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Abstract
§1. Introduction
§1.1.2. The Hurro-Urartian (in the following: HU) linguistic family consists of two closely related languages: Hurrian (with several dialects) and Urartian. Historical Hurrian was spoken in the southeast of present-day Turkey, in northern Syria and northern Iraq at least from the 2nd half of the 3rd millennium to the end of 2nd millennium BC.[1] Urartian is attested in the 1st millennium BC as a language of the Urartian empire (present-day Armenia and neighboring areas).[2] For the preliterate period, it is natural to associate the HU people with the Kura-Araxes (Early Trans-Caucasian) archaeological culture (Kassian 2010: 423-428 with further references). The HU languages are poorly documented as compared with Sumerian. The genealogical affiliation of the HU languages is likewise uncertain, although I suspect that it is possible to treat HU as a separate branch of the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian (Dene-Caucasian) macro-family, that is, that the HU group is a distant relative of the North Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan protolanguages; see Kassian 2011 for discussion.
§1.2. Preliminary Methodological Remarks
§1.2.2. As stated in G. Starostin 2010a, classical and preliminary lexicostatistics are two very different procedures. The former should be used in a situation when a group of genetically related languages is sorted out, and regular phonetic correspondences between the languages are established. In such a case, classical lexicostatistics helps to determine the internal genealogical classification of the linguistic group in question. On the other hand, preliminary lexicostatistical verification/falsification is used when genealogical affiliation of the examined language is not yet established. This means that, lacking knowledge of regular phonetic correspondences, we are compelled to resort to the phonetic similarity between the semantically corresponding lexical items of the compared languages.
§1.2.3. Phonetic similarity can be formalized as the method of consonant classes, which was proposed by A. Dolgopolsky (1964; English version: 1986) and successfully tested by various authors, e.g., Baxter 1995; Baxter & Manaster Ramer 2000; Kessler 2007; G. Starostin 2008; Turchin, Peiros & Gell-Mann 2010. This method implies that the phonetic alphabet used in our studies can be divided into several non-intersecting subsets (classes) so that phonetic mutations between the sounds of one class during the natural language development are typologically more normal than mutations between sounds of different classes. Typology of sound changes is not sufficiently advanced yet (but cf. Brown, Holman & Wichmann 2013 for progress in this area), therefore such a division can only be based on the intuition and experience of individual linguists. Below, I operate with classes currently accepted in the Global Lexicostatistical Database project (GLD)[5]: P-class (labials): p b ɓ f v ɸ β ⱱ Using this simplified transcription system (P T S Y W M N Q R K H) we can code any real wordforms or morphemes included into comparison. Note that elements of the zero-class and such features as coarticulation, prosody and phonation are deleted from the structure. Vocalic or laryngeal onsets and vocalic or laryngeal finals, however, are coded as H. Thus both hypothetical forms tasa and dʰüʒo are coded as TSH; alaq and ʡärx = HRK; na and ŋoʔ = NH; pkʰot and baqʼaθ = PKT; wahat and ʍad = WT. Non-initial Y and W (weak glides) are treated as H, thus ka, kay, kawa = KH, whereas kat and kayat = KT.
§1.2.4. As follows from the above, two forms from compared languages possessing identical simplified transcriptions have a better chance of appearing to be etymological cognates than forms whose simplified transcriptions differ.[6]
§2. The Problem of the Genealogical Affiliation of Sumerian
§2.1.Diakonoff’s Sumerian-Munda hypothesis (Diakonoff 1997)[7]
§2.1.2. Implicitly using the same consonant classes method as described above, Diakonoff offers 34 Sumerian-Munda CVC-root etymologies and several grammatical parallels. A priori, the main problem of Diakonoff’s theory is that the author normally restricts himself to two Munda languages, Santali and Mundari, that form a separate group within the North Munda branch (Anderson 2008).
§2.1.3. Below, I apply the lexicostatistical test to Diakonoff’s data, that is, I single out Sumerian roots with Swadesh meanings and compare them to the corresponding Swadesh terms that could be reconstructed for proto-Munda. A general proto-Munda reconstruction is not completed yet, so I am guided by the Munda data collected in Pinnow 1959 and some other publications. My general criterion for the reconstruction of proto-Munda Swadesh meanings is the distribution of individual roots within the Munda family. Phonetic shapes of the reconstructed proto-Munda forms below are approximate.
§2.1.4. Formally, the best Sumerian-Munda match among Diakonoff’s etymologies is:
1) Sum. ku or kua ⟨KU6⟩ ‘fish.’[8] In seems that the main candidate for the status of the proto-Munda term for ‘fish’ is *qa (Pinnow 1959: 77, 199).
