Teasers by Gianfranco Forni
If you are a Vasconist, wouldn't you suspect the following NON-Basque lexicon might belong to a l... more If you are a Vasconist, wouldn't you suspect the following NON-Basque lexicon might belong to a language family that is closely related to Basque?
BODY PARTS: ler ‘hide, leather’, *antono- ‘forehead’, *buzdo- ‘tail’, *penglūn- ‘knee’, á ‘mouth’
NATURE: afon ‘river’, aβra ‘rain’, *ūr ‘water’, (s)nig- ‘snow’, gorn ‘fire’, ser ‘star’, orot ‘thunder’, *l(e)udr- ‘soil’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: *ioini ‘reed, rush’, bu ‘cow’, ebawl, ebol ‘foal’, sor ‘louse’, ariet- ‘ram’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *gdonyo- ‘person’, *paur- ‘child, small’, *sūn- ‘son’, atta ‘father’, gwaz ‘man, husband’, *genet- ’girl’, *pel- ‘city, fortified place’, *Heryo- ‘citizen, member of a community’
ADJECTIVES: *argi- ‘bright’, oll ‘all’, oyʦ ‘cold’, gwaeth ‘worse’, bon- ‘good’, biu, biot- ‘life’, gwar ‘over, on’, goly ‘blood’, *manti ‘magnitude’
VERBS: ser- ‘to sit’, gen- ‘to do’, (i)s- ‘to be’, wad- ‘to wade’, mon- ‘to go’, *mer(i)o- ‘to die, kill’, lego- ‘bed; to lie down’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: *mne ‘me’, ti ‘thou’, *wei ‘we’, sue ‘you (plural)’
NUMERALS: bi- ‘two’, ere-, eri- ‘three’, sé, sei ‘six’, sapt- ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘also, and’, all- ‘other’, *ni ess ‘it is not’, tull ‘hole’, yeith, yez ‘language’, *alut- ‘fermented drink’, euz, uth ‘horror’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
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If you are a Sumerologist, wouldn't you suspect the following NON-Sumerian lexicon might belong t... more If you are a Sumerologist, wouldn't you suspect the following NON-Sumerian lexicon might belong to a language family that is closely related to Sumerian?
ACTIONS: di- ‘say’, e-t- ‘speak’, *ēr- ‘reach’ > *er-t- ‘walk’, tu- ‘make’, qas- ‘run away’, kər- ‘enter’, ǵuv ‘rumination’, ū, uss-, *uku ‘sleep’, un- ‘rise’, *yū-(k) ‘wash, clean’, žir- ‘break, tear’, *sa- ‘buy’, *śȧr- ‘write’
BODY PARTS: tobuk, dowuq ‘knee(-cap)’, keŋeri ‘nose’, arGa, aqa ‘back’, *göt > kut ‘backside, buttocks’
ADJECTIVES: χulăn 'big', qalɨn 'massive', *sạg ‘right, healthy’, *hȫč 'angry', kavša- ‘weak’
NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: *ań- 'clear sky', *öd ‘time’, ńɛš, i-ŋeš ’tree’, yil ‘wind’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *ēren ‘mankind’, dōmuš ‘born’, aɣa, aba, ada ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, teŋir ‘god’, ev ‘house’
INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ne, tu- ‘what’, -mi ‘interrogative particle’, me-n ‘I’, man- ‘me’, *sẹ- ‘thou’, an- ‘that’, bi ‘this’
NUMERALS: *dul ‘single, alone’, *ü̯eś ’three’
BOUND MORPHEMES: *-en ‘collective suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘directive suffix’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
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As an Anatolianist, wouldn't you suspect the following lexicon might belong to an old Anatolian l... more As an Anatolianist, wouldn't you suspect the following lexicon might belong to an old Anatolian language?
VERBS: ar- ‘to make, do’, kap- ‘to take, seize, contain’, ker- ‘to make, build, erect’, trin- ‘to say, speak’, tur ’gift’ > tur- ‘to give (as a present), to offer’, ʦin- ‘to make, produce’, ʦiw- ‘to live’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ita, (e)ta ‘this, that, the’, et, eθ ‘thus’, θui ‘here’, mi ‘I’, mene, mine, mini 'me’
CONJUNCTIONS AND NEGATION: en, e, ein, ei ‘not’, -k(a), -χ ‘and’, -(u)m ‘and, but’
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: awi- ‘year’, kel ‘earth, land, ground’, tin ‘day, Zeus, Jupiter’, tiu ’moon, month’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: apa ‘father’, etera ‘member of a lower class’, husiu-, huš(u)- ‘child, young’, kelen-, klen-, klan ‘son’, lautni ‘freedman’, neft-, naφoθ- ‘grandson, nephew’, papa ‘grandfather’, puia ‘wife’, sakni(-) ‘consecrate(d), sacred, holy’, Tarχun 'Tarchon', teta ‘grandmother’
BOUND MORPHEMES: -(a)l, -la ‘genitive’, -i ‘locative’, -i ‘feminine’, -n ‘accusative sing.’, -na ‘denominative adjective’, -r ‘plural’, -θ(i), -ti, -te ‘locative’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
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As a Celtologist, wouldn't you think the following lexicon might belong to an old Celtic language... more As a Celtologist, wouldn't you think the following lexicon might belong to an old Celtic language?
