *ŏli ‘color, skin’ (Avar W:er ‘color’, Dargwa
*k:uli ‘(sheep)skin’, etc.) ~ Basque *la@u ‘skin, leather’ (NCED 789, CSCG 130)
This development of initial *lt- > t- in Bur partially converges with that in one Caucasian
language, Avar (specifically northern Avar: see NCED, pp. 52, 102), where the glottalized affricate PNC/PEC *W, *Ww yields ṭ (glottalized dental stop). (The fuller forms of the following
comparisons are found above.):60
•
•
•
•
•
Bur *táno ‘colon (of animal), bastard’ ~ Avar ṭínu ‘bottom’ < PNC *HWŏnŭ
Bur *talí ‘slope (of a mountain)’ ~ Avar ṭálu ‘rock, rocky plateau’ < PEC *Wăłŭ
Bur *tápi ‘stone terrace’ ~ Avar (dial.) ṭeb ‘millstone, whetstone’ < PEC *WĕM
Bur *tal ‘belly, stomach’ ~ Avar ṭul ‘liver’ < PEC *HWalV
Bur *tharén-um ‘narrow’ ~ Avar ṭeréna-b ‘thin’ < PNC *=iWRlV
Hermann Berger, the authority on Bur, ventured some Basque-Burushaski lexical comparisons in his early works (Berger 1956, 1959). In his last published work (Beiträge: 2008),
Berger acknowledged this early interest, and reckoned that a relationship between Bur and
other non-Indo-European remnant languages was thinkable but not demonstrable.61 Nevertheless, Berger (1959, p. 26, note 34) discovered the correspondence of Basque initial *l- = Bur
‘refugio bajo el alero de un tejado / abri sous un avant-toit’ (Azkue).
Aspirated /th/ is probably due to pretonal syllabic position. Note the similar n- extension in Bur, Avar, and
Basque.
59 S. A. Starostin preferred to compare this Bur word instead with PNC *+anā ‘bottom’ (CSCG 131).
60 But not the tense affricates *,, *,w, which remain in Avar as
: (or velarize to ḳ: under certain conditions;
see NCED pp. 52–54).
61 “ … eine Beziehung zum Baskischen und anderen nicht-indoarischen Restsprachen [ist] zwar denkbar,
aber bei dem heutigen Entwicklungsstadium dieser Sprachen nicht mehr zu beweisen ist” (Beiträge, p. 1).
57
58
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
initial *t(h), which we consider valid (as developments of DC lateral affricates), based on the
following examples:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bur *tápi ‘stone terrace’ ~ Basque *lape ‘shelter under eaves’62
Bur *ter ‘summer pasture’ ~ Basque *la@e ‘pasture, meadow’
Bur *tar-íŋ ‘skin bag’ ~ Basque *la@u ‘skin, leather’
Bur *tap ‘leaf; petal, page’ (< *ltap) ~ Basque *lapa@ ‘bramble’
Bur *tam dél- ‘to bathe’, etc. ~ Basque *limuri ‘moist, humid; slippery’
Bur (H, N) turú, (Y) túr- ‘to fall apart’, etc. (< *ltúr) ~ Basque *lehe@ ‘to burst, smash’
Bur *(l)tharén- ‘narrow’ ~ Basque *lirain ‘slender, svelte, lithe’
The following examples (in addition to several above) confirm the correspondence of Burushaski medial lt- with Caucasian lateral affricates. The reflex lj- = [l] occurs in a few
words, apparently from *lti, *ltja-:
• Bur *díltar ‘buttermilk’63 ~ PNC *rħăQw ‘milk’ (Tsez riλ ‘butter’, Avar rax ‘milk’, etc.)
(NCED 949, LDC 153, CSCG 183)
• Bur *(y)alt- > (H, N) giỵált ‘spoon, scoop’64 ~ PEC *jă[l]QwV ‘wooden shovel’ (Lezgi jirf,
Bezhta äko, etc.) ~ Basque *śaɦarde ‘pitchfork; dinner fork; rake’65 ~ PST *jok ‘scoop, ladle’
(NCED 673, CSCG 113)
• Bur *yult > (H, N) yult ‘time, (right) moment’66 ~ PNC *QăjV ‘time, day’ (Akhwakh Qa-li-ge
‘in the daytime’, že-Qa ‘today’, etc.) ~ Basque *ordu ‘time, hour, occasion’ (NCED 766,
CSCG 133)
• Bur *yáltar > (H,N) yáltar ‘upper leafy branches of a tree, crown of a tree’, etc.67 ~ PEC
*ɦălSVłV (Avar ȥarW:él ‘branch, bough’, Tsez aWiru ‘pod’, etc.) ~ Basque *ada@ ‘branch’ (<
*arda@)68 (CSCG 91)69
• Bur *ltáltar- > (H) ltáltar, (N) táltar ‘foreleg (of a quadruped), shoulder (of horse), ‘human
arm’ (sometimes)70 ~ PNC *HluSĔ ~ *SulHV ‘arm’ (Avar ruW: ‘arm, shoulder’, Archi W:ol
‘shoulder-blade, foreleg (of animal)’, etc.) ~ PST *t-lŭH / *t-lŭ-k (?) ‘hand, arm, wing’
(NCED 588, CSCG 138)
• Bur *maltáṣ ‘butter’ ~ PEC *nħĕSV (Chechen nalχa ‘butter’, Archi nạW: ‘milk’, etc.) (NCED
849, CSCG 146)
See the complete DC etymology (CSCG 137) for semantic developments: original meaning probably
something like ‘flat slab of stone’. Chechen and Ingush also have the meaning ‘shed’, possibly originally a crude
outbuilding with roff made of stone slabs.
63 Bur initial d- ~ Caucasian *r is the regular initial reflex: see CSCP, p. 41.
64 Bur giỵált appears to be a compound of the verb giỵ- ‘pour’, etc. + yált or ált.
65 The Basque word appears to be an old compound: *śa- + *ɦarde (with obscure first element).
66 In stem-final position we would expect *yul (see below). In this case there was probably a variation between *yul (in absolute final position) vs. *yult- (preceding inflectional suffixes), with analogical leveling to the
latter.
67 Cf. also (H,N,Y) galtár ‘small twig’, (H,N) giltír ‘pod, husk (of peas, beans, etc.)’.
68 In Basque this word has merged phonetically with *ada" ‘horn’ (see above).
69 The correspondence of Bur *y- = *j- ~ PNC initial *ɦ- is recurrent: cf. Bur *yaṭ-is ‘head’ ~ PEC *ɦwōmdV
‘brain, head’ (below).
70 (Y) ‘projecting breasts’ (‘hervorstehende Brüste’).
62
39
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
• Bur *harált ‘rain, rain cloud’71 ~ PEC *rĕnSw ~ *r[nSw ‘cloud, fog’ (Chechen doχk ‘fog’,
Khinalug unḳ ‘cloud’, etc.)72 ~ Basque *lanbro ‘fog, mist, drizzle’73 ~ PST *rēŋ ‘drop, rain’
(NCED 947, CSCG 179)
• Bur *alt- ‘two’, *w-ált- ‘four’ ~ PWC *p(:)0W´0 ‘four’ (Ubykh W0, etc.)74 ~ PST *P-lĭj ‘four’ ~
Basque *lau- ‘four’ (NCED 314, CSCG 212)
• Bur *baltí ‘front room of house, veranda’ ~ PEC *bŭlSV ‘house’ (Hunzib buQi ‘at home’,
Lak bura-lu ‘threshold’, Hurrian purli ‘house’, etc.) ~ Basque *borda ‘cottage, cabin, stable’
(NCED 312, LDC 158, CSCG 15)
• Bur *´ltV-r ‘to show’ > (Y) ´-ltar, ´-ltir, (H, N) ´-ltir- ~ PEC *ʔiV ‘to look’ (Chamalal W:i-d,
Tabasaran lig, etc.) ~ PY *ʔV(ʔ)l- ~ *ʔV(ʔ)r1 > Kott. ŋ-āl-iga ‘I know’ ~ PST *t-l+(H) ‘to see,
look’ (NCED 209, CSCG 255)
• Bur *múltur > (H,N) múltur ‘nostril’ ~ PEC *wĕnWV (Batsbi marλŏ ‘nose’, Bezhta moWo
‘beak’, etc.) ~ Basque *mutu@ ‘snout, muzzle; end, edge’ < *murtu-@ ~ PST *lŭH ‘head’
(NCED 1041, CSCG 216)
• Bur *qhVltá ‘sack, pocket’ ~ < PEC *GHRrSwV (see above)
• Bur *hált- ‘to wash’ > (Y) (ba)-hált, (H, N) alt-/ yalt- ~ PEC *=VSVn ‘to wash, pour, weep’
(Chechen =ēlχ- ‘to weep; to pour (of rain)’, Archi e=W:in- ‘to make an ablution’, etc.) ~ PST
*t-lēŋ ~ *t-lāŋ ‘to wash, clean’ (NCED 1023, CSCG 212)
• Bur *dalt- > (N) daltán- ‘to thresh’75 ~ PEC *=M-rŁV < *rVŁZ ‘to thresh’ (Batsbi arl, Bezhta
=ol, etc.; Andi loli ‘threshing; threshing floor; Archi Qorom ‘threshing board’, etc.) ~
Basque *la@ain ‘threshing floor’ (NCED 1031, CSCG 182)
• Bur *wél}i ‘dream’ > (Y) wélji, (H,N) úlji ~ PNC *ɦemWĂ ‘dream’ (Dargwa hanḳ ‘sleep’,
Karata hanWu ‘fog, cloud’, etc.) ~ Basque *lainho ‘cloud, mist, fog’76 (NCED 512, CSCG 93)
• Bur *l}i ‘behind, backwards’77 ~ PEC *Si ‘below, down’ (Bezhta Qi- ‘down, below’, Lak
luw id., etc.) (NCED 778)
• Bur *wél}i ‘womb, afterbirth’ ~ PEC *rVHVnw / *HVrVnw ‘some internal organ’:
Tindi re:a-(:a ri:i) ‘diaphragm’, Rutul nixrä ‘placenta’, etc. (NCED 955, ToB)
• Bur *hul}- > (Y) huljá- ‘to ride (a horse)’ ~ PEC *ʔīSV ‘to run, leap’ (Avar W:ú-r-d- ‘to dance’,
Rutul hi=iga- ‘to drive, urge’, etc.) ~ PST *t-lăj(H) ‘to run, gallop’ (NCED 209, CSCG 256)
The Burushaski reflex of all lateral affricates in stem-final position is simply /l/:78
• Bur *´yal- ‘to hear’ ~ PNC *=eQu ‘to hear’: Andi ani- ‘to hear’, Budukh ix- id., etc. (NCED
411, CSCG 46)
• Bur *w-él- / *b-él- ‘to put on (clothes)’ ~ PEC *=VWV ‘to put clothes (on the upper body)’:
Chamalal, Tindi =al, Khwarshi š-iW, etc. ~ PY *ʔalVŋ ‘trousers’ (NCED 1024, CSCG 212)
• Bur *bal, *wál- 1 ‘place between the shoulders’, 2 ‘back of the shoulders, upper part of the
back’, 3 ‘back’ > (H) bálbal 1, bál-gićiŋ 2, wáldas 3, (N) bálbal 1, bál-gićaŋ 2, wáldas 3, (Y)
Initial *ha- may be influenced by hará- ‘to urinate’. In stem-final position we would expect *(ha)rál (see below). See the note to *yult, above.
