[HN Gopher] New insights into the origin of the Indo-European la... ___________________________________________________________________ New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages Author : Archelaos Score : 188 points Date : 2023-07-30 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.mpg.de) (TXT) w3m dump (www.mpg.de) | anon84873628 wrote: | For the layperson I highly recommend The History of English | Podcast. Although the focus is on English is starts from square | one with the Proto Indo European people -- what we know about | their culture/technology, the various migrations and branches, | how the language was reconstructed, etc. The host is always | careful to point out how these conclusions were drawn and where | there are competing hypotheses or uncertainty. I love how the | show weaves the evolution of language together with many aspects | of history. | [deleted] | nologic01 wrote: | Its quite difficult to fathom how these early linguistic branches | have sounded around 8000 bc when they have changed so | dramatically from 1000 bc to today. Is there any way (for a | layman) to get a feel about this? | smith34 wrote: | [dead] | abeppu wrote: | > "Ancient DNA and language phylogenetics thus combine to suggest | that the resolution to the 200-year-old Indo-European enigma lies | in a hybrid of the farming and Steppe hypotheses" | | Can someone with a background in this area speak to why the DNA | data is taken to be a strong signal about the origin of language | families? Like, clearly when people move around they generally | take their language with them, but trade, war/political power, | cultural exchange etc also move languages around. | whimsicalism wrote: | > trade, war/political power, cultural exchange etc also move | languages around | | This was much less common in the pre-modern era. One of the | largest learnings of the latter 20th century in this field is | that when language and culture are moving, it typically means a | previous population was displaced, not merely that the same | people adopted a new culture. | AlotOfReading wrote: | Can you clarify a bit more about who did this learning? This | statement is profoundly at odds with what I understand as an | archaeologist. To give one example, Kohler's _Sprachbund_ | paper [1] gives a modern-ish proposal about linguistic | convergence /diffusion that largely avoids demographic | replacement. Are you talking about _discontinuities_ , which | is a related (but critically different) term that's often | used in the literature? | | [1] https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-012-9145-4 | whimsicalism wrote: | Sure - and of course let me preface this by saying I am not | an archaeologist, merely someone who is interested. | | My comment was perhaps overgeneralizing specifically from | the early neolithic transition in Europe more broadly than | I should have been. One example of the work I am discussing | is the work of Cavalli-Sforza (ie | https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.94.15.7719). My | understanding of the history of academic work on this | subject was the prior to the 1970s or 80s or so, it was | largely thought the spread of agriculture did not imply | genetic population replacement and subsequent genetic | research has since proven that is false. | | I don't think the article you've linked actually disagrees | with me. Excerpting briefly | | > Essentially, in the Pueblo Southwest, language became | partially decoupled from genes and culture, probably | because language is a stronger convention (Young 1966) than | are the other two, and can therefore better withstand the | blending forces discussed below. A second force for | creating zones of cultural similarity, more applicable to | the case of phylogenetically distinct groups considered | here, is through mixture of groups via movement of people | ("demic" diffusion) that also entrained sharing of culture. | To the extent that this describes the Pueblo case, once | again, such mixing could not to have been so extreme as to | undermine the linguistic differences that still survive. | Recent research (e.g., Kandler 2009) provides some guidance | as to the factors determining which language will prevail | when linguistically different groups come into contact. The | relative sizes of the populations, their relative status, | and the duration of the flow are all relevant. To the | extent that emigrating populations were relatively low in | status, small in number, and arriving sporadically, it is | more likely that they would adopt, rather than displace, | the language of any group they were entering. Of course | cultural similarities among groups can also emerge without | population