What language did the Early European Farmers speak?

EmmanuelR

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I am very interested in pre-IE languages in Europe. There has been some debate on the validity of even discussing those, because Europe was fragmented into hundreds of tribes and there are no direct written sources of course (cf. Donald Ringe vs. Theo Vennemann). That seems fair enough. But I think there is a notable exception, which relates to Early European Farmers (EEFs). I understand that they were relatively homogenous (G2a2a and G2a2B - from the Eupedia article). Also the neolithic expansion was relatively short by linguistic standards (~6000-5000 BCE). It's not unreasonable to assume they spoke the same non IE-language (divided into dialects). Question is: can we identify remnants of this language (we can dub it Danubian)? Here are the few candidates I found:


(1) Aquitanian (Basque) - Strongest candidate. Basque Country is overwhelmingly R1b (DF27), not G2, but R1b IE invaders would have adopted the indigenous language spoken by the EEF women (cf. Maciamo Hay posts on the Basque forum). Why did it happen only in the Basque Country? There is an extensive study (Iñigo Olalde, 2019) that shows that Basque people were genetically isolated after 1000 BCE and so not much impacted by the Celtic wave. Between the beginning of IE invasions and the Celtic invasion (2700-1000 period), there could have been several cultures where non-IE languages were spoken. But the Celtic wave was the final blow to non-IE languages (except Euskara).

That being said, if "Danubian" is Basque, there should be remnants in toponomy/regional substrates elsewhere. I am not sure what has been found on this. I haven't anything in that sense in French toponymy books.

(2) Pre-Greek (non IE substrate to ancient Greek). There is a remarkable book by Pr. Beekes where he lists 1,100 Greek words with Pre-Greek origin (Iris, Gê, Thalassa etc.). One of the two main branches of the Neolithic expansion being the Cardial Culture (6400-5500), which came to Europe through Northern Greece, that's also a strong candidate.

(3) Minoan. The Minoan culture was founded separately from the Cardial culture and seems more associated with the J2 haplogroup. The amount of vocabulary is very limited, making the research difficult.

(4) Nuragic, the old language of Sardinia. Also a strong candidate. Sardinian male population has the largest percentage of G2a haplotype, especially in the center of the island. There is actually a fair amount of identified pre-Sard, toponymic words (Massimo Pittau, Luoghi e Toponimi della Sardegna). A comparison with Basque and Pre-Greek would be interesting.

(5) Etruscan. Old debate: were Etruscans indigenous to Italy or Iron age immigrants from Asia? The most recent genetic study (Max Planck Institute 2021) seems to go in favor of the indigineous theory. In that case, the Etruscan language could be a candidate. The available glossary is limited in size. M. Pittau does some comparison between Nuragic and Etruscan.

(6) Goidelic substrate (based on Gaelic words with no Indo-European roots). Another strong candidate: as Ireland was isolated. But, unlike the languages mentioned above, we only know a handful of hypothetical words. Probably because the EEF population was wiped out.

(7) German substrate. Unlikely candidate in my opinion, based on geography and genetics.

(8) European toponyms. A certain number of them (in particular hydronyms and oronyms) can't be explained through ancien or modern languages and some roots are present accross large geographical (*car- meaning "rock"). There have been many debates as whethere these toponyms come from pre-Celtic, Indo-European substrates (i.e. languages spoken between 2700 and 1000) or from pre-Indo-European languages.

Any thoughts?
 
Personally I believe Indo-Hittite.

But there are other possibilities.
1) a language related to Kartvelian if Kartvelian was originally an EEF language. I have seen some Georgian scholars associating "pre-Greek" with 'paleo-Kartvelian' too. The approach is mostly flawed but interesting.

2) a language related to Hurrian. Personally I don't really believe it but if Anatolian is intrusive it could make sense.

Etruscans have LBK related ancestry I think (??), so their language *could* have descended from it or have been influenced by it. I associate their ancestors with the builders of the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alps, so not regular EEFs.
 
Thanks for the link. I see - the Nuragics would have been more recent incomers according to him (similar question as for the Estruscans). The Wikipedia article on Nuragic civilzation does mention a study that shows 80% of EEFs in the sample from the Nuragic period, the rest being WHG. So if the Nuragics came from Lydia, they did not replace the existing population. Which works rather against Pittau's hypothesis.
 
