PARTICULARITIES OF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES RESULTED FROM THE ANALYSIS OF THE WORD-PROBE 'FATHER'

Abstract

Starting from a previous study (Lesenciuc & Nagy, 2015: 329- 346) which highlighted fundamental differences between Indo-European languages based on isoglosses separating the south of the north of Europe, unlike the east-west separation achieved by criterion centum-satem, we reached the conclusion that, comparing with the waves of Indo-European migration westward, at least two linguistic substrata bring to light. Through the current paper, using a comparative analysis of diachronic linguistics and a peculiar research tool, the word-probe 'father', we highlighted the linguistic substrata previously mentioned and describe their linguistic nature.

Headnote

Abstract: Starting from a previous study (Lesenciuc & Nagy, 2015: 329- 346) which highlighted fundamental differences between Indo-European languages based on isoglosses separating the south of the north of Europe, unlike the east-west separation achieved by criterion centum-satem, we reached the conclusion that, comparing with the waves of Indo-European migration westward, at least two linguistic substrata bring to light. Through the current paper, using a comparative analysis of diachronic linguistics and a peculiar research tool, the word-probe 'father', we highlighted the linguistic substrata previously mentioned and describe their linguistic nature.

Keywords: Indo-European languages, centum-satem, linguistic substrata, Balkan linguistic unity.

Headnote

6. Abbreviations

Alb. - Albanian

Arm. - Armenian

Arom. - Aromanian/ Macedo- Romanian

Bret. - Breton

Bulg. - Bulgarian

Cat. - Catalan

Cz. - Czech

Du. - Dutch

Engl. - English

Etr. - Etruscan

Fr. - French

Germ. - German

Goth. - Gothic

Gr. - Greek

Hit. - Hittite

Hung. - Hungarian

I.E. - Indo-European

Ir. - Irish

Istr. - Istro-Romanian

Ital. - Italian

Lat. - Latin

Lith. - Lithuanian

Meg. - Megleno-Romanian

Ngr. - Modern Greek

OFr. - Old French

OIr. - Old Irish

Pol. - Polish

Port. - Portuguese

Prov. - Provencal

Rom. - Romanian

Russ. - Russian

SCr. - Serbo-Croatian

SItal. - South Italian

Slav. - Slavic

Slk. - Slovakian

Skt. - Sanskrit

Sp. - Spanish

Vegl. - Vegliot

1. Introduction. In 2015 we published, as a result of a research of more than ten years, consisting in comparative analysis (within synchronic linguistics, with rare references to dead languages), conducted on a sample of 124 Indo- European languages: 53 Indo-Iranian, 7 Baltic, 13 Slavic, 15 Italic, 7 Celtic, 14 Germanic, 2 Greek, 4 Anatolian, 2 Tocharian, 1 Albanian, 1 Armenian and 3 Thraco-Phrygian, an article through which we differentiated between fundamental features of the Indo-European linguistic typologies, comparing the isoglosses ap-udaka (apa) and as-bhu (a fi), and the isophone bh-, b-/f- within the term 'brother' with the classical centum-satem isogloss1. The surprising result of this research pointed out the fact that the separation of Indo-European languages based on the evolution of dorsal consonants in artificial, i.e. the centum-satem isogloss is not relevant in the study of Indo-European languages, namely that drawing this isogloss that separates eastern by western European languages based on so called satemization (fricatization) of eastern I.E. languages has ideological nuances. After analysing the ap-udaka si as-bhu isoglosses, a new distribution of IE languages in Europe emphasizes a new distinction between the characteristics of northern branches of languages: Slavic, Baltic, Germanic and Celtic, and of southern branches: Italic, Thraco-Phrygian, Greek, plus Albanian dialects. Moreover, languages from the South-East European area, whatever the branch they belong to, have features common to both categories, as languages of Indo-Iranian group. Based on the assumption of South-East European (Balkan) linguistic unity, discussed since the nineteenth century by the Slovenian linguist and philologist Jernej Bartol Kopitar2, the Russian phonologist Nicholas Trubetzkoy3 and the Romanian linguist Al. Rosetti4, respectively based on anthropologic and linguistic reasons regarding the cultural and religious syncretism in South-Eastern Europe, highlighted by the Lithuanian anthropologist Marija Gimbutas5, namely by the French linguist André Martinet6, we come to an important conclusion about the existence of the two substrata, the first of these resulting from the settlement of the first Indo-European tribes in Europe, validating the hypothesis of Balkan linguistic unity:

We can affirm that there is a substratum unity of the current Balkan languages (pre-Indo-European and Indo-European/Thracian), over which, either a Latin or a Slavic stratum is superposed. Our supposition is based on the linguistic statistics initiative concerning form particularities of morphological units within the Indo-European languages, but mostly, it is a consequence of our results analysis and of comparison of the study results with other results (historical, anthropological). These superposed substrata led to language particularities that displayed either a different character from the substratum, or, both characters7.

In these circumstances, the aim of this paper was to highlight the linguistic substrata, appeared due to successive Indo-European invasions, or Kurgan population invasions, as the phenomenon is known in archaeology and anthropology, since mid-fifth millennium BC and ending with the second millennium BC when Nomadic tribes of Ionians, Dorians and Achaeans settled in Hellas. For this I used a term of Indo-European origin, which, in diachronic research, aims at probing, at boring inside languages to highlight substrata. To be more expressive, we called the research tool 'word-probe', i.e. a tool that is useful in probing through linguistic substrata to recognize the nature of them as well as to underline the role of this word within the diachronic analysis.

2. The word-probe 'father' within Indo-European languages. The Romanian word tata (Arom. tata, pl. tatâni, Meg. tata, pl. tatoni, Istr. tote), which takes the same shape into Albanian, tatë, is considered to have Latin origins, being derived from the underused term tata. It is almost impossible for the Romanian term to have originated in the Lat. pater because of the serious violation of the phonetic criterion in etymology, explained by some Latinists as being an irregular evolution of the term. For the beginning the approach of the diachronic analysis of this term, is to note the existence of the word tata in Sanskrit, a usual appellation, equivalent of the French word papa. The Latin term pater comes from a common Indo-European root, from which Sanskrit (Skt.) terms pitarati and pitrya (denoting the paternity relationship) derived, as well as the root pitr-, meaning father. The Sanskrit term meaning father has the following forms in the nominative: singular pita, plural pitaras, and dual pitarau. Closer to the Latin word are the singulars in dative pitre, instrumental pitra, and locative pitari. It is possible, therefore, that the Romanian term parinte to have a parallel evolution with the Latin one, or to be later borrowed from Latin, thus modifying the Indo-European term used in this area, but the emergence of "r" before a dental consonant and the metathesis are irrelevant. The phonetic pertinence indicates a possible later change due to the contamination with the Latin word or due to the borrowing through a different term, but of the same semantic area: parentem. The mentioned transformations have taken place in Latin, similar forms from parentem being meet nowadays in Ital., Port. parente, Prov., Cat. paren, Fr. parent, Sp. pariente, and also Alb. përinthë, plural of princ - prince, ruler, monarch. -am ending, specific to the forms of accusative singular, genitive plural and instrumental, dative and ablative dual in Sanskrit may explain the Latin word ending.