movement by copying neighboring groups, a | process that anthropologists once simply called diffusion | (e.g., Sahlins 1960). In the terms used by Collard et al. | (2006), both movement of people among groups and this | horizontal cultural transmission among groups are blending | processes, as opposed to the branching processes discussed | in the previous paragraph. | | To me, this article seems to be attempting to explain the | cultural similarity between (at least originally) disparate | linguistic Pueblo groups (that largely, afaict from the | article, share common genetics). In the paragraph above, | you can see that the author is describing population | migration and displacement as one of the key ways for | cultural/linguistic transfer (especially when the | populations moving are large) that 'can also' emerge | without displacement, but I understand the article to be | describing this as a minoritarian current - an _exception_ | to the broader pattern of pre-modern linguistic & cultural | spread through displacement. | AlotOfReading wrote: | Yeah, the situation with the European neolithic | transition is one where there's a substantial amount of | population discontinuity and people are partial to | replacement specifically, though there's still some | debate as to the exact nature and timeline of that | replacement. For example, I've excavated areas with | centuries of coexistence between foragers and early | sedentary farmers during the neolithic transition, which | makes the more universally violent replacement theories | look a bit suspect. This is very a feature particular to | Europe and older theories (~70s-90s) though and not | common to modern Asian, or Americanist archaeologists. | | As an aside, Cavalli-Sforza was a legendary figure, but a | lot of this stuff has benefited from powerful new tools | like eDNA and effective aDNA that he never had much of a | chance to speak on. | | For Kohler's paper, I'd point to the summary as a better | example of what I was trying to communicate: | Evidently, though, powerful blending forces were also at | work. These included local exogamy, which, on the borders | of linguistic groups, led to blending, movement of | traders among increasingly sedentary groups, movements | forced on populations increasingly reliant on agriculture | by changing climates, and movements forced on | increasingly large and sedentary groups by anthropogenic | depression of local resources. One of my goals in this | article has been to add convergent evolution to this | list. This would have been driven by adaptive | considerations, possibly bootstrapped by additional | blending processes such as indirectly biased cultural | transmission across groups (Mesoudi and O'Brien 2008). | Together, these blending forces created the Pueblo | culture area and Sprachbund. | | The Pueblo cultural area isn't particularly unique in | this respect. There's been a broad _complexification_ of | transition theories in archaeology, where specific common | explanations are subsumed by everything everywhere all at | once. Population replacement in particular has gone from | being the default explanation for every new | archaeological horizon to being a much more localized, | one-of-many explanation. | blahedo wrote: | As also pointed out in some other threads: it's less that it's | dispositive evidence, and more that it corroborates. If you | have what seems like a good linguistic theory backed by | language phylogenetics or other linguistic-only evidence, and | then you do some DNA work and it lines up, that tends to make | the linguistic theory stronger, because it at least verifies | that humans were moving in the patterns suggested by the | language drift. But it's not a "strong signal" by itself, | because there are many ways for languages to disperse other | than within family groups. | pessimizer wrote: | Trade, war, and political power also move genetics around. | ekianjo wrote: | Because people moved a lot less and much slower than now so DNA | is a good proxy? | Roark66 wrote: | I find it fascinating modern humans are thought to have evolved | 300k years ago, but we haven't got any idea what happened before | last ice age. I find it hard to believe people would just "stay | in Africa" prior to last ice age (120k years ago and before) when | the moment climate allowed it (~10k years ago) they spread out | all over the planet. | kjkjadksj wrote: | That narrative is changing. Scientists are starting to think | the peopling of the americas happened a lot earlier than we | previously to believed. | | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586 | idoubtit wrote: | What is funny is that there's been a consensus for many years | in Europe that