Pontic is a proposed
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
or
macrofamily
In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification.Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), '' ...
, comprising the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and
Northwest Caucasian
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
language families, with Proto-Pontic being its reconstructed
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
.
History of the proposal
The internal reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language done by
Émile Benveniste
Émile Benveniste (; 27 May 1902 – 3 October 1976) was a French structural linguist and semiotician. He is best known for his work on Indo-European languages and his critical reformulation of the linguistic paradigm established by Ferdinand de ...
and
Winfred P. Lehmann
Winfred Philip Lehmann (June 23, 1916August 1, 2007) was an American linguist who specialized in historical, Germanic, and Indo-European linguistics. He was for many years a professor and head of departments for linguistics at the University of ...
has set
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE) typologically quite apart from its daughters. In 1960,
Aert Kuipers noticed the parallels between a Northwest Caucasian language,
Kabardian, and PIE. It was
Paul Friedrich in 1964, however, who first suggested that PIE might be
phylogenetically
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
related to
Proto-Caucasian.
In 1981,
John Colarusso
John Colarusso is a linguist specializing in Caucasian languages. Since 1976, he has taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Colarusso has published more than sixty-five articles on linguistics, myths, politics, and the Caucasus; he h ...
examined typological parallels involving consonantism, focusing on the so-called
laryngeals
The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
* The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...
of PIE and in 1989, he published his reconstruction of Proto-Northwest Caucasian (PNWC). Eight years later, the first results of his comparative work on PNWC and PIE were published in his article ''Proto-Pontic: Phyletic Links Between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian'', an event which may be considered the actual beginning of the hypothesis.
Evidence
Examples of similarities that have been noted include:
* Nasal negating particles in both families:
**
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
:
Germanic ,
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
,
Slavic .
** NWC:
Ubykh ,
Abkhaz .
* A
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
variously named "accusative", "oblique" or "objective", marked with nasal suffixes:
**
PIE
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
accusative , reflected e.g. in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
'moon' (nom.) vs (acc.), or Ancient Greek (, nom.) vs. (, acc.).
** NWC: Ubykh 'well (water source)' (
abs.) vs (
obl.).
References
*
{{Eurasian languages
Proposed language families
Indo-European linguistics
Pre-Indo-Europeans
Indo-European languages
1997 in science