ThePaleo-European languages (orOld European languages)[1][2] are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken inNeolithic (c. 7000 – c. 1700 BC) andBronze Age Europe (c. 3200 – c. 600 BC) prior to the spread of theIndo-European andUralic families of languages. The vast majority of modern European populations speak Indo-European languages. However, until the Bronze Age, non-Indo-European languages were predominant across the continent.[3] The speakers of Paleo-European languages gradually assimilated into speech communities dominated by Indo-European speakers, leading to their eventual extinction, except forBasque, which remains the only surviving descendant of a Paleo-European language.[4]
A related term, "Pre-Indo-European", refers more generally to the diverse languages that were spoken inEurasia before theIndo-European migrations. This category thus includes certain Paleo-European languages (apart from those that were replaced by Uralic languages), along with many others fromWest,Central, andSouth Asia.
Until theBronze Age, the balance between non-Indo-European and Indo-European languages in Europe was the reverse of what it is today, with Paleo-European languages ofnon-Indo-European affiliation dominating the linguistic landscape.[5]
LinguistDonald Ringe, using general principles oflanguage geography for tribal, pre-state societies and the limited data on known non-Indo-European languages, suggests that Neolithic Europe had a highly diverse linguistic landscape, with manylanguage families having no recoverablelinguistic links to one another, much like western North America before European colonisation.[6] He believes the Mediterranean coastal region was home to numerous languages and language families, while the Atlantic coast (including theBritish Isles) had somewhat less but still significant diversity. The interior of the continent probably showed moderate linguistic diversity, except likely in the Alps and the mountainous areas of theBalkan Peninsula. In contrast, Scandinavia probably had relatively little linguistic variety. Ringe estimates that there may have been around 60 languages in Europe at that time, belonging to approximately 40 language families and 30 stocks. ArcheologistDavid W. Anthony postulates that there could have been between 20 and 40 "language communities" in Europe during the late Neolithic period.[6]
According to the widely heldKurgan hypothesis, speakers of Indo-European languages migrated into the European continent from a homeland located in thePontic steppe during the 3rd millennium BC, gradually replacing the existing Paleo-European languages.[7] While substantial migrations of Indo-European speaking peoples cannot be ruled out, the scenario of large-scale population replacements is unlikely; smaller groups with economic or political influence may have caused Paleo-European speakers to adopt their language over generations.[6] In this process, speakers of Paleo-European languages were gradually absorbed into speech communities dominated by Indo-European languages. With the sole exception of Basque, these Paleo-European languages declined under the pressure of Indo-Europeanization and eventually became extinct.[5]
In northern Europe,Uralic languages spread into Scandinavia and the Baltic region from the east. TheSami languages are part of the Uralic family but show significantsubstrate influence from one or more extinct older languages. It is estimated that the ancestors of the Sami adopted a Uralic language less than 2,500 years ago.[8] There are also some traces of indigenous languages from the Baltics in theFinnic languages, though these are much more modest. Additionally, other Uralic languages in Europe have borrowed early loanwords from unidentified non-Indo-European languages.[9]
Paleo-European languages and reconstructed substrates
Aquitanian[5] – a close relative, perhaps a direct ancestor, of modern Basque.[10]
Proto-Basque – the ancestral form of Basque reconstructed from the attested Basque dialects.
Basque (Euskara)[5] – the only surviving Paleo-European language.
?Iberian[5] – perhaps a relative to Aquitanian and Basque, but not confirmed.[11]
Tartessian – unclassified; possibly related to Iberian, if not related to Indo-European.[5][6]
Other Paleohispanic languages can only be identified indirectly throughtoponyms,anthroponyms ortheonyms cited byRoman andGreek sources. Most inscriptions were found written in thePhoenician orGreek alphabets. Little or no evidence of paleo-alphabets orhieroglyphics is found today; the little material that exists is mostly indecipherable.
Lemnian[5] – in Aegean area. Linguistic evidence points to a relationship with Tyrsenian languages, although it is unclear how Lemnian came to be spoken in this area.
?Camunic[5] – may belong to the Tyrsenian languages, although evidence is limited.[12]
Pre-Greek substrate – Ancient Greek was influenced by at least one non-Indo-European substrate;[13] debate remains as to whether Greek words of Anatolian origin should be interpreted as the result of later borrowing or as evidence for an Indo-European (Anatolian) substrate in Greece.[14][15][16]
^Gorrochategui 2022, p. 106: "Research in the second half of the twentieth century (Michelena 1954; Caro Baroja 1954; Gorrochategui 1984) has demonstrated convincingly that Aquitanian was genetically related to the Basque language, in a much stronger and clearer way than with any other language, including Iberian, thanks to the existence of cognate lexemes and suffixes, which often show an evolutionary phase prior to that established for their Basque correlates (Gorrochategui 1995). This opinion, widely accepted by most scholars, can be summed up in the following quote by Trask (1995: 87): "Aquitanian is so closely related to Basque that we can, for practical purposes, regard it as being the more-or-less direct ancestor of Basque." For Campbell (2011: 25–7), the nature of the relationship is not, however, so clearly identifiable as it was before, suggesting that Aquitanian, more than a direct ancestor of historical Basque, was a close relative that later became extinct."