Hominids arrived in America at least 30,000 | years ago. There were several artefacts that made the | hypothesis very plausible. But most North American scientist | were vigorously opposed to it, until this recent proof that's | harder to deny. | | By the way, this is unrelated to the GP post which was about | hominids walking out of Africa, more than 1M years before | entering America. | cco wrote: | In the early 2000's my anthropology courses at a large US | university presented 13kya as basically certain and that | maybe up to 27kya but that the evidence was pretty early. | | Perhaps there was more pushback in archeology? | AlotOfReading wrote: | Well that's certainly one hell of a claim. It's one I feel | like I should know about considering I've worked with | European researchers on human presence in the arctic in the | LGM, but I've never heard of this "consensus". Can you | provide some more info? | | As an aside, the white sands footprints aren't "proof". | They're interesting and highly suggestive, but significant | concerns remain about the quality of the dating, let alone | transbering crossings in the LGM without implicating things | like the sketchy refugia hypothesis. It'll be a few years | before all that shakes out and we have anything approaching | consensus on the matter. | lkrubner wrote: | At this point the argument isn't that people stayed in Africa, | but that everyone outside of Africa died. At this point the 3 | oldest fossils we have that look like homo sapiens are all from | Morocco or the Levant or Greece, suggesting homo sapiens first | evolved near the Mediterranean. But at some time between 50k | and 20k years ago, all humans outside of Africa seemed to have | died: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Sapiens, all of them. | | Regarding the older finds of Sapiens, when we find DNA traces | and compare them to modern DNA, we are not able to find any | modern population that is descended from any of this Sapien | DNA, outside of Africa, that is older than even 25k. | | It is well known that Sapiens arrived in Spain 40k years ago | and that they demonstrated modern behavior: arts, music, | advanced hunting tools, but DNA analysis suggests this group | disappeared entirely, no trace of their DNA is found in | existing European populations. The picture then is that 75k ago | Eurasia was covered with humans, of at least 3 or 4 different | species, and all of them died, and then Eurasia was repopulated | by a burst of homo sapiens that radiated out from Africa. | | Of course, this picture would change if we ever found some old | DNA, outside of Africa, that could also be matched to DNA in a | surviving group of humans. | cco wrote: | > At this point the 3 oldest fossils we have that look like | homo sapiens are all from Morocco or the Levant or Greece, | suggesting homo sapiens first evolved near the Mediterranean. | | This is fascinating and new to me, can you provide any | articles or podcasts that discuss it? | username135 wrote: | Seconded | lkrubner wrote: | I've been meaning to write this up in one place, and maybe | this week would be a good time to do so. | | I thought the news from Morocco was now well known, see | here: | | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.22114 | | Homo sapiens and some other form of human were living in | the Levant 200,000 years ago: | | https://www.earth.com/news/new-type-of-prehistoric-human- | fou... | | The reference to the skulls found on an island Greece, I'll | need time to track that one down. | Ericson2314 wrote: | Are you saying it is less that homo sapiens out-competed the | others than the ice age knocked out everyone? | | How does that comport with modern humans still having some | admixture from them? | CogitoCogito wrote: | Modern humans having some admixture from them doesn't | contradict the idea that the ice age was the bigger problem | than direct competition. | lkrubner wrote: | My own guess would be the final years of the Ice Age saw | too many changes in the northern hemisphere, erratic | weather that wiped out everyone, but I have not seen that | in an official source, except in discussions of | Neanderthals. | | Modern Humans can be an admixture of several species if the | ancestors to modern humans either migrated south to Africa | or continued to survive in some place like Arabia, but | perhaps we just haven't found the right fossil yet. | Assuming Sapiens and Neanderthals mixed together in the | Levant then they either survived in the Levant or they | moved south into Africa and then later expanded out of | Africa. | throwaway290 wrote: | > It is well known that Sapiens arrived in Spain 40k years | ago and that they demonstrated modern behavior: