Indo-European Loanwords in Altaic
by Penglin Wang
The investigation of lexical parallels between Altaic and Old English may well prove to be one of the most important ways in which we can detect early contact between Altaic and Anglo-Saxon in Inner Asia. Although historical documents contain many records of the existence of European peoples in Inner Asia, it remains unknown whether Anglo-Saxon in particular and Germanic in general played an important role in this area. This paper deals primarily with Old English loanwords in Altaic.
Most of the loanwords to be discussed are what may be considered a part of basic vocabulary .My assumption is that the historical long-term contact between Altaic and Indo-European in Eurasian steppes could lead to repeated circulation of basic words. Ancient vocabulary was not as complex and abundant as today's. Moreover, the proportion of basic words in ancient vocabulary was significantly larger than today's. Say randomly, if basic words represent fifteen percent of today's total vocabulary, they were eighty percent of the ancient one. So what circulated were mostly basic words. Circulation was an important means of vocabulary proliferation in the Eurasian steppes. Every circulation may have brought about certain phonetic, semantic, and morphological modifications, thus creating considerable divergence between the initial circulation and the later (say, the fifth) circulation in some instances. Under these circumstances if we refrain from digging into basic vocabulary, we will not be able to make significant progress in the domain of contact between Altaic and Indo-European.
What historical linguists need is an emphasis on transfer from periphery to kernel. Many attempts have been made to reveal Indo-European impact on Altaic. Perhaps influenced by the concept that basic vocabulary cannot be borrowed from one language to another, many researchers have paid insufficient attention to basic vocabulary .As we shall see, many of the loanwords to be discussed in this paper are widespread and highly productive in various Altaic languages. English scholars generally maintain that most of the Old English words are native English; if there are some borrowings, they are from Norse and Latin. Few scholars have turned their attention to contact between Altaic and Old English, which has some bearing on the vocabulary of Old English and can shed light on its phonological and semantic change. Since for the time being I am not in a position to determine which word is native to Altaic or native to Old English, it is safe to posit that Old English (or a related Indo-European language) was a lender.