Fragmenta Excerpti de Thesauri Leguminosarum-Three of the World ’ s First Domesticated Plants in the Indo-European Languages of Europe

The words denoting lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), pea (Pisum sativum L.) and faba bean (Vicia faba L.) in the modern Indo-European languages show a high level of uniformity in morphology and semantics and reveal the traces of mutual borrowings among the languages of different Indo-European branches and the exchanges with the neighbouring non-Indo-European languages. Nearly all modern Indo-European languages derived their words denoting lentil and faba bean from the Proto-Indo-European roots *lentand *bhabh-, with the same primeval meaning. Among the Proto-Indo-European roots related to pea are *erəgw[h]-, *g'er[a]n-, *ghArs-, *kekand *pis-. The collected results offer another testimony how important grain legumes such as lentil, pea or faba bean were in the everyday life of the forefathers of the modern Indo-European nations of Europe and their non-Indo-European neighbours.


Introduction
Legumes (Fabaceae Lindl., syn.Leguminosae Juss.and Papilionaceae Giseke) are one the richest plant families in the world.They are generally responsible for the regular renewal of soil fertility elsewhere and comprise many economically significant species.Among the traditional cultivated annual legumes of the Old World, becoming later extensively grown in the New World as well, are lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), pea (Pisum sativum L.) and faba bean (Vicia faba L.).One of the greatest advantages of these three crops is their multi-functionality, meaning that they may be used for both human consumption, in animal feeding and various non-food purposes, such as green forage, forage dry matter, forage meal, silage, haylage, immature pods, immature grains, mature grains, straw and green manure (Mihailović et al. 2010).However, lentil, pea and faba bean are usually and primarily considered as grain legume crops important in human diets and are often designed most precisely as pulses, representing today one of the most valuable sources of plant protein.
Lentil and pea originated in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean centres of diversity, while faba bean originated in the Central Asian centre of A. Mikić* Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Maksima Gorkog 30, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia e-mail: aleksandar.mikic@nsseme.comRatar. Povrt. 52:2 (2015) 44-51 diversity (Zeven & Zhukovsky 1975).All three species became one of the first domesticated plant species in the world, along with few other grain legumes such as chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) and bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd.) and several cereals (Zohary & Hopf 2000).The earliest archaeological evidence on these crops is located in several sites in Syria and belongs to 10th and 9th millennia BC (Tanno & Willcox 2006).Lentil, pea and faba bean played a prominent role in the 'agricultural revolution' of the post-glacial Europe, quickly reaching its farthest parts (Ljuština & Mikić 2010).Crossing from Asia Minor to the Balkans, they climbed up the Danube valley, leaving behind the Neolithic tells such as Gomolava in Serbia (Medović & Mikić 2014) and reaching the area of present Paris (Bakels 1999) and Armenia (Hovsepyan & Willcox 2007) roughly at the same time, namely in the second half of the 6th millennium BC.
According to the one of the most widely accepted theories, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the people who spoke the assumed Proto-Indo-European language, ended their ethnic development and became distinctive in the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the 5th and 4th millennia BC (Anthony 2007).original scientific paper/originalni naučni članak Lentil, Pea and Faba Bean and Indo-Europeans Later, they began migrations in almost all directions and produced numerous direct and indirect and extinct and living ethnolinguistic groups, many of which resulted in the majority of modern European nations and their languages and dialects (Beckwith 2009) (Fig. 1).Due to a geographical proximity between the centres of origin of lentil, pea and faba bean and the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European homeland, one may be nearly quite convinced that the Proto-Indo-Europeans cultivated these three along with other basic crops (Mikić et al. 2012).
This brief lexicological review aims at emphasizing an outstanding conservativeness of the Proto-Indo-European roots related to these three important grain legume crops, as well as at presenting the immense richness and variability of the words denoting lentil, pea and faba bean in the modern Indo-European languages of Europe.

