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The Pre-Indo-European languages are any of several ancient languages, not necessarily related to one another, that existed in Prehistoric Europe and Southern Asia before the arrival of speakers of
Indo-European languages 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, D ...
. The oldest Indo-European language texts date from the 19th century BC in Kültepe (modern
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
), and while estimates vary widely, the spoken Indo-European languages are believed to have developed at the latest by the 3rd millennium BC (see Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses). Thus, the Pre-Indo-European languages must have developed earlier than or, in some cases, alongside the Indo-European languages that ultimately displaced them. A handful of the pre-Indo-European languages still survive; in Europe, Basque retains a localised strength, with fewer than a million native speakers, but the
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...
remain very widespread in the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...
, with over 200 million native speakers (the four major languages being
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...
,
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
,
Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
and
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
). Some of the pre-Indo-European languages are attested only as linguistic substrates in Indo-European languages.


Terminology

Before
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, all the unclassified languages of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the
Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
were commonly referred to as ''Asianic languages'', and the term encompassed several languages that were later found to be Indo-European (such as Lydian), and others (such as
Hurro-Urartian The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian. Origins It is often assumed that the Hurro-Urartian languages (or a pre-split Proto-Hurro-Urartia ...
, Hattic), which were classified as distinct language families. In 1953, the linguist
Johannes Hubschmid Johannes is a Medieval Latin form of the personal name that usually appears as " John" in English language contexts. It is a variant of the Greek and Classical Latin variants (Ιωάννης, ''Ioannes''), itself derived from the Hebrew name '' ...
identified at least five pre-Indo-European language families in Western Europe: Eurafrican, which covered North Africa, Italy, Spain and France; Hispano-Caucasian, which replaced Eurafrican and stretched from Northern Spain to the
Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains, : pronounced * hy, Կովկասյան լեռներ, : pronounced * az, Qafqaz dağları, pronounced * rus, Кавка́зские го́ры, Kavkázskiye góry, kɐfˈkasːkʲɪje ˈɡorɨ * tr, Kafkas Dağla ...
; Iberian, which was spoken by most of Spain prior to the
Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a process by which the Roman Republic seized territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the C ...
; Libyan, which was spoken mostly in
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
but encroached into
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label= Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, aft ...
; and Etruscan, which was spoken in Northern Italy. The term pre-Indo-European is not universally accepted, as some linguists maintain the idea of the relatively late arrival of the speakers of the unclassified languages to Europe, possibly even after the Indo-European languages, and so prefer to speak about non-Indo-European languages. A new term, Paleo-European, is not applicable to the languages that predated or coexisted with Indo-European outside Europe.


Surviving languages

These pre-Indo-European languages have survived to modern times: * in the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...
, the
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...
,
Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family ...
(a branch of the Austroasiatic languages),
Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people sp ...
, Nihali, Kusunda, Vedda and
Burushaski Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people ...
. * in the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
, the Kartvelian,
Northeast Caucasian The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as ...
,
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 Cau ...
. * in the
Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, Basque. * in Northern Eurasia, the Paleosiberian languages and the
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
, although in Finland there is also evidence of an Indo-European substrate preceding Finno-Ugric, as well as Paleo-European substrates preceding both.