arts, music, | advanced hunting tools | | Anyone to whom this is complete news? How did they manage | this all without wheels? | lkrubner wrote: | See here: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_modern_humans | | This population in Belgium and Spain seems to have died | out: | | "Earlier EEMH (10 tested in total), on the other hand, did | not seem to be ancestral to any present-day population, nor | did they form any cohesive group in and of themselves, each | representing either completely distinct genetic lineages, | admixture between major lineages, or have highly divergent | ancestry. Because of these, the study also concluded that, | beginning roughly 37,000 years ago, EEMH descended from a | single founder population and were reproductively isolated | from the rest of the world. The study reported that an | Aurignacian individual from Grottes de Goyet, Belgium, has | more genetic affinities to the Magdalenian inhabitants of | Cueva de El Miron, Spain, than to more or less | contemporaneous Eastern European Gravettians.[15]" | | The population in Spain apparently had music, as this flute | is dated to 40k years ago: | | https://www.quora.com/Did-Cro-Magnons-have-music | [deleted] | ch4s3 wrote: | > How did they manage this all without wheels? | | Walking, and at least for the people in North America | probably canoes. | throwaway290 wrote: | "Modern behavior", not getting places... | rustymonday wrote: | Aboriginal Australians migrated to Australia 65,000 years | ago. | NotSuspicious wrote: | Yeah, OP's timeline is incredibly off. It has absolutely no | bearing to reality. | idoubtit wrote: | As pointed by | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_moder... | it seems that modern humans went of out Africa in many waves at | various eras. It's not surprising, the other Homo genus did the | same. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | A big part of the challenge is that most of the areas that | might have been inhabited before the last ice age are now | underwater. | | Really hard for early artefacts to survive being under the | ocean for 10k years. | | Nonetheless, I think its fair to say now that we can at least | push back the timeline for early civilized settlements to at | least the time of Gobekli Tepe (~10k years). | CorrectHorseBat wrote: | We know a bit more than that | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_human_settleme... | ledgerdev wrote: | You should check out Randal Carlson on Joe Rogan, and this is a | very interesting video on the topic. | | https://youtu.be/3qXuAzzVOTQ | xkjyeah wrote: | The book Pathogenesis published this year has a hypothesis -- | diseases from the Neanderthals and other hominids who populated | the regions outside Africa earlier wiped out the earlier waves | of Sapiens. | | Until diseases spread back and forth enough that Sapiens had | enough immunity to non-Sapien diseases, but not vice versa (due | to lower population density or less diverse fauna outside | Africa) which wiped out the non-Sapiens populations outside | Africa. | smith34 wrote: | [dead] | teleforce wrote: | Fun facts, the oldest attestation of Indo-European language is | now the long extinct language Hittite. The language is attested | in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th to the 13th | centuries BCE. | | Hittite people created an empire centred on Hattusa, and also | around northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia [1]. | | [1]Hittite language: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language | canjobear wrote: | Hittite is also interesting because it provided one of the | biggest validations of the methodology for reconstructing | languages. Based on subtle patterns in vowels in other Indo- | European languages, Saussure was able to figure out that there | must have been three "laryngeal" consonants in Proto-Indo- | European which were lost in all the attested languages. And lo | and behold, when Hittite was deciphered, there were the | laryngeal consonants right where the philologers had predicted | them. | dmichulke wrote: | How can you determine that a consonant was "laryngeal" | (voiced?) from text? | jfengel wrote: | Laryngeal refers to the place of articulation (where the | air stream is constricted). They are pronounced way in the | back of the throat, like the glottal stop. Even further | back than things like Greek chi or German ch. | smitty1e wrote: | For an interesting example using ancient Egyptian, see | https://youtu.be/J-K5OjAkiEA | canjobear wrote: | The laryngeal consonants were guttural sounds produced in | the back of the throat, like English h, German ch, Arabic | `ayn or qaf, etc. We don't know exactly what the | pronunciations were, but in