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The
Asiatic proto-language has been named as Nostratic by Russian
linguists. This name immediately links the proto-language to
Indo-European and especially to Latin, since Nostratic means
“our stratum, our group” in Latin. I am of the opinion that
the proto-language first became the common language of the
large Eurasian continent and then diversified into several
subgroups. This diversification into subgroups is shown in the
Table below.
At the top of
the Table we place the Proto-language of Central Asia which
was once the single language of the whole Eurasian continent.
During this period, groups of people (tribes) were mostly
nomads and moved their herds from pastures to pastures
depending on the weather conditions. The Proto-language of
Central Asia evolved into Eurasian as time went by and as
people started to form independent rural stable settlements.
Eurasian should not be considered as a specific language
spoken by real people, but rather as a definition linked to a
new era of fixed settlements. One can loosely define Eurasian
as the common language of the Neolithic period.
On the left
side of the Table we see the language groups which evolved on
the central, eastern, western and south-western parts of
Eurasia. On the right side of the Table we find language
groups which evolved on the north-eastern and south-eastern
parts of Eurasia. These groups eventually left the mainland
and spread over new continents. The language groups which
still have a clear link to the original Proto-language are
placed at the top of the list. As the link weakens and becomes
murky the language groups move to the bottom of the list.
The vision
supported by this Table is that presently there are two
language groups that still have the strongest link to the
original Proto-language. These are the Altaic group on the
main Asiatic continent and the Eskimo-Aleut group extending
from the north-eastern parts of Asia to the northern regions
of America, up to the island of Greenland. It will be,
therefore, most logical to start considering the Altaic
language group in somewhat more detail.
The above
Table shows the three main branches of the Altaic languages.
In the center we have the extinct languages. These were, most
probably, languages that split from Eurasian before the clear
distinction of Uralic from Altaic. Therefore, one can still
find many linguistic clues connecting these extinct languages
to both Altaic as well as to Uralic languages. Research has
been done on the linguistic connection of Sumerian to both
Turkish as well as to modern Hungarian. The validity of these
links can be demonstrated by showing their origin stemming
from the forgotten realm of the Proto-language.
The
Proto-language of Central Asia
The words of
the Proto-language were all monosyllabic. These monosyllabic
words were made out of strong velar and dental consonants
joined to 8 different vowels. The vowels were grouped into two
groups of 4, according to an internal sound harmony. The 4
thick vowels are a (as a in abut), ugh (as a strong velar i or
y), o (as o in go) and u (as u in you). The 4 thin vowels are
e (as e in bet), i (as in i in hit), ö/eu (as u in burn) and ü
(as u in burette).
The vowels in
one group were interchangeable and an “a” in a monosyllabic
word could very well be replaced by a “u” as time went by. The
same replacement could also take place within the vowels of
the thin group. But no vowel belonging to one group could
replace another vowel from a different group.
Regarding the
consonants, the labials (produced with the lips) such as p, b,
m, f and v as well as pair of velars (produced with the
tongue) such as t with d, k with g, kh with q, l with r and z
could also replace each other as a result of normal linguistic
transformation. A clear example of such a transformation
happened within the generic name “Uighur”. This generic tribal
name was pronounced in a much stronger version as “Okhuz” in
the ancient Proto-language. As a result of labialization the
thick O became “Ui”, the thick “k” became “g” and the “z”
became “r”. A further change happened with the softening of
the “gh” into a “g”, ending up as Ugor, Ungar, Hungar, and
Hungarian. This transformation tells us that the Ural language
group including Hungarian, Finnish and Samoyed are offspring
of the ancient Proto-language, closely related to the Altaic
languages.
A similar
change happened within Turkish which has a “z” and an “r”
version. The more archaic z version is still alive in the
Anatolian Oghuz Turkish. While the r version is found in the
Chuvash Turkish. Chuvashia is an autonomous republic within
present day Russia. In that Turkish dialect Oguz is pronounced
as Ogur. “Kyz” (girl) is pronounced as “hyr”. The Chuvash
language contains several similar cases.
Okhuz is
formed of a root “Okh” and a suffix –uz, which is a clear
indication that the Proto-language was agglutinative. Words
could be formed by concatenating root words and suffixes. The
root word “Okh” lost its strong h and became Ok to mean
“arrow” in modern Turkish. With the suffix –uz “Okhuz” means
“we are the arrow”. In this word we find several hidden
meanings. First: “we are the arrow people and move as fast as
an arrow”, second: “we are the warriors carrying arrows” and
third: “we are the lucky superior ones”, since Ogur and Ugur
mean both lucky and also superior. The word “ugur” changed a
bit and became “augure” in French and “augury” in English to
mean “good omen”.
The name Okh
or Ogh did not represent a single tribe, but rather was the
common generic name used during the early period of the
Root-language. Being a hunter carrying a bow and an arrow was
the prerogative of any adult male. This is why the word for
“boy” in Turkish is Oghlan, meaning “acquire an arrow” or
equivalently “become an adult”. Similarly, “Oksuz” or
“Oeksuez” means a young person who lost his parent. In other
words, having no adult person for protection. In this case the
adult person is generally the mother, since the father is most
of the time away from home.
A further
transformation of Okh is found in the ancient tribal name Akh.
There was a nation living in Mesopotamia named as Acadians and
another one next to the Helens known as the Akha people.
Another Akha tribe is found in southern China extending into
Thailand.
The generic
name Okh changed into Oc all over the southern cost of Europe.
There is a rather large territory known as Occitania which is
not anymore a legal or political entity. This cultural area,
in which a language called “Lenga D’Oc” (Oc language or
Occitan) was spoken, is located between Spain and northern
Italy, comprising the totality of southern France.
The worldwide
accepted OK (Okay) as an affirmation meaning “yes” has its
roots in the Oc language. It was used to affirm the
superiority of the Oc leader carrying a bow and an arrow and
later on a spear. The large Oc territory is shown in the map
below.
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