The next etymology could also be very convincing, although formally it does not answer the principle of consonant classes:
2) Sum. ŋe- ⟨ĜE26⟩ ‘I.’ Cf. the proto-Munda personal pronoun *iŋ ~ *iɲ ‘I’ (Pinnow 1959: 186, 208). The next two etymologies are more problematic.
3) Sum. gaʒ ⟨GAZ⟩, with polysemy ‘to kill, strike dead, slaughter / to beat / to grind, grate / to thresh (grain) / to break.’ The main candidate for the status of the proto-Munda term for ‘to kill’ is the labile verb *goǯ- ‘to die / to kill’ (Pinnow 1959: 203, 258). The Sumerian-Munda comparison is phonetically, but not semantically likely, because Sumerian polysemy ‘to kill / to beat’ should point to the original proto-Sumerian meaning ‘to beat.’[9]
4) Sum. mu ⟨MU⟩ ‘name’ (Diakonoff groundlessly reads it as ŋu ⟨ĜU10⟩). Cf. proto-Munda *ỹimu (~ *yimu ~ *ɲimu) ‘name’ (Pinnow 1959: 141, 187, 189, 253; Sidwell 2010: 125).[10] The comparison is possible if one assumes the reduction of the first syllable in Sumerian.
The rest of Diakonoff’s Sumerian words with Swadesh meanings demonstrate no semantic or phonetic matches with Munda:
5) Sum. gal ⟨GAL⟩ ‘big,’ compared by Diakonoff to Munda forms with the meaning ‘10.’ One of the possible candidates for the status of the proto-Munda term for ‘big’ is *maraŋ, which is well attested in North Munda (Pinnow 1959: 73).
6) Sum. giggi or gig ⟨GE6⟩ ‘black,’ incorrectly read by Diakonoff as ŋi(g) and compared to some North Munda forms with the meaning ‘night.’ One of the possible candidates for the status of the proto-Munda term for ‘black’ is *Kende ~ *hende, which is attested in North Munda (Pinnow 1959: 103, 201, 294).
7) Sum. ŋiri ⟨ĜIRI3⟩ ‘foot / leg,’ compared by Diakonoff to Munda ‘to run.’ The best candidate for the status of the proto-Munda term for ‘foot’ is *ʒVŋ (Pinnow 1959: 169, 218, 223; Sidwell 2010: 126; Anderson 2004: 163).[11]
8) Sum. ur ⟨UR⟩ ‘dog,’ incorrectly read by Diakonoff as sur ⟨SURx⟩[12] and compared to some Munda forms that originate from proto-Munda *sV ‘dog’ (normally attested with suffixes or as an element in compounds; see Pinnow 1959: 112, 210, 242, 242, 350; Anderson 2004: 163).
Thus, the preliminary lexicostatistical test yields rather poor results: Diakonoff’s data fail to provide a substantial number of matches between Sumerian and Munda basic vocabularies. Intuitively, it seems that the two best Sumerian-Munda matches (‘fish’ and ‘I’) can be coincidental from the statistical point of view. Does it mean that Diakonoff’s Sumerian-Munda hypothesis failed? The answer is no. First, the full Swadesh 100- or 110-item wordlists for Sumerian and proto-Munda should be compiled and compared. Statistical tests (one of which is described below) are also necessary. Second, phonetic correspondences between Sumerian and Munda could actually be less trivial than the consonant classes described above. Third, Sumerian could theoretically represent a separate branch of the Austro-Asiatic (macro)family, and a Sumerian-Mon-Khmer comparison might yield better results.
§2.2. Bengtson’s Sumerian–Sino–Caucasian Hypothesis (Bengtson 1997)
§2.2.2. Bengtson’s (1997) hypothesis is that Sumerian could be a separate member of the Sino-Caucasian macro-family.[14] Besides some typological similarities, Bengtson proposes various Sino-Caucasian cognates for 41 Sumerian words of basic vocabulary (mostly of the Swadesh list). Below, I quote Sumerian words etymologized by Bengtson fulfilling the following conditions: (a) they belong to the Swadesh 100-item wordlist, i.e., indeed represent default expressions for the corresponding basic meanings in Sumerian; (b) their transcription corresponds to modern views; (c) they are connected by Bengtson to the roots that can be reconstructed as Swadesh items at least for one of the protolanguages of the linguistic families included in Sino-Caucasian macro-family (i.e., proto-North Caucasian, proto-Yeniseian, and so on). Of four such Sumerian words extracted from Bengtson’s list, at least two are etymologized quite convincingly, since they represent Common Sino-Caucasian roots:[15]
1) Sum. ŋa- ⟨ĜA2-⟩ ‘I.’ Comparison to Sino-Cauc. *ŋV ‘I’ suggests itself readily. *ŋV is one of the two Common Sino-Caucasian stems of the pronoun of the 1st p. sg., see G. Starostin 2010b: 112-113.
