Pūraw

Pūraw is one of the five original shared human languages.¹ It emerged in the Levant in 12,900 BP and had been entirely phased out and replaced by successors by 9,000 BP.

Origin

The Natufans were hunter-gatherers, but the warm and resource-rich environment along the coastline in the Levant during the Chormosian Turning allowed them to give up their nomadic lifestyle. They built permanent shelters near the water that they could return to after hunting trips. This new sedentary lifestyle emerged gradually during the 14th Millennium BP. Having consistent places of residence led to continuous and consistent communication among neighboring families. This led to a standardization of communication over time, resulting in the Pūraw language.

Development

Pūraw remained a regional language in the Levant throughout the Paukos Eisom. Rapid warming in the early centuries of the Polwes Pleudō led to a population explosion among the Natufans and increased exploration, as well as populations in Europe moving southward into regions such as Birit Narim and the Levant.³
In 9,500 BP a Natufan clan in northern Levant joined up with some Zarzian explorers who followed the coastline northward and westward, through Anadolu and settling in Cycladia to establish Pelasgian culture. The pidgin they created from the mix of Pūraw with Lipī, the language of the Zarzians, gave rise to the Pelasgian language Kapte.

Extinction

Meanwhile, back in the Levant, the increased trade and interaction with other cultures caused Natufan culture to evolve, making the transition to Mureybetian culture. One element of this transition was a simplification of Pūraw to make it easier for travellers to learn, and the adoption of trade-related loan words, so that by 9,000 BP or so Pūraw had evolved into its successor language Karā'um.

Source Region

Levant

Source Culture

Natufan People

Spoken by

• Natufan People

Successor Languages

• Tamazight
• Karā'um

Used From

12,900 BP

Used Until

9,000 BP

Writing System(s)

none²

Maps and Diagrams

Homeland of Pūraw in 12,900 BP

Migration history of the Pūraw language family

The paths of descendants of the Pūraw language are shown in blue, along with land area losses (blue) due to flooding during the same period of time.

1. A "shared" language is a language that is used by a population larger than one or two extended family clans. Shared languages began to arise among groups of human clans that were sedentary or semi-nomadic, and in settings that incentivized cooperation. This created incentive for the simplification and standardization of communication across larger populations. Five shared languages emerged independently among humans at different times and in different regions. These five original shared languages, in order of appearance, were:

• Kx’wi (22,350 BP - 18,950 BP)
• Vadana Lipī (14,500 BP - 8,000 BP)
• Pūraw (12,900 - 9,000 BP)
• Yék (10,510 BP - 4,550 BP)
• Yányǔ (9,900 BP - 4,950 BP)

Although isolated clan languages, unrelated to these shared languages, persisted in pockets of the world for a very long time, every shared language that has existed throughout human history has been either a derivation of or creole between one or more of these five original shared languages.
2. Among the five original shared languages, three (Yék, Pūraw, and Kx’wi) emerged from sound communication and never had a writing system associated with them (although their successor languages did), and two ( Vadana Lipī and Yányǔ) co-developed with their own writing systems from the very beginning. Some people have hypothesized an association between the early development of writing systems and food cultivation, because Kx’wi and Pūraw emerged in foraging cultures while Vadana Lipī and Yányǔ emerged in farming and grain cultivation cultures. Yék does not fit this pattern, however, having not written component yet emerging from a farming and herding culture. Some researchers have suggested that this anomaly might be a side-effect of the disruption of the Samra people by the Euxine Lake Flood, while others are skeptical of the hypothesized connection between farming and writing altogether.
3. The influence of Pūraw spread northward over time, which meant that it was coming into contact with people who were fleeing southward after the Polwes Pleudō flooding in Skáney, Daganzi, and Avalonia. As a result, some of the earliest inscriptions of flood stories can be found in Pūraw successor languages despite the fact that there had been no notable floods in the Levant during Polwes Pleudō or any turnings that came after it.

Languages Index

Type Key

• Family Root Language
• Successor Language
• Cross-Family Creole

The Five First Languages

First Shared Languages

Coastlines and climatic conditions are shown for each region as they appeared when the language first formed in that region.