Mongolian and Indo-European language similarities

[demiirel]

One similarity may be the personal pronoun verb conjugation system.

As an example, let us see how the Mongolian verb “barakh” (to finish), which is written in old Mongolian writing “baraqu” (root “bara-”), conjugates when combined with personal pronouns in the present tense, like it is normally done in Buryat Mongolian. By the way, I am looking at basic structures. I am aware that Mongolian was more complex in the past with gender differentiation in conjugation et cetera. But I think that can be ignored for the purposes of my analysis and comparison here.

Ancient Mongolian “baraqu” – to finish
First person singular: baram (i am finishing)
Second person singular: barasi (you are finishing)
Third person singular: barat (he is finishing)
First person plural: baramus (we are finishing)
Second person plural: barata (you, sir, are finishing/you guys are finishing)
Third person plural: barad (they are finishing)

Proto-Indo-European “ber” – to carry
First person singular: Berom
Second person singular: Beresi
Third person singular: Bereti
First person plural: Beromos
Second person plural: Berete
Third person plural: Berond

It is amazing how the Proto-Indo-European conjugation is closest in a way to Latin. If you analyze the Mongolian, it is clear that personal pronouns have been added as a suffix to the verb root, although in a shortened form. The “pronoun-suffixes” are (in full elaborated form) “mi, si, ter, mus (short form of manus, meaning “we”, it is preserved in Manchu “mus”), ta, ted” respectively. This system is still present in many Mongolian languages today, like Buryat and Moghol. In Buryat, the equivalents would be “baranam, baranash, barana, baranamdi, baranat, baranad”, which are very similar despite trifling divergences. This system is no longer used in Khalkha Mongolian, because the verb system is more simplified in Khalkha Mongolian. One thing to note would be the first person plural "baranamdi" in Buryat, here the pronoun-suffix is "bid", another form of "we", which is simply the plural of "bi" (me), also written "biz" in Turkish. In this case the shortened form of "bid" is "-mdi", which might also be written "-miz" based on the obviously identical Turkish pronoun. This might in turn easily be read as "-mus" which brings us full circle back to the "baramus" (we are finishing) of the original example mentioned above. The reason for this similarity is that the root of "-mus" and "-mdi" is the same, namely "mi/bi" meaning "me", which when converted into the plural "we" becomes "manus/mus" and "bid/mid/biz/miz" respectively.

Another similarity would be the interrogative pronouns. For example, in Hindi, “kahan” means “where” and “kitan” means “how many”. In Spanish “quien” means “who”. In Mongolian, “kahan” means “where”, “keden” means “how many” and “ken” means “who”.

In some ways I think Mongolian is like an Indo-European language spoken in reverse. In Mongolian the suffix “-d” is similar to the Indo-European particle “to”, it shows destination, but the only difference is that in the case of Mongolian the partice comes AFTER the word, which is the reverse of Indo-European. Also, the Mongolian suffix “-aas” (written -acha) is similar to the Indo-European particles “aus” (German), “hacha” (Persian) and “-sa” (Hindi), it means that something is coming out of something. Again, in Mongolian the particle comes AFTER the word, although in the exceptional case of Hindi, "-sa" is a suffix.

So for example, while a Mongolian says “kahanaas iresi?” (from where are you coming?), an Indo-European might say something like “kahansa beresi?” (from where are you carrying ‘that thing’?) In this case the Indo-European example is closest to Hindi, which unlike other Indo-European languages uses many suffixes, like Mongolian.

I don’t know about other so-called Altaic languages like Japanese, but Mongolian seems a bit similar to Indo-European.

The problem with some of the internet material on this subject is that it is too general and too obscure.

For example:

www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art216e.pdf

It would be better if they also showed some examples, using specific languages. And they shouldn't always compare "Proto-Altaic" with Proto-Indo-European. "Proto-Altaic" is still very vague. Using specific languages like Mongolian is better in my opinion. So what I'm writing here is not based on what Frederik Kortlandt or some other linguist wrote, because I simply don't understand what they're writing. How am I supposed to understand a statement like this: "Proto-Altaic *sV 'this' may be similar to Indo-European *so"? There is no *sV in Mongolian. So I'm using my own common sense instead.