The common Indo-European root *ati- (father) is found also in the diminutive *atiko-, that is the origin of the Slavic term otec [at'ets], but of Hit. ata, Alb. at, and Ir. athir too. Those four terms probably had different evolutions: the first three from an Indo-European dialect where the initial consonant disappeared, the last one through a linguistic phenomenon specific to Celtic languages, characterized by the fall of the initial p. It is important to notice what the linguist Henriette Walter said, that noted that the absence of letter p in Ogham writing (Celtic from British Islands) is a clue for the absence of the same letter, p, in the original Indo-European vocabulary8. In terms of Matteo G. Bartoli, in areas theory terms9, therefore, a Celtic isolated/lateral area (less exposed to linguistic contacts) can be delineate, explaining the possibility of maintaining the language from an earlier phase, i.e. some features of language spoken by the first Indo-European populations that entered the European continent. This explanation cannot be separated by the context of successive changes, in waves, well described by the theory of waves (Wellentheorie)10. Thus, Celtic population from Britannia belonged to the first Kurgan waves, being in contact with the old population of Europe. It is surprising, at a fist glance, the Etruscan term ati, identical with the Indo-European root, as well as the Etruscan that is a pre-Indo-European language. The phonetic phenomenon (loss of the initial consonant) is repeated in the case of word Etr. ami, meaning mother. In a different pre-Indo-European language the Basque, a term similar with the I.E. root *ati- (father) can be found: aita, meaning father. Even some languages from Altai area were "contaminated" by the Indo-European root *ati-, for example Turkish ata (father), but the phenomenon is isolated in the Turkic group of languages.

3. The two substrata: 'tata' and 'pater'. The presence of the deaf dental occlusive consonant t at the beginning of the Romanian word tata is not a singular case in the area of Indo-European languages. Even as a deaf consonant, or as a sound consonant, sometimes replaced by a spirant, the occlusive consonant does not fall as the initial or intervocalic labial consonant fell in Celtic languages from British Islands. The occlusive consonant is meet, therefore, in Bret. tat, zad, dad, from which it passed, in time, in the English terms dad, daddy, all these terms having the same meaning, father. We should not lose from this listing the Russian term dedushka - grandfather, suffixually derived (with the use of the I.E. suffix - ka, present in Sanskrit, Romanian, or Albanian for example), or the Lithuanian terms teta, dediene - aunt, in contrast with Lith. teva - father, where the emergence of the labio-dental spirant consonant is due to local linguistic influences. In relationship with dad, daddy, we can discuss two aspects: 1. the presence of hissing consonants in German, correspondent of the deaf dental occlusive consonant in English, and 2. the evolution of the deaf labio-dental spirant consonant f from the deaf dental occlusive consonant p within all the Germanic languages. The existence of the actual form of the word, father, is due not to the first aspect considered, but to the second one, as an evolution from the old Indo- European dialects, where from also derived Skr. pita(r), Gr. πατ?ρ, Lat. pater. The presence of the initial spirant consonants in Goth. fadar Du. vadar and Germ. Vater is to be noted. The deaf dental occlusive consonant is also present in Vegl. tuota, SItal. tata, Ital.(dial.) tato - father, grandfather, OFr. taie, Sp., Port tata. Miklosich's hypothesis11 of loaning the word tata from Slav. tata, present in SCr., Cz., Pol. tata, and in Hung. tata, is invalidated by Cioranescu12. Like the isolated term tata in Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, or Slavic languages cannot have too great influence on other languages, the terms Gr. τ?τα and N.Gr. τατ?ς cannot be marks in Indo-European etymology. The consecrated term in Greek πατ?ρ (πατ?ρας) is the origin of Lat. pater. The etymon of the common words designating "father" in Romance languages is Lat. pater: Fr. père, Ital. and Sp. padre, and Fr. papa or Sp. papá. The words that come from Lat. pater were overlaid over the pre-existent linguistic layer that belonged probably to the first Indo-European (i.e. pre-Latin) waves of migration, coming from tata, *ati-. We drew attention to the words from Veglia, South Italian dialects, Old French, but also from Basque and Etruscan, but for a more detailed analysis is important to focus on the semantic covering and isogloss of word tata in Spanish. We found, therefore, the existence of two meanings: the first, a regionalism in Latin America, also the popular form from Spain, both meaning daddy, and the second one, meaning father on a small area of Latin America. Obviously, the second meaning is derived (by extension) from the first, and the presence of this term outside Spanish territories is not interesting in our study. The derivation from a term that has the same root with the Basque aita is then excluded. But the presence of the popular term tata refers to the first perceptible Indo-European layer, because there are more derivates: tataradeudo - ancestor; tatarabuelo - great-grandfather, respectively tataranieto - greatgrandson, tato - elder brother.