other existing languages, | laryngeal sounds like this tend to have an effect on the | surrounding vowels. This happens because your tongue has to | movie continuously between the sounds it produces, and so | there's some blurring that happens between adjacent sounds. | | In particular, laryngeal sounds tend to make vowels near | them become more back, low, and round. So for example | before a uvular q sound in Arabic, the sound /a/ which is | usually something like English a in cat will become back | and low, something more like au in caught. You can get a | process like this, playing out over hundreds of years: | | 1. You start with a form like Hewis, where H is some | laryngeal sound. | | 2. The laryngeal sound makes the following vowel low and | back, yielding Hawis. | | 3. The laryngeal sound drops, leaving just awis. | | In fact this is how we get the Indo-European root for | "sheep" (reflected in English ewe, Latin ovis, etc.). The | Hittite form is hawis. | daliusd wrote: | Nice, sheep in Lithuanian is "avis" | (https://lt.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/avis) what I assume | sounds like "hawis" | canjobear wrote: | Yeah, Lithuanian is one of the most conservative Indo- | European languages. | mlinksva wrote: | I did not know the term, but very intuitive https://en.wi | kipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_and_innovative_(l... linked | near the top of | https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Lithuanian_language | | I'd be curious to see some kind of (perhaps multi- | dimensional?) characterization/ranking of all languages' | conservatism and innovation, if anyone happens to have a | pointer. | Sprocklem wrote: | See the video linked in the sister comment for (IIRC) an | excellent discussion of historical reconstruction of sounds | from writing systems, but I can add some clarification to | the matter of laryngeal consonants: they are confusingly | named for historical reasons but consitute three unknown | consonants with a place of articulation towards the back of | the vocal tract (near the larynx). In addition to this | reconstruction, this specific case has the additional | matter of finding consonants in a place where they are | predicted from their influence on the nearby vowels in IE | languages (and, incidentally, the expected vowels), but | where there is otherwise no consonant attested in non- | Anatolian IE languages. | Mlller wrote: | Thank you, that's it: one of the biggest validations of the | methodology for reconstructing languages. - Little nitpicks, | if you allow: | | - Saussure reconstructed only two of the three consonants now | called "laryngeals" and called them "coefficients | sonantiques". Saussure's two sounds would be h2 and h3 in | modern notation. The Danish linguist Moller added the third | (h1) and suggested that they were laryngeals. | | - In Hittite, not all of the laryngeals are preserved: the | Hittite sound transcribed as "h" is certainly not a reflex of | h1, which had no reflexes in Hittite, and it certainly is a | reflex of h2. Whether it can also be a reflex of h3 is | contested. | | (Edit: Your explanation below about the coloring by | laryngeals is also correct in principle; just the specific | example is problematic: because of Latin "ovis", Greek "ois" | we know that the late PIE form was "Howis" with "o" not "a", | either from "h3ewis" with "h3e" - "o" or from "h2owis". The | Hittite word you quoted may be evidence for the latter: | "h2owis" - Hittite "hawis" with uncontested "h2" - "h".) | canjobear wrote: | Thanks, I was pretty sure the details weren't 100% right. | | Another overlooked point is that it wasn't immediately | obvious that the Hittite h was related to Saussure/Moller's | laryngeals, because the theory wasn't fully accepted at the | time, and not everyone understood it. Even after the h was | identified in Hittite, it took a while for people to make | the connection. | | Do you know what Saussure's initial evidence for h2 and h3 | was? | Mlller wrote: | Yes, you are right, and the whole story of the laryngeal | theory is quite exciting. - Saussure's initial evidence | was a set of Sanskrit forms; and his argumentation went | like: | | - There is e.g. a root meaning 'carry' having the full | grade "bkar" and a corresponding zero grade "bkr" (within | the regular ablaut system of Sanskrit). | | - Then there is e.g. a root meaning 'clean' having the | full grade "pavi" and a corresponding zero grade "pu". | | - So we have "bkar" : "pavi" = "bkr" : "pu" or, re- | grouped, "bkar" : "bkr" = "pavi" : "pu". | | - We already know (since the times of the great Indian | grammarians) that, in ablaut, "v" corresponds to "u" | (samprasarana). All synchronic