# Latin, PIE, and even older stuff

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-pie-and-even-older-stuff/156816>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [February 22, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-pie-and-even-older-stuff/156816 "2003-02-22T18:54:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-pie-and-even-older-stuff/156816/1 "2003-02-22T18:54:29Z")

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There are a couple of points in **bibliopage** ’s Staff Report, [Many English words have Latin roots, but what are the roots of Latin?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mlatinroot.html) that I would take mild exception to.

Thus, **bibliophage** writes:

> [@](#):
>
> **Did PIE descended from something else? Nobody knows for sure.**

This is correct in a very narrow sense, in that we don’t have written records or even a reconstructed proto-language. However, unless we postulate that PIE sprang into being full-blown, like Athene from the forehead of Zeus (or perhaps \*_Dyeu-p@ter_, since we’re talking PIE), or somehow preserved intact the first human language, it _must_ have descended from “something else”. The oldest strata of PIE that we can reliably reconstruct are thought to date from about 4500BCE; human existence (even defining “human” quite narrowly) is some tens of thousands of years older than that.

The question “Did PIE descend from something else?” should probably be interpreted as meaning, “Can we connect PIE with other known languages?” Here, **bibliophage** writes:

> [@](#):
>
> **The relationship of IE to any other family is still greeted with skepticism, but the relationship of Altaic and Uralic to each other is more generally accepted.**

The relationship of PIE to Proto-Uralic is also generally (although not universally) accepted. That PIE speakers were in contact with Proto-Uralic speakers is almost certain (that the Pontic-Caspian region in which the Kurgan culture flourished was _part_ of the PIE homeland is accepted by most, although not all, linguists). Many PIE loans and, even more tellingly, definite Proto-Indo-Iranian loans (showing the /k/-\>/s/ shift) are found in Uralic languages (_e.g._, Finnish _porsas_). However, there is enough unity in the noun and verb inflections that most linguists are willing to postulate a Proto-Indo-Uralic language, although it cannot be reconstructed. As an affinity between Uralic and Altaic is often also recognized (although some linguists question whether there is an “Altaic” family at all, as distinct from a bunch of essentially unrelated languages with contact relationships), a Proto-Indo-Uralo-Altaic language is implied.

**bibliophage** _is_ correct in stating that the Nostratic hypothesis remains controversial, to say the least.

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**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latin-pie-and-even-older-stuff/156816/2 "2003-02-23T14:06:02Z")

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Im still giggling at the when come back, bring PIE, reference :).