Paleolinguistics and crop history of ancient Eurasian grain legumes

Abstract

The goal of a preliminary paleolinguistic research was to identify the roots in diverse Eurasian proto-languages directly related to grain legumes and producing the words denoting the same in modern Eurasian languages. Six Proto-Indo-European roots were attested, namely arnk(')- (a leguminous plant’), *bhabh- (‘field bean’), *erag’/h/- (’a kernel of leguminous plant’, ‘pea’), ghArs- (a leguminous plant’), *kek- (‘pea’) and *lent- (‘lentil’). So far, no Proto-Uralic or Proto-Kartvelian roots have been identified, except for the hypothetical Proto-Uralic *kača (‘pea’). On the other hand, there are two Proto-Altaic roots, *bukrV (‘pea’) and *zjabsa (‘lentil’). The Proto-Caucasian roots *qor'a, denoting pea, and *howl(a), denoting bean and lentil, and the Proto-Basque root *itha-r (’pea’, ‘bean’, ‘vetch’) may originate from a common Proto-Sino-Caucasian *hVwlV, denoting bean, within the hypothetic Dené-Caucasian language superfamily. The Modern Maltese preserved the memory of two Proto-Semitic roots, *‘adaš- (‘lentil’) and *pul- (‘field bean’), while the third originally Proto-Afroasiatic root related to grain legumes is *mang-, denoting both millet and lentil. The origin of the Old Chinese word *shok, originally denoting grain and seed and later beginning to denote soybean, is in the Proto-Sino-Caucasian root *sfHwekE ( ~ -k-), meaning ‘chaff’. The presented evidence demonstrates that the most ancient Eurasian grain legume crops were well-known and widely grown by the ancestors of all modern European nations. The attested lexicological continuum confirms the existence of the millennia-long bonds among the peoples of Eurasia to the mutual benefit. This research will hopefully encourage future interdisciplinary and concerted actions between plant scientist dealing with crop evolution and biodiversity, archaeobotanists and paleolinguists.