User:Neitrāls vārds/Pre-Indo-European Baltic

Baltic coastline 7000 years ago (5000 BC

The nature of Neolithic European cultures, ethnic groups or languages (also referred to as the "Old Europe") prior to Indo-European and Finno-Ugric proliferation remains a highly speculative topic.

The territory comprising modern day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the Neolithic was characterized by the Narva culture comprising roughly modern day Estonia and Latvia and Neman culture comprising roughly modern day Lithuania and adjacent territories.

It is only possible to speculate on the ethnicity of the peoples that were part of the Narva culture/Neman culture.

Endre Bojtár comments on the possibility of certain "Veneds" being a pre-Indo-European/pre-Finno-Ugric ethnic group being squeezed out by IDE Balts from south and FU Baltic Finns from the north. However this question raises serious issues. Bojtár devotes an entire chapter to what he calls "The Venet(d) question" in his book Foreword to the past: a cultural history of the Baltic people.

Some of his observations are:

• At this time only the name of certain "North Veneds" and "South Venets" mentioned in historical texts remains the only sign of their existence, furthermore instances of this name being used are scattered all over the European continent. Author notes that versions with -t and -d have been used interchangeably. The author decides to refer to the Baltic (North) Veneds with a -d and the Adriatic (South) Venets with a -t.[p 85]

• Pliny calls north Veneds either Venets or sometimes Veneds, while Tacitus Venets.

Pre-Indo-European hydronymy

Bojtár argues against the possibility of a pre-Indo-European substratum in hydronyms (see Theo Vennemann's theories: Old European hydronymy and Vasconic substratum theory) among other examples citing that "'many, if not most, Latgalian water features were renamed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, following the devastation war, plague and famine.' (Zeps-Rosenschield 1995, 345)"[p 53]

It is a reasonable assumption that a population of some kind existed in northern Europe in the period following the last Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago. Though we can never hope to know very much about the language or languages spoken by these people, serious attempts have recently been made by eminent scholars to reconstruct something thereof from possible surviving elements in known languages. Hamp (1990), for example, hypothesizes a number of phonological, morphological and lexical features. On the basis of a study of river-names, which tend to reflect the oldest strata in the toponymy of an area (see also * Old European ), Vennemann (1994) constructs a bold hypothesis sketching the possible phonological structure of such a language and its apparent rules for word-formation and thence its word-order and inclines to the view that, though not itself * Basque , his hypothesized language belonged to ‘the same linguistic stock’ as Basque. More recently, however, Kitson (1996) has argued for the * Indo-European character of these ‘Old European’ river-names.

— Glanville, Price (2000). Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. doi:10.1111/b.9780631220398.2000.x. ISBN 9780631220398. Retrieved date=December 2011. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Missing pipe in: |accessdate= (help)

Eric P. Hamp, The pre-Indo-European language of northern (central) Europe

In Baltic Finns

The Balto-Finnic cosmogonic myth can thus be regarded as an

indigenous oral tradition of the region where it has been preserved. The possibility cannot be excluded that the myth is a borrowing from the ProtoEuropean tribes who were later assimilated by the Baltic Finns. The belief in the cosmic egg was probably part of the mythology of Europe before the Indo-European invasion, as shown by Marija Gimbutas (1982:101-7). Works by Uku Masing (1985) and Vladimir Napolskikh (1991) point in the same direction: a possible substratum of the folklore of Proto-European peoples that can be recognized in the Balto-Finnic oral traditions. Thus we are dealing with a remnant of the mythology of the European Stone Age,

cosmogonic knowledge that has been transmitted through the millennia.

— [1]

Even though the Saami language is intrusive in its present territory, the background of the Saami people is somewhat different. Studies in population genetics have confirmed the old hypothesis of the 'racially' distinct character of the Saami; to put this in modern terminology, the Saami people form a genetic outlier in the European context. Significantly, this outlier status also holds in comparison to the geographically adjacent and linguistically related Finnic peoples. Thus even though the Saami are linguistically Uralic, they have inherited a significant genetic component from the non-Uralic first settlers of Lapland.

