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Amerind from a South American perspective: Part II

Continuing on the subject of South American languages, possible long-range relationships between them, and whether such relationships can enlighten us about the viability of the Amerind hypothesis, I would like to propose a tentative ‘macro’-classification. This will be quite different both from that of the splitters (who don’t propose macro-families at all) and from that of the lumpers (by which I mean Greenberg’s classification, so often repeated in the scientific literature).

sam_amerind The readers possibly saw the map on the right in a previous post. Greenberg’s classification of the South American languages divided them into broad phyla such as “Andean-Chibchan-Paezan” and “Ge-Pano-Carib”. Ideally, such divisions should be based on shared innovations and vocabulary, but that is not always the case (in fact, it seems that Greenberg’s classifications were ready in his mind before he started looking at the data). Now, I believe a much more accurate, “data-driven” scheme can be devised if the following criteria are taken into account: 1. similarity in morphology; 2. personal pronouns; 3. shared retentions or innovations in basic vocabulary. Let us examine each on its turn.

Prefixing vs Suffixing

First of all, the similarities in morphology. I have written a whole post about the differences between “Andean” and “Amazonian” languages, stressing, among other things, how the first tend to be suffixing whereas the second typically employ more prefixes. I will not repeat the evidence here, but surely one could argue that it only bespeaks of areal features. However, the argument could also be the other way round, i.e. that grammar is hardly borrowed. Otherwise, how to explain anomalies such as Ket and its complex verb chain in the middle of a sea of typically Eurasian languages (Indo-European, Uralic, Tungusic) with which it has probably been in contact for a long time? A language’s morphology is not immutable (remember the example of Egyptian?), but it might tell a lot about it’s historical relationships. After all, is it not on the very origin of the recognition of the Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic families?

N : M vs I : A

Shared personal pronouns are usually considered strong evidence that languages are related. At the same time, they can deceive, since all languages tend to use unmarked phonemes for pronouns (e.g. n, m, k, t…) and, therefore, similarities may arise by coincidence. Nevertheless, as I have been repeating for a while, the question then is: shouldn’t the distribution be random? That is, why would some languages choose a set of unmarked consonants (m : t in Eurasia) while others choose a distinct set (n : m in the Americas)? That is when genetic explanations are more likely. The mention of the controversial n : m series was not fortuitous, as it is quite productive in the classification of South American languages: most families exhibit this ‘pan-American’ pair, but not all! Consider the following example:

pronouns-01-01

A quick look at the evidence above, even without prior knowledge of the geographical distribution of the languages, would lead to their classification in two, or maybe three, groups. Most of them use the pan-American n : m series for the 1st and 2nd persons. However, the Andean languages – Quechua, Aymara, Mapudungun – add a suffix to the 1st person (*-qa, *-ja, -ʧe) and a prefix to the 2nd person (*qa-, *xu-, ej-). This, of course, occurs only in the independent form of the pronouns; in Mapudungun, the 1st and 2nd person verbal suffixes are -n and -mi. The other languages highlighted in blue are Amazonian (or intermediates between highlands and lowlands, in the case of Chibcha). They use the n : m series in a monosyllabic or prefixed form. Pano and Tukano have particularly similar forms. In contrast, other lowland languages appear to have replaced the pan-American pronouns by a vowel pair. This pair, which is i : a in the case of Macro-Jê and Guaykuru, also appears in the Maya languages.

Does that pattern have any implications for classification or is it just a coincidence? As I have mentioned before, the Macro-Jê and Tupi languages have long thought to form a macro-family, together with Karib. It could be suggested that the Guaykuru languages are part of the same group, though a bit removed (this is confirmed through shared vocabulary, as I will show below). Look at a map and you will see that these languages occupy a huge part of eastern South America. They appear to have originated in SW Amazonia. The other Amazonian languages, the ones that preserved the n : m pair, have a more restricted distribution in NW Amazonia (except for Arawak). Thus, we can start to envisage a distinction between the Andean/Patagonian phylum and two separate Amazonian phyla, one of which is characterised by widespread geographical distribution and the i : a innovation in the personal pronouns.