BODY PARTS: larru ‘skin’, anʦun- ‘forehead’, bust- ‘tail’, benglaun ‘knee’, ao ‘mouth’
NATURE: abani ‘river’, snegu ‘winter’, gar ‘flame’, asar ‘star’, ludr- ‘dirt, soil’, ðewu- ‘day, sun’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: ini ‘reed, rush’, ðoly- ‘leaf’, beu- ‘cow’, ebeol- ‘mare’, sorr- ‘louse’, arit- ‘sheep’, velil- ‘bee’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: gðon- ‘man, person’, atta ‘father’, gwast- ‘young man’, ɣenetska ’girl’, eryo- ‘people, nation’
ADJECTIVES: argi ‘bright’, enlunn- ‘dark’, olo ‘all’, ougʦu ‘cold’, gwaiʦu ‘bad’, biuʦu ‘alive’, gwar ‘over’, gwoly- ‘bloody, blood-red’
VERBS: sed- ‘to sit’, -gin- ‘to do’, is- ‘to be’, eð- ‘to eat’, von- ‘to go’, vero ‘to kill’, leɣo- ‘sleep’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: θi ‘thou’, su ‘you’
NUMERALS: bi ‘two’, θire ‘three’, seis ‘six’, sepʦu ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘and’, allo- ‘other’, ensi ‘it is not’, ʦullo ‘hole’, yeiʦu ‘speech, language’, uʦu ‘fear’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
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Imagine the following scenario: archaeologists have recently found bilingual inscriptions and glo... more Imagine the following scenario: archaeologists have recently found bilingual inscriptions and glossaries of a previously unattested, extinct Southwest Asian language. This is an excerpt of its lexicon:
• ACTIONS: di ‘to speak’, e ‘to speak’ > eme ‘language’, er ‘to go (perfective)’, du ‘to make’, kas ‘to run’, kur ‘to enter’, gu ‘to eat’, mal ‘to be’, ugu ‘to give birth’, u, usag ‘sleep’, uku ‘to sleep’, un ‘to arise’, luh ‘to wash, clean’, zir ‘to break, tear out’, sa ‘to buy, sell’, sar ‘to write’
• BODY PARTS: dub, dug ‘knee’, kiri ‘nose’, aga ‘back’, gud- ‘buttock’
• ADJECTIVES: gal, gul- ‘big, large’, sag ‘good’, dug ‘good’, huš ‘angry’, kušu ‘tired’
• NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: an ‘sky’, ud ‘time’, ŋeš or ɳeš ’tree’, lil ‘wind’
• SOCIETY AND CULTURE: erin ‘people’, dumu ‘child’, aya, abba, adda ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, diŋir ‘god’
• INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ana ‘what’, ta ‘what’, me(n)- ‘interrogative root’, me ‘I’, ma ‘me, to me’, ze ‘thou’, ane ‘he, she’, -bi ‘this’
• NUMERALS: deli, duli ‘one, single, alone’, weš ’three’
• MISCELLANEA: e ‘house’
• BOUND MORPHEMES: -mV ‘deverbative noun suffix’, -ene ‘plural suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘dative suffix’
Wouldn’t you suspect that this language might belong to (or be related to) the Turkic language family?
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Drafts by Gianfranco Forni
Sumerian basic lexicon shares 82 isoglosses with the Turkic language family. Sumerian-Turkic isog... more Sumerian basic lexicon shares 82 isoglosses with the Turkic language family. Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper thus cover almost 40% of Sumerian basic lexicon. This percentage is way too high to be explained away as being due to mere chance; it is also too high to be due to loans (in either direction); it is most probably a signal of cognacy, i.e. a signal that Sumerian and Turkic share a common ancestor. As such, it warrants further research.
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Sumerian basic lexicon appears to share more than 50 isoglosses with the Turkic language family. ... more Sumerian basic lexicon appears to share more than 50 isoglosses with the Turkic language family. This draft paper tries to assess whether such isoglosses are due to chance resemblances, prehistoric loans, or inheritance from a common ancestor.
Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper cover more than 20% of Sumerian basic lexicon. This proportion is way too high to be explained away as being due to mere chance. Therefore, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper are either loans, or inherited lexicon.
Loans may well represent up to about a half of non-basic lexicon, but loans hardly ever amount to more than 10% of basic lexicon.
Thus, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper might represent a first set of inherited lexicon from a common proto-language – an ancestor of Sumerian and Proto-Turkic. However, 20%+ is too low a percentage to be accepted as an uncontroversial proof of inheritance.
Therefore, only a qualified and probabilistic conclusion can be derived from the isoglosses proposed in the present draft paper: if the isoglosses listed here are (mostly) valid, then:
• it is extremely unlikely that they are due to chance resemblances;
• it is fairly unlikely that they represent loans either way, i.e. from (proto/para-)Sumerian into (pre )proto-Turkic, or vice versa;
• it is possible, but still far from certain, that they are a signal of a common origin of Sumerian and Turkic.
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Hattic basic lexicon is compared with neighboring language families (Indo-European, Hurro-Urartia... more Hattic basic lexicon is compared with neighboring language families (Indo-European, Hurro-Urartian and Semitic). The result is compatible with an Indo-European origin of the majority of Hattic basic lexicon, complemented by a set of Hurro-Urartian and Akkadian loans.