observations, by the way, | about these different kinds of roots were already made by | the Indian grammarians in the first millennium BC, too; | and they called the roots a la "bkar" "anit" 'without i' | and the roots a la "pavi" "set" 'with i'. | | - "bkar" : "bkr" is the regular ablaut pattern | understandable as: 'the full grade has the short vowel | ("a" in Sanskrit, "e" in PIE), the zero grade lacks it.' | | - Saussures brilliant and simple idea was to trace back | "pavi" : "pu" to this very same basic pattern. | | - To make this work he assumed a sound in the | 'clean'-root that became "i" between consonants but | vanished with compensatory lengthening after sonantic | "u". (Saussure denoted this sound here with the cover | symbol "A" in small caps.) So the older, regular pattern | can be reconstructed as (in more modern notation): | | - "bkar" : "bkr" = "pavH" : "puH", which yields: | | - "bkar" : "bkr" = "pavi" : "pu" as attested. | | This argumentation is fairly compelling IMHO because it | complies with Occam's razor by assuming that a second | complicated, seemingly irregular morphological pattern | leads back to the simpler, regular pattern we have to | assume anyways, and that this simpler pattern was | complicated by sound change - which is the normal way of | linguistic change. | | But it got even better. | | - Saussure then drew attention to the Sanskrit verb | formations of the seventh and ninth class (again, already | classified and extensively described by the Indian | grammarians), which both had an infix, i.e. a | morphological element inserted into the root (not | prepended like a prefix or appended like a suffix): | | - 7th, e.g. "yunakti" 'yokes (up)' (the English word is a | cognate), built like "yu*na*k-ti" with zero grade "yug" | (and "g" - "k" before voiceless "t"), "na"-infix and | personal ending "ti". | | - 9th, e.g. "punati" 'cleans' - our pavi/pu-root again. | But now with a short "u"? And with an infix "na" instead | of "na" as in "yunakti"? So ... "u" instead of "u" and | "na" instead of "na" ... and both _is already explained_ | by the coefficient, because then we _have_ to | reconstruct: | | - "pu*na*H-ti", because the na-infix had to be inserted | before the last consonant of the root. And this formation | "pu*na*H-ti" is, again, exactly the same pattern as: | | - "yu*na*k-ti", just with "H" : "k". | | So far this argument justifies to assume one | "coefficient", in the case of the "pavi"-root denoted as | "A" (in small caps) by Saussure and "h2" nowadays. | Saussure assumed two - denoting the other as "O", | nowadays "h3" - because he also already noticed the | coloring effect you explained in your comment below: The | compensatorily lengthened Sanskrit "a" sometimes | corresponds to e.g. Greek and Latin "a", sometimes to | Greek and Latin "o"; for the latter Saussure introduced | the "O". His argumentation here is more difficult and | partly outdated, because he wrote his memoire (published | 1879) in a time when another major discovery was not yet | fully taken into account: So far, Indo-Europeanists had | assumed that Sanskrit "a" originated from Proto-Indo- | European "a". When Saussure wrote his memoire, it had | become clear that it was necessary to assume at least two | diffent vowels here, which both became Indian "a". | dghughes wrote: | For anything languages, writing systems, abjads, scripts and so | on I like https://omniglot.com/ it's a great site very | detailed. | euroderf wrote: | It might be interesting to see whether this affects current | thinking about the plausibility of Indo-Uralic. (Probably not | much, if it all.) | ninja-ninja wrote: | As an Armenian speaker i was pretty surprised at this part | | > Recent ancient DNA data suggest that the Anatolian branch of | Indo-European did not emerge from the Steppe, but from further | south, in or near the northern arc of the Fertile Crescent -- as | the earliest source of the Indo-European family. Our language | family tree topology, and our lineage split dates, point to other | early branches that may also have spread directly from there, not | through the Steppe." | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Worth pointing out that Armenian is not a descendent of the | Anatolian branch (if you didn't know that already). The whole | Anatolian tree of Indo-European (Hittite, Luwian, Lydian, etc.) | is extinct; the languages there were displaced completely in | the late Bronze age and early Iron Age. | skrebbel wrote: | Why did that surprise you, as an Armenian speaker? | ninja-ninja wrote: | idk in school they really go ham on how exactly our language | has elements from the "core" of the indo-european branch, not | sure how well the steppe works with the