2) Sum. uʒu ⟨UZU⟩ ‘meat,’[16] that is compared to Yeniseian *ʔise ‘meat.’ In turn, the Yeniseian form could be compared to Sino-Tibetan *sʸa (*śa) ‘meat’—one of the two equivalent candidates for the proto-Sino-Tibetan term for ‘meat.’[17] In sum, the Yeniseian-Sino-Tibetan match should yield the proto-Sino-Caucasian root for ‘meat,’ which is phonetically compatible to Sum. uʒu.
Two other Sumerian etymologies offered by Bengtson are less convincing:
3) Sum. naŋ ⟨NAĜ⟩ ‘to drink,’ compared to Na-Dene *naN ‘to drink,’ which is indeed a Common Athapaskan-Eyak-Tlingit verb (cf. Athapaskan *naːŋ2 ~ *naːŋʷ~ *naːm ~ *naːw̃ ‘to drink,’ Krauss & Leer 1981: 21, 39, 70, 133, 139, 151), but note that the final nasal in the Athapaskan root can be a fossilized (perfective?) suffix, because the Eyak (la ‘to drink’) and Tlingit (naː ‘to drink’) cognates demonstrate no traces of nasality and/or labiality. Sino-Caucasian etymology of Na-Dene *na(N) is unclear, but formally this is one of the several equivalent candidates for the Sino-Caucasian verb ‘to drink’ in absence of appropriate etymological matches between various root for ‘to drink’ in other Sino-Caucasian daughter families. Nevertheless, the Sumerian – Na-Dene comparison is formally acceptable.
4) Sum. iʒi ⟨IZI⟩ ‘fire,’ compared to North-Caucasian *cʼăyɨ ‘fire’ and Basque *sʸu (*śu) ‘fire.’ The North-Caucasian-Basque root is indeed one of the several equivalent candidates for the Sino-Caucasian term for ‘fire,’ but the Sumerian – Sino-Caucasian comparison is formally problematic, because the initial syllable in Sum. iʒi is inexplicable.
One must conclude that available lexicostatistical evidence for the Sumerian – Sino-Caucasian hypothesis is not stronger than arguments for the above-discussed Sumerian-Munda relationship. It goes without saying, however, that further research may provide more data in support of Bengtson’s theory.
§3. Sumerian and Hurro-Urartian
§3.1.2. Out of these 65 pairs, we see five or six cases where the Sumerian CC-structure[22] is phonetically compatible with its Hurrian counterpart (these are shadowed in the above table):
1) Sum. ur ⟨UR⟩~ Hur. ervi ‘dog’ = HR.
2) Sum. šu ⟨ŠU⟩~ HU *su- ‘hand’ (Hur. su-ni ⟨šu-ni⟩, Urart. su- ⟨šu-⟩) = SH.
3) Sum. ur ⟨UR5⟩~ Hur. ur-mi ‘liver’ = HR.
4) Sum. uʒu ⟨UZU⟩~ Hur. uʒi ⟨uzi⟩ ‘meat’ = HS.
5) Sum. šeŋ ⟨ŠEĜ3⟩~ Hur. isena ⟨išena⟩ ‘rain’ = SN. Note that, formally speaking, the Hurrian CC-structure is to be analyzed as HS (is[ena]), but in our situation it seems safe to eliminate the initial i- from the Hurrian form ([i]sena). In any case, below I double all calculations for Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena as both positive (SN = SN) and negative (SN ≠ HS) pairs.
6) Sum. aba ⟨A-BA⟩~ Hur. ab-i ~ av-i ‘who?’ = HP.
Strictly speaking, there exists a seventh match:
7) Sum. ŋen ⟨ĜEN⟩, which is phonetically compatible with the Urartian verb nun ‘to come’ = NN. The difficulty is that the Hurrian verb for ‘to come’ is un and the etymological and morphological relationship between Urart. nun and Hur. un is unclear (a unique reduplication pattern *un-un > nun?). Note that Hur. un ‘to come’ may be compared to Sino-Caucasian *=VʔʷˈVŋ, which is a possible candidate for the status of the Common Sino-Cauc. verb for ‘to go’ (Kassian 2011: 392-393). Because of this and because my formal statistical comparison is actually Sumerian-Hurrian, I prefer to exclude the Urartian verb from consideration. Note that treating ŋen ~ nun as a positive pair will not contradict my general conclusions; to the contrary, it would seriously improve the statistical results.
§4. Explanation of the Sumerian-Hurrian Matches
§4.1. Null Hypothesis
§4.1.2. For my statistical test, the Sumerian and Hurrian 65-item wordlists have been transcribed according to the simplified notation of consonant classes, as described in §1.2. Two forms constitute a positive pair if the first two consonants (CC) of the Sumerian form are identical to those of the Hurrian form. 1,000,000 random (strictly speaking, pseudorandom) trials have been performed in each case described below. If we consider Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’ a positive pair (= SN), there are 6 CC-matches between the original lists (see above). The results of the test are given in figure 1.