Personally I believe Indo-Hittite.

But there are other possibilities.
1) a language related to Kartvelian if Kartvelian was originally an EEF language. I have seen some Georgian scholars associating "pre-Greek" with 'paleo-Kartvelian' too. The approach is mostly flawed but interesting.

2) a language related to Hurrian. Personally I don't really believe it but if Anatolian is intrusive it could make sense.

Etruscans have LBK related ancestry I think (??), so their language *could* have descended from it or have been influenced by it. I associate their ancestors with the builders of the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alps, so not regular EEFs.

Thanks - but weren't the Indo-Hittites mainly R1b? Modern Georgians/Kartvelians have a high percentage of G2 so assuming continuity, that's a strong candidate I agree. Hurrian would make sense geographically. I don't think there is anything in terms of genetics.
 
Before to say more, I recall that a lot of linguists (meanstream) see an Anatolian IE group of dialects (preHellenic) in today Greece before true Greek speakers, whatever the primary geographic source of these dialects, which is tightly debated. (so when we speak of "Pelasgians" we have to be cautious, so many ethnies seem having crossed these lands and stayed in at some stage)
 
Summerian,
a work was started I do not know if finished, among Greek and other with Summerian
Like Greek Oros (mountain) and top (korefe) with summerian word Kur
Words especially with 2 same syllabear like Tartaros ( deep darkness, deep hole) Lilligi (Sum musroom Thracian flower) etc

Zizania also is Summerian
 
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I am very interested in pre-IE languages in Europe. There has been some debate on the validity of even discussing those, because Europe was fragmented into hundreds of tribes and there are no direct written sources of course (cf. Donald Ringe vs. Theo Vennemann). That seems fair enough. But I think there is a notable exception, which relates to Early European Farmers (EEFs). I understand that they were relatively homogenous (G2a2a and G2a2B - from the Eupedia article). Also the neolithic expansion was relatively short by linguistic standards (~6000-5000 BCE). It's not unreasonable to assume they spoke the same non IE-language (divided into dialects). Question is: can we identify remnants of this language (we can dub it Danubian)? Here are the few candidates I found:

It is not a question that will be answered anytime soon, and it is even likely that it will never be answered. It cannot be ruled out that there were multiple languages spoken by the Early European farmers, the times are so stretched that there may have been multiple splits. Not to mention the fact that we know nothing about those spoken in the Mesolithic. The few attestations of non-Indo-European languages are much later than the Neolithic.

One thing is certain. You cannot mix scholars who are considered credible with scholars whose work is considered pseudo-linguistic: Theo Vennemann, Pittau...


(2) Pre-Greek (non IE substrate to ancient Greek). There is a remarkable book by Pr. Beekes where he lists 1,100 Greek words with Pre-Greek origin (Iris, Gê, Thalassa etc.). One of the two main branches of the Neolithic expansion being the Cardial Culture (6400-5500), which came to Europe through Northern Greece, that's also a strong candidate.

I very much doubt that all of Beekes' work still enjoys widespread acceptance today.


(5) Etruscan. Old debate: were Etruscans indigenous to Italy or Iron age immigrants from Asia? The most recent genetic study (Max Planck Institute 2021) seems to go in favor of the indigineous theory. In that case, the Etruscan language could be a candidate. The available glossary is limited in size. M. Pittau does some comparison between Nuragic and Etruscan.

I recall that the fact that the Etruscans were indigenous has been claimed by archaeologists and anthropologists for at least 30-40 years. So the latest genetic study has simply found further confirmation. As for Pittau, he is not considered a credible scholar. By the way, the Nuragic language is not even attested. And Pittau, demonstrating how unbelievable all his work is, claimed that both Nuragic and Etruscan were Indo-European languages.
 
Actually Pittau believed that both Etruscan and Nuragic were Indoeuropean languages of Anatolian origin. I believe he was wrong however here is a list of Nuragic relics of possibile Indoeuropean origin by Pittau

http://www.pittau.it/Sardo/indoeuro... brina,relitto sardiano o nuragico, probabilm.


