TheGermanic substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the purportedly distinctive nature of theGermanic languages within the context of theIndo-European languages. Based on the elements ofCommon Germanic vocabulary and syntax which do not seem to have cognates in other Indo-European languages, it claims that Proto-Germanic may have been either acreole or acontact language that subsumed a non-Indo-Europeansubstrate language, or a hybrid of two quite different Indo-European languages, mixing thecentum and satem types.[citation needed] Whichculture or cultures may have contributed the substrate material is an ongoing subject of academic debate and study.
The non-Indo-European substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the anomalous features of Proto-Germanic as a result ofcreolization between an Indo-European and a non-Indo-European language. A number of root words for modern European words seem to limit the geographical origin of the Germanic influences, such as the root word forash (the tree) and other environmental references suggest a limited root stream subset, which can be localized to NorthernEurope.[1] The non-Indo-European substrate theory was first proposed in 1910 bySigmund Feist, who estimated that roughly a third of Proto-Germanic lexical items came from a non-Indo-European substrate and that the supposed reduction of the Proto-Germanic inflectional system was the result ofpidginization with that substrate.[2]
GermanicistJohn A. Hawkins set forth in 1990 some more modern arguments for a Germanic substrate. Hawkins argued that the Proto-Germans encountered a non-Indo-European speaking people and borrowed many features from their language. He hypothesizes that the first sound shift ofGrimm's law was the result of non-native speakers attempting to pronounce Indo-European sounds and that they resorted to the closest sounds in their own language in their attempt to pronounce them.[3] The American linguistJohn McWhorter supported essentially the same view in 2008, except considered that it might have been asuperstrate instead of substrate situation (i.e., non-Indo-European speakers struggling to learn Indo-European).[4]
Kalevi Wiik, a phonologist, put forward a hypothesis in 2002 that the pre-Germanic substrate was of a non-Indo-EuropeanFinnic origin. Wiik claimed that there are similarities between mistakes in English pronunciation typical ofFinnish-speakers and the historical sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic.[5][6] Wiik's argument is that only three language groups were widespread inNeolithic Europe:Uralic,Indo-European, andBasque, corresponding to threeice-age refugia. Then, Uralic speakers would have been the first to settle most of Europe, and the language of the Indo-European settlers was influenced by the earlier Uralic population, producing Proto-Germanic.[5][6]
Existing evidence of languages outside these three refugia (such as the proposedTyrsenian language family or the undecipheredVinča symbols) potentially creates a complication for Wiik's hypothesis that Uralic languages dominated the Proto-GermanicUrheimat. Moreover, his interpretation ofIndo-European origins differs from that of the academic mainstream.[a] On the other hand, the Germanic language family is believed to have dominated in southernScandinavia for a time before spreading south. This would place it geographically close to the Finnic group during its earliest stages of differentiation from other Indo-European languages, which is consistent with Wiik's hypothesis.[citation needed]
Theo Vennemann put forth theVasconic substrate hypothesis in 2003, which posits a "Vasconic" substrate (ancestral to Basque) and aSemitic or "Atlantic Semitidic" superstrate in Proto-Germanic.[8][page needed][1] However, his speculations have found little support in or have been outright dismissed by the broader community of academic linguists, especially byhistorical linguists.[9][10](See also:Vasconic substrate hypothesis § Reception.)
However, some other modern linguists, including McWhorter (2008), have supported (without any Finnic or "Vasconic" connections) the hypothesis of a Semitic superstrate on proto-Germanic – particularlyPhoenician/Punic, via primarily maritime contact.[4] The general outline of the idea of Semitic (or more broadlyAfroasiatic) influences on northwestern Indo-European languages (including, in different ways, both Germanic and Celtic) long pre-dates McWhorter, Vennemann, Wiik, and Hawkins. It was first proposed by the Welshlexicographer and translatorJohn Davies in 1632, then revived and developed by WelshgrammarianJohn Morris-Jones in 1912, and Austrian-CzechphilologistJulius Pokorny in 1927 and 1949.[9]
The following list contains various proposed loan words and other grammatical features such as case endings, prefixes and suffixes put forward by proponents of the hypothesis that allegedly do not originate from the same lexical genesis/source as other equivalent terms found throughoutIndo-European sister branches.