For example, I think: In Mongolian "alt" means "gold", "altan" means "golden". "Torgo" means "silk", "torgon" means "silken". So I think, maybe there's a connection there, with the "-en" business, because there is a similarity in meaning.

I'm careful about "false cognates", words that sound similar but have no genetic connection. I don't know if Mongolian "humun" is cognate with English "human". Or if Mongolian "er" (man) is cognate with English "were" (as in werewolf) or Latin "vir" (meaning man). A list of similar words is not that helpful. But it should not be totally ignored. It should be kept in the background, as something of secondary, but still usable, importance.

What's more important is basic structures and "morphological" similarities.

One "morphological" similarity, as I understand it, could be "verb prefixes". Verb prefixes seem like a very distinct feature of Indo-European languages.

This is what I got from a website about Sanskrit verbs:

When a verb uses a prefix, one of three things happens:

* The verb's meaning is changed slightly.
* The verb's meaning is changed significantly.
* The verb's meaning is emphasized

Then I look at a website about Latin verb prefixes. I know that Persian also uses verb prefixes, like "Ahuramazda khshacham manaa fra-bara". In German, ver-sprecht. In English, pro-claim ("forward-clamor"). Etc. One thing I notice is that the main function of verb prefixes is to show an EMPHASIS, or DIRECTION, POSITION, SEQUENCE and RELATION between two entities. Undergo, overthrow, interfere, preview etc. Could Mongolian have the same kind of verb prefixes? Or something left over from the past which resembles them?

Then I think about Mongolian. OK, so Mongolian is an "agglutinative" language, with particles added after the verbal root. Having verbal prefixes seems unlikely. But then, do prefixes have to be glued to the verb? Why can't they just precede the verb as well? In that case, we have many such verbal prefixes in Mongolian, serving the same function of showing DIRECTION, POSITION, SEQUENCE and RELATION. Many of them serve as "emphasizers" or intensifiers, just like the prefixes in Sanskrit (look above).

So what examples can I give of these "Mongolian quasi-Indo-European verb prefixes"? All the verb prefixes below are used exclusively with verbs.

1. "Nam" (idea of lowness). Example, "Nam darakh" ("low-to press"), meaning to crush utterly, to knock out. "Nam untakh" (low-to sleep) meaning to sleep very deeply, sleep like a log. Equivalents could be "sub-press", "sub-sleep" or "infra-sleep".

2. "Tsug" and "Kham" (both implying togetherness). Note the similarity of "Kham" with the Latin prefix "com-" and the Persian prefix "ham-", which both imply togetherness. Examples, "Tsug yavakh" (together-to go) meaning to go together and "Kham duulakh" (together-to sing) meaning to sing together. Equivalent: "com-sing", welcome to our annual comsinging event.

3. "Nevt" (idea of going through). Example, "nevt kharvakh" (through-to shoot), meaning to shoot with an arrow in such a way that the arrow goes straight through. An equivalent could be "trans-shoot", I don't know.

4. "Khoish" (idea of putting away to the back or frontward to the distance). Example, "khoish tavikh" ('frontward to the distance'-to put) meaning to postpone, leave for later. In fact, "post" is equal to "khoish" and "pone" is equal to "tavi-".

5. "Tas" (idea of separation). Example "tas tsavchikh" (TAS-to cut), to cut utterly, violently into two pieces. Equivalent could be "ab-sect", don't anger him he might absect you.

And so on and so forth. There are many more similar prefixes. Maybe we can discover that this system is very similar to Indo-European.