The only way to reconcile the linguistic and genetic facts is to assume that language shifts have taken place. The linguistic lineage lending to Proto-Saami must have split off from Proto-Uralic somehwere outside Lapland. At some later stage this language began to spread northward and was ultimately adoped by the subarctic hunter-gatherers in the Fennoscandian north, pushing their original languages to extinction. While these languages did not survive the course of prehistory, they have probably left a trace of themselves behind: general contact linguistic principles predict that Saami must have adopted a substrate component during its expansion.

This paper has two purposes: first, to outline a critical methidological framework for palaeolinguistic substrate studies, and second, to analye and date the substrate component in Saami. Linguistically Saami provides an ideal case for such a study. The development of the Saami languages has been reconstruded in detail, which allows for a rigorous and exact stratification of linguistic material. The ultimate aim of the analysis is to answer a fundemental question of Saami ethnic history. Asit is reasonable to define ethnic goups according to their language, a successful dating of the 'Saami language shift' will reveal when Lapland became Lappish.

— Aikio, Ante (2004). "An essay on substrate studies and the origin of Saami

• http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/50271 - Saarkivi's suggestion that Baltic sala, Finn. (arch.) salo, Saami suolu ('island') could potentially derive from an extinct pre-IDE, pre-FU Neolithic language, since it doesn't have cognates in other FU languages, nor other IDE languages. According to Ernout/Meillet, Dictionnaire Étymolgique de la Langue Latine etymology of Latin insula is unclear.

Latvian pottery

Top: a traditional Latvian plate, mottling detail
Bottom: a piece by Ingrīda Cepīte, shaped without using potter's wheel

Latvian pottery (Latvijas keramika or Latvijas podniecība), one of the country's oldest art forms, dates back to the Neolithic. Latgale pottery (Latgales keramika) is the most well-known subset of Latvian pottery. The eastern region of Latgale is the most prolific producer of wares.

As a rule, Latvian pottery is characterized by an absence of any painted-on patterns or designs, instead solid colors and gradients are used. Traditionally subdued, earthen hues (greens, browns, etc.) are used; however, artisans can be seen using brighter colors in their unique pieces. Mottled glaze and random artifacts (somewhat reminiscent of the Japanese Shino-yaki) are characteristic of Latvian pottery.

Prehistoric period

Pottery of the Narva culture

Neolithic Europe, Pit–Comb Ware culture in purple

The Neolithic Pit–Comb Ware culture (AKA Comb Ceramic culture) that spanned the entire territory of modern-day Latvia derives its name from the pottery characteristic of the time – wares decorated with impressions of a comb-like object. Narva culture spanning the entire territory of modern day Estonia and Latvia, as well as parts of Lithuania and Western Russia, is a subset of the larger Pit–Comb Ware culture.

Pit–Comb Ware culture is usually thought to have used an early form of what are today known as the Uralic languages, a competing view is that they may have been speakers of a Paleo-European language.

Latgale pottery

Some of the types of wares characteristic to Latgale pottery are vāraunieks (a pot for cooking), medaunieks (a pot for honey storage), sloinīks (a pot for storing fruit preserves), ķērne (a pot for storing sour cream), ļaks (a vessel for storage of oil), piena pods (a pot for storing cow's milk), kazelnieks (a pot for goat milk storage), pārosis (lit. "over-handle", a vessel for bringing food to the field), bļoda (bowl), krūze (a jug or a mug, most often for beer or milk).

Some Latgale pottery wares are not food-related, these include the svilpaunieks (a bird-shaped whistle toy), svečturis (candlestick) and decorative plates and possibly other items meeting more contemporary demands, for example, ashtrays.

Gallery

• 
  A metallic replica of a vāraunieks to demonstrate its form
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  Medaunieks
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  Sloinīki
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  Ķērne
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  Ļaks
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  Piena pods
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  Kazelnieki
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  Pārosis in birch bark for protection, its handle is missing
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  Bļoda
• 
  Bļoda
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  Large krūze
• 
  Large krūze
• 
  Krūze