It's All Not Greek To Me. But It Might Be Elvish. Or Klingon.

A recent article in Archeology.org (see below) reconstructs a what the language of inhabitants of Europe might have sounded like. The general consensus is that is sounds like Klingon. I personally think it sounds like Elvish but what the Hell.

Some background here; Almost all European languages (with only a couple of exceptions which we'll get to in a bit) are related to each other to a greater or lessor degree in a language family called "Indo-European". This is a by-product of a massive migration into Europe from West of the Himalayas in what is now Western China approximately 6000 years ago. The people or peoples who made this trek have been shown to have shared the same basic DNA and it is assumed (although it can never actually be proved by this point of course) that they also shared the same basic language and that most (but not quite all) existing European languages descend from this language. The language family to which most European languages are included is called "The Indo-European Family" and the oldest form is known as "Proto-Indi-European". Of course at that time there was no written form much less recorded samples but there has been attempts to reconstruct what it may have sounded like;

Taken from an article on Archeology.org; Telling Tales in Proto-Indo-European
By ERIC A. POWELL

By the 19th century, linguists knew that all modern Indo-European languages descended from a single tongue. Called Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, it was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 B.C., and left no written texts. The question became, what did PIE sound like? In 1868, German linguist August Schleicher used reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary to create a fable in order to hear some approximation of PIE. Called “The Sheep and the Horses,” and also known today as Schleicher’s Fable, the short parable tells the story of a shorn sheep who encounters a group of unpleasant horses. As linguists have continued to discover more about PIE, this sonic experiment continues and the fable is periodically updated to reflect the most current understanding of how this extinct language would have sounded when it was spoken some six thousand years ago. Since there is considerable disagreement among scholars about PIE, no one version can be considered definitive. Here, University of Kentucky linguist Andrew Byrd recites his version of the fable using pronunciation informed by the latest insights into reconstructed PIE.

Schleicher originally rendered the fable like this:

Avis akvāsas ka
Avis, jasmin varnā na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam, vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham, tam, manum āku bharantam. Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam. Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus patis varnām avisāms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnā na asti. Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat.

Here is the fable in English translation:

The Sheep and the Horses;
"A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

And here is the modern reconstruction recited by Andrew Byrd. It is based on recent work done by linguist H. Craig Melchert, and incorporates a number of sounds unknown at the time Schleicher first created the fable:

H2óu̯is h1éḱu̯ōs-kwe
"h2áu̯ei̯ h1i̯osméi̯ h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1ést, só h1éḱu̯oms derḱt. só gwr̥hxúm u̯óǵhom u̯eǵhed; só méǵh2m̥ bhórom; só dhǵhémonm̥ h2ṓḱu bhered. h2óu̯is h1ékwoi̯bhi̯os u̯eu̯ked: “dhǵhémonm̥ spéḱi̯oh2 h1éḱu̯oms-kwe h2áǵeti, ḱḗr moi̯ aghnutor”. h1éḱu̯ōs tu u̯eu̯kond: “ḱludhí, h2ou̯ei̯! tód spéḱi̯omes, n̥sméi̯ aghnutór ḱḗr: dhǵhémō, pótis, sē h2áu̯i̯es h2u̯l̥h1náh2 gwhérmom u̯éstrom u̯ept, h2áu̯ibhi̯os tu h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1esti. tód ḱeḱluu̯ṓs h2óu̯is h2aǵróm bhuged.

Here is the fable in English translation:

The Sheep and the Horses;
"A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain."

And here is the modern reconstruction recited by Andrew Byrd. It is based on recent work done by linguist H. Craig Melchert, and incorporates a number of sounds unknown at the time Schleicher first created the fable:

H2óu̯is h1éḱu̯ōs-kwe;
"h2áu̯ei̯ h1i̯osméi̯ h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1ést, só h1éḱu̯oms derḱt. só gwr̥hxúm u̯óǵhom u̯eǵhed; só méǵh2m̥ bhórom; só dhǵhémonm̥ h2ṓḱu bhered. h2óu̯is h1ékwoi̯bhi̯os u̯eu̯ked: “dhǵhémonm̥ spéḱi̯oh2 h1éḱu̯oms-kwe h2áǵeti, ḱḗr moi̯ aghnutor”. h1éḱu̯ōs tu u̯eu̯kond: “ḱludhí, h2ou̯ei̯! tód spéḱi̯omes, n̥sméi̯ aghnutór ḱḗr: dhǵhémō, pótis, sē h2áu̯i̯es h2u̯l̥h1náh2 gwhérmom u̯éstrom u̯ept, h2áu̯ibhi̯os tu h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1esti. tód ḱeḱluu̯ṓs h2óu̯is h2aǵróm bhuged."