LAQ’^w vs NENE

Shared vocabulary is the last evidence, and the most prone to borrowing. That is why I insist it must be basic vocabulary with close semantic correspondence. This is a major problem with some of the etymologies in the AED, as in the case of the famous *t’ina ~ *t’ana ~ *t’una, where any relative (or, in fact, human being!) can be compared to any other. This problem exists even in works like the Altaic etymological dictionary of Starostin, and is one the reasons why I think the Dené-Yeniseian hypothesis is plausible (items of basic vocabulary, with close meanings and regular correspondences connect the two families).

Shared innovations in basic vocabulary can help distinguish subgroups. Let us take as an example the Romance languages. Even though they are all derived from vulgar Latin, we can show that some are closer relatives than others, and that is reflected in vocabulary: for “leg”, Portuguese and Spanish have perna and pierna respectively, whereas French and Italian have jambe and gamba. For “head”, we have cabeça and cabeza against tête and testa. For “morning”, manhã and mañana against matin and mattina, and so on. Needless to say, Portuguese and Spanish are closer to each other than each is to either French or Italian.

After scrutinising wordlists of South American languages (admittedly not the best way to do historical linguistics), I believe I have identified six very stable words that are particularly useful in distinguishing subgroups. These are six words that include mostly body parts, but also a simple noun and a verb: ashes, foot, to sleep, tongue, tooth, two.

vocab-01-01

The table above shows these six words in thirteen languages (or, rather, proto-languages in most cases). I have highlighted, in red and blue, contrasting pairs of words that could be derived from common roots, given their phonological similarity. The gaps in some of the languages are either because the words are not reconstructible, or because I do not have a complete wordlist at my disposal. Some of the “cognates” are only tentative. The possible relationship of PQ *qaʎu and Kaw. qala- to forms such as Kun. lassi has been explained previously. PQ also has *ʎaqwa- ‘to lick’, so metathesis cannot be ruled out. The PTp word for ‘tongue’, despite the resemblance, cannot be related to that set, as I will show in the next post. What is clear from the comparison above is that some languages appear all in red, others all in blue, and some fall in between. This is exemplified by the title of this section, where I make reference to two words for tongue (or ‘to lick’) found in the AED, the first of which appears in the Andes, the second in the lowlands. On the one extreme, in red, we have the core Andean/Patagonian languages. On the other, in blue, we have the core Amazonian languages – Tupi, Macro-Jê and Karib – confirming the evidence from personal pronouns. Some Amazonian languages fall in between: Arawak and Pano. They are also the ones that preserved the pan-American n : m pronouns, also present in the Andean languages. I don’t know enough about the Tukano languages to risk a classification with such a limited number of words as in the table above, but other vocabulary evidence (plus the pronouns) would place it not far from Pano and Arawak. The usefulness of such approach, against mere geographical conveniences, is that some surprises may emerge: Allentiac, a Huarpean language of NW Argentina, is completely Amazonian in its basic vocabulary.

south_am_proposal

I end this post with a map that reflects my current view of the macro-relationships between the South American families. The primordial division, about which I’ve written before, is that between “Andean” and “Amazonian” languages. To put it in more neutral terms (since there are “Amazonian”-type languages well outside of that basin), we can call them “Highland” and “Lowland” or, even better, “Western” and “Eastern” South American languages – the option adopted in the map. There is a core group of “Andean-Patagonian” languages that includes Quechua, Aymara, Mapudungun, Kaweskar and Chon. Possibly Chimu (Mochica) falls in that group, but I do not have a large enough material at my disposal to ascertain that. Chibcha is probably part of the Western division, though it displays some Amazonian features. I cannot specify the position of isolates like Kunza or small families like Puelche within the group, but they are definitely Western.

Among the Eastern languages, the situation is complex. There is a core group of three families – Macro-Jê, Tupi and Karib – whose deep relationship is given as certain. I like to call them the “Neo-Amazonian” languages, given their relatively recent spread from an Amazonian homeland over enormous areas of the South American continent. Pronominal and vocabulary evidence show that Guaykuru (and almost certainly Mataco, though I do not have the data with me) is not far removed from that group. In the map, I show all of them under the label of “Chaco-Amazonian”. They contrast with languages that did not spread as much, remaining since early times in their original homelands. On the one hand, we have the Amazonian families Pano and Tukano, whose deep relationship I take as a serious hypothesis. We can call them “Palaeo-Amazonian” families. On the other, we have those that seem to occupy a similar historical position in the Chaco (or its border), such as Nambikwara and Zamuco. I propose to call them “Palaeo-Chacoan”. Many small families and isolates (Huarpe, Witoto etc.) are Eastern languages, but their relationship with the others is less certain. Finally, Arawak occupies a strange position. I used to think it had to be related to the ‘core’ Amazonian languages, but after long staring at the pronominal, vocabulary and morphological evidence, I am sure it is far removed even within the Eastern group. Its likely western Amazonian origins, close to the Palaeo-Amazonian languages, would confirm that it is indeed an ancient split.

