Indo-Europeans: Satem vs Centum

[LoLeL]

Satem-Centum classification is considered updated by a variety of linguists these days btw.

Source?

[Shah-Jehan]

Source?

http://www.academia.edu/4169949/Centum_and_satem

[Dandelion]

I like how Slavic languages sound, but I only have a rudimentary understanding of them. They require intense study due to their heavily inflecting nature. So there's that for satem. Baltic languages are even more conservative. Not sure whether they're more complex, though. One aspect of Latvian for instance is less ambiguous than it is in Russian: the difference between short and long adjectives. It denotes a fairly sharp difference between definite state versus indefinite state, whereas in Russian that's a far vaguer distinction.


I know little about Indo-Aryan and Iranic languages though.

[Ziveth]

Centum.

[Dandelion]

Satem and Centum barely play a role in deciding my favourite IE language, to be honest. We did largely vote for 'our own team' though, for what it's worth.

[catgeorge]

It does play a role in cultures in which it was influenced no doubt about it.

Southern Europe is Centum and its neolithic so neighbouring Centum speakers picked up the technology of Neolithics. That expanded to weaving silk, honey, oil, cheese etc

West Germany is largely neolithic in culture as it picked up much culture and technology from neighbouring neolithics. East germany is more pontic-caspian steppe like.

[Dandelion]

It does play a role in cultures in which it was influenced no doubt about it.

Southern Europe is Centum and its neolithic so neighbouring Centum speakers picked up the technology of Neolithics. That expanded to weaving silk, honey, oil, cheese etc

West Germany is largely neolithic in culture as it picked up much culture and technology from neighbouring neolithics. East germany is more pontic-caspian steppe like.

Tocharian interestingly wasn't satem, spoken in what is today Xinjiang Province.

[catgeorge]

Tocharian interestingly wasn't satem, spoken in what is today Xinjiang Province.

Tocharian is intriguing indeed.

[Al-Meksiki]

A bit of an explanation of what Centum-Satem mean

Centum and Satem refer to a merger of certain sounds in Proto-Indo-European that occurred in the late stage of the language. It occurred after Anatolian had already split from the family.

Centum:

Centum merged its velars and palatovelars while leaving its labiovelars alone

k and ḱ > k
g and ǵ > g
gʰ and ǵʰ >gʰ

kʷ gʷ gʷʰ remain the same as before

Satem:

Satem merged labiovelars and velars, while turning palatovelars into silibants

kʷ gʷ gʷʰ > k g gʰ
ḱ ǵ ǵʰ > s z ʒ

Thus leading to the origin of the terms. The Proto-Indo-European word for 100 is ḱm̥tóm

Thus
'ḱm̥tóm' > Proto-Centum 'kamtom'
ḱm̥tóm > Proto-Satem 'semtom"

kamtom > Lat. "centum", Grk. "he-katon", PrGmc "hundą", PrCelt "kantom", Toch. "kante"
semtom > PrSlav "sito", Sanskrit "śatá", Persian "sad", Lithunaian "šimtas"

The odd ones out are Hittite, which being before the merger, does not show these traits, though it can be reasonably reconstructed as *kimtam"
Albanian is odd, as I cannot find an etymology for the albanian word Njëqind, but the -qind part of it looks centum? Possibly could be a loan from Latin Centum.
Armenian's word for 100, haryoor, is unknown in origin.

[Mikula]

I belong to SATEM group.
100 = STO in Czech (as well as in another Slavic languages