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I’m working on a long paper (150+ pages) on Etruscan as an Anatolian language. What do you sugges... more I’m working on a long paper (150+ pages) on Etruscan as an Anatolian language. What do you suggest is the best option for me to publish it?
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Books by Gianfranco Forni
In 2013, a detailed research paper by Gianfranco Forni appeared in The Journal of Indo-European S... more In 2013, a detailed research paper by Gianfranco Forni appeared in The Journal of Indo-European Studies, describing a breakthrough finding: the Basque language, whose origins had so far remained obscure, actually is an Indo-European language. The main reason why this fact had escaped previous researchers is that Basque underwent a long chain of phonetic changes, which obscured its ultimate origin.
This dictionary is designed to make the origin of Basque easy to understand for a wider audience. The main sound laws linking Proto-Indo-European to Basque are explained in a simple, terse way. Each etymology of Basque basic, native lexicon is accompanied by intermediate reconstructions, an extensive list of cognates, and detailed references to sources. Several indices make this dictionary easy to use as a reference tool.
If you are eager to understand how the mystery of the origins of Basque can now be unraveled, this dictionary will guide you through this exciting discovery.
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Papers by Gianfranco Forni
This paper is intended for scholars who would like to evaluate the theory that Basque ultimately ... more This paper is intended for scholars who would like to evaluate the theory that Basque ultimately derives from Indo-European, but find published evidence on this subject either too complex (my JIES paper) or too terse (my self-published dictionary).
This paper therefore provides a linear, step-by-step introduction to this theory, in four stages:
1. an overview of Pre-Basque, as reconstructed by Michelena and Trask;
2. a gradual illustration of the most secure Indo-European etymologies of Pre-Basque basic lexicon (with intermediate lists of corresponding sound laws);
3. a list of less obvious etymologies;
4. a summary of sound laws.
This linear organization of the subject matter should enable scholars to evaluate the theory in a matter of hours, without going through the painstaking details, cross-references and revisions in the JIES paper.
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Current consensus among Etruscologists includes 43 glosses for basic lexicon, 20 glosses for non-... more Current consensus among Etruscologists includes 43 glosses for basic lexicon, 20 glosses for non-basic lexicon and 24 glosses for bound morphemes.
51% of basic lexicon, 40% of non basic-lexicon and 42% of bound morphemes from such consensus glosses have solid Indo-European etymologies with regular and simple sound correspondences. This evidence is well above the statistical threshold for chance resemblances plus loans, and therefore proves that Etruscan has an extremely high probability of being an Indo-European language.
Specific evidence (incl. e.g. possessive adjectives used as genitives) further points to an Anatolian origin of Etruscan.
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Elamite seems to share several isoglosses with Indo-European. The most promising ones are briefly... more Elamite seems to share several isoglosses with Indo-European. The most promising ones are briefly listed in the present draft paper.
Some further, tentative comparisons with other South-West Asian languages are also included, as suggestions for future research.
A more thorough treatment (incl. additional isoglosses, regular sound laws, statistical significance assessments, etc.) may follow in 2019-2020 if time permits.
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The goal of this draft paper is to quickly check if a genetic relationship between Uralic and Ind... more The goal of this draft paper is to quickly check if a genetic relationship between Uralic and Indo-European (IE) language families is likely or not.
The conclusion is that such relationship is very likely and deserves further research, because almost 50% of the most stable part of Proto-Uralic reconstructed basic lexicon has promising Indo-European correspondences. This is well above the percentages to be expected from mere chance resemblances and loans.
On the other hand, the PU-PIE genetic relationship does not look exclusive at all: many other Eurasian language families share several PU-PIE isoglosses.
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The present draft paper builds upon previous works on Basque as an Indo-European language, to pro... more The present draft paper builds upon previous works on Basque as an Indo-European language, to propose two possible IE etymologies for Basque bat, bede- ‘one’, namely:
*swe-de ‘self’ > ‘separate, alone’ > ‘one’
or
*h1e-bʰe-de ‘just this one here’ > ‘one’
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This draft paper suggests that Proto-Indo-European *iekʷ-r/n- ‘liver’, Proto-North-East-Caucasia... more This draft paper suggests that Proto-Indo-European *iekʷ-r/n- ‘liver’, Proto-North-East-Caucasian *HlätɬˀV ‘liver’, Proto-Semitic *libb- ‘heart’, Sumerian ša(g) (Emesal šab) ‘heart’, Hattic šakil ‘heart’ (and possibly Proto-North-West-Caucasian *ʦʷˀA ‘liver’, Proto-Kartvelian *q̇wiʒ1-l- ‘liver’ and Elamite buni ‘heart’) may be related and derive from a proto-form **lʲekʷ- (or similar).
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The present draft paper suggests that Proto-Kartvelian (South-Caucasian) *zisxl- 'blood' and Prot... more The present draft paper suggests that Proto-Kartvelian (South-Caucasian) *zisxl- 'blood' and Proto-Indo-European *h1ésh2-r [nom., acc.], *h1sh2-én-s [gen.] 'blood' may ultimately be related. This external comparison, combined with Kortlandt's law (PIE *dC > *h1C), points to a pre-PIE reconstruction **d(e)sh2-r/n-.
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The first three phonemes of Etruscan cezp 'eight' can be derived from PIE *h3ek̑t-(e)h3(u), via s... more The first three phonemes of Etruscan cezp 'eight' can be derived from PIE *h3ek̑t-(e)h3(u), via sound laws similar to the ones established for Lycian.
