Holger Pedersen (linguist)
Encyclopedia
Holger Pedersen (ˌhʌlˀɡ̊ɐ ˈpʰeðˀɐsn̩) was a Danish
linguist
who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages.
He was born in Gelballe, Denmark on April 7, 1867 and died in Hellerup
, next to Copenhagen
, on October 25, 1953.
Pedersen studied at the University of Copenhagen
with Karl Verner
, Vilhelm Thomsen
, and Hermann Möller
. He subsequently studied at the University of Leipzig
with Karl Brugmann
, Eduard Sievers
, Ernst Windisch
, and August Leskien
.
In the fall of 1893, Pedersen enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he studied with Johannes Schmidt
. The following year he studied Celtic languages and Sanskrit with Heinrich Zimmer
at the University of Greifswald.
In 1895 he spent several months in the Aran Islands
in Ireland to study the conservative form of Gaelic
spoken there.
Pedersen submitted his doctoral dissertation to the University of Copenhagen in 1896. It dealt with aspiration
in Irish
. It was accepted and published in 1897. The dissertation committee included Vilhelm Thomsen and Otto Jespersen
.
Also in 1897, Pedersen took a position as a lecturer on Celtic languages
at the University of Copenhagen. In 1900 he became a reader in comparative grammar
there. In 1902 he was offered a professorship at the University of Basel
, which he declined, but was able at the same time to persuade the University of Copenhagen to establish an extraordinary professorship for him (Koerner 1983:xii). Pedersen also turned down the offer in 1908 of a professorship at the University of Strassburg
(ib.). Following the retirement of Vilhelm Thomsen in 1912, Pedersen acceded to Thomsen's chair
at the University of Copenhagen. He remained at the University of Copenhagen for the rest of his life.
with Karl Brugmann to study Albanian
in place. Subsequently Pedersen published a volume of Albanian texts collected on this journey (1895). The publication was due to the recommendation of Brugmann and Leskien (Koerner 1983:x). He continued to publish work on Albanian for many years thereafter. Pedersen's work on Albanian is often cited in Vladimir Orel
's Albanian Etymological Dictionary (1995).
Among students of the Celtic languages
Pedersen is best known for his Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 'Comparative Grammar of the Celtic Languages', which is still regarded as the principal reference work in Celtic historical linguistics
.
His Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen, 'Hittite and the Other Indo-European Languages', represented a significant step forward in Hittite studies, and is often relied on in Friedrich's Hethitisches Elementarbuch (2d ed. 1960), the standard handbook of Hittite
.
Also influential was his Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung, 'Tocharian from the Viewpoint of Indo-European Language Comparison'. For example, André Martinet
(2005:179n) states that his discussion of sound changes in Tocharian
is "fondé sur la présentation du tokharien par Holger Pedersen," 'based on the presentation of Tocharian by Holger Pedersen'.
It was Pedersen who formulated the ruki
law, an important sound change in Indo-Iranian
, Baltic
, and Slavic
.
He is also known for the description of Pedersen's Law
, a type of accentual shift occurring in Baltic and Slavic languages (1933a).
Pedersen endorsed the laryngeal theory
(1893:292) at a time when it "was regarded as an eccentric fancy of outsiders" (Szemerényi 1996:123). In his classic exposition of the theory, Émile Benveniste
(1935:148) credits Pedersen as one of those who contributed most to its development, along with Ferdinand de Saussure
, Hermann Möller
, and Albert Cuny
.
Two of Pedersen's theories have been receiving considerable attention in recent times after decades of neglect, often known today under the names of the glottalic theory
and the Nostratic
theory.
is abnormally low. Comparison of languages, however, shows that it would be normal if it had once been the equivalent voiceless stop
p, which is infrequent or absent in many languages.
He also posited that the Indo-European voiced aspirates, bh dh gh, could be better understood as voiceless aspirates, ph th kh.
