The Nostratic Theory

Abstract

The Nostratic Theory was first proposed by the Danish scholar, H. Pedersen, at the beginning of this century. He had observed certain similarities between Indo-European and Semitic and saw these two families of languages as belonging to our territory around mare nostrum and hence his name for this group.Speakers of Finno-Ugrian languages were surprised that Indo-Europeanists after working on the comparative philology of IE should turn next to Semitic, but the interest in Arabic as the preserver of Greek mathematics and science and Hebrew as the language of the Old Testament inevitably suggested that Semitic had an interest for Philology as well as Theology. But there is a closer resemblance of Finno-Ugrian to Indo-European than there is between Indo-European and Semitic. Moreover, Finno-Ugrian has been in contact with and a close neighbour to the North of IE since prehistoric times. Burrow lists over 20 words of Sanskrit origin borrowed by Finno-Ugrian languages in the prehistoric period when both families of languages were in contact probably in south Russia. Strangely enough they include the Sanskrit svásar- ‘sister’ giving Finnish sisar, Mordvin sazor ‘younger sister’, Cheremis suzar id. where the survival of the sibilant is a clear indication of borrowing before the Aryan branch split into Indian and Iranian with the characteristic Iranian sound change to h as in Av. xvanhar-. It is surprising to find ‘sister’ among these loan words.