Satem

Diachronic map showing the areas of languages centum (blue) and satem (red). Those who are supposed to originate from satemization are marked in dark red.

The word satem refers to a group of Indo-European languages that underwent a phonetic change consisting of the palatalization of certain consonants. The word is taken from the Avestan satem 'hundred', a language that is given as an example of the evolution of the Proto-Indo-European root for "hundred" in the other daughter languages that share this phonetic evolution. at the time of the gladiators in Thrace.

Satem and Centum languages

The common feature of the satem languages is the palatalization of the Indo-European phoneme *ḱ; (palatal), which would remain in the new languages derived from Indo-European as an affricate (č) or sibilant (š or s).

This is because the three Indo-European ridge series evolve differently in these new satem-derived languages: *kʷ (labiovelar) and *k (velar) become velars and *ḱ; (palatal) would lead to an affricate or sibilant.

According to this criterion, it was common to divide the Indo-European languages into two groups called satem languages and centum languages, the former being those that exhibit palatalization and the latter those that do not.. Thus the word 'hundred', which in Latin would evolve into centum and is pronounced /kentum/ without change in the Indo-European palatal, while in Avestan it is satem, attesting to the transition from k to s. The languages that have this element of differentiation belong to the eastern branch of Indo-European.

Rebuttal

However, many linguists do not accept this criterion as a reliable phylogenetic criterion for dividing the family into two branches, for various reasons. Among them is the fact that palatalization or satemization could have occurred independently in several branches, after the first division of the family. Nor does it appear that the languages satem and centum give rise to a proto-satem and a proto-centum. For example, Greek and Indo-Aryan seem to be traceable to a common branch of Indo-European, even though the first group is centum and the second satem. In addition, Italian is today a satem, language, since the word cento 'hundred' is pronounced with an initial affricate (IPA /ʧɛnto/), despite the fact that it comes from from Latin, a language belonging to the centum group.

Although, as mentioned, the languages of the satem group that shared the palatalization were considered to form a group, the evidence of the closeness between Greek and Armenian suggests that the groups satem and centum are polyphletic and not valid phylogenetic groups. Furthermore, the original idea that the Indo-European family divided into two branches early has been rejected by the available evidence. It is generally accepted that it divided into seven branches as shown in the following phylogenetic tree:

In addition, even though it is a phonetic change of great interest, it is not the only decisive element that differentiates the Indo-European group into two branches.

Languages of the satem group

The satem language groups would be: Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Baltic, Slavic, the Albanian group and perhaps a number of poorly documented and already dead languages, such as Thracian and the dacian

Examples of satemization

Proto-Indo-European palato-velars *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ become affricates and fricatives in the daughter languages.

In Sanskrit, *ḱ becomes ś [ ʃ ], in Avestan, Russian and Armenian to s, in Lithuanian to š [ ʃ ] and in Albanian to th [ θ ].