Pedersen therefore proposed that the three stop series of Indo-European, p t k, bh dh gh, and b d g, had at an earlier time been b d g, ph th kh, and (p) t k, with the voiceless and voiced non-aspirates reversed.
This theory attracted relatively little attention until the American linguist Paul Hopper
(1973) and the two Soviet scholars Thomas V. Gamkrelidze
and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov
proposed, in a series of articles culminating in a major work by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov published in 1984 (English translation 1995), that the Indo-European b d g series had originally been a glottalized
series, p' t' k'. Under this form, the theory has attracted wide interest. There seems to be a good chance that it will endure in one form or another.
Pedersen’s last sentence should be understood as referring to the article he was writing, not the rest of his career. Although he defined the Nostratic family, he himself never produced the work of synthesis the concept seemed to call for. That would await the work of the Russian scholars Illich-Svitych
and Dolgopolsky
in the 1960s for its first iteration. Nevertheless Pedersen did not abandon the subject. He produced a substantial (if overlooked) article on Indo-European and Semitic in 1908. He produced a detailed argument in favor of the kinship of Indo-European and Uralic in 1933. In effect, the three pillars of the Nostratic hypothesis are Indo-Uralic
, Ural–Altaic, and Indo-Semitic
. Pedersen produced works on two of these three, so the impression is incorrect that he neglected this subject in his subsequent career. His interest in the Nostratic idea remained constant amid his many other activities as a linguist.
English "Nostratic" is the normal equivalent of German nostratisch, the form used by Pedersen in 1903, and Danish nostratisk (compare French nostratique). His 1931 American translator rendered nostratisk by "Nostratian," but this form did not catch on.
In his 1931 book, Pedersen defined Nostratic as follows (1931:338):
In his view, Indo-European
was most clearly related to Uralic
, with "similar, though fainter, resemblances" to Turkish
, Mongolian
, and Manchu
; to Yukaghir
; and to Eskimo (1931:338). He also considered Indo-European might be related to Semitic
and that, if so, it must be related to Hamitic
and possibly to Basque
(ib.).
In modern terms, we would say he was positing genetic relationship
between Indo-European and the Uralic
, Altaic
, Yukaghir, Eskimo, and Afro-Asiatic
language families. (The existence of the Altaic family is controversial, and few would now assign Basque to Afro-Asiatic.)
However, in Pedersen's view the languages listed did not exhaust the possibilities for Nostratic (ib.):
1895. Albanische Texte mit Glossar. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. (= Abhandlungen der Königlichen Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 15.3.)
1897. Aspirationen i Irsk (doctoral dissertation, University of Copenhagen). Leipzig: Spirgatis.
1903. "Türkische Lautgesetze," in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 57, 535-561.
1908. "Die indogermanisch-semitische Hypothese und die indogermanische Lautlehre." Indogermanische Forschungen 22, 341-365.
1909-1913. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 2 volumes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
1924. Sprogvidenskaben i det Nittende Aarhundrede. Metoder og Resultater. København: Gyldendalske Boghandel.
1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results, translated from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. (English translation of Pedersen 1924. Reprinted in 1959 as The Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century, Bloomington: Indiana University Press; paperback edition 1962.)
1933a. Etudes lituaniennes. København: Ejnar Munksgaard.
1933b. "Zur Frage nach der Urverwandschaft des Indoeuropäischen mit dem Ugrofinnischen." Mémoires de la Société finno-ougrienne 67, 308-325.
1938. Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 25.2. København.
1941. Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung. København: Ejnar Munksgaard. (Second edition 1949.)
1951. Die gemeinindoeuropäischen und die vorindoeuropäischen Verschlusslaute. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 32.5. København.
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages.
He was born in Gelballe, Denmark on April 7, 1867 and died in Hellerup
Hellerup
Hellerup is a Danish town of Region Hovedstaden, located in the Gentofte Municipality in Denmark. It is bordered to the east by the sound Øresund and to the South by Copenhagen and counted among the most affluent areas in Denmark....
