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The History of English Podcast
Episode 11: Germanic Ancestors
00:30:17
We look at the emergence of the Usatovo culture which spoke an Indo-European dialect believed to be the ancient ancestor of the Germanic languages – including English. We also look at the later migrations of the Indo-European tribes throughout Europe …...
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Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language. In this episode we're going to look at the emergence of the Germanic tribes, the early Greek speakers, the first Latin speaking tribes in Italy, and the Celtic tribes in Central and Western Europe. So we're going to begin a shift from the original Indo Europeans to the various daughter languages which directly influenced the development of English. But before I begin this episode, let me address a couple of housekeeping matters. First, I've not mentioned the website or the email address for the podcast lately, so let me do that. The website address is historyofenglishpodcast.com and my email address is kevinistoryofenglishpodcast.com and I've also started a Twitter account for the podcast and that's English Histpod. So with all of that out of the way, let's turn to this episode. Last time I looked at the factors which led to the emergence of the first Indo Europeans in Eurasia and the early expansion of some of those people into modern day Turkey and Western China. I now want to focus on the early linguistic ancestors of the Germanic languages and also the ancestors of early Greek and Latin and the Celtic languages. As you may recall from earlier episodes, I've discussed the distinction that many linguists make between the so called Khentim and Satim languages within the larger family of Indo European languages. This distinction actually has very little relevance today other than identifying an early division within the original Indo European tribes. But if you will recall, the Khentim languages are generally spoken in the west and they include the Germanic languages, Greek, Latin and the Celtic languages. And as I've mentioned previously, these are the languages which have directly impacted the history of English. So in many respects the history of pre English, the period before the Anglo Saxons arrived in Britain is really the history of the Kintum languages. You may also recall that there were two Khentim languages which were not spoken in Central and Western Europe, but instead were spoken far to the east in modern day Turkey and China. Those are the Anatolian languages, including Hittite and the Tekarian language of Western China. But those languages represent a very early split within the Indo European tribes. So let's do a quick recap from the last episode. Last time I discussed the emergence of the Indo European tribes in the Eurasian steppe region north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And I noted that these people were nomads and herders who mastered horse domestication and horse riding very early on. Perhaps they were the first humans to accomplish Those feats and I noted that to the west of the Black Sea in the Balkans were some of the first agricultural settlements in Europe. And whereas the Indo Europeans in the steppes were herders and nomads, these Balkan settlements were based around farming and cereal cultivation. But around 4000 BC, Indo European herders swept southwestward from the steppe region into the Balkan region. And apparently they overran these Balkan settlements. And these were likely the ancestors of the Hittites who eventually found their way to central Anatolia, south of the Black Sea. It appears that all of the Indo European tribes at this point spoke the so called Khentum dialects, with the k sound as the initial consonant in words like hundred. So Hittite is classified as a Khentum language. And a short time later, maybe around 3600 BC, give or take a few centuries, some linguists believe the ancestors of the Tekarian speakers separated in the steppe region and moved eastward across the steppes, eventually passing east of the Caspian Sea and into the region where the Tekarian languages were discovered in the early 1900s in northwestern China. Again, the Tekarian language is a Kintum language. And this fact seems to confirm the early split of the Tekarian branch from the main group. Around this same time, a new culture began to emerge in the northwestern corner of the Black Sea, in the region between the Indo European homeland north of the Black Sea and the area of those Balkan settlements which I mentioned earlier, west of the Black Sea. Remember that those Balkan settlements had been abandoned and overrun about 4000 BC by the early Indo European herders. Well now, around five centuries later, a new culture had started to emerge in that region. This culture is known as the Usatovo culture. And many modern linguists and historians believe that the Indo European dialect which they spoke is the direct ancestor of the original Germanic language which eventually emerged in northern Europe. So that makes this Uso Tovo dialect the ultimate ancestor of English as well. So let's take a look at what we know about these people. First, let's get a handle on the specific area I'm talking about. If you think of the Black Sea as a clock, these people lived at around 10 or 11 o'clock near the mouth of the Dniester river in and around modern day Odessa. This puts them near the southernmost portion of modern day Ukraine and in and around modern day Moldavia and and eastern