25. The ie legacy, isogloss.

Words which have common IE root have certain lexical meaning. They reflect surrounding world, natural phenomena, things necessary for people for living. We distinguish such semantic groups of words:

• Natural phenomena: heavenly bodies, atmospheric phenomena, relief, seasons:

• сонце

• Goth. sunno, sauil

• L sol

• OIsl. sol

• OE sunna

• OSlav сльньце

• OHG sunna

• Гора, погорб

• OE hyll

• L collis

• Lithuanian kalnas

• Lettish kalns

• Names of wild animals

• Вовк

• Goth wolfs

• OE wulf

• OHG wolf

• L lupus

• OSlav влькь

• Names of plants

• береза

• OSlav брьза

• OE beorc

• OHG birihha

• Names of birds

• Parts of body

• ніс

• OSlav нось

• Lithuanian nasus

• OE nosu

• OHG nasa

• OIsl. nos

• Relatives

• син

• OSlav. Синь

• Goth sunus

• OIsl. sonr

• OE, OHG sunu

The isogloss: narrow meaning: the line on the map showing the spread of this or that ling. phenomenon; broad sense: a lexical or morphological unit common for certain group of lang-es and which is not encountered (не зустрічається) in the other lang.-es (я маю – в мене є; мешкати – проживати).

26. Common Germ. Stock.

The common vocabulary. In the traditional view the Indo-Europeans before their dispersal (7000/4000 BC) were a nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoral people. They had cattle and sheep, for there are common words for both of these, e.g. English ox is Welsh ych, Sanskrit uksan-, and Tocharian okso. Cattle were obviously highly prized. OE feoh, Sanskrit pacu- and Latin pecu, meant both “cattle” and “wealth”, the Latin word for “money, wealth” was pecunia, and cattle figure prominently in the early writings of Indo-European peoples. They also had domestic animals, including the dog, and possibly the pig, the goat, and the goose, but there no common word for the ass, nor for the camel – English word goes back, via Latin and Greek, to a loan from a Semitic language. The Indo-Europeans certainly had horses, for which a rich vocabulary has survived, and they also had vehicles of some kind, for these are the words for wheel, axle «ось», nave “маточина (колеса)” and yoke “ярмо, хомут”. They had cheese and butter, but no common word for milk has survived, which shows how “chancy” the evidence is. No large common vocabulary has survived for agriculture, such a vocabulary is found in the European languages, but this may obviously date from after dispersal. There are, however, common words for grain, and Greek and Sanskrit have cognate words for plough and for furrow “борозна”, so there is some support to the view that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were agriculturalists.

РОЖЬ, нем. ROGGEN < PG * ruggn-/*rugis- (с обычным удвоением g перед n )< PIE *rughio- in Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic languages, PDE rye.

There is, however, no common word for beer (which an agriculturalist’s product, while there is a word for mead. On the other hand, there is no common vocabulary for hunting or fishing.

There are a number of common words for tools and weapons, including arrows, and there is no evidence to suggest that at one time the tools and weapons were made of stone: the Latin verb secāre ‘to cut’ is related to saxum ‘a stone, rock’, and the latter is identical with OE seax, which meant ‘knife’. At one time, it seems, a stone could be a cutting instrument. The PIE people knew metal, however, for there two common words for copper and bronze, one of which survives as PDE ore, Latin aes, Sanskrit ayas, and there also words for gold and silver. There is no common terminology for the techniques of metallurgy. The vocabulary shows a familiarity with pottery and also with weaving.

They knew both rain and snow, but their summer seems to have been hot, which suggests a continental climate. The wild animals they knew include wolves, bears, otters, mice, hares, and beavers, but apparently not lions, tigers, elephants, or camels, so presumably they lived in a cool temperate zone. There has been some argument about the common Indo-European words for the beech tree, the eel, and the salmon. The beech does not grow in North-East Europe or anywhere east of Caspian, so it has been argued that the home of the Indo-Europeans must have been farther West. The eel and the salmon are not found in the rivers that flow into the Black sea, so it has been argued that this region too must be ruled out. There are, however, two weaknesses in this argument. The first is that the climate has changed since the times of he PIE: around 4000 BC, the climate of southern Russia was wetter and warmer than it is today, and there were many more trees, especially along the banks of streams and rivers; these trees almost certainly included beech. The second weakness is that we cannot be absolutely certain that these words originally referred to the species in question. E.g., it is possible thet the word for ‘salmon’ (German Lachs, Swedish lax, Russian lososi ‘salmon’, Tocharian laks ‘fish’) did not originally refer to the true salmon, but to a species of Salmo found North of the Black sea.

The view of the IE family is supported by the Indo-European names of Gods. There are a few common to the European and Asiatic languages, and they seem to be personifications of natural forces. Prominent among them, is a Sky God: he Greek Zeus, the Sanskrit Dyaus, the OE Tīw (Tuesday). He was a Father God, as we can see it from his Latin name, Jupiter, which means ‘Sky Father’.