> [[hyllested]]. *Word Exchange at the Gates of Europe Five Millennia of Language Contact*. Ph.D. thesis. Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics (NorS), University of Copenhagen, 2014. > [nors.ku.dk](https://nors.ku.dk/english/staff/?pure=en%2Fpublications%2Fword-exchange-at-the-gates-of-europe(eb5167e5-9c93-4e4e-948c-4e55d2960dd1).html) #split ## Introduction > The study of early lexical exchange between Indo-European and Uralic languages has a proud tradition in Denmark, not least by virtue of the the pioneering works by Vilhelm Thomsen: *Den gotiske Sprogklasses indflydelse på den finske* (1869) and *Beröringer mellem de finske og de baltiske (litavisk-lettiske) sprog: En sproghistorisk Undersögelse* (1890). The latter still constitutes the most important reference work on con- tacts between Baltic and Balto-Fennic – in how many other scholarly fields today can you say that about a work written in Danish? Linguistic contacts between Uralic and Indo-European and their respective branches is still today an extensively studied and vibrant field. In some respects, though, I think that important evidence is consistently over- looked because of the power of tradition which affects not only how you carry out your research, but also what you search for, *where* you look for evidence, and *from which angle*. <br> Traditionally, most lexemes shared by Indo-European and Uralic language branches are viewed as having been transferred from the for- mer to the latter. To mention the most obvious example, it is well known that both Balto-Fennic and Saami languages possess an abun- dance of ancient terms borrowed from (Pre-)Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Baltic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Slavic and Proto-Scandinavian. Likewise, the vocabularies of more easterly Uralic languages (Mordvin, Mari, Permian and Ob-Ugrian) have been affected by intense contact with Iranian languages – apart from non-Indo-European languages such as Turkic – while Hungarian has added to its lexical stock hundreds of (Medieval) Latin, Pannonian Slavic and Alanic (Iassic) as well as Old and Middle High German loans. Samoyedic languages are even sup- posed to have loanwords from Proto-Tocharian. Everywhere Indo-European is automatically assumed to be the provider and Uralic the target language while the assumed share of Uralic loanwords in older Indo-European languages is close to absent. Such an asymmetry is commonly supposed among linguists to be typical for a relationship between two peoples where one had the upper hand, technically and polit- ically, at the time of borrowing. While the amount of borrowings rarely numbers the same on both sides, I find it unlikely that there are any cases where extensive lexical transmission in one direction leaves zero trac- es in the opposite direction. True, there are famous examples of extreme asymmetry such as Old Germanic languages versus Old Slavic or French versus Breton. However, even in these cases at least a small number of loans in the atypical directions are identifiable. Most such borrowings have a limited semantic and geographical distribution; they typically refer to trade objects, important plants and animals, religion, or other concepts specifically linked to the kind of contact in question. <br> This thesis aspires to convey to the field of Indo-European and Uralic linguistics a new methodology, where Uralic and Indo-European data are viewed as equally potential sources for loanwords. Much weight is put on our ability to reconstruct shared semantics, not least semantic anomalies, even in cases where the actual lexeme has been replaced. I also seek to underline the importance of using Uralic material as a key to unsolved issues in Indo-European. I stress especially that ignoring variation in the Uralic material (such as dialectal forms, semantic scope, irregular vocalism, forms from less well-known languages, and older attestations) can be detrimental or even fatal, leading the etymologist totally off the scent. Citing one Standard Finnish form is not enough, for example, when Balto-Fennic languages exhibit a multitude of irregular forms and deviant meanings. Finally, but equally importantly, I endeavor to establish a number of new subfields within the field of IE-Uralic contact linguistics by showing that hitherto unheeded lexical exchange took place from Proto-Mari to Proto-Baltic, from Proto-Balto-Slavic to Proto-Fenno-Permian, and from Proto-Balto-Fennic to Proto-Celtic and Proto-Germanic. <br> The dissertation contains 16 articles which are intended to appear in chronological order, starting with the earliest contacts.