Customer Reviews

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford Linguistics)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 26 chapters, each with a helpful "Further Reading" section, Mallory and Adams offer a thorough survey of the current status of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) studies. In their introduction they acknowledge the example of Buck's A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, asserting that they "have indeed aimed to do for Proto-Indo-European something of what Buck did for the individual Indo-European languages," and they succeed. Therefore, readers looking for detailed analyses of - for instance - the current state of knowledge about the PIE verb, the most complex part of the language, will find themselves disappointed. But then such readers already know which journals to read to follow current debates at the cutting edge, and the ample bibliographies here will also serve them well. Glottalic theory, to pick another favorite sticking point, likewise receives brief treatment, but with a balanced observation typical of the book's treatment of differing theories as a whole: "Fortunately, one can interchange the reconstructed forms between the traditional system and the variety of newly proposed systems in a relatively mechanical fashion. The traditional system is understood by all, and until the weight of scholarly opinion dismisses it for a single new system ... it remains the one most often cited." Nineteen chapters, the heart of the text, focus on the larger PIE world, with word lists, helpful summary charts and detailed discussion of semantic fields for clothing, religion, physical actions, relationships, food and drink, speech and sound, anatomy, and so on. The over 250 pages of appendices and indices, including a lexicon of some 2000 Proto-Indo-European roots (with both English-PIE and PIE-English sections), alone make this volume worth owning. As a challenging text for undergrad linguistics majors, or an excellent and readable survey for grad students in other fields, as well for as the general reader interested in linguistic and cultural reconstruction, this text will serve admirably.

When I heard that Oxford University Press would be publishing THE OXFORD INTRODUCTION TO PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN AND THE INDO-EUROPEAN WORLD, I was excited. I envisioned an update of Oswald Szemerenyi's old Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics that, because of the specific research interests of authors J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, would not only reflect contemporary developments in IE linguistics, but would seamlessly show what we can reconstruct for the culture of PIE speakers. Well, the book is something like that, but it turns out not to be much of a useful introduction to the field.

The book is over 700 pages long, but the introduction to Proto-Indo-European itself is quite small, less than a 100 pages really. It's certainly no substitute for a real handbook like Szemerenyi's, Beekes', Fortson's, or (my favourite) Lehmann's. The branches of Indo-European, its phonology and the basics of its morphology, and the debate over the relationship between the disparate languages that are first attested are set out. The authors nicely use Schleier's tale in its progressive versions to show how reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European have been consistently refined. While the view of Proto-Indo-European is generally the same as in introductions from the 1990s, the authors do reconstruct four laryngeals instead of the usual three, and prefer the transcription *h-subscript-x for an unknown laryngeal instead of *H.

The bulk of the book's content concerns the reconstruction of PIE lexicon, with chapters divided along such themes as "Food and Drink", "Speech and Sound", and "Material Culture". This portion is exciting, especially when the authors link reconstruction to archaeological evidence to make even more detailed ventures about the nature of PIE society. Nonetheless, the material can be tiresome to read straight through; it works best in pieces or in consultation for specific topics.

A final chapter discusses the debate over the IE homeland, where the authors remain very non-committal about the whole deal. There are two appendices. The first sets out basic sound correspondences between PIE and the major IE groups in tabular form. The second a PIE-English and English-PIE wordlist, nearly a hundred pages long. The bibliography and general index together are nearly 200 pages long. So, one can understand that the book contains quite a bit that might seem "fluff".

If you are a student of Indo-European linguistics with previous knowledge gained through one of the great handbooks like Lehmann's Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics, then the reconstruction of the lexicon in this work of Mallory and Adams is sure to offer some entertainment. However, this is the sort of the thing that is best consulted in a university library, and I found the book not worth obtaining for a home collection.

It's hard to understand what audience a book like this is aimed toward. Yes, it's from a university press, so one assumes an academic audience of some kind. But the level of writing is much too light, fun, and enjoyable to be aimed at only people earning credit toward degrees or trying to make tenure. I'm doing neither of those actions but enjoyed the hell out of this book. But I wonder whether the authors were being mischievous or dismissive when they write something like, "In addition to standard indexes, the book also contains two word lists: a Proto-Indo-European English list and a list of the Proto-Indo-European vocabulary arranged by its English meaning (which should at least facilitate those who delight in such tasks as translating Hamlet into Klingon)." Eh, anyway, it's a fun book if you embrace your love of learning and shut away the voices of anti-intellectualism.