72 PEC *, is reconstructed on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
73 The Basque word requires a metathesized protoform such as * 3nwr4.
74 This is probably related to PEC *bǖn6e ‘eight’ (Avar mi :-go, Hunzib be'-no, etc.).
75 Bur initial d- < *r: cf. Bur *díltar ‘buttermilk’, above.
76 “Andian languages demonstrate a non-trivial semantic development ‘dream’ > *‘vision’ > ‘cloud’” (NCED).
Likewise in Basque.
77 Starostin (ToB) prefers to compare Bur *l7i with PNC *Hl[a] ) ‘breast, back’, etc.
78 Apparent exceptions are probably the result of analogical leveling. (See the notes to *yult and *harált, above.)
71
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
•
•
•
•
•
•
wáldes 3 ~ PNC *bŭWV ‘upper part of the body’ (Batsbi bali ‘shoulders’, Adyge, Kabardian
Wa ‘upper part of the back’, etc.) ~ Basque *śor-balda ‘shoulder’ < *śor-barda (NCED 313,
LDC 32, CSCG 158)
Bur *híl ‘lip, edge, shore’ ~ PEC *HăSwV (~-ĕ,-R) ‘forehead’ > Chechen ħaž, Tindi haW:a,
etc.)79 (NCED 543, CSCG 84)
Bur *bal ‘marrow, brain, kernel (of walnut)’ ~ PEC *bɦĕrSV ‘(large) intestines’ > Bezhta
baQa ‘large intestine’, Udi buq:un ‘belly’, etc.) ~ Basque *barda / *marda ‘belly, abdomen,
bowels, tripe, stomach, rennet’ ~ PY *pǸʔǸĺ ‘intestine(s)’ ~ PST *bik ‘bowels’ (NCED 297,
CSCG 13)
Bur *el- > (Y) él-den ‘year before year before last’ (den ‘year’) ~ PEC *ʔVWwV ‘last year’
(Avar dial. uWi-sa, Tsez, Hinukh eWi, Bezhta iWe, etc.) ~ Basque *urte ‘year’ (NCED 225,
CSCG 259)
Bur *bél-is ‘ewe that has already given birth’ ~ PNC *bh[Wwĭ ‘small cattle’ (Bezhta, Hunzib
biW ‘sheep’, Andi belir ‘deer’, etc.) ~ Basque *bil-doć ‘lamb (that has begun to feed itself)’
(NCED 293, CSCG 12)
Bur *(l)tal > tal ‘dove’ ~ PEC *SeWē (Avar W:iW:í ‘songbird’, etc.) (see above)
Bur *úl ‘belly, abdomen’ ~ PEC *=Jr(a)V ‘stomach; rennet, abomasum’ (Karata m-eW:u
‘stomach’, Hunzib b-eQ ‘rennet, abomasum’, etc.) ~ Basque *urdail ‘stomach, abomasum,
womb’ ~ PST *t-l+w ‘belly, stomach’ (NCED 670, CSCG 112)
One might have noted that in some forms above (*harált ‘rain, rain cloud’, *hált- ‘to
wash’) Burushaski has /lt/ in what appears to be final position, an apparent contradiction to
the rule just cited. The restoration of /lt/ in these cases can be attributed to analogy, based on
inflected forms such as haráltiŋ ‘rainfall, rainclouds’. Likewise in the case of Bur *bél-is ‘ewe’
(see above) the development of *W > stem-final /l/ had already taken place before the addition
of is (a frequent Bur suffix).
For more details on DC lateral affricates and their reflexes, see Bengtson (2008a: 59–61).
Typological parallels of the change TL > LT: If we symbolize the postulated change of
DC lateral affricates to Bur /lt/ (reduced in initial position to /t/ and in final position to /l/) as
TL > LT, some typological parallels support the probability of this type of phonological
change. The clearest and most familiar may be the change seen in Spanish:
•
•
•
•
Lat. spatula > OSp. espadla ~ espalda > MSp. espalda ‘back’
Lat. capitulu > OSp. cabidlo ~ cabildo > MSp. cabildo ‘town council’
Lat. foliatile > OSp. hojadle ~ hojaldre > MSp. hojaldre ‘puff pastry’
Lat. titulu > (Catalan) title > OSp. tidle ~ tilde > MSp. tilde ‘written accent’
In Old Spanish the /dl/ and /ld/ forms coexisted, while in the modern language the /ld/
forms have prevailed. In Judeo-Spanish the change has been extended to include imperative
plural + clitic constructions (Bradley 2006: 80):
• JSp. traeldo = MSp. traedlo ‘bring it’ < Late Latin tra(h)ete + illu
• JSp. tomalda = MSp. tomadla ‘take it’
• JSp. daldo = MSp. dadlo ‘give it’
For semantics, cf. Hunzib bil ‘lip’, Tindi bala ‘edge, end, corner’, Lezgi p:el ‘forehead’, etc.; Basque *beła-"
‘forehead’.
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John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
In English a parallel can be seen in the popular name Sheltie for Shetland pony or Shetland
sheepdog. In recent American English chipotle, the name for a dried chili pepper derived
(through Mexican Spanish) from Nahuatl, is frequently pronounced /čip’olti/.80
It is interesting to note the derivation of Spanish alcalde ‘judge’ < Arabic ̉ al-qāḍī ‘the judge’
(Corominas 1990: 38), in which the Spanish cluster /ld/ substitutes for the Arabic “emphatic” ḍ
(which in turn comes from the Semitic lateral sibilant *¡).
In Tibetan and other Bodic languages of the Sino-Tibetan family PST *t-l- may yield /lt/,
/ld/, or /lć/, for example:
• Tib lto ‘belly, stomach’ < PST *t-l+w id. ~ PEC *=Jr(a)V, Bur *úl, Basque *urdail, etc. (see
above)
• Tib lte ‘navel, center’ < PST *t-lăj ‘center‚ middle’ ~ PNC *=ĕSĔ ‘middle, half’, Basque *erdi
id., PY *ʔaʔl ‘half’ (CSCG 46)
• Tib lta ‘look’ < PST *t-l+(H) ‘to see, look’ ~ PEC *ʔiV ‘to look’, Bur *´ltV-r- ‘to show’, etc.
(see above)
• Tib ltag ‘nape, back part of the neck’ < PST *t-luak ‘back’ ~ PEC *War,wĕ ‘forehead; cap’,
Basque *lok- ‘temple; middle of forehead’ (NCED 775, ToB)
• Tib ldeb ‘leaf, sheet’ < PST *(t)lăp ‘leaf’ ~ Burushaski *ltap- ‘leaf; to wither’, PNC *Wăpi
‘leaf’, Basque *lapa@ ‘bramble’, PY *j>pe ‘leaf’ (see above)
• Tib ldeb-s ‘side’ < PST *t-lĕp ‘border, side’ (ToB) ~ (? Basque *lepo ‘neck’)
• Tib lćag ‘rod, stick’ < PST *t-l+k ‘stake, stick’ ~ Bur *ltaġ ‘branch, shoot’, Avar W:oχ: ‘stubble’, etc. (see above)
• Tib lćag-s ‘iron; lock’ < PST *t-l[ia]k ‘iron’ (ToB) ~ Bur *ltik > tik ‘earth, ground; rust’
The difference from Basque and Burushaski is that Bodic has the metathesized cluster
only initially, not medially, as in the other languages. Since Burushaski is spoken in an area
immediately adjacent to the Bodic dialects (Balti and Purik, archaic Bodic dialects, are spoken
directly east of the Burushaski area), it is possible that at some time in the past, both families
had lateral affricates, and that the change of *TL > /lt/ (etc.) was an areal phenomenon that affected Burushaski and Bodic, but not more distant Sino-Tibetan languages (such as Lushai,
which frequently has /tl/ or /thl/ < PST *t-l.
Morphology
Nouns
In the Burushaski nominal system the case endings, as admitted by Č himself, are the
same for both singular and plural. Bur therefore has an agglutinating morphology, not the inflected morphology typical of IE. We find the Bur case endings far more compatible with those
of Basque and Caucasian, including the compound case endings found in all three families
(Bengtson 2008a: 90–92).
Furthermore, though it is not mentioned by Č, many (about 150) of the most basic nouns
are bound forms, i.e., they cannot occur without a pronominal prefix (for example, Bur (H, N)
ltúr ‘horn’ manifests as a-ltúr ‘my horn’, gu-ltúr ‘thy horn’, i-ltúr ‘his horn’, mu-ltúr ‘her horn’,
etc.). Toporov (1971) pointed out these remarkable parallels between Bur and Yeniseian:
Chipotle is also the name of a restaurant chain. Evidence of the metathesis chipotle ~ chipolte can easily be
found with an internet search of chipolte.
