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Sumerian contains Dravidian and Uralic substrates associated with the Emegir and Emesal dialects

Sumerian contains Dravidian and Uralic substrates associated with the Emegir and Emesal dialects

Profile image of Peter ReveszPeter Revesz

2019, WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications

Data mining the Sumerian vocabulary reveals a dichotomy of the cognate associations of the Emeĝir and the Emesal dialects, with the former having mostly Dravidian and the later mostly Uralic cognates, indicating that Sumerian arose by the combination of two languages from those language families. The data mining also reveals a distribution pattern of Proto-Uralic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto-Ugric and Proto-Hungarian cognates that indicates that Sumerian is farther than Minoan from Hungarian, although all are West-Ugric.

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WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Sumerian Contains Dravidian and Uralic Substrates Associated with the Emegir and Emesal Dialects PETER Z. REVESZ Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0115 USA revesz@cse.unl.edu, http://cse.unl.edu/~revesz/ Abstract: - Data mining the Sumerian vocabulary reveals a dichotomy of the cognate associations of the Emeĝir and the Emesal dialects, with the former having mostly Dravidian and the later mostly Uralic cognates, indicating that Sumerian arose by the combination of two languages from those language families. The data mining also reveals a distribution pattern of Proto-Uralic, Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto-Ugric and Proto-Hungarian cognates that indicates that Sumerian is farther than Minoan from Hungarian, although all are West-Ugric. Key-Words: - computational linguistics, data mining, Dravidian, language family, Emesal, Sumerian, Uralic Aegean area. The Minoan language was written in the previously undeciphered Cretan Hieroglyph and Linear A scripts [12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 30, 31, 32, 33, 51, 52, 53] from which the earliest Greek script called Linear B developed [9, 49]. The surmised vocabulary, grammatical analysis, and some similarities within the Cretan Script Family [37], which includes the Minoan scripts, the Carian alphabet [2] and the Old Hungarian alphabet (called rovásírás in Hungarian) [15, 24, 43, 48], allowed the translation of over twenty texts (Revesz [38, 39, 40, 41]) with contents that fit into the Minoan cultural context [28]. Our translations suggested that Minoan, Hattic and Hungarian belong to a common (West)-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family [41]. Our work also implied that Greek is a descendant of two language families, i.e., both Indo-European and Uralic (see Fig. 3). That duality explains some of Greek’s unique features with respect to other Indo-European languages. The example of Greek raised the possibility that Sumerian may also be a language that belongs to several language families. That would explain why Sumerian has some word similarities with many languages. For example, Muttarayan [29] found many word similarities between Sumerian and Tamil. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents an analysis of Sumerian and Uralic cognates that fall within the Uralic, FinnoUgric, Ugric and Proto-Hungarian layers. While doing the linguistic layer analysis, we discovered an interesting novel pattern. This pattern is that the Emesal dialect of Sumerian contains a 1 Introduction Some early Sumerologists (Lenormant, Oppert, Rawlinson) already noted similarities between Sumerian and Hungarian [55]. That line of work was extended by Badinyi [3], Baráth [4], Bobula [8], Csőke [10], Gosztonyi [19], Götz [20] and Tóth [46]. Unfortunately, they largely ignored Uralic linguistics in their work [23]. Simo Parpola [34] recently presented Uralic etymologies for over three thousand Sumerian words. Parpola’s idea of adding Sumerian to the Uralic language family is more credible. However, he did not consider the possibility that Sumerian is not only a Uralic language. The idea that Sumerian may belong to several language families is inspired by our earlier work on the Minoan language, whose vocabulary was to a large extent adopted by the ancient Greek language. We analyzed the ancient Greek vocabulary by looking for cognates in the following layers established by Uralic linguists [26]: 1. 2. 3. 4. Uralic Finno-Ugric Ugric Proto-Hungarian The comparison yielded 22, 31 and 91 cognate ancient Greek words that belong to the Uralic, Finno-Ugric and Ugric layers, respectively. Beekes [5, 6] regarded most of those ancient Greek words as Pre-Greek, indicating that they could be borrowings from the earlier Minoan language in the E-ISSN: 2224-3402 8 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS disproportionate number of the cognate words. Section 3 of this paper compares the Emesal and the Emeĝir dialects of Sumerian. The significant differences between these two dialects suggest an incomplete integration of two language families, namely, Dravidian and Uralic. The natural question that arises is which of the two language families existed earlier in Mesopotamia and which came later to the area. Section 4 considers this question by analysis of the vocabulary of the Euphratic language, which was suggested by Whittaker [50] and others as a substrate of Sumerian. Section 5 considers Sumerian and Hungarian phonetic correspondences. Section 6 considers Minoan and Hungarian language similarities and a parser for a subset of the Minoan language. Section 7 discusses the results and related work. Finally, Section 8 presents some conclusions and directions for future work. borrowing from Alan language [54]. Finally, we also added the row for ‘breeze’ because the Hungarian and the Estonian words show a remarkable similarity, although Zaicz [54] claims that the Hungarian word is onomatopoeic in origin. In the Ugric group (shown by yellow color in Table 1), we extended Honti’s list by the row for ‘cry, yell.’ Each number in the last column of Table 1 refers to the Sumerian entry number in Parpola [34]. The dash --- indicates that no corresponding entry was found in Parpola [34]. Such dashes were rare in the Uralic and the Finno-Ugric entries and tended to be more frequent in the Ugric entries, indicating that the Ugric part of Parpola’s dictionary could still be significantly extended. The presence of the fourth column for ancient Greek adds a corroborative element because Greek has borrowed many Pre-Greek words from the Minoan language, which we already identified as an Ugric language. The Greek and Sumerian word pairs in Table 1 do not indicate direct borrowings from Sumerian to Greek but parallel borrowings from a Uralic substrate that preexisted in Anatolia and near by regions before the arrival of Sumerians in Mesopotamia and Greeks in the Aegean area. Table 2 and Fig. 1 compare the number of Hungarian and Sumerian cognates that were found with the number of Hungarian and ancient Greek or presumed Minoan cognates that were found in [41]. The total number of cognates found was nearly the same with 144 and 173, respectively. However, the ratio of Sumerian cognates divided by ancient Greek cognates showed an interesting pattern for the different layers They were 2.18 for the Uralic, 2.56 for the Finno-Ugric and only 0.51 for the Ugric layer. At the same time, we found a few Hungarian words with unknown origin that may be cognate with Sumerian words or ancient Greek or Minoan words. We did not gather statistics on these because a systematic search would need to consider a huge set of words, that is, much more than the few hundred well-established words that belong to the Uralic, Finno-Ugric and Ugric layers. However, the number of words that are not shared also with the Ob-Ugric group of Khanty and Mansi languages suggests that there was a West-Ugric language that was a common origin of Proto-Hungarian, ProtoMinoan and Proto-Sumerian. This West-Ugric hypothesis seems initially puzzling in light of the sharp drop of percentages shown in Table 2. It suggests a different survival rate for the words in various layers. Discovering the reasons for this differentiated survival was a major motivation for the experiments described in Sections 3 and 4. 2 Sumerian and Uralic Cognates We collected possible Hungarian and Sumerian cognates by looking up the meaning of all the words that are listed as Uralic or Finno-Ugric by Zaicz [54] or are listed as Ugric by Honti [21] in the ePDS, the online version of the Pennsylvania Dictionary of Sumerian [44]. We also crosschecked all candidate cognates with the etymological dictionaries of Parpola [34] and Zaicz [54], the Mansi Dictionary of Munkácsi and Kálmán [27], the ancient Greek etymological dictionary of Beekes [5, 6], and the Hungarian-Greek dictionaries of Aczél [1] and Varga [47]. Table 1 shows the cognate groups that were collected. In Table 1 and in the rest of this paper, when x and y are words, then the notation x ~ y indicates that words x and y are cognates, x > y indicates a derivation from x to y and *x indicates a hypothetical form that is not attested in writing. The notation xL (m) denotes that x occurs in language L and means m in English. The similar consonant sounds are highlighted in red, inserted glide consonants are highlighted in blue, and omitted sounds are indicated by underscores. The third column in Table 1 is based on Parpola [34] and Zaicz [54] while the fourth column is based mostly on Beekes [5, 6] with a few minor additions. Our additions include in the row for ‘three’ the word háromszorHungarian (thrice) and its Mansi connection based on [27], and in the row for ‘sword’ its connections, including a possible borrowing of this word from Ossetian based on [54]. We also added a row for ‘lady, woman’ based on [27], although it is commonly thought to be a