A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe

402 Pages·2012·6.131 MB·English

by  Riho Grünthal, Petri Kallio (eds.)

A Linguistic Map
of Prehistoric Northern Europe

Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia
Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne
* 266 *
A Linguistic Map
of Prehistoric Northern Europe
Edited by
Riho G ru nt ha I & Petri Kallio
Société Finno-Ougrienne
Helsinki 2012
A Linguistic Map ofPrehistoric Northern Europe
Edited by Riho Grunthal & Petri Kallio
Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia
Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne
Layout & image editing on pages 4, 8, 64, 126, 127, 128, 136, 139,
151, 157, 165, 202, 262, 301, 303 MA Anna Kurvinen
Language supervision PhD Uldis Balodis
Map on the cover Claudius Ptolemy [1598], Scandia, sive, regiones septentrionales
(The National Library of Finland, The Nordenskiöld Map Collection)
Copyright © 2012 Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura —
Société Finno-Ougrienne — Finno-Ugrian Society
& the authors
This publication was supported by the Academy of Finland
(project number 214246) and the University of Helsinki
Orders — Tilaukset
Tiedekirja
Kirkkokatu 14
FI-00170 Helsinki
www.tiedekirja.fi
[email protected]
ISBN 978-952-5667-42-4 (print)
ISBN 978-952-5667-43-1 (online)
ISSN 0355-0230
Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy
Sastamala 2012
Contents
Preface VII
Riho Grunthal
Introduction: an interdisciplinary perspective on
prehistoric Northern Europe XI
Mika Lavento
Cultivation among hunter-gatherers in Finland -
evidence of activated connections? 1
Charlotte Damm
From Entities to Interaction: Replacing pots and people
with networks of transmission 41
Luobbal Såmmol Såmmol Ante (Ante Aikio)
An essay on Saarni ethnolinguistic prehistory 63
Asko Parpola
Formation of the Indo-European and Uralic
(Finno-Ugric) language families in the light of
archaeology: Revised and integrated 'total' correlations 119
Tiit-Rein Viitso
Early Metallurgy in Language:
The History of Metal Names in Finnic 185
Karl Pajusalu
Phonological Innovations of the Southern Finnic Languages 201
Petri Kallio
The Prehistoric Germanic Loanword Strata in Finnic 225
Guus Kroonen
Non-Indo-European root nouns in Germanic: evidence
in support of the Agricultural Substrate Hypothesis 239
Santeri Junttila
The prehistoric context of the oldest contacts between
Baltic and Finnic languages 261
VI Contents
Riho Grunthal
Baltic loanwords in Mordvin 297
Willem Vermeer
Why Baba-Yaga? Substratal phonetics and restoration
of velars subject to the Progressive Palatalization in
Russian/Belorussian and adjacent areas (appr. 600-900 CE) 345
Preface
The topics of this book were first discussed during an international workshop
organised in Rakvere, Estonia, in October 2008, funded by the Academy of
Finland. In the longer run, they have been the subject of recent research of pre­
history and emerge from this same research area. The title of the symposium
Linguistic Map of Prehistoric North Europe was also applied to this volume,
which, in its final version, serves as a more limited forum for the dialogue be­
tween archaeology and language. In prehistoric studies, this tandem has a long
tradition, and there definitely is much to be found in the future, as well.
The dialogue between archaeology and linguistics as represented in this
volume has its predecessors in interdisciplinary communication. In Finland, this
tradition, though actually derived from early interdisciplinary academic inter­
ests and research at the beginning of the 19th century into the history of the
Finns, shares the heritage of the book Suomen väestön esihistorialliset juuret
‘The prehistoric roots of Finland’s population’ edited by Jarl Gallén (1984), fol­
lowed by Pohjan poluilla edited by Paul Fogelberg (1999). Both are nationally
oriented focusing on long-term cultural and linguistic development in the area
of modern Finland. Both volumes were published in Finnish and addressed pre­
dominantly to a Finnish readership, whereas the results were never made ac­
cessible for an international readership. A parallel study on the origin of the
Swedish population in Finland was published some years later in Swedish När
kom svenskarna till Finland? ‘When did the Swedes come to Finland?’, edited
by Ann-Marie Ivars and Lena Huldén (2002).
Some decades earlier, ethnohistory and ethnogenesis were topics that were
