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The Language Contact Situation in Prehistoric Northeastern Europe

Profile image of Petri KallioPetri Kallio

2015, Robert Mailhammer, Theo Vennemann gen. Nierfeld, and Birgit Anette Olsen (eds.), The Linguistic Roots of Europe: Origin and Development of European Languages, pp. 77-102. Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European 6. Copenhagen.

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Abstract
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This article investigates the language contact situation in prehistoric Northeastern Europe, considering linguistic developments from the Palaeolithic through the Bronze Age. It argues that the concept of a widespread lingua franca during the Mesolithic is incorrect due to low population density and conflict. The paper highlights that while knowledge-intensive skills such as pottery began to foster communication among groups in the Subneolithic, significant linguistic expansions, particularly of the Indo-European and Uralic families, occurred mainly during the Copper and Bronze Ages. The assessment reexamines linguistic homelands and dialects, challenging prevailing theories about Proto-Baltic and Uralic origins.

Key takeaways
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  1. The absence of a widespread lingua franca in Northeastern Europe during the Mesolithic is emphasized.
  2. Pottery spread around 6000 BC necessitated communication in a common language during the Subneolithic.
  3. Indo-European and Uralic are the only prehistoric language families in Northeastern Europe.
  4. The Proto-Uralic language likely emerged later than previously thought, post-dating Proto-Indo-Iranian around 3000 BC.
  5. Baltic languages have a millennia-long continuity, with major expansions occurring post-2500 BC.
Figures (3)
‘igurei1 The traditional family tree of the Uralic branches. The language contact situation in prehistoric Northeastern Europe
‘igurei1 The traditional family tree of the Uralic branches. The language contact situation in prehistoric Northeastern Europe
If I really had to choose only one homeland, I would at this moment pre- fer the Volga-Oka region, from where all the Uralic branches can archaeo- logically be derived more easily. First, linguistically uniform Proto-Uralic would have been spoken in the Volga-Oka region until the mid-third millen- nium Bc when the Proto-Uralic-speaking area would have expanded to the Volga-Kama region as well. By the end of the same millennium, this expan- sion would have led to the earliest dialectal splits wi hin Uralic into Finno- Mordvin, Mari-Permic, and Ugro-Samoyed (see Figure 2). The splitting up of these three soon followed during the early second millennium Bc when the Uralic-speaking area finally stretched from the to the Altai mountains in the east. Indeed, no mat was spoken, the branching into the nine well-attested Saami, Mordvin, Mari, Permic, Hungarian, Mansi, Baltic Sea in the west er where Proto-Uralic subgroups (viz. Finnic, Khanty, and Samoyed) must have taken less than a millennium, because their shared phonological and morphosyntactic isoglosses are rather limited (see Salminen 2002). The traditional view that all this branching would have t aken several millennia violates everything linguistic typology teaches us about the rate of language change. raditional view that all this branching would have taken several millennia
If I really had to choose only one homeland, I would at this moment pre- fer the Volga-Oka region, from where all the Uralic branches can archaeo- logically be derived more easily. First, linguistically uniform Proto-Uralic would have been spoken in the Volga-Oka region until the mid-third millen- nium Bc when the Proto-Uralic-speaking area would have expanded to the Volga-Kama region as well. By the end of the same millennium, this expan- sion would have led to the earliest dialectal splits wi hin Uralic into Finno- Mordvin, Mari-Permic, and Ugro-Samoyed (see Figure 2). The splitting up of these three soon followed during the early second millennium Bc when the Uralic-speaking area finally stretched from the to the Altai mountains in the east. Indeed, no mat was spoken, the branching into the nine well-attested Saami, Mordvin, Mari, Permic, Hungarian, Mansi, Baltic Sea in the west er where Proto-Uralic subgroups (viz. Finnic, Khanty, and Samoyed) must have taken less than a millennium, because their shared phonological and morphosyntactic isoglosses are rather limited (see Salminen 2002). The traditional view that all this branching would have t aken several millennia violates everything linguistic typology teaches us about the rate of language change. raditional view that all this branching would have taken several millennia

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How did the spread of pottery influence language communication in Subneolithic Europe?add

The study finds that pottery-making introduced crucial knowledge transfer, necessitating communication in shared languages circa 6000 BC. This indicates increased social interaction but still relied heavily on bilingual trade facilitators until the Copper Age.

When did more widespread language families begin to emerge in Northeastern Europe?add

The emergence of widespread language families likely correlates with the onset of the Copper Age around 4500 BC. Additionally, significant linguistic expansions occurred following the transition into the Bronze Age around 2500 BC.

What evidence supports the Proto-Uralic linguistic development timeline?add

The research suggests Proto-Uralic cannot be dated much earlier than Proto-Indo-Iranian, circa 3000 BC, based on Indo-Iranian loanwords appearing in dialectal Proto-Uralic. The phonological patterns indicate a close relationship between these proto-stages.

