A Consonantal-Semantic Continuity Hypothesis Between Sumerian/Akkadian Lexemes and Selected Later Eurasian Forms: A Pilot Corpus of Fourteen High-Stability Examples

Abstract

Historical linguistics traditionally relies on documented phonological transmission and identifiable intermediary stages in order to establish etymological descent. Yet in deep chronological strata such uninterrupted documentary continuity is frequently absent, fragmentary, or permanently lost. This creates an underexamined lexical zone in which potentially meaningful long-range correspondences are often dismissed in advance because classical attestation chains cannot be reconstructed.

The present study proposes a supplementary comparative framework based on two jointly occurring criteria: consonantal skeleton preservation and semantic continuity. The central claim is that when the principal consonantal frame of an ancient lexeme remains recognizably traceable in a later lexical form, and when the semantic field remains identical or near-identical, the cumulative probability of purely accidental convergence decreases substantially.

To test this proposition, fourteen high-stability lexical correspondences were conservatively selected from Sumerian and Akkadian lexical materials and compared with later Turkish, Semitic, and international forms. Only examples exhibiting low reconstructive strain, strong semantic overlap, and visible consonantal retention were admitted into the pilot corpus.

The resulting lexical density suggests that certain ancient Mesopotamian consonantal-semantic nuclei may have survived, diffused, or remained stabilized across long temporal spans more frequently than standard documentary etymology currently allows. The article therefore argues not for simplistic universal descent, but for the scholarly legitimacy of probability-sensitive deep lexical comparison.