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Teasers by Gianfranco Forni
BODY PARTS: ler ‘hide, leather’, *antono- ‘forehead’, *buzdo- ‘tail’, *penglūn- ‘knee’, á ‘mouth’
NATURE: afon ‘river’, aβra ‘rain’, *ūr ‘water’, (s)nig- ‘snow’, gorn ‘fire’, ser ‘star’, orot ‘thunder’, *l(e)udr- ‘soil’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: *ioini ‘reed, rush’, bu ‘cow’, ebawl, ebol ‘foal’, sor ‘louse’, ariet- ‘ram’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *gdonyo- ‘person’, *paur- ‘child, small’, *sūn- ‘son’, atta ‘father’, gwaz ‘man, husband’, *genet- ’girl’, *pel- ‘city, fortified place’, *Heryo- ‘citizen, member of a community’
ADJECTIVES: *argi- ‘bright’, oll ‘all’, oyʦ ‘cold’, gwaeth ‘worse’, bon- ‘good’, biu, biot- ‘life’, gwar ‘over, on’, goly ‘blood’, *manti ‘magnitude’
VERBS: ser- ‘to sit’, gen- ‘to do’, (i)s- ‘to be’, wad- ‘to wade’, mon- ‘to go’, *mer(i)o- ‘to die, kill’, lego- ‘bed; to lie down’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: *mne ‘me’, ti ‘thou’, *wei ‘we’, sue ‘you (plural)’
NUMERALS: bi- ‘two’, ere-, eri- ‘three’, sé, sei ‘six’, sapt- ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘also, and’, all- ‘other’, *ni ess ‘it is not’, tull ‘hole’, yeith, yez ‘language’, *alut- ‘fermented drink’, euz, uth ‘horror’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
ACTIONS: di- ‘say’, e-t- ‘speak’, *ēr- ‘reach’ > *er-t- ‘walk’, tu- ‘make’, qas- ‘run away’, kər- ‘enter’, ǵuv ‘rumination’, ū, uss-, *uku ‘sleep’, un- ‘rise’, *yū-(k) ‘wash, clean’, žir- ‘break, tear’, *sa- ‘buy’, *śȧr- ‘write’
BODY PARTS: tobuk, dowuq ‘knee(-cap)’, keŋeri ‘nose’, arGa, aqa ‘back’, *göt > kut ‘backside, buttocks’
ADJECTIVES: χulăn 'big', qalɨn 'massive', *sạg ‘right, healthy’, *hȫč 'angry', kavša- ‘weak’
NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: *ań- 'clear sky', *öd ‘time’, ńɛš, i-ŋeš ’tree’, yil ‘wind’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *ēren ‘mankind’, dōmuš ‘born’, aɣa, aba, ada ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, teŋir ‘god’, ev ‘house’
INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ne, tu- ‘what’, -mi ‘interrogative particle’, me-n ‘I’, man- ‘me’, *sẹ- ‘thou’, an- ‘that’, bi ‘this’
NUMERALS: *dul ‘single, alone’, *ü̯eś ’three’
BOUND MORPHEMES: *-en ‘collective suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘directive suffix’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
VERBS: ar- ‘to make, do’, kap- ‘to take, seize, contain’, ker- ‘to make, build, erect’, trin- ‘to say, speak’, tur ’gift’ > tur- ‘to give (as a present), to offer’, ʦin- ‘to make, produce’, ʦiw- ‘to live’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ita, (e)ta ‘this, that, the’, et, eθ ‘thus’, θui ‘here’, mi ‘I’, mene, mine, mini 'me’
CONJUNCTIONS AND NEGATION: en, e, ein, ei ‘not’, -k(a), -χ ‘and’, -(u)m ‘and, but’
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: awi- ‘year’, kel ‘earth, land, ground’, tin ‘day, Zeus, Jupiter’, tiu ’moon, month’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: apa ‘father’, etera ‘member of a lower class’, husiu-, huš(u)- ‘child, young’, kelen-, klen-, klan ‘son’, lautni ‘freedman’, neft-, naφoθ- ‘grandson, nephew’, papa ‘grandfather’, puia ‘wife’, sakni(-) ‘consecrate(d), sacred, holy’, Tarχun 'Tarchon', teta ‘grandmother’
BOUND MORPHEMES: -(a)l, -la ‘genitive’, -i ‘locative’, -i ‘feminine’, -n ‘accusative sing.’, -na ‘denominative adjective’, -r ‘plural’, -θ(i), -ti, -te ‘locative’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
BODY PARTS: larru ‘skin’, anʦun- ‘forehead’, bust- ‘tail’, benglaun ‘knee’, ao ‘mouth’
NATURE: abani ‘river’, snegu ‘winter’, gar ‘flame’, asar ‘star’, ludr- ‘dirt, soil’, ðewu- ‘day, sun’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: ini ‘reed, rush’, ðoly- ‘leaf’, beu- ‘cow’, ebeol- ‘mare’, sorr- ‘louse’, arit- ‘sheep’, velil- ‘bee’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: gðon- ‘man, person’, atta ‘father’, gwast- ‘young man’, ɣenetska ’girl’, eryo- ‘people, nation’
ADJECTIVES: argi ‘bright’, enlunn- ‘dark’, olo ‘all’, ougʦu ‘cold’, gwaiʦu ‘bad’, biuʦu ‘alive’, gwar ‘over’, gwoly- ‘bloody, blood-red’
VERBS: sed- ‘to sit’, -gin- ‘to do’, is- ‘to be’, eð- ‘to eat’, von- ‘to go’, vero ‘to kill’, leɣo- ‘sleep’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: θi ‘thou’, su ‘you’
NUMERALS: bi ‘two’, θire ‘three’, seis ‘six’, sepʦu ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘and’, allo- ‘other’, ensi ‘it is not’, ʦullo ‘hole’, yeiʦu ‘speech, language’, uʦu ‘fear’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
• ACTIONS: di ‘to speak’, e ‘to speak’ > eme ‘language’, er ‘to go (perfective)’, du ‘to make’, kas ‘to run’, kur ‘to enter’, gu ‘to eat’, mal ‘to be’, ugu ‘to give birth’, u, usag ‘sleep’, uku ‘to sleep’, un ‘to arise’, luh ‘to wash, clean’, zir ‘to break, tear out’, sa ‘to buy, sell’, sar ‘to write’
