MertKaan
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Humanity has an unstoppable drive to learn or invent where we came from. It started with inventions, and now is transitioning to learning. Linguistics was circling the subject like Mercury is circling the Sun, too hot to approach, too bright to look at. This posting offers analysis that posits that Latvian and Russian languages grew out of Türkic languages, and thus identifies Balto-Slavic proto-language with Türkic language. Galina Shuke expresses an opinion that “Türkic language stands closest to the mankind's cradle than any other language”, elaborated in her work. In essence, that assertion equates the hypothetic Nostratic language with Türkic languages, and by extension with the Germanic languages. Holistic approach by the researcher bears fruits flung by partial studies.
The offered citation from the work of Galina Shuke is a work of practicing polyglot linguist that does not trail the formulaic family tree model that ascribes all phonetic changes to internal development, and instead approaches languages with full understanding that life was intermixing languages and people, and different people mutually shaped genetics and communications in largely stochastic evolutionary process. That the ethnically Russian natively Latvian author gained a special appreciation of the Turkish language is certainly noteworthy, it gives a credence to her objectivity and openness of her mind, and adds a dimension of unencumbered creativity to her study. The process of abandoning the family tree model is promising to be protracted and painful, not any easier than was the abandoning the Aristotle's universe, and for many years we are going to see the rear ends of the crouched linguists peeking to see what lays beyond the rim of the world; but the tools in their disposal fall far short from the orthodox pundits who resorted to proclaiming anathema to the unbelievers. The family tree model, which took Eurasia as some remote isolated island in the World Ocean, will probably cloister in linguistic convents and ultimately survive, regurgitating with nostalgia the old asterisked *reconstructions that were once sold as canonic knowledge.
The miracle of the current European etymology is not less amazing than walking barefoot on water. The etymological blinds limit horizon to Latin and Greek like they were Noah's children, and from there start the Biblical-like asterisked *reconstructions serving as linguistic Adam and Eve. The Russian etymology follows the epitome, but stops at the limit of Slavic records, something around the 10th c., with strenuous efforts to get to the holy Sanskrit against all odds. In most cases, the flexive nature of the European languages, and the peculiar variety of the original local vernaculars create variations remote enough from the underlying superbly rigid Türkic root morphemes, allowing the blinded and less inquisitive not to see the obvious substrate. The etymological house of cards, however, can be easily disturbed by an innocent observer, and it would suffice to detect a single substrate of a single European language to bring the whole Eurocentric linguistics crushing down. Where the etymological definitions ended hanging up in the air, like was the case with the Germanic branch, the blanks can be filled with the substrate Türkic language, closing the loop without any tentative *reconstructions. This amazing miracle can be easily rationalized by simply dropping the mental blinds. Instead of the slew of dead ends and pranks, we follow the guidance of genetics, and in an instant, etymology becomes as rational as a palm of our hand.
This linguistic work requires some understanding of the basics used in the discourse. Lexis is all meaningful word forms and grammatical functions of the language. Lexicon is a set of words in the language. If lexis is a building with all its distinction and beauty, lexicon is a pile of various bricks that built that building, irrespective of the mortar, interconnections, and ornaments. A study of lexicon to understand language is like a study of a brick pile to understand building. It is customary in Eurocentric linguistics to ignore the morphology as as whole, and meaning-carrying suffixes in particular. Morphology is a practice of forming words, for example in English morphological suffixes produce different meanings and different grammatical functions: teach (v.) => teacher (n.), teach (v.) => teaching (n.), teach (v.) => teacherless (adj.); the suffixes carry standard function, -er/-ar makes a person (and so does -er/-ar in Türkic), -ing produces verbal noun (and so does -in in Türkic), -less produces negation (and so does -siz in Türkic). The stem “teach” can be replaced with another stem, the grammatical result would be the same: kick, kicker, kicking, kickerless. Not all suffixes in English are Türkic, some came from Romance group, some were innovations. With stable suffixes, coming up with new words is a child's play, they keep appearing daily, as the life requires new names for new realities. A different story is with phonetics, or sounds of speech. Sounds are fluid, they change with time, with geography, with migrations and admixtures, and who knows what else. Moskov becomes Moscow, tomato becomes tomeito, New York becomes New Yok. Some trends in phonetical changes can be formalized, but most don't fall into any pattern, making the discovered “phonetical laws” nothing more than gut-feel trends. The flimsiness of the “phonetical laws” is manifested by the fact that they are unidirectional looking backwards; nothing in these laws (lately renamed to “rules”
tells what would happen in 100 years under conditions unrestricted by media, print, and standardized broadcast, i.e. none of the founders could have written a phrase in the native language in 1870 that would have predicted how the phrase would sound by the year 2010 AD. And without predictive capacity, it is forensics, not some laws.Comparing lexicons and trying to get to the prehistoric level is fraught with lots of noise, like in signal-to-noise relationship. To keep enthusiastic linguists from free flight, linguistics has devised a system of checks and balances that help to put brakes on the flight of fantasy. With the growth of computer literacy grows acceptance of the mathematical methods in linguistics, abhorred by the old linguistic schools. For the lexicon, the Swadesh method, which is equally applicable to the Genetic Tree and Wave models, is used for qualitative analysis of the established kinship, reasonable criteria for establishing kinship were formulated by G.Doerfer , and evaluation of statistical chance resemblances is offered by M. Rosenfelder . These criteria do not apply to the morphology, but with consistent transparency in application and similarity in function, it would take a sly idiot to deny continuity between the English dimension and Latin dimensione, or Türkic baiyar, Russian boyar, and Indian Boyar (caste).
Turkic genetics
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/60_Genetics/Klyosov2010DNK-GenealogyEn.htm