E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz 9 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Table 1. Uralic (blue), Finno-Ugric (green), Ugric (yellow), Greek and Sumerian cognate words. English Hungarian Other Uralic or Finno-Ugric Greek Sumerian slaughter _arat (harvest) širZyrian (cut, shear) šar2 father atya ättäFinnish ad-da mother anya anZyrian (husband’s mother) ἀµµά ama hide (n.) bőr (skin) parvaFinnish (leather coat), pěrKhanty βυρσα bar drop, drip csorog ćorkMansi, šoroFinnish (gurgle) sur water eső (rain) < esik (fall) isMansi (come down), äsSelkup (fall) ὕσµα eš tree fa puuFinnish, pōSelkup mu back, rear, tail far peräFinnish _ουρα bar trim with axe farag pārMansi, pārgeSelkup bar eye, face fej (head) uopĭKhanty (look), vopMansi ὄψ < *ὄπις i-bí axe fejsze päćtMansi, pīčiSelkup pa-a-šu fear (v.) fél pělKhanty, pelkääFinnish bu-luh half, half-liquid fél pälMansi, palUdmurt πέλανος bar box, chest fészek (nest) pesäFinnish pisaĝ blow (wind) fúj pŏγKhanty, powMansi πνειν bu7 saw (n.) fúr (drill) > fűrész puraFinnish (drill) πριων bùru (drill) braid, weave1 fon pǎnKhanty (yarn), panne Saami (spin) υφαινειν1 pan bend fordul porjalVotyak (spin) bùru wave hab (foam) kumpKhanty, kopMansi κυµα gúb (snow) destroy hal (die) kălaKhanty, kālMansi, kouleFinnish (die) εκλειπειν hulu fish hal kouleFinnish, koleNganasan, kulZyrian ἰχθύς ku6 walk, go halad koγelKhanty, kulkeFinnish kul three háromszor > *hármuszor χūrėm śosMansi (thrice) _am3-mu-uš > *ammusz (thrice) boy here (scrotum) karKhanty (male) κορος ĝuruš 1 raven, eagle holló kolāk Mansi kuléSelkup _ὄρνις hurin1 Mansi Zyrian length measure hosszú (long) košew (long), kuź _éše (length) urine húgy χǒsKhanty kaš3 lie down huny (rest, close eye) kŏńKhanty, końMansi (close eyes) κοιµάω huna two két kitMansi, kaksiFinnish kad stone kő kawMansi kín sinew _ín tεnMansi, suoniFinnish τενων sa piece mar (bite) murtaFinnish (break) µερος mir go menni mińMansi, munZyrian, meneFinnish βαινειν ma spouse meny (bride) meńKhanty, mińMansi (wife, bride) mudna what mit (‘t’ is accus. suffix) mitäFinnish, midaEstonian _ta egg mony munujSelkup ωον nunuz wash (hand) mos (wash) > mosdik moškaMari νιζειν maš (purify) woman, bride1 nő, néné (elder sister) nīMansi, naineEstonian νυµθη1 nu-nus kiss száj (mouth) sūpMansi (mouth), suuFinnish (mouth) še su-ub run szalad suotiFinnish sar eye, e. makeupS szem silmäFinnish οφ-θαλµος šembi heart szív sěmKhanty, šämMansi ša-ab sting szúr survaaFinnish (stab) sa gather talál (find) tolaMari (come) dul sea tó (lake) < tavu tuZyrian (rise), tulisZyrian (spring) θαλασσα idim to fly toll (feather) tēlMansi, toYurak (feather, wing) dal road, street út āχt Mansi, ηutYurak οδος tilla2 be wide vas (iron) > vastag (thick) vaskiFinnish (copper), bazaKamas (iron) peš gift, present ad (give) antaFinnish (give), andoMordvinian (feed) at-ta old person _agg šoηγeMari šu-gi brain agy anzêlMari εγ-κεφαλος ugu sleep ágy (bed) āηkuSamoyed ù_ a stand _áll (to stand) ľūľiMansi (to stand) _ud-da sleep álo-m udo-mo Mordvinian ù-di E-ISSN: 2224-3402 10 # --39 102 259 2277 715 1927 241 255 1209 --356 269 1998 346 379 1952 377 867 1164 1423 1446 --1092 1192 712 --1183 1300 1392 2054 1083 ----2460 --1654 1917 ------2286 ------425 --1961 52 2422 2696 2633 --2673 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS English ebb (s.) father-in-law cut, slaughter1 snatch shine (v.) bowl wide a bird (crane) copulate gleam mongoose word watercourse new year fest. wall, brick1 boy take captive harvest onion plot to lie down ant tail, rear angry bite home, dwell1 to be dark scratch vulva twenty ewe sword rare, valuable bread oven, pottery to bend hand sickle smith tunic dwell soul, breeze beat, kick1 big, great twin lord measure watch, guard lower body help grass hasten, hurry dense, thick dry (adj.) border split, slit Hungarian apály após csap (hit) csen csillog csupor dagad (swell) daru (crane) dug (push into) ég egér (mouse) ének (song) _ér (brook, vein) év fal fiú fog fürt (bunch <of grapes>) hagyma hál hangya hanyatt (backward) harag (anger) harap ház homály horzsol hölgy (lady) húsz juh kard < kardOssetian kell (need) kenyér kerül (go around) kéz könyök (elbow) kovács, cf. szép köt (tie) > kötény (apron) lak (dwelling) lélek lök (push, shove) magas (tall), nagy (big) más (another) menny (sky) mér őriz segg (buttock) segít sövény (hedging) sürög sűrű száraz szeg szel E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Table 1. continued Other Uralic or Finno-Ugric šupalZyrian (dry out) opMansi, appiFinnish čapaFinnish sandaMordvinian šŭlpĭKhanty, śülγMansi ćipišZyrian dundiZyrian (swell) tareγKhanty, tarew Mansi, turiZyrian tongoMordvinian saχMansi (to be scorched) hiiriFinnish (mouse) ääniFinnish (sound, noise) soraFinnish (melting ice) jákkeSami (year), ikäFinnish (age) pălKhanty (fish sieve) püwMansi pekatKhanty, vangatFinnish perVotyak (bunch <of grapes>) kośemMansi kōlMansi, kelVotyak kaškējMansi kuntstMordvinian (on back) χorMansi (quarrel) kurććiZyrian kotaFinnish χomχatasMansi, kimer Zyrian (cloud) karśelMansi, kuralZyrian kalMansi (female) kosMansi _uuhiFinnish kērMansi (iron), kärkiFinnish (blade) kelMari, kolZyrian (need) keńirVotyak kerKhanty, küörMansi kieräFinnish kötKhanty, kätMansi könηiKhanty (elbow) seppäFinnish (clever, smith) kätiMansi (tie) lakkEstonian, lakkaFinnish (attic) lělMansi, lolZyrian lykkääFinnish (push) naźZyrian (proud), mägiEstonian (mount) mātMansi (another), medZyrian (image) meńelMordvinian (sky), jumoMari (god) määrittaFinnish ursMansi säηMansi(groin) čangodeMordvinian säwMansi (tress) šurkalaMari sūräMansi, suuriFinnish sorKhanty śakKhanty, čekMari silMansi, sali Finnish (cut into pieces) 11 Peter Z. Revesz Greek παλιρροια πενθερος σφαζω1 Sumerian šub ab (old man) ša-ab zi-in-zi-in σελας zalag zabar da-ma-al dur <ĝeš> dug αυγη šeĝ6 gilim e-ne-èĝ sùr akiti πλινος1 ba-ar παις ibila pag buru14 ki-šum-ma ku kiši kun χαλεπος _úrgu χαραγµα kur8 οἴκησις1 gùd kana6 hur gal4-la εἴκοσι i-iz (many) _ὄις (ram) _u8 ĝiri καλός (good) kal gar3 κεραµoς gir4-mah gur8 kišib kin simug χιτον kad (tie) lug lil λακτιζειν1 lah µεγας mah maš umun mur-ra uraš sig-ba saĝ šu-mu-un sar sir-ra ξηρος šarag (v.) zag sil # 2405 29 2292 2991 2926 --420 ----2340 820 1264 2280 --1759 --1941 ------1417 --2818 1476 875 --------2644 1079 1317 ----1420 1391 2192 1302 1600 1574 2477 1628 1656 652 1787 2810 2155 2078 --2112 2197 2310 2897 2164 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS English good scold lance, spear leather strap split, cleave dirge breeze kindle, excite hunger suck border pitch level, lay flat winter storm put, sit down1 base (of plant) axe > tyrant1 pierce ibex shoulder be slice palm frond voice, noise meadow father flood daughter girl, slave girl1 lady, woman axe needle hot, heat mound split (v.) a bird fat (adj.) lift, carry drag heir barley joint, with1 watch sprout wet (v.) burn deep (adj.) cowherd bride, spouse1 ladle lead, tin cry, yell squeeze dark, black fall into pit Hungarian szép (clever, beautiful) szid szigony (harpoon) szíj szil > szilánk (shred) sír (cry, lament) sziszeg (hiss) szít szomjas (thirsty) szopik szoros (strait) szurok tapos (trample) tél (winter) tesz tő tőr (dagger) tövik türök/tülök (horn) váll való (exists) vés vessző (twig) zúg alom (bed of straw) apa _ár ara (daughter-in-law) Table 1. continued Other Ugric seppäFinnish (clever, smith) šudalaMari, sättiFinnish śoχri Mansi (pointed knife) sowMansi (leather), sääFinnish sil Mansi, saliFinnish surFinnish (mourn) susisemaEstonian (hiss) sŏtat Khanty śumemVotyak (hungry) sipγMansi, šupšaMari sărtKhanty (narrow land strip) śirZyrian tapteMari (hammer flat) talviFinnish (winter) täįMansi (weave) teηMari tirVotyak täwMansi, töykkiFinnish teuraFinnish (deer) _olkaFinnish wălKhanty, velZyrian väntKhanty, vezZyrian wazeMari (twig) šakteMari (play music) ilemKhanty (grass in shoe) opKhanty, opMansi (father in law) larKhanty (floodplain) årMansi (maternal relative) Peter Z. Revesz Greek στοβέω τιθεναι τυραννος1 σιγµός (hiss) λειµων Ιλισός κορη asszony ~ χsīnAlan fokos fúl (sting, prick) hamu hant hasad hattyú (swan) hízik (fatten) hord húz ifjú (young man) köles (millet) íz les maláta márt (dip) meleg (warm) mély mén (horse), ménes (herd) menyül (as a bride) mer (scoop v.) _ólom rí sajtol (squeeze) sötét süpped (sink) E-ISSN: 2224-3402 khåusä nēMansi (whimsical w.) poγKhanty (needle’s eye) pulpMansi (cork) kolemMansi χomesKhanty, khåmśelMansi kün-kaśmātMansi kotaηMansi (swan) katemKhanty kartMansi kåtMansi (pluck, pull at) äjKhanty (small)+püw Mansi (boy) kolasMansi (millet) jäsenFinnish, jötKhanty lāśiKhanty, läćMansi măraKhanty, murMansi (sink) mäliMansi (warm) mělKhanty, mälMansi vāntMansi (herd) meńKhanty, mińMansi mĕretKhanty (sink) _olnaKhanty, wōlemMansi räššiMansi šojleKhanty (goes down) šätep Mansi (get dark) šēpMansi (sink, drawn) 12 πελεκυς χωµα δι-χοστατειν γαστρωδης κριθη συν1 ϕυλασσειν βλαστηµα βρεχειν βαρυς νυµθη µολυβδος θλιβειν σκοτος Sumerian ze-eb šid šugur zà sil zarah sisig zid išim sub sur sar tab dal tuš1 ten dur te_ durah murgu2 ma-al peš6 peš šeg12 hirim (grass) abba illu ur5 kiraš1 ka-ša-an bulug (needle) bulug kúm gan (rack) haš gud-du7 geš gur3-ru gid ibila < bil kiraši sa (sinew) igi la mu (grow) mar bil2 burud munu mudna1 emerah anna ri zaĝa zud šub # 2945 2381 2426 2895 2164 ----2961 ------703 2466 429 2617 2512 598 2505 600 ------1967 ----28 1239 2805 ----350 350 --751 1129 --1045 ------1407 2054 --1728 1645 --379 ------124 ----3009 2406 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS English boil, cook wedge side, edge dry up (field) song extract bowl bury space, chamber1 lamp (oil) needle torch lord, ruler woman female (s.) bury, hide Hungarian sül < süt szeg (nail, spike) szél szik szó (word) szül (give birth) tál temet telek (farm) tidó tű tűz (fire) _úr ük (ancestor w.) üsző (cow) zug (nook, hiding place) Table 1. continued Other Ugric šitMansi säηkMansi sēlMansi śäχMansi (salt) săwMansi sēlMansi (get, seak) tūlMansi tåwMansi