Romania. Now, as you move westward from the Black Sea, the elevation rises as you move toward the Carpathian Mountains. And this Ustovo culture extended from the low lying steppe region near the Black Sea westward into some of these higher elevations of the eastern Carpathian Mountains. As I said, this culture began to emerge around 3,500 B.C. a a few centuries after the first group of Indo Europeans, believed to be the ancestors of the Hittites, swept through the area on their way to modern day Turkey. And not surprisingly, given the location of this region, this new culture appears to have been a bit of a hybrid culture, a kind of mixture between the Balkan farmers to the south and the Indo European herders to the north. Based upon archaeological research, the the people who lived closer to the Black Sea in the lowland steppe region were herders much like the older Indo Europeans to the north, but inland, in the upland regions of the Balkans, it appears that those people practiced grain farming. There are about 50 known USOTOVO sites which have been excavated in that region. Based upon artifacts found in graves, archaeologists have confirmed that these people used bronze daggers and axes. So this was a Bronze Age society. And based upon bone evidence, it appears that their economy depended on sheep and goats, but especially sheep. And this suggests that they were raising sheep for wool. Evidence of looms appears more predominantly in the upland areas, suggesting that the steppe farmers closer to the sea were raising the sheep, and the upland people converted it to textiles and pottery. Impressions also indicate the presence of wheat, barley, millet, oats and peas. Archaeologists have also unearthed tools used in harvesting cereals. So this is the first evidence of cereal cultivation this far north in this region of the steppes. So, as I said, we do have some basic agriculture in place here, and this was likely an extension of the Balkan farming settlements to the south. The pottery made by the Usatovo culture has the shape of the upland region, but it was often decorated like the steppe pottery. And a white glass bead found at a Usotovo site is the oldest known glass object in the Black Sea region and perhaps in the entire ancient world. But it was almost certainly imported. In fact, some of the pottery and other objects that have been unearthed in this area have been identified as being from the Aegean region and Anatolia, including perhaps the oldest site of the ancient city of Troy. And that suggests that trade was also very important for these people. Now, I mentioned earlier that as you move westward from the Black Sea, you encounter the Carpathian Mountains. But I should mention one other thing about that particular mountain range, notably the way that mountain range is shaped. Again, this is one of those points when reference to a map would probably help. And you can find one@historyofenglishpodcast.com just click episode 11. But if you look at A map of the Carpathian Mountains in relation to the Black Sea, something very obvious will appear. The mountain range basically forms a wedge shape just to the west of the Black Sea. It basically means that any westward moving tribe has to either move northwestward around the north side of the mountain range, or has to move southward underneath the south side of the mountain range, through the Balkans and into the Aegean region. And this basic fact of geography probably accounts for the ultimate split of the various Indo European tribes as they moved westward. So as we look at the Usatovo culture, I mentioned that the culture existed near the mouth of the Dniester river, and the Dniester river extends northwestward along the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains. And this appears to be the avenue for the spread of the Usatovo dialect into Central Europe. Over time, the Usatovo dialect spread up the Dniester river along the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains. It eventually spread into the region where modern day Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine meet, basically the middle of Eastern Europe. But the exact manner in which this happened is not known. For certain, trade was probably a factor because rivers were the ancient highways for trade. And that's true even to a certain extent today. And of course, trade routes also often become migration routes. So the Niester river helped to export these people and their dialects northwestward into Northern Europe. So as we turn our attention westward into the heart of Central and Western Europe, we should consider what was happening there around this same time period, around 3500 BC. And the answer, unfortunately, is that there doesn't appear to be very much going on at all, at least as it relates to towns or civilization. Keep in mind that compared to the Middle east and Egypt, most of Central and Western Europe was always a little late to the party when it came to things like agriculture, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age cities, and so forth. So at this very early point, what little is known about most of Central and Western Europe comes from archaeological research. Now, archaeologists who have studied the earliest European cultures tend to divide Europe into two general groups. During this period, in the far western parts of Europe, including modern France and Britain, they have identified a type of pottery shaped like beakers. And the people who made that pottery are often called the Beaker People or the Bell Beaker