Beatrix writes:
Robert,Is it true that 1,000 yrs ago a German & a Persian spoke basically the same language?
No, it is not true at all that Old German and Old Persian were the same language 1,000 years ago.
However there are some Croatian dialects such as Archaic Islander Čakavian spoken on the islands off the coast of Croatia that are quite similar to Persian or Iranic. They are actually closer to Kurdish and Zazaki though. They are actually completely separate languages, as the lexical similarity with Croatian is only 4%! There is a theory that the pre-Slavic Croatians may have come originally from Persia, and there may be something to that.
These ancient tongues are the remains of the pre-Slavic languages spoken in this area before the Slavs came. The language that these tongues are closest to is called Liburnian. The Liburnians inhabited that region thousands of years ago. Liburnian is an ancient Indo-European language.
I did a study on one of those old languages, an Archaic Islander Čakavian tongue called Gan-Veyãn. I obtained a short dictionary of Gan-Veyãn and went through half of it from M-Z looking on my guesses as where the roots seemed to have originated. The results were remarkable and are listed in order with the language with the most roots first and the language with fewest roots last.
- Indic
- Persian
- Avestan
- Hittite
- Akkadian
- Basque
- Tocharian
- Sumerian
- Lithuanian
- Aramaic
- Hurrian
- Etruscan
- Gothic
- Russian
- Ukrainian
- Celtic
- Kurdish
- Armenian
- Latin
- Arabic
- Mittani
- Apian
- German
- Geez
I will go down the list now and describe these languages.
Indic means all of the Indo European or IE languages related to Hindi.
Persian is well known.
Avestan is best described as Old Persian.
Hittite is an ancient IE tongue formerly spoken in Turkey.
Akkadian is a language isolate formerly spoken in Iraq by the people of that name who had a kingdom there.
Basque is the well known language isolate and pre-IE language spoken in northeastern Spain. Although it formally has no relatives, I would say it is related to NE Caucasian languages like Chechen. In fact the placename Iberia has deep connections to the land of Georgia.
Tocharian is an ancient IE languages formerly spoken by Caucasian people who lived in what is now Xinjiang in far western China where the Uyghurs now live.
Sumerian is an ancient tongue, a language isolate formerly spoken in the Sumerian Kingdom in Iraq.
Lithuanian is interesting because for some reason it is one of the most archaic living IE languages.
Aramaic of course is the language of Jesus spoken in the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran and Turkey. It is still spoken by Assyrian Christians in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey to this day.
Hurrian is an ancient IE language like Hittite formerly spoken in Turkey.
Etruscan is an ancient language isolate formerly spoken in Italy.
Gothic is the ancient Germanic language of the Visigoths who lived not only in Germany but also in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Russian and Ukrainian are well known. This ancient language may have roots close to these two Slavic languages because in a way Russian and Ukrainian are ancient Slavic languages being heavily based on Old Church Slavonic, a liturgical language that originated in northeastern Greece with roots close to Old Slavic or even Proto-Slavic.
Kurdish is the well known Iranic language of the Kurds.
Armenian is a living language, but it is rather ancient and archaic as IE languages go.
Latin is well known and these islands were part of the Roman Empire for a while.
Arabic is well known and quite a few languages along the European coast of the Mediterranean Sea have some Arabic in them.
Mittani is a language isolate formerly spoken around northern Iraq and Iran that nevertheless seems to have some relationship with Indo-Iranian languages.
Apian is an ancient IE language formerly spoken in Italy.
German is well known. How German words got into this language is a head scratcher but Croatia itself is quite close to Germany as a former part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which had German as an official language.
Geez is the ancient language of the Ethiopian and Egyptian Coptic Christians which was thought to be long dead. However a family in Cairo was recently discovered who spoke Geez at home.