One might object that these are not true verbal prefixes, but that I've chosen random words and placed them in front of the verbs. I would reply that this is not case, instead these prefixes only make sense when they are in front of verbs, they are never used anywhere else and for any other purpose in a sentence, except "nam" which can be used as an adjective "nam gazar" (low-lying land) and "khoish" which can be used as an adverb "Chingisees khoish" (Chingis-from ''frontward to the distance") meaning 'after/since the time of Genghis Khan.' One might object that use of "nam" as an adjective and "khoish" as an adverb disproves their status as "solely-verb-associated" prefixes. I would reply that even in Indo-European there are verbal prefixes that can be used for other purposes, like "counter-" which can be used as the verb "to counter", "extra-" which can be used as the adjective or noun "extra", "super-" which can be used as the adjective "super" or even as an adverb when you say "the way he did it was super".

As far as numbers are concerned, I'm going to say that more research is necessary.

Mongolian "Neg" (One) sounds similar to Hindi "Ek" (One).

Mongolian "Davt" (Repeat) sounds similar to Russian "Dva" (Two).

Mongolian "Zond/Zondoo" (Numerous,Countless) sounds similar to Latin-derived "cent/ciento" (Hundred). Lehmann believes that the Indo-European numbers greater than ten were constructed separately in the dialect groups and that "kmtom" originally meant "a large number" rather than specifically "one hundred" (Wikipedia - Proto-Indo-European language).

Apart from these, I can't find much "potential distant cognates" yet. Who knows if more are found?

Maybe Mongolian "Dor-" (four) was originally spoken "heDWOR", making it a cognate of Indo-European "ketwor" (four). Or maybe there was a time when it was pronounced "Chor", making it a cognate of Hindi "char" (four).

Maybe Mongolian "Guraw" (three) was originally pronounced something like "Hri", making it a cognate of "tri" (three). "Guraw" does sound like "Hrw" or "Hri" when spoken fast. So maybe the original was Hri, which became Tri for Indo-European and Hrw for "Very-Proto-Mongolian". Eventually Hrw became Huraw and finally the Ghuraw/Qurban of today.

Or what if Mongolian numbers originate from the plans of someone to hide the number of his troops or sheep or horses by using secret code numbers, which differed from his original language?

Numbers are not as fixed as people think. It is well known that the Manchu language borrowed all its numbers from 11 to 20 from Mongolian, replacing its own ones. Japanese and Korean use Chinese numbers. So I don't think difference in numbers should prevent further discussion looking at deeper similarities.

[Talvi]

Sorry, but I am completely failing to see any real similarities at all. Most of it seems to be a mere coincidence.

I am no linguist but I cant take seriously anything that supposes an Altaic language group either (mentioned in your post and in the pdf file).

While all languages are wonderful and all, lets not over-do it.

[Jaska]

And they shouldn't always compare "Proto-Altaic" with Proto-Indo-European. "Proto-Altaic" is still very vague. Using specific languages like Mongolian is better in my opinion.

This is very important and too often ignored point.

It’s interesting how similar the personal endings are. But it would be necessary to see if the same sound correspondences are found in the rest of the vocabulary, too, as well as in the other parts of grammar. And the correspondences should be similar in every level.

I'm careful about "false cognates", words that sound similar but have no genetic connection. I don't know if Mongolian "humun" is cognate with English "human".

English word comes from Latin, and it goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ǵhmōn. In these words we should compare the oldest possible PIE reconstruction to the oldest possible Proto-Mongolic(-Khitanic) reconstruction and try to find some regular sound correspondences.

Perhaps all the non-African languages are ultimately related. While it is theoretically possible to find new relative language, it may also be that the time depth has corroded the relevant common inherited features so that we can never prove the relationship.

[demiirel]

Sorry, but I am completely failing to see any real similarities at all. Most of it seems to be a mere coincidence.

I am no linguist but I cant take seriously anything that supposes an Altaic language group either (mentioned in your post and in the pdf file).

While all languages are wonderful and all, lets not over-do it.

I don't suppose an Altaic group either. It IS possible, but not yet proven. So I'm basing myself solely on Mongolian, a real, extant, tangible language.

I think that maybe Turkic, Mongolian, Uralic and Indo-European were descended from one unique or two closely related languages around, say, 6000 BC. It's just a hypothesis for now. But isn't everything a hypothesis in the beginning?

