Beekes - Etymological Dictionary of Greek

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PRE-GREEK LOANWORDS IN GREEK
PRE-GREEK LOANWORDS IN GREEK
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picked up not far from home. I completely agree with Furnee's interpretation (3533)
that the word was brought to Greece by settlers from Anatolia who spoke the
language, which, from another perspective, we call Pre-Greek. In other words,
TOAUTIT] is a loan from an Anatolian language, but this (probably non-Indo­
European) language was also spoken in large parts of Greece before the Greeks
(speaking an Indo-European language) arrived there.
It is essential to realize that substrate words are a frequent phenomenon. One may
regret this (for instance, from the Indo-Europeanist point of View), but this is
irrelevant; the existence of Pre-Greek words is simply a fact that has to be accepted.
To me, it is fascinating that in this way we can learn something about the oldest
language of Europe (including Anatolia), of which we otherwise have no evidence.
The 'Pelasgian' theory has done much harm, and it is time to forget it. The latest
attempt was Heubeck's 'Minoisch-Mykenisch' (discussed by Furnee 55-66), where
the material was reduced to some ten words; the theory has by now been tacitly
abandoned.
B. Phonology
1. The phonemic system of Pre-Greek
Voiceless, voiced and aspirated stops may interchange in Pre-Greek words, without
any apparent conditioning factors. This fact shows that voice and aspiration were
not distinctive features in Pre-Greek.4 On the other hand, the Linear B signs
(graphemes) for rjo, rja and tja show that palatalization probably was distinctive.
This is confirmed by the sign pte (e.g. in ra-pte-re Jhrapteresl with the agent suffix
-ter-), which must go back to an earlier pe. In the Pre-Greek material, such a
phoneme may underlie examples like 8CtTITU. One may wonder whether Kpoaa6cp80v
points to p > pt, which was realized with aspiration. Further, the signs two, twe, dwo,
dwe, nwa, swa, swi, point to labialization as a distinctive feature, i.e. tWo, tWe, dWo, dWe,
nWa, sWa, sWi. Note that palatal and labial forms of graphemes are found both with
resonants and stops, which is a phenomenon alien to Indo-European languages. The
existence of labiovelars is confirmed by qa-si-re-u = aO"lAEUC;, etc. (see further
Beekes Glotta 73 (1995/6): 12f.). We may thus posit the follOWing systems:
P
t
k
s
r
m
n
Of course, it is possible that one or more of the posited phonemes did not occur in
Pre-Greek (e.g., mY is a rare sound in the languages of the world).
We can now use this insight in explaining the surfacing Greek forms. Thus,
McpvT] 1 l5auxv(u)- can now be explained from a Pre-Greek form *dakwn-.6 In the
former form, the labiovelar yields a labial stop cp. In the latter, it is rendered by -uX-,
with anticipation of the labial feature, while the labiovelar turns up as a velar, possibly
by dissimilation from uklV• Again, note that aspiration is not phonemiC in Pre­
Greek. It is very important to note that we cannot predict how a Pre-Greek form will
surface in Greek: sometimes a stop turns up as an aspirate, sometimes as a voiced
stop (e.g. aiTIuc; 1 ucpap, see B 5.1. below). As a consequence, it may happen that there
is a large number of variants, but it may also be that there are no variants at all.
As a second example, we may also understand auxv 1 Lesb. uflCPT]v from a preform
*ankwen. The latter form is directly understandable, with cp from the labiovelar.
The first form went through *anwken or *awnken, giving auxv with loss of the nasal
(a development known from Armenian). Perhaps, a scenario *akwen > auxv is also
possible, with a prenasalized form *ankwen (> uflCPT]v) beside *aklVen.7 Such
interpretations may be wrong in individual cases, but this is no reason not to try. On
the other hand, variation that is strange from an exclusively Indo-European point of
view becomes understandable in this way, starting as we do from a limited set of
assumptions.
The existence of palatalized phonemes in Pre-Greek may explain a number of
other developments. Thus, I assume that a geminate AA may continue Pre-Greek *1>'.
We know that lE *ly gave AA in Greek, but if a variant with single A coexists, we are
warned. For example, the name A.XLAAEUC; has a variant A.XLAEUC; with one A. And
although the latter only occurs in Homer, this fact points to Pre-Greek origin. The
variant was preserved because it was metrically convenient, it was not created for
metrical purposes. Of course, the fact that there was more variation at an earlier date
is what we expect. As far as the other palatalized resonants are concerned, anY may
have given atv, arY may have given alp (or also ELp with coloring of the vowel, see
section C2 below on the suffIxes), etc. We have -aLp-, -aLV- but no *-aLA- in Pre­
Greek words. This is confirmed by the fact that geminate AA is very frequent (Fur.
387), whereas geminate pp, vv and flfl are much less frequent, or even rare.
In a similar fashion, *asY may have yielded either -aLa- or -ua-, cf. KCtaLaOC;,
which has a v.l. KCtaaoc;. In rendering such a foreign word, the palatalization may
have been represented at one time, and may have been neglected at another. This
4 Of course, it could be due to the fact that a different distinction was present in Pre-Greek (like fortis /
lenis, found in most Anatolian languages), but no obvious distribution pointing in this direction can be
discerned in the material.
5 Note that I distinguish between palatals of Pre-Greek origin, which are indicated by a superscript y
(e.g. k>,), and palatovelars ofIndo-European origin.
6 Although I assume that voice was not distinctive in Pre-Greek, I do write d- in this case, because only
8- surfaces in Greek. We must avoid losing information present in the Greek forms. Thus, my notation of
Pre-Greek forms is heuristic to a certain degree, and not always consistent with the phonemic system I
tentatively reconstruct here.
7 On prenasalization, see B5.2. below. As an alternative, an Indo-European etymology starting with the
root *h,emt- 'to tie, betroth', can be offered; see the dictionary (although I prefer the analysis given here).