The Arabic Origins of "Basque and Finnish Pronouns": A Radical Linguistic Theory Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the Arabic origins of Basque and Finnish pronouns mainly and Basque verbs to be/have secondarily from a Radical Linguistic Theory perspective, a slightly revised version of Lexical Root Theory. The data consists of personal and demonstrative pronouns in Finnish and Basque in the main and verbs to be/have in the latter. The results show that Finnish and Basque pronouns have true Arabic cognates, with the same or similar forms and meanings. Their formal differences, however, result from natural and plausible causes and different courses of linguistic change. For example, Basque ni 'I', Finnish mina/mä ‘I', and Arabic ana (ani, inni) 'I' are identical cognates, in the second of which /m/ split from /n/; Finnish sina/Te'you' come from Arabic anta/-ta 'you' via reversal and turning /t/ into /s/; similarly, Basque zu 'you' is derived from Arabic -ta/-ka (iaka) 'you (nom./acc.) where /k/ became /z/, which compares very easily with Old English ge 'you' and German Sie 'you'; Finnish reflexive itse 'self' is from Arabic dhaat(i) 'myself' via reordering and replacing /dh/ by /s/. Third person pronouns in both languages are originally demonstrative pronouns, which is similar to what happens in English and Indo-European languages and Chinese as well, all of which come from Arabic dha/ti 'this'. Similarly, all Basque verbs to be/havehave true and identical Arabic (and English, German, Latin) cognates. As a consequence, the results indicate, contrary to Comparative Method claims, that Arabic, Basque and Finnish are genetically related, leading to the postulation of a single, perfect, sudden world language, which may be called Radical or Root Language, from which all human languages descended. The Radical Language could not have died out at all but has instead survived into modern languages, having been preserved almost intact in Arabic. They, therefore, prove the adequacy of the radical linguistic or lexical root theory according to which Arabic, Basque, and Finnish are genetically related besides English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Mandarin Chinese which have already been found to be dialects of the same language with Arabic being their origin all because of its phonetic capacity or complexity, huge lexical variety and multiplicity, and linguistic permanence or sustainability.