Materials and Methods
This preliminary study of the origin and diversity of the words denoting traditional Eurasian grain legumes in the Indo-European languages of Europe has been conducted in two steps: -The first step aimed to determine the present lexicological diversity, consisting of searching all available printed and electronic dictionaries of the living Indo-European languages of Europe and collecting all the words that denote lentil, pea and faba bean; -In the second stage, the existing etymological dictionaries and other relevant linguistic history resources regarding to Indo-European languages of Europe and its descendants were searched for all the root words related to these three grain legume crops.
These two corpuses were then linked together, attempting to provide linguists and crop historians with attested and assumed forms of the words denoting the targeted grain legumes in Indo-European languages of Europe.

Lentil
In general, the words denoting lentil in the modern languages of Europe show even more prominent morphological similarity in comparison to those denoting pea, both within and among individual branches (Table 1).This is specifically evident in Baltic languages, with the Latvian lēca, Celtic languages, with the Scottish Gaelic leantail, Germanic languages, with the Danish linse, the Dutch linze and the Swedish lins, and Italic languages, with the Catalan llentia, Italian lenticchia and the Romansh lentiglia.Slavic languages seem to have two distinct forms related to lentil; one present in the Bulgarian leshta, Croatian and Serbian leća and the Rusyn lenča, and another one in the form of the Russian chechevitsa, the Slovak šošovica and the Upper Sorbian sok.The remaining Indo-European languages of Europe, such as Greek, with fakí, have a clearly different morphology in comparison to the previous ones, with an exception of the Ossetic qaedur that seems to be related to its word denoting pea.

Pea
The collected words related to pea in the modern Indo-European languages of Europe generally show a considerable morphological uniformity within individual branches (Table 2).Good examples are Baltic languages, Germanic languages, with the German Erbse, the Icelandic erta and the Yiddish arbes, as well as Slavic languages, with the Belarusian garoh, the Kashubian groch and Lower Sorbian groch.The words denoting pea in all six surviving Celtic languages, such as the Cornish pýsen, are morphologically close to the majority of the modern Italic, that is, Romance languages, with the Corsican pisu, the French pois and the Walloon peû.
Similarities to these are also present in Albanian, with bizele, Greek, with bizéli and English, with pea.On the other hand, a considerable number of the Romance languages is characterised with different forms of the words related to pea, such as the Galician ervilha, the Romanian mazăre or the Spanish guisante.The Armenian language and the representatives of the Indo-Iranian branch in Europe have morphologically distinct forms of the words denoting pea, such as the Armenian olor and the Kurdish polik.

Faba bean
Rather similarly to the words denoting lentil, the words related to faba bean in the modern Indo-European languages of Europe (Table 3) demonstrate a considerable morphological inter-and intra-branch uniformity, as witnessed by Baltic, with the Lithuanian pupa, Germanic, with the Faroese bøna, the Frisian beanne and the Norwegian bønne, Italic, with the Aragonese faba, the Friulian fave and the Occitan fava, and Slavic branch, with the Czech bob, the Polish bób and the Ukrainian bib.The Celtic languages seem morphologically close to both Germanic, as seen in the Irish pónaire, and Italic languages, supported by the Welsh ffa.Some words related to pea in certain languages are morphologically similar to those belonging to another branch, such as the Romani boba with the Slavic ones.

Discussion
The most recent anthropological analyses of human ancient DNA (aDNA) support the hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Pontic-Caspian steppe.The Proto-Indo-European society may be identified with the Yamnaya culture, which subsequently gave origin to the Corded Ware culture, established by a large part of the Indo-Europeanspeaking migrating herders westwards (Balter & Gibbons 2015).There, in a vast region from Jutland and South Scandinavia to Dnieper, this culture brought forth the Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Germanic societies that in turn proved to be 'green-fingered' growers of grain legumes (Mikić 2015).