, next to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, on October 25, 1953.
Education and academic career
(Principal source: Koerner 1983)Pedersen studied at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
with Karl Verner
Karl Verner
Karl Verner was a Danish linguist. He is remembered today for Verner's law, which he discovered in 1875.Verner, whose interest in languages was stimulated by reading about the work of Rasmus Christian Rask, began his university studies in 1864. He studied Oriental, Germanic and Slavic languages,...
, Vilhelm Thomsen
Vilhelm Thomsen
Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen was a Danish linguist. In 1893, he deciphered the Turkish Orkhon inscriptions in advance of his rival, Wilhelm Radloff...
, and Hermann Möller
Hermann Möller
Hermann Möller was a Danish linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship between the Indo-European and Semitic language families and his version of the laryngeal theory....
. He subsequently studied at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
with Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann
Karl Brugmann was a German linguist. He is a towering figure in Indo-European linguistics.-Biography:He was educated at Halle and Leipzig. He was instructor in the gymnasium at Wiesbaden and at Leipzig, and in 1872-77 was assistant at the Russian Institute of Classical Philology at the latter place...
, Eduard Sievers
Eduard Sievers
Eduard Sievers was a philologist of the classical and Germanic languages. Sievers was one of the Junggrammatiker of the so-called "Leipzig School"...
, Ernst Windisch
Ernst Windisch
Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch was a German scholar and celticist.He is known as an Indo-Europeanist. He was also a friend of the young Friedrich Nietzsche.-Works:...
, and August Leskien
August Leskien
August Leskien was a German linguist active in the field of comparative linguistics, particularly relating to the Baltic and Slavic languages.-Biography:...
.
In the fall of 1893, Pedersen enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he studied with Johannes Schmidt
Johannes Schmidt (linguist)
Johannes Friedrich Heinrich Schmidt was a German linguist. He developed the Wellentheorie of language development.-Biography:Schmidt was born in Prenzlau, Province of Brandenburg...
. The following year he studied Celtic languages and Sanskrit with Heinrich Zimmer
Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)
Heinrich Friedrich Zimmer was a German Celticist and Indologist.Born to a farming family in Kastellaun in the Rhineland-Palatinate in western Germany, he studied ancient languages at Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strassburg, going on to study Indology and Sanskrit under Rudolf von Roth at the...
at the University of Greifswald.
In 1895 he spent several months in the Aran Islands
Aran Islands
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
in Ireland to study the conservative form of Gaelic
Goidelic languages
The Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
spoken there.
Pedersen submitted his doctoral dissertation to the University of Copenhagen in 1896. It dealt with aspiration
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
. It was accepted and published in 1897. The dissertation committee included Vilhelm Thomsen and Otto Jespersen
Otto Jespersen
Jens Otto Harry Jespersen or Otto Jespersen was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language.He was born in Randers in northern Jutland and attended Copenhagen University, earning degrees in English, French, and Latin...
.
Also in 1897, Pedersen took a position as a lecturer on Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
at the University of Copenhagen. In 1900 he became a reader in comparative grammar
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
there. In 1902 he was offered a professorship at the University of Basel
University of Basel
The University of Basel is located in Basel, Switzerland, and is considered to be one of leading universities in the country...
, which he declined, but was able at the same time to persuade the University of Copenhagen to establish an extraordinary professorship for him (Koerner 1983:xii). Pedersen also turned down the offer in 1908 of a professorship at the University of Strassburg
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
(ib.). Following the retirement of Vilhelm Thomsen in 1912, Pedersen acceded to Thomsen's chair
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at the University of Copenhagen. He remained at the University of Copenhagen for the rest of his life.
Contributions to linguistics
In 1893, Pedersen traveled to CorfuCorfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
with Karl Brugmann to study Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
in place. Subsequently Pedersen published a volume of Albanian texts collected on this journey (1895). The publication was due to the recommendation of Brugmann and Leskien (Koerner 1983:x). He continued to publish work on Albanian for many years thereafter. Pedersen's work on Albanian is often cited in Vladimir Orel
Vladimir Orel
-Biography:At the Moscow State University he studied theoretical linguistics and structural linguistics . He defended his Ph.D. in 1981 , on the comparative analysis of Balto-Slavic languages...
