The Pre-Indo-European Substratum in the British Isles and the Pre-Uralic Substratum in Fennoscandia:
Traces of Common Origin
Recent genetic studies of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia reveal that the primary postglacial repopulation originated from Western Europe. This paper tests the hypothesis of a shared migration by identifying linguistic parallels between the Pre-Indo-European substratum in the British Isles and the Pre-Uralic substratum in Fennoscandia, providing evidence for a common origin of these ancient populations.
Shared lexical features between Insular Celtic and Saami are strikingly unexpected. Once Celtic influence on Saami and Saami influence on Insular Celtic—particularly Goidelic—are excluded, the most plausible explanation is a common substratum. This hypothesis finds robust extra-linguistic corroboration in genetic and archaeological evidence for a Mesolithic migration from Western Europe to Fennoscandia immediately following glacial retreat, dated to ca. 11,000 BP. This was swiftly succeeded by a second Mesolithic influx from Eastern Europe ca. 10,200 BP (Günther et al. 2018: 1–6; cf. Mallory 2013: 53). Ireland’s earliest inhabitants arrived ca. 10,000 BP, introducing Mesolithic industries, while Britain’s initial Mesolithic traces date to ca. 11,600 BP, with Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers attested as early as ca. 14,700 BP (Mallory 2013: 40, 48).
The following list of 12 lexical comparisons marks the first systematic effort to compile relevant data, though the items vary in semantic reliability. The strongest cases are ## 1, 6, and 12. Comparison #13 involves only Fennic forms and requires separate discussion.
1. Saami: South aske ‘moon’ (Lagercrantz 1939: 18, n. 105; Sammallahti 1998: 179) //
Goidelic: Old Irish ésca(e), éisce n., later m. ‘moon.’ Matasović (2009: 118–19) connected it with Lithuanian áiškus ‘bright’ and Old Church Slavonic iskra ‘spark.’
2. PSaami *jōve̮ ‘scree, field of jagged rocks’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 297) //
Goidelic: Old Irish aife ‘slope’ (DIL A-108; LEIA A-24); cf. Old Irish aig ‘ice’ < *i̯eg- (Matasović 2009: 435).
3. PSaami *kājpē ‘chin’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 341) //
Goidelic: Old Irish cab ‘mouth, muzzle’ (DIL C-1; LEIA C-1); less probable is the alternative comparison with Old Irish cíab ‘hair (of the head), lock of hair’ (DIL C-174; LEIA C-93). In this case the semantic difference is comparable with Germanic *barda- ‘beard’ vs. Slavic *borda ‘chin’.
4. PSaami *kɛ̄δɛ̄ ‘temple’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 394) //
Goidelic: Old Irish cod, cud ‘head’ (DIL C-582; LEIA C-139).
5. PSaami *kɛ̄δkɛ̄ ‘stone’ (Lehtiranta 1989, n. 380) //
Insular Celtic: Old Irish crec, creg ‘rock’ (DIL C-513; LEIA C-225); Old Welsh (12th cent.) creic, Welsh craig ‘rock, boulder, stone’ (GPC).
6. PSaami *kumppā ‘wolf’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 495) //
Goidelic: Old Irish cuib, var. cuim ‘hound, wolf’ (DIL C-583; LEIA C-267)
7. PSaami *lānte ‘pond, pool’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 568); Finnish lantto ‘puddle’ was probably borrowed from Saami (Aikio 2009: 260). The origin of the Saami word in Finnish lansi ‘lowland, wetland’ or dial. lanto ‘low, damp place in terrain’ is not unambiguous—the opposite vector or a common heritage cannot be excluded. //
Brittonic *lindā ‘lake, pool’ (Matasović 2009: 239–40).
8. Saami: North liraš ‘a bird belonging to the genus Totanidae’, Enontekiön līrāš́ ‘common sandpiper’ / Finnish liro, lieru ‘wood sandpiper / Totanus glareolus’ (SKES 298) //
Goidelic: Old Irish rer ‘blackbird’ (DIL R-48; LEIA R-21)
9. PSaami *sēple̮ ‘slush’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 1142) //
Goidelic: Old Irish slab ‘mud, mire’ (DIL S-255; LEIA S-123).
10. PSaami *tāktē ‘bone’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 1219); the comparison with Finnish tähti, gen. tähden ‘das Übriggebliebene, Aufbewahrte’ is problemtic for semantic reasons and the comparison with Hungarian tetem ‘Leiche, Leichnam, die irdischen überreste, Gebein,’ Old Hungarian ‘Knochen, Bein; Rippe’ is, by reason of its isolation, not convincing enough to be generally accepted (cf. UEW 515–16) //
Goidelic: Old Irish tec & tuc ‘bone’ (DIL S-94, 352; LEIA T-38, 106).
11. PSaami *vɛ̄vlē ‘hole in skin’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 1381; Lagercrantz 1939: n. 1001); cf. Koltta veu´ll ‘loop, sling’ (Itkonen 2011: 738) //
Brittonic *u̯eu̯lā- > Middle Welsh (14th cent.) gwefl f. ‘lip (of an animal)’, pl. ‘jaws’, Cornish gwelv ‘lip,’ Middle Breton guefl ‘mouth’ (Matasović 2009: 419 adds, in addition, Old Irish bél m. ‘lip’).
12. PSaami *vōjve̮ ‘liver’ (Sammallahti 1998: 179); the initial *v- can be prothetic, cf. PSaami *vōlē ‘down’ (Lehtiranta 1989: n. 1432) vs. Fennic *ala ‘lower,’ etc. (UEW 6). It means, *vōjve̮ can be derived from Pre-Saami *ajvi //
Insular Celtic: Old Irish óa f. gl. ‘iecur’, dat.pl. óeib; Middle Welsh ahu, auu, afu m. & f.; Old Cornish aui; Middle Breton auu, Breton avu m. ‘liver’ (Matasović 2009: 49: *au̯V-?).
13. Fennic *suti ‘wolf’ > Finnish susi, gen. sg. suden, ill.sg. suteen, nom.pl. sudet, Estonian susi, Livonian su’ž́, pl. sudùD (SKES 1129–1130) //
Goidelic: Old Irish sod, sad f. ‘bitch, she-wolf’ (DIL S-323; LEIA S-161).
Conclusion
This preliminary list demonstrates that the British Isles and Fennoscandia preserve traces of a distinctive Mesolithic substratum. The semantic range of the compared lexemes—spanning hunting, gathering, and basic environmental features—aligns closely with a pre-agricultural cultural horizon. The primary aim of this study is to stimulate further interdisciplinary research into these ancient linguistic layers.
References
Václav Blažek
Department of Linguistics and Baltic Studies
Masaryk University – Brno
Czech Republic
blazek@phil.muni.cz