80
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
‘my hand’
‘thy hand’
Burushaski (H, N)
a-ríiŋ
gu-ríiŋ
Yeniseian (Ket)
ab-ĺaŋ
ug-ĺaŋ
Table 5
These prefixes can be reconstructed to something like *aŋa- ‘my’ / *uxGu- ‘thy’ (see the
PDC pronoun stems, below), and the word ‘hand’ itself is reconstructed as *ŕVŋHV (by
Starostin: ToB). This type of construction is totally alien to IE patterns, as is the enormous
number of different plural suffixes: about 70, as noted by Č (p. 23). So is the multiple class
system of Bur, which is far more similar to class systems in Caucasian and Yeniseian than to
gender in PIE.
Table 6. Burushaski noun classes 81
Class type
Class description
Class letter (Lorimer)
Class number
Examples
(Hunza-Nager)
human
non-human
inanimate
(uncountable
objects, mass nouns,
abstractions)
human-male
human-female
non-human animate
(animals, countable
objects)
hm
hf
x
y
I
II
III
IV
hir ‘man’
´-uỵ ‘father’
qhudáa ‘God’
gus ‘woman’
dasín ‘girl’
parí ‘fairy’
haġúr ‘horse’
báalt ‘apple’
´-l-ćin ‘eye’
phu ‘fire’
ge ‘snow’
ćhap ‘flesh’
Table 7. East Caucasian noun classes
Class type
Class description
Class number
Examples (Lak)
human
non-human
human-male
human-female
non-human animate
inanimate
I
II
III
IV
š:ar ‘wife’
c:us:a ‘female’
ninu ‘mother’
ču ‘horse’
čimus ‘onion’
ja ‘eye’
čuw ‘man’
p:u ‘father’
ars ‘son’
c’u ‘fire’
š:in ‘water’
dik’ ‘flesh’
Bouda (1949); Catford (1977: 298–299).
Personal Pronouns
It is perhaps the personal pronouns that show most clearly the deep incompatibility of
Bur and IE. IE, as is well known, is typified by the first and second-person pronouns *H1e(H)‘I’ / *(e)me- ‘me’ and *te, *towe, *tuHx- = *tū- ‘thou, thee’. In Bur (Berger 1998: I, p. 80) the
scheme is entirely different.
“The difference between class III and IV nouns is not as straightforward as [implied in the table.] Many
class IV nouns are countable (and take class-specific plural endings), e.g. HN ríiŋ ‘hand’, úsis ‘foot’, ltúmal ‘ear’,
8kin ‘liver’, ha ‘house’, tom ‘tree’, amé ‘bow (made of horn)’, while some abstract nouns are class III, e.g. ćuṭí ‘leisure, holiday’, rupiá ‘money’, ćilá ‘the coldest period of the year’, haríip ‘melody’. Yet there is, of course, this strong
tendency that objects and materials (incl. artifacts made from such materials) lacking a clearly defined or stable
physical form are class IV. So ‘trees’ are IV, but their ‘fruits’ are III.” (B. Tikkanen, pc.).
81
43
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
Table 8. Burushaski Personal pronouns
Person
Dial.\ Form
Hunza &
Nagir
Yasin
1 sg.
dir.
2 sg.
g.-e.
je
v.p.
jáa
áa-
ja
dir.
1 pl.
g.-e.
v.p.
dir.
un
uŋ
N um
gu
gúgó(o)-kó(o)-
mi
un
gu
gúgó(o)-kó(o)-
mi
2 pl.
g.-e.
v.p.
mi
mímé(e)-
míi
mée
dir.
g.-e.
v.p.
ma
mamámáa-
ma
mamá-
Berger (1998); dir. = direct, g.-e. = genitive-ergative, v.p. = verbal prefix.
Here we see that the Bur system is suppletive, with different stems for direct forms and
oblique forms, in both first and second person. Č (p. 72) attempts to connect Bur je, já with PIE
*H1e(H)- but he can do so only by violating the sound correspondence discussed above (PIE
*, *ȹ = Bur g, ġ)! He further tries to connect Bur un (~ um, uŋ) with PIE *tuHxom, emphatic
form of *tuHx = *tū, but again only by requiring another unprecedented change: t > d > 0!
For comparison, below we present the attested forms of personal pronouns in the IndoIranian languages that surround Burushaski:82 see tables 9 & 10.
Table 9. Personal pronouns in Nuristani & Dardic
Person
1 sg.
Lg. \ Case
direct
2 sg.
oblique
direct
1 pl.
oblique
direct
2 pl.
oblique
direct
oblique
Kati
vuze, ōnc
9a, ye
tiu
to, tu
Waigali
aŋa
;
tǖ
tū
Aškun
ai
y;
tu
A
ima
Prasun
unzū
ändeiš
i/üyū
ütɁöiš
asē
Dameli
ai
mū, mo
tu
tō
Gawar
a
mō
tu
tō
amō, ama-
mē
Wotapuri
au
ma-
tu
ta, tha-
mū, mun
thū
Šumašti
ā
mō
tu
tō
Pašai
a
ma-
t, tō
tō, tē-
Tirahi
au, ao
mē
tu, to
te, tē
ao, mā
mēn
tao
tā
Kalaša
ā
mai
tu / tū
tai
ābi
hōma/i
ābi
mīmi/e
Khowar
awá
ma
tu
ta
Torwali
ā, ai
mF, mL
tu
ta
Baškarik
ya
ma-
tu
tha-
ma
tha
Garwi
yah
mā-
tu
ta-
mā
ta-
82
44
Thanks to E. Bashir for some corrections of Khowar forms.
ema, imā, yimo
amī
amē
ai
wī
w@
wī
yä
mīū
amâ
āb
ša, šo
ama
hama
bi
myā
wī
(h)ēmā, mōmā, myā
ispá
mo, moi
mo, ma-
ima
pisá
tM, thō
to, ta-
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Person
Lg. \ Case
1 sg.
direct
2 sg.
oblique
direct
1 pl.
oblique
direct
2 pl.
oblique
direct
oblique
Maiyan
m@
mN
tū
tN
bē
z@
tus
s@
Kanyawali
ma
mī, m9
tu
tī, t9
be
z@
tus
c@
be
as-
Phalura
ma
tu
tus
Šina
ma(h)
mă
tu(h)
thă, tǔ
bě
ăs-
tsho, co
Kašmiri
ba(h)
m’e
cǔ(h)
c’e
as’
as’e
twah’
Vedic
ahám
a. mā(m)
tuvám
a. tv(m)
a. asmn, d. asmábhyam
twah’e
a. va, g. yuṣmkm
Ėdeľman (1978, 289); a. = accusative, d. = dative, g. = genitive.
Table 10. Personal pronouns in Pamir languages
Person
Lg. \ Case
1 sg.
direct
2 sg.
oblique
direct
1 pl.
oblique
Yidgha
zo, z
mn, mun
tu, t
tu//o/a
Munjan
zå, z
mn, mun
tu, t
to/å//aw
Šughni
wuz
mu
Rušan
az
mu
tu
Khuf
waz
mu
Bartangi
āz
Orošor
direct
2 pl.
oblique
direct
oblique
max, mox
maf, mof
mox
mMf
māš
tama
tā
māš
tama
tu
taw, tā
maš
tama
mun, mu
tū
ta
māš
tamš
waz
mun, mu
tu
tā
māš
tamš
Sarykoli
waz
my, myn
tεw
ta, ty
maš
tamaš
Iškašim
az(i)
mak
tǐ
fak
mǐx(ó)
Yazghulam
az
můn, mon
tow
tu, ti-
mox
Wakhi
(w)uz, wz maẓ̌
tu
taw, tow
sak
Avestan
azTm
tuuTm, tū
g. tauuā
g. mTnā
tu
mǐčǐv(o)
tǐmǐx
tǐmǐx(ǐv)
spó
sá(y)išt
sav
g. ahmākm
OPers. g. amāxam
g. yūšmākm
Efimov & Ėdeľman (1978, 218); g. = genitive.
In spite of some formally similar forms in the contemporary languages, e. g. Yidgha mox,
Munjan max, Iškašim mĭx ‘we’, vis-à-vis Bur mi id., deeper comparison shows that they have
quite separate origins. Thanks to the archaic Indo-Iranian literary languages, Avestan, Old
Persian and Vedic OI, we can project the Indo-Iranian forms into the past and derive them
from the stem *asm£, from PIE *s-mé. Bur mi, on the other hand, maybe comes from PDC
*mi(nV) ‘self, (our)self’, according to Starostin (CSCG 146: cf. ST: Lushai mi ‘me, us, my,
our’, etc.).
We propose that comparison of the Bur personal pronouns with those of East Caucasian
(and other DC languages) is more fruitful as well as more straightforward than comparison
with IE. Both Burushaski and the reconstructed Proto-(North) Caucasian have suppletive
pronoun stems in the first and second person singular. For the present purpose, let us compare Bur with two East Caucasian languages, Khinalug and Tsakhur. Khinalug is the highest
45
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
(2300 m. = 7546 ft.) and most remote village in Azerbaijan, where the inhabitants still speak a
Caucasian language.83 Tsakhur is also spoken in Azerbaijan as well as in Dagestan. Both languages appear to have preserved remnants of old eastern Dagestanian suppletive paradigms: see table 11.
Table 11. Personal pronouns in Eastern Dagestanian languages
direct
1st person sg.
Khinalug
Tsakhur
2nd person sg.
Khinalug
Tsakhur84
zǸ (nom.)
jä (erg.)
zu
wǸ (nom.)
wa (erg.)
wu ~ Wu (= ġu)
genitive
dative
i, e
as
jiz-Ǹn
za-
wi
oχ
j-ǸW- (= j-Ǹġ)
wa-
According to Nikolayev and Starostin (NCED, pp. 402, 483–84, 855, 1014–15, 1084–85), the
original Proto-Caucasian pronominal paradigms were very complicated, and difficult to reconstruct with much certainty. In the first person singular West Caucasian and most East Caucasian languages have forms going back to PNC direct *zō(n), ergative *ʔez(V), genitive
*ʔiz(V), oblique *zā, though Lak and Dargwa have instead a first person stem *nR (cf. Basque
*ni ‘I’, PST *ŋā- ‘I, we’, etc.). In the second person singular PEC had a “complicated suppletive
paradigm” consisting of direct * ō(n) / *'wM = *ġwM, ergative *ʔŏ'wV = *ʔŏġwV, genitive *ʔe V
/ *ʔi V, and dative *dū.
