Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/wéyh₁ō

Did it really exist in Proto-Indo-European?

This entry as it currently stands could unfortunately mislead by implication, since this is a classic early Mediterranean word (also occurring in early Semitic etc.) which was almost certainly borrowed into Indo-European branches from non-Indo-European languages (not the reverse). Neither the word nor the physical object is at all likely to have existed on the Pontic-Caspian steppe ca. 3000 B.C. The laryngeal may be purely theoretical (and historically spurious), since the word may not yet have existed in various Indo-European branches at a time when laryngeals still existed... AnonMoos (talk) 08:23, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: Which Mediterranean word? --kc_kennylau (talk) 09:15, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

"Wine" is the early Mediterranean word, appearing in a number of languages located somewhat near each other geographically, but which are not necessarily closely related by language descent. For example, a reconstructed early Semitic form something like *waynum becomes יין yayin in Biblical Hebrew, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Things are not so clear. While the grapevine appears to not have grown in the Neolithic European steppes (too cold and arid), it was definitely cultivated in the Neolithic, by 4000 BC, both in the Caucasus area (pretty far away from the Mediterranean) and also in the southern Balkans, close enough to the steppes for the natives to be familiar with the grapevine and with wine (perhaps through the Maykop culture). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:47, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

In fact, it is widely suggested on the basis of archaeological evidence that (at least in Western Eurasia) winemaking originated in Georgia about 6000 BC. Definitely not far from where Proto-Indo-European is thought to have been spoken (according to all the main hypotheses, in fact). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:41, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me. The earliest evidence of wine-making is from Armenia, not Georgia. --Vahag (talk) 05:59, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

See History of wine. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Wine-making may have originated in the Caucasus, but speakers of early Indo-European branch languages likely encountered the wayn- word in the eastern Mediterranean area. AnonMoos (talk) 09:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

2016 discussion on whether this is truly a proto-Indo-European word

@Florian_Blaschke -- there was a 2016 discussion about this at Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2016/September#Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wóyh₁nom. It's theoretically possible that some early Indo-European speakers who lived near the Caucasus mountains might have been exposed to wine, but it's difficult to see how wine was part of the way of life of early Indo-European speakers generally (according to the Kurgan/Yamnaya hypothesis, most were not located very close to the Caucasus mountains, and later migrated along routes that took them even farther from areas where wine was made at that time)... AnonMoos (talk) 07:38, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

So what? Why shouldn't they have had a word for the plant and the product anyway? Many languages have words for things that are not part of the way of life of their speakers. They could easily have imported wine from the Caucasus area, and if you consult a map, you'll see just how close the region of the Yamnaya culture (surrounding the Sea of Azov) as well as Anatolia are to the Caucasus; the Maykop culture is a plausible intermediator in the steppe paradigm. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The Yamnaya didn't grow the vine or make the wine, and your use of the word "import" unfortunately conflicts with the fact that long-distance trade in bulk goods barely existed in the world around 3000 B.C. Outside of a few river-valley centers of civilization (far south of the Yamnaya zone), long-distance trade basically consisted of small portable tools, or small portable precious or artistic/ceremonial items, traded locally from tribe to neighboring tribe in a long chain of barter transactions, and not much else. As I said before, it's theoretically possible that some geographically fortunately-located Yamnaya might have been exposed to wine (though we don't really know this), but it's quite difficult to see how wine could have been a significant part of the overall Yamnaya customs and way of life. (A word which was basically local to one sub-group, and didn't reflect anything in the lived reality of the great majority of Yamnaya, would be extremely unlikely to survive in multiple Indo-European branches.) And we don't know that any Indo-European group migrated south through the Caucasus isthmus, but we do know that a number of groups migrated either west or east from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, along routes that would have taken them hundreds of miles further away from wine-making areas for centuries. AnonMoos (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Again, it doesn't have to be a significant part of the overall Yamnaya customs and way of life for there to be a word. That's a requirement you're simply making up. The (probably at least partially Indo-European) Maykop culture is plainly adjacent to the Yamnaya area (see the map at w:Yamnaya culture), and Georgia is immediately to the south. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:42, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

If it wasn't part of the daily lived experience of most Yamnaya groups (if they didn't see vines around them, didn't drink wine, and it was not part of their belief system or culture), then it's unlikely in the extreme that a word for "wine" would survive independently into multiple Indo-European branches -- especially since the migrations of many branches took them many hundreds of miles away from wine-growing regions for many centuries. That's a basic principle of plausibility (not something I "made up"). You may have a fine command of PIE declensions, but you seem a little incurious or unimaginative about how the people who spoke the language lived and thought. What seems like short distances on the maps in your atlas may have had a completely different meaning to people who actually lived in those lands in 3000 B.C. AnonMoos (talk) 09:18, 10 June 2019 (UTC)