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Indo-European Languages › Antique Origins
Definition and Origins
The Indo-European languages are a family of related languages that today are widely spoken in the Americas, Europe, and also Western and Southern Asia. Just as languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian are all descended from Latin, Indo-European languages are believed to derive from a hypothetical language known as Proto-Indo-European, which is no longer spoken.
It is highly probable that the earliest speakers of this language originally lived around Ukraine and neighbouring regions in the Caucasus and Southern Russia, then spread to most of the rest of Europe and later down into India. The earliest possible end of Proto-Indo-European linguistic unity is believed to be around 3400 BCE.
Since the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language did not develop a writing system, we have no physical evidence of it. The science of linguistics has been trying to reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European language using several methods and, although an accurate reconstruction of it seems impossible, we have today a general picture of what Proto-Indo-European speakers had in common, both linguistically and culturally. In addition to the use of comparative methods, there are studies based on the comparison of myths, laws, and social institutions.
THE ANCIENTS CAME UP WITH THE EXPLANATION THAT THE LATIN LANGUAGE WAS A DESCENDANT OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE.
BRANCHES OF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
The Indo-European languages have a large number of branches: Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Armenian, Tocharian, Balto-Slavic and Albanian.
Anatolian
This branch of languages was predominant in the Asian portion of Turkey and some areas in northern Syria. The most famous of these languages is Hittite. In 1906 CE, a large amount of Hittite finds were made on the site of Hattusas, the capital of the Hittite Kingdom, where about 10,000 cuneiform tablets and various other fragments were found in the remains of a royal archive. These texts date back to the mid to late second millennium BCE. Luvian, Palaic, Lycian, and Lydian are other examples of families belonging to this group.
All languages of this branch are currently extinct. This branch has the oldest surviving evidence of an Indo-European language, dated about 1800 BCE.
Indo-Iranian
This branch includes two sub-branches: Indic and Iranian. Today these languages are predominant in India, Pakistan, Iran, and its vicinity and also in areas from the Black Sea to western China.
Sanskrit, which belongs to the Indic sub-branch, is the best known among the early languages of this branch; its oldest variety, Vedic Sanskrit, is preserved in the Vedas, a collection of hymns and other religious texts of ancient India. Indic speakers entered into the Indian subcontinent, coming from central Asia around 1500 BCE: In the Rig- Veda, the hymn 1.131 speaks about a legendary journey that may be considered a distant memory of this migration.
Avestan is a language that forms part of the Iranian group. Old Avestan (sometimes called Gathic Avestan) is the oldest preserved language of the Iranian sub-branch, the “sister” of Sanskrit, which is the language used in the early Zoroastrian religious texts. Another important language of the Iranian sub-branch is Old Persian, which is the language found in the royal inscriptions of the Achaemenid dynasty, starting in the late 6th century BCE. The earliest datable evidence of this branch dates back to about 1300 BCE.
Today, many Indic languages are spoken in India and Pakistan, such as Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi, and Bengali. Iranian languages such as Farsi (modern Persian), Pashto, and Kurdish are spoken in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.
Indo-European language family tree
Greek
Rather than a branch of languages, Greek is a group of dialects: During more than 3000 years of written history, Greek dialects never evolved into mutually incomprehensible languages. Greek was predominant in the southern end of the Balkans, the Peloponnese peninsula, and the Aegean Sea and its vicinity. The earliest surviving written evidence of a Greek language is Mycenaean, the dialect of the Mycenaean civilization, mainly found on clay tablets and ceramic vessels on the isle of Crete. Mycenaean did not have an alphabetic written system, rather it had a syllabic script known as the Linear B script.
The first alphabetic inscriptions have been dated back to the early 8th century BCE, which is probably the time when the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, reached their present form. There were many Greek dialects in ancient times, but because of Athens cultural supremacy in the 5th century BCE, it was the Athens dialect, called Attic, the one that became the standard literary language during the Classical period (480-323 BCE). Therefore, the most famous Greek poetry and prose written in Classical times were written in Attic: Aristophanes, Aristotle, Euripides, and Plato are just a few examples of authors who wrote in Attic.