Clearly a great deal of rearrangement has taken place in all of these languages since the
original paradigms of thousands of years ago. West Caucasian abandoned most of the suppletive stems and kept only *sa ‘I’ (= *zō) and *wa ‘thou’ (= * ō). One East Caucasian language,
Dargwa (Akushi and Urakhi dialects) has retained the stems *nR and *'wM = *ġwM, resulting in
a paradigm coinciding with that of Basque:85
Dargwa
(Akushi, Urakhi)
Basque
‘I’
‘thou’
nu
ħu
ni
hi
Table 12
We can then summarize the genesis of the Burushaski first and second person singular
pronouns as follows: see table 13.
Interrogative Pronouns
As stated correctly by Č (p. 74), Bur interrogative pronouns are built on bases containing
the labials /m/ and /b/: *me- ‘who’ and *be ‘what’, and he also quite correctly recognizes the Bur
tendency to waver between /m/ and /b/. Č connects the Bur interrogatives with the rare IE inhttp://www.xinaliq.com/; http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/khinalugs.shtml.
Note that Tsakhur exhibits free variation between the two old second person stems: wu < *Yō vs. ġu < *Ww).
85 Note that some Dargwa dialects have instead retained the PEC stem *zō as du ‘I’.
83
84
46
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
ProtoBurushaski
Proposed
cognates
Proto-DeneCaucasian86
1st pers. sg. direct
*7a
Khinalug zǸ
Tsakhur zu
Chechen so
PWC *sa
Yen. *ʔaʒ
1st pers. sg. oblique
*a- (< *ŋa)87
Dargwa nu
Basque *ni
Kott *ŋ-/-ŋ88
*ŋV
*u-n
Archi un
Khinalug wǸ
Tsakhur wu
(~ ġu)
PWC *wa
Yen. *ʔaw / *ʔu
*wV
*gu- / *go-
Tsakhur ġu
(~ wu)
Chechen ħo
Dargwa ħu
Basque *hi
Yen. *kV-/*ʔVk-
*xGwV
2nd pers. sg. direct
2nd pers. sg. oblique
*zV
Table 13
terrogative stem *me/o, attested only in Anatolian, Tocharian, and Celtic. We must point out,
however, that the *mV- interrogative is much more richly attested in DC than in IE, and furthermore the m ~ b alternation is attested in DC, but not in IE:
•
•
•
Caucasian: PEC *mV- > Chechen mi-la ‘who’, mi-ča ‘where’, ma-ca ‘when’ etc.; Andi emi‘who’, Chamalal im id., Tind. ima-la ‘who’; Lezgi, Agul mu-s ‘when’ / Archi ba-sa ‘when’
Basque: ba- conditional prefix, ‘if-’ (Trask 1997: 225)89
Sino-Tibetan: PST *mV- > Karen *mV ‘what’, Serdukpen mu id., Bodo *maʔ id., Ao Naga
*mV id., Sichuan *mV id. (ToB) / PST *Pa ‘what, which’ > Burmese ba ‘what, which’, Jingpo
pha1 ‘what’, Bodo b0 ‘which one’ (CSCG I: 92)
S.A. Starostin (ToB, 2004–2005a, 2004–2005b).
Loss of initial PDC *ŋ in Bur (or replacement with /h/) is regular, per Starostin (CSCP 48).
88 According to Starostin, Ket b-/ʔab- belongs here; but the development *b < *m < *ŋ (CSCP 48) does not agree
with the rules established by him earlier (Starostin 1982), while the Kott data agree excellently:
~âliga < ŋâliga ‘ich Weiss’ = *‘mein Wissen’
~aiteän (ŋaiteän) ‘ich will’ = *‘mein Wunsch’
~apeaŋ < ŋapeaŋ ‘in; hinein’ < *‘mein Inneres’
~ani < ŋani ‘mein Schwiegersohn’ : Ket εń ‘Schwiegersohn’
~âma < ŋâma ‘mein Mutter’
~ôp < ŋôp ‘mein Vater’.
See W. Werner, Vgl. Wörterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen, Bd. 2, Wiesbaden 2002, 29–30, who has collected the Kott examples from Castrén 1858. Concerning Ket ab- ‘my’, Arin b(i), Kott m-inšo, and Ket & Yugh 1st person sg. verbal
exponent ba-/bo, a promising cognate appears in Hurrian iffu-/-iff-/-iffē- ‘my’, pl. iff=až ‘our’; and in the ergative
suffix of the 1st person aw, e.g. tād=aw ‘I love [it]’ (see Gernot Wilhelm, „Hurrian,“ In: The Cambridge Encyclopedia
of the World’s Ancient Languages, ed. by Roger D. Woodard, Cambridge: University Press 2004, 107, 112).
89 For semantic development, cf. Old Irish ma ‘whether, if’ < PIE interrogative stem *me/o, cited by Čašule
(p. 74); German wenn ‘if’ < ‘when’; Czech či ‘ob’, Polish czy ‘ob’ < PIE interrogative stem *kwei, etc .
86
87
47
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
•
Yeniseian: PY *wi- / *we- ‘interrogative pronoun’90 > Ket biśέŋ / biśaŋ ( < biśa:ŋ3) ‘where’, biśśe ‘who’ (masc.), bε-śa ‘who’ (fem.), bi-ľa5,6 ‘how’, bi-ľέś / biľáś ‘whither’; Kott bi-li ‘where’,
bilthuŋ ‘whither’, bilčaŋ ‘whence’, bi-ľaŋ ‘which’, etc.
Verb
In the verb the Bur variance from IE is just as pronounced as in the noun. The “typological
similarity” claimed by Č (p. 75) is only in regard to vaguely similar systems of aspects and
tenses, without any material parallels pointing to common genetic origin. The verbal endings
(Č, pp. 75–77) are similar only in that both Bur and IE have endings containing n and m, though
there are no real correspondences between them. Most striking is the existence of the Bur template verbal morphology with as many as four prefix positions preceding the verb stem.
Table 14. Burushaski verb template
prefix
position
–4
–3
–2
–1
0
+1
+2
+3
+4
NEG
D
PRON
CAUS
VERB
PL.SBJ.
DUR
1sgSBJ
NON-FIN/
+5
+6
SBJ
Q
plural
marker
verb stem
causivity/
valence
pronominal
prefix (person/ class)
subject
version
MODAL
negative
marker
function
AP/
Tikkanen 1995, Berger 1998, Anderson, ms.
It is well known that Proto-IE had few verbal prefixes.91 The Bur prefixal template is far
more compatible with languages such as those of the Yeniseian family, especially the welldocumented verbal morphology of Ket, and of the extinct Kott; Basque, Caucasian (especially
West Caucasian), and Na-Dene also seem to preserve distinctive features (multiple noun
classes, polysynthesis, extensive verbal prefixing of pronominal and valence-changing grammemes) of the postulated Dene-Caucasian proto-language: see, e.g. Bengtson (2008a, 2010a,
2010b), G. Starostin (2010a).
Numerals
Č (p. 75) makes some ingenious Burushaski-IE comparisons of the numerals ‘one’, ‘two’
(actually Bur ‘two’ + IE *H2al- ‘other’), ‘eight’, and ‘nine’. Before commenting on these attempts, let us first provide some background information on the complete numeral systems of
Bur and its IE neighbors:
Yeniseian *w- is the regular reflex of PDC *m- (CSCP 35).
Concerning verbal prefixes in IE, the situation is rather complex. Most of the historically attested IE languages use prefixes, which represent the prepositions, sometimes “frozen,” as in Hittite. The verbal augment is
another example, different from usual prefixes. Its existence is attested in Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Greek. E. Hamp
(1997, 127) tried to demonstrate that it is not excluded that it was known in other languages too, e.g. in the Latin
form enos ‘we’ instead of nos in the Carmen Arvale. This means that this “prefix” would be free and not dependent
only on the verb. There could also be some old prefixes of the type “s-mobile” in Indo-European, maybe corresponding with the Afroasiatic s-causative.
90
91
48
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Table 15. Burushaski numerals
Dial. \ Num.
1
2
3
4
5
Hunza &
Nagir
hin
han
hik
altó
altáć
altá(n)
iské(n)
uskó
iskí
wálto
wálti
ćhundó
ćhindí
Yasin
hen
han
hek
altó
altáć
altá(n)
iské
iskó
iskí
wáltu/
wálte
ćendó
ćindó, -í
Comments
H 18: hun
Dial. \ Num.
w + *alt- 2
6
7
8
9
10
Hunza &
Nagir
mišíndo
mišíndi
mao
thaló
thalé
altámbo
altámbi
hunćó
huntí
tóorumo
tóorimi
Yasin
bičíndu
bišínde
thaló
thalé
altámbu
altámbe
huó
hutí
tórum
-miṣ, pl. mianć
Y meṣ, pl. mać
‘finger’ + ‘5’
maybe cf.
Khaling tár 7
(Hd 361)
*altan be
2 without
*hun- 1
minus *Cu 10?
or from Y cu‘take away’
(Bl 328)
toórum
Y. taúrum
so many; cf.
Khaling taḍham
10 (Hd 361)
40
50
áltar-tóorumo /tóorimi
altó-áltar
N álthar
altó-áltar
tóorumo
20 + 10
2 × 20
(2 × 20) + 10
Comments
Dial. \ Num.
10
20
Hunza &
Nagir
tóorumo
áltar
N álthar
Yasin
tórum
áltar
< *alt- + *tarum(B 16)
Comments
Dial. \ Num.
60
70
Hunza &
Nagir
iskí-áltar
iskí-áltar
tóorumo
Yasin
iskí-áltar
Comments
3 × 20
30
80
wálti-áltar
90
wálti-áltar
tóorumo
walte-áltar
(3 × 20) + 10
4 × 20
100
tha
tha
(4 × 20) + 10
Berger 1998.