^Schumacher, Stefan (2000). "Camunic". In Price, Glanville (ed.).Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.doi:10.1111/b.9780631220398.2000.x.ISBN978-0-631-22039-8.As for the character of the language documented by them, it is possible but not certain that Camunic is related to Etruscan and Raetic.
^Beekes 2014, pp. 1–3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBeekes2014 (help)
^Beekes 2014, p. 3: "The relationship with Anatolian languages is a separate problem. A Greek word is often called a loan from an Anatolian language, while it may just as well have been borrowed from the Pre-Greek substrate. It is generally accepted, on the basis of toponyms, that there once was a language which was spoken both in Greece and in western Asia Minor.3 In most cases, however, it is impossible to distinguish between substrate words and loans from Asia Minor (the latter are from a later date). A word may have been adopted through commerce, which must have been a regular phenomenon, or may have resulted from local borrowing in Asia Minor, from the time when Greeks settled there." sfn error: no target: CITEREFBeekes2014 (help)
^Mihaylova 2012, pp. 80–81ps: "As for the Anatolian substratum in Greece, which Beekes definitely rejects, I would like to quote the results of a recent genetic research study (King et al. 2008) demonstrating that the data collected from Neolithic sites in mainland Greece show strong affinity to Balkan data, while those from Crete show affinity with Central/Mediterranean Anatolia. I believe that the Pre-Greek layer is heterogeneous. We could accept a non-Indo-European layer in Greece and in all of Europe; this hypothesis fits well with the Kurgan theory which presupposes that Old (Neolithic) Europe was inhabited by a non-Indo-European population. Even in this case nothing contradicts the idea that Indo-European tribes inhabited the area of the Balkan Peninsula and the Aegean islands before the first Greeks, e.g. in the last centuries of the third millennium BC." sfn error: no target: CITEREFMihaylova2012 (help)
^Finkelberg 2006, p. 52: "As we have seen, the suffixes-nth- and-ss–, which a hundred years ago gave rise to the hypothesis of the non-Indo-European pre-Hellenic substratum, can now be accounted for as typically Anatolian or, to be more precise, Luwian." sfn error: no target: CITEREFFinkelberg2006 (help)
Anthony, David W. (2007).The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press.ISBN978-0691058870.
Gorrochategui, Joaquín (2022). "The Relationship between Aquitanian and Basque: Achievements and Challenges of the Comparative Method in a Context of Poor Documentation". In Chacon, Thiago Costa (ed.).Language Change and Linguistic Diversity: Studies in Honour of Lyle Campbell. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 105–129.doi:10.1515/9781474488143-010.ISBN978-1-4744-8814-3.
Haarmann, Harald (2011).Das Rätsel der Donauzivilisation: die Entdeckung der ältesten Hochkultur Europas. C.H.Beck.ISBN978-3-406-62210-6.
Haarmann, Harald (2014). "Ethnicity and Language in the Ancient Mediterranean". In McInerney, Jeremy (ed.).A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester, West Sussex:John Wiley & Sons. pp. 17–33.doi:10.1002/9781118834312.ch2.ISBN9781444337341.
Häkkinen, Jaakko (2012)."Early contacts between Uralic and Yukaghir"(PDF).Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia − Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne (264). Helsinki: Finno-Ugric Society:91–101. Retrieved13 July 2013.
Ringe, Donald (2013). "The Linguistic Diversity of Aboriginal Europe". In Chen, Shu-Fen; Slade, Benjamin (eds.).Grammatica et verba / Glamor and verve. A festschrift for Hans Henrich Hock. Beech Stave Press.ISBN978-0-9895142-0-0.
Haarmann, Harald (1991). "Pre-Indo-European Writing in Old Europe as a Challenge to the Indo-European Intruders".Indogermanische Forschungen. 1-8. Vol. 96. Strasbourg:Walter de Gruyter. pp. 1–8.
Mees, Bernard (2003). "A genealogy of stratigraphy theories from the Indo-European west". In Andersen, Henning (ed.).Language Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy. John Benjamins Publishing.ISBN978-90-272-4751-3.
Polomé, Edgar C. (1990). "Types of Linguistic Evidence for Early Contact: Indo-Europeans and Non-Indo-Europeans". In Markey, Thomas L.; Greppin, John A. C. (eds.).When Worlds Collide: The Indo-Europeans and Pre-Indo-Europeans. Karoma Publishers.ISBN978-0-89720-090-5.