Languages that contributed substrates to Indo-European languages

Examples of suggested or known substrate influences on specific Indo-European languages include the following: *Pre-Anatolian: ** Hattic language *Pre-Armenian: ** Hurro-Urartian languages * Substrate in Vedic Sanskrit, proposed sources for which include: **
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC,Lyonnet, Bertille, and Nadezhda A. Dubova, (2020b)"Questioning the Oxus Civilization or Bactria- Margiana Archaeological Cultu ...
(possible source of Sanskrit vocabulary, language not attested) ** Harappan language (not attested in readable script; see Indus script) **
Elamite language Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record ...
** Lullubi language **
Vedda language Vedda is an endangered language that is used by the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Additionally, communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas who do not strictly identify as Veddas also use words from the Vedda language in pa ...
**
Burushaski language Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people ...
**
Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...
**
Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family ...
** Nihali language **
Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people sp ...
*Substrates to early undifferentiated or partly-differentiated Indo-European in Western Europe: **
Old European hydronymy Old European (german: Alteuropäisch) is the term used by Hans Krahe (1964) for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe.Hans Krahe, ''Unsere ältesten Flussnamen'', Wiesb ...
(possibly Indo-European, as originally thought by Krahe) ** Vasconic substrate hypothesis ** Tyrsenian languages *
Pre-Greek substrate The Pre-Greek substrate (or Pre-Greek substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Indo-European language(s) spoken in prehistoric Greece before the coming of the Proto-Greek language in the Greek peninsula during the Bronze Age. It is possible that ...
languages, which may have included: ** Minoan language (see also Linear A, Cretan hieroglyphs) ** Eteocretan language (may have been a descendant of Minoan) ** Eteocypriot language (see also
Cypro-Minoan script The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM) is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus during the late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A ...
) ** Lemnian language (probably related to Etruscan) * Pre-Germanic: ** Germanic substrate hypothesis * Pre-Celtic languages: **Insular Celtic: *** Goidelic substrate hypothesis ***For the British Isles, see Celtic settlement of Great Britain and Ireland **Continental Celtic: ***
Paleohispanic languages The paleo-Hispanic languages were the languages of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, excluding languages of foreign colonies, such as Greek in Emporion and Phoenician in Qart Hadast. After the Roman conquest of Hispania the Pale ...
****
Vasconic languages The Vasconic languages (from Latin 'Basque') are a putative family of languages that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian language is sometimes putatively included. The concept of the Vasconic languages is ...
*****
Proto-Basque Proto-Basque ( eu, aitzineuskara; es, protoeuskera, protovasco; french: proto-basque), or Pre-Basque, is the reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language before the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees. Background The first linguist w ...
*****
Aquitanian language The Aquitanian language was the language of the ancient Aquitani, spoken on both sides of the western Pyrenees in ancient Aquitaine (approximately between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, in the region later known as Gascony) and in the areas sout ...
(often thought to be the direct ancestor of Basque) ****
Iberian language The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre- Migration Era (before about 375 AD). The ...
**** Tartessian language (classification as Celtic has been proposed) *Pre-
Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official languag ...
: ** Tyrsenian languages ***
Etruscan language Etruscan () was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventua ...
*** Raetic language (probably related to Etruscan) ** Camunic language (probably Raetic) **
Elymian language Elymian is the extinct language of the ancient Elymian people of western Sicily. Its characteristics are little known because of the extremely limited and fragmentary nature of the surviving texts. The origins of Elymian and its exact relations ...
(perhaps Indo-European) **
North Picene language North Picene, also known as North Picenian or Northern Picene, is a supposed ancient language, which may have been spoken in part of central-eastern Italy. The evidence for the language consists of four inscriptions dating from the 1st millennium ...
** Paleo-Sardinian language (also called Paleosardinian, Protosardic, Nuraghic language) **
Sicanian language The Sicani ( Ancient Greek Σῐκᾱνοί ''Sikānoí'') or Sicanians were one of three ancient peoples of Sicily present at the time of Phoenician and Greek colonization. The Sicani dwelt east of the Elymians and west of the Sicels, having, a ...
** Ligurian language (perhaps Indo-European) Other propositions are generally rejected by modern linguists: *
Atlantic (Semitic) languages The Atlantic languages of Semitic or "Semitidic" (para-Semitic) origin are a disputed concept in historical linguistics put forward by Theo Vennemann. He proposed that Semitic-language-speakers occupied regions in Europe thousands of years ago ...