Italic
This branch was predominant in the Italian peninsula. The Italic people were not natives of Italy ; they entered Italy crossing the Alps around 1000 BCE and gradually moved southward. Latin, the most famous language in this group, was originally a relatively small local language spoken by pastoral tribes living in small agricultural settlements in the centre of the Italian peninsula. The first inscriptions in Latin appeared in the 7th century BCE and by the 6th century BCE it had spread significantly.
Rome was responsible for the growth of Latin in ancient times. Classical Latin is the form of Latin used by the most famous works of Roman authors like Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, and Marcus Aurelius. Other languages of this branch are: Faliscan, Sabellic, Umbrian, South Picene, and Oscan, all of them extinct.
Today Romance languages are the only surviving descendants of the Italic branch.
Map of Indo-Euopean Migrations
Celtic
This branch contains two sub-branches: Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic. By about 600 BCE, Celtic-speaking tribes had spread from what today are southern Germany, Austria, and Western Czech Republic in almost all directions, to France, Belgium, Spain, and the British Isles, then by 400 BCE, they also moved southward into northern Italy and southeast into the Balkans and even beyond. During the early 1st century BCE, Celtic-speaking tribes dominated a very significant portion of Europe. On 50 BCE, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (ancient France) and Britain was also conquered about a century later by the emperor Claudius. As a result, this large Celtic-speaking area was absorbed by Rome, Latin became the dominant language, and the Continental Celtic languages eventually died out. The chief Continental language was Gaulish.
Insular Celtic developed in the British Isles after Celtic-speaking tribes entered around the 6th century BCE. In Ireland, Insular Celtic flourished, aided by the geographical isolation which kept Ireland relatively safe from the Roman and Anglo- Saxoninvasion.
The only Celtic languages still spoken today (Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton) all come from Insular Celtic.
Germanic
The Germanic branch is divided in three sub-branches: East Germanic, currently extinct; North Germanic, containing Old Norse, the ancestor of all modern Scandinavian languages; and West Germanic, containing Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German.
The earliest evidence of Germanic-speaking people dates back to first half of the 1st millennium BCE, and they lived in an area stretching from southern Scandinavia to the coast of the North Baltic Sea. During prehistoric times, the Germanic speaking tribes came into contact with Finnic speakers in the north and also with Balto-Slavic tribes in the east. As a result of this interaction, the Germanic language borrowed several terms from Finnish and Balto-Slavic.
Several varieties of Old Norse were spoken by most Vikings. Native Nordic pre-Christian Germanic mythology and folklore has been also preserved in Old Norse, in a dialect named Old Icelandic.
Dutch, English, Frisian, and Yiddish are some examples of modern survivors of the West Germanic sub-branch, while Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish are survivors of the North Germanic branch.
Armenian
The origins of the Armenian-speaking people is a topic still unresolved. It is probable that the Armenians and the Phrygians belonged to the same migratory wave that entered Anatolia, coming from the Balkans around the late 2nd millennium BCE.The Armenians settled in an area around Lake Van, currently Turkey; this region belonged to the state of Urartu during the early 1st millennium BCE. In the 8th century BCE, Urartu came under Assyrian control and in the 7th century BCE, the Armenians took over the region. The Medes absorbed the region soon after and Armenia became a vassal state. During the time of the Achaemenid Empire, the region turned into a Persian satrap. The Persian domination had a strong linguistic impact on Armenian, which mislead many scholars in the past to believe that Armenian actually belonged to the Iranian group.
Tocharian
The history of the Tocharian-speaking people is still surrounded by mystery. We know that they lived in the Taklamakan Desert, located in western China. Most of the Tocharian texts left are translations from well-known Buddhist works, and all of these texts have been dated between the 6th and the 8th centuries CE. None of these texts speak about the Tocharians themselves.Two different languages belong to this branch: Tocharian A and Tocharian B. Remains of the Tocharian A language have only been found in places where Tocharian B documents have also been found, which would suggest that Tocharian A was already extinct, kept alive only as a religious or poetic language, while Tocharian B was the living language used for administrative purposes.
Many well-preserved mummies with Caucasoid features such as tall stature, red, blonde, and brown hair, have been discovered in the Taklamakan Desert, dating between 1800 BCE to 200 CE. The weaving style and patterns of their clothes is similar to the Hallstatt culture in central Europe. Physical analysis and genetic evidence have revealed resemblances with the inhabitants of western Eurasia.