People. And these people likely included the people who constructed Stonehenge in Britain, as well as many similar hinges and monuments throughout the region. And that's actually an important point, because I think we often associate Stonehenge with Celtic people, including the Druids, who are part of the Celtic culture. But remember that Stonehenge was built long before the Celtic people arrived. We've not even gotten to the Celtic speakers yet. So when the Celtic people eventually arrived in Britain many, many centuries later, they sort of adopted Stonehenge for religious and other ritual purposes. So the original construction of that monument dates all the way back to this original period of the Bell Beaker people. Now, in central, eastern and Northern Europe, archaeologists have identified a completely different type of pottery which has a cord like design wrapped around the outside. And the cultures who made this type of pottery are called the corded ware cultures. Now, the significance of these general groupings of pottery into separate cultures, the Bell Beaker People and the Corded Ware people, is that these particular types of pottery were spread over such a large region. And that suggests that there was some type of general trade and communication amongst people over vast areas of Europe very early on. And that's why the same type of pottery exists over such a large area. And as I said, the cultures of Central and Eastern Europe are called Corded Ware cultures. And it appears that the westward moving Indo Europeans of the Ustovo culture, which I mentioned earlier, encountered the people of these early corded ware cultures in Central and Eastern Europe. And historians believe that the trade and migration routes which linked these corded Ware communities also enabled the spread of these Usitovo people as they entered into and spread throughout the same region. Now, the exact nature of these links and the precise manner in which these pre Germanic dialects spread throughout the region are not known for certain. As is generally the case with the early Indo European migrations, it's difficult to say how much of this represents a spread of language and how much involved the actual migration or spread of people. As we know or should know by now, language can expand by virtue of people learning the language. And economic power or trading power can be a factor in that spread. We see it in modern English today. So did these early Eastern European people learn this Usitobo dialect, or did people from this Usotovo region migrate westward into this territory? The answer is probably some combination of both. Trade was probably a major factor at work here. As these people migrated and traded up the Nista river, they probably established settlements along the way and the language spread throughout this region as these people spread. So while we have the Usatovo dialect spreading northwestward into Northern Europe, we need to turn our attention back to the Black Sea for a moment, because around this same time period, we may be able to trace the emergence of the first Indo European tribes, which eventually produced the Latin and Celtic languages. Some linguists and archaeologists believe that a group of Indo European speaking herders began to move from the steppe region north of the Black Sea down through the Usatovo territory we just talked about during its earliest phases of existence. And these herders continued this trek southwestward around the Black Sea, eventually settling around the Danube on the western Black Sea. This migration stream then continued up the Danube Valley into the Carpathian basin. Remember that the Carpathian Mountains created this wedge shape which I mentioned earlier, and that tended to force migrating tribes either northwestward or southward from the Black Sea region. And whereas the Ustovo dialects took the northern trek into northern Europe, these other migrating tribes apparently took the southern route around the southern side of the Carpathian Mountains and then westward along the Danube. The general time frame here is around 3100 BC to 2800 BC. As I said, some linguists and historians believe that these tribes may have been the ancestors of of the Italic speakers of Italy, including Latin and the later Celtic branches of the Indo European family tree. Again, there's no consensus here. Other experts believe the early Italic and early Celtic branches separated much later, perhaps as an offshoot of the early Greek tribes who eventually settled into Greece. But regardless, it does appear that these three groups, the early Greeks, the early Latin speakers and the early Celts, they all took a southward track along the Danube, in contrast to the pre Germanic Ustovo people who took the northwestward track along the Dniester River. And this may help to explain why the early sound shifts that we know as Grimm's Law, which I discussed in an earlier episode, are found in and throughout the Germanic languages, but they are not present in Latin, Greek or the Celtic languages. So again, this early split and division may account for some of that. Now, this is a good time for a quick look around to see what else was going on. And around this same time frame, say around 3100 BC, we start to see the earliest Egyptian civilizations starting to emerge from farming settlements along the Nile. So again, we're at the cusp of civilization here. Now, you may have also noticed that all of the various Indo European groups that I've mentioned up to this point are Kentum speaking, the Hittites in