In other words, the two linguistic Indo-European substrates, which we call generically tata and pater, correspond to two successive waves of Kurgan population invasion. On the territory of Romania, the first layer was preserved, because the ancient Danube civilization was the first that come into direct contact with the Indo-Europeans, while the new Indo-European languages, including Latin, correspond to the second substrate and, obviously, to a subsequent invasion. The term parinte in Romanian returns through Latin even if there exist other terms that semantically removed from the meaning of word "father". It remains to see whether, for the two terms, tata and pater, there was a common etymon in Indo-European or not.

4. The two meanings of the term 'father' and the deposit of meanings from each substratum. The first clue is offered by the French linguist André Martinet who, having the intention of reconstruction the I.E. term *p∂ter, based on Lat. pater, Gr. πατ?ρ, Skr. pita(r), Engl. father, Arm. hayr or OIr. athir, taking into account, therefore, the both substrates, using the sound ∂ reconstructed as reduction, in an unstressed syllable, from -eH or -H, noted that semantically the first meaning is not a genitor, but a head of patriarchal family (which has the role, among other roles, of genitor too)13. To note the more important archaeological data: the Indo-Europeans, peoples who invaded Europe, were organized in patriarchal societies of fighters. So, the term meant in Old Indo-European languages the head of a family, a gens or a tribe. The old term was, therefore, a basic word in speaking for the populations that became progressively the super strata over the indigenous populations. The proof of contemporary Sanskrit is important in our analysis. The Skr. words pati - lord, master and patya - head of state originate in the reconstructed root. The surprise in our analysis come from other Sanskrit words pitr-daya - patrimony, and pitrya - patrimonial. In other words, the root pitr-, father, is found in a term designating all material and spiritual patrimony of a lord (pati). The root pati remains, however, within Skr. praja-pati - owner. The two meanings intertwine further in Saskrit, as it can be observed.

Within the European languages, the two meanings, had and genitor, have been preserved. The patrimonial integrity, including the population of a territory, will be named, later, patrie - homeland, from Lat. pater, through Fr. Patrie. The term also exists in Italian, patria. A similar process of designation was occurred in German, where Vaterland - homeland derived from Vater - father, and in Bulgarian, where o?e?ec??o - homeland and o?e?ec??e? - patriotic comes from Russ. o?e? - father. The recent Bulg. ?a?p?o???e? is a loan. Ernesto Sabato, metaphorically proving the the contact of Danubian matriarchal societies with the proto-homeland of the Indo-Europeans, noted:

After Unamuno, the man is a patriot and the woman a matriot. Matria is the biology: tradition, home region, home, family. Patria (homeland) is the politics: abstraction, power, idea. Like everything is male, patria is centrifugal, tends to increasing and to (correlative) abstraction14.

On these principles of dialogue, the relationship between the chief and the subordinated tribe in Indo-European societies got in contact with the western matriarchal societies. In this way, the overlaid layer of Kurgan's population creates precise demarcation in autochthonous languages between the meanings of genitor and lord.

Into Romanian, the meaning of lord/master (equivalent to Skt. pati) is found in terms such as jupan, jupân, pan and subsequently ban15. The loan from Mongolians, or probably from Avars, of the term bajan - reach, with an improbable phonetic evolution through Hung. bán, where from arrived in Slav. banu, SCr., Cz., Pol., Slk. pan, meaning lord, master, is contradicted by the presence of the Dacian word Diuppaneus or Diurpaneus, associated to last two kings from Sarmisezegetusa. The Romanian term stapân, derived from the phrase stha+pati, meaning "the lord of the place", has the same origin. Similarly, the phrase dam+pati, "the lord of the house", is found in Gr. δεσποτης, Alb. despot, and Rom. despot. Identical phonetic evolution is found in the phrase dyu+pati, "the lord of the heaven", "the lord of the gods", see Lat. Jupiterus, Dac. Diuppaneus (pati > pan, as in the case of word stapân), assigned to last for two Dacian kings, Duras and Decebal (later deified)16. The transformation of an unaspirated dental consonant into a nasal dental consonant is, therefore, feasible. Regarding the subsequent evolution of the attribute Diuppaneus, Diurpaneus, Nicolae Iorga offers further clarifications:

Then, how Decebal, Dacian king - imitative king - is called Diurpaneu or Diuppaneu -, which would understood jupan in his country named jupa -, we can ask if this is the ancient autochthonous form of power over people. The Slavists could not fix the origin of jupa and i, where from the Slavic pan and the Avars' ban, but they recognize that the primitive form of power, after their settlement in Balkans, was this one17.