This branch is completely extinct. Among all ancient Indo-European languages, Tocharian was spoken farthest to the east.
Balto-Slavic
This branch contains two sub-branches: Baltic and Slavic.
During the late Bronze Age, the Balts' territory may have stretched from around western Poland all the way across to the Ural Mountains. Afterwards, the Balts occupied a small region along the Baltic Sea. Those in the northern part of the territory occupied by the Balts were in close contact with Finnic tribes, whose language was not part of the Indo-European language family: Finnic speakers borrowed a considerable amount of Baltic words, which suggests that the Balts had an important cultural prestige in that area. Under the pressure of Gothic and Slavic migrations, the territory of the Balts was reduced towards the 5th century CE.
Archaeological evidence shows that from 1500 BCE, either the Slavs or their ancestors occupied an area stretching from near the western Polish borders towards the Dnieper River in Belarus. During the 6th century CE, the Slav-speaking tribes expanded their territory, migrating into Greece and the Balkans: this is when they are mentioned for the first time, in Byzantine records referring to this large migration. Either some or all of the Slavs were once located further to the east, in or around Iranian territory, since many Iranian words were borrowed into pre-Slavic at an early stage. Later on, as they moved westward, they came into contact with German tribes and again borrowed several additional terms.
Only two Baltic languages survive today: Latvian and Lithuanian. A large number of Slavic languages survive today, such as Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Russian, and many others.
Albanian
Albanian is the last branch of Indo-European languages to appear in written form. There are two hypotheses on the origin of Albanian. The first one says that Albanian is a modern descendant of Illyrian, a language which was widely spoken in the region during classical times. Since we know very little about Illyrian, this assertion can be neither denied nor confirmed from a linguistic standpoint. From a historical and geographical perspective, however, this assertion makes sense. Another hypotheses says that Albanian is a descendant of Thracian, another lost language that was spoken farther east than Illyrian.
Today Albanian is spoken in Albania as the official language, in several other areas in of the former Yugoslavia and also in small enclaves in southern Italy, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia.
Unaffiliated Languages
All languages in this group are either extinct or they are a former stage of a modern language. Examples of this groups of languages are Phrygian, Thracian, Ancient Macedonian (not to be confused with Macedonian, a language currently spoken in the Republic of Macedonia, part of the Slavic branch), Illyrian, Venetic, Messapic, and Lusitanian.
INDO-EUROPEAN HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
In ancient times it was noticed that some languages presented striking similarities: Greek and Latin are a well-known example.During classical antiquity it was noted, for example, that Greek héks “six” and heptá “seven” were similar to the Latin sex and septem. Furthermore, the regular correspondence of the initial h- in Greek to the initial s- in Latin was pointed out.
The explanation that the ancients came up with was that the Latin language was a descendant of Greek language. Centuries later, during and after the Renaissance, the close similarities between more languages were also noted, and it was understood that certain groups of languages were related, such as Icelandic and English, and also the Romance languages. Despite all of these observations, the science of linguistics did not develop much further until the 18th century CE.
During the British colonial expansion into India, a British orientalist and jurist named Sir William Jones became familiar with the Sanskrit language. Jones was also knowledgeable in Greek and Latin and was surprised by the similarities between these three languages. During a lecture on February 2, 1786 CE, Sir William Jones expressed his new ideas:
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquity of Persia. (Fortson, p. 9)
The idea that Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Persian were derived from a common source was revolutionary at that time. This was a turning point in the history of linguistics. Rather than the “daughter” of Greek, Latin was for the first time understood as the “sister” of Greek. By becoming familiar with Sanskrit, a language geographically far removed from Greek and Latin, and realizing that chance was an insufficient explanation for the similarities between these languages, Sir William Jones presented a new insight which triggered the development of modern linguistics.
Phoenicia › Ancient History
Definition and Origins
Phoenicia was an ancient civilization composed of independent city -states located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. The Phoenicians were a great maritime people, known for their mighty ships adorned with horses' heads in honor of their god of the sea, Yamm, the brother of Mot, the god of death. The island city of Tyre and the city of Sidon were the most powerful states in Phoenicia with Gebal/ Byblos and Baalbek as the most important spiritual/religious centers. Phoenician city-states began to take form c. 3200 BCE and were firmly established by c. 2750 BCE. Phoenicia thrived as a maritime trader and manufacturing center from c. 1500-332 BCE and was highly regarded for their skill in ship-building, glass-making, the production of dyes, and an impressive level of skill in the manufacture of luxury and common goods.