![]() Figure 1: Sumerian-Hurrian permutation comparison: GLD consonant classes (see §1.2), šeŋ~isena is a positive pair
§4.1.3. The most statistically common values are 1 match, 2 matches and 3 matches—their probability P is 0.234262, 0.277375 and 0.210287, i.e., 23.4262%, 27.7375% and 21.0287%, respectively. The total number of trials with 6 or more matches is 16,058 + 4,282 + 1,034 + 189 + 32 + 8 + 1 = 21,604. This means that the probability P of getting at least six matches (as we have in the case of the original Sumerian-Hurrian list) is 0.021604, i.e., slightly higher than 2%.
§4.1.4. The most frequently accepted level of statistical significance is 5% (it means that the null hypothesis should be rejected if the P-value is less than 0.05); another popular significance level, used for more precise calculations, is 1% (P = 0.01). The probability of the Sumerian-Hurrian matches (0.021604 = 2.1604%) is lower than the 5% level, although higher than the 1% level. The picture certainly changes if we treat Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’ as a negative pair (SN ≠ HS), that is, if we only proceed with 5 Sumerian-Hurrian matches (fig. 2).
![]() Figure 2: Sumerian-Hurrian permutation comparison: GLD consonant classes (see §1.2), šeŋ~isena is a negative pair
§4.1.5. The total number of trials with 5 or more matches is 47,851 + 15,866 + 4,345 + 1,006 + 176 + 31 + 5 = 69,280. This means that the probability P of getting at least five matches is 0.06928 = 6.928%. It is indeed higher than the 5% level, that is, the five Sumerian-Hurrian matches can formally be treated as coincidental. It must be noted, however, that the six (or five) Sumerian-Hurrian matches in question demonstrate very precise phonetic correspondences—not only consonantal, but even vocalic; cf. Sum. ur ~ Hur. ur-mi ‘liver,’ Sum. uʒu ~ Hur. uʒi ‘meat,’ Sum. aba ~ Hur. ab-i ‘who?.’ The correspondence Sum. š ~ Hur. s (Sum. šu ~ HU *su- ‘hand’; Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’) is easily explained by the fact that Hurrian, as well as proto-HU, apparently possessed the only sibilant row s[26] (as opposed to the Sumerian language, that discriminated between s ~ š phonologically). The same concerns the correspondence Sum. ŋ ~ Hur. n—there was no n ~ ŋ opposition in Hurrian and proto-HU, as opposed to Sumerian. The main vocalic discrepancies are Sum. ur ~ Hur. ervi ‘dog’ (but even so, the Hurrian form demonstrates the labial element) and the different onsets in Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain.’
§4.1.6. This suggests that the simplified transcription described in §1.2 might be too rough for our purposes. The S-class can be divided into the S-class proper (front fricatives: s z š ž …) and the Ʒ-class (front affricates: c ʒč ǯ…); in turn, the R-class can be divided into the R-class proper (r ɾ…) and the L-class (l ɭɫ…). After that, the consonant classes run as follows (new classes are marked with an asterisk *): P-class (labials): p b ɓ f v ɸ β ⱱ
§4.1.7. If we use the above transcription, the permutation test will yield the results given in figure 3 (Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’ is considered a positive pair = SN; in total, there are 6 CC-matches between the original lists). The total number of trials with 6 or more matches is 2,953 + 562 + 80 + 9 = 3,604. It means that the probability P of getting at least six matches is 0.003604 = 0.3604% (lower than the 1% level).
![]() Figure 3: Sumerian-Hurrian permutation comparison: more precise consonant classes, šeŋ~isena is a positive pair
§4.1.8. If Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’ is considered a negative pair (SN ≠ HS), i.e., in total there are 5 CC-matches between the original lists, the results are as given in figure 4. The total number of trials with 5 or more matches is 12361 + 2646 + 468 + 66 + 9 + 1 + 1 = 15552. It means that the probability P of getting at least five matches is 0.015552 = 1.5552% (lower than the 5% level, although higher than the 1% level).
![]() Figure 4: Sumerian-Hurrian permutation comparison: more precise consonant classes, šeŋ~isena is a negative pair
§4.1.9. The next logical step should be to include vowels in the simplified transcription (e.g., as the following classes: {o, u}, {i, e}, {a, ǝ} and so on) and compare not the CC chains, but the CVC ones. Due to technical difficulties, I have not performed this test, but it is obvious that Sumerian-Hurrian CVC-comparison will additionally decrease the probability of coincidences.
§4.1.10. Summing up, the statistical probability that the observed Sumerian-Hurrian matches are chance similarities varies from 0.069280 = 6.9280% (a rough approach) to 0.003604 = 0.3604% or lesser (a more sophisticated approach). This means that the null hypothesis is not very plausible.