49
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
Table 16. Nuristani & Dardic numerals
Language
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Kati
ev
diu
tre
št()vo
puč
}o, }u
sut
ošṭ, u}t
noh, nu
duc
Waigali
ew, ēk
dǖ
trē
čatā
p;č, pūč
}ū
sōt
ō}ṭ
n;
dōš
Aškun
ač
dA, du
trä, trε
catā
}ū, }du
sūt
A}ṭ
nA, nū
dus
Prasun
i/upün
lǖ
cšī, čī
čipū
wuču
wu}u
sëtë
āstë
n;, nyū läzë
Dameli
ek
dū
trâ
čōr
p@č
}o
sat
a}ṭ
n
daš
Gawar
yak, yk
dū
λē/ε
cūr
pō(n)c
}uō, }ōu
st, sat
ō}ṭ
n;
dš, daš
Wotapuri
yek, yak dū
ṭā, λā
c/sawūr
panʒ/c
šō, }ē
sat, sāt
aṭ, āṭ
nau
daš()
Šumašti
yäk
dū
λyē, λīē
cöYur
pōn
}Ao
sat, st
ā}ṭ
nī
däs
Pašai
ī
dō
trä, λ(Ɂ)ē
čār, cōr
panǰ
š
sat
ašt
nō
dē
Tirahi
ek
dō
tre
cawor
panc
xo
sat
axt
nab
dah
Kalaša
ek
dū
tre
čau
pAn, pānš }o
sat
a}ṭ
nō
daš
Khowar
ī
ǰū
troi
čōr
pōnǰ
čhoi
sot
ošt
něoh
ǰoš
Torwali
e(k), ē
du, dū, do ča, a
čau
panǰ
šō, }o
sat
aṭ
nōm
daš
Baškarik
ak
dū
ṭhā
čōr
panǰ
šo
sat
aṭh
num
daš
Maiyan
ak
dū
čā
saur
pānz
šōh
sāt
āṭh
num
daš
Kanyawali
ek
dū
ā
cōur
p@s
}ō
sāt
āṭh
nau
däš
Phalura
āk
dū
trō
čūr
pānž
}oȹ
sāt
ā}ṭ
n;
dāš
Šina
ēk
du
e
čar
poĩ
}a
săt
ă}
naū
daï
Kašmiri
akh
zŭ(h)
tr’ŭ(h)
cōr
pTnc
šah
sath
Tṭh
naw
da(h)
50
pAnč,
ponc
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Table 16 (cont.)
Language
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1000
Kati
vici,
vc
vica-duc
ďu-vc
ďu vcatr vc
duc
Waigali
wišī
wišidōšī
du-wišī
du-wišīetrēw(i)šī
dōšī
Aškun
wišī
wiši-ādus
dA-wišī
duíšādŏs
tré-wiši
Prasun
ʒū, zū
lʒä(i)ž
lyogʒu
leǰebiz
ščogʒu
Dameli
biši
bišio-daš dū-biši
Gawar
išī
išī-o-dš
Wotapuri
bīš()
bīš-ō-daš dū-bīš
Šumašti
isī
isī-däs
dū-isī
Pašai
wst
wst-odäi
trīw
du-wya
Tirahi
biau,
byεh
biau-dah do-bē
do-biaudah
Kalaša
biši
biši-ǰedaš
dū-biši
dū-bišiǰe-daš
trebiši(r)
trebíšidaš
čaubiši(r)
čaubíšidaš
pñ-biši
Khowar
bišr
bišr-ǰoš
ǰū-bišr
ǰūbiširoče-ǰoš
troi-išir
troibíšir
o-če-ǰöš
čōr-bišr
čorbíširo
-če-ǰöš
pōnǰbišr,
šōr
Torwali
bīš
daš-obīš
dū-bīš
daš-odū-bīš
čā-bīš
čo-bīš
panǰ-bīš,
soh
Baškarik
bīš
daš-ōbīš
dū-bīš
daš-ōdū-bīš
ṭha-bīš
čōr-bīš
panǰ-bīš
Maiyan
bīš
daš-ōbīš
dū-bīš
daš-ōdū-bīš
ča-bīš
saur-bīš
šal
Kanyawali
bīš
dū-bīš
a-bīš
cōur-bīš
šal
Phalura
bhīš
bhīš-edāš
du-bhīša
trōbhiša
čūrbhiša
pānžbhiša
Šina
bí(h)
bi-gdaĩ
dībyo
dībyog-daï
ěbyo
ěbyoga-dai
čarbyo
čarbyoga-dai
šāl
sās, s@s
Kašmiri
wuh
trŭh
catŭǰŭh
pancāh
šṭh
satat
šth
namat
hath
sās, sôsu
puč vc
tréwišidŏs
čattāwišī
p;č-wišī
catā-bíši, catāčattō-iši wiši-dŏs
puncwišī
čpagʒu
wučεgʒu
p@ž-biši
du-išī
dū-bīšō-daš
du-wyau-däi
λē-išī
cūr-išī
pāinšī
ṭā-bīš
cawurbīš
panʒ-bīš
λyē-isī
cöur-isī
pōn-isī
trä-wya,
λe-wya
čār-wiya
čār-wéadē
panǰawia
panz-bē
Ėdeľman 1978, 285–87.
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John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
Table 17. Numerals of the Pamir languages
Language
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Yidgha
yū
loȹ
uroi
čšīr
pāns, onǰ
úxšo
ávdo
áščo
nōu
los
Munjan
yū
lu
iroi
čfūr
ponž
óxšo
óvdo
oškɁo
nau
da
Šughni
yīw, yi
δu, δiyūn aráy
cavṓr
pīnʒ
xō
(w)ūvd
wat
nōw
δīs
Rušan/Khuf yīw, yi
δaw
aráy
cavūr
pīnʒ
xūw
(w)ūvd
wat
nāw/nōw δos
Bartang
yīw, yi
δaw
ary
cavór
pīnʒ
xw
ūvd
wat
nāw
δus
Sarykoli
iw, i
δεw, δa
aroy
cavúr
pinʒ
xel
ыvd
wot
new
δes
Yazghulam wů(g)
δow
cůy
čer
penǰ
u
uvd
ut
nu(w)
δůs
Iškašim
uk, ůk
dь(w)
rů(y)
cьfůr
půnʒ
xůl(l)
uvd
ot
naw, nu
dI důst
Wakhi
yi(w)
bu(y)
tru(y)
cыbыr
panʒ
šaδ
ыb
at
naw
δas
20
30
Language
Yidgha
wísto
Munjan
bist <
Pers.
Šughni
δu δīs
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
üroiwist
pānžwist
1000
ara δīs
cavōr δīs pīnʒ δīs
xōδīs
δīs δīs
azo·r
Rušan/Khuf δaw δos
aray δos
cavūr δos pīnʒ δos
xūw δos
δos
δos-uk
hazo·r
Bartang
arāy δus
cavōr
δus
čil
pīnʒ δus
xōw δus
δus
δus-ak
azōr
wast-a
δůs
δow
wast
δow
wast-a
δůs
cůy
wast
cůywást
-at δůs
čer wast
čer
wást-at
δůs
penǰ bist
(h)azór
bīst-t
δas
bu-bīst
bu-bīstt-δas
truybīst
tru-bīst(t) δas
cыbыr
bīst
cыbыr
bīst-(t)
δas
panʒ-bist
δas-δas
sad < Š.
δaw δus
Sarykoli
Yazghulam wast
Iškašim
bist,
Sang
dьwišt
Wakhi
wīst /
bīst
< Tajik
Payne 1989, 435; Efimov & Ėdeľman 1978, 226–28.
The first serious analysis of the Burushaski numerals was proposed by Tomaschek (1880,
823–24). He recognized the role of the numeral ‘2’ in ‘4’ and ‘8’,92 and the vigesimal character
of the higher numerals ‘30’, ‘40’, ‘50’, ‘60’, ‘70’, ‘80’, ‘90’. Also remarkable are his external comparisons, *Cu ‘10’ (extracted from ‘9’) with Yeniseian (PY *tuʔ-ŋ; Starostin 1995, 289) and TiLet us mention that an even stricter binary system appears in Haida, one of the Na-Dene languages: see
Blažek (1999: 327).
92
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
betan bću (PST *[}h]Vj; CVST IV, 144–45), and tóorumo ‘10’ with (Sino-Tibetan) Khaling taḍham,
taṛ am ‘10’. It seems very probable that a Burushic substratum is responsible for the existence
of vigesimal systems in the Nuristani and Dardic and Pamir languages (Lorimer 1937: 83),
rarely also in Pašto (dwah-šilah ‘40’, dre-šilah ‘60’, tsalōr-šilah ‘80’), Baluči (dō-gīst ‘20’, sī-gīst ‘60’,
čyār-gīst ‘80’), and Asiatic Romani (turrum-wist ‘60’, turrum-wist-das ‘70’)93 — see Tomaschek
(1880: 826) — much as the vigesimal systems in Ossetic and Georgian are likely due to Caucasian substratum, and those of Romance and Celtic due to the Basque/Aquitanian substratum.94
Now as to Č’s proposed material correspondences between Bur and IE numerals: the first,
comparing PIE *H1oi-no-s ‘one’ with Bur hen / hin (class I, II) ~ han (class II, IV) ~ hek / hik
(counting form) ‘one’ is almost plausible, except that the form *H1oi-no-s is characteristic of
western IE (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic), while forms with different suffixes *H1oi-ko-s
and *H1oi- o-s gave rise to the Indic and Iranian words for ‘one’ shown above. The late Sergei
Starostin derived Bur *he- ‘one’ from Proto-DC *HVc+́ / *cH+ ‘one’, a root that produced the
word for ‘one’ in all DC languages (except Basque):95 Caucasian: PNC *cH+ (Chechen cħaʔ,
Khwarshi has, Ubykh za, etc.), Yeniseian: PY *χu-sa, and Sino-Tibetan: PST *ʔǐt (Old Chinese
*ʔit, Burmese ać, etc.). The phonetic development in Bur is regular, as also seen in the word for
‘fox’, e.g.:96
• Bur *he- ‘one’ : Chechen cħaʔ ‘one’ < PNC *cH+
• Bur *hal ‘fox’97 : Chechen cħōgal ‘fox’ < Proto-Nakh *cɦōḳal < PNC chwōlV-ḳV
For Bur *alto ‘two’ Č suggests comparison with IE *H2al- ‘other’ + ordinal suffix *to, in
spite of the fact that this is not an ordinal but a cardinal number, and that the “suffix” to- appears nowhere else in the Bur numerals. As we have shown above, Bur /lt/ is a distinctive
cluster that can be traced back to PDC lateral affricates, and thus we prefer the comparison of
Bur *alto ‘2’ (and *w-alt- ‘4’, *altamb- ‘8’, and *altar ‘20’) with PDC *=ZnŁe, whose other reflexes
include PWC *p(:)0W´0 ‘4’, PEC *bǖne ‘8’ (Chechen barh, Avar míW:-go, Lezgi müžü-d, etc.),
Basque *lau ‘4’, and PST *(p)lĭj ‘4’ (Tibetan bźi, Burmese lijh, Kaling ‘bhäl, etc.). Note that only
Bur retains this stem for 2, 22, 23, 2×10, while Basque, West Caucasian, and Sino-Tibetan use it
only for 22, and East Caucasian only for 23, and that several of the languages cited have a labial
prefix before the stem:
Bur
*w-alt-
22
PEC
*bǖn6e
23
PWC
*p(:) ´
22
PST
*(p)lĭj
22
Table 18
Berger (1959) detailed Burushaski influences on Romani. E. Bashir (pc.) adds that the vigesimal system is
also found in Panjabi.
