CAUCASIAN PARALLELS OF THE GERMANIC VOCABULARY OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

Abstract

In the article the results of research into vocabulary of unknown origin of the modern Germanic (English and German) languages are refl ected. As a thorough analysis of etymological dictionaries of modern and classical European languages shows, they contain a signifi cant vocabulary layer that has no satisfactory Indo-European etymology. Today, scientists have at their disposal considerable linguistic proof supported by the evidence of related disciplines such as craniological anthropology and genetics which is an argument in favour of the former spread of non-Indo-European ethnic groups in prehistoric Europe – the native speakers of Basque, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian languages that have survived in peripheral regions of the continent. It is presupposed that the vocabulary specifi ed was inherited from prehistoric idioms of ancient Europe and therefore belongs to heterogeneous pre-Indo-European substrata whose characteristic features at
the lexical-semantic level are the attribution of words of unknown origin to thematic groups of vocabulary, which is marked by a signifi cant degree of autochthonality (names of plants and animals, terms of kinship, etc). Original etymologies on the basis of revealed Germanic-Caucasian parallels are suggested. The analyzed lexical material allows us to state the former spread of autochthonous Iberian-Caucasian
languages on the territory of the ancient settlement of the Germanic tribes (including the British Isles). Thus, the participation of the Caucasian
component in ethnogeny of Germans and differentiation of the Germanic languages is postulated.