THE PURPLE PEOPLE
The purple dye manufactured and used in Tyre for the robes of Mesopotamian royalty gave Phoenicia the name by which we know it today (from the Greek Phoinikes for Tyrian Purple ) and also accounts for the Phoenicians being known as 'purple people' by the Greeks (as the Greek historian Herodotus tells us) because the dye would stain the skin of the workers.
IN ITS TIME PHOENICIA WAS KNOWN AS CANAAN & IS THE LAND REFERENCED IN THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES.
ScripturesHerodotus cites Phoenicia as the birthplace of the alphabet, stating that it was brought to Greece by the Phoenician Kadmus (sometime before the 8th century BCE) and that, prior to that, the Greeks had no alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is the basis for most western languages written today and their city of Gebal (called by the Greeks 'Byblos') gave the Bible its name (from the Greek Ta Biblia, the books) as Gebal was the great exporter of papyrus ( bublos to the Greeks) which was the paper used in writing in ancient Egypt and Greece. It is also thought that many of the gods of ancient Greece were imported from Phoenicia as there are certain indisputable similarities in some stories concerning the Phoenician gods Baal and Yamm and the Greek deities of Zeus and Poseidon. It is also notable that the battle between the Christian God and Satan as related in the biblical Book of Revelation seems a much later version of the same conflict, with many of the same details, one finds in the Phoenician myth of Baal and Yamm.
Map of Phoenicia
In its time Phoenicia was known as Canaan and is the land referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures to which Moses led the Israelites from Egypt and which Joshua then conquered (according to the biblical books of Exodus and Joshua but uncorroborated by other ancient texts and unsupported by the physical evidence thus far excavated). According to the historian Richard Miles, the people of the land recognized,
a shared ethnic identity as Can'nai, inhabitants of the land of Canaan yet, despite a common linguistic, cultural, and religious inheritance, the region was very rarely politically united, with each city operating as a sovereign state ruled over by a king (26).
The city-states of Phoenicia flourished through maritime trade between c. 1500-322 BCE when the major cities were conquered by Alexander the Great and, after his death, the region became a battleground in the fight between his generals for succession and empire. Artifacts from the region have been found as far away as Britain and as close as Egypt and it is clear that Phoenician luxury goods were highly prized by the cultures with whom they traded.
TRADING MIDDLEMEN
The Phoenicians were primarily known as sailors who had developed a high level of skill in ship-building and were able to navigate the often turbulent waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Shipbuilding seems to have been perfected at Byblos where the design of the curved hull was first initiated. Richard Miles notes that:
...over the following centuries, Byblos and other Phoenician states such as Sidon, Tyre, Arvad, and Beirut created an important niche for themselves by transporting luxury goods and bulk raw materials from overseas markets back to the Near East. These new trade routes took in much of the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, Rhodes, the Cyclades, mainland Greece, Crete, the Libyan coast, and Egypt. (28)
However, Phoenician sailors were also known to have traveled to Britain and to Mesopotamian ports.
Phoenician-Punic Ship
Evidence gathered from Phoenician shipwrecks provide modern-day archaeologists with first-hand evidence of some of the cargo these ships carried:
There were ingots of copper and tin, as well as storage vessels which are thought to have contained unguents, wine and oil, glass, gold and silver jewellry, precious objects of faience (glazed earthenware), painted potterytools, and even scrap metal. (Miles, 28)
Because their goods were so highly prized, Phoenicia was often spared the kinds of military incursions suffered by other regions of the Near East. For the most part, the great military powers preferred to leave the Phoenicians to their trade but that did not mean there was no envy on the part of their neighbors. The Bible refers to the Phoenicians as the "princes of the sea" in a passage from Ezekiel 26:16 in which the prophet seems to predict the destruction of the city of Tyre and seems to take a certain satisfaction in the humbling of those who had previously been so renowned.