94 Blažek (1999: 333–334) discusses in more detail the vigesimal systems in various IE languages and their
probable origins from DC substrata.
95 S. A. Starostin suggested derivation of Basque bat ‘one’ from the PDC root *=ĭṭV ‘to cut, divide, break’, with a
fossilized class prefix as in Avar b-uṭá ‘part’, Lak b-aṭu-l- ‘separate’, and Dargwa Chirag b-iṭa-l ‘part’ (NCED 660–661).
96 According to Starostin (CSCP 60–67) the PDC initial sibilant-laryngeal clusters *cH, *ʒH, *śH- regularly
yield Bur *h.
97 There is a certain resemblance to Indo-Aryan words for ‘jackal, fox’: Skt. ś#gālá- > Hindi siyāl, siyār, sāl,
‘jackal’, Oriya siyāḷa, siaḷa, etc. (CDIAL 729), though Berger (1998 III: 186) makes no reference to this as a source of
Bur hal.
93
53
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
Next, Č attempts to derive Bur altámbo ‘8’ from PIE *o©tō(u) ‘8’, “with a change of ak > al
under the influence of the Bur numerals for 2 and 4” (p. 75). In view of the holistic relationship
of the Bur words for 2, 22, and 23, as shown above, it seems highly unlikely to us that all the
other IE lower numerals would be discarded and only ‘8’ retained, with this odd change.
Finally Č (p. 75) tries to connect Bur huntí ‘9’ with PIE *H1ne ‘9’, “with dissimilation,” presumably to eliminate the first nasal. However, the non-counting forms contain sibilant affricates:
(H, N) hunćó, (Y) hu"ó, and we saw (above) Tomaschek’s hypothesis of ‘one’ (hun) away from
‘ten’ (ćó, "ó). Besides Yeniseian *tuʔ- ‘10’and Sino-Tibetan *[ʒh]Vj ‘10’, Starostin and Nikolayev
(NCED 245) have posited PNC *ȱĕn"Ĕ ‘10’ (Andi ho"o-go, Lezgi "u-d, Abkhaz ža-bá, etc.), and
some have suggested that a cognate element *ci is found in the Basque numerals *sor-ci ‘8’ and
*bedera-ci ‘9’ (thus 10 — 2, 10 — 1, respectively), though this latter hypothesis has been criticized
by Trask (1995: 64–65). One of the authors (Bl 328) has suggested another possibility: *hun- ‘1’ +
(Y) cu- ‘take away’, i.e. ‘(10) take away 1’.98 Berger (Beiträge 79) derives hunćó and hu"ó < *hún"ió
< *hun-tr-ió (‘1’ + ‘10’ + plural, i.e. ‘10 — 1’, like Finnish yhdeksan) Finally, Starostin (CSCG 255,
CSCP 81) compares Bur *hunćó ‘9’ with PEC *ʔĭl"´wǸ ‘9’ (Andi hoo, Khwarshi ũi-n, Lak ur, etc.),
though this does not account very well for the Bur counting form huntí.
In spite of Č’s ingenious (though, we think, erroneous) attempts, it is apparent that there
is nothing in common between the Bur and IE numeral systems. The kinship of the Bur numeral system with those of DC languages is most clearly seen in the words for 2, 22, and 23.
Lexicon
If Burushaski is an IE language, one would expect it to have something in common with
the inherited IE lexicon. We have already seen above that large segments of Bur basic vocabulary, including pronouns and numerals, have cognates in Dene-Caucasian languages. Here we
compare some of the core vocabulary in both languages according to basic semantic fields.
Kinship terms
PIE *p2ter- (*pH2ter) ‘father’ / *māter (*meH2ter) ‘mother’ : Bur *uỵ ‘father’, *´mi
‘mother’. The Bur word for ‘mother’, like the initial element of PIE *māter, is a variation of the
universal stem *mA, cf. Basque *eme ‘female’, *ama ‘mother’, Yeniseian *ʔama ‘mother’, etc.
Bur *uỵ ‘father’99 is clearly unrelated to PIE *pH2ter, or to anything else in IE, for that
matter. In any case the Bur words lack the characteristic IE structure ending in *ter.100
“Interestingly, we have a similar situation in Vedic and later OI, where 19 = 20 minus 1. The minus is expressed by ūna ‘gap’: thus: eka-unā-viḿśati [> ekonaviḿśati] 20 – 1 = 19, [likewise] for 29, etc. Again areal influence?
The Iranians of course do not do it.” (M. Witzel, pc.).
99 A highly speculative hypothesis for the origin of Bur *uỵ ‘father’ < *‘foster-father’ could involve the PDC
verb *=íȱwVl- ‘to eat’ (PNC *=iȱwVl ‘to feed on, to eat; to bite’, PY *ʔiʔr- ‘to eat’, Basque *alha- ‘to graze, feed’: CSCG
111). See above for the proposed lateral origin of Bur /ỵ/. A semantic analogy may be found in Old Irish al-tru
‘foster-father’ < al- to feed, nourish’ < PIE *al- ‘to raise, to feed’.
100 Elsewhere one of the authors has tried to demonstrate that the IE kinship terms in *ter should be segmented as *p-H2-ter- ‘father’, *m-eH2-ter- ‘mother’, *bȹr-eH2-ter- ‘brother’, *dȹug-H2-ter- ‘daughter’, *em-H2-ter ‘sonin-law’. The suffixal complex *(e)H2-ter- corresponds to Hittite adar / Luwian attar, which bear a function similar
to English hood or German heit. Hence these IE kinship names probably reflect an abstract meaning which can be
expressed as ‘fatherhood, motherhood, brotherhood, daughterhood’, etc. (Blažek 2001, 24–33).
98
54
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
PIE *bhrā-t-er- (*bȹreH2-ter) ‘brother’ / *swes-er- ‘sister’ : Bur has instead one stem *´-u
that serves as both ‘brother of male’ and ‘sister of female’, and two others, *hulVs ‘brother of
female, and *yást ‘sister of male’.101 All of these Bur words are bound morphemes — they can
only occur with a possessive prefix — and all of them have parallels in DC languages.
Bur *´-u closely resembles the Caucasian stem *=R¬ĭ that serves as ‘brother’ and ‘sister’,
often with changing class prefixes (e.g., Agul ču ‘brother’, či ‘sister’, Chechen wa-ša ‘brother’,
ja-ša ‘sister’, Dargwa u-zi ‘brother’, ru-zi ‘sister’, etc.); cf. Basque *an-his-ba ‘sister (of a
woman)’; PST *ć+jH ‘elder sister or brother’; Yeniseian *b-[i](ʔ)s ‘brother, sister’ (CSCG 112).
Bur *hulVs ‘brother (of female), husband’s brother’ resembles PEC *χalȱV / *ȱVχalV, a
word root that gives rise to Lak aħal-ču ‘bridegroom’s kinsman’ and aħal-š:ar ‘bride’s kinsman’,
along with cognates that mean ‘guest’ (probably a semantic development from *‘wedding guest’
< *‘kinsman invited to a wedding’): Dargwa Akusha aħạl, Tabasaran χ̣alu-žv, etc. (NCED 1067).102
Bur *yást ‘sister of male, wife’s sister’ can be compared with PEC *"HdV ‘woman’ (Chechen zuda ‘woman’, Dargwa Chirag cade ‘female’, Hunzib "utula ‘bride’, etc.), Urartian ašti ‘woman, wife, bride-groom’, PY *cVt- ‘husband’, Basque *(ema)ste ‘married woman, wife’ (CSCG 26).
PIE *s-nu, *s-yo- (*suH-nu, *suH-yo) ‘son’, *dhug(h)a-t-er- (*dȹug-H2-ter) ‘daughter’ :
Bur has one stem, *i, for both ‘son’ and ‘daughter’. Starostin (CSCG 156) connected this with PST
*ŋe(j) ‘child, young’, with the regular Bur loss of initial *ŋ.103 Cf. also Basque *nini ‘child, doll’.
Bur also has the word *´-s (Yasin ís, Hunza, Nager ´-sk) ‘human child, animal’s young’,
probably cognate with Caucasian *=RšwĔ ‘son, daughter’ (Avar w-as ‘son’, j-as ‘daughter’,
Kabardian śā-wa ‘son’, etc.); Basque *śV (in *śe-me ‘son’, *o-śa-ba ‘uncle’, *alha-ba-śo ‘granddaughter’, *a-śa-ba ‘ancestor’, etc.); PST *śū ‘grandchild’ (CSCG 113).