§4.2. Lexical Borrowings
§4.2.2. The general rule says that, among lexical items, cultural vocabulary is always borrowed first, whereas basic vocabulary is generally more resistant to borrowing (Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 74-76; Thomason 2001: 70-71). More precisely, this maxim is complied with in all cases where the sociolinguistic history of relevant peoples and languages is known to us. Traditionally, the Swadesh 100-item wordlist[28] is regarded as a core of basic vocabulary, that is, the Swadesh words are expected to be not only the most stable during natural language development, but also the most resistant to borrowing. It is intuitively likely, however, that it would be necessary to substitute certain, more stable and resistant words for a couple of Swadesh items (e.g., such Swadesh terms as ‘seed’ or ‘person, human being’ seem very dubious to me). Nevertheless, it is hardly possible to reform the Swadesh wordlist at the current stage of research.[29]
§4.2.3. If a language has foreign items in its Swadesh wordlist, this language is bound to have borrowings from the same source in other parts of basic vocabulary, and especially a great number of loanwords of the same origin in its cultural vocabulary (cf., e.g., modern English lexified by French and Scandinavian, or various Lezgian languages lexified by Azerbaijani). This is not the case of Sumerian–Hurro–Urartian contacts, because there are virtually no candidates for lexical or grammatical borrowings between these languages besides the six (of five) discussed Swadesh words. In addition to these, I can only quote one Hurrian cultural term possibly borrowed into Sumerian: Hur. tab‑i-ri ‘caster, (copper)smith’ > Sum. tibira, tabira ‘sculptor,’ scil. ‘metal furniture-maker / craftsman working in metal and wood’[30] and a couple of dubious similarities such as Sum. ur ⟨UR2⟩ ‘root, base; limbs; loin, lap’ ~ Hur. uri (suffixed ur-ni) ‘foot; leg’[31] and the Sum. verb ⟨NUD = NU2 = NA2⟩ ‘to lie, lie down (intr., subj. = person)’ with the zero-derived substantive ⟨ĝešNUD = ĝešNU2 = ĝešNA2⟩ ‘bed’ ~ Hur. natxi ⟨natḫi⟩ ‘bed.’[32] There are also a number of Hurrian cultural terms of Sumerian origin (see, e.g., Diakonoff 1971: 77 ff.; Wilhelm 2008: 103), but all of them seem to be borrowed via Akkadian (Kassian 2011: 435 with further references).[33] Thus, the absence of a substantial number of cultural borrowings between Sumerian and Hurro-Urartian makes the hypothesis of loanwords very unlikely.
§4.3. Genetic Relationship
§4.3.2. The current version of the StarLing software (May 2012) generates 12,000 BC as the approximate glottochronological date of the Sumerian-Hurrian split, proceeding from the 65 available Sumerian-Hurrian Swadesh pairs (for convenience, I date the Sumerian list to 2000 BC and the Hurrian one to 1500 BC). This is extremely distant dating—ten millennia separate attested Sumerian from its hypothetical ancestor.[34] Of course, such a large gap between empirical data and a reconstructed protolanguage makes further discussion rather vague, but, nevertheless, some conclusions can be proposed.
§4.3.3. First, as one can see, five of the six Sumerian-Hurrian Swadesh matches fall within the most stable half of the Swadesh 100-item wordlist:[35] ‘dog,’ ‘hand,’ ‘liver,’ ‘rain,’ ‘who?.’ Only the sixth item—‘meat’—falls within the second half, although its stability index is, at 61, still high. The probability of such a distribution (5 : 1) is relatively low: 0.1478 = 14.78% (here and below, the binomial distribution is used). If we treat Sum. šeŋ ~ Hur. isena ‘rain’ as a negative pair, the probability of the 4 : 1 distribution is 0.2239 = 22.39%.[36] The fact that the majority of our potential Sumerian-Hurrian cognates occur among the most stable Swadesh items can be due to chance (both probability values are greater than 0.05) or can be an argument in favor of the hypothesis of Sumerian-Hurrian genetic relationship: the weak items have been eliminated during separate development of proto-Sumerian and proto-Hurro-Urartian, whereas the most stable ones have survived. But it must be emphasized that such a distribution can be alternatively treated as an equally strong argument in support of a very different scenario discussed in the next section—language shift (see §4.4 below).