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The analysis critiques the binary classification, arguing it contradicts lexical evidence supporting a potential four-branch division of Uralic languages. This reevaluation could redefine linguistic relationships within Uralic studies significantly.

What are the implications of substrate and superstrate influences on Finnic languages?add

The findings reveal that Finnic languages exhibit significant Indo-European superstrate influences and potentially an Indo-European substrate, evidenced by geographical terms of non-Uralic origin. This suggests complex interactions between Uralic and Indo-European languages during their development.

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Petri Kallio
University of Helsinki, Adjunct
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Contact and Prehistory: The Indo-European Northwest
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The Indo-European languages, spread in ancient times over large parts of Eurasia and in recent times over large parts of the world, have emanated, according to the views of nearly all specialists, in prehistoric times from a small territory somewhere near the seam between Asia and Europe. Since all other parts of the double continent suitable for human settlement were already populated by non-Indo-European peoples by the time of the Indo-European expansion, all or nearly all historical Indo-European languages must have been in contact with non-Indo-European languages in prehistoric times, and this is certainly so for Europe north of the Central Divide, the mountain ranges separating central, west, and northern Europe from southern Europe: the Pyrenees and the Alps.

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A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe
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The expansion of the Indo-European languages
Frederik Kortlandt

When considering the way the Indo-Europeans took to the west, it is important to realize that mountains, forests and marshlands were prohibitive impediments. Moreover, people need fresh water, all the more so when traveling with horses. The natural way from the Russian steppe to the west is therefore along the northern bank of the river Danube. This leads to the hypothesis that the western Indo-Europeans represent successive waves of migration along the Danube and its tributaries. The Celts evidently followed the Danube all the way into southern Germany. The ancestors of the Italic tribes, including the Veneti, may have followed the river Sava towards northern Italy. The ancestors of Germanic speakers apparently moved into Moravia and Bohemia and followed the Elbe into Saxony. A part of the Veneti may have followed them into Moravia and moved along the Oder through the Moravian Gate into Silesia. The hypothetical speakers of Temematic probably moved through Slovakia along the river Orava into western Galicia. The ancestors of speakers of Balkan languages crossed the lower Danube and moved to the south. This scenario is in agreement with the generally accepted view of the earliest relations between these branches of Indo-European. The western Indo-European vocabulary in Baltic and Slavic is the result of an Indo-European substratum which contained an older non-Indo-European layer and was part of the Corded Ware horizon. The numbers show that a considerable part of the vocabulary was borrowed after the split between Baltic and Slavic, which came about when their speakers moved westwards north and south of the Pripet marshes. These events are older than the westward movement of the Slavs which brought them into contact with Temematic speakers. One may conjecture that the Venedi occupied the Oder basin and then expanded eastwards over the larger part of present-day Poland before the western Balts came down the river Niemen and moved onwards to the lower Vistula. We may then identify the Venedic expansion with the spread of the Corded Ware horizon and the westward migration of the Balts and the Slavs with their integration into the larger cultural complex. The theory that the Venedi separated from the Veneti in the upper Sava region and moved through Moravia and Silesia to the Baltic Sea explains the “im Namenmaterial auffällige Übereinstimmung zwischen dem Baltikum und den Gebieten um den Nordteil der Adria” (Udolph 1981: 61). The Balts probably moved in two stages because the differences between West and East Baltic are considerable.

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The Language-contact Landscape in the Baltics during the First Millennium BC
Petri Kallio, Niklas Metsäranta

Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 70, pp. 27-80. Helsinki., 2025

It is well known that Finnic obtained a large number of loanwords from both Germanic and Baltic, and inferences about the nature of these contacts and the lives of the people speaking these languages have been made based on the existing loanword material. In this paper we go deeper into the topic via a novel combination of three aspects. First, we divided Finnic into the stages Early, Middle, and Late Proto-Finnic and focused specifically on Germanic and Baltic loanwords in Early and Middle Proto-Finnic as those were most likely the languages spoken in the Baltic region during the first millennium BC. Second, by focusing on this early loanword material we combined linguistic and archaeological evidence around three themes: 1) agriculture, 2) bronzeworking and its implications, and 3) family life. We found a surprisingly coherent group of Germanic loanwords related to bronze casting, and we propose that the speakers of both Germanic and Finnic were living in fortified settlements and participated in the bronze-casting business. The connections between Finnic and Baltic were more familial as indicated by the borrowing of several kinship terms. Third, we considered the language-contact situation in the Baltics as a whole, i.e. we also discussed what we know or might be able to know about loanwords from Finnic into Baltic and Germanic and between Germanic and Baltic. All in all, through a multidisciplinary approach we were able to gain new insights into the well-studied topic of the Finnic past, showing that more of this kind of research is needed in the future.

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Continuity from Paleolithic of Indo-European and Uralic populations in Europe: the convergence of linguistic and archaeological frontiers
Mario Alinei
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Related topics

  • Baltic languages
  • Uralic languages
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