High and low: some more thoughts on South America

On a previous post I commented about how the major language families of South America appear to form two blocks based on shared vocabulary and morphology. Here I would like to elaborate a bit more on that, recognising that this “lumping” tendency is actually nothing new but pays tribute to the ideas of Greenberg and Ruhlen.

I previously presented some basic vocabulary in different language families of South America, noticing some similarities. Let’s see just one of them, the word for tongue:

‘tongue’ in many tongues

tongue-01

Most of the ‘Andean’ (for lack of better term) languages make use of a root similar to *kal ~ *lak or anything like that (about the feasibility of this, check Latin lac, lactis and Greek γάλα, γάλακτος, both derived from PIE *glákt-). In contrast, the ‘Amazonian’ languages tend to prefer some version of *(n)VnV or similar forms. The words in the two groups above are actually listed under different entries in Greenberg and Ruhlen’s etymological dictionary, but I suppose they might as well be grouped together (I’m not taking this too seriously as an application of historical linguistics, by the way; this is just an exercise to think about the big picture).

I recognise that many of those resemblances could be due to some universal associations between sound and meaning. However, I would still prefer to see the similarities within each continent or region as being due to historical relationships. If there were resemblances between those words in some Amerind languages and, let’s say, a lot of Australian aboriginal ones, then I suppose invoking universals would be appropriate.

Now, as we can see from the table above, there are some exceptions in each group. The languages of the Guaykuru family, mostly spoken in the Paraguayan Chaco, follow the ‘Andean’ pattern, whereas Huarpe, spoken in Patagonia, shares the ‘Amazonian’ cognate.

Another important aspect is the possessive pronouns. They tend to be suffixes in Andean languages like Quechua and Aymara, but prefixes in languages of the lowlands (as I commented in the previous post, this sets Puquina apart from its neighbours and brings it closer to the Arawak family).

I believe the most important trait, however, appears in verb morphology. I have been thinking that South American languages follow two main patterns. Languages of the western part of the continent, mainly those spoken in the Andes (Quechua, Aymara) and adjacent Pacific coast or eastern slopes (Muchik, Mapudungun, Jivaroan) tend to use a lot more (if not exclusively) suffixes to mark agents, patients, tenses and aspects of the verb. In that way, they are similar to most Eurasian languages.

On the other hand, languages spoken east of the Andes, including the Amazonian families (Arawak, Tupi, Karib) as well as those of the Chaco and Cerrado (Macro-Je, Guaykuru) tend to use prefixes to mark the persons in the verbs. There are a number of isolating languages in the continent, but because most American languages tend to be polysynthetic (i.e. adding a lot of affixes to create more complex sentences from a single root), these two patterns are easily identifiable.

twogroups-01

In the example above, I highlighted all the suffixes in blue and all the prefixes to the verbal root in red. The languages of the ‘Andean’ sphere don’t seem to make use of prefixes. Those of the ‘Amazonian’ world do, mostly for marking the persons, but they also rely on suffixes for the tense, aspect, mode of the verbs. The Nambikwaran languages are outliers, being heavily suffixing. Another obvious exception is Arawak. I still think it should be included in the second group, given the fact that agents are prefixed to the verb and possessive pronouns are prefixed to the nouns, but admittedly it does tend to use more suffixes than other Amazonian languages. By the way, if you are interested in this type of analysis, you should check the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures, especially the chapters by Johanna Nichols, where some insightful thoughts about the global distribution of such traits can be found.

Furthermore, in terms of phonology there is also a division between the ‘western’ and the ‘eastern’ blocks. Andean-Patagonian languages tend to have a lot more consonants, including sounds like /l/, /χ/, /q/ and others that are rare in the tropics. In opposition, the Amazonian languages are richer in vowels,with sounds like /i/ and many nasal vowels. Interesting enough, as I was writing this post, I came across a paper suggesting that drier, colder climates favour the development of consonant-rich languages, whereas the humid tropics favour vowel-rich ones (that has to do with the way sound dissipates). This goes along similar lines as the theory about the development of tone in warm humid climates that I mentioned before. Whether we agree with that or not, it’s at least an interesting hypothesis.