§4.3.4. Second, there are two objections to the hypothesis of a Sumerian-Hurrian protolanguage:
1) Despite the assumed substantial time gap (ten millennia) between the attested languages and their hypothetical Sumerian-Hurrian ancestor, one could expect a number of cognates (in our case, phonetic consonant matches) between Sumerian and Hurrian basic vocabularies outside the Swadesh 100-item wordlist. I am not aware, however, of appropriate candidates for such inherited retentions in the known Sumerian and Hurrian lexicon, except for a couple of dubious cases like Sum. ur ‘root, base; limbs; loin, lap’ ~ Hur. uri ‘foot; leg’ and Sum. ⟨NUD = NU2 = NA2⟩ ‘to lie (down),’ ⟨ĝešNUD = ĝešNU2 = ĝešNA2⟩ ‘bed’ ~ Hur. nat-xi ‘bed,’ discussed in §4.2.
2) It is reasonable to suppose that both proto-Sumerian and proto-Hurro-Urartian languages underwent heavy sound mutations during the millennia of their separate development, and that true Sumerian-Hurrian etymological cognates are currently invisible to the “unaided eye.” Such a supposition, however, sharply contrasts with the fact noted in §4.1 above: six (or five) discussed Sumerian-Hurrian Swadesh matches are almost identical phonetically (with š & ŋ present in Sumerian and absent from Hurrian), and even vocalic segments normally coincide. Linguistic typology is aware of language families with ultra-stable consonant systems: the best instance known to me is Semitic. Glottochronologically, the split of the Semitic protolanguage occurred in the early 4th millennium BC,[37] i.e., the time gap between a modern Semitic language and its ancestor constitutes ca. 6 millennia. Despite this, a simple browse through the first volume of SED shows that it is fairly easy to find a substantial number of phonetically similar roots that are in fact etymological cognates, e.g., between Modern South Arabian and Modern Ethiopian languages.[38] This is certainly not the Sumerian-Hurrian case. If one advocates for a Sumerian-Hurrian genetic relationship, it is necessary to make a methodologically impossible supposition that several inherited Sumerian-Hurrian basic terms were preserved phonetically intact, whereas the rest of basic vocabulary has mutated and lost visible phonetic similarity between the two languages.
§4.3.5. Summing up, the hypothesis of a common Sumerian-Hurrian protolanguage appears to be very unlikely, first, due to virtual absence of a substantial number of appropriate etymologies between basic vocabularies of the languages in question (not necessarily with direct semantic matches), and, second, due to the suspicious phonetic similarity of the discussed Sumerian-Hurrian Swadesh pairs.[39]
§4.4. Aborted Language Shift
§4.4.2. Such an aborted or simply unfinished language shift is poorly documented among the world’s languages due to natural enough reasons: first, a language shift is normally completed, second, the early history of many tribes or ethnic groups around the world is unknown to us. Nevertheless some probable instances of aborted/unfinished language shift, when basic vocabulary is fragmentarily retained, can be uncovered. Two of them are treated below.
1) As described by D. C. Laycock (1973: 252) and M. D. Ross (1991: 124), the Malol language (< Oceanic < Austronesian) is very close to the Sissano language spoken in the same or neighboring coastal villages (usually both lects are considered to be dialects). Oral history, however, indicates that the Malol people were originally one of the One clans (non-Austronesian languages of the Torricelli family) that fled from the One territory to the coast during a communal dispute in the first half of the 19th century. Currently, vocabularies of Sissano and Malol generally coincide, with the exception of a few lexical items, for which old One terms are retained in Malol. Two such words are documented by Laycock and Ross: ‘dog’ (a Swadesh item) and ‘coconut’ (belongs to the basic vocabulary in this region).
2) Another instance can be the language of the Polynesian island Niuafo’ou. According to Collocott 1922, Dye 1980, Belikov 1989: 49, synchronically, Niuafo’ou can be considered a dialect of the Tongan language (< Tonga < Polynesian < Austronesian), that is the dominant lect in the region, but some peculiarities of the pronominal system (such as non-Tongan personal pronouns ‘we [excl.],’ ‘you [du.],’ ‘you [pl.],’ and the interrogatives ‘when, where’) and of basic vocabulary point out that, historically, Niuafo’ou is a Nuclear Polynesian language (another branch of the Polynesian group), almost completely been supplanted by Tongan. Collocott provides the following Niuafo’ou lexical items, that are cognate to the corresponding Tongan words, but demonstrate Nuclear Polynesian phonetic development: ‘to come,’ ‘road,’ ‘what?’ (together with the aforementioned pronoun ‘we,’ these are Swadesh items), ‘sea’ and also such function words as ‘up,’ ‘down.’ As noted by Collocott (1922: 189), “[t]he dialectal peculiarities of Niua Fo’ou are fast disappearing before the political and cultural authority of Tonga.” In his turn, Dye (1980: 350) reports that at least some of the aforementioned Niuafo’ou words have already shifted towards Tongan phonology within the last decades.
§4.4.3. Probably such “intertwining” languages as Ainu/Ejnu (an Iranian language dominated by Uyghur) or Mbugu/Ma’a (a Cushitic language dominated by Bantu) are following suit, although they still retain the major portion of inherited basic vocabulary (Persian and Cushitic, respectively).