Phoenician Glassware
However that may be, there is no doubt regarding the popularity of the goods produced in Phoenicia. So extraordinary was the skill of the artists of Sidon in glass-making that it was thought the Sidonians invented glass. They provided the model for the Egyptian manufacture of faience and set the standard for work in bronze and silver. Further, the Phoenicians seem to have developed the art of mass production in that similar artifacts, fashioned in the same way and in large quantities, have been found in the different regions with which the Phoenicians traded. Miles notes,
Favourite motifs included Egyptian magic symbols such as the eye of Horus, the scarab beetle and the solar crescent, and these were thought to protect their wearers from the evil spirits that prowled the world of the living (30).
The Phoenician purple dye, already mentioned above, became the standard adornment of royalty from Mesopotamia, through Egypt, and up through the Roman Empire. All of this was accomplished through the competition between the city-states of the region, the skill of the sailors who transported the goods, and the high art attained by the craftsmen in the manufacture of the goods. The competition was particularly keen between the cities of Sidon and Tyre, arguably the most famous of the city-states of Phoenicia who, along with the merchants of Byblos, carried and transmitted the cultural beliefs and societal norms of the nations they traded with to each other. The Phoenicians, in fact, have been called the `ancient middlemen' of culture by many scholars and historians because of their role in cultural transference.
THE CITY OF SIDON WAS INITIALLY THE MOST PROSPEROUS BUT STEADILY LOST GROUND TO HER SISTER CITY OF TYRE.
TYRE & SIDON
The city of Sidon (modern Sidonia, Lebanon) was initially the most prosperous but steadily lost ground to her sister city of Tyre.Tyre formed an alliance with the newly formed Kingdom of Israel which proved very lucrative and further expanded its wealth by decreasing the power of the clergy and more efficiently distributing the wealth to the citizens of the city. Sidon, hoping to form an equally prosperous trade with Israel, attempted to cement trade and alliance through marriage. Sidon was the birthplace of the princess Jezebel who was married to the King of Israel, Ahab, as chronicled in the biblical books of I and II Kings. Jezebel's refusal to relinquish her religion, dignity, and cultural identity to her husband's culture did not sit well with many of his subjects, most notably the Hebrew prophet Elijah who regularly denounced her. Ahab and Jezebel's rule was ended by a coup, inspired by Elijah, in which the general Jehu took control of the army and usurped the throne. Following this, trade relations between Sidon and Israel ceased. Tyre, however, continued to flourish.
Phoenician Bronze Bowl from Nimrud
ALEXANDER CONQUERS PHOENICIA
In 334 BCE Alexander the Great conquered Baalbek (re-naming it Heliopolis) and marched on to subdue the cities of Byblos and Sidon in 332 BCE. Upon his arrival at Tyre, the citizens followed the example set by Sidon and submitted peacefully to Alexander's demand for submission. Alexander then wished to offer a sacrifice in the holy temple of Melqart at Tyre and this the Tyrians could not allow. The religious beliefs of the Tyrians forbade foreigners from sacrificing, or even attending services, in the temple, and so they offered Alexander a compromise whereby he could offer sacrifice in the old city on the mainland but not in the temple on the island complex of Tyre. Alexander found this proposal unacceptable and sent envoys to Tyre demanding their surrender. The Tyrians killed the envoys and threw their bodies over the walls.
At this point Alexander ordered the siege of Tyre and was so determined to take the city that he built a causeway from the ruins of the old city, debris, and felled trees, from the mainland to the island (which, owing to sediment deposits over the centuries is why Tyre is not an island today), and, after seven months, breached the walls and massacred most of the populace. It is estimated that over 30,000 citizens of Tyre were massacred or sold into slavery and only those wealthy enough to properly bribe Alexander were allowed to escape with their lives (besides those who found a way to escape by stealth). After the fall of Tyre, the other city-states followed and surrendered to Alexander's rule, thus ending the Phoenician Civilization and ushering in the Hellenistic Age.
ROMAN PHOENICIA
By 64 CE the disassembled parts of Phoenicia were annexed by Rome and, by 15 CE were colonies of the Roman Empire with Heliopolis remaining an important pilgrimage site which boasted the grandest religious building (the Temple of JupiterBaal) in all of the Empire, the ruins of which remain well preserved to this day. The most famous legacy of Phoenicia is undoubtedly the alphabet but their contribution to the arts, and their role in disseminating the cultures of the ancient world, is equally impressive.
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