bomhard - review of "semitic and indo-european: the principal etymologies" by saul levin

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© Diachronica XIV:1.131-136 (1997).

Semitic and Indo-European: The principal etymologies. By Saul Levin. (=

Current Trends in Linguistic Theory, 129.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John

Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995. Pp. xxii, 514.

Reviewed by ALLAN R. BOMHARD, Charleston, S.C.

In the book under review, Levin continues work he began half a century

ago and which had led to the publication of his book The Indo-European and Semitic Languages in 1971. While the earlier book was devoted mainly to a

study of morphological similarities between Semitic languages and several

Indo-European languages, the current book deals with etymological material.

Future volumes are planned.

The approach that Levin follows in choosing which languages to compare

is quite different from what I and others would do, have done, and are doing.

In fairness, in my earliest writings, I, too, compared Indo-European directly

with Semitic, for the most part ignoring the other Afroasiatic languages.

However, I found that the results that could be achieved by such a compari-

son, though promising, were handicapped by not fully integrating Semitic

within Afroasiatic as a whole, and, therefore, I subsequently expanded thescope of my research to include other Afroasiatic languages. It was in so do-

ing that I discovered that other Afroasiatic languages contained a tremendous

amount of data as a group that could be used in a comparison with Indo-

European (and other Nostratic languages). Moreover, it is only by investigat-

ing Semitic within Afroasiatic that one is able to understand how Semitic re-

lates to other Afroasiatic daughter languages and to discover that Semitic has

developed its own unique characteristics. In other words, I belong to that

group of scholars that believes that Semitic is more closely related to other

Afroasiatic languages by a long shot than it is to Indo-European or to any

other language or group of languages. Thus, it follows that it is Afroasiatic as

a family that must be compared with Indo-European (and other Nostratic lan-

guages) and not Semitic alone, which represents just one branch of Afroasi-

atic, and probably not even the most representative branch. At best, only lim-

ited and misleading results can be achieved by comparing Semitic directly

with Indo-European to the exclusion of the remaining Afroasiatic daughter

languages.



132 ALLAN R. BOMHARD: REVIEW OF LEVIN (1995)

ages.

Levin’s understanding of how one makes use of traditional methodolo-gies such as the Comparative Method and Internal Reconstruction appears to

differ from that of others in the field. Since this has serious consequences, it

might be useful at this point to summarize the basic principles underlying the

Comparative Method. The first step involves the arduous task of data gather-

ing, placing special attention on gathering the oldest data available. Once a

large amount of lexical material has been gathered, it must be carefully ana-

lyzed in order to try to separate what is ancient from what is an innovation

and from what is a borrowing. After the native lexical elements have been

reasonably identified in each phylum, the material can be compared across

phyla to determine potential cognates. Once a sufficient body of potentialcognates have been identified, one can begin to work out the sound corre-

spondences. Not only must the regular sound correspondences (that is, those

that occur consistently and systematically) be defined, exceptions must also

be explained. Here, widely-attested sound changes (palatalization, metathe-

sis, syncope, assimilation, dissimilation, etc.) provide the key to understand-

ing the origin of most exceptions. In other cases, the analysis of the influence

that morphology has exerted provides an understanding of how particular ex-

ceptions came into being. Some exceptions, though clearly related, simply

defy explanation. All of these must be scrupulously noted. The final step in-

volves the reconstruction of ancestral forms and the formulation of the sound

laws leading to the forms in the descendant languages, identifying the lawsthat have produced the regular sound correspondences as well as the excep-

tions. The same principles apply to the reconstruction of grammatical forms

and rules of combinability and to the identification of the historical

transformations leading to the systems found in the daughter langu

I believe that Levin’s failure to adhere rigorously to established method-

ologies is one of the major shortcomings of his book. For example, there are

no tables of sound correspondences in the book. Indeed, instead of the identi-

fying regular sound correspondences (that is, those that occur consistently

and systematically), one finds statements like “[b]y this argument, æ — ex-

cept for voicing — would stand for nearly the same sound asö

” (p.65), or “[t]he affricated {j} is fairly close to the Hebrew ö {c}” (p.89), or “[t]he