The derivate term from that one that designate lord/master in Albanian, princ, with the irregular plural përinthë, in contrast to the regular one, princi, in a form identical to the Romanian one, phonetically resembles with prind, -i, meaning parent, -s. The presence of the adjective prindëror, -e, parental, and the existence of the phrase similar to the Romanian one, vatra prindërore, parental hearth are relevant to the present study. Basically, like in Romanian, the two successive substrata, equivalent to the successive Indo-European waves, are represented by the terms tatë and prind, respectively tata and parinte. Within both languages, Romanian and Albanian, the second term is a late loan, with no direct linkage with the substratum.

5. Conclusions. On the one hand, the analysis through word-probe 'father' confirms the assumptions formulated within the previous study regarding the possible classification of Indo-European branches of languages depending on the character ap-udaka or as-bhu, and it highlights that the deaf initial consonant from the first Indo-European substratum became voiced consonant within the northern Indo-European languages, in a similar distribution as in the case of bh-, b-/f- isophone within the term 'brother'. On the other hand, the analysis highlights, both at the levels of form and content (meaning) the IE linguistic substrata in Europe. The use of such research tools (i.e. word-probe) brings to light aspects of diachronic linguistics, that became useful and restored not only the genealogy of words till the reconstructed terms within the primary language, but the structure of language strata/substrata. Considering that linguist facts are backed by archaeological proofs is an additional argument in our approach of linguistic universalia from a diachronic perspective. Combining the comparativehistorical approach with the linguistic geography within a comparative analysis done with the use of a research tool that takes into account the context of linguistic evolution, of linguistic mutability, we highlighted, in direct relationship with the word-probe 'father', the existence of the two linguistic substrata within IE languages in Europe, especially of the South-Eastern European (Balkan) substratum.

Footnote

1 Adrian Lesenciuc, Daniela Nagy, 'Language particularities n the Indo-European area. Role of the South-Eastern cultural context', Redefining Community in Intercultural Context, vol. IV, no.1/2015, pp.329-346

2 J.B. Kopitar, 'Albanische, walachische und bulgarische Sprache', Jahrbücher de Literatur, Band 46, Wien, 1829, pp.59-106.

3 N.S. Trubetzkoy, 'Vavilonskaja basnja i smesenie jazykov', Evrazijskij vremennik. Neperiodiceskoe izdanie pod red. P.Savickogo, P.P. Suvcinskogo I kn. Trubeckogo, Kniga tretja, Berlin, 1923, pp.107-124

4 Al. Rosetti, Istoria limbii române. II. Limbile balcanice [The History of the Romanian Language. II. The Balkan Languages], 2nd edition, Royal Foundation for Literature and Art, Bucharest, 1943.

5 Marija Gimbutas, Civilizatie si cultura: vestigii preistorice În sud-estul European [Civilisation and Culture: Prehistoric Vestiges in South-eastern Europe], Preface and notes: Radu Florescu, translated by Sorin Paliga, Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1989.

6 André Martinet, Des steppes aux océans. L'indo-européen et les "Indo-Européens", Éditions Payot & Rivages, Paris, 1994.

7Adrian Lesenciuc, Daniela Nagy, quoted work, p.344.

8 Henriette Walter, L'aventure des langues en Occident. Leur origine, leur histoire, leur géographie, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1994, p.73;

9 In 1925, Matteo Giulio Bartoli introduced the concept "linguistic areas" and a set of four "areal norms" (norme delle aree), that explain the diachronic spread of linguistic innovations within a relatively homogenous space and that are useful in establishing the chronological relationships between linguistic forms with common origin, see Matteo Giulio Bartoli, Introduzione alla neolinguistica: Principi - scopi - metodi, Olschki, Geneva, 1925, pp.3-17.