[demiirel]

This is very important and too often ignored point.

It’s interesting how similar the personal endings are. But it would be necessary to see if the same sound correspondences are found in the rest of the vocabulary, too, as well as in the other parts of grammar. And the correspondences should be similar in every level.


English word comes from Latin, and it goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ǵhmōn. In these words we should compare the oldest possible PIE reconstruction to the oldest possible Proto-Mongolic(-Khitanic) reconstruction and try to find some regular sound correspondences.

Perhaps all the non-African languages are ultimately related. While it is theoretically possible to find new relative language, it may also be that the time depth has corroded the relevant common inherited features so that we can never prove the relationship.

We are essentially comparing the Mongolian language of c. 800 AD (the reconstructed "Proto-Mongol" proper as opposed to Khitan Mongol) to the entirety of the Indo-European spectrum, but placing special emphasis on older languages like Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. So Proto-Mongol is contemporaneous with Old English, which is a sufficiently ancient language.

I'm aware that a huge percentage of English vocabulary is Greco-Roman. When I compare a word with English I make sure that the English word is truly Indo-European. Even if the word has changed a bit, at least we can look at the laws causing the change and compare it to the gradual changes in Mongolian words. I'm quite sure that constant patterns of change will emerge.

[Jaska]

I think that maybe Turkic, Mongolian, Uralic and Indo-European were descended from one unique or two closely related languages around, say, 6000 BC.

This sounds too late. As the Indo-European languages are still clearly related after 6 000 years of separate development, there cannot be any relatives inside 12 000 years, I think. The temporal gap must assume to be so great that the relatedness is hardly perceptible (because it hasn't been found yet, and maybe never will).

We are essentially comparing the Mongolian language of c. 800 AD (the reconstructed "Proto-Mongol" proper as opposed to Khitan Mongol) to the entirety of the Indo-European spectrum, but placing special emphasis on older languages like Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. So Proto-Mongol is contemporaneous with Old English, which is a sufficiently ancient language.

I'm aware that a huge percentage of English vocabulary is Greco-Roman. When I compare a word with English I make sure that the English word is truly Indo-European. Even if the word has changed a bit, at least we can look at the laws causing the change and compare it to the gradual changes in Mongolian words. I'm quite sure that constant patterns of change will emerge.

There are some dangers in this method...
Some English phoneme, say X, can actually go back to many different Proto-Indo-European phonemes, like X, Y and Z. So if you find some regular-looking correspondence between (Old) English X and Mongolic X, it may occur that this is only illusory: we may actually have a set of correspondences like PIE X ~ Mong. X, PIE Y ~ Mong. X and PIE Z ~ Mong. X.

So the best language for comparison is Proto-Indo-European itself (the reconstructed language). It doesn't matter which reconstruction you use, as long as it is coherent: the cognate set of Old English X ~ Sanskrit X is always marked with the same symbol.

Here is Gerhard Köbler's Proto-Indo-European dictionary:
http://www.koeblergerhard.de/idgwbhin.html

There you can also load it as PDF, either in German or in English.

[Talvi]

I don't suppose an Altaic group either. It IS possible, but not yet proven. So I'm basing myself solely on Mongolian, a real, extant, tangible language.

I think that maybe Turkic, Mongolian, Uralic and Indo-European were descended from one unique or two closely related languages around, say, 6000 BC. It's just a hypothesis for now. But isn't everything a hypothesis in the beginning?

There is an idea that all human languages came from the same proto-Human languages, and I am not a supporter of that. Lumping together Turikc, Mongolian, Uralic AND Indo-European a couple of random coincidences seems to head to monogenesis. And its something I cannot agree on!

The "theory" you have now is based on poor accidental scraps from these languages, and is nowhere even near a real hypothesis or a scientific opinion.

[demiirel]

The noun morphology seems similar too.