Lentil
The words denoting lentil in majority of the modern Indo-European languages of Europe (Table 1) demonstrate a high level of mutual similarity due to the common origin, the Proto-Indo-European root *lent-, with the same unchanged meaning throughout millennia of separate evolutions of each of its descendants (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev 2007).Among its direct derivatives, progenitors of the modern individual branches of the Indo-European language tree, are Proto-Baltic *leñš-ia-, Proto-Germanic *lins-ī(n-), Latin lēns and Proto-Slavic *lętjā (Vasmer 1955) (Fig. 2).
It is curious that the Slavic languages have another word denoting pea, in some, such as Serbian (Table 1), used in parallel with the one derived from the first root.Such words were derived from the Proto-Slavic *sočevicа (Vasmer 1958), with the same meaning and in perhaps in some, so far unexplained, connection to the Proto-Slavic *sòkŭ and the Proto-Indo-European *s(w)ok w -, both meaning juice (Mikić-Vragolić et al. 2007).
Like the Kurdish nîsk, the Armenian osp remains of uncertain origin, but shares its morphology with the neighbouring Kartvelian language, Georgian, with osp'i (Mikić 2010).In some Celtic languages, such as Breton or Manx (Table 1), the words denoting lentil are actually based upon the words denoting pea with added prefixes.Similarly to its word for pea, the Ossetic qaedur is a borrowing from the Caucasian languages.

Pea
There are several Proto-Indo-European roots that initially were or later became associated with pea (Mikić 2009).
The words denoting pea in modern Baltic languages (Table 2) owe their origin to the Proto-Baltic *žirn-ia-, *žirn-iā, denoting both corn and pea, and ultimately to the Proto-Indo-European *g' e r[a]n-, *grān-, also denoting grain and corn (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev 2007).From the Old Baltic tribes, this word was borrowed by their Uralic-speaking neighbours, as witnessed by the Modern Estonian hernes or Modern Finnish herne (Stoddard et al. 2009).
Figure 2. Evolution of the Proto-Indo-European root *lent-Lentil, Pea and Faba Bean and Indo-Europeans Many were the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European root *erəg w [h]-, ereg w (h)o-, erog w (h)o-, meaning of a kernel of leguminous plant and pea (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev 2007) (Fig. 3).One of them was the Proto-Germanic root *arwait=, *arwīt=, denoting pea and having a rich evolution that produced the words for pea in nearly all modern Germanic languages (Table 2).The traces of the words denoting pea in the extinct Germanic languages, especially in those spoken by the tribes that invaded and destroyed the West Roman Empire, still can be found in the local languages and dialects of Italy, such as Bolognese with arvajja or West Lombard with erbion, and Spain, with arbeyu in both Asturian and Leonese.In Modern Spanish, the original Germanic words also exist in the form of arveja, as one of the words denoting pea, and alverjón, arvejo or arvejote, all denoting grass pea.It is noteworthy that the said original Proto-Indo-European root also gave Latin ervum, with a meaning shifted from original pea to bitter vetch, but shifted back to pea in Modern Galician and Modern Portuguese.
A consistent uniformity of the words denoting pea in modern Slavic languages is a consequence of a rather good preservation of the Proto-Slavic word for this species, *gorhŭ (Vasmer 1953).This root, in its turn, was derived from the Proto-Indo-European *ghArs-, ghers-2, denoting a leguminous plant in general (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev 2007).These Slavic forms were borrowed by the neighbouring languages such as Albanian, as gróshë and denoting common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), and Aromanian, as grãshac and with the retained original meaning.
The only attested Proto-Indo-European root denoting pea is *kek-, *k'ik'-, kîkêr-, that changed its original meaning in all its descendants, in which it started to denote chickpea, except Old Prussian, an extinct Baltic language, where it was preserved (Nikolaev 2007) (Fig. 4).
The Proto-Indo-European root*pis-, meaning to pound, to thresh (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev, 2007) is an ultimate source of the words denoting pea in majority of the modern Italic, that is, Romance languages (Table 1).This root evolved into the Latin verb pīnsō, -ere, with the same meaning, that, in its turn, gave the well-known pisum (Mikić et al. 2012).This is a fine example of how the words denoting an action, in this case threshing the pea seeds from pods, finally becomes the word that denote the species (Mikić and Stoddard 2009).The Latin pisum was borrowed into other Indo-European, such as Albanian, all modern Brythonic and Goidelic Celtic languages (Macbain 1911), English and Greek, as well as non -Indo-European languages, such as the neighbouring Altaic language, Turkish, in the form of bezelye (Nişanyan 2002).
The word denoting pea in Armenian, olor, is of uncertain origin.The Kurdish polik could be a borrowing from the Semitic languages, namely Arabic, with fūl-, or Hebrew, with pōl (Militarev 2006).The Ossetic tymbylqaedur was borrowed from the neighbouring Caucasian languages, where the Proto -Caucasian root *qŏr'ā denotes pea (Nikolayev & Starostin 1994).The Romanian mazăre is of pre-Roman, Dacian, origin and is related to the Albanian modhë, its alternative word denoting pea.The most widely used word denoting pea in Spanish, guisante, has a common origin with the French gousse, denoting pod, in the Latin vulva, meaning envelope (Mikić et al. 2012).