THE SHEEP AND THE HORSES;


In the 1990s, historical linguists created another short parable in reconstructed PIE. It is loosely based on a passage from the Rigveda, an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns, in which a king beseeches the god Varuna to grant him a son. Here, Andrew Byrd recites his version of the “The King and the God” in PIE, based on the work of linguists Eric Hamp and the late Subhadra Kumar Sen.

Here is an English translation of the story:

The King and the God;
"Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos." The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so," said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son."

And here is the story rendered in reconstructed Proto-Indo-European:
H3rḗḱs dei̯u̯ós-kwe;

"H3rḗḱs h1est; só n̥putlós. H3rḗḱs súhxnum u̯l̥nh1to. Tósi̯o ǵʰéu̯torm̥ prēḱst: "Súhxnus moi̯ ǵn̥h1i̯etōd!" Ǵʰéu̯tōr tom h3rḗǵm̥ u̯eu̯ked: "h1i̯áǵesu̯o dei̯u̯óm U̯érunom". Úpo h3rḗḱs dei̯u̯óm U̯érunom sesole nú dei̯u̯óm h1i̯aǵeto. "ḱludʰí moi, pter U̯erune!" Dei̯u̯ós U̯érunos diu̯és km̥tá gʷah2t. "Kʷíd u̯ēlh1si?" "Súhxnum u̯ēlh1mi." "Tód h1estu", u̯éu̯ked leu̯kós dei̯u̯ós U̯érunos. Nu h3réḱs pótnih2 súhxnum ǵeǵonh1e."

THE KING AND THE GOD;


The online responses have been to mockingly claim that it sounds like Klingon and Romulan from "Star Trek" or Elvish from "Lord Of The Rings". More realistically I think it bears a certain resemblance to Celtic languages like Gaelic and Welsh, (spoken with an oddly Scandinavian accent) for whatever that's worth.

Incidentally the few languages that are not part of the Indo-European language family are;

The Uralic Language Family which includes Finnish, Estonian and Lapp along with the more distantly related Hungarian. This group are actually known to be relatively late-comers to Europe, arriving in the Dark Ages.

Maltese; which is actually a Semitic language related to Arabic and Hebrew and which arrived with the Moors.

The next languages are much older and thus more relevant to the historical evolution;

Basque; which is spoken in the mountain border area of North-West Spain and South West France. Basque is quite ancient and clearly predates Celtic or Latin. It is theorized that Basque may have been related to Iberian, the ancient pre-Latin language of Spain and Portugal. This makes logical sense but there are too few samples of this tongue to prove this.

The Caucasian Family which is spoken in the Caucasus Mountains on the borders of Russia and Turkey and includes Georgian, Abkhaz, Chechen, Ingush, Circasian and literally dozens of smaller tongues (some of which are only spoken by tiny groups), but not Armenian (which actually is Indo-European) and Azeri which is related to Farsi (Persian). Linguists group these Caucasian languages together although they are not entirely sure they are all actually related to each other, or any other language. There are simply too many languages in the Caucasus spoken by tiny groups to make an in depth study practical.

Although not in Europe; there is a third language isolate residing in another mountain area surrounded by Indo-European people, namely the Burushaski people who live in the mountains of Western Pakistan. This language is spoken by a relatively small and isolated group of people and thus has not been heavily studied.

There are also some important long dead European languages such as Etruscan which was spoken in pre-Latin Italy and is now thought to be related to a couple of other dead languages such as Raetic (spoken in the Southern Alps) and Minoan spoken in the Aegean Islands. There is also Pictish, once spoken in Scotland. The scanty evidence suggests a possible link for Pictish to Welsh but this is thus far unproven.

Linguists refer to these languages that are unrelated to other language families as "isolates". The Caucasian languages have some interesting factors in common with Basque and Burushaski. All three languages are acknowledged to be very ancient with peoples who live in remote mountainous regions which suggests that in ancient times these peoples retreated into the mountains in the face of the later migrations of peoples like the Celts, Slavs etc. Also worth pointing out that there are very ancient Stonehenge type structures, stone circles and burial mounds that stretch from the outer islands of Scotland across Europe to the Caucasian Mountains that in turn implies that at one point there was one basically related culture that stretched across Europe in pre-historic times predating the arrival of the Indo-European peoples. Therefore there may have also been a related language. In search of this theory various linguists have tried to find a link connecting Basque and Georgian, although thus far this theory is unproven and controversial. At attempt to further link the Proto-Indo-European language with the Basque/Georgian/Burshaski languages needs further study.

A TV DOC ABOUT PROTO-LANGUAGE;