Turkey, the Tekarians in Western China, the early Germanic dialects spreading into northern Europe, the ancestors of the Latin, Greek and Celtic dialects which were moving into the Danube Valley region south of the Carpathian Mountains, all of those are Khentim languages. Within a couple of centuries, say around 2800 B.C. linguists think we finally get the split between the Kintim and Satim language groups. And it probably happened when a division occurred within this same western steppe region near or around where the Usatobo culture was located. It appears that one group began a migration northward and eastward. This was the Satam branch. And the speakers of this branch soon developed a sound shift from the K sound to the S sound, which marks the distinction between those two general groups. And the tribes within this Sattim speaking group soon divided again, with some of the Indo Europeans remaining in northern Europe as the ancestors of the Baltic and Slavic languages. Meanwhile, some of the tribes within this group migrated eastward along the steppes and eventually migrated around the Caspian Sea and settled into modern Iran and northern India. These were the ancestors of the tribes who brought the Indo Iranian languages to Central Asia, all of which are Satam languages, as you will recall. So we now have accounted for all of the major pieces of the puzzle. And let me reiterate this is just one view of those events. Once again, I'm relying in part on David Anthony's book the Horse, the Wheel and Language for part of the sequence and time frame that I'm discussing here. But there really is no consensus of opinion as to the exact timing and order of these events. Now as we look at northern Europe, remember we have the so called Corded Ware people who made a particular type of pottery with cord like designs. And these Corded Ware cultures existed throughout northern Europe in the region north of the Carpathian Mountains. But from the east we're getting migrations of Indo Europeans and this includes the pre Germanic people from the Usatovo region. And now it also includes the ancestors of the Baltic and Slavic speakers which are part of that original Satom group. All of these northward and westward moving Indo European people met and traded with the Corded Ware people in the Carpathian foothills. And that facilitated the spread of those Indo European dialects through throughout this region. And eventually these dialects coalesced into the Slavic and Baltic languages in the east and the original Germanic language in and around Scandinavia. Archaeologists have noted that during this period, many of these Corded Ware people began to adopt many of the cultural and economic features of the Indo Europeans. For example, they adopted a pastoral herding economy like the Indo Europeans and they began to adopt certain funeral rituals associated with the Indo Europeans. So what we're seeing here is likely a blending of cultures and peoples. But the language and dialects of the Indo Europeans would emerge as the dominant languages and other native languages tended to disappear. We may never know exactly why that happened, but I alluded to some of the Possible factors In the last episode, Indo European speech might have been emulated because the chiefs who spoke it had larger herds of cattle and sheep and they had more horses than the peoples of northern Europe. The Indo Europeans also had growing populations due to more efficient herding and the invention of dairy farming. Remember that most of Europe was very sparsely populated at this time, so even modest population advantages could overwhelm many of the native cultures in Europe. But beyond the economic and population advantages, there was a definite military advantage as well. The culture of the Indo Europeans allowed and embraced territorial expansion. When it came to raiding and warfare, the Indo Europeans had major advantages because they had domesticated and could ride horses. And they appear to have blended their mastery of horses and wheeled wagons into the creation of chariots for use in warfare and raiding. In fact, chariot technology is generally considered to be another innovation of these Indo European herders around this same time period. If they didn't actually invent the chariot, and there's some dispute about that, they certainly perfected it at around 2500 B.C. horses were still rarely found in much of Central Europe, the Middle east and the Indian subcontinent. So the Indo European tribes who were migrating into new areas had massive advantages due to their ability to ride horses and especially their ability to engage other tribes with horse drawn chariots. This technology made the Indo European tribes a formidable force. Horse drawn chariots could literally run circles around their opponents with one person driving the chariot and another launching arrows. Of course, the chariot technology was quickly adopted throughout the Western world, but initially it gave the Indo Europeans a major military advantage. Again, the exact details of the spread of the Indo Europeans are not entirely known and may never be completely known, but we can say with some certainty that the dialects of these people were spreading throughout Europe and Central Asia during this time period. So to the north we have the early ancestors of the Germanic speaking tribes taking position in Northern Europe around Scandinavia. And the early ancestral Baltic and Slavic languages are settling in and taking over most of Eastern Europe. And the eastern branch of those Satam speaking