IE *suH-nu, *suH-yo- ‘son’ are derivatives of the verb *seuH- ‘to give birth’ (IEW 913–14;
Rix et al. 2001: 538). Probably related are Kartvelian *šew-/*šw- ‘to give birth’: Georgian švili
“son” (Klimov 1998, 248, 251) ||| Afro-Asiatic: Cushitic: (East) Somali was, Konso os ‘to have
sexual intercourse’ || Omotic: Shinasha, Mocha šuw, Kafa šii, Anfillo šuy- ‘to give birth’
(Lamberti 1993: 384) ||| Uralic: Mari š0wä ‘to give birth’ (Illič-Svityč 1967: 361: IE + Kartv. +
Mari). There is likely a remote (‘Borean’) connection between PDC *=RšwĔ and the other words
in this paragraph, but the morphological features are entirely different: IE stem + suffix vs. Bur
(and DC) prefix + stem.
In sum, there is no resemblance whatsoever, whether in overall kinship structure or lexemes, between Bur and IE kinship terms, apart from some possibly very remote (‘Borean’) cognates (PIE *s- ~ Bur *´s, PIE *mā-t-er- ~ Bur *´mi).
Body part words
PIE *erd- ‘heart’ : Bur *´-s ‘heart, mind’. The Bur word has been compared with Caucasian: PNC *ȱămYa ‘sky, cloud; soul, breath; god’ (Akhwakh as:i ‘breath’, Ubykh p-sa ‘soul,
spirit’, etc.), Basque *ɦaise ‘wind’, etc. (CSCG 263);104 another possibility is comparison with
These words have extended meanings in the Burusho kinship system: *´u also serves as ‘husband of a
man’s sister’, *hulVs as ‘husband’s brother’, and *jást as ‘wife’s sister’. The typology of the Bur sibling terms is similar to Basque: *anaie ‘brother of male’/ *ne-ba ‘brother of female’; *an-his-ba ‘sister of female’ / *a"e-ba ‘sister of male’.
102 In these words /ạ/ denotes a pharyngealized vowel, and /χ/ a voiceless pharyngealized uvular fricative,
̣
otherwise written (more awkwardly) with the paločka as /aI/ and /χI/, respectively.
103 Seen also in Bur *a- ‘1st person singular pronominal prefix’ ~ PST *ŋā- ‘I, we’, PEC *n ‘I’, Basque *ni ‘I’, etc.
(CSCG 156, CSCP 48).
104 For semantics, cf. Rumanian inimă ‘heart, soul, mind,’ etc. < Latin anima ‘wind, air, breath, spirit, mind’, etc.
101
55
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
Basque *bi-si ‘life; alive’, PNC *YĭHwV ‘breath, breathe’: Chechen sa ‘soul’, oblique base si-na,
etc.) (CSCG 188).
The IE word is, we think, cognate with Kartvelian *mḳerd- ‘chest, breast’ (Klimov 1998,
123; Illič-Svityč 1971, #200: IE+Kartv.) and, in Afro-Asiatic: Chadic: Hausa ḳirji, pl. ḳiraaza
‘chest’, Gwandara g0riji id. (Skinner 1996).
PIE *okw- (*H3ekw) ‘eye’ : Bur *´-l-ći / *il- (the latter in compounds). The Bur word is
clearly comparable with Caucasian: PNC *ȱwĭlȱi ‘eye’ (cf. especially Dargwa *ħuli, Tabasaran,
Agul, Rutul ul) and Yeniseian: PY *de-s (Ket dēś, Kott tīš, Pump. dat, where *d- is a regular initial reflex of PDC *l-: CSCG 266, CSCP 68).
The IE word *H3ekw- has, we think, external cognates in Altaic: PA *úk®u ‘to understand,
look into’ (Old Turkic uq- ‘to understand’, Old Japanese uka-kap- ‘to look into, inquire’, etc.);
cf. also Semitic: Ugaritic ®aq ‘eyeball’; Hebrew ®āqā id. (Koehler & Baumgartner 2001 I: 873);
Geez ®oqa ‘to know, understand, observe’, Amharic awwäqä ‘to know’, Harari āqa id. (Leslau
1987: 78–79); Cushitic: (Central) *aq ‘to know’ > Kemant ax, Kunfäl ah, Awngi aq- id.; (East)
Somali aq id. (Appleyard 2006, 89–90).
PIE *ō(w)s- ‘mouth’105 : Bur *qhát. The latter is comparable with Caucasian: PEC *qwJṭi
‘Adam’s apple, uvula’ > Lak qwịṭ ~ qịṭ ~ qụṭ ‘Adam’s apple, beak’,106 Kryz χuluṭ ‘larynx’ (< *χuṭul), etc. (CSCG 172).107
PIE *ara, *eras- ‘head’108 : Bur *yaṭ-is. Cf. Caucasian: PEC *ɦwōmdV ‘brain, head’: Avar
ȥadá- ‘head’, Tsez, Hinukh ata ‘brain’, Archi ọnt ‘head (of woman or animal)’,109 etc. (CSCG 98).110
PIE *nas, *nās- ‘nose’ : Bur *muś ‘nose’, *múś ‘snot’. Cf. Caucasian: PNC *mɦ[^ĕ ‘edge’
(Ingush mȥiz-arg ‘snout’, etc.: NCED 813); or PEC *mHărčwV ‘pus; mucus, snot’ (Chechen marš
‘snot’, Tsakhur maš ‘pus’, etc.: CSCG 144); Basque *mośu ‘nose, face, kiss, point, beak’.
PIE *ost(h)- ‘bone’111 : Bur *ltén ‘bone’, *ltán-c ‘leg’. Cf. Caucasian: PEC *SwVnʔV ‘groin;
part of leg’: Avar W:an ‘groin’, Archi W:on-t’ol ‘fingernail’, Kryz kǸn ‘ankle’, etc.; PST *l0ŋ ‘shin,
ankle’ (CSCG 140).
PIE *ped- ‘foot’ : Bur *húṭ- ‘foot’. Cf. Caucasian: Avar ħeṭ / ħeṭé ‘foot’, Dargwa Kaitag ṭah
‘foot, hoof’, etc. < PEC *ɦīṭwM / *ṭwīɦM; PST *tRH ~ *dRH ‘heel, ankle’ (CSCG 207).
PIE *yekw- (*(H)°ékɀ±(t)) ‘liver’ : Bur *´-ken ‘liver’. Cf. Caucasian: PEC *²unHV > Chamalal ḳ³
‘liver’, Bezhta, Hunzib koma ‘kidney’, etc. (NCED 728); cf. PST *kjnH ‘kidney’ (CVST V: 58, no. 214).
According to D. Q. Adams (EIEC, p. 387), the form *ō(w)s- ‘mouth’ should be reinterpreted as two distinct
stems: (i) *H1/4 óH1(e)s, gen. *H1/2eHsós; (ii) *Hxoust-ā.
106 /ị/, /ụ/ represent pharyngealized vowels, also (awkwardly) written iI, uI, where I represents the paločka in
the Cyrillic orthography of Caucasian languages.
107 Alternatively, cf. PNC *GwēṭV ~*GēṭwV ‘crop, craw; beak, Adam’s apple’ > Lak. q:iṭi ‘uvula’, etc. (CSCG 172).
108 The IE word for ‘head’ should be reconstructed as *#réH , gen. *#H ós, singulative *órH s#, collective
2
2
2
*érH2or (Adams, EIEC 260). The meaning ‘brain’ developed in Latin cerebrum and Old High German hirni.
109 /ọ/ represents a pharyngealized vowel = NCED /oI/ (cf. note to ‘mouth’, etc.)
110 The correspondence of Bur *y- = *j- ~ PNC *ɦ- is recurrent. Cf. Bur *yáltar ‘leafy branches’, etc. ~ PEC
*ɦăl,VłV ‘branch, pod’ (above in the discussion of Bur lt).
111 The IE word ‘bone’ should be reconstructed as *H est(H).
3
105
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On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Č (p. 38) attempts to connect the Bur word with PIE *(H)°ékɀ±(t) (a heteroclitic r/-n stem),
ignoring the root syllable *(H)°ékɀ- = *yekw,112 while another originally heteroclitic word, PIE
*wed- ‘water’, is compared with Bur buḍóo ‘rinsing water’, which has no trace of either heteroclitic suffix r or n. (Cf. instead OI *buḍyati ‘sinks’, Marathi buḍbuḍ ‘sound of bubbling’, etc.:
CDIAL 9272.)
PIE *(o)nAbh- ‘navel’113 : Bur *sú[m] ‘umbilical cord, navel’114 ~ Cf. Caucasian: Chamalal
ṣũj, Lak "un, Dargwa zu, Khinalug "um ‘navel’, etc. < PEC *\ŏnʔŭ (CSCG 249).
Basic verbal roots
PIE *lewe- ‘to hear’ : Bur *´-yal- ‘to hear’ ~ cf. Caucasian: PNC *=eQu ‘to hear’: Andi ani‘to hear’, Budukh ix- id., etc. (NCED 411, CSCG 46)
PIE *ed- ‘to eat’ : Bur *ṣi (with class I, II, III singular object) / *ṣu (with class I, II, III plural
object) / *śi ‘to eat’ (with class IV object) ~ cf. Yeniseian: PY *sī- ‘to eat’ ~ PST *ʒha id. ~ Caucasian: Tsez, Khwarshi =a"- ‘to eat’, Tindi c:a- ‘to drink’, etc. < PEC *=V^V ~ Basque *auśi-ki ‘to
bite’ (NCED 1017, CSCG 209)
PIE *dō(w)- ‘to give’115 : Bur (1) *u- ‘to give’ (only with class I, II, III object), (2) *ćhi- ‘to
give’ (only with class IV singular object); (3) *ġun- ‘to give’ (only with class IV plural object).
