The Difficulties of Reconstructing the Cultural Lexicon for a Macrofamily-Level ProtoLanguage (Based on the Afrasian Example)

The paper offers a critical analysis of several Afrasian etymologies with presumably “military” semantics, put forward by Alexander Militarev. The conclusion is that these etymologies typically suffer from multiple problems, such as lack of proper attention to the historical typology of semantic shifts and insufficient consideration for the distribution of potential reflexes in daughter languages. Because of this, the reconstructability of a large Proto-Afrasian lexical layer of specifically “military” terms remains questionable – a t least not until such a reconstruction has been diligently conducted on each of the chronological levels preceding Proto-Afrasian (particularly on the various intermediate levels of the Cushitic family, since only a secure reconstruction of any select etymon on the ProtoCushitic level can in turn properly guarantee its Proto-Afrasian status).

Keywords

Afrasian languages, Proto-Afrasian language, cultural lexicon, historical semantics, distant language relationship

Acknowledgment

This article is a translation of: Старостин Г.С. Проблемы реконструкции культурной лексики праязыка макросемьи (на примере афразийского) // Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie. 2021. No 4. P. 42–49. DOI: 10.31857/S023620070016697-3

Received

22.09.2021

Publication date

28.09.2021

Number of characters

22605

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GOST	Starostin G. The Difficulties of Reconstructing the Cultural Lexicon for a Macrofamily-Level ProtoLanguage (Based on the Afrasian Example) // Etnograficheskoe obozrenie – 2021. – №4 C. 267-273 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/ethnorev/s086954150016798-7-1-en (circulation date: 26.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S086954150016798-7
MLA	Starostin, George "The Difficulties of Reconstructing the Cultural Lexicon for a Macrofamily-Level ProtoLanguage (Based on the Afrasian Example)." Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 4 (2021):267-273. DOI: 10.31857/S086954150016798-7
APA	Starostin G. (2021). The Difficulties of Reconstructing the Cultural Lexicon for a Macrofamily-Level ProtoLanguage (Based on the Afrasian Example). Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (4), pp.267-273 DOI: 10.31857/S086954150016798-7

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1	The paper of Alexander Yu. Militarev, one of the largest Russian specialists in historical semitology and Afrasistics, continues his long-term research in the field of reconstruction of not only the phonetic appearance and vocabulary of the Proto-Afroasiatic language, but also the cultural world of the ancient Afrasians. I would like to take this opportunity, by no means belittling the relevance and significance of the author's etymological research, to nevertheless express a few long-pending considerations concerning some fundamental methodological problems that have not been completely overcome either in Afroasiatic linguistics, or in general in studies that somehow deal with "distant" (as opposed to "near") linguistic kinship.
2	Professional historical linguists are well aware that there is, although not very clearly defined, but still a real demarcation line between the "basic" comparative material, on the basis of which the fact of linguistic kinship is proved (or at least justified), and a kind of additional layer, which by itself, for various reasons, cannot prove the kinship, but can be used for further linguistic reconstruction, provided that the kinship has already been proven. The "basic" material primarily includes elements of grammar and so called basic vocabulary (more or less universal lexical concepts that are rarely borrowed from language to language and have a high level of historical stability); the additional layer is usually defined as "cultural lexicon", which includes more complex, less universal concepts that are more prone to shifting and borrowing.
3	In modern comparative studies, the hypothesis of Afroasiatic relationship, from the point of view of the "basic" material, is in a much more favorable position than, for example, the Nostratic hypothesis of Vladislav M. Illich-Svitych or the Sino-Caucasian hypothesis of Sergei A. Starostin: comparative material confirming it from the field of grammatical paradigmatics and basic vocabulary, although not numerous, is still usually considered sufficient for the world linguistic community to accept as a given the descent of the Semitic, Berber, Chadic, Egyptian and Cushitic languages from a common linguistic ancestor (some doubts have recently been expressed only regarding the Omotic languages).
4	However, reconstruction of the Proto-Afroasiatic cultural vocabulary and, in general, Afroasiatic etymology as such, are in a much more difficult situation. None of the two Afroasiatic etymological dictionaries published to this date (by Christopher Ehret and by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova) enjoys significant authority, and although in general the dictionary of Orel and Stolbova is significantly stronger than the works of Ch. Ehret from the point of view of the quality of phonetic and semantic comparisons, most of the etymologies presented in it can be considered "raw material" for building a full-fledged dictionary rather than the final product. Work on the preparation of this kind of publication has long been carried out as part of the etymological base by Alexander Militarev and Olga Stolbova (from which the material for the concerned article is mainly borrowed), however, in my opinion, its successful completion is still hindered by a number of unresolved problems, which are quite clearly manifested, including in the data given in the publication of Alexander Militarev.
5	Above all, it is necessary to emphasize once again the historical specifics of the cultural vocabulary (as opposed to the basic one). First, the cultural vocabulary as a whole is less stable, i.e. the words that do not belong to the basic layer, as a rule, have a shorter "life cycle" and are replaced by lexical innovations much faster. Accordingly, for example, the a priori probability that the same word with the meaning "war" or "club" will remain unchanged (except for the phonetic appearance) for five or even more than ten thousand years, even in one language (not to mention more), should be much lower than for the word "hand" or the pronouns "I" and "you". At best, various semantic shifts should be expected for lexical elements belonging to the cultural layer, at worst – complete disappearance. The exceptions, of course, are possible, but in general, only an incurable optimist can count on a successful reconstruction of a full–fledged corpus of cultural vocabulary at the level of, say, 10-12 thousand years BC.
6	Secondly, in the presence of even minimal language contacts, the cultural vocabulary is easily subject to borrowings, which creates numerous problems in cases where originally related languages are in contact with each other; this requires the establishment of fairly clear criteria for distinguishing genetically related and borrowed vocabulary, which is actually not always possible, especially in situations where there are ambiguities with historical phonetics.
7	Surprisingly, in situations of distant relationship between several language families, each of which is represented by dozens (Semitic, Berber, Cushitic) or even hundreds (Chadic) of languages, some researchers may find these problems not so significant or even negligible, although they often turn out to be significant for relatively small families. This is primarily due to the fact that in the presence of a huge linguistic material from which one can more or less arbitrarily select formally "suitable" etymological parallels, the possibility of taking random coincidences in form and meaning (as a rule, partial, but sometimes complete) for such parallels increases significantly.

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