tribes continued to migrate eastward into Central Asia. The ancestors of the Indo Iranians brought their horse drawn chariots with them. And that was definitely part of the reason why they spread so far and so fast over that region. And they eventually established the Persian Empire and and the early Indus civilization in India. So that leaves us with those tribes which I mentioned earlier who traveled southwest around the Black Sea to the region south of the Carpathian Mountains in the Danube Valley. They had made that trek a few centuries before and it appears that they had settled in that region for a while. And these appeared to be the ancestors of the Celtic speaking tribes and the Italic speaking tribes which eventually produced Latin. There are some strong linguistic similarities between Latin and Celtic. And as a result, many linguists have always believed that the early ancestors of those language families were either part of the same group or they lived in close proximity to each other. And it was around this time, around 2800 BC that some of the tribes within this group in the Danube Valley began to spread northward from modern Hungary into modern Austria and Bavaria. And these were the ancestors of the Celtic speakers. And their linguistic descendants would eventually come to dominate much of central and western Europe. Meanwhile, some of those Indo European speaking tribes remained in Hungary and they didn't make the trek into Austria and Bavaria. These tribes eventually migrated westward and then southward down into Italy. And these Italic tribes were the ancestors of the Italic branch. And they were thus the ancestors of the Latin speaking tribes which eventually emerged in Italy. And also around this same time, say around 2500 BC, the ancestors of the Greeks separated from the main group of Indo Europeans and began to migrate southward toward modern Greece. So by this point, all of the actors have either taken the stage or they're on their way to the theater. The next step here is the actual emergence of the various dialects in the areas where they would eventually become known to the modern world. By 2000 BC, the Hittites had penetrated into Anatolia, where they soon established the Hittite empire. And within a century or so, the early Hittite language and other Anatolian languages were being spoken in Anatolia, modern day Turkey. Around the same time, the first ancestors of the Greeks began arriving in Greece, where they encountered an existing non Indo European civilization on the island of Crete, which was the Minoan civilization. But within a couple of more centuries, the earliest Greek dialect, the Mycenaean Greek dialect, was being spoken throughout mainland Greece and and the small islands surrounding it. But the Minoan civilization was still in place in Crete. Eventually, those Mycenaean Greeks settled in and overtook the Minoan civilization in Crete. At which point we have the early Indo European Greek language spread throughout the entire territory of Greece. A century or so later, say around 1500 BC, Sanskrit writing had appeared in northern India and the Balto Slavic languages were being spoken in Eastern Europe. By about 1200 BC, the early Iranian languages were being spoken east of the Caspian Sea. And over in Italy, the earliest Italic languages were being spoken, including the early versions of Latin. But it's not until around 500 BC, several centuries later, that we can finally confirm that the earliest Germanic dialects were being spoken in and around Scandinavia, in Northern Europe. So now all of the players are in place. And interestingly, those early Germanic dialects are some of the last attested Indo European languages, certainly in Europe. Like I said, the date at which we can actually confirm that Germanic dialects were on the ground and being spoken in Scandinavia is around 500 BC. But the Germanic dialects didn't just pop up around that date. There was a continuous evolution of the original Indo European language into that Usatovo dialect, then mixing with the languages of the Corded Ware people and eventually emerging as the Germanic dialects in Northern Europe. But beyond those general statements, there's just not enough evidence to give any specific time frame or exact sequence of events to describe how we got there. Like much of the story of the Indo European migrations, historians think they know where it all began and they know where the languages ended up. They just have to fill in the middle part as best they can. So we'll just have to leave it at that for now. So with all of the pieces in place, we can now start to focus in on each of the language families which directly influenced English. In the next episode, I'm going to start with the Hittites and the Greeks. Now, the Hittite language didn't really have any direct impact on English, but Greek certainly did, and the early history of these two people are intertwined. So next time, we're going to focus on the Eastern Mediterranean, and we will see how the early Greeks emerged to establish a culture in a language which heavily influenced the entire Western world. And they also did something very important to all language historians. They reduced their language to writing and wrote extensively in an Alphabet which we still use today, albeit in a modified form. So next time, we'll look at the Greek influence on English, and we'll jump back into the language itself and see how Greek is still reflected in modern English. So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English podcast. SA.