Locating Proto-Uralic

[VladMC]

The most detailed description of one of the largest cultural objects of Koptyakovo - Shaitanskoye Lake II. And, indeed, among archaeologists there is a point of view that the smelting of metal at the sites in Samus culture and Koptyakovo was accompanied by rituals of shamanism, that is, for the taiga population this process seemed like a kind of miracle.

https://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/854...r172864724


By the way, a burial ground was discovered there. Moreover, half of the burials were performed according to the rite of cremation, almost half were cenotaphs, and only one was performed according to the rite of inhumation. The ritual of cremation was clearly brought from the steppe. In the Alakul and Abashevo cultures, cremation was not often used. However, there is such a culture as Volsk-Lbishchevo; practically no burials of this culture have been found. Also, no burials of another forest belt culture were found - Chirkovo. So it remains to be seen what kind of steppe culture mixed in the Urals so that the Koptyakovo culture eventually emerged. This also applies to the donor language.

[Parastais]

Kortlandt seems to be alone with his view. Much more recent source: Hyllested & Joseph 2022: Albanian.
https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/...ph-v03.pdf

Ok. I am not in a position to argue this.

At some point the Balto-Slavic language surely was involved. But you cannot see from DNA or material remains, when and from where the language arrived. As I said, language does not necessarily follow the majority genetic root.

I do not deny that Balto-Slavic language may have been present in the Dnieper Region during the 2nd millennium BCE, because that is after the Fatyanovo Culture. In the Upper Dnieper Region, the Trzciniec Circle even followed Fatyanovo. Certainly there must be some traits of continuity there.

Yes, but nothing Fatyanovo > Baltics is known at any time of history. Neither genetically not archeology. If Proto-Balto-Slavic was Fatyanovo, then that would be quite strange.
BaltoSlavic Fatyanovo is dead genetically and it will be dead also linguistically. Just a matter of time.

Actually, the supporters of continuity theories assumed that the Baltic loanwords were brought to Finland by the Corded Ware people. Anyway, modern views are not grounded on outdated views but purely on linguistic evidence: (1) shared innovations between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic, and (2) traces of different early Balto-Slavic language stages in the more eastern regions than can be assumed if we look only the extant languages.

(1) if we consider Fatyanovo an archaic (and/or extinct) form of IndoIranian instead of Baltic nothing is lost for this argument (which is weak anyway, because all those shared innovations are disputed and impact all 3 BS, Albanian, IndoIranian but with different outcomes > Satem unites BS and A, ruki I think is not regular among all 3 and even within Baltic itself)
(2) meh. I saw no regular loanword from Proto-WU to its daughters from Proto-Balto-Slavic in your article. Those Archaic ones had some strange outcomes in daughter languages. I know of no other traces "in the more eastern regions" from Balto-Slavic that should or even could be dated at Fatyanovo times. Besides - if archaic Baltoslavic is a language before Satemization, then how would archaic Baltoslavic before Satemization be different from archaic IndoIranian before Satemization? Which phonetic rule/ marker would separate them?

Para-Slavic is that late, but Archaic Balto-Slavic is earlier. And Kallio presents Proto-Balto-Slavic loanwords in West Uralic, but unfortunately he has not yet published his work.

I don't think there are such words with regular sound substitutions in daughter languages in any sufficient quantity to avoid chance trade contacts - before DWU stage. Happy to change my mind, if evidence comes.

[Jaska]

SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents:

“Some of the Finnic isoglosses related to metals, forging and smithery are quite clear early Indo-Iranian loans, one way or another. - -
I'm speaking about words like Seppä ('smith'), Vasara ('hammer'), Takoa ('forge') and even Vaaja ('thunderbolt'). Perhaps also Hopea ('silver').”

However, according to mainstream etymological research, of those only vasara is an Indo-Iranian word.
https://kaino.kotus.fi/suomenetymologine...sepp%C3%A4

SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents:

“These words are not only technical but also religious in sense, mythological and deep rooted in the belief system on skygod-smithgod. This could mean that such a cult was present in your proposed Seima-center (~West Uralic), as considering the nature of entire Seima-Turbino, with weapon sacrificials, it would make lot of sense.“

“Cult vocabulary” could indeed be a promising line of research. Pre-Proto-Yukaghir cannot be excluded from possible options related to the ignition of the Seima-Turbino Network in Southern Siberia. Its contacts with Uralic/Pre-Proto-Samoyedic in any case require presence near the Sayan Region. It could have been the language of the first immigrants carrying the Yakutia_LNBA ancestry. Someone should check the metal-related (and religious?) vocabulary of Yukaghir languages.

SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents:

“Ps. Thank you for the paper. It does have merit and the image makes lot of sense. Unfortunately most of the information about Koptyaki culture seems to be hidden behind the cryptography method called Cyrillic alphabet, making it difficult to research the topic from archeological perspective.”

Google Translator can translate PDF’s smaller than 10 Mb to English-ish, which is helpful. But it ruins the tables, so the original is also needed. I have heard that AI could produce better translations.

[SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents]

However, according to mainstream etymological research, of those only vasara is an Indo-Iranian word.
https://kaino.kotus.fi/suomenetymologine...sepp%C3%A4

Yes, I know. They are just defined as "early Finnic origin" with some odd meanings - example would be word for silver: Hopea. 

It's reconstructed to early proto-Finnic as *šopeδa and the meaning would be something close to 'soft'. I have nothing against the recostructed form, it is what is. Word silver in most IE languages has (atleast had) kind of dual meaning, both the metal itself but also colour white. Same as gold as metal and yellow as colour. Now it just happens to be that colour white in Sanskrit is translittered as something like śvetaḥ and in Avestan spaēta. Obviously there are quite a few steps missing in between from both sides. There are similar cases for rest of my examples and I do fully acknowledged that getting 100% proof is propably impossible. Parpola has written about both Vasara (axe/hammer) and Vaaja (thunderbolt). Both are epiteths of of deity Indra, swinging with Vazra to smite enemies and then trowing them with Vajra to finish the job. These weapons are obviously typical for IE deities from Zeus to Thor to Perkunas but the Finnic words are indeed suspiciously close to Indo-Iranian names. 

Thanks for the pdf tip, I'll try openAI with VladMC's pdf. 

[Jaska]

Parastais:

“Yes, but nothing Fatyanovo > Baltics is known at any time of history. Neither genetically not archeology. If Proto-Balto-Slavic was Fatyanovo, then that would be quite strange.
BaltoSlavic Fatyanovo is dead genetically and it will be dead also linguistically. Just a matter of time.”

First, I do not suggest that within the Fatyanovo Culture Proto-Balto-Slavic was present, but some of its ancestral stage. The PBSl proper is dated only to the 2nd millennium BCE. And as I wrote, the Upper Dnieper Region was Fatyanovo area, later part of the Trzciniec Circle. So, if you can derive the present Baltic language from the Trzciniec Circle, what is the problem?

Second, it was in any case a long-lasting process of multiple steps of expansion – just like with most of the Indo-European languages. And we all know that the archaeological culture and the genetic composition can be different in every successive step.

Why don’t you present your method and evidence based on which you make your claim that Balto-Slavic cannot have come from the Fatyanovo Culture? Then we could check how reliable your method is.

Parastais:

“(1) if we consider Fatyanovo an archaic (and/or extinct) form of IndoIranian instead of Baltic nothing is lost for this argument (which is weak anyway, because all those shared innovations are disputed and impact all 3 BS, Albanian, IndoIranian but with different outcomes > Satem unites BS and A, ruki I think is not regular among all 3 and even within Baltic itself)
(2) meh. I saw no regular loanword from Proto-WU to its daughters from Proto-Balto-Slavic in your article. Those Archaic ones had some strange outcomes in daughter languages. I know of no other traces "in the more eastern regions" from Balto-Slavic that should or even could be dated at Fatyanovo times. Besides - if archaic Baltoslavic is a language before Satemization, then how would archaic Baltoslavic before Satemization be different from archaic IndoIranian before Satemization? Which phonetic rule/ marker would separate them?”

1a. Nobody considers Fatyanovo Baltic, unless perhaps someone among the authors of Grünthal et al. 2022.

1b. Albanian is neither centum- nor satem-language, because it has preserved all three series of stops separated (Armenian is argued to be similar). Besides, even though LPIE *ḱ, *ǵ > th, dh, the development did not necessary go through satem-reflexes like in Indo-Iranian (*ć) or Balto-Slavic (*ś).

1c. Satemization and the Ruki-rule were indeed areally spread, between existing branches. But these two do not seem to include Albanian, only Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian.

2a. I did not even include Proto-Balto-Slavic words in my article; Kallio did. My words were later than Proto-West Uralic. But there were no strange outcomes, except in the one word marked with “?”.

2b. I am not suggesting that Proto-Balto-Slavic was spoken within Fatyanovo, but some earlier stage.

2c. Archaic Balto-Slavic is later than Proto-Balto-Slavic – it does not precede satemization.