's Albanian Etymological Dictionary (1995).
Among students of the Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
Pedersen is best known for his Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 'Comparative Grammar of the Celtic Languages', which is still regarded as the principal reference work in Celtic historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
.
His Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen, 'Hittite and the Other Indo-European Languages', represented a significant step forward in Hittite studies, and is often relied on in Friedrich's Hethitisches Elementarbuch (2d ed. 1960), the standard handbook of Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
.
Also influential was his Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung, 'Tocharian from the Viewpoint of Indo-European Language Comparison'. For example, André Martinet
André Martinet
André Martinet was a French linguist, influential by his work on structural linguistics....
(2005:179n) states that his discussion of sound changes in Tocharian
Tocharian languages
Tocharian or Tokharian is an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family. The name is taken from the people known to the Greeks as the Tocharians . These are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans. The term Tokharistan usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria, which the...
is "fondé sur la présentation du tokharien par Holger Pedersen," 'based on the presentation of Tocharian by Holger Pedersen'.
It was Pedersen who formulated the ruki
Ruki sound law
Ruki refers to a sound change in Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian, wherein an original phoneme changed into after the consonants , , and the semi-vowels , , or:...
law, an important sound change in Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
, Baltic
Baltic languages
The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe...
, and Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
.
He is also known for the description of Pedersen's Law
Pedersen's law
Pedersen's law, named after the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen, is a law of accentuation in Balto-Slavic languages which states that the stress was retracted from stressed medial syllables in paradigms with mobile accent....
, a type of accentual shift occurring in Baltic and Slavic languages (1933a).
Pedersen endorsed the laryngeal theory
Laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
(1893:292) at a time when it "was regarded as an eccentric fancy of outsiders" (Szemerényi 1996:123). In his classic exposition of the theory, Émile Benveniste
Émile Benveniste
Émile Benveniste was a French Jewish structural linguist, semiotician, an apprentice of Antoine Meilletand his successor, who, in his later years, became enlightened by the structural view of language through the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, although he was unwilling to grasp it at first, being...
(1935:148) credits Pedersen as one of those who contributed most to its development, along with Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
, Hermann Möller
Hermann Möller
Hermann Möller was a Danish linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship between the Indo-European and Semitic language families and his version of the laryngeal theory....
, and Albert Cuny
Albert Cuny
Albert Cuny was a French linguist known for his attempts to establish phonological correspondences between the Indo-European and Semitic languages and for his contributions to the laryngeal theory....
.
Two of Pedersen's theories have been receiving considerable attention in recent times after decades of neglect, often known today under the names of the glottalic theory
Glottalic theory
The glottalic theory holds that Proto-Indo-European had ejective stops, , but not the murmured ones, , of traditional Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions....
and the Nostratic
Nostratic languages
Nostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages...
theory.
Origin of the glottalic theory
In a work published in 1951, Pedersen pointed out that the frequency of b in Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
is abnormally low. Comparison of languages, however, shows that it would be normal if it had once been the equivalent voiceless stop
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
p, which is infrequent or absent in many languages.
He also posited that the Indo-European voiced aspirates, bh dh gh, could be better understood as voiceless aspirates, ph th kh.
Pedersen therefore proposed that the three stop series of Indo-European, p t k, bh dh gh, and b d g, had at an earlier time been b d g, ph th kh, and (p) t k, with the voiceless and voiced non-aspirates reversed.
This theory attracted relatively little attention until the American linguist Paul Hopper
Paul Hopper
Paul J. Hopper is an American linguist of British birth. In 1973, he proposed the glottalic theory regarding the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European consonant inventory, in parallel with the Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze and the Russian linguist Vyacheslav V. Ivanov...