sound of [hóde] is fairly close to [hazz¦], although the double voiced sibilant

is at several removes from the single voiced plosive” (p.346), or “[t]he Se-

mitic {r} corresponds loosely to the nasal consonant [in IE – ARB]” (p.427),

etc. Ancestral forms (that is, Proto-Indo-Semitic forms) are not reconstructed,

and no attempt is made to explain in a consistent, systematic manner how the



REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS / BESPRECHUNGEN 133

attested forms came into being. To be sure, Levin does provide explanations, but each form is dealt with individually, and no attempt is made to under-

stand the overall structure and how the individual forms fit into the overall

structure — that is to say, there is no way to tell whether they are to be seen

as regular developments or whether they are exceptions.

It is not always clear whether Levin thinks that a particular etymology

represents a true cognate or whether it is a borrowing. Moreover, by not es-

tablishing regular sound correspondences, Levin is led astray by forms that

have a superficial resemblance but which cannot possibly be related. These

points can be illustrated by looking at some of his proposed etymologies:

1) One of the most important etymologies in the book (#1.A) is the wordfor “bull”, represented, for example, on the Semitic side by Arabic

{þawran} and on the Indo-European side by Greek ôá™ñïí. Other schol-

ars are nearly unanimous in considering the Indo-European form to be a

borrowing from Semitic, as suggested, for instance, by Gamkrelidze &

Ivanov (1995:439).

2) In the etymology (#1.B) for “horn”, represented on the Indo-European

side by Latin cornu(m) and on the Semitic side by Arabic {qarnu(m)}, we

may also be dealing with borrowings, at least for some of the languages

involved, as many scholars have long suspected. On the other hand, it is

not impossible that these are merely chance resemblances since both havegood etymologies within their respective language families.

3) The next group of etymologies proposed by Levin compares Hebrew

{"ózen} with Old High German [ " ]oren “ear”, Hebrew {«áyin} with Old

English [ " ]e(a)gan “eye”, and Hebrew {«¦c¤m} with Sanskrit {astºán}

“bone”. Not one of these is a convincing etymology. These etymologies

demonstrate the importance of understanding the prehistoric develop-

ments within each language family separately before comparing across

phyla. Let us look at just one of these comparisons to illustrate this point.

Hebrew {"ózen} “ear” is cognate with the following forms in other Se-

mitic languages: Arabic "udn “ear”, Akkadian uzun “ear”, and Geez "‹ zn “ear”. The Semitic proto-form may be reconstructed as *# u ¸ n- or (earlier)

*# ‹ ¸ n- (¸ = o), which Diakonoff (1992:22) derives from Proto-

Afroasiatic * H ¦‹ ¸ - but which Orël & Stolbova (1995:32-33) derive from

Proto-Afroasiatic *# udun- or *# u ¸ un- (with “[a]n unexpected *d ~ * ¸

variation in the root”) on the basis of material from Semitic, Egyptian,

and East Chadic. Old High German [ " ]oren “ear”, on the other hand, is




cognate with Gothic ause “ear”, Latin auris “ear” (< *aus-is), andLithuanian ausìs “ear”, all of which Lehmann (1986:51), for example, de-

rives from Proto-Indo-European *e ws-, *us- “ear” and which Gamkrel-

idze & Ivanov (1995:688, n. 14) derive from *o(H)us-. The earliest Proto-

Indo-European form may be reconstructed as * HeHu-s-/* HoHu-s-, or the

like, with suffixal *-s-, which would then allow us to reconsider the pro-

posal made by Sturtevant (1942:47 §46a) that the Hittite form ehurati-

“(ear-)plug”, from an unattested *ehu(r)- “ear”, might belong here (note:

this comparison is rejected by Puhvel [1984–.1/2:253], but it is accepted

by Tischler and others [see references at Tischler 1977–:102]). Thus, it is

clear that the Afroasiatic forms cited by Levin cannot possibly be relatedto the Indo-European forms he cites when all of the relevant data are con-

sidered.