Bracketed words are of (largely undisputed) Indo-European origin but it should also be noted that some words derived from the same root have acquired different meanings in various Germanic languages.[11]
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bear | bera | beer | Bär | bero | björn | *berô | (*h₂ŕ̥tḱos) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| berry | berġe | bes | Beere | beri | ber | *bazją | (*h₂ógr̥) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| back | bæc | bah | bak | *baką | (*kuHlos) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| broad | brād | breed | breit | breit | breiðr | *braidaz | (*pléth₂us) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bride | brȳd | bruid | Braut | brūt | brúðr | *brūdiz | (*wedʰúHs) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bow | boga | boog | Bogen | bogo | bogi | *bugô | (*h₂erkʷos) |
| Modern English | Old English | Dutch | German | Old German | Old Norse | Proto-Germanic | Proto-Indo-European |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| beacon | bēacn | baken | Bake | *baukną | (*ǵnéh₃mn̥) |
Archaeologists[who?] have identified candidates for possible substrate culture(s), including theMaglemosian,Nordwestblock, andFunnelbeaker culture, but also older cultures of northern Europe like theHamburgian or even theLincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician culture.[citation needed]
TheBattle Axe culture has also been proposed as a candidate for the people who influenced Germanic with non-Indo-European speech. Alternatively, in the framework of theKurgan hypothesis, the Battle Axe culture may be seen as an already "kurganized" culture, built on the substrate of the earlierFunnelbeaker culture.[citation needed]
The Battle Axe culture spread through a wider range of regions across Eastern and Central Europe, already close to or in contact with areas inhabited by Indo-European speakers and their putative area of origin, and none of the Indo-European proto-languages thus produced or their succeeding languages developed along the much larger line of extension of the Battle Axe culture (Celto-Italic, Illyrian, Slavic, Baltic, and others) appear to have been affected by the same changes that are limited to the Proto-Germanic.[citation needed]
Hawkins (1990)[3] and McWhorter (2008)[4] both saw Grimm's law as strongly supporting at least a superstrate if not substrate hypothesis, because of the extent of the changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, which they characterized as likely the results of the struggles of speakers of one language to adapt to an unrelated and very different other one, with the moresibilant-heavy non-IE language's consonantal features being adopted systematically and IE grammar being simplified, especially through loss of most of thecase system.
Not all scholars consider non-Germanic IE languages such asSanskrit to belinguistically conservative but Germanic innovative.Eduard Prokosch (1939) wrote that "the common Indo-European element seems to predominate more definitely in the Germanic group than anywhere else".[12] In regards to the issue,Edgar C. Polomé (1990) wrote: "Assuming 'pidginization' in Proto-Germanic on account of the alleged 'loss' of a number of features reconstructed by theNeogrammarians as part of the verbal system of Proto-Indo-European ... is a rather specious argument. ... The fairly striking structural resemblance between the verbal system of Germanic and that ofHittite rather makes one wonder whether these languages do not actually represent a more archaic structural model than the further elaborated inflectional patterns ofOld Indic andHellenic."[13]
In the 21st century, treatments of Proto-Germanic tend to reject or simply omit discussion of the Germanic substrate hypothesis.[citation needed] For instance, Joseph B. Voyles'sEarly Germanic Grammar makes no mention of the hypothesis.[14][non-primary source needed] On the other hand, the substrate hypothesis remains popular with theLeiden school ofhistorical linguistics. This group influenced the four-volume Dutch dictionary (2003–2009)[15] — the first etymological dictionary of any language that systematically integrated the hypothesis into its material.
Guus Kroonen brought up the so-called "Agricultural substrate hypothesis", based on the comparison of a presumably Pre-Germanic and Pre-Greek substrate lexicon (especially agricultural terms without clear IE etymologies). Kroonen links that substrate to thegradual spread of agriculture inNeolithic Europe fromAnatolia and theBalkans, and associates the Pre-Germanic "Agricultural" substrate language with theLinear Pottery culture. The prefix *a- and the suffix *-it are the most apparent linguistic markers by which a small group of "Agricultural" substrate words - i.e. *arwīt ('pea') or *gait ('goat') – can be isolated from the rest of the Proto-Germanic lexicon.[16]
According to Aljoša Šorgo, there are at least 36 Proto-Germanic lexical items very likely originating from the "Agricultural" substrate language (or a group of closely related languages). It is proposed by Šorgo that the "Agricultural" substrate was characterized by a four-vowel three-dipthong system of */æ/ */ɑ/ */i/ */u/ */ɑi/ */æu/ */ɑu/, a prosodically mobile stress timed accent, and reduction of unstressed vowels to *[ə] which was often syncopated. */æ, ɑ/ also had rounded allophones *[ɶ, o].[17]It also had the following consonants:
| German substrate consonants[17] | ||||||||||
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||||
| Plosive | p | ᵐb | t | ⁿd | k | ᵑɡ | ||||
| Fricative | þ?,s | x? | ||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||
| Approximant | w? | l | ||||||||
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