• BODY PARTS: dub, dug ‘knee’, kiri ‘nose’, aga ‘back’, gud- ‘buttock’
• ADJECTIVES: gal, gul- ‘big, large’, sag ‘good’, dug ‘good’, huš ‘angry’, kušu ‘tired’
• NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: an ‘sky’, ud ‘time’, ŋeš or ɳeš ’tree’, lil ‘wind’
• SOCIETY AND CULTURE: erin ‘people’, dumu ‘child’, aya, abba, adda ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, diŋir ‘god’
• INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ana ‘what’, ta ‘what’, me(n)- ‘interrogative root’, me ‘I’, ma ‘me, to me’, ze ‘thou’, ane ‘he, she’, -bi ‘this’
• NUMERALS: deli, duli ‘one, single, alone’, weš ’three’
• MISCELLANEA: e ‘house’
• BOUND MORPHEMES: -mV ‘deverbative noun suffix’, -ene ‘plural suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘dative suffix’
Wouldn’t you suspect that this language might belong to (or be related to) the Turkic language family?
Drafts by Gianfranco Forni
Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper cover more than 20% of Sumerian basic lexicon. This proportion is way too high to be explained away as being due to mere chance. Therefore, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper are either loans, or inherited lexicon.
Loans may well represent up to about a half of non-basic lexicon, but loans hardly ever amount to more than 10% of basic lexicon.
Thus, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper might represent a first set of inherited lexicon from a common proto-language – an ancestor of Sumerian and Proto-Turkic. However, 20%+ is too low a percentage to be accepted as an uncontroversial proof of inheritance.
Therefore, only a qualified and probabilistic conclusion can be derived from the isoglosses proposed in the present draft paper: if the isoglosses listed here are (mostly) valid, then:
• it is extremely unlikely that they are due to chance resemblances;
• it is fairly unlikely that they represent loans either way, i.e. from (proto/para-)Sumerian into (pre )proto-Turkic, or vice versa;
• it is possible, but still far from certain, that they are a signal of a common origin of Sumerian and Turkic.
Books by Gianfranco Forni
This dictionary is designed to make the origin of Basque easy to understand for a wider audience. The main sound laws linking Proto-Indo-European to Basque are explained in a simple, terse way. Each etymology of Basque basic, native lexicon is accompanied by intermediate reconstructions, an extensive list of cognates, and detailed references to sources. Several indices make this dictionary easy to use as a reference tool.
If you are eager to understand how the mystery of the origins of Basque can now be unraveled, this dictionary will guide you through this exciting discovery.
Papers by Gianfranco Forni
This paper therefore provides a linear, step-by-step introduction to this theory, in four stages:
1. an overview of Pre-Basque, as reconstructed by Michelena and Trask;
2. a gradual illustration of the most secure Indo-European etymologies of Pre-Basque basic lexicon (with intermediate lists of corresponding sound laws);
3. a list of less obvious etymologies;
4. a summary of sound laws.
This linear organization of the subject matter should enable scholars to evaluate the theory in a matter of hours, without going through the painstaking details, cross-references and revisions in the JIES paper.
51% of basic lexicon, 40% of non basic-lexicon and 42% of bound morphemes from such consensus glosses have solid Indo-European etymologies with regular and simple sound correspondences. This evidence is well above the statistical threshold for chance resemblances plus loans, and therefore proves that Etruscan has an extremely high probability of being an Indo-European language.
Specific evidence (incl. e.g. possessive adjectives used as genitives) further points to an Anatolian origin of Etruscan.
Contains 9 new etymologies connecting Hurro-Urartian with Indo-European
Contains 6 new isoglosses potentially connecting North Caucasian with Indo-European.
Some further, tentative comparisons with other South-West Asian languages are also included, as suggestions for future research.
A more thorough treatment (incl. additional isoglosses, regular sound laws, statistical significance assessments, etc.) may follow in 2019-2020 if time permits.
The conclusion is that such relationship is very likely and deserves further research, because almost 50% of the most stable part of Proto-Uralic reconstructed basic lexicon has promising Indo-European correspondences. This is well above the percentages to be expected from mere chance resemblances and loans.
