M ANIPULACIÓN Y CONTROL POLÍTICO ESTADOS UNIDOS

Although it may not be explicitly stated in many works, intuitively the distribution of a given word has been used as a major criterion in determining its age. This is done most explicitly by Rédei (1986c), whose stratigraphy of the Indo-Iranian loanwords relies heavily on their distribution in the Uralic languages and gives much less weight to the evidence that the phonetic shape of the Indo-Iranian words gives.

Distribution is naturally an important principle when one has to determine the direction of borrowing (cf. Anttila 1989: 158–160; Junttila 2015: 230–236; Campbell 1999: 64), but within the Indo-Iranian loanwords in the Uralic languages this has in most cases been convincingly done by previous research, and there are very few cases in this work where this kind of consideration would be necessary. Principles for the determination of the direction of borrowing include: the distribution of the word in the contact languages and phonological and phonotactical traits, as well as the morphological complexity and transparency (if the word is analyzable morphologically in one of the contact languages and opaque in the other, the direction of borrowing looks obvious).

Many scholars of Uralic etymology have criticized the use of distribution. Kaisa Häkkinen (1983: 204–205) has stated that although distribution is (along with the phonological and derivational arguments) one of the main determiners of the age of a word, it is a very weak criterion when used alone. She nevertheless goes on to admit that, in practice, distribution is often used as the main criterion. Häkkinen’s notions concern mainly the determining of the age of the inherited words, but these same arguments can well be used in prehistoric loanword research, too. She further states that the early loans are not distinguishable from the inherited (“original”) words. Also, the distribution criterion in loanwords is more explicitly criticized (1983: 102–103).

In her 1987 review of Rédei’s 1986 book, Kaisa Häkkinen makes a very detailed and specific critique of Rédei’s distribution criterion. She is astonished by Rédei’s methodology, which gives contradictory results in using both Indo-Iranian phonological developments and Uralic distribution as main criteria. Because of this, Rédei’s material lists Pre- and Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in both Finno-Ugric and Finno-Permic layers of borrowings, meaning that in the earlier Finno-Ugric period, speakers borrowed words from two chronologically different layers, which remained chronologically different even later, when the Finno-Permic linguistic period started. Similar remarks about Rédei’s method are also made by Katz (1987). This is obviously a grave methodological error, and shows in practice that distribution is a very ill-suited criterion in loanword research. Even Rédei himself implicitly accepts this, as he considers some words that appear only in Finnic as parts of the earlier Finno-Volgaic layer. To be consistent with Rédei’s own views, one should consider these words borrowings from Indo-Iranian into Proto-Finnic, but the truth is of course the opposite. Words disappear from languages, and distribution is not a trustworthy criterion.

Koivulehto (1999a: 208–209) has criticized the idea that the word’s distribution tells more of its age than its phonological shape. Koivulehto’s arguments are first and foremost

connected to his ideas of the very early independent contacts of various branches of Uralic with early forms of Indo-European, and he mainly argues that even an archaic word which is present in one branch of Uralic, like Mordvin or Finnic, can result from a very early borrowing. Nevertheless, Koivulehto is certainly right in criticizing the idea that a word with a very limited distribution could not be early. Words do disappear, and within the Uralic family (or any family of languages) there are branches which are lexically more innovative (such as Samoyed) than others, and some that are more conservative. Because of the instability of the lexicon, the number of shared words is considered to be an unreliable criterion in the genealogical classification of languages (Fox 1995: 289), and this same caution should apply to the distribution of early loanwords as well.

Koivulehto’s views have been supported by Kallio (2012b: 227). Also Aikio (2009: 21– 25) states that distribution is not as central a criterion as meaning and phonological shape, and the distribution criterion is discussed critically by Junttila (2015: 150–151). Aikio & Aikio (2001: 10–11) have criticized the use of distribution in the study of early Germanic loans into Finnic, arguing that because the southern Finnic languages are generally more innovative in their lexicon, the northerly distribtution of many loans cannot, in reality, tell much about the true circumstances of the prehistoric contacts.

However, even this is not as simple as it sounds: some of the Indo-Iranian loans seem to have a wide distribution, but upon a closer look it becomes clear that they include phonological irregularities, which can only be explained by assuming that they are parallel loans. The ability to recognize parallel borrowings is extremely important in Uralic loanword studies, and it has been developed with success in the research of Germanic and Baltic loanwords (see Junttila 2015).

