Intro to Proto Languages

How they can help in language learning

22.07.2023

Latin and deeper understanding

Knowing Latin and Greek can be very helpful in understanding European languages at a deeper level.

Take the word "digital", for example. It comes from the Latin word digitus which means "finger". In ancient times, people used their fingers for counting. In Latin, digitus represented 1/16 of a unit called pes meaning "foot" (keep in mind the pair foot and pes for later).

If you ask someone today what a "digital examination" might mean, you probably get "an exam online" as an answer. However, in the 18th century, it referred to "examination using fingers" (for medical purposes).

This brief example shows how Latin can unlock a deeper meaning of a word and its historical context as it evolved over time.

Going down the rabbit hole

What if we don't stop at Latin and go even further in time? Where would we arrive? Would it help us any further?

Let’s first take a different route. When English speakers study German, they quickly notice some common patterns in the vocabulary:

Some words sound identical in both languages:
- fish → Fisch
Others show strong similarities:
- sword → Schwert
- word → Wort
Some require more thought:
- tinder → Zunder
- ten → Zehn

Verb conjugation also exhibits similarities: many irregular English verbs correspond to German starke Verben (strong verbs). For instance:

• drink → drunken vs. trink → getrunken
• think → thought vs. denken → gedacht

What’s fascinating is that these similarities don’t trace back to Latin but rather to the Proto-Germanic (PG) language (Urgermanische Sprache) or the more recent Proto-West-Germanic (PWG) language. The latter existed concurrently with Classical and Late Latin.

So, instead of moving forward in time, we have taken a different path and gained additional insights that can aid language learning. For example, by understanding historical developments in Germanic languages, one can deduce that the German word Zunder means tinder. This knowledge of linguistic patterns allows learners to make connections and enrich their understanding of related words across languages.

Beyond Germanic: Proto-Indo-European

What if an English speaker learns Russian, or Latin? They don’t share the common Germanic heritage. Here’s the thing: we can go even further back in time to Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. Using its linguistic development, one can try to figure out meanings of words or gain some extra insight.

• Latin is well-documented.
• Proto-Germanic has fewer records (a few runes, occasional mentions in Latin sources).
• Proto-Indo-European has no direct records due to its ancient origins. It was reconstructed by linguists and is estimated to have been spoken between 4500 BC and 2500 BC.

From English foot to Latin pes

Let’s revisit our digitus example. The words foot and pes share the same PIE root. With some (hard) exercise, one can figure out the meaning of pes.

So how on earth does one make a connection between foot and pes?
Grimm’s Law (yes, the Grimm from Grimm’s Fairy Tales) comes to the rescue, describing consonant shifts.

• PIE root: *pṓds
• Proto-Italic root: *pets → Latin pes
• Proto-Germanic root: *fōts → English foot

The transition of p → f is a direct consequence of Grimm’s Law.

Interestingly, the genitive case of pes is pedis, which indicates that the t from the Proto-Italic root *pets still exists in the Latin word pes.

For further reading: see the Wikipedia article on Grimm’s Law.

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