On the other hand, the PU-PIE genetic relationship does not look exclusive at all: many other Eurasian language families share several PU-PIE isoglosses.
*swe-de ‘self’ > ‘separate, alone’ > ‘one’
or
*h1e-bʰe-de ‘just this one here’ > ‘one’
BODY PARTS: ler ‘hide, leather’, *antono- ‘forehead’, *buzdo- ‘tail’, *penglūn- ‘knee’, á ‘mouth’
NATURE: afon ‘river’, aβra ‘rain’, *ūr ‘water’, (s)nig- ‘snow’, gorn ‘fire’, ser ‘star’, orot ‘thunder’, *l(e)udr- ‘soil’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: *ioini ‘reed, rush’, bu ‘cow’, ebawl, ebol ‘foal’, sor ‘louse’, ariet- ‘ram’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *gdonyo- ‘person’, *paur- ‘child, small’, *sūn- ‘son’, atta ‘father’, gwaz ‘man, husband’, *genet- ’girl’, *pel- ‘city, fortified place’, *Heryo- ‘citizen, member of a community’
ADJECTIVES: *argi- ‘bright’, oll ‘all’, oyʦ ‘cold’, gwaeth ‘worse’, bon- ‘good’, biu, biot- ‘life’, gwar ‘over, on’, goly ‘blood’, *manti ‘magnitude’
VERBS: ser- ‘to sit’, gen- ‘to do’, (i)s- ‘to be’, wad- ‘to wade’, mon- ‘to go’, *mer(i)o- ‘to die, kill’, lego- ‘bed; to lie down’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: *mne ‘me’, ti ‘thou’, *wei ‘we’, sue ‘you (plural)’
NUMERALS: bi- ‘two’, ere-, eri- ‘three’, sé, sei ‘six’, sapt- ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘also, and’, all- ‘other’, *ni ess ‘it is not’, tull ‘hole’, yeith, yez ‘language’, *alut- ‘fermented drink’, euz, uth ‘horror’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
ACTIONS: di- ‘say’, e-t- ‘speak’, *ēr- ‘reach’ > *er-t- ‘walk’, tu- ‘make’, qas- ‘run away’, kər- ‘enter’, ǵuv ‘rumination’, ū, uss-, *uku ‘sleep’, un- ‘rise’, *yū-(k) ‘wash, clean’, žir- ‘break, tear’, *sa- ‘buy’, *śȧr- ‘write’
BODY PARTS: tobuk, dowuq ‘knee(-cap)’, keŋeri ‘nose’, arGa, aqa ‘back’, *göt > kut ‘backside, buttocks’
ADJECTIVES: χulăn 'big', qalɨn 'massive', *sạg ‘right, healthy’, *hȫč 'angry', kavša- ‘weak’
NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: *ań- 'clear sky', *öd ‘time’, ńɛš, i-ŋeš ’tree’, yil ‘wind’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: *ēren ‘mankind’, dōmuš ‘born’, aɣa, aba, ada ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, teŋir ‘god’, ev ‘house’
INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ne, tu- ‘what’, -mi ‘interrogative particle’, me-n ‘I’, man- ‘me’, *sẹ- ‘thou’, an- ‘that’, bi ‘this’
NUMERALS: *dul ‘single, alone’, *ü̯eś ’three’
BOUND MORPHEMES: *-en ‘collective suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘directive suffix’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser…
VERBS: ar- ‘to make, do’, kap- ‘to take, seize, contain’, ker- ‘to make, build, erect’, trin- ‘to say, speak’, tur ’gift’ > tur- ‘to give (as a present), to offer’, ʦin- ‘to make, produce’, ʦiw- ‘to live’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ita, (e)ta ‘this, that, the’, et, eθ ‘thus’, θui ‘here’, mi ‘I’, mene, mine, mini 'me’
CONJUNCTIONS AND NEGATION: en, e, ein, ei ‘not’, -k(a), -χ ‘and’, -(u)m ‘and, but’
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: awi- ‘year’, kel ‘earth, land, ground’, tin ‘day, Zeus, Jupiter’, tiu ’moon, month’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: apa ‘father’, etera ‘member of a lower class’, husiu-, huš(u)- ‘child, young’, kelen-, klen-, klan ‘son’, lautni ‘freedman’, neft-, naφoθ- ‘grandson, nephew’, papa ‘grandfather’, puia ‘wife’, sakni(-) ‘consecrate(d), sacred, holy’, Tarχun 'Tarchon', teta ‘grandmother’
BOUND MORPHEMES: -(a)l, -la ‘genitive’, -i ‘locative’, -i ‘feminine’, -n ‘accusative sing.’, -na ‘denominative adjective’, -r ‘plural’, -θ(i), -ti, -te ‘locative’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
BODY PARTS: larru ‘skin’, anʦun- ‘forehead’, bust- ‘tail’, benglaun ‘knee’, ao ‘mouth’
NATURE: abani ‘river’, snegu ‘winter’, gar ‘flame’, asar ‘star’, ludr- ‘dirt, soil’, ðewu- ‘day, sun’
PLANTS AND ANIMALS: ini ‘reed, rush’, ðoly- ‘leaf’, beu- ‘cow’, ebeol- ‘mare’, sorr- ‘louse’, arit- ‘sheep’, velil- ‘bee’
SOCIETY AND CULTURE: gðon- ‘man, person’, atta ‘father’, gwast- ‘young man’, ɣenetska ’girl’, eryo- ‘people, nation’
ADJECTIVES: argi ‘bright’, enlunn- ‘dark’, olo ‘all’, ougʦu ‘cold’, gwaiʦu ‘bad’, biuʦu ‘alive’, gwar ‘over’, gwoly- ‘bloody, blood-red’
VERBS: sed- ‘to sit’, -gin- ‘to do’, is- ‘to be’, eð- ‘to eat’, von- ‘to go’, vero ‘to kill’, leɣo- ‘sleep’
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: θi ‘thou’, su ‘you’
NUMERALS: bi ‘two’, θire ‘three’, seis ‘six’, sepʦu ‘seven’
MISCELLANEA: et- ‘and’, allo- ‘other’, ensi ‘it is not’, ʦullo ‘hole’, yeiʦu ‘speech, language’, uʦu ‘fear’
To learn more about the source of this lexicon, take a look at this teaser...
