A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is a language – usually hypothetical
or reconstructed, and unattested – from which a number of attested, or documented,
known languages are believed to have descended by evolution, or slow modification of the
proto-language into languages that form a language family.
In the strict sense, a proto-language is the latest common ancestor of a language family
and thus corresponds to the most recent common ancestor in biology, although the term is
often used more loosely. Moreover, a group of idioms which are not considered separate
languages can also be described as descending from a unitary proto-language.
Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead.
Definition and verification Typically, the proto-language is not known
directly. It is by definition a linguistic reconstruction formulated by applying the
comparative method to a group of languages featuring similar characteristics. The tree
is a statement of similarity and a hypothesis that the similarity results from descent from
a common language. The comparative method, a process of deduction,
begins from a set of characteristics, or characters, found in the attested languages. If the entire
set can be accounted for by descent from the proto-language, which must contain the proto-forms
of them all, the tree, or phylogeny, is regarded as a complete explanation and by Occam's razor,
is given credibility. More recently such a tree has been termed "perfect" and the characters
labeled "compatible." No trees but the smallest branches are ever
found to be perfect. Typically credibility is given to the hypotheses of highest compatibility.
The differences in compatibility must be explained by various applications of the wave model.
The level of completeness of the reconstruction achieved varies, depending on how complete
the evidence is from the descendant languages and on the formulation of the characters by
the linguists working on it. Not all characters are suitable for the comparative method. For
example, lexical items that are loans from a different language do not reflect the phylogeny
to be tested, and if used will detract from the compatibility. Getting the right dataset
for the comparative method is a major task in historical linguistics.
Some universally accepted proto-languages are Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, and
Proto-Dravidian. In a few fortuitous instances, which have
been used to verify the method and the model, a literary history exists from as early as
a few millennia ago, allowing the descent to be traced in detail. The early daughter
languages, and even the proto-language itself, may be attested in surviving texts. For example,
Latin is the proto-language of the Romance language family, which includes such modern
languages as French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan and Spanish. Likewise, Proto-Norse,
the ancestor of the modern Scandinavian languages, is attested, albeit in fragmentary form, in
the Elder Futhark. Although there are no very early Indo-Aryan inscriptions, the Indo-Aryan
languages of modern India all go back to Vedic Sanskrit, which has been preserved in texts
accurately handed down by parallel oral and written traditions for many centuries.
The first person to offer systematic reconstructions of an unattested proto-language was August
Schleicher; he did so for Proto-Indo-European in 1861.
Proto-X vs. Pre-X Normally, the term "Proto-X" refers to the
last common ancestor of a group of languages, occasionally attested but most commonly reconstructed
through the comparative method. An earlier stage of the same language, reconstructed
through the method of internal reconstruction, is termed "Pre-X". This terminology is used,
for example, in the case of Proto-Indo-European and Pre-Indo-European; likewise for Proto-Germanic
and Pre-Germanic. As Pre-X is sometimes also used for a postulated substratum, the more
precise term Pre-Proto-X is sometimes used, for a stage older than the last common ancestor
of the attested language varieties employed in the reconstruction.
When multiple historical stages of a single language exist, the oldest attested stage
is normally termed "Old X". For an earlier, hypothetical stage, reconstructed through
the method of internal reconstruction, terminology differs, with some authors using "Proto-X"
and others using "Pre-X". The case of Irish is somewhat different; the language known
as Old Irish is the language in which the first significant texts are known, but an
older stage named Primitive Irish is also attested, though much more sparsely. This
is similar to the situation of Old Norse and Proto-Norse, where both are attested but the
latter only fragmentarily. Criticism
There are no objective criteria for the evaluation of different reconstruction systems yielding
different proto-languages. Many researchers concerned with linguistic reconstruction agree
that the traditional comparative method is an "intuitive undertaking".
The bias of the researchers regarding the accumulated implicit knowledge can also lead
to erroneous assumptions and their generalization. Kortlandt lists several cases where such general
assumptions concerning "the nature of language" turned out to hinder the research in the field
of historical linguistics. Linguists make their judgments on what they consider "natural"
for a language to change, and "As a result, our reconstructions tend to have a strong
bias toward the average language type known to the investigator."
The advent of wave model raised new issues in the domain of linguistic reconstruction,
causing the reevaluation of old reconstruction systems and depriving the proto-language of
its "uniform character". This is evident in Karl Brugmann's skepticism that the reconstruction
systems could ever reflect a linguistic reality. Ferdinand de Saussure went further, completely
rejecting a positive specification of the sound values of reconstruction systems.
In general, the issue of the nature of proto-language remains unsolved, with linguists taking the
realist or abstractionist position. Even the widely studied proto-languages, such as Proto-Indo-European,
have suffered criticism due to being typological outliers with respect to the reconstructed
phonemic inventory. The alternatives such as glottalic theory, despite representing
a typologically less rare system, have not gained wider acceptance, with some researchers
even suggesting the use of indexes to represent the disputed series of plosives. On the other
end of spectrum, Pulgram suggests that Proto-Indo-European reconstructions are just "a set of reconstructed
formulae not representative of any reality". In the same vein Julius Pokorny in his study
on Indo-European claims that the linguistic term IE parent language is merely an abstraction
that does not exist in reality, and it should be understood as consisting of dialects possibly
dating back to the paleolithic, during which these formed the linguistic structure of the
IE language group. In his view, Indo-European is solely a system of isoglosses which held
together dialects which were spoken by various tribes, from which the historically attested
Indo-European languages emerged. See also
List of proto-languages Comparative method
Internal reconstruction Historical linguistics
Proto-Human language Universal language
Notes
References Lehmann, Winfred P., Theoretical Bases of
Indo-European Linguistics, London, New York: Taylor & Francis Group
Schleicher, August, Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen: 2
volumes, Weimar: H. Boehlau, ISBN 3-8102-1071-4 Kortlandt, Frederik, General Linguistics and
Indo-European Reconstruction Brugmann, Karl; Delbrück, Berthold, Kurze
vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, Strassburg
Saussure, Ferdinand de, Cours de linguistique générale [Course in General Linguistics],
Paris Pulgram, Ernst, Proto-Indo-European Reality
and Reconstruction, Language 35: 421–426, doi:10.2307/411229
Pokorny, Julius, Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft – Indogermanistik [General
and Comparative Linguistics - Indo-European Studies] 2, Bern: A. Francke AG Verlag, pp. 79–80