2d. In both Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic there were sound changes occurring before satemization (pages 51–52).

Parastais:

“I don't think there are such words with regular sound substitutions in daughter languages in any sufficient quantity to avoid chance trade contacts - before DWU stage. Happy to change my mind, if evidence comes.”

You must then define “sufficient quantity” and “regular enough sound substitutions”. Is it not regular enough, if it is recurring? Nobody is requiring to accept unique one-time sound substitutions.

[Jaska]

However, according to mainstream etymological research, of those only vasara is an Indo-Iranian word.
https://kaino.kotus.fi/suomenetymologine...sepp%C3%A4

Yes, I know. They are just defined as "early Finnic origin" with some odd meanings - example would be word for silver: Hopea. 

It's reconstructed to early proto-Finnic as *šopeδa and the meaning would be something close to 'soft'. I have nothing against the recostructed form, it is what is. Word silver in most IE languages has (atleast had) kind of dual meaning, both the metal itself but also colour white. Same as gold as metal and yellow as colour. Now it just happens to be that colour white in Sanskrit is translittered as something like śvetaḥ and in Avestan spaēta. Obviously there are quite a few steps missing in between from both sides. There are similar cases for rest of my examples and I do fully acknowledged that getting 100% proof is propably impossible. Parpola has written about both Vasara (axe/hammer) and Vaaja (thunderbolt). Both are epiteths of of deity Indra, swinging with Vazra to smite enemies and then trowing them with Vajra to finish the job. These weapons are obviously typical for IE deities from Zeus to Thor to Perkunas but the Finnic words are indeed suspiciously close to Indo-Iranian names. 

Well, Mallory & Adams 2006, page 332, write:
"Baltic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian all attest *kˆwoito´s *kˆwitro´s ‘white’ (e.g. Lith sˇvitru`s ‘bright’, OCS svı˘tı˘ ‘light’, Av spae¯ta- ‘white’, Skt s´veta´- ‘white, bright’, s´vitra´- ‘whitish, white’)."
https://smerdaleos.files.wordpress.com/2...-adams.pdf

This would be *śwaitá- in Late Proto-Indo-Iranian. Perhaps some Iranian form could come closest. Still, we should somehow explain why *s was substituted by *š instead of *s, and why *sp was substituted by *šop instead of just *p. But if similar cases can be found, it would become possible to consider, so let us keep our eyes open. 

Anyway, it is probably not any weaker etymology than the Germanic *samþja- 'soft'.
I have to check Parpola about those other words.

[Parastais]

This would be *śwaitá- in Late Proto-Indo-Iranian. Perhaps some Iranian form could come closest. Still, we should somehow explain why *s was substituted by *š instead of *s, and why *sp was substituted by *šop instead of just *p. But if similar cases can be found, it would become possible to consider, so let us keep our eyes open. 

Not re this particular word, but this s>š irregularity seems to be omnipresent (or I am just catching it up everywhere):
Baltic laišas > liess loanwords (in Lithuanian s, in Finnic š)
Your ParaSlavic where Slavic s ~ ParaSlavic s'
Some strange "š language" from other work(s)

I have a hard time believing those were all independent situations. I mean they could, but...

[Jaska]

This would be *śwaitá- in Late Proto-Indo-Iranian. Perhaps some Iranian form could come closest. Still, we should somehow explain why *s was substituted by *š instead of *s, and why *sp was substituted by *šop instead of just *p. But if similar cases can be found, it would become possible to consider, so let us keep our eyes open. 

Not re this particular word, but this s>š irregularity seems to be omnipresent (or I am just catching it up everywhere):
Baltic laišas > liess loanwords (in Lithuanian s, in Finnic š)
Your ParaSlavic where Slavic s ~ ParaSlavic s'
Some strange "š language" from other work(s)

I have a hard time believing those were all independent situations. I mean they could, but...

Every case must be evaluated independently. So let us begin:

1. In early Germanic loanwords it is usual that we see initial *s substituted by Middle Proto-Finnic *š (but not in initial consonant clusters). This is because there was only one sibilant in Proto-Germanic, and therefore it had often rather “central” variants. Similarly, modern Finnish s is often interpreted as š by speakers of Latvian or Lithuanian (or other languages where there are both “sharp“ s and “hushing” š). Because there were both *s and *š in MPFi, they also heard the only Germanic *s as *š. Baltic had *s and *š (and their voiced counterparts), so these sibilants were easily kept apart in the loanwords borrowed into MPFi.