The three class-determined Bur verb stems have distinct DC origins:
(1) cf. PNC *mMxw; PST *ŋaH ‘to give, borrow, rent’ (CSCG 156); 116
(2) cf. Caucasian: Chamalal ič- ‘to sell, give’, Bezhta =is- ‘to sell’, Khinalug če=ḳwi ‘to sell’,
etc. < PEC *=ićV (NCED 626);
(3) ? cf. PEC *HVEVn- ‘to take, snatch’ (NCED 615); PST *gŏn ‘to collect’ (CVST V: no. 56);
Basque *(e)-ken- ‘to take away’, etc.117
Here the verb used in Bur is determined by the class of the object. (Cf. the preceding example, ‘to eat’.) This is a totally un-Indo-European feature, but it appears to be a deep-seated trait
of Dene-Caucasian, with manifestations at least in Basque and Na-Dene.118
Other basic words
PIE *(e)nomen- ‘name’119 : Bur *yek ‘name, reputation’: (Y) yék, pl. yékiŋ, yékićiŋ, (H, N)
ík, pl. íkićiŋ . Cf. Yeniseian: PY *ʔiG > Ket ī ‘name’, pl. εʔŋ, Kott ix, īx, pl. īkŋ / ekŋ / eäkŋ. This is
Lorimer (1935) considered Burushaski 8kin, pl. 8kimiŋ, 8ki·niŋ ‘liver’ a borrowing from Indo-Iranian:
OI yák#t, gen. yakná ‘liver’, Pashto yna, Yidgha yēġn id. etc. (IEW 504; Bailey 1979: 108).
113 The IE word ‘navel’ should be reconstructed as *H nobȹ- (Adams, EIEC 391).
3
114 Underlying *m found in the plural form súimuc.
115 In LIV 105–07 reconstructed as *deH - & *deH Y.
3
3
116 According to Starostin < PDC *ŋVxwV ‘to give, borrow’, with regular loss of initial *ŋ in Bur (CSCP 48).
117 Assuming the common semantic relationship of ‘give’ and ‘take’ (as in PIE *gȹab(ȹ), etc.).
118 This trait is highly developed in Na-Dene: Athapaskan: e.g. Navajo tí¡ ‘handle animate singular object’, ką́
‘handle a rigid container with contents’, žòòž ‘handle a set of parallel long rigid objects’ (each representing a different class). And at the far western extreme we find remnants of similar tendencies in Basque: the dialects have
different words to express the concept ‘dry’, e.g. Zuberoan agor pertains to sources and streams of water, ütsal to
aliments and terrain, eihar to the human body, fauna and flora, and idor to dryness in general.
119 The IE etymon ‘name’ has been reconstructed as *H nóm£ (Polomé & Mallory, EIEC 390).
1
112
57
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
one of the remarkable parallels between Bur and Yeniseian (cf. Toporov 1971), extending even
to the inanimate plural endings with velar nasals.120
We can see from these examples that Bur really shares almost no basic vocabulary with IE.
Conclusions
It is impossible to disprove relationship. We agree with Čašule that there may be some
kind of very deep-level relationship between Burushaski and IE. However, we propose, and
we believe we have shown, that Burushaski is much closer genetically to the Dene-Caucasian
languages than it is to Indo-European.
Much of the similarity between Bur and IE can be attributed to a long period of symbiosis
and language contact between Bur and its Indo-Iranian neighbors. There is evidence that early
Indo-Aryan was influenced by Bur (or perhaps a wider-ranging Burushic family) as its speakers entered the Indian subcontinent by way of the Hindukush and Pamir regions (see, e.g.,
Lorimer 1937, Tikkanen 1988, Witzel 1999). We noted above such features as the vigesimal
numeral system (discussed above) in Nuristani, Dardic, Pamir, Pašto, Baluči, and Asiatic Romani. There are also lexical borrowings from Bur that have penetrated into the basic lexicon,
e.g. in Šina: birdi ‘earth’, phurgū ‘feather’, čhµṣ ‘mountain’, tam doiki ‘to swim’; and in Khowar:
tip ‘full’, phur ‘hair’, būk ‘neck’, etc. (Kogan 2005: 173). These parallels reflect only areal, not
genetic relations, and so they are the results of secondary convergence. The areal parallels indicate the existence of a much wider expanse of the Burushic stratum in the past, but there are
no direct Burushaski-Indo-Iranian/Indo-European genetic links, only some very old elements
that represent archaic residue from a remote ancestor (Borean) common to the ancestor of
Indo-European (Nostratic or Eurasiatic) and the ancestor of Burushaski (Dene-Caucasian).121
Postscript
Since this article was originally written (around mid-2007) there have been some new developments in the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis. A consensus has been developing that the
eastern members, Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dene, probably result from an early split of the DC
proto-language, leaving the western branches (Basque, Caucasian, Burushaski, and Yeniseian)
to a period of common development in which some grammatical and lexical features (e.g.,
suppletive pronominal paradigms [see above]; words such as western *ȱwĭlȱi ‘eye’ [see above]
vs. eastern *wĕm,Z ‘eye’122) crystalized.
In a recent lexicostatistical study by George Starostin (p.c.), using the 50 most generally
stable items on the Swadesh 100word list (G. Starostin 2010b), a tentative subgrouping has
emerged in which the eastern branches (Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dene) are indeed opposed to the
western group (Basque, Caucasian, Burushaski, and Yeniseian), thus confirming the old „SinoBesides ‘name’, Bur and Yeniseian share several important basic lexical isoglosses, e.g. ‘eat’ (B *śi / *ṣi / *ṣu ~
Y *sī), ‘egg’ (B *ṭiŋ- ~ Y *jeʔŋ / *jʔŋ), ‘eye’ (B *l-ći ~ Y *de-s), ‘hand’ (B *reŋ ~ Y *ŕŋ), ‘leaf’ (B *ltap ~ Y *jTpe), ‘root’
(B *cheréṣ ~ Y *čīǯ), etc., as well as the pronominal and numeral words discussed above.
121 For example, the case of Bur *´s ‘child, young’ ~ PIE *suH-(nu,-yo) ‘son’, cited above.
122 PST *my4k (Old Chinese 目 *muk, Tibetan mig, Lepcha mik, a-mik, etc. ‚’eye’); Tlingit wàg, Athabaskan
*n-wēg-ʔ ‘eye’. See CSCG 216: this word was preserved with other semantic developments in the western DC
languages.
120
58
On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Dene“ idea of Edward Sapir (Bengtson 1994). Within the western group G. Starostin finds a
split between a Basque-Caucasian branch on the one hand and a Burusho-Yeniseian branch on
the other (Bengtson 2010a, 2010b; G. Starostin 2010a).
As to the recently developed „Dene-Yeniseian“123 idea initiated by Ruhlen (1998b) and
continued by Vajda (e.g., 2008, 2009, 2010), it now appears that the Yeniseian languages have
much more in common with Burushaski than (directly) with the Na-Dene languages. In other
words, there is indeed a “relationship” between Yeniseian and Na-Dene, in the sense that both
ultimately belong to different branches of the Dene-Caucasian macrofamily, but in our view
they do not by themselves form a valid taxon.124 Likewise, Na-Dene seems to form a taxon
with Sino-Tibetan and is thus closer to the latter than to Yeniseian.
Abbreviations of languages and dialects
Bur
DC
H
JSp
Lat
MSp
N
OSp
PDC
PEC
PNC
PST
PWC
PY
Tib
Y
Burushaski
Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian)
Hunza (Burushaski)
Judaeo-Spanish
Latin
Middle Spanish
Nager, Nagar (Burushaski)
Old Spanish
Proto-Dene-Caucasian (Proto-Sino-Caucasian)
Proto-East Caucasian
Proto-(North) Caucasian
Proto-Sino-Tibetan
Proto-West Caucasian
Proto-Yeniseian
Tibetan (Classical)
Yasin (Burushaski) = Werchikwar
Abbreviations of sources cited
Beiträge
Bl
CDIAL
CLI
CSCG
CSCP
CVST
EIEC
H
Hd
IEW
LDC
NCED
SSEJ
Berger (2008)
Blažek (1999)
Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Aryan Languages (Turner 1966)
Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum (Schmitt 1989)
Comparative Sino-Caucasian Glossary (Starostin 2005a)
Comparative Sino-Caucasian Phonology (Starostin 2005b)
A Comparative Vocabulary of Five Sino-Tibetan Languages (Peiros & Starostin 1996)
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Mallory & Adams 1997)
Hayward (1871)
Hodgson (1857)
Pokorny (1959)
Lexica Dene-Caucasica (Blažek & Bengtson 1995)
North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary (Nikolaev & Starostin 1994)
Sravniteľnyj slovaŕ enisejskix jazykov (Starostin 1995)
See http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy/.
For an Indo-European analogy, there is a “relationship” between, say, North Germanic and Western Iranian, in the sense that both are subgroups of IE, but they do not form any kind of taxon by themselves.
123
124
59
John D. Bengtson, Václav Blažek
ToB
W
X
Tower of Babel databases: http://starling.rinet.ru/main.html
Werner (2002)
Xelimskij (1982)
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Статья посвящена относительно недавней гипотезе, выдвинутой И. Чашуле, согласно
которой язык бурушаски, традиционно считавшийся изолятом, на самом деле входит в
состав индоевропейской семьи. Авторы прибегают к сравнительному анализу, сопоставляя гипотезу Чашуле и те конкретные фонетические, морфологические и лексические аргументы, которые он приводит в ее поддержку, с соответствующими аргументами в пользу т. н. «дене-кавказской» гипотезы, которая утверждает, что бурушаски на
правах отдельной ветви входит в обширную макросемью, включающую языки семьи
на-дене, а также сино-тибетские, севернокавказские, баскский и енисейские языки.
Анализ данных показывает, что аргументы в пользу дене-кавказского происхождения бурушаски в количественном отношении значительно превышают аргументы в
пользу индоевропейско-бурушаскской гипотезы. Связи бурушаски с индоевропейской
семьей оказываются либо чересчур бессистемными (в области фонетических соответствий), либо спорадическими и явно недостаточными (в области морфологии), либо вообще практически отсутствуют (в области базисной лексики). Таким образом, все случаи схождений между индоевропейскими и бурушаскскими элементами следует объяснять либо как (а) следы недавних контактов между бурушаски и индоарийскими
языками, либо как (б) случайные сходства, либо, в очень немногочисленных случаях,
как (в) следы «сверхглубокого» родства, которые никоим образом не представляют собой эксклюзивных «индоевропейско-бурушаскских» связей.
Ключевые слова: индоевропеистика, язык бурушаски, макрокомпаративистика, денекавказская макросемья, языки-изоляты.
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