To mention an example among the Indo-Iranian loans, perhaps the most well-known Indo-Iranian loanword, Proto-Uralic *śata ‘100’ (in the traditional reconstruction) includes exactly these kinds of problems (this is noted by Kallio 2006: 12, footnote 10). This word will receive a more detailed analysis in the Wörterverzeichnis below, but in order to illustrate the problem, the details of the problematic vowel correspondences will be presented here:

The traditional reconstruction of the word is *śata, but it has been the mainstream view in Uralic studies at least since Janhunen (1981) and Sammallahti (1979; 1988) that some Uralic etymologies which traditionally were reconstructed with *a should be reconstructed with the PU high central vowel * i̮ instead. The idea that PU *i̮ should be reconstructed is much older, and its reconstruction was convincingly supported already by early-20st- century Uralicists such as Gombocz (for example 1920: 112; 1940: 73), but it is not systematically reconstructed by many mainstream sources like the UEW. The opposition between *a and *i̮ has become lost in several branches of the Uralic family (completely in Finnic, and in *a-stems in Saami and Mordvin as well as in Hungarian) but it is retained most clearly in Mansi and Samoyed (Aikio 2013), as well as in many contexts in Khanty, Permic and Mari.

Thus, on the basis of, for example, Mari šüδö (PMa *šüdə) and Mansi *šī̬tV, it is clear that this word should be reconstructed as *śi̮ta in Proto-Uralic (there are also numerous other loans where PII *a is reflected as *i̮ in loanwords). However, in the Permic languages, where the opposition between *a and *i̮ is regularly retained in old *a-stems, the vowels in the word ‘100’ (Udmurt śu, Ko śo < PP *śo) are irregular and probably point to a separate borrowing into Pre-Permic. On the basis of Finnic, Saami and Mordvin,

either *a or *i̮ could be reconstructed, and Hungarian offers no evidence here, as *a and *i̮ cannot be distinguished in the reflexes of PU *a-stems in Hungarian. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the Permic vowel correspondence (Ud u, Ko o) usually reflects the old *e–ä vowel sequence. So although here we seem to have a very early, Proto- Indo-Iranian borrowing, it looks likely that the word has to have been parallelly borrowed into early dialects of Proto-Uralic languages.

Fortunately, in a word like *śi̮ta ~ *śata there are other features that point to its old age (for instance, the regular development of *ś in Saami, Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi). But it is clear that distribution is not a good criterion to stratify the Uralic loanwords. It is also illustrative that there are a couple of very archaic-looking loans that are found just in Finnic, but then there are clearly later loans, such as *warsa, that are shared by Finnic and Mordvin. This, again, shows that distribution is a bad criterion, as words get easily replaced by newer loans, and especially when dealing with prehistoric language contacts with a huge time depth, it becomes obvious that distribution as a criterion is obsolete.

Junttila (2015: 73–75) also discusses the need to distinguish parallel borrowings from derivatives: it is possible that a word has been borrowed several times, or that the same word exists in the language as several derived forms (or in related languages in forms that include various derivational suffixes, making the recognition of regular cognates difficult).

Interestingly, K. Häkkinen (1983: 207) argues that although words disappear from languages, the most basic words often remain stable and are maintained for longer periods. Although this is probably true, here the notion of “basicness” is something that is open to different interpretations. Many central concepts in culture and livelihoods are often described with prestige words that are borrowed, and these central words can be very easily replaced. In determining the age of the loanwords one has to always keep in mind that a reflex of a very early cultural borrowing from Indo-Iranian to Proto-Uralic/Proto- West Uralic etc. can easily have been lost in some daughter language, if a later prestige loan for the same concept has been borrowed from some later contact language (such as from some form of Germanic or Baltic into Finnic or from some Turkic language into Udmurt, Mari or Mordvin).

In Uralic linguistics the common loanword layers shared by some intermediary proto- language have often been seen as giving support to the reconstruction of these stages, but K. Häkkinen (100–108) considers this problematic. It should also be noted that the distribution of Indo-Iranian loanwords very rarely matches the assumed taxonomic divisions: there are some loanwords confined to the Finno-Permic, Finno-Volgaic or Ugric languages, but very few loanwords that would be Finno-Permic, Finno-Volgaic or Ugric in the way that the word is found in all the languages that belong to the branch.

In Uralic linguistics also the existence of early parallel borrowings has been long since noted, and this has been emphasized especially by Jorma Koivulehto (1990). In loanwords, sound correspondences that are irregular in relation to inherited vocabulary can point to parallel borrowings, although this is not always necessarily the case, as many early loans were probably borrowed into Proto-Uralic already, and these words display similar kinds of apparent irregularities as inherited Uralic words, irregularities that can often be solved with the discovery of new sound laws and conditioned developments.