2. Therefore it is extremely rare and striking when we have MPFi *š corresponding to Latvo-Lithuanian sharp *s. When we also see that this MPFi *š appears in an environment which should show the Ruki-change (therefore Baltic *laišas), the credible interpretation is that the word indeed represents some other ancient Baltic dialect and not any ancestral stage of Latvian or Lithuanian, which show the unexpected lack of the Ruki-change in this particular word.

3. Reconstructed Para-Slavic *ś is based on Mordvin, which distinguishes between *s, *š, and *ś (< PU *ć). Finnic lost its *ć early on together with other palatalized sounds, so MPFi *š was the closest substitute for *ś.

4. There indeed seems to be an excess of *š-words in the substrate vocabulary from languages replaced by the West Uralic branches. Unlike in Proto-Uralic, *š was also able to combine with following nasal consonant. However, Aikio found in his 2004 article that there was a dialectal boundary in Lapland around the Lake Inari Region: to the west from it there is normal *s in the substrate loanwords, to the east from it there is *š in the same words. There is nothing in the historical phonology of the Saami languages to explain this, so it must reflect already dialectal variation between the donor languages.

[Parastais]

First, I do not suggest that within the Fatyanovo Culture Proto-Balto-Slavic was present, but some of its ancestral stage. The PBSl proper is dated only to the 2nd millennium BCE. And as I wrote, the Upper Dnieper Region was Fatyanovo area, later part of the Trzciniec Circle. So, if you can derive the present Baltic language from the Trzciniec Circle, what is the problem?

The causality, no expansion from Fatyanovo to Baltics, Belarus, Middle Dnieper, Komarovo, etc. Expansion went from TCC core (still disputed, but NE Poland is most likely) to West (Trzciniets), South (Komarovo), East (Sosnitsa) including Upper Dnieper, bringing R1a Z280 guys with BS drift also into previously Z93 no BS drift Fatyanovo territory.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...onze_5.png
Sosnica culture bordering Srubnaya 1500-1000 BCE, Sosnica is related to Baltic and/or Slavic ethnogenesys and Srubnaya are considered some type of Indo-Iranian, as you can see links between BS and II (especially late ones like RUKI that had different reflexes in Baltic and Slavic) don't have to be limited to Fatyanovo.

You must then define “sufficient quantity” and “regular enough sound substitutions”. Is it not regular enough, if it is recurring? Nobody is requiring to accept unique one-time sound substitutions.

8-10 Baltoslavic terms that are following same phonetic changes as inherited Uralic words in Finnic, Saami and Mordvin would be a good start.
If they are recurring but not same as for inherited, then DWU stage is more likely with one tribe being the mediator to others.

[Parastais]

"At this point, the absolute chronology can only be estimated very roughly. ProtoWest Uralic can be located around the Upper Volga–Oka fork in the mid-second millennium BC (Häkkinen 2009: 37–40; Kallio, forthcoming), to where it arrived from the east."
https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/cor...58/content

"Common West Uralic probably dates in the centuries around the beginning of the first millennium BC, spreading to the south and west to the Upper Volga–Oka Region. Here the contact language was Archaic Balto-Slavic and towards the end also ParaSlavic and the early stage of East Baltic."

Fatyanovo is dated 2900-2000 BCE at best. How can you prove Baltoslavic in Fatyanovo using evidence from 1500 BCE or 1000 BCE when Fatyanovo got replaced by post-TCC people in Russia? 

So, is there a linguistic evidence from 2000 BCE BaltoSlavic in Fatyanovo? If no, then in case of absence of linguistic evidence, genetics and archeology should be used.

[Jaska]

"At this point, the absolute chronology can only be estimated very roughly. ProtoWest Uralic can be located around the Upper Volga–Oka fork in the mid-second millennium BC (Häkkinen 2009: 37–40; Kallio, forthcoming), to where it arrived from the east."
https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/cor...58/content

"Common West Uralic probably dates in the centuries around the beginning of the first millennium BC, spreading to the south and west to the Upper Volga–Oka Region. Here the contact language was Archaic Balto-Slavic and towards the end also ParaSlavic and the early stage of East Baltic."

Fatyanovo is dated 2900-2000 BCE at best. How can you prove Baltoslavic in Fatyanovo using evidence from 1500 BCE or 1000 BCE when Fatyanovo got replaced by post-TCC people in Russia? 

So, is there a linguistic evidence from 2000 BCE BaltoSlavic in Fatyanovo? If no, then in case of absence of linguistic evidence, genetics and archeology should be used.

I never said that Proto-Balto-Slavic was spoken within Fatyanovo. Only its ancestral stage. Please read my comments before you reply to them.

[Jaska]

Parastais:

“The causality, no expansion from Fatyanovo to Baltics, Belarus, Middle Dnieper, Komarovo, etc. Expansion went from TCC core (still disputed, but NE Poland is most likely) to West (Trzciniets), South (Komarovo), East (Sosnitsa) including Upper Dnieper, bringing R1a Z280 guys with BS drift also into previously Z93 no BS drift Fatyanovo territory.”

No need for direct expansion from Fatyanovo to the Eastern Baltic Region, as I explained: Proto-Balto-Slavic was not spoken within Fatyanovo, because it is a later stage. As I already said, I do not reject the Trzciniec Circle as the main Proto-Balto-Slavic sphere.

Visible expansion from west to east naturally cannot disprove other roots in the northeast. There are limited number of Fatyanovo samples, so the situation with their Y-DNA may not be final – compare to the R1b – Corded Ware connection. Besides, there are some same mtDNA lineages in Fatyanovo and Trzciniec Culture. The Balto-Slavic drift can easily have been born only after Fatyanovo, so how can it disprove anything?

Parastais:

“Sosnica culture bordering Srubnaya 1500-1000 BCE, Sosnica is related to Baltic and/or Slavic ethnogenesys and Srubnaya are considered some type of Indo-Iranian, as you can see links between BS and II (especially late ones like RUKI that had different reflexes in Baltic and Slavic) don't have to be limited to Fatyanovo.”

Satemization and the Ruki-rule are older than Iranian spoken within the Srubnaya Culture. In my article you see the relative chronology of sound changes in Indo-Iranian.

Parastais:

“8-10 Baltoslavic terms that are following same phonetic changes as inherited Uralic words in Finnic, Saami and Mordvin would be a good start.
If they are recurring but not same as for inherited, then DWU stage is more likely with one tribe being the mediator to others.”

Kallio has those in his article. Many of them are earlier than Late Proto-Balto-Slavic (the last common ancestor after the period of common Balto-Slavic developments).

[Parastais]

"At this point, the absolute chronology can only be estimated very roughly. ProtoWest Uralic can be located around the Upper Volga–Oka fork in the mid-second millennium BC (Häkkinen 2009: 37–40; Kallio, forthcoming), to where it arrived from the east."
https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/cor...58/content

"Common West Uralic probably dates in the centuries around the beginning of the first millennium BC, spreading to the south and west to the Upper Volga–Oka Region. Here the contact language was Archaic Balto-Slavic and towards the end also ParaSlavic and the early stage of East Baltic."

Fatyanovo is dated 2900-2000 BCE at best. How can you prove Baltoslavic in Fatyanovo using evidence from 1500 BCE or 1000 BCE when Fatyanovo got replaced by post-TCC people in Russia? 

So, is there a linguistic evidence from 2000 BCE BaltoSlavic in Fatyanovo? If no, then in case of absence of linguistic evidence, genetics and archeology should be used.

I never said that Proto-Balto-Slavic was spoken within Fatyanovo. Only its ancestral stage. Please read my comments before you reply to them.

I read your comments I just use Baltoslavic for everything Baltoslavic including its ancestral stage.
So, what evidence is there for ancestral stage of Baltoslavic in Fatyanovo? What exclusive mutations it has in common with future Baltoslavic and whee are those traces fixed?

[SeriesOfExtraordinaryEvents]

About Seppä ('smith') again..

I was translating the linked pdf from Russian to English, using the free version of ChatGPT. It produces good, understandable language but the process itself is time consuming manual copy/paste.

I got bored of doing that and I asked the following question:

What is proto-Indo-Iranian word for smith ?

Answer:
The Proto-Indo-Iranian word for smith is believed to be "*(s)āp-."

When I demanded the source it referred me to "The Oxford introduction to PIE.." by Mallory and Adams.

Interesting.

[Jaska]

About Seppä ('smith') again..

I was translating the linked pdf from Russian to English, using the free version of ChatGPT. It produces good, understandable language but the process itself is time consuming manual copy/paste.

I got bored of doing that and I asked the following question:

What is proto-Indo-Iranian word for smith ?

Answer:
The Proto-Indo-Iranian word for smith is believed to be "*(s)āp-."

When I demanded the source it referred me to "The Oxford introduction to PIE.." by Mallory and Adams.

Interesting.

Very interesting! Searching for 'smith' did not brought any such results. The closest I could find there is:
PIE *sep- ‘handle (skilfully), hold (reverently)’ > Sanskrit sápati

But the Uralic word would have been *ćeppa (trad. *śeppä).