tarimtKhanty (lies on ground) tujtMansi (moon) tūγerKhanty, tālMansi (twig) tütKhanty, tāwtMansi śåpėrMansi (big, powerful) ēkeMansi ěsKhanty (female animal) suηKhanty (corner, nook) Peter Z. Revesz Greek σιτοποιειν σϕην ισχναινειν ασµα θαλαµος1 δολος δας γυνη, Γαια θηλεια σχιζειν Sumerian # 2981 zil 2072 saĝ --us 2340 šeĝ --šumun-ša --zal 2884 útul 2597 túm --dal-ba-na 1278 itid (moon) 433 dálla 430 dal --še-er --gi-in (w. worker) 723 eze (sheep) --zé-èg Table 2. Statistical summary of cognate words. Uralic Finno-Ugric Ugric Total Ancient Greek 22 31 91 144 Sumerian 48 79 46 173 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐤 2.18 2.56 0.51 1.2 Fig. 1 The number of Uralic, Finno-Ugric and Ugric cognates with Ancient Greek and Sumerian E-ISSN: 2224-3402 13 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS English slave lady shepherd wide word tree wall eye three bring bring bird y. woman scorpion cowherd go lord spouse determine what lord woman lament grass kiss good heart clear sheep be bury, hide Peter Z. Revesz Table 3. Emesal and Hungarian (Uralic) cognates and Emeĝir and Tamil (Dravidian) cognates. Hungarian or Uralic Emesal # Tamil or Dravidian Emeĝir ara (daughter-in-law) ere --arad asszony ka-ša-an --- peṇ nin csaba ~ çobanTurkish su-ba --- kāpariTelegu gabar dagad (swell) da-ma-al 420 paranta barag (spread) 1264 pāṭal (song) ének (song) e-ne-èĝ bala (converse) fa mu 1927 kāṭu (forest) ĝeš fal ba-ar 1759 gōḍaTelegu egar fej (head) i-bí 1209 kaṇ (eye) igi háromszor am3-mu-uš --- mūḍuTelegu peš hoz, húz ga 750 tīsukuniTelegu de iramlik (go fast) ir --- tappiyōṭa (flee) de madár mu-tin 1803 paṟavai buru4 manó (dwarf) mutin 1803 koosuKannada (child) kisikil mar (bite) mir 1083 koruku ĝír mén (horse) > ménes (herd) munu --- māṭu (cow) unud menni (go) ma --- naṭa du, (ĝen) menny (sky) umun 652 āṇ (man) en meny (bride) mudna --- thandhai (father) dam mér (measure) mara 1648 aĝ2 mit (mi+’t’ accusative suffix) _ta 2460 eṉṉa ana nem (breed) > nemes nam2Emegir ? --- āṇ (man) na (man) nő nu-nus 1917 peṇ munus sír a-še-er --- kaṇṇīr (tears) anir sövény (hedging) šu-mu-un --- pul bur száj (mouth) še su-ub --- muttam ne sub szép (beautiful) ze-eb 2945 nalla mu szív ša-ab 2286 /tʃaŋk!/Malayalam šag tiszta, šåliMansi (thin, clean) šadi --- melliya (thin) na deg üsző (young cow) eze 723 āṭukaḷ udu való (exists) ma-al --- unikilōTelegu ĝal zug (nook, hiding place) zé-èg --- mūlai ab-lal3 (nest) # 1915 --297 1264 1046 633 1220 1961 ----385 --1083 --516 652 434 --115 1809 1770 ------------2678 1005 --- Table 4. Uralic (blue), Finno-Ugric (green), Ugric (yellow), uncertain origin (white), Euphratic and Tamil or Dravidian cognates. English Hungarian Euphratic # Tamil or Dravidian dark red deres (grayishbrown) < dér (frost) darah < duru (wet) 442 civappu herd of wild a. gulya (cattle herd) gilim --- muṅgisaTelegu bull, ox gida (kid, deer calf) gud --- kāḷai fish hal ku 1423 min raven holló, kaarneFinnish hurin (eagle) 1192 kaḻukuTelegu (eagle) ruddy, furious hús (meat) huc --- civanta an animal liba (goose) irib --- vāttu (goose) ewe juh _u8 2644 āṭukaḷ (sheep) a pot korsó (jar) ukur --- pāṉai dog kutya ku --- nāy male, man nőstény (female) nitah 1901 āṇ ladle mer (scoop v.) emerah --- karaṇṭiyāl lance, spear szigony (harpoon) šugur 2426 īṭṭi dirge sír (cry, lament) zarah --- iṟutiyañcali ibex türök/tülök (horn) durah 600 malaiyāṭṭu needle tű dálla 433 sūdiTelegu lord _úr še-er --- kaṭavuḷ be wide vas (iron) > vastag (thick) peš 1961 paranta E-ISSN: 2224-3402 14 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Fig. 2 The number of Euphratic, Emesal and Emeǧir cognates with Hungarian or Uralic and Tamil or Dravidian English Table 5. Common suffixes between Hungarian and Sumerian. Hungarian Suffix Sumerian word shine (v.) needle breeze dry (adj.) smith voice, noise; breath dark red male ladle dirge ibex ääni (sound) csill-an (gleam) fúl (sting, prick) susisemaEstonian (hiss) szár-az szép (clever) szip (sniff) dér (frost) nőst-ény (female) mer (scoop v.) sír (cry, lament) tű ének (song) < *éneg csillog szipog e-ne-èĝ zalag bulug sisig šarag (v.) simug zi-pa-aĝ2 mu7 (make sound) -k (adjective former) -h sziszeg (hiss) duru (wet) türök/tülök (horn) dálla (needle) -mány/mény, -vány/vény (noun former) lord grass jumoMari (god) sző (weave) menny (sky) < *um-vány sövény (hedging) herd bowl lance, spear E-ISSN: 2224-3402 csepp (drop of water) szeg (spike, nail) szig-ony (harpoon) csokor, ćuker csupor an (sky) 442 ------600 umun šu-mu-un 652 --- -r šah2 (pig) saĝ (wedge) 15 darah nitah emerah zarah durah 1264 2926 350 --2310 2192 --- -mun -r (frequentative) Zyrian # -g, ĝ -g (frequentative) Finnish Suffix zabar ----- šugur 2426 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Table 6. Regular consonant sound correspondences within the West-Ugric group of languages: Minoan as shown by borrowings in Greek, Hungarian, and Sumerian. The West-Ugric consonant is the likely common origin. The reconstruction also needs to consider the context of other vowels and consonants. See the text for details. West# Greek Hungarian Sumerian Initial Medial Final Ugric τ s τενων ~ ín ~ sa 1 š /ʃ/ š /ʃ/ αυγη ~ ég ~ šeĝ6 s 2 /tʃ/ σ σ σ 3 s cs /tʃ/ s /ʃ/ š /ʃ/ σφαζω ~ csap ~ ša-ab z σελας ~ csillog ~ zalag š σκοτος ~ sötét ~ šuš z σιτοποιειν ~ sül ~ zil s sz /s/ θ csorog ~ sur š /ʃ/ z szalad ~sar στοβέω ~ szid ~ šid szeg ~ zag 4 d λ, τ 5 t τ 6 β 7 mp β µ π, - 8 p φ z d t h d b b f 12 r m 14 n 15 v 16 - p υφαινειν ~ fon ~ pan b szigony ~ šugur zúg ~ šeg12 ĝ /ŋ/ segít ~ saĝ szeg ~ saĝ γυνη ~ ük ~ gi-in lak ~ lug σελας ~csillog ~ zalag toll ~ dal ὄρνις ~ holló ~ hurin fal ~ ba-ar κορος ~ here ~ ĝuruš k χαραγµα ~ harap ~ kur8 µ r m ny /ɲ/ ν n µ ny /ɲ/ v - E-ISSN: 2224-3402 j παις ~ ifjú ~ ibila g ĝ /ŋ/ λ, ρ két ~ kad szép ~ ze-eb χ ρ στοβέω ~ szid ~ šid apa ~ abba κ β 13 πριων ~ fúr ~ bùru χωµα ~ hant ~ gan l δολος ~ tidó ~ itid κυµα ~hab ~ gúb b g λ kéz ~ kišib βυρσα ~ bőr ~bar κοιµάω ~ huny ~ huna k θηλεια ~ üsző ~ eze atya ~ ad-da χαλεπος ~ harag ~ úrgu g hosszú ~ éše τιθεναι ~ tesz ~ tuš h sziszeg ~ sisig τυραννος ~ tőr ~ dur h k l t daru ~ dur χ γ, κ 11 σχιζειν ~ zug ~ zé-èg κ, χ 10 σιγµός ~ zúg ~ šeg z ty /c/ p 9 š /ʃ/ d más ~ maš συν ~ íz ~ sa s σ ὕσµα ~ eső ~ eš g κεραµoς ~ kenyér ~ gar3 k καλός ~ kell ~ kal l lak ~ lug r b m n m p - rí ~ ri χαλεπος ~ harag ~ úrgu βυρσα ~bőr ~bar βαρυς ~ mély ~ burud µερος ~ mar ~ mir hamu ~ kúm alom ~ hirim ἀµµά ~ anyu ~ ama νυµθη ~ néné ~ nu-nus való ~ ma-al ménes ~ munu υφαινειν ~fon ~ pan κοιµάω ~ huny ~ huna menny ~ umun sövény ~ šu-mu-un tavu ~ idim vas ~ peš ὄις ~ juh ~ u8 16 szíj ~ zà Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS may have become duruSumerian (wet). Similarly, the words su-baEmesal (shepherd) and munuEmesal (herd) are commonly associated with the herding large groups of animals on the Eurasian Steppe and not with the agricultural life along the riverbeds of Mesopotamia. Hence their Hungarian etymologies are not surprising. Nor is it surprising that subaEmesal (shepherd) may be cognate with çobanTurkish (shepherd) because some Turkic people may have shared the Eurasian Steppe shepherding lifestyle. As another example, šu-mu-unEmesal (grass) is cognate with sövényHungarian (hedging), which is derived from szőHungarian (weave) and vényHungarian (noun forming suffix). It is possible that this ‘grass’ was hemp or some other crop, whose fibers were used to weave cloth. Such plants may have been planted at the edge of fields as hedging. A Sumerian word related to cooking is ki-šummaSumerian (onion plot), which may be cognate with kośemMansi (onion) + mø̄ Mansi (land) and maaFinnish (land). The hemp and onion plants also may have come to Mesopotamia from the north. Metallurgy was more developed in the mountain regions of the north, where metals could be mined. Therefore, the Sumerians may have borrowed simugSumerian (smith) from the people in the north, and it is likely cognate with seppaFinnish (clever, smith) as also described in item 2192 of Parpola [34]. 3 Emesal Ugric and Emeĝir Dravidian This section presents a dialect analysis of the Sumerian language. The Sumerian language is known to have two major dialects, namely the Emeĝir dialect and the Emesal dialect, which differ on several important words. The existence of several words for the same concepts commonly results from borrowing words from another language. For example, English is a Germanic origin language with an extensive borrowing from Romance languages due to its developmental history. As a result English has many word pairs for the same concept, such as freedom and liberty, food and aliment etc. Hence the question naturally arose whether Emeĝir and Emesal manifest a similar phenomenon or do the same. Table 3 shows that many Emesal words have Uralic cognates. For example, maEmesal (to go) seems cognate with menniHungarian (to go), while duEmeĝir (to go) is not cognate with Uralic words. However, duEmeĝir (to go) may be cognate with naṭaTamil (to go). Similarly, muEmesal (tree) seems cognate with puuFinnish (tree), while ĝešEmeĝir (tree) may be cognate with kāṭuTamil (forest). Table 3 shows a total of 31 Emesal-Emeĝir word pairs that show the same distribution. The Emesal words are all cognate with Hungarian words while the Emeĝir words are all cognate with Tamil or other Dravidian words. The finding in Table 3 explains why Sumerian is difficult to classify. Sumerian seems to be a language that inherited features from both the Uralic and the Dravidian language families, which is a combination that is not seen in other languages. In addition, Sumerian is known only from writing, and most of the extant Sumerian writing was done not by the Sumerians themselves but by Akkadians and Babylonians, who may have conformed some Sumerian words to their own preferred pronunciations. Therefore, it is rather remarkable to detect the emergent pattern in Table 3. It is probably difficult to identify with complete confidence what words are of Dravidian