widely discussed in the Soviet Union under the generally severe post-war com­
munist totalitarian rule of the 1950s. Most frequently, this was discussed in an
anthropological framework and the volumes published during that era typically
included contributions by archaeologists and linguists. In post-war Estonia, a
thematic compilation on the ethnic prehistory of Estonians was published under
the title Eesti rahva etnilisest ajaloost ‘The Ethnic History of the Estonian Peo­
ple’, edited by Harri Moora (1956).
Given that Northern Europe is one of the main areas in which the Indo-
European and Uralic (alternatively Finno-Ugric with a minimal difference in
meaning) languages have been in contact and overlapped with each other’s geo­
graphical distribution already during the Neolithic era, both language families
as subjects of historical linguistics are involved in the discussion. The impor­
tance of different Indo-European loanwords in the stratification of early Uralic
variants in the northern Baltic Sea area has been a persistent topic in interdis­
ciplinary research of ethnohistory since Vilhelm Thomsen’s seminal works
Den gotiske sprogklasses indflydelse på den finske (1869) ‘The influence of the
VIII Preface
Gothic language class on Finnic’ and especially Beröringer mellem de finske og
de baltiske (litauisk-lettiske) sprog (1890) ‘Contacts between the Finnic and Bal­
tic (Lithuanian-Latvian) languages’. Since then the contacts between the Uralic
and Indo-European languages have been considered an invaluable factor for the
analysis of the development of prehistoric Finnic varieties and the dating of lin­
guistic phenomena and relative chronology of language change.
The most recent predecessor to the current volume, an international the­
matic volume in English, Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European:
Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations edited by Christian Carpelan,
Asko Parpola, and Petteri Koskikallio (2001), emphasises the importance of lin­
guistic and cultural contacts for the development of prehistoric ethnic relations
over a wide geographical area in Northern Eurasia. The contributors to that vol­
ume also demonstrated the need to extend the discussion to the international
research community. Articles dealing with the prehistoric linguistic landscape
of Northern Europe and cultural connections over a wide geographical area in
Northern Eurasia include contributions by 18 internationally acknowledged ar­
chaeologists and linguists. Many of the articles provide a valuable up-to-date
overview and new conclusions from research into ethnohistory.
Finally, the necessity to embrace several disciplines in the discussion of
prehistoric matters is one of the primary themes of the subseries Archaeology
and language I-IV (1987-1997) by Colin Renfrew, Roger Blench (ed.), and Mat­
thew Spriggs (ed.) of One world archaeology (London: Routledge). These vol­
umes promote discourse between archaeology and linguistics in different areas
around the world and identify areas in need of further study based on the evi­
dence resulting from this dialogue.
Compared with the publications mentioned above, the current volume sheds
more light on Northern Europe, a relatively well-researched area, by bringing
new evidence concerning language contacts and the development of cultural
areas. Regardless of the change of theories and new hypotheses concerning cul­
tural and linguistic continuity in various areas, continuity in research enables a
gradual accumulation of information.
Support to our project with the same focus was provided by the Academy
of Finland and the University of Helsinki. We are indebted to PhD Uldis Balodis
for language supervising of the texts published in this volume.
Despite the extremely strong integration of the modern international commu­
nity, the weakening of political borders, and intensive mobility, modern cultural
and linguistic entities have their roots in early prehistory. Units that are labelled
as a people and nation have their background in communities that consisted of
peoples with a very different sense of space and time than we have today.
Prehistory is the place where people often seek the explanation for the di­
versity of languages and differences between the cultures and human life de­
scribed by documented history. The understanding of the modern world, and
the multiple layers of social life, takes place through time, and explanations of