§4.4.4. As one can see, the symptoms of aborted or unfinished language shift are very similar to the Sumerian-Hurrian situation, where we have two languages with very different grammars and very different lexica, but with several similar phonetically Swadesh items shared by both lects. In other words, the correlation between the historical Sumerian and Hurrian languages is formally the same as, e.g., between One (Torricelli family) and modern Malol (Austronesian family), treated above.
§4.4.5. Another case of the retention of a certain specific part of an inherited lexicon is retention of the so-called native cultural vocabulary. Such a scenario is typically to be expected in the situation of a language shift unaccompanied by a cultural shift. Two instances are treated below.
1) As described by Dimmendaal (1989: 21-22, 27) and Heine (1980: 175-178), El Molo, or Elmolo, is a small tribe of fishermen in Kenya heavily dominated by the neighboring Nilotic-speaking pastoralists. In the first half of the 20th century, the El Molos still spoke their own language, that belongs to the Cushitic family, but subsequently they have shifted to the Samburu language (< Nilotic < Nilo-Saharan). Currently, El Molo represents a dialect of Samburu. This newborn dialect, however, retains the original El Molo vocabulary concerned with lake bio-nomenclature and fishing.
2) Another probable example is provided by two pygmy tribes—Yaka (Aka) and Baka—that live in the rainforests of Central Africa. Yaka and Baka are neighbors, although there is minimal interaction between the two peoples. The languages in question belong to very different linguistic groups: Yaka is Bantu C10, Baka is Ubangian. Despite this, Yaka and Baka are close not only physiologically, but also culturally and economically: both tribes are hunter-gatherers, as opposed to the neighboring non-pygmy farmer tribes. As described by S. Bahuchet (1992; 1993; 2012: 28-31), Yaka and Baka share more than 20% of their vocabulary, concerning especially food-gathering and other specific rain-forest activity (some shared terms are also related to society, music and religion). An important fact is that these words are apparently unetymologizable within Bantu or Ubangian languages. The rest of the lexicon of Yaka and Baka (including the majority of basic terms), however, differs according to its genetic affiliation (Bantu C10 and Ubangian). There are also some grammatical elements and features of neither Bantu nor Ubangian origin shared by Yaka and Baka, e.g., specific demonstrative pronouns (Duke 2001: 74-78). In such a situation, the most tempting solution is to treat these specific cultural terms as the remains of the pygmy protolanguage (the so-called proto-Baakaa) that were retained due to socio-economic factors after the Yaka and Baka tribes had shifted to the languages of the neighboring farmers (thus Bahuchet). An alternative solution, which seems less likely, is to assume that Yaka and Baka originally spoke Bantu and Ubangian languages, respectively, whereas the discussed common words represent parallel borrowings from a language of extinct rain-forest dwellers into Yaka and Baka. The third, more complex, solution is discussed by Blench (1999; 2006: 173-175).
§4.4.6. Despite typological interest of the El Molo and Yaka-Baka instances, such a scenario is certainly not the case of Sumerian and Hurrian due to the virtual absence of cultural lexical matches between the two languages in question.
§5. Conclusions
§5.2. The null hypothesis that the observed Sumerian-Hurrian matches are chance coincidences (§4.1) is problematic. According to the described permutation test, the probability of such coincidences ranges from 0.069280 = 6.9280% (a rough approach) to 0.003604 = 0.3604% or less (a more sophisticated approach). In my opinion, the most correct value is 0.015552-0.003604, i.e., 1.5552%-0.3604% (with the more precise consonant classes used; see §4.1, figs. 3-4), but, in any case, the majority of the obtained probabilistic values are less than the most popular significance level 0.05.
§5.3. Does it mean that the null hypothesis must be rejected? Certainly not, because nature is actually full of various phenomena the probability of whose emergence is low. The current version of the Global Lexicostatistical Database project (GLD) provides us with a substantial number of high-quality 110-item wordlists of various languages from around the world.[40] Most pairs of unrelated lects successfully pass the permutation test, i.e., the amount and probability of phonetic matches between two lists appear to be statistically expected. On the other hand, one can observe a couple of pairs of definitely unrelated languages with a high number of phonetic matches and a low probability of such a configuration. I am currently aware of two such instances.
1) The first pair is Abidji (< Kwa < Niger-Congo, Africa)[41] and Maidu (< Penutian, USA)[42]. The 110-item wordlists of the two aforementioned languages possess 7 CC-matches, if we proceed from the GLD consonant classes described in §1.2 (the first form cited is Abidji, the second one is Maidu):
The probability that these Abidji-Maidu CC-matches are due to chance is 0.036136, i.e., 3.6136% (1,000,000 random trials have been performed). The picture does not materially change if the more precise consonant classes (see §4.1) are used: we have the same 7 matches whose probability is 0.032043 = 3.2043%.