and Uralic origin because these two languages were already fairly well integrated in Sumerian society. However, some words by their meaning may be more naturally associated with the north than with the Indian subcontinent. For example, durSumerian (a bird) may be cognate with daruHungarian (crane). Cranes are migrating birds and Uralic people from the north would have been familiar with them and could have brought their name to Mesopotamia. Similarly, the word dérHungarian (frost), which describes a condition that is rare in Mesopotamia, E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz 4 Euphratic is an Ugric Language Since Sumerian apparently resulted from a combination of two language families, it raises the question of when the two languages arrived to Mesopotamia. What was the original language of Mesopotamia? Whittaker [50] identified an early substrate language within Sumerian that he called Euphratic. The Euphratic language vocabulary seems to be a set of words that occur in the earliest extant Sumerian texts and share certain characteristic endings and morphologies. We have considered the set of Euphratic words as identified by Whittaker [50]. Table 4 and Fig. 2 show that at least eighteen Euphratic words have Uralic etymologies. We also considered whether these eighteen words have Dravidian etymologies, but we found some resemblance only in three cases. The case for ‘eagle’ being a cognate is weakened by the fact that it is not found in Tamil but only in Telegu. Moreover, there is a mismatch between the /n/ in hurinEuphratic and the /k/ in kalukuTelegu. The word hollóHungarian seems to omit an earlier /n/ ending as suggested by kaarneFinnish. In āṇTamil the similarity is only one letter. Finally, the gudEuphratic and kāḷaiTamil may indeed be cognate. Cattle were 17 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Rule (2): West-Ugric word initial /t͡ ʃ/ was likely preserved in Hungarian, changed to /s/, /ʃ/, or /z/ in Sumerian and to σ in Greek. Rule (3) West-Ugric word initial /s/ Hungarian, changed to /s/, /ʃ/, or /z/ in Hungarian and Sumerian and to σ or may be θ in Greek. Rule (4): The West-Ugric /d/ is preserved in both Hungarian and Sumerian. Rule (5): The West-Ugric word initial /t/ is always preserved in Hungarian. It is also preserved in Sumerian when the following consonant is a bilabial /b/, /p/, /v/ or a nasal /m/ or /n/: likely introduced from one area to the other. Hence the name for cattle may be a trade word that spread widely at the earliest stages of cattle domestication. Therefore, even if these words are cognate, they are more likely to be associated with the movement of cattle as a trade good than with the movement of a large number of people. We also made some effort to identify the other Euphratic words in Whittaker [50] as either Dravidian or Uralic but failed to find more cognates. Hence, Euphratic is most likely Uralic. 5 Sumerian and Hungarian Regular Phonetic Correspondences taposHungarian ~ tapteMari ~ tabSumerian temetHungarian ~ tåwMansi ~ túmSumerian tövikHungarian ~ täwMansi ~ te_Sumerian ~ teηMari ~ tenSumerian tőHungarian Parpola [34] did not present regular phonetic correspondences. Below we give a reconstruction of West-Ugric phonetics and show regular phonetic correspondences among three of its members: Hungarian, Minoan and Sumerian. It is only appropriate to talk about phonetic correspondences, denoted by ~, among those three, while it is possible to talk about phonetic changes, denoted by >, from West Ugric to them. Table 6 summarizes the sixteen main phonetic correspondences among Greek words with PreGreek, that is Minoan origin, and Hungarian and Sumerian based on the cognates collected in Table 1. We reconstructed the West-Ugric phonemes by considering all members, the Ob-Ugric forms, and the assumed phoneme repertoire at the beginning of the Proto-Hungarian period [26]. Table 6 gives the International Phonetic Alphabet notation, where the pronunciation may not be obvious. Each row of Table 6 can be taken as a separate correspondence rule between Hungarian and Sumerian and two derivation rules, one from WestUgric to Hungarian and another from West-Ugric to Sumerian. Rule (1): The following triplets in Table 1 demonstrate that West-Ugric preserved the word initial /ʃ// as did Sumerian, while Hungarian lost it: Sumerian changes the West-Ugric word initial /t/ to /d/ when the following consonant is /l/ or /r/: ~ dulSumerian találHungarian ~ tolaMari Hungarian Finnish ~ talvi ~ dalSumerian tél Hungarian Khanty telek ~ tarimt ~ dal-ba-na Sumerian Hungarian Mansi ~ tēl ~ dalSumerian toll ~ durSumerian tőrHungarian ~ tirVotyak Finnish Hungarian ~ teura ~ durahSumerian türök Hungarian Mansi ~ tāl ~ dállaSumerian tű If an initial vowel is inserted, then the /t/ does not change in Sumerian even if the following consonant is /l/ or /r/: tálHungarian ~ tūlMansi ~ útulSumerian tidóHungarian ~ tujtMansi ~ itidSumerian A West-Ugric word medial /t/ undergoes palatalization to /c/ in Hungarian: atyaHungarian ~ ättäFinnish ~ ad-daSumerian hattyúHungarian ~ kotaηMansi ~ gud-du7Sumerian In the first example the gemination is preserved even as /t/ changes to a /d/. In the second example the West-Ugric and the Ugric forms probably had also a geminate /t/, which is preserved in both Hungarian and Sumerian. A West-Ugric final /t/ is preserved in Hungarian and changes to /d/ in Sumerian: _aggHungarian ~ šoηγeMari ~ šu-giSumerian ~ šar2Sumerian _aratHungarian ~ širZyrian Hungarian Finnish _ér ~ sora ~ sùrSumerian _ínHungarian ~ suoniFinnish ~ saSumerian _úrHungarian ~ śåpėrMans ~ še-erSumerian It may be supposed from the third and fourth examples that in West-Ugric and Sumerian even the world initial /s/ could have been preserved. In that case those /s/ had to change to /ʃ/ before the Hungarian sound change sequence /ʃ/ > /h/ > /_ / began. E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz kétHungarian ~ kitMansi ~ kadSumerian sötétHungarian ~ šätepMans ~ zudSumerian or changes to a fricative /ʃ/ or /z/ in Hungarian or both: 18 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS húzHungarian ~ kåtMansi ~ gidSumerian kézHungarian ~ kätMansi ~ kišibSumerian A version of the above compound word could have been formed even in West-Ugric, that is, before the Hungarian word initial /f/ to /p/ change took place. Therefore, it looked like the following: The last example suggests either an incipient word final /t/ to fricative change in West-Ugric, which was continued only in Hungarian, or more likely an influence from the ibSumerian (hips; middle) suffix. While kézHungarian normally means the palm of the hand, kišibSumerian more likely meant the wrist or forearm. Rule (6): West-Ugric word initial *β is preserved in both Hungarian and Sumerian: *ipiuWest-Ugric In the above word the medial /p/ would have changed to /b/ in Sumerian, which is a regular phenomemnon: ~ abbaSumerian ~ opKhanty apaHungarian Hungarian Zyrian ~ ćipiš ~ zabarSumerian csupor ~ *ipiuWest-Ugric ~ ibilaSumerian ifjúHungarian bőrHungarian ~ pěrKhanty ~ bar The presence of word initial /b/ not only in the Hungarian and Sumerian words but also in the cognate ancient Greek work βυρσαGreek, suggests that the change from /p/ to /b/ already occurred West-Ugric and it was not a separate event in Hungarian and Sumerian. Rule (7): The West-Ugric word final consonant cluster /mp/ changes to /b/ in both Hungarian and Sumerian: The West-Ugric word final /p/ also changes regularly to /p/ in Hungarian and /b/ in Sumerian: süppedHungarian ~ šēpMansi szépHungarian ~ seppäFinnish szopikHungarian ~ sipγMansi taposHungarian ~ tapteMari ~ kălaKhanty ~ huluSumerian halHungarian Mansi Hungarian ~_am3-mu-ušSum. ~χūrėmśos háromszor Hungarian Mansi ~ kolāk ~ hurinSumerian holló Hungarian Mansi horzsol ~ karśel ~ hurSumerian hosszúHungarian ~ košewMansi ~_éšeSumerian ~ kŏńKhanty ~ hunaSumerian hunyHungarian Rule (8): The West-Ugric word initial /p/ always changes to /f/ in Hungarian, while in Sumerian it changes to /b/ if the consonant following it is a liquid /l/ or /r/: ~ ba-arSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ bu-luhSumerian ~ bulugSumerian ~ bùruSumerian ~ bulugSumerian ~ buru14Sumerian All of the above examples are from the ProtoUralic layer except horzsolHungarian, which is from the Finno-Ugric layer. That suggests that the initial /k/ already underwent lenition to /h/ in Proto-WestUgric. Moreover, in the second example the Mansi word also underwent partial lenition. An alternative would be to assume that WestUgric words did not have an initial /h/ but only an initial /k/. In that case, they underwent lenition idependently in Hungarian and Sumerian as discussed in the next rule. Rule (10): The West-Ugric initial /k/ has underwent various degrees of lenition. In Hungarian, word initial /k/ changes to /h/ when it followed by a back vowel: The West-Ugric word initial /p/ is preserved in other cases: faHungarian fejszeHungarian fészekHungarian fogHungarian fonHungarian ~ puuFinnish ~ päćtMansi ~ pesäFinnish ~ pekatKhanty ~ pǎnKhanty ~ paSumerian ~ pa-a-šuSumerian ~ pisaĝSumerian ~ pagSumerian ~ panSumerian ~ kumpKhanty habHungarian Hungarian hagyma ~ košemMansi Hungarian ~ kouleFinnish hal Hungarian hál ~ kōlMansi Hungarian ~ koγelKhanty halad The Hungarian change from /p/ to /f/ occurs only word-initially, except in compound words: ifjúHungarian = iHungarian (young) + fiúHungarian (male) E-ISSN: 2224-3402 ~ šubSumerian ~ ze-ebSumerian ~ subSumerian ~ tabSumerian Rule (9): West-Ugric word intitial /h/ is either preserved or omitted. The omission seems more common in longer words. habHungarian ~ kumpKhanty ~ gúbSumerian ~ pălKhanty falHungarian Hungarian ~ peräFinnish far Hungarian ~ pārMansi farag Hungarian ~ pälMansi fél Hungarian ~ pělKhanty fél fokosHungarian ~ poγKhanty fordulHungarian ~ porjalVotyak ~ pulpMansi fúlHungarian Hungarian ~ perVotyak fürt Peter Z. Revesz 19 ~ gúbSumerian ~ ki-šum-maSumer. ~ kuSumerian ~ kuSumerian ~ kulSumerian Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS hamuHungarian ~ kolemMansi ~ kúmSumerian Hungarian Mordvin ~ kuntst ~ kunSumerian hanyatt Mansi Hungarian ~ kišiSumerian ~ kaškēj hangya Hungarian Zyrian harap ~ kurćći ~ kur8Sumerian Hungarian Mansi ~ kotaη ~ gud-du7Sumerian hattyú Hungarian Finnish ház ~ kota ~ gùdSumerian ~ karKhanty ~ ǧurušSumerian hereHungarian Hungarian Mansi ~ χomχatas ~ kana6Sumerian homály Hungarian Mansi hord ~ kart ~ gur3-ruSumerian Mansi Hungarian ~ gal4-laSumerian ~ kal hölgy Khanty Hungarian ~ kaš3Sumerian ~ χǒs húgy Hungarian Mansi húz ~ kåt ~ gidSumerian Peter Z. Revesz In the fourth example, there is a /t/ for the Finnish word, but a Finnish medial /t/ often corresponds to an Ugric /l/. Hence it can be assumed that the Proto-West-Ugric form also had a /l/ sound. Rule (12): The West-Ugric /r/ is always preserved in Hungarian and Sumerian, although it could change to a λ in Greek: aratHungarian bőrHungarian csuporHungarian daruHungarian érHungarian farHungarian faragHungarian fordulHungarian fürtHungarian harapHungarian hereHungarian hordHungarian merHungarian tőrHungarian türökHungarian úrHungarian In all of the above examples, the middle column has always a back vowel. In addition, at least either the Hungarian or the Sumerian cognate also has a back vowel after the word intitial consonant. These suggest that their Proto-West-Ugric ancestors also had a back vowel after the word initial /k/. The deep vowel nature of the West-Ugric word for hereHungarian is further confirmed by the cognate κοροςGreek. In addition, the ki-šum-maSumerian (onion plot) probably derives from: ~ širZyrian ~ pěrKhanty ~ ćipišZyrian ~ tarewMansi ~ soraFinnish ~ peräFinnish ~ pārMansi ~ porjalVotyak ~ perVotyak ~ kurććiZyrian ~ karKhanty ~ kartMansi ~ měretKhanty ~ tirVotyak ~ teuraFinnish ~ śåpėrMans ~ šar2Sumerian ~ bar Sumerian ~ zabarSumerian ~ durSumerian ~ sùrSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ bùruSumerian ~ buru14Sumerian ~ kur8Sumerian ~ ǧurušSumerian ~ gur3-ruSumerian ~ emerahSumerian ~ durSumerian ~ durahSumerian ~ še-erSumerian kośemMansi (onion) + mø̄ Mansi (plot, land) Rule (13): The West-Ugric word initial /m/ can be preserved or changed to /ɲ/ in Hungarian, and it can be preserved or changed to /b/ in Sumerian when the following consonant is a liquid: because the Mansi forms seems to preserve well the original West-Ugric forms. It is likely that the later Sumerians did not understand that in the above compound word the syllable mø̄ meant ‘plot, land.’ Instead, they were expecting the beginning of the word to mean land, which is kiSumerian (place). Therefore, by folk etymology the following change could have occurred: melegHungarian ~ mäliMansi ~ bil2Sumerian Rule (14): The West-Ugric word initial /n/ can be preserved or changed to /ɲ/ in Hungarian, and it is always preserved in Sumerian. Rule (15): The West-Ugric word initial /v/ is always preserved in Hungarian, and it can change to either /m/ or /p/ in Sumerian. The change from /v/ to /b/ occurs when the following consonant is a liquid /l/ or /r/ or a nasal /m/ or /n/: *kośem+mø̄ > *kiśem+mø̄ > ki-šum-maSumerian There is no lenition of /k/ in Hungarian when it is followed by a front vowel: ~ kišibSumerian ~ kätMansi kézHungarian Hungarian Mari ~ kel ~ kalSumerian kell könyökHungarian ~ könηiKhanty ~ kinSumerian ~ šu-mu-unSumerian sövényHungarian ~ säwMansi ~ _olkaFinnish ~ murgu2Sumerian vállHungarian Hungarian ~ wălKhanty ~ ma-alSumerian való Rule (11): The West-Ugric word initial /l/ is always preserved. However, the West-Ugric word medial and final /l/ could either stay /l/ or change to an /r/. Here are a few examples for the latter: falHungarian félHungarian hollóHungarian szaladHungarian vállHungarian ~ pălKhanty ~ pälMansi ~ kolākMansi ~ suotiFinnish ~ _olkaFinnish E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Rule (16): A West-Ugric word initial or word final hiatus, that is a lack of consonant, is preserved in Sumerian but may be filled in by /j/ in Hungarian. For example: ~ ba-arSumerian ~ barSumerian ~ hurinSumerian ~ sarSumerian ~ murgu2Sumerian juh Hungarian ~ uuhiFinnish ~ u8Sumerian szíjHungarian ~ sowMansi ~ zàSumerian Rules (1-16) give a convincing proof that there 20 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS hypothesis of a West-Ugric branch within the Finno-Ugric family that included both Minoan (from which ancient Greek borrowed the above words) and Hungarian. are regular phonetic correspondences between Sumerian and Hungarian. Next we give more detailed arguments that show that Hungarian, Minoan and Sumerian belong to the West-Ugric group of languages. 5.2 Finno-Ugric lm > Ugric m = West-Ugric m Honti [22] lists the lmFinno-Ugric > mUgric change as item 5 among the evidences for a common Ugric language. 5.1 Finno-Ugric η > Ugric ηk > West-Ugric g Honti [22] lists the Finno-Ugric η > Ugric ηk change as item 4 among the evidences for a common Ugric language. The ηkUgric > gHungarian change occurs regularly. Below we show some examples that suggest that Minoan and Sumerian also shared the ηk > g change with Hungarian. Hence this change occurred in Proto-West-Ugric. *ćolmeFinno-Ugric > solmuFinnish (knot) > *ćomeUgric, West-Ugric > ἁµµαGreek (knot) > csomóHungarian (knot) *äηɛFinno-Ugric > *äηkɛUgric > jaηlelKhanty (burn) > *ägɛWest-Ugric > αυγηGreek (torch) > égHungarian (burn) The lm > m change did not occur in some ObUgric words perhaps because of a vowel insertion between the /l/ and the /m/, but it occured in the West-Ugric words. Here is an example: *šiηereFinno-Ugric > *šiηkereUgric > täηkerMansi (mouse) > *šegérWest-Ugric > ζεγέριεςGreek (mouse) > egérHungarian (mouse) > gilimSumerian (mongoose ?) *kuδ’mɛFinno-Ugric > kuloνMordvinian (ash) > kōlemMansi (ash) > *kumɛWest-Ugric > κόνιςGreek (dust) > hamuHungarian (ash) > kúmSumerian (hot, heat) *suηɛFinno-Ugric > *suηkɛUgric > suηKhanty (crack) > *sugɛ > σχιζεινGreek (crack, v.) > zugHungarian (crack, n.) > zé-ègSumerian (bury, hide) 5.3 The Ugric -kVj Suffix Honti [22] lists the Ugric -kVj suffix as item 19 among the evidences for a common Ugric language. This suffix appears in the word for woodpecker. *ϑäηɛFinno-Ugric > *ϑäηkɛUgric > tawMansi (bough) > jaγiKhanty (bough) > *ägɛWest-Ugric > ἀκρέµωνGreek (bough) > ágHungarian (bough) *karɛ-kVjUgric (woodpecker) > kar-kājMansi > *karɛ-kVjWest-Ugric > κραυ-γόςGreek (woodpecker) > har-kályHungarian (woodpecker) 6 West-Ugric Grammar Similarities In each of the above four examples, the ancient Greek and Sumerian words are closer to the Hungarian words than to the Khanty and Mansi words because they also contain /g/ or the similar phonemes /k/ or /x/. Furthermore, the ancient Greek and Sumerian words preserve some archaic features that probably existed in West-Ugric but were lost in Hungarian. These archaic features include the presence of an ending vowel in αυγηGreek and the initial fricative consonant in ζεγέριεςGreek. These support the E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz The Sumerian grammar is already described in several textbooks, for example by Foxvog [16], Gosztonyi [19] and Thomsen [45]. Among those authors, Gosztonyi [19] gives a detailed comparison between Sumerian and the Hungarian grammars. While Sumerian clearly does not fit neatly into the Uralic family tree, Gosztonyi’s list of similarities supports the hypothesis that Sumerian is a mixed Dravidian and Uralic language. The Dravidian and Sumerian grammatical comparisons also need to be 21 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS developed and listed in a similar manner to [19] before being able to decide which language family’s grammatical features are present and to what degree. Complicating the picture somewhat is the fact that Dravidian and Uralic languages are both agglutinative and share some other features. For these common features one cannot decide whether they are inherited from one or the other language family. To strengthen the proposal of a West-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family [41], we list some of their grammatical similarities. We focus on the similarities between Minoan and Hungarian because the Sumerian grammar is already compared with Hungarian as noted before. that generally have two syllables with a CVCV structure [26] as shown by the following examples: *kala > hal (fish) *käte > kéz (hand) *mete > méz (honey) Words with a CVCV structure can be written down conveniently using two CV syllabic symbols, which may have influenced the Linear A script to develop as a syllabic script. Table 6 already shows several roots that contain two Linear A symbols, including A M and Z e and G s. 6.3 The -g Frequentative Suffix Table 5 shows that Hungarian and Sumerian words share the –g suffix, which suggests that the Euphratic language also had this suffix. The –g suffix is a frequentative suffix that derives from a Finno-Ugric *ŋk suffix (Zaicz [54]). Here are some examples: 6.1 West-Ugric is an Agglutinative Language Sumerian [19] and the Uralic languages [26] are agglutinative, that is, they append suffixes to word roots without changing those roots. Duhoux [12] already identified Minoan to be also an agglutinative language. As further evidence, in Table 6 we display some blocks of the Phaistos Disk and the Arkalochori Axe that reveals an agglutinative structure, in particular the following: szipogHungarian (sniff) ~ zi-pa-aĝ2Sumerian (breath) sziszegHungarian (hiss) ~ sisigSumerian (breeze) 6.4 The -k Adjective Former Suffix Table 5 shows that Hungarian and Sumerian words share the –k adjective former suffix, which can be traced back to a *-k Finno-Ugric suffix. In some early written documents in Hungarian, this suffix appears as –h, although it later changed to an –ó/ő suffix by assimilation to the vowels at the end of root words (Zaicz [54]). It is possible that the following two words are cognate: 1. There are eight different endings that each occurs at least two different times. 