I could go on and on reviewing each of the etymologies proposed by

Levin, but I think enough has been given to illustrate the point I am trying to

make. That is not to say that there are not some valid etymologies in the book

— indeed there are. However, they are in the minority. Some of the better

etymologies include:

1) Semitic (Arabic) {"ar Tan}: IE (Old English) [ " ]eorðan “earth” (#1.F).

2) Semitic {(-)q(-)n(-)} : IE (-)g(-)n(-) “(be)get” (#2.C).

3) Semitic (Hebrew) *{pQt¦º} : IE (Latin) patet “it is wide open” (#2.L).4) Semitic (Hebrew) {Har(‹)šé-} : IE (Hittite) {Àarašzi} “plows” (#2.V).

5) Semitic (Hebrew) {-nu¦} : IE (Sanskrit) {ne, na} “us, our” (#3.B).

6) Semitic (Hebrew) {TE-} : IE (Latin) t ² “you” (#3.C).

7) Egyptian {Ànt(y)} : IE (Latin) ante “in front of” (#4.C).

8) Semitic (Akkadian) {ana} : IE (Gothic) ana “at, on” (#4.D).

9) Semitic (Akkadian) {in} : IE (Latin) in “in” (#4.E).

10) Semitic (Hebrew) {š¦ ba«} : IE (Gothic) sibun “seven”, (Sanskrit)

saptá “seven” (#5.A). This is a possible etymology. Indeed, it is one that I

have also proposed. There are some scholars, however, who consider the

Indo-European forms to be loans from Semitic.

It should be noted that there is often a great deal of discussion surround-

ing the individual etymologies, and these notes demonstrate Levin’s deep un-

derstanding of Hebrew and Arabic on the Semitic side and of Latin, Greek,

and Sanskrit on the Indo-European side. However, there are more than a few

errors in the forms cited and in the interpretations offered when other lan-

guages are brought into the discussion.



REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS / BESPRECHUNGEN 135

In conclusion, this book should be used with caution and even then onlyafter one has a good grasp of the relevant literature comparing Semitic (or

better, Afroasiatic) and Indo-European.

Reviewer’s address:

Allan R. Bomhard

88 Queen Street, Apt. B

CHARLESTON, S.C. 29401-2427

U. S. A.e-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES

Bomhard, Allan R. 1984. Toward Proto-Nostatic: A new approach to the

comparison of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic. Amsterdam /

Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

----------. 1996. Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis. Charleston,

S.C.: Signum Desktop Publishing.

---------- & John C. Kerns. 1994. The Nostratic Macrofamily: A study in dis-

tant linguistic relationship. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Diakonoff, Igor M. 1992. Proto-Afrasian and Old Akkadian: A study in his-

torical phonetics. (= Journal of Afroasiatic Languages, 4:1/2.) Princeton:

Institute of Semitic Studies.

Ehret, Christopher. 1980. The Historical Reconstruction of Southern Cushitic

Phonology and Vocabulary. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.

----------. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels,

tone, consonants, and vocabulary. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of

California Press.

Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. & VjaDeslav V. Ivanov. 1995. Indo-European and

the Indo-Europeans. English translation by Johanna Nichols. 2 vols. Ber-

lin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lehmann, Winfred P., ed. 1986. A Gothic Etymological Dictionary. Leiden:E. J. Brill.

Levin, Saul. 1971. The Indo-European and Semitic Languages. Albany: State

Univ. of New York Press.

Orël, Vladimir & Olga Stolbova. 1995. Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dic-

tionary: Materials for a reconstruction. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Puhvel, Jaan. 1984– . Hittite Etymological Dictionary. Berlin & New York:




Mouton de Gruyter.Sturtevant, Edgar H. 1942. The Indo-Hittite Laryngeals. Baltimore: Linguis-

tic Society of America.

Tischler, Johann. 1977– . Hethitisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Inns-

bruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.

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