2) The second case is more interesting: Modern English (< Germanic < Indo-European) and Ari (< South Omotic < Omotic, Africa)[43] yield 8 CC-coincidences in the 110-item wordlist:
The probability that these English-Ari CC-matches are due to chance is extremely low: 0.00044 = 0.044% (1,000,000 random trials have been performed). Again, the picture does not seriously change if the more precise consonant classes (see §4.1) are used: we only have 7 matches ([šɔːt] ~ cʼeːdˈi is now a negative pair), but the total probability is 0.000945 = 0.0945%.
§5.4. Nevertheless, despite such unique instances as Abidji-Maidu or English-Ari, the low probability of the Sumerian-Hurrian matches impel us to search for more appropriate explanations.
§5.5. The fourth solution is the hypothesis of aborted language shift (discussed in §4.4), that implies one of two equivalent scenarios.
1) In the preliterate or early literate epoch (say, the second half of the 4th millennium BC), a tribe that spoke a language of the Hurro-Urartian family (not necessarily the Hurro-Urartians proper) migrated from the southern Caucasus to southern Mesopotamia, where it entered into interaction with the Sumerian community. The Sumerians appeared to be the dominant group and the Hurro-Urartian newcomers began gradually to give up their language. At the penultimate stage of that language shift, the process was for unknown reasons interrupted, whereas the Sumerians proper were eliminated. If so, the historical Sumerians were actually a Hurro-Urartian-like people that shifted to the Sumerian language, having retained several Swadesh terms of Hurro-Urartian origin.[44]
2) The second scenario mirrors the first one. A Sumerian-like tribe migrated to the southern Caucasus and then learned the proto-Hurro-Urartian language. If so, the historical Hurrians and Urartians are actually a Sumerian (or related) people that shifted to the Hurro-Urartian language, having retained several Swadesh terms of Sumerian origin.
§5.6. I am aware of no historical or archaeological counterevidence for the theory of aborted language shift between Sumerian and Hurro-Urartian peoples in the preliterate or early literate epoch, as described above. It should be noted that if Hurro-Urartian can indeed be considered a separate branch of the Sino-Caucasian macro-family (see Kassian 2011 for a lexicostatistical discussion) and if such terms as ‘meat’ and ‘rain,’ shared by Sumerian and Hurro-Urartian, are indeed etymologically Sino-Caucasian (see §3), the first scenario (the Hurro-Urartian language superseded by Sumerian) is preferable. Since the Kura-Araxes (Early Trans-Caucasian) archaeological culture seems the best counterpart of the proto-Hurro-Urartian language (and, vice versa, the proto-Hurro-Urartian language seems the best counterpart of the Kura-Araxes culture; see Kassian 2010: 423-428 with further references), the hypothetical migration of a Hurro-Urartian-like group to southern Mesopotamia should be connected to the rapid spread of the Kura-Araxes culture along the eastern slopes of the Zagros at least as far as west central Iran in the last centuries of the 4th millennium BC (for which see Kohl 2009: 245-246, 252-255).[45] On the other hand, the sound correspondences like Sum. ŋ—HU n and Sum. š—HU s are more easily explainable under the assumption of the second scenario (Sumerian superseded by Hurro-Urartian).
Bibliography
Abbreviations
Basqet.dbf = Basque etymological database by John Bengtson. Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013]. Buruet.dbf = Burushaski etymological database by S. Starostin (based on H. Berger’s data). Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013]. Caucet.dbf = North Caucasian etymological database by S. Starostin and S. Nikolayev (published as NCED). Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013]. CDLI = Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. Available at: http://cdli.ucla.edu/ [last visited 25.12.2013]. CdTU = Salvini 2008. ePSD = Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project. Available at: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/index.html [last visited 25.12.2013]. ETCSL = The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Available at: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk [last visited 25.12.2013]. GLD = G. Starostin, ed., The Global Lexicostatistical Database. Available online at: http://starling.rinet.ru/new100/main.htm [last visited 25.12.2013]. KUKN = Harouthiounyan 2001. NCED = Nikolayev & Starostin 1994. Sccet.dbf = Sino-Caucasian etymological database by S. Starostin. Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013]. SED = Militarev & Kogan 2000-. Stibet.dbf = Sino-Tibetan etymological database by S. Starostin (= Peiros & Starostin 1996, but with serious improvement). Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013]. WOLD = M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor, eds., The World Loanword Database. Available online at: http://wold.livingsources.org/ [last visited 25.12.2013]. Yenet.dbf = Yenisseian etymological database by S. Starostin (= S. Starostin 1995; Werner 2002, with additions and corrections). Available online at the Tower of Babel project: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?flags=eygtnnl [last visited 25.12.2013].
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