(1973) and the two Soviet scholars Thomas V. Gamkrelidze
Tamaz Gamkrelidze
Tamaz Valeryanovich Gamkrelidze is a distinguished Georgian linguist, orientalist public benefactor and Hittitologist, Academician and President of the Georgian Academy of Sciences , Doctor of Sciences , Professor .Gamkrelidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgian SSR...
and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov is a prominent Soviet/Russian philologist and Indo-Europeanist probably best known for his glottalic theory of Indo-European consonantism and for placing the Indo-European urheimat in the area of the Armenian Highlands and Lake Urmia.-Early life:Vyacheslav Ivanov's...
proposed, in a series of articles culminating in a major work by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov published in 1984 (English translation 1995), that the Indo-European b d g series had originally been a glottalized
Ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...
series, p' t' k'. Under this form, the theory has attracted wide interest. There seems to be a good chance that it will endure in one form or another.
Origin of the Nostratic theory
Pedersen seems to have first used the term "Nostratic" in an article on Turkish phonology published in 1903. The kernel of Pedersen's argument for Nostratic in that article was as follows (1903:560-561; "Indo-Germanic" = Indo-European):-
- Grønbech considers it possible p. 69 that the Turkish word for "goose" could be borrowed from Indo-Germanic (Osm. kaz Yak. xās Chuv. xur). There are in my view three possibilities with regard to this word: coincidence, borrowing, and kinship. One must also reckon with this last possibility. Very many language stocks in Asia are without doubt related to the Indo-Germanic one; this is perhaps valid for all those languages which have been characterized as Ural–Altaic. I would like to unite all the language stocks related to Indo-Germanic under the name "Nostratic languages." The Nostratic languages occupy not only a very large area in Europe and Asia but also extend to within Africa; for the Semitic-Hamitic languages are in my view without doubt Nostratic. With regard to the proof of the relationship of the Nostratic languages, not only must all root etymologies and in general all etymological frivolities be kept at a distance, but one should in general not concern oneself with heaping up a mass of material. One should rather limit oneself to the rational consideration of a series of pronouns, negatives, in part also numerals which can be traced through several language stocks (in Turkish one is reminded of the Indo-Germanic by the negation -ma, -mä and the word-initial interrogative particle m, the interrogative pronoun kim, the pronoun of the first person män, the verbal ending of the 1. sing. -m, 1. plur. -myz, -miz and the ending -jin in the 1. sing. of the "optative," very reminiscent of the Indo-Germanic subjunctive [with the optative affix -a-, -ä-], the pronoun of the 2. sing. sän [cp. the IdG. verbal ending -s], the causative formation with -tur- [cp. IdG. -tōr nomen agentis; the Indo-Germanic causative also appears as if it were derived from a nomina agentis of the φορός type], the nomina actionis like Orkh. käd-im "clothing," several numerals: Orkh. jiti "7," jitm-iš "70," [with j = IdG. s as in Proto-Turk. *jib- "approach," Osm. jyldyz "Star": to Indo-Germanic word for "sun," jat- "lie": IdG. word for "sit"]; Proto-Turk. bǟš "5" [with š = IdG. -que; cp. Osm. piš- "be cooked," IdG. *pequeti "cooks"] etc., etc.). I resist the temptation to enter into this question in more detail.
Pedersen’s last sentence should be understood as referring to the article he was writing, not the rest of his career. Although he defined the Nostratic family, he himself never produced the work of synthesis the concept seemed to call for. That would await the work of the Russian scholars Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych was a Russian linguist and accentologist, also a founding father of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Of Ukrainian descent, he was born in Kiev but later moved to work in Moscow. He resuscitated the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis, originally expounded by...
and Dolgopolsky
Aharon Dolgopolsky
Aharon Dolgopolsky is a Russian-born Israeli comparative linguist and one of the modern founders of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Born in Moscow, he arrived at the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis in the 1960s, at around the same time but independently of Vladislav Illich-Svitych...
in the 1960s for its first iteration. Nevertheless Pedersen did not abandon the subject. He produced a substantial (if overlooked) article on Indo-European and Semitic in 1908. He produced a detailed argument in favor of the kinship of Indo-European and Uralic in 1933. In effect, the three pillars of the Nostratic hypothesis are Indo-Uralic
Indo-Uralic languages
Indo-Uralic is a proposed language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic.A genetic relationship between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1869 but was received with little enthusiasm...