Attested languages

Languages attested in inscriptions include the following: * Tartessian * Iberian * Aquitanian * Etruscan * Rhaetian * Camunic *
Lemnian The Lemnian language was spoken on the island of Lemnos, Greece, in the second half of the 6th century BC. It is mainly attested by an inscription found on a funerary stele, termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia. Fragments of ...
* Minoan * Eteocretan * Eteocypriot * Hattic * Urartian


Later Indo-European expansion

Further, there have been replacements of Indo-European languages by others, most prominently of most of the
Celtic languages The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
by Germanic or Romance varieties because of Roman rule and the invasions of Germanic tribes. Also, however, languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European in ancient times must be distinguished from languages replaced or engulfed by Indo-European languages in more recent times. In particular, the vast majority of the major languages spread by
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
have been Indo-European, which has in the last few centuries led to superficially similar linguistic islands being formed by, for example,
indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large nu ...
(now surrounded by
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
), as well as of several
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
(now surrounded by Russian). Many creole languages have also arisen based upon Indo-European colonial languages.


See also

* Paleo-European languages *
Paleo-Balkan languages The Paleo-Balkan languages or Palaeo-Balkan languages is a grouping of various extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times. Paleo-Balkan studies are obscured by the scarce attestation of ...
* Languages of Neolithic Europe * Pre-Indo-European (disambiguation) * Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate in Sámi languages * Proto-Euphratean language


References


Bibliography


Archaeology and culture

* Anthony, David with Jennifer Y. Chi (eds., 2009). The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 BC. * Bogucki, Peter I. and Pam J. Crabtree (eds. 2004). Ancient Europe 8000 BC—1000 AD: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * Gimbutas, Marija (1973). Old Europe c. 7000–3500 B.C.: the earliest European cultures before the infiltration of the Indo-European peoples. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 1/1-2. 1-20. * Tilley, Christopher (1996). An Ethnography of the Neolithic. Early Prehistoric Societies in Southern Scandinavia. Cambridge University Press.


Linguistic reconstructions

* Bammesberger, Alfred & Theo Vennemann, eds. ''Languages in Prehistoric Europe''. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2003. * Blench, Roger, & Matthew Spriggs, eds. ''Archaeology and Language''. Vol. 1, ''Theoretical and Methodological Orientations''. London/NY: Routeledge, 1997. * Dolukhanov, Pavel M. “Archaeology and Languages in Prehistoric Northern Eurasia”, ''Japan Review'' 15 (2003): 175–186. https://web.archive.org/web/20110721072713/http://shinku.nichibun.ac.jp/jpub/pdf/jr/IJ1507.pdf * Gimbutas, Marija. ''The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization''. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989. * Greppin, John and T.L.Markey, eds. ''When Worlds Collide: The Indo-Europeans and the Pre-Indo-Europeans''. Ann Arbor: 1990. * Haarmann, H. “Ethnicity and language in the ancient Mediterranean”, in ''A companion to ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean''. Edited by J. McInerney. Wiley Blackwell, 2014, pp. 17–33. * Lehmann, Winfred P. ''Pre-Indo-European''. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man. 2002. . * Mailhammer, Robert
“Diversity vs. Uniformity. Europe before the Arrival of Indo-European Languages”
in ''The Linguistic Roots of Europe: Origin and Development of European Languages''. Edited by Robert Mailhammer & Theo Vennemann. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2016. * “Pre-Indo-European”, in ''Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe''. Edited by Glanville Price. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. . * * Vennemann, Theo. Languages in Prehistoric Europe north of the Alps. https://www.scribd.com/doc/8670/Languages-in-prehistoric-Europe-north-of-the-Alps * Vennemann, Theo (2008). Linguistic reconstruction in the context of European prehistory. Transactions of the Philological Society. Volume 92, Issue 2, pages 215–284, November 1994 * Woodard, Roger D. (ed., 2008) Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. * Woodard, Roger D. (2008) Ancient Languages of Europe. Cambridge University Press.


External links

*
Reconstructed migration of language families and archaeological cultures in Europe during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pre-Indo-European languages Language histories Prehistoric Europe Ancient Europe Historical linguistics Extinct languages