Suomen kantakielten absoluuttista kronologiaa

  • Petri Kallio
Avainsanat: kantakieli, lainasanat, sanahistoria, suomalaisten esihistoria, uralistiikka

Abstrakti

On the absolute chronology of proto-languages of Finnish (englanti)

1/2006 (110)

On the Absolute Chronology of the Proto-Languages of Finnish

The proto-languages of Finnish have usually been dated as follows:

As the table shows, the dating of the later proto-languages has been modified considerably over the years, whereas the dating of Proto-Uralic has remained at around 4000 BC (if less reliable dating based on archaeological continuity, lexicostatistics, etc., is left aside). The dating of Proto-Uralic has been supported by linguistic palaeontology. For example, Common Uralic *pata clay pot cannot have existed before the sixth millennium BC, and Common Uralic *wsk metal cannot have existed before the fifth millennium BC.

However, loanword studies contradict the dating of Proto-Uralic to 4000 BC. Two reasons are given for this. First, Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords with a wide distribution in the Finno-Ugrian languages suggest that the branches of Finno-Ugrian had not yet linguistically diverged from one another in the latter half of the third millennium BC, when Proto-Indo-Iranian was most likely spoken. Second, Northwest Germanic loanwords in Finnic and Smic similarly suggest that Finnic and Smic were still two dialects of the same Proto-Finno-Smic language as late as the latter half of the first millennium BC, when Northwest Germanic most likely came into being.

Hence, while the dating of the later proto-languages shown in the table appears to hold true, that of Proto-Uralic to 4000 BC seems to be too early. There cannot have been several millennia between Proto-Uralic and Proto-Finno-Smic, the reconstructions of which suggest they were almost identical with one another. This being the case, the spread of Proto-Uralic can hardly be connected with the spread of the Combed Ware Style 2 culture around 3900 BC. However, the spread of e.g. the Sejma-Turbino Transcultural Phenomenon as late as around 1900 BC would be a chronologically more plausible archaeological correlation. The writer supports the notion that there was clearly a Finnic homeland on both sides of the Gulf of Finland at the beginning of the Current Era.

Petri Kallio



Osasto
Artikkelit
Julkaistu
tammi 1, 2006
Viittaaminen
Kallio, P. (2006). Suomen kantakielten absoluuttista kronologiaa. Virittäjä, 110(1), 2. Noudettu osoitteesta https://journal.fi/virittaja/article/view/40454