, Ural–Altaic, and Indo-Semitic
Hermann Möller
Hermann Möller was a Danish linguist noted for his work in favor of a genetic relationship between the Indo-European and Semitic language families and his version of the laryngeal theory....
. Pedersen produced works on two of these three, so the impression is incorrect that he neglected this subject in his subsequent career. His interest in the Nostratic idea remained constant amid his many other activities as a linguist.
English "Nostratic" is the normal equivalent of German nostratisch, the form used by Pedersen in 1903, and Danish nostratisk (compare French nostratique). His 1931 American translator rendered nostratisk by "Nostratian," but this form did not catch on.
In his 1931 book, Pedersen defined Nostratic as follows (1931:338):
-
- As a comprehensive designation for the families of languages which are related to Indo-European, we may employ the expression Nostratian languages (from Latin nostrās "our countryman").
In his view, Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
was most clearly related to Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
, with "similar, though fainter, resemblances" to Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
, and Manchu
Manchu language
Manchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...
; to Yukaghir
Yukaghir languages
The Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages – Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir – spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. According to the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together have 604 speakers...
; and to Eskimo (1931:338). He also considered Indo-European might be related to Semitic
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
and that, if so, it must be related to Hamitic
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
and possibly to Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
(ib.).
In modern terms, we would say he was positing genetic relationship
Genetic relationship (linguistics)
In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics...
between Indo-European and the Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
, Altaic
Altaic languages
Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
, Yukaghir, Eskimo, and Afro-Asiatic
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
language families. (The existence of the Altaic family is controversial, and few would now assign Basque to Afro-Asiatic.)
However, in Pedersen's view the languages listed did not exhaust the possibilities for Nostratic (ib.):
-
- The boundaries for the Nostratian world of languages cannot yet be determined, but the area is enormous, and includes such widely divergent races that one becomes almost dizzy at the thought. (...) The question remains simply whether sufficient material can be collected to give this inclusion flesh and blood and a good clear outline.
Works of Holger Pedersen mentioned in this article
1893. "Das Präsensinfix n," in Indogermanische Forschungen 2, 285-332.1895. Albanische Texte mit Glossar. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. (= Abhandlungen der Königlichen Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 15.3.)
1897. Aspirationen i Irsk (doctoral dissertation, University of Copenhagen). Leipzig: Spirgatis.
1903. "Türkische Lautgesetze," in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 57, 535-561.
1908. "Die indogermanisch-semitische Hypothese und die indogermanische Lautlehre." Indogermanische Forschungen 22, 341-365.
1909-1913. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, 2 volumes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
1924. Sprogvidenskaben i det Nittende Aarhundrede. Metoder og Resultater. København: Gyldendalske Boghandel.
1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results, translated from the Danish by John Webster Spargo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. (English translation of Pedersen 1924. Reprinted in 1959 as The Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century, Bloomington: Indiana University Press; paperback edition 1962.)
1933a. Etudes lituaniennes. København: Ejnar Munksgaard.
1933b. "Zur Frage nach der Urverwandschaft des Indoeuropäischen mit dem Ugrofinnischen." Mémoires de la Société finno-ougrienne 67, 308-325.
1938. Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropäischen Sprachen. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 25.2. København.
1941. Tocharisch vom Gesichtspunkt der indoeuropäischen Sprachvergleichung. København: Ejnar Munksgaard. (Second edition 1949.)
1951. Die gemeinindoeuropäischen und die vorindoeuropäischen Verschlusslaute. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 32.5. København.