10Johannes Schmidt, Die Verwandtschaftsverh ältnisse der indogermanischen Sprachen, Böhlau, Weimar, 1872

11 Franz Ritter von Miklosich, Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum: emendatum auctum, G. Baumueller, Vindobonnae, 1862-1865 [scanned, online]. URL: https://archive.org/details/lexiconpalaeoslo00mikluoft, University of Toronto [accessed on September, 2016].

12 Alexandru Cioranescu, Dictionarul etimologic al limbii române [The Romanian Language Etymologic Dictionary], Saeculum I.O. Publishing House, Bucharest, [1954-1966], 2002, p.776.

13 André Martinet, quoted work, p.14.

14 Ernesto Sábato, Eseuri [Essays] (vol.I), RAO Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004, p.279.

15 Nicolae Iorga, Istoria românilor. Stramosii Înainte de romani [The History of the Romanians. The Ancestors before the Romans] , vol. I, Ist part, Scientific and Encyclopaedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1988.

16 To consider the reconstructed Indo-European word *houi - pa(ti),, shepherd, the master of the sheepfold, from which derived Lat. pastor and Rom. pastor, and from which evolved Arm. howiw - shepherd and Hit. hawas - sheep.

17 Nicolae Iorga, quoted work, p. 112.

References

REFERENCES

Bartoli, M.G., (1925), Introduzione alla neolinguistica: principi - scopi - metodi, Geneva, Olschki.

Cioranescu, Alexandru, [1954-1966], (2002), Dictionarul etimologic al limbii române [The romanian language etymologic dictionary], BUCHAREST, Saeculum I.O. Publishing House.

Gimbutas, Marija, (1989), Civilizatie si cultura: vestigii preistorice În sudestul european [Civilisation and culture: prehistoric vestiges in south-eastern europe], preface and notes: Radu Florescu, translated by Sorin Paliga, Bucharest, Meridiane Publishing House.

Iorga, Nicolae, (1988), Istoria românilor. Stramosii Înainte de romani [The history of the romanians. The ancestors before the romans], vol. I, IST part, Bucharest, Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House.

Kopitar, J.B., (1829), 'Albanische, walachische und bulgarische sprache', jahrbücher de literatur, Wien, Band 46.

Lesenciuc, Adrian & Nagy, Daniela, (2015), 'Language particularities in the indo-european area. Role of the south-eastern cultural context', redefining community in intercultural context, vol. IV, no.1, 329-346.

Martinet, André, (1994), Des steppes aux oceans. L'indo-europeen et les "indo-europeens", Paris, Editions Payot & Rivages.

Miklosich, FR.R. von, 1862-1865, Lexicon palaeoslovenico-graeco-latinum: emendatum auctum, vindobonnae, G. Baumueller, [online]. URL: https://archive.org/details/lexiconpalaeoslo00mikluoft, University of Toronto [accessed on september, 2016]

Rosetti, AL., (1943), Istoria limbii române. II. Limbile balcanice [The history of the romanian language. II. The balkan languages], 2nd edition, Bucharest, Royal Foundation for Literature and Art.

Sábato, Ernesto, (2004), Eseuri [Essays] (vol.I), Bucharest, Rao Publishing House.

Schmidt, Johannes, (1872), Die verwandtschaftsverh ältnisse der indogermanischen sprachen, Weimar, Böhlau.

N.S. Trubetzkoy, 1923, 'Vavilonskaja basnja i smesenie jazykov', Evrazijskij vremennik. Neperiodiceskoe izdanie pod red. P.Savickogo, P.P. Suvcinskogo I kn. Trubeckogo, Kniga tretja, Berlin.

Walter, Henriette, 1994, L'aventure des langues en occident. Leur origine, leur histoire, leur géographie, Paris, Robert Laffont.