2. Some endings are apparently optional. For example, L B is optional because it occurs in block 6 but does not occur in block 2. Similarly, V is optional because it occurs in block 36 but not in block 44. tűHungarian (needle) ~ dállaSumerian (needle) 3. Some endings are replaceable with another ending. For example, blocks 29 and 38 have the same apparent root but end with c and G, respectively. Similarly, blocks 33 and 40 have The above suggests that the Hungarian word was originally either *tűr or *tűl. It probably meant not only needle but horn too. The ibex is an animal that is notable for its large horn. Hence a synonym for ibex may be horny, with a literal meaning of having a prominent horn. That explains the following word pairs: the same apparent root but end with c and a, respectively. 4. Whenever the endings are attached to a root, the root does not change. Table 6 indicates by red some of the apparent roots. türökHungarian (horn) ~ durahSumerian (ibex) 6.2 Minoan has a CVCV Root Structure Linear B, the immediate descendant of Linear A, has a mostly syllabic writing with CV type syllables, where C is a consonant and V is a vowel [9, 49]. Hence Linear A was expected to have a similar structure as was verified in [41]. The CV type syllables fit well with Proto-Uralic word roots E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz 6.5 The -mány/-mény Noun Former Suffix Table 5 shows that Hungarian and Sumerian share the –mány-/mény, noun former suffix, which can also appear in the form of -vány/vény, as shown by the following examples: 22 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS sövényHungarian (hedging) ~ šu-mu-unSumerian (grass) as they appear in the earliest Hungarian language documents. One of the frequently consulted documents is the 12th century Halotti Beszéd (Funeral Sermon) [7], which will be referenced as HB below. As mentioned above, the Hungarian word derives from sző (weave) and sövény may have meant some grassy plant, whose fibers were used for weaving. Another example is the pair: menny Hungarian (sky) ~ umun Sumerian Peter Z. Revesz 1. /-ak, -ek, -ok/ are for the plural of words that end in a consonant. The vowel is chosen according to vowel harmony rules. Some examples are hal-ak (fishes) and kez-ek (hands) and ablak-ok (windows). (lord) The mennyHungarian may derive from *um-vány, where the /v/ assimilates to the preceding /m/ and yields umunSumerian. The original meaning may be god, who is assumed to dwell in the sky, that is, a heavenly person. Later this was generalized to mean lord, which is the dictionary entry for Sumerian word. 3. /-k/ is the 1st person singular present tense verbal suffix in the indeterminate case. 6.6 The -r Frequentative Suffix Table 5 also shows that Hungarian and Sumerian also words share the –r frequentative suffix, which can be traced back to an *-r Finno-Ugric suffix. For example: 4. /-juk, -jük/ is the 1st person plural present tense verbal suffix in the determinate case. For example, tümet-jük (we bury) appears in HB. As another example, present Hungarian uses számol-juk a pénzt (we count the money). 2. k/ is the plural of words that end in a vowel. For example, falu-k (villages) or kapu-k (gates). csupor Hungarian (bowl) ~ zabar Sumerian (bowl) 5. /-juk/ is also the 3rd person plural possessive suffix. For example: kutyá-juk (their dog). The above apparently derives from cseppHungarian (drop of water). Hence csuporHungarian initially meant a bowl that collected drops of water, perhaps rain drops. A nail and a spear are similar to each other in both having a pointed end. A nail is normally used only once during a construction of something. In contrast, a spear is used several times. Hence it needs a frequentative suffix: 6. /-muk/ is the 1st person plural present tense verbal suffix in the indeterminate case. This appears as vogy-muk in HB. This suffix appears to be simply the composition of the /-om, em/ first person singular verbal suffix in the determinate case and the plural /-k/, ex: olvasunk (we read a book). szegHungarian (spike, nail) ~ šugurSumerian (spear) 7. /-nak, -nek/ is the third person plural present tense verbal suffix in the indeterminate case, for example, esz-nek (they eat). Similarly, a Sumerian word that means a single pig can be put together with a Hungarian word that means herd as follows: 8. /-nak, -nek/ is also a marker of the possessor of an object. For example, a ló-nak a lába (the horse's leg). csokor Hungarian (herd) ~ šah2Sumerian (pig) 9. /-nak, -nek/ is also a lativus suffix. For example, fal-nak megy (goes to a wall), hegy-nek fordul (turns towards a mountain). Since csokorHungarian is cognate with ćukerZyrian, the word derives from West-Ugric to Sumerian and not vice versa. That makes sense because pigs were first domesticated in Anatolia and not in Mesopotamia. 10. /-omk/ is the 1st person plural possessive suffix, which appears as uromc [ur-omk] (our lord) in HB. Etymologically, this suffix appears to be simply the composition of the first person possessive /-om, -am, -em/, as in ház-am (my house) and the plural /-k/. Today, this suffix appears as /-unk, -ünk/, as in ház-unk (our house). 6.7 Other Suffixes Ending with /k/ A problem with a pure syllabic script is that many suffixes do not fit into a CV structure. For example, consider the following Hungarian suffixes that end with a /k/ phoneme. We also give some examples, E-ISSN: 2224-3402 23 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Table 7. Some blocks of the Phaistos Disk and the Arkalochori Axe inscriptions arranged to reveal repeatedly used suffixes and word roots. The Arkalochori Axe symbols are transliterated into the Phaistos Disk symbols using [39]. Block Possible Root (red) Possible Suffix (blue) Block Possible Root (red) Possible Suffix (blue) 12 R W JY a B 45 A a I B 51 n j Z B 59 E W k B Ark. 3 W F S B 3 U k i a a L B 6 A M L B 9 a R f N a L B 10 Z e L B 20 l W f L B 22 i S o L B 24 R F L B 27 g n D L B 61 G n V L B 34 G W i F B J i F B S N m Ark. 1 2 A M 7 L Z e 28 h c c 29 G s c 38 G s 33 Y W h c 40 Y W h 43 M H c 47 A g c 49 i T X X c 37 X R W G 39 i R G 52 i n X G 30 L n X 25 H r a 26 L G s a 50 A l Y a 60 i G s a 36 H G j c V 44 H G j c 53 Y p k V 58 a Y V Ark. 2 o Z B Y V 8 S Q R F 46 g m f i F E-ISSN: 2224-3402 24 G a Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS The Minoan B symbol represents not a syllable but some single phoneme because it is used only at the end of the words with one exception. According to Table 7, in the Minoan language Peter Z. Revesz Table 8. Possible Minoan conjunction or affix. Block Conjunction or Prefix Root Suffix 6 R 31 about half of the suffixes end with a B symbol. Remarkably, about half of the suffixes end in /k/ in Hungarian. Therefore, it is tempting to associate A M L B A M L B Minoan B with Hungarian /k/. Moreover, the above Hungarian suffixes could be grouped into three groups: (1-3), which have the form /Vk/, where the vowel V is optional, (4-5), which have the form /jVk/, and (6-10), which probably had the form /-mVk/ assuming m > n or n > m changes in some cases. These groups seem to match a natural grouping of the Minoan words into those that end Table 9. Two blocks contain a doubling of some symbols right before possible suffixes. Block Possible Root Doubling Possible Suffix 3 with B, with L B and with i F B, respectively. Old Hungarian contains two letters that denote Table 10. Hungarian assimilation with consonant doubling. Root + juk Suffix Assimilation mosjuk (we wash) /ʃ ʃ/ úszjuk (we swim) /s s/ főzjük (we cook) /z z/ hagyjuk (we let) / ɟ ɟ/ hunyjuk (we close [eyes]) /ɲ ɲ/ bátyjuk (their older brother) /c c/ U k i 49 the /k/ phoneme: and . According to some researchers one letter was used only within the words and the other was used only at the end of words. When carving the symbols into wood, a diamond is a convenient simplification of a circle, which may have denoted a human head [48]. Therefore, the shapes of the Minoan B symbol B X X c Table 11 Hungarian assimilation without doubling. Root + juk Suffix Assimilation mondjuk (we say) /ɟ/ fonjuk (we weave) /ɲ/ futjuk (we run) /c/ and the Old Hungarian symbol have a connection. Moreover, the Minoan symbol depicts the head of a man with prominent hair. The Mansi word for man is /kom/, while the ancient Greek word for hair was /komi/, which may have been borrowed from Minoan. This shows a /k/ or a /ko/ phonetic connection between the two symbols. Table 12. Minoan assimilation without doubling. Block Root Assimilation Suffix 22 6.8 Conjunction Table 8 shows another pair of blocks that allows us i S to suspect that the symbol R is a conjunction symbol, meaning “and,” a disjunction symbol, meaning “or,” or it is some prefix. The shape of this symbol read from left-to-right suggests that it may denote two paths that merge together, that is, a conjunction. When rotated ninety degrees, the symbol also reminds one of the Old Hungarian symbol, which denotes the /ʃ/ phoneme and occurs in the Hungarian words s and és that both mean “and.” Ark. 3 o L B W F S B Table 13. Minoan and Old Hungarian script similarities. Grammatically Old Old Symbol Identified Hungarian Hungarian Phoneme Letter Phoneme 6.9 Assimilation by Consonant Doubling Table 9 shows the doubling of some symbols before the hypothetical suffixes. The doubling of consonants before suffixes is common in Hungarian and result from assimilation between the last E-ISSN: 2224-3402 i T a a 25 B /k/ /k/ L /j/ /j/ or /λ/ R /ʃ/ /ʃ/ a /s/, /z/, /ɟ/, /ɲ/ /c/ X /s/, /z/, /ɟ/, /ɲ/ /c/ , /s/, /ʒ/ /z/ Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS consonant of the root and the beginning consonant of the suffix. Table 10 shows some examples. the end of the 9th century [21, 26]. Hence these characteristic West-Ugric features can be none other than some of the Proto-Hungarian linguistic innovations that were previously considered to be pertinent