In PIE the genitive/ablative is "-es", for example, "diw-es" (of/from the Sky God). In Mongolian the ablative is "-es" too. If we were to try to find a cognate to dyews (sky/god) I guess it can't be the word Tengri (sky/god), so I'll have to do with a word of similar meaning: "dewer" (roof). Here you can distinguish the root "dew-" which means "above, divine". This "dewer" and "dew-" are very closely related to Tengri. The Secret History of the Mongols opens "die-e-lie teng-ge-li-e-che zha-ya-a-tu tuo-lie-ke-xian" (original Chinese transcription) which reads "dewer tengri-es zayaat torogson" (born with destiny from heaven above). "Dewer tengri" is a title meaning "lofty sky", "divine god". Also in the rich treasury of Mongol oral tradition one can find curse utterances which go "may you prosper in freedom, may you make the sky your roof and the leaves your clothing", meaning "may you become a homeless outcast". Here you can see that Roof is connected to Sky. It's obvious. Roof is another synonym, another word for Sky. Especially for steppe peoples it is natural to see the sky as a roof, therefore the connection of "dewer" (lofty divine roof) with "tengri" (sky god) is very strong. Let's suppose that "dewer" is a cognate of PIE dyews (zeus/deus/dies).

One might object that the R in dewer is not found in PIE. I reply, dewer can also be read as dewes. Why? Because of the ox connection. In English and Tocharian the word "ox" means ox. In Turkish the word "okuz" means ox. In Mongolian the word "ukur" is accepted as a cognate of Turkish "okuz". The ubiquitous Z-R pattern in Turkish and Mongolian is well known. So another way to say "dewer" is obviously "dewez" or "dewes". But we'll stick with the root "dew-" (lofty, above, divine) for convenience.

PIE genitive/ablative: diw-es (from/of the Sky God)
Mongol ablative: dew-es (from above/from the divine)

Another curious similarity is the dative and locative cases. In PIE the dative and locative always look and sound very similar. The same applies to Mongol. Plus, the dative and locative in PIE and Mongol sound the same for both languages.

PIE dative: diw-ei (to the Sky God) Hittite: siuni
PIE locative: dyew-i (at the Sky God) Hittite: siuni
Mongol dative: dew-e (to the lofty, to the divine)
Mongol locative: dew-e (at the lofty, at the divine)

The instrumental seems remotely similar too.

PIE instrumental: diw-eh (by the Sky God) Hittite: siunit
Mongol instrumental: dew-er (by the lofty/divine)

[demiirel]

The accusative case requires further research.


PIE accusative: dyew-m (I worshipped "the Sky God")
Mongol accusative: dew-i (I worshipped "the lofty")

There is also this word "nebos" (cloud) in PIE, nebo in Russian. A possible cognate, crazy as it might sound, could be "newu-" in Mongolian which is the root of the verb "to migrate". Mongols still say "the clouds are migrating". The word "newu-" fits perfectly with the idea of cloud. What else do clouds do but migrate? They don't "look white", "look big" or "look fluffy". They migrate. Steppe peoples notice this most vividly. But I'm not going to go too far with this cognate business. I'm focusing more on basic structures.

[Foxy]

I study foreign languages and am preparing a test about germanic philology and I made some exams of linguistics, so I can answer with what I found in my books.

There is not relation between Mongolic and any Indo-European language. The cathegory "indo-European" is made by a genealogic classification, in short most of the languages in the world are related with at least an other language. Related means that they descend from a mother-language or one descends from the other. According to this, the Mongolic language is an Altaic language and shares affinities only with Turkish. Turkish itself is not related with any European language.

The Easternmost Indo-European language ever found was the Tocaric. Of this language, now extinct, belonged two dialects (Tocaric A and Tocaric B). Both, as I said, are estinguished. In the past, not very far (first millennium after Christ), was attested in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.



Not so strange if you consider that Afghanistan and Northern India/Pakistan are both indo-European speaking areas (or at least they were).

Anyway some luinguistics suggest that Mongolic could be related not only with Turkish but also with Japanese and Korean.

Now, coming to the European languages, you know some of them are not Indo-Europeans. They are neither altaic anyway. Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian are Uralic, while Basque is an own indipendent language.