AN ESSAY FOCUSING ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT SHEPHERDS IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE

Considering the most recent results of auxiliary disciplines, such as archaeology, genetics, ethnography and mythology, it is possible, in the context of unattested linguistic stages, to posit South European and more specifically Balkan shepherding vocabulary in a larger archaic lexical network. The lexical network has expanded over space and a long period of time, illuminating certain important milestones in the development of humanity over several millennia, and often pre-dating the Slavic or even Indo-European context. While investigating the Eurasian word-stock in a multifactorial macro-comparativistic context, a recurrent pattern was observed in relation to part of this vocabulary. This pattern will be tentatively labelled a "complete attestation chain", comprising a recurrent distribution pattern of supposed etymological cognates. In order to explain such a specific configuration, we trace the prehistoric Neolithic roots of Eurasian shepherding culture. The shepherding culture in Southeast Europe and the Carpathian mountain range will then be placed into this larger context. Since a large percentage of the shepherds’ typical vocabulary lacks a convincing deeper etymology, e.g., in the Romanian, Albanian and adjacent languages, we propose — while applying the aforementioned pattern model — experimental approaches to solving these complex etymological problems. As an illustration we have chosen the following examples: Romanian baci, baligă, bîr, colibă, mocan, ciut/șut, țarc, zară/zer, Bulgarian (lja) biše, cik/čik, koliba, Albanian bisht.