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.
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Originally Posted by demiirel
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