narrative | cmrdporcupine wrote: | It's irrelevant, as I point out below. Armenian is not an | Anatolian language despite it existing in the Anatolian | region. | | The Anatolian languages are all extinct, and Armenian has | its origins out of the Yamnaya migration out of the steppe | just like the rest of living Indo-European languages. | | Armenian is Armenian, not related to Hittite, Luwian, etc. | of the Bronze age in any way except as extremely distant | cousins. | dghughes wrote: | >...may also have spread directly from there, not through the | Steppe. | | My guess is they assumed it came through the steppe i.e. from | the north, not their region the south/Caucasus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis | jmclnx wrote: | Seems a third theory, the other 2 existing theories are in the | article | | >Recent ancient DNA data suggest that the Anatolian branch of | Indo-European did not emerge from the Steppe, but from further | south, in or near the northern arc of the Fertile Crescent | briffid wrote: | I don't get it. DNA is about people, Indo-European is about | language. DNA tells nothing about what language those people | spoke thousands of years ago. | mytailorisrich wrote: | It helps to map migrations and thus spread of languages. | bradrn wrote: | There is a saying I've seen: 'genes don't speak languages'. | Languages can easily spread between population groupings, | and conversely a single population can move from one | language to another -- and both processes happen with | considerable regularity. (Consider what happened to Gaulish | as Latin spread, or Hittite as Greek spread, or Ancient | Egyptian as Arabic spread, or...) | guerrilla wrote: | Indeed, Renfew gives two models for how this is possible. | One is called the wave model where trade and integration | causes language propagation and the other is conquest | where one group dominates over a neighbor who eventually | adopts the dominion's language. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > or Ancient Egyptian as Arabic spread | | By that period in history, you'd usually call it Coptic, | not (the much older) Ancient Egyptian. | bradrn wrote: | Yeah, I know. I presume more readers here would be | familiar with the name 'Ancient Egyptian' than with | 'Coptic'. | | (And really, as it evolved so dramatically over 3000 | years, 'Ancient Egyptian' can't easily be called a single | language to start with. I tend to think of Coptic as | simply the latest stage of Ancient Egyptian.) | Archelaos wrote: | The idea is that the historical migration patterns inferred | from DNA match the branching of Indo-European languages of | their new linguistic model, which therefore should be | considered superior to earlier models. | guerrilla wrote: | You're very right to point this out. It's one of Colin | Renfew's* main attacks on other hypotheses. As I mentioned in | my other comment, it's not automatically given that people | will form a consensus that this methodology is acceptable as | variations of methodology have been the main source of | controversy on this issue in the past. | | * originator of the Anatolian hypothesis | johnmyleswhite wrote: | People migrate -- they always bring their DNA with them and | their language. No? The connections between these have been | studied for a long time -- for example, this popular book was | published 20 years ago: | https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520228733/genes-peoples- | and... | Sharlin wrote: | A nice counter-example is Finnish (and other Finno-Ugric | languages) - back in the early 1900s it was argued that | Finns as an ethnicity must have originated from the Urals | because the language seemed to have its roots there. | (Notably in the era's racial "science" this had clear | racist implications.) But modern genetics have revealed | that the origins of the people are quite separate from the | origins of the language. | euroderf wrote: | Indeed this is so, but where does one find further | information online (or not online) ? Such a case where | language and genetics do not align is unusual in the | world, but I have read that there are a few cases. Mostly | associated with conquest and/or assimilation IIRC. | Ericson2314 wrote: | This is very common. The Romans did not genocide and | repopulate everywhere they conquered, for example. A lot | of romance language speakers genetically contiguous with | Celts and other such things. | | And going back further there is evidence of genetic | continuity with pre-Indo-European European populations | too. | skrebbel wrote: | Turks are commonly said to be Mediterranean people with a | Central Asian language. No clue about how true this is | genetically but anecdotally I think Turks look quite | similar to Greeks and Italians, and not much to eg | Turkmen. | bradrn wrote: | But, on the other hand, 'While in most populations genetic | and linguistic relations match, mismatches occur regularly | as a result of language shift': | https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2122084119 | thaumasiotes wrote: | People can change their language. Hungary and Turkey speak | the languages of conquerors who have left very little | genetic trace. (France is in a similar position!) Many | Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for reasons | unknown to us. Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a | non-Germanic people. The Chinese of Thailand often cannot | speak any Chinese (they speak Thai). | | I assume the argument here is that if you see a huge | linguistic expansion and a huge demographic expansion | occurring at the same time, you can reasonably conclude | that they are the same phenomenon and the expanding | language is spoken by the expanding people. But the | language and the people are not in general the same; people | may voluntarily adopt a foreign language without moving | (compare India and English) and they may fail to bring | their language with them when they move. They cannot avoid | bringing their DNA with them, but it will die out when they | do, which their language may not. | retrac wrote: | > I assume the argument here is that if you see a huge | linguistic expansion and a huge demographic expansion | occurring at the same time, you can reasonably conclude | that they are the same phenomenon and the expanding | language is spoken by the expanding people. | | That's a lot to assume, though. One possible | counterexample is contemporary North America. The | English-speaking population spread across the continent | in a linked process, the same phenomenon, but the | majority contribution genetically, is not from England. | There are communities in North America where almost no | one is of English ancestry, yet they are English- | speaking. | | The same sort of social/demographic upheavals and changes | that can create large language spread, are also the same | kind that can create homogenization towards a single | language despite people speaking many languages. | alephnerd wrote: | Your point is correct, but because this is HN, I'm going | to be ridiculously pedantic and correct 2 statements in | your example. | | > The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese | (they speak Thai) | | That was because of forced assimilation in the 1930s-50s | by their proto-Fascist dictator. | | > Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic | people | | Because there was plenty of intermarriage and the | community was in Central Europe since Roman times | bradrn wrote: | I think that _is_ their point. Languages often spread by | processes unrelated to genetics. | thaumasiotes wrote: | In the case of Thailand, the same political forces | pressured the Chinese into intermarrying with the Thai, | so genetics do come into play. But a clean victory was | won over language; that didn't happen with genetics. | canjobear wrote: | These seem like explanations, not corrections? | sdiq wrote: | >Many Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for | reasons unknown to us. | | Amharic isn't the only Semitic language spoken in | Ethiopia. We have other Semitic languages spoken both in | Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is just the Red Sea that divides | these two countries from the other Semitic speaking | countries. Yemen, across the sea has other Semitic | languages other than Arabic. Also, just like Indo- | European is a large grouping of languages, the Semitic | languages are ordinarily grouped under Afro-Asiatic | languages. Thus, besides some of the Semitic languages | spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, we also have two other | subgroups of Afro-Asiatic namely, Cushitic and Omotic | languages that are also spoken in Ethiopia. Amharic thus | is well contextualised for Ethiopia. | thaumasiotes wrote: | The fact remains that you would not expect to see black | Africans speaking any Afroasiatic language without some | kind of significant cultural shock. The reason those | languages are in Ethiopia ( / Nigeria / etc. ) today is | not that Ethiopia is populated by the descendants of an | originally afroasiatic group. Something must have | happened. | mtts wrote: | Nigeria is all the way on the other side of the African | content while the Arabian peninsula is right across the | very narrow Red Sea. So it would make less sense for | Ethiopians to speak a language that's related to | languages spoken thousands of kms away in West Africa | than for them to