Alpatho-Hirtic languages: Difference between revisions
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The Alpatho-Hirtic languages derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Oronaic Having separated perhaps in the IV millennium BC, they became a diverse group of languages, so their proto-language can not be reconstructed precisely. | The Alpatho-Hirtic languages derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Oronaic Having separated perhaps in the IV millennium BC, they became a diverse group of languages, so their proto-language can not be reconstructed precisely. | ||
==Classification== | ==Classification== | ||
===Internal classification=== | |||
According to the newest picture of this language family, the Oronaic languages are divided into three groups: Alpian, Carpathian and Hirtian. These languages also divide into various dialects creating a dialectal continuum. | According to the newest picture of this language family, the Oronaic languages are divided into three groups: Alpian, Carpathian and Hirtian. These languages also divide into various dialects creating a dialectal continuum. | ||
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** East Carpathian | ** East Carpathian | ||
** South Carpathian | ** South Carpathian | ||
===External classification=== | |||
Many external relationships between Oronaic and other language families have been suggested, but none of them are generally accepted by linguists. The statistical improbability and other difficulties, like the time of diversification and expansion or lexical differences, of linking any Alpatho-Hirtic language with their Indo-European neighbours inspired many scholars to search for its possible relatives elsewhere. Besides many pseudoscientific comparisons, several attempts were made to connect the Oronaic languages with geographically distant language families. None of these hypotheses have a solid evidence of a relation between any language group. Some of these hypothetical connections are: | |||
*'''Uralic languages''' - the hypothesis suggests that Uralic and Alpatho-Hirtic are related at a fairly close level. Some cognates are found between Proto-Oronaic and Proto-Uralic reconstructed languages, however most of these are uncertain. Also while comparing Proto-Oronaic to Proto-Samic the ammount of cognates is larger, which can probably be explained by borrowing. | |||
*'''Indo-European languages''' - Proto-Oronaic could have been a close relative of Prpto-Indo-European or an Indo-European creole with an unknown substrate. It is supported by the fact that the majority of Oronaic basic lexicon (including many intransitive verbs as well as some kinship terms) from neighbouring Indo-European languages. Nowadays this theory is not so popular, as lexical similarities are explained via close and prolonged contacts with various branches of Indo-European family. Despite modern Alpatho-Hirtic languages show some morphological and syntactic similarities with Indo-European languages, Proto-Oronaic grammar was very different and probably resembled a Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan one. Also, Hirtya has more common vocabulary with Samoyed languages (mostly Nenets) than with any Indo-European language, including basic words for body parts, weather and tools. | |||
*'''Proto-Samic substrate''' - as was mentioned previously, Proto-Oronaic shows some word correspondences with Proto-Samic, including a large ammount of words that can not be found in any other language group within Proto-Uralic. An idea that Proto-Oronaic or its rlative may contribute a substrate to modern Samic languages. | |||
*'''Siberian''' - a hypothesis that propose a common ancestor for Oronaic, Uralic with Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and sometimes also Eskimo–Aleut languages. Not widely accepted. | |||
*'''Nostratic''' - a proposed unity or/and a common descendance of language families, which associates Oronaic, Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian, and various other language families of Asia. The Nostratic hypothesis was first propounded by Holger Pedersen in 1903 and revived by Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky in the 1960s. | |||
*'''Separate language families''' - an idea, that Alpian, Carpathian and Hirtian are three distinct language families and Proto-Oronaic has never existed, was introduced in early 1980's when Hirtya had began to be studied more. A similar theory combines the Alpian and the Carpathian languages into a single Alpathian family without Hirtian, which is believed to be separate. | |||
*'''Caucasian languages''' - linking Oronaic to Caucasian languages, such as Georgian, is now widely discredited. The hypothesis was inspired by the possible connection between Basque (a Pre-Indo-European language of Western Europe) and languages of the Caucasus as a single Old European continuum, that had existed before the expansion of Indo-Europeans. No certain typological similarities between the languages were actually found. | |||
==History== | ==History== | ||