Herein lies the entire fallacy of Pittau's work. Who has established that those are Nuragic relics? It is circular argumentation. Those are Sardinian words and Sardinian is descended from Latin, which is an Indo-European language.


Thanks for the link. I see - the Nuragics would have been more recent incomers according to him (similar question as for the Estruscans). The Wikipedia article on Nuragic civilzation does mention a study that shows 80% of EEFs in the sample from the Nuragic period, the rest being WHG. So if the Nuragics came from Lydia, they did not replace the existing population. Which works rather against Pittau's hypothesis.

Pittau is just a huge waste of time which only contributed to confusion. Neither the Nuragics nor the Etruscans, who were not directly related, came from Lydia. Just read what Eduardo Blasco Ferrer wrote about Pittau's work.
 
If this hypothesis holds, the Nuragic L283 samples with almost no steppe, that were quite basal would have to be viewed in a new light.

This hypothesis is not taken seriously by anyone, and is considered pseudo-linguistic. The fact that Steppe-rich migrations may have reached as far as Sardinia, with a much smaller impact than in the rest of Europe, does not prove this hypothesis. Not to mention the fact that Anatolian languages do not belong to the branch of IE languages that came out of the Steppes, and J-L283 has a time of formation that perhaps even predates the emergence of the Anatolian language family.
 
This hypothesis is not taken seriously by anyone, and is considered pseudo-linguistic. The fact that Steppe-rich migrations may have reached as far as Sardinia, with a much smaller impact than in the rest of Europe, does not prove this hypothesis. Not to mention the fact that Anatolian languages do not belong to the branch of IE languages that came out of the Steppes, and J-L283 has a time of formation that perhaps even predates the emergence of the Anatolian language family.

Hence the "if, holds" Pax. I am not claiming I subscribe to the hypothesis. But claiming it is virtually impossible, no matter how unlikely it is, is not the way to go.
 
I think the Early european farmers spoke a language related to pre-greek. I wrote a paper on this topic that can be found via google if you type Gerald Tran Dang .
I am not allowed to post links yet, as I haven't posted 20 posts.
 
What language could have been spoken by those E-M78 groups that would become the bearers of E-V13 in the southern Balkans or the Near East? Afroasiatic or some older, unknown language? Did Afroasiatic even exist about 8000 years ago?
 
Paleo-European languages
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-European_languages

River names similar to Isar:
Isar > Isar (Bavaria)
Isar > Isère (France)
Isar > Oise(France)
Isar > Yzeron (France)
Isar > Jizera (Czech Republic)
Isar > Aire(Yorkshire)
Isar > Yser(Belgium)
Isar > Ypres, Ieperlee (Belgium) (Respectively in French and Dutch)
Isar > Issel (Germany)
Isar > IJssel (Netherlands) there are several (parts of) rivers in the Netherlands called IJssel (Yssel), one of which was called "Isala" during Roman times
Isar > Ézaro (Spain)
Isar > Ésera (Spain)
Isar > Iseran (Savoy)
Isar > Esaro (Italy)
Isar-ko > Eisack (Italy)
Isar-na > Isières (Belgium)
Isar-ellum > Izarillo "little Izar" (Spain)
Isar > Iza (Romania)
Also relevant might be *ezero (the proto-Slavic word for lake), ežeras (the Lithuanian word for lake) and the Acheron river in Greece.

Seems not to be the case of these rivers with names similar to Isar, but although Paleolithic/Mesolithic Europeans were almost 'drowned' by the First European Farmers (EEF), many European toponyms with bizarre sounds may be of pre-Neolithic origin. European peoples (who still have a lot of EEF) when expanding beyond Europe, to name the new geographic places, the new animals, and everything else that does not existed in Europe, often kept their pre-colonial names, even when almost the entire pre-colonial population of the region has been wiped off the map. Even geographic entities created by the colonizers were baptized with pre-colonial names as is the case of half of the states, autonomous territories, and provinces, of the countries of North America and of the very name of Mexico and possibly that of Canada. From the little I know of North America, the pre-Columbian names of great rivers, mountain ranges, lakes, Niagara Falls and the center of New York (Manhattan) come to mind. And the Paleolithic/Mesolithic Europeans haven't been wiped off the map, they still represent ~15% of the ancestors of today's Europeans.
 

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