only to the evolution of the Hungarian language. Hence the precise identification of the characteristic West-Ugric features is tantamount to dividing the ősmagyar period into an early phase, which is applicable to Minoan too, and a later phase, which is not applicable to Minoan but only to Hungarian. Below we give some features that are shared by Minoan and early Proto-Hungarian. These shared features support putting these two languages into a common West-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. Therefore, the Minoan a and X symbols behave similarly to the Hungarian doubled consonants and likely denote one of the consonants that is doubled in Hungarian except /ʃ/, which we already associated with R. 6.10 Assimilation by Palatalization Assimilation can occur without a doubling in case of some consonants. Table 11 gives some examples from Hungarian. The palatalized sounds in Table 11 may not have been originally used in the Hungarian language within word roots, but they tend to occur naturally with the addition of suffixes that start with /j/. It is likely that in the Minoan language the palatalized sounds also first occurred as a result of assimilation. Table 12 shows that in block 22 a palatalization during assimilation can be suspected because the apparent assimilation yields a symbol that is rarely used. Moreover, it is never used at the beginning or the end of words, where palatalization is absent. It 6.11 The Ugric Root+Possessive+Case Order Finally, Honti [22] lists the word structure: Root + Possessive + Case order as item 20 among the evidences for a common Ugric language. The translation of the Arkalochori Axe [40] includes the word szem-jöd-nek (for your eye), which has the root+possessive+case order. Hence Minoan also has this structure. According to Foxvog [16] p. 28, Sumerian has the same structure. Hence West-Ugric probably had the same structure too. is also noticeable that it occurs only before LB, which we already associated with the /–juk, -jük/ suffix. Compare Phaistos Disk block 22 with the Arkalochori block 3, where there is no assimilation sound in a similar context before B which we associated with the /–Vk/ suffix. The above grammatical comparisons enable the identification of the phonetic values of some of the Phaistos Disk symbols as shown in the first two columns of Table 13. It is apparent from Table 13 that the Old Hungarian alphabet has a strong connection with the Minoan symbols. After such a realization, the logical step was the thorough comparison of all Minoan and Old Hungarian symbols to identify possible phonetic values of the Minoan symbols [37]. The script comparison was recently extended to the Indus Valley Script [11]. Fig. 3 shows our proposal [40] to place Minoan into West-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. Fig. 3 implies that Minoan and Hungarian share not only the characteristic Ugric features but also the characteristic West-Ugric features, that is, the language innovations that occurred after the separation of West-Ugric and Ob-Ugric and before the separation of Minoan and Hungarian. Linguists call Proto-Hungarian (ősmagyar in Hungarian) the language that separated from the Ob-Ugric branch and progressed toward present day Hungarian until E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz 6.12 A Parser for Minoan Possessive Phrases Both Minoan and Hungarian possessive phrases are composed of a possessor followed by the possessed object. Both the possessor and the possessed object are indicated by suffixes. The possessor is indicated by a /-nak/ suffix, while the possessed object is indicated by an /-a/ suffix. Similarly, in Sumerian the possessor is indicated by a /-ak/ suffix (Foxvog [12], p. 39). In Minoan and Hungarian, the possessor suffix /-nak/ is optional and can be omitted. Table 14 shows that the Phaistos Disk contains two examples of this structure. Although we identified i F B with /-nak/, the I symbol has the syllabic value /na/, hence the combination I B is another way of writing the /-nak/ suffix. A computer program can be also written to look for adjacent pairs of blocks with the first ending in /nak/, expressed in any form, and the second ending with /-a/. A context-free-grammar [36] or a constraint query language [25] can be used to express Minoan possessive phrases. In terms of a 26 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS context-free-grammar the Minoan phrases can be expressed as follows: possessive to possessive phrase “embereknek házai” (people’s houses) can be parsed as follows: Pphrase à Possessor Possessed Possessor à Nd –nak | Nh –nek | Nd | Nh Nd à NdSingular | NdPlural Nh à NhSingular | NhPlural NdSingular à NdC | NdV NhSingular à NhC | NhV NdPlural à NdC -ak | NdV –k NhPlural à NhC -ek | NhV –k NdC à <deep vowel nouns ending in consonant> NhC à <high vowel nouns ending in consonant> NdV à <noun with deep vowels ending in vowel> NhV à <noun with high vowels ending in vowel> Possessed à PossessedSingular | PossessedPlural PossessedSingular à NdC –a | NdV –ja | NhC –e | NhV -je PossessedPlural à PossessedSingular -i Pphrase à Possessor Possessed Possessor à Nh –nek Nh à NhPlural NhPlural à NhC -ek NhC à ember Possessed à PossessedPlural PossessedPlural à PossessedSingular -i PossessedSingular à NdSingular –a NdSingular à NdC NdC à <ház> The above gives “ember-ek-nek ház-a-i,” which is the correct parsing of this possessive phrase. 7 Related Works and Discussion Section 1 already mentioned many of the prior researchers who worked on identifying Sumerian and Hungarian parallels. Similar to them, Aczél [1] and Varga [47] worked on Greek and Hungarian parallels, building large dictionaries. Although they also ignored Uralic linguistics, their work called for an explanation. Our earlier work [41] found an explanation by recognizing that some of the word parallels may be due to a common proto-language of Minoan and Hungarian. Now the picture of language evolution can be further completed as shown in Fig. 3. The figure explains that Minoan and the related Hattic language belong to the Uralic family tree. Moreover, Greek is a descendant from both IndoEuropean and Uralic, while Sumerian has both Dravidian and Uralic ancestors. Fig. 3 implies some modification of the chronology of Uralic language evolution because West-Ugric had to exist before Sumerian and Minoan became separate languages. The precise chronology is often one of the hardest problems to identify in comparative linguistics. A comparison of two languages tells little directly about the chronology. Róna-Tas [42] estimated the separation of the Ob-Ugric languages from the rest of the Uralic family tree to have occurred between 3000 and 2000 BC. This is somewhat farther back in time then many other linguists’ estimates, but the time may still need to be pushed back more than a thousand years to accommodate the known Sumerian and Aegean chronologies. In the above grammar, the terminals are indicated by brackets < >, choices by |. Each time a possessive phrase is parsed, the grammar starts at Pphrase, which stands for “possessive phrase.” The possessive nouns can be either singular or plural. Plural possessive nouns ending with a vowel have a /-k/ suffix, while those ending with a consonant have either an /-ak/ or an /-ek/ suffix according to vowel harmony rules. Similarly, the vowel harmony rules require an /-a/ or an /-e/ to indicate being possessed. In addition, the phoneme /j/ is inserted before the last two as a gliding sound if the noun ends with a vowel. The possessed object or objects take first the /-a/ suffix, indicating belonging to the preceding possessor and then the plural marker /i/. The different plural marker and the different order with respect to the main suffixes, that is, preceding /nak/ but following /-a/ also help distinguish between possessor and the possessed object(s). For example, Table 14. Minoan possessive phrases. Each Minoan phrase consists of two blocks. The translations are in Minoan below that in English (in italics). Blocks Possessor -nak Possessed -a 7-8 Z e S Q R fény light’s A a 45-46 I B más-nak king’s E-ISSN: 2224-3402 F tavasz-a spring g m f i Peter Z. Revesz F húsz lány-a daughter 27 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Peter Z. Revesz Fig. 3. A partial diagram showing the Dravidian (yellow), Indo-European (red) and the Uralic (blue) language families. Note that the Greek (purple) and the Sumerian (green) languages descend from two different language families. The basis of Róna-Tas’ estimate is actually far more interesting than the estimate itself. Róna-Tas makes the observation that certain processes of sound change could only occur in a sequence and not in parallel. For example, the process of wordinitial /ʃ/ > /h/ > /_ / changes, that is, the gradual loss of the initial /ʃ/ must have occurred before the process of word-initial /k/ > /h/ changes, when /k/ is followed by a back vowel, started. Otherwise, the /k/ initial would have also completely disappeared. Clearly, if the first process lasted x number of years, the second process lasted y number of years, then we can conclude that the evolution of a language in which both processes occurred in a sequence took at least x + y number of years. However, we cannot derive any upper bound because there could have been some number of extra years before the first process ended and the second process started. While the elapse time of a process could be estimated relatively well, estimating the extra years seems highly uncertain. Therefore, Róna-Tas’ work implies that the separation of the Ob-Ugric languages from the rest of the Uralic family tree occurred at least 2500 BC (± 500 years for various uncertainties in estimating the duration of the sound change processes). E-ISSN: 2224-3402 8 Conclusions and Future Work It has always looked counterintuitive to have Sumerian be a language isolate given its location in Mesopotamia, which is essentially at the intersection of three continents. It turns out that instead of being a language isolate, Sumerian is actually the combination of at least two major language families. In this paper we identified Dravidian and Uralic and in particular Proto-Tamil and Proto-Hungarian, respectively within those two language families as major contributors to the development of Sumerian. It cannot be excluded currently that a third language to be still identified also contributed to Sumerian. It seems that the great difficulty in classifying the Sumerian language was not its isolation but its varied interconnections with several other languages. There still remains much work to be done to fill in the details of the picture shown in Fig. 3. In particular, as Section 9 mentioned, the chronology of the development of Sumerian and its related languages needs to be worked out in detail. It is hoped that the complete settling of the Sumerian language will shed a major light on the origins and prehistory of languages in general [35]. 