The first thing I want to say about this book is if you don't want a detailed discussion of Language as opposed to history then this book is not for you. However, since this was one of the things I was looking to study it was perfect for me.

The book covers the following main ideas:

(1) Concise introductions to the discovery and composition of the Indo-European language family.
(2) The way the proto-language has been reconstructed.
(3) Its most basic grammar
(4) The interrelationships between the different language groups
(5) The temporal position of the Indo-European languages
(6) Some of the difficulties in reconstructing a proto-language.
(7) Semantic field of the Proto-Indo-European lexicon.
(8) An examination of mythology and possible homelands of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

For me the most interesting chapters were the last two, as they talked about the mythology and religion and how they can be reconstructed, and the possible homelands of the Proto-Indo Europeans. Its amazing what you can get from the words of a language!

I shelled out 50 for this tomb because I wanted to read just one book about proto indo european. I'm not a linguistic, I'm really not even interested in indo european but I just felt like I needed to know what was going on in this field. Well, mission accomplished. At times dryly funny, often dry and unfunny, this Introduction left me satisfied that I had the bare outlines of this field of linguistics covered. Much of the book is broken into topics "plants" "animals." These chapters were occasionally illuminating but often just boring and at times I skimmed through. The real pay off is the end when they do a chapter on comparative mythology and tackle the "home land" problem of indo european studies. I suppose I would have liked less... well... linguistics, and more commentary on the foibles of the indo european academic community, but hey, Oxford knows what it's doing. I very much doubt I will be reading another book on linguistics in the next five to ten years, but I'm glad I read this one.

Perhaps it is more a testament to my tastes than the book to say I sat down and over the course of a week or so read straight through it. I am not a PIE scholar, but as an amateur linguist and adept in the IE languages of German, English, and Sanskrit I was able to recognize, apply, and go beyond many of the etymological vignettes offered here. This is certainly not a book for the general reader, but linguists would find it very accessible as well as others, such as linguistic philosophers or anthropologists or archeologists, would find it offers the sort of entertaining introduction they might be looking for. Books such as these are not written for entertainment value, however, and as an academic resource is definitely provides a very thorough overview of the state of the discipline, major thoughts and theories, to date (2006).

While this book obviously deserves its place in the tomes of linguistics that most reviewers have acknowledged is well-deserved, it is important to note that this book professes that it attempted to not only survey the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language but also the world. As such, much of the semantic analysis is doing just that--trying to tease our what small inferences about things as diverse as "animal sounds" to "social organization" and "material culture." Using what insights the reconstructed language can offer, restrained speculations are offered about the lifestyles, dwellings, activities, social organization and other mysteries of this important pre-historical group.

As another reviewer noted, minimum space is directed at ensuring readers understand the speculated linguistic complexities, morphological changes or syntax of PIE. It is very much an introductory level text (for those prepared), and as a second reviewer noted, the style is light and some of the asides made me positively chuckle aloud. And of course, anyone with an interest in etymology will find this text endless fun. For example, our word from "paradise" and "dough" apparently have a common PIE root word. This relationship is fascinating--the root word actually refers to an "enclosing wall." The root is *dhi'hs; it relates to "paradise" as "paradise" (pairi-da'za) literally meant "enclosure," being from Avestan (the ancient Persian language we know primarily from the Zoroastrian religious texts). It was borrowed and transformed by the Greeks into "garden" (parádeisos) and then borrowed into New English and thus we have "paradise" which we have given a meaning beyond just a garden but the relationship is clear (Garden of Eden, yada yada yada). "Dough" is descended from the same root, related to enclosures, perhaps through clay, as they may have been wattle and daub walls and/or earthen enclosures. The text is full of such gems, and if this is up your alley then no doubt this is a book you would find a valuable read and a valuable resource.