• ACTIONS: di ‘to speak’, e ‘to speak’ > eme ‘language’, er ‘to go (perfective)’, du ‘to make’, kas ‘to run’, kur ‘to enter’, gu ‘to eat’, mal ‘to be’, ugu ‘to give birth’, u, usag ‘sleep’, uku ‘to sleep’, un ‘to arise’, luh ‘to wash, clean’, zir ‘to break, tear out’, sa ‘to buy, sell’, sar ‘to write’
• BODY PARTS: dub, dug ‘knee’, kiri ‘nose’, aga ‘back’, gud- ‘buttock’
• ADJECTIVES: gal, gul- ‘big, large’, sag ‘good’, dug ‘good’, huš ‘angry’, kušu ‘tired’
• NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ENVIRONMENT: an ‘sky’, ud ‘time’, ŋeš or ɳeš ’tree’, lil ‘wind’
• SOCIETY AND CULTURE: erin ‘people’, dumu ‘child’, aya, abba, adda ‘father’, ama ‘mother’, diŋir ‘god’
• INTERROGATIVES, PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND DEICTICS: ana ‘what’, ta ‘what’, me(n)- ‘interrogative root’, me ‘I’, ma ‘me, to me’, ze ‘thou’, ane ‘he, she’, -bi ‘this’
• NUMERALS: deli, duli ‘one, single, alone’, weš ’three’
• MISCELLANEA: e ‘house’
• BOUND MORPHEMES: -mV ‘deverbative noun suffix’, -ene ‘plural suffix’, -ta ‘ablative suffix’, -ra ‘dative suffix’
Wouldn’t you suspect that this language might belong to (or be related to) the Turkic language family?
Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper cover more than 20% of Sumerian basic lexicon. This proportion is way too high to be explained away as being due to mere chance. Therefore, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper are either loans, or inherited lexicon.
Loans may well represent up to about a half of non-basic lexicon, but loans hardly ever amount to more than 10% of basic lexicon.
Thus, Sumerian-Turkic isoglosses listed in this paper might represent a first set of inherited lexicon from a common proto-language – an ancestor of Sumerian and Proto-Turkic. However, 20%+ is too low a percentage to be accepted as an uncontroversial proof of inheritance.
Therefore, only a qualified and probabilistic conclusion can be derived from the isoglosses proposed in the present draft paper: if the isoglosses listed here are (mostly) valid, then:
• it is extremely unlikely that they are due to chance resemblances;
• it is fairly unlikely that they represent loans either way, i.e. from (proto/para-)Sumerian into (pre )proto-Turkic, or vice versa;
• it is possible, but still far from certain, that they are a signal of a common origin of Sumerian and Turkic.
This dictionary is designed to make the origin of Basque easy to understand for a wider audience. The main sound laws linking Proto-Indo-European to Basque are explained in a simple, terse way. Each etymology of Basque basic, native lexicon is accompanied by intermediate reconstructions, an extensive list of cognates, and detailed references to sources. Several indices make this dictionary easy to use as a reference tool.
If you are eager to understand how the mystery of the origins of Basque can now be unraveled, this dictionary will guide you through this exciting discovery.
This paper therefore provides a linear, step-by-step introduction to this theory, in four stages:
1. an overview of Pre-Basque, as reconstructed by Michelena and Trask;
2. a gradual illustration of the most secure Indo-European etymologies of Pre-Basque basic lexicon (with intermediate lists of corresponding sound laws);
3. a list of less obvious etymologies;
4. a summary of sound laws.
This linear organization of the subject matter should enable scholars to evaluate the theory in a matter of hours, without going through the painstaking details, cross-references and revisions in the JIES paper.
51% of basic lexicon, 40% of non basic-lexicon and 42% of bound morphemes from such consensus glosses have solid Indo-European etymologies with regular and simple sound correspondences. This evidence is well above the statistical threshold for chance resemblances plus loans, and therefore proves that Etruscan has an extremely high probability of being an Indo-European language.
Specific evidence (incl. e.g. possessive adjectives used as genitives) further points to an Anatolian origin of Etruscan.
Contains 9 new etymologies connecting Hurro-Urartian with Indo-European
Contains 6 new isoglosses potentially connecting North Caucasian with Indo-European.
Some further, tentative comparisons with other South-West Asian languages are also included, as suggestions for future research.