28 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank the J. William Fulbright Program for supporting him on two Fulbright Scholarships. First, on a visit to the University of Athens, Greece, in 2008, and second, to Budapest, Hungary, in spring 2017 to the Aquincum Institute of Technology, an affiliate of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. An earlier version of this paper was presented in July 2018 at the 22nd International Conference on Circuits, Systems and Communications in Mallorca, Spain. [14] G. M. Facchetti, and M. Negri, Creta Minoica: Sulle Tracce delle più Antiche Scritture d'Europa, L.S. Olschki, Firenze, 2003. [15] S. Forrai, The Old Hungarian Writing from Ancient Times to the Present, (in Hungarian), Antológia Kiadó, 1994. [16] D. A. Foxvog, Introduction to Sumerian Grammar, manuscript, University of California at Berkeley, 2012. [17] L. Godart and J.-P. Olivier, Recueil des inscriptions en Linéaire A (Études Crétoises 21), De Boccard, 1976. [18] C. H. Gordon, Evidence for the Minoan Language, Ventnor Publ., Ventnor, NJ, 1966. [19] K. Gosztonyi, Dictionaire D'etymologie Sumerienne et Grammaire, De Boccard Publ., Paris, France, 1975. [20] L. Götz, Keleten Kél a Nap (The Sun Rises on the East). Püski Publ., Budapest, Hungary, 1989. [21] L. Honti, Az Ugor Alapnyelv Kérdéséhez, (To the Question of the Proto-Ugric Language), KEL Print, Budapest, Hungary, 1997. [22] L. Honti, Characteristic features of Ugric languages (observations on the question of Ugric unity), Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 29, No. 1/2, 1979, pp. 1-26. [23] L. Honti, ed., A Nyelvrokonságról - Az török, Sumer és Egyéb Áfium Ellen Való Orvosság, Tinta Publishing, Budapest, Hungary, 2010. [24] G. Hosszú, Heritage of Scribes: The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems, Rovas Foundation Hungary, 2013. [25] P. C. Kanellakis, G. M. Kuper, P. Z. Revesz, Constraint Query Languages, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Vol. 51, No. 1, 1995, pp. 26-52. [26] J. Kiss and F. Pusztai, eds., A Magyar Nyelvtörténet Kézikönyve (Handbook of Hungarian Language History), Tinta Publ., Budapest, Hungary, 2018. [27] Mansi Dictionary of Munkácsi and Kálmán, downloaded June 22, 2018. Available: http://www.babel.gwi.unimuenchen.de/munka/index.php [28] N. Marinatos, Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess: A Near Eastern Koine, University of Illinois Press, 2010. [29] K. L. Muttarayan, Sumerian, Tamil of the First Cankam, Journal of Tamil Studies, Vol. 8, 1975, pp. 40-61. [30] G. Nagy, Greek-Like Elements in Linear A, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Vol. 4, No. 4, 1963, pp. 181-211. References: [1] J. Aczél, Szittya-Görög Eredetünk (Our Scythian-Greek Origin), Turán Publ., Garfield, NJ, USA, 1975. [2] I.J. Adiego, The Carian Language, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Netherlands, 2007. [3] F. J. Badinyi, New lines for a correct Sumerian phoenetics to conform with the cuneiform scripts, Proc. 29th International Congress of Orientalists, 1973. [4] T. Baráth, A Magyar Népek Őstörténete (The Prehistory of the Hungarian People), Vols. 1-5, Somogyi Publ., Franklin Park, New York, USA, 1974. [5] R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill NV, Leiden, Netherlands, 2009. [6] R. S. P. Beekes, Pre-Greek Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, Brill NV, Leiden, Netherlands, 2014. [7] L. Benkő, Az Árpád-kor magyar nyelvű szövegemlékei, Budapest, Hungary, ELTE, Régi Magyar Irodalomtudományi Intézet, 1980. [8] I. Bobula, Sumerian affiliations; A plea for reconsideration, (manuscript), Washington D.C., USA, 1951. [9] J. Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958. [10] S. Csőke, Szumir-Magyar Egyeztető Szótár (Sumerian-Hungarian Correspondences Dictionary), Turáni Akadémia Publishing, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1974. [11] S. Daggumati, P. Z. Revesz, Data mining ancient script image data using convolutional neural networks, Proc. 22nd International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, New York, ACM Press, 2018, pp. 267-272. [12] Y. Duhoux, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 26 (1-2), 1-38, 1998. [13] A. J. Evans, Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoa Crete with Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos, Volume II, Classic Books, 1909. E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz 29 Volume 16, 2019 WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS [31] J.-P. Olivier, Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C., World Archaeology, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1986, pp. 377–389. [32] J.-P. Olivier, L. Godart and J.-C. Poursat, Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae (Études Crétoises 31), De Boccard, 1996. [33] G. A. Owens, The Structure of the Minoan Language, Journal of Indo-European Studies. Vol. 27, No. 1–2, 1999, pp. 15–56. [34] S. Parpola, Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language, Vols. 1 and 2, Helsinki, Finnland, Foundations for Finnish Assyriological Research, 2016. [35] G. Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, New York, Philosophical Library, 1956. [36] G. E. Revesz, Introduction to Formal Languages, New York, McGraw Hill, 1983. [37] P. Z. Revesz, Bioinformatics Evolutionary Tree Algorithms Reveal the History of the Cretan Script Family, International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2016, pp. 67-76. Available: http://www.naun.org/main/UPress/ami/2016/a1 82013-133.pdf [38] P. Z. Revesz, A Computer-Aided Translation of the Phaistos Disk, International Journal of Computers, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2016, pp. 94-100. Available:http://www.naun.org/main/NAUN/co mputers/2016/a282001-455.pdf [39] P. Z. Revesz, A Computer-Aided Translation of the Cretan Hieroglyph Script, International Journal of Signal Processing, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2016, pp. 127-133. Available: iaras.org/iaras/filedownloads/ijsp/2016/0030017.pdf [40] P. Z. Revesz, A Translation of the Arkalochori Axe and the Malia Altar Stone, WSEAS Trans. on Information Science and Applications, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2017, pp. 124-133. Available: http://www.wseas.org/multimedia/journals/info rmation/2017/a285909-084.pdf [41] P. Z. Revesz, Establishing the West-Ugric language family with Minoan, Hattic and Hungarian by a decipherment of Linear A, WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2017, 306335. [42] A. Róna-Tas and Á. Berta, eds., West Old Turkic: Turkic Loanwords in Hungarian. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011. [43] G. Sebestyén, Rovás és Rovásírás, Magyar Néprajzi Társaság, Budapest, Hungary, 1909. [44] The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, E-ISSN: 2224-3402 Peter Z. Revesz Available: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu [45] M.-L. Thomsen, The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to its History and Grammatical Structure, Akademisk Forlag, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1984. [46] A. Tóth, Hungarian, Sumerian and Egyptian. Hungarian, Sumerian and Hebrew: Two Addenda to the Etymological Dictionary of Hungarian, Mikes International, Hague, Neitherlands, 2007. [47] C. Varga, Ógörög: Régies Csángó Nyelv, (Ancient Greek: Old Csango Language), Fríg Kiadó, 2006. [48] G. Varga, Bronzkori Magyar Irásbeliség, Budapest, Irástörténeti Kutató Intézet, 1993. [49] M. Ventris, J. Chadwick, Evidence for Greek dialect in the Mycenaean archives, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 73, 1953, pp. 84-103. [50] G. Whittaker, The case for Euphratic, Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2008, pp. 156-168. [51] F.C. Woudhuizen, The Earliest Cretan Scripts, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, 2006. [52] J. G. Younger, Linear A texts and inscriptions in phonetic transcription, downloaded July 25, 2017. Available: http://www.people.ku.edu/~jyounger/LinearA/ [53] P. Yule, Early Cretan Seals: A Study of Chronology, Marburger Studien zur Vor und Frühgeschichte, 1981. [54] G. Zaicz, chief editor, Etimológiai Szótár: Magyar Szavak és Toldalékok Eredete, (Etymological Dictionary: Origin of Hungarian Words and Affixes), Tinta Könyvkiadó, 2006. [55] A. Zakar, Sumerian-Ural-Altaic Affinities, Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1971, pp. 215-216. 30 Volume 16, 2019

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RELATED TOPICS

Sumerian ReligionLanguages and LinguisticsComputational LinguisticsComparative LinguisticsLinguisticsUralic LinguisticsFinno-Ugric languagesSumerian & Akkadian literatureMinoan ReligionDravidian LinguisticsSumerian LanguageHungarian languageFinno-Ugric PeoplesComparative Uralic LinguisticsDravidian HistoryLinear A scriptlanguage contact, loanword, Finn...Magyar nyelv és irodalomComparative Dravidian Syntax