A study based on roots and suffixes of ancient Greek toponyms
According to Wikipedia, scholars find that place names provide
valuable information about the historical geography of a particular area.
Characteristically, according to historian F.T. Wainwright, the study of place
names "uses, enriches and tests the discoveries of archaeology and history
and the rules of philologists". Place names not only depict patterns of
ethnic settlements, but can also help identify distinct periods of migration.
This can be achieved by analyzing place names based on Strabo's Geography. For example, we
can start our course from Argissa in Thessaly, the area of which has
been inhabited since the 7th millennium BC, and reach Argos in the Peloponnese, which
has been continuously inhabited since the 5th millennium BC. I
searched for a toponym with a similar root arg- from an intermediate
location in Central Greece, which has been inhabited since the 6th
millennium BC, but I found none (there is Argithea in Attica, for
example, but it is not known exactly when it was first inhabited). However,
Attica has been inhabited since at least the beginning of the Neolithic period.
The most important settlement, that of Nea Makri, dates back to the earliest
Neolithic period.
In any case, when the Neolithic revolution passed from Argissa in
Thessaly to Argos in the Peloponnese, at the same time it spread from Eastern
to Western Europe, and from the Near East to the Pontic Steppes, bringing with
it the first words about the field (agros), irrigation (ardefsis),
the land (aroura), i.e. using words with roots ar(g)-/a(g)r-,
which are contained in the two aforementioned toponyms (Arg-issa and Arg-os).
Why should we assume that these toponyms, and the corresponding roots, are
"pre-Greek?"
The suffix -issa contained in Argissa, as well as the
suffix -inthos contained in Korinthos (Corinth) are considered
pre-Greek by many modern linguists. We will see, however, that these suffixes,
like others, arise smoothly from within the Greek language, and that they
evolved into the more familiar suffixes -sos/-tos/-thos,
or -os/-a/-on for the three genders
(masc./fem./neut., respectively).
We will also examine themes, such as ka(l)las/salas, palos/polis,
or arna, that appear in a variety of place names and common words. If
all these themes, roots and suffixes are "pre-Greek", we should conclude
that the Greek language is also "pre-Greek", which is absurd.
On the other hand, if we can show that place names and common words that
bear the so-called "pre-Greek" suffixes have roots that can be
etymologized in the Greek language, then the suffixes will also be Greek. This
is what causality dictates, unless, of course, the "Pelasgian
Pre-Greeks" came after the "Indo-European Greeks".
My personal assessment is that the Greek language, with a basic
vocabulary, had already begun to be spoken from the Neolithic period in Greece
(perhaps even earlier if part of the vocabulary from the Paleolithic period has
survived). In any case, the language must have already acquired a relatively
complete form at the end of the Neolithic period- beginning of the Bronze Age
(e.g. 3800-3200 BC). In other words, when the peoples of the Steppes, i.e. the
so-called IE (Indo-Europeans), arrived in Greece, whether they came during the
aforementioned period or later at the beginning of the 2nd
millennium BC, the language, to some significant extent, would have already been
spoken.
More:
The Pelasgian origin of the Greek language (full text in English)
The Pelasgian origin of the Greek language (full text in Greek)