A more thorough treatment (incl. additional isoglosses, regular sound laws, statistical significance assessments, etc.) may follow in 2019-2020 if time permits.
The conclusion is that such relationship is very likely and deserves further research, because almost 50% of the most stable part of Proto-Uralic reconstructed basic lexicon has promising Indo-European correspondences. This is well above the percentages to be expected from mere chance resemblances and loans.
On the other hand, the PU-PIE genetic relationship does not look exclusive at all: many other Eurasian language families share several PU-PIE isoglosses.
*swe-de ‘self’ > ‘separate, alone’ > ‘one’
or
*h1e-bʰe-de ‘just this one here’ > ‘one’
evidence that Basque is an Indo-European language. It
provides a brief history of previous research into the
origins of Basque; a short description of the genesis of this
article; a description of the methodology adopted for the
present research; an overview of Michelena’s internal
reconstruction of Pre-Basque; 23 sets of chronologically
arranged sound laws linking Proto-Indo-European to Pre-
Basque; Indo-European etymologies for 75% of the Basque
native basic lexicon, with systematic cross-references to
regular sound laws; Indo-European etymologies of some
Basque bound morphemes, including case markers; a
discussion of the findings; and Indo-European etymologies
of 40 additional, non-basic lexical items
The present paper aims at filling this gap, by offering a quick summary of our understanding of Etruscan basic lexicon.
This paper is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Etruscan by comparing its basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
The present update includes translations by Mauro Cristofani.
A longer paper (100+ pages), to be completed in 2018, will provide all the details, incl. historical phonology (i.e., sound laws), dozens of additional etymologies, detailed discussions of each etymology, references to sources and statistical analyses of findings.
• only lexical items for which Etruscologists have proposed a gloss have been used in this research (no attempt has been made at proposing new glosses for currently obscure or highly controversial Etruscan terms);
• 138 of the glosses put forth by Etruscologists belong to basic lexicon, and 97% of such basic lexicon has an IE etymology;
• 19 grammar morphemes have also been assigned a value by Etruscologists: 95% of them have an IE etymology;
• all such etymologies are based on regular sound laws;
• a few notable innovations are shared by Etruscan and Anatolian languages (often excluding Hittite).""
evidence that Basque is an Indo-European language. It
provides a brief history of previous research into the
origins of Basque; a short description of the genesis of this
article; a description of the methodology adopted for the
present research; an overview of Michelena’s internal
reconstruction of Pre-Basque; 23 sets of chronologically
arranged sound laws linking Proto-Indo-European to Pre-
Basque; Indo-European etymologies for 75% of the Basque
native basic lexicon, with systematic cross-references to
regular sound laws; Indo-European etymologies of some
Basque bound morphemes, including case markers; a
discussion of the findings; and Indo-European etymologies
of 40 additional, non-basic lexical items.""""
1. most non-African languages may be found to derive from a proto-language which is very similar to Proto-Indo-European;
2. language change rate is a growing function of population density, i.e. language change was much slower when prehistoric population density was very low.
A corollary of these conjectures is that the comparative method can reach well beyond the hypothetical 10,000 year barrier.
includes a new source:
Oğuz Soysal - Zu den rezenten Studien im Hattischen: eine Zwischenbilanz - in: Archivum Anatolicum 12/2-2018, p. 157-178
(https://www.academia.edu/38119714/ZU_DEN_REZENTEN_STUDIEN_IM_HATTISCHEN_EINE_ZWISCHENBILANZ).
New entries in red font.
This Excel file provides a searchable list of Hurrian and Urartian basic lexicon, summarizing various sources, incl. G. Wilhelm, M. Salvini, I. Wegner and A. Kassian. It is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Hurro-Urartian by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
Reconstructions with a green background have more complete data than those with a white background.
This DRAFT database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to explore external genetic relationships between Indo-European languages and other language families.
Its key sources are D. Sinor's (ed.) "The Uralic Languages" and K. Rédei's UEW (see dedicated sheet for details).
This draft database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Uralic languages by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
Its key source is Starostin & Nikolayev's North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary, whose entries have been transcribed using normalized phonetic symbols (see dedicated sheet for details).
This database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of North Caucasian languages by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
This file is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Hattic by comparing our current, limited understanding of its basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Elamite by comparing its basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Sumerian (and its Emesal variant) by comparing its basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It includes all extant reflexes of each proto-form.
Its key sources are various works by L. Kogan, S. Weninger, A. Militarev, E. Lipiński and P. R. Bennett (see dedicated sheet for details).
This database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Semitic languages by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It includes all extant reflexes of each proto-form.
Its key sources are Klimov's and Fähnrich & Sardshweladse's etymological dictionaries (see dedicated sheet for details).
This database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Kartvelian languages by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It includes all extant reflexes of each proto-form.
Its key sources are Starostin+Dybo+Mudrak's EDAL and a dictionary by A. Dybo (see dedicated sheet for details).
This database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Turkic languages by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
It is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to try and understand the origin of Hurro-Urartian by comparing their basic lexicon against other languages and language families.
This database collates, summarizes and compares 7 such lists.
I decided to make the current version publicly available, in case other historical linguists find it useful for their research. You may freely access, download, copy and/or distribute it.
Some interesting isoglosses point to an Anatolian origin.
Recent genetic data on Tuscanian humans and cows corroborate the linguistic findings.