The division above is not too different from the original proposal of Joseph Greenberg or, perhaps even better, the revised proposal with Mehrit Ruhlen. The original distinction was between a Macro-Chibchan, an Andean-Equatorial, and a Ge-Pano-Carib group. The Andean-Equatorial group, however, included Arawak and Tupi, families that I see as being typologically very different form the Andean ones. Later on, in the etymological dictionary, he and Ruhlen slightly changed the classification, grouping the South American families into Andean-Chibchan-Paezan, Equatorial-Tucanoan, and Ge-Pano-Carib. I think this last proposal is quite elegant and broadly corresponds to the binary division that I suggested above (see the figure below). Most importantly, as I will explain in the remainder of this post, I believe a division along the lines of Andes-Patagonia vs. Amazonia-Central Brazil has intriguing archaeological correlates.

lithics-01-01 — Lithic industries from the late Pleistocene in South America are very diverse. To the left, projectile points (El Jobo, Paijan and Fishtail). To the right, unifacial tools from Brazil (Itaparica and Pedra Furada).

First, it is possible that the division is rooted in the deep past, dating to the time of initial colonisation of the continent. This is too much of a controversy to be addressed here, but, as I said in the previous post, there is enough evidence for human presence since at least 18 to 14 thousand years ago in South America. Many early sites are found along the Pacific coast and adjacencies, like the Paijan complex of the central coast of Peru, or the Monte Verde site of Chile. Further south, at the tip of the continent, we have the Fishtail horizon of Tierra del Fuego. Genetically, there is evidence that a Pacific coastal route was utilised during the initial human migration into the Americas, with South American peoples living in the western part of the continent still exhibiting a very early founder haplogroup.

Despite the diversity of archaeological cultures in South America during the late Pleistocene, there seems to be a division between projectile points (like those of Taima-Taima, Paijan, Tierra del Fuego) and a different type of stone tool mainly found in Brazil – the unifacial tools. Instead of being worked bifacially, i.e. on both sides like a Clovis arrowhead, these are worked on only one of the faces, resulting in plano-convex artefacts commonly referred to as ‘scrapers’. The best example is the Itaparica culture of the Central Brazilian savannas, dating to around 12 thousand years ago, but this unifacial tradition may be extended further back in time if the dates for northeastern Brazil are confirmed. It is tantalising that there might have been an early migration to the Americas later superseded by the modern Amerind populations, the genetic evidence of which is now found in Amazonia (just to play the Devil’s advocate, this has also been disputed).

In summary, I would suggest that the big Andes-Amazonia linguistic divide seen in vocabulary and morphology is explained by the deep histories of human migration in South America. Ancient population waves took separate paths, one along the Pacific and adjacent Andes, the other penetrating the tropical lowlands.

aymara_pano-01

To conclude, I would like to point out that, at the interface between the two groups, we will find many examples of contact between Highland and Lowland languages. Many Amazonian languages of the eastern slopes of the Andes (like Jivaro) show a typically Andean pattern. Maybe that explains the heavy use of suffixes in Arawak languages, as a western Amazonian origin for that widely diffused family is becoming more accepted. Even more intriguing is the case of the Pano languages (see examples above).

cumancaya-01-01 — Donald Lathrap believed that the designs on the Cumancaya pottery (above) from the Peruvian Ucayali derived from Andean prototypes (below).

I always thought that they somehow ‘sounded’ Andean, at least in their use of suffixes, like the -miski that is so frequent in Cashinahua. The negative suffix -ama- in the same language even has a Quechua counterpart. The relationship between the Pano and the Andean sphere had already been noticed by archaeologist Donald Lathrap in a paper that is quite difficult to find. He advocated that the ceramics of the Cumancaya tradition, appearing in the Ucayali around AD 800, have an iconography inspired by ceramics of Highland Ecuador. He believed they were introduced in the Amazon by a foreign elite during the middle Horizon, when the lowlands traded with the Wari empire. In his classic ‘the Upper Amazon‘, Lathrap brought that interaction further back in time, noticing some iconographic resemblances between the pan-Andean Chavín style (900-200 BC) and the Shakimu ceramics of the Ucayali (650 BC).