by Patrick C. Ryan
(5/17/98)
The purpose of this short essay is to establish as a hypothesis that IE and Pama-Nyungan, a reconstructed Australian proto-language, are both
descended from a common ancestor, which, I term the Proto-Language --- from the form into
which it had developed by about 60-40K BPE.
This date is based on the estimates of Cavalli-Sforza for the separation of the peoples of Asia and Europe (The Great Human Diasporas, p. 123) from the "main" branch of the people speaking the Proto-Language.
During this phase of development, the Proto-Language was passing out of a ergative-type morphology into an nominative-type morphology (G. A. Klimov).
SOV is the earliest Pama-Nyungan word-order, corresponding to SOV established by W. P. Lehmann for
IE; SOV word-order stems from the earliest syntax of the Proto-Language, in which the transitive subject is only loosely linked to the object-verb, which is primary.
Phonologically, it had already reached a stage of development in which the oldest semantic
contrasts of C+E/ C+A/ C+O had been replaced by CyV/ CV/ CwV.
In the Table of Correspondence found after the listing of lexical cognates below, the column
entitled PROTO-LANGUAGE shows the earliest syllables before vocalic contrasts were
replaced by a contrast of glides and no glide (during the Pontic stage: 60-40K BPE).
Similar tables of equivalence can and have been constructed for the Proto-Language, IE and
Afrasian (Egyptian and Arabic), Altaic, Beng (Southern Mandé), Hurrian, Japanese,
Mon/Hmong, Nama (Khoisan), (Sino-)Tibetan, Sumerian, and Uralic.
PL / IE / PAMA-NYUNGAN LEXICAL
COMPARISONS
(IE entries in parentheses are keywords in Pokorny 1959 unless marked by * [Morris 1976])
[bold entries are Pama-Nyungan, taken from Koch 1997 (Pama-Nyungan Reflexes in the Arandic Languages, Harold Koch, pp. 271-302, in Tryon and Walsh 1997)]
(1)K[H]XA-NA {‘stick-thing'}, in kana, ‘digging stick'; (IE *kanna, ‘a reed '; cf. also k^ent-, ‘stechen')
(2)P[H]A-HHA-S[H]A {‘flat'-REFL-‘state'}, patha, ‘bite'; (IE pa:-, ‘füttern, nähren, weiden; in Latin pa:sco:, ‘lasse weiden, füttere' [IE pa:s-])
(3)?A-MA {‘family-breast'}, ngama (better *ng(a)(1)-ama), ‘breast, mother'; (IE am(m)a, ‘Mutter')
(4)?A-T[H]O-$E {‘family-approacher-like'}, ngatyi (better *ng(a)(1)-ata-yi), ‘mother's father'; (IE atta, ‘Vater, Mutter', + -y{PL $E, ‘-like'} cf. Greek dial. acc. át(t)ein, ‘Großvater')
(5)HHA-P[?]A {‘water-spot'}, ngapa (better *ng(a)(1)-pa, ‘water'; (IE ab-, ‘Wasser, Fluß')
(6)$A-MO-$E-RE {‘eye-[slip-like=swing]-make'}, miira, ‘watch'; (IE Hamir- (not in Pokorny), in Latin mi:ror, ‘to wonder at, be astonished, look at with admiration' [cf. also Modern Spanish mirar, ‘look at, watch'], incorrectly listed under 1. (s)mei- (better *me:i-; cf. smei-ro-, ‘erstaunlich'), ‘lächeln, erstaunen'; cf. also Akkadian amâru, ‘see'; Egyptian (j)m3(3), ‘see, look at') . . . .
(100)F[H]A-R[H]A, waru (better *war-u), ‘fire'; (IE 12. wer-, ‘brennen, verbrennen, schwärzen')
PL MORPHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS IN PAMA-NYUNGAN
(not included under lexical headings)
The correspondence of ??? roots and ??+ formants suffices for a preliminary study to
establish the presumption of a genetic relationship.
to investigate these phonological correspondences in detail, see the
TABLE OF PL / IE / PAMA-NYUNGAN CORRESPONDENCES
NOTATIONAL CONVENTIONS
(Proto-)Pama-Nyungan
The notation and the roots discussed above follow the reconstructions of principally Geoffrey O'Grady (and others) as transmitted by Harold Koch in his essay "Pama-Nyungan Reflexes in the Arandic Languages", pp. 271-302, in Tryon and Walsh 1997.
(Proto-)Pama-Nyungan Phonemes:
p, m;
ty (prepalatal), t (alveolar), rt (postalveolar), ny (prepalatal), n (alveolar), rn (postalveolar);
th, nh, lh (all dental);
k, ng;
w, y;
rr (alveolar), r (postalveolar), ly (prepalatal), l (alveolar), rl (postalveolar);
i, ii, a, aa, u, uu.
(doubling indicates phonemic length)
for modifications of the vowels and consonants in combination, see the
Table of Modifications
In order for readers to judge the semantic plausibility of the analysis of Proto-Language
(PL) compounds suggested here, I am including access to a table of Proto-Language Monosyllables and the meanings I have
provisionally assigned:
most assignments can be exhaustively supported by data from actually attested forms but a
few animates are very doubtful; and this list does not represent the "final" solution of these
questions, which will only be approached when other scholars assist in refining it.
Patrick C. Ryan
Spring 1998
the latest revision of this document can be found at
HTTP://WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/Athens/Forum/2803/comparison.PAMA-NYUNGAN.12.htm
Patrick C. Ryan * 9115 West 34th Street - Little Rock, AR 72204-4441* (501)227-9947
PROTO-LANGUAGE@email.msn.com