Occasionally thought-provoking, but problematic

books:

	• The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View Zbigniew Golab Slavica Pub, 1992 - 454 pages average customer review:based on 1 review
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Occasionally thought-provoking, but problematic

Zbigniew Golab's THE ORIGINS OF THE SLAVS: A Linguists View is a synthesis of historical Slavonic reconstruction with the hydronomic and toponomic landscape of Eastern Europe.

Golab begins by speaking of the most important changes in Slavonic morphology and phonology from an early post-PIE dialect to Common Slavonic. He demonstrates quite fascinatingly that due to common developments, Slavonic and western Iranian dialects would have still been easily intelligible between themselves, explaining why such terms as *bogU easily flowed from Iranian into Slavonic. Golab then tries to give a stratification of Proto-Slavonic vocabulary, showing that one can find distinct layers from Baltic, Iranian, and Germanic, and possibly even ancestors of Armenian and Italic as well. While some of the cognates Golab proposes are problematic, all in all the possibly of the Slavonic branch as existing between such now widely dispersed branches is an intriguing hint at early Indo-European history.

Having said something about the proto-language, Golab then turns to the issue of determining the homeland of the proto-language from the lexicon. He first assembles research on the primary habitat of the Indo-Europeans, using such well-known examples as the four seasons, a word for honey, beech, and salmon. I was rather uneasy about this part, as Golab's PIE reconstructions are from a century ago, lack laryngeals, and postulate original long vowels. His only mention of laryngeals comes in a note at the back of the book, and then he claims a system of four laryngeals. Having established the IE Urheimat in the usual steppe location, he then explores the possibilities for a Slavic homeland on the basis of hydronymy, dendronymy, and ethnonymy, as well as historical sources. While some of his arguments on the original name(s) of the Slavs are, I feel, unconvincing, he locates the Slavs geographically in the traditional west of Ukraine and south of Belarus.

A further downside of the book is the way in which it was published. Though it appeared in 1992, the publisher includes a note saying that publication has been "greatly delayed", though just how old the material is we aren't told. And even though Slavica is a reputable publisher with many fine offerings, the lack of editing and the dreadful typesetting make this uncomfortably similar to a crackpot vanity-press deal.

Those interested in the Slavs might do well to flip through Golab's book. It certainly give me a new perspective on Slav-Iranian contacts. However, one feels the need to seek out resources that are more reliable and up-to-date.

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