Faba bean
Similarly to lentil, the words related to faba bean in the modern Indo-European languages and reveal another example of a remarkable degree of mutual similarity.It is commonly regarded that the Proto-Indo-European root denoting faba bean was *bhabh-, bhabhā, meaning literally something swelling (Pokorny 1959, Nikolaev 2007).Among its close descendants are 1) the supposed Proto-Albanian root *bhakā, giving the form in Modern Albanian, 2) the Old Prussian baba and babo, 3) the Proto-Germanic *bau-nō (n-), responsible for the words all modern Germanic and all modern Goidelic Celtic languages (Macbain 1911), 4) haba in the extinct Faliscan and faba in Latin, with the latter being ultimate source of the words all modern Italic and all three surviving Brythonic Celtic languages, and 5) the Proto-Slavic *bobŭ, retaining almost unchanged in all its living descendants (Vasmer 1953) and being imported into Romanian as bob and Romani as boba.Old Greek is the only language where the original Proto-Indo-European meaning was changed and, in the form of φακóς, shifted to denote lentil (Mikić 2011).
Together with the Georgian lobio, the Armenian word lobi could be a borrowing of the Old Greek lobós, denoting a pod of leguminous plants and with an ultimate origin in the Proto-Indo-European root *leb-, denoting blade (Nikolaev 2007).

Conclusions
In most cases, the words denoting lentil, pea and faba bean demonstrate a considerable uniformity in morphology, especially within individual branches of the Indo-European language family.They also reveal the traces of mutual exchanges among the languages of different Indo-European branches, as well as between them on one side and those of the non-Indo -European families on another side.
Despite a rather preliminary character of the this lexicological research and its incompleteness, the collected results may provide to an equal extent contemporary plant scientists, archaeobotanists and linguists with more testimonies how important grain legumes such as pea, lentil or faba bean must have always been in the everyday life of the forefathers of the modern Indo-European nations of Europe and their non-Indo-European neighbours, as well as to conceive another interdisciplinary collaboration between natural and social sciences.

Figure 1 .
Figure1.Map of Indo-European migrations from about 4,000 to 1,000 BC; the pink-coloured area corresponds to the assumed Proto-Indo-European homeland, the red-coloured area denotes the area settled up to 2,500 BCE and the orangecoloured area reached by 1,000 BCE(Beckwith 2009)

Table 1 .
Words denoting lentil in modern Indo-European languages of Europe

Table 2 .
Words denoting pea in modern Indo-European languages of Europe

Table 3 .
The words denoting faba bean in modern Indo-European languages of Europe