’’Protolanguages’ vs. Linguistic Networks Across Language Branches’. A Basic Inventory for Relations of Concepts in Prehistoric States of Linguistic Communication

Abstract

The following is a study of the representation of the reflexes of the roots of the Borean language family in the Eurasiatic, Afroasiatic, Sino-Caucasian, Austric, and Amerindian language families. This Borean language family is considered to be a macro-language family, which comprises the aforementioned language families as their members. With the selection of words of this macro-family we can state that the roots of this macro-family are neither equally distributed among the member families nor distributed in the framework of the traditional borders of natural languages families. In order to check the distribution of these Borean roots, we use the “100-Words-Swadesh List” to check extensions of the related roots within the 5 different language families. The results are presented in a list of 100 concepts and a theory of the conditions of linguistic communication in pre-historic time, for which linguists usually employ the concept of ‘protolanguages’. We derive from our findings that the early hypothetical linguistic states of humans allowed the representation of oneself and the environment as its thesaurus entailed the conceptual meanings for it. On the contrary, a grammticalization in the traditional understanding is not obviously resulting from the material as well as unlikely to have happened. The linguistic state was a ‘phonetic networking network’ across language families, so that the concept ‘language family’ should be critically revised.

Cuvinte-cheie: protolimbă, concept, stare preistorică, lingvistică, comunicare

REZUMAT

Articolul înglobează un studiu amplu asupra protoformelor boreane în limbile eurasiatice, afroasiatice, sino-caucaziene, austrice şi amerindiene. Prezenţa acestor protoforme în limbile date le permite unor savanţi să identifice chiar o macro-familie boreană. Cercetarea ei demonstrează că protoformele boreane nu se înregistrează echilibrat în limbile menţionate, iar, deseori, depăşesc chiar graniţele tradiţionale ale acestei macro-familii. Pentru a investiga prezenţa şi distribuţia protoformelor boreane în limbile eurasiatice, afroasiatice, sino-caucaziene, austrice şi amerindiene, folosim „Lista Swadesh de 100 de cuvinte”. Rezultatele studiului sunt prezentate într-o listă de 100 de concepte şi o teorie a condiţiilor comunicării glotice la etapa preistorică. Teoria dată, dezvoltată de o serie de lingvişti, pune în uz conceptul de „protolimbă”. Investigaţia întreprinsă pe paginile acestui articol ne-a permis să conchidem că comunicarea prin „protolimbă” s-a făcut datorită reprezentării ca tezaur a sinelui şi a mediului înconjurător. În limbile eurasiatice, afroasiatice, sino-caucaziene, austrice şi amerindiene, protoformele boreane sunt de natură fonetică. Gramaticalizarea, în înţelesul ei tradiţional, este puţin probabil să se fi produs. Aceste fapte îi determină pe unii cercetători să propună o revizuire a conceptului de „familie de limbi”.

LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION

English (main text and corpus)

UDC: 81’0

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Received: September 2, 2014 | Reviewed: September 14, 2014 | Accepted for publication: September 26, 2014

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