Proto-Pontic language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Proto-Pontic is a postulated proto-language.
Proto-Pontic has at least two daughter languages: Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian, the proto-languages of the Indo-European (IE) and Northwest Caucasian (NWC) language families. The linguist John Colarusso (1997) postulated this proto-language after observing a number of similarities between these two proto-languages in the areas of phonology and morphology. Critics consider these resemblances to be superficial.
Examples of similarities that have been noted include:
- Nasal negating particles in both families:
- A case variously named "accusative", "oblique" or "objective", marked with nasal suffixes:
The Proto-World theorist Patrick C. Ryan views Proto-Pontic as the ancestor of Proto-Nostratic (another postulated proto-language whose descendants include IE, Uralic, Altaic and possibly some other languages such as Sumerian and Afro-Asiatic). In this interpretation, the daughter families of Proto-Pontic would include, on the one hand, NWC and, on the other hand, the entire Nostratic macrofamily in which IE is one component.
[edit] See also
- Pontic language is a Greek language which was spoken in the Pontus, and has no special relationship to Proto-Pontic.
[edit] Reference
- Colarusso, John (1997). "Proto-Pontic: Phyletic links between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Northwest Caucasian". Journal of Indo-European Studies 25: 119–51.
[edit] External links
- Ryan, Patrick C. (1998). "Proto-Language 'He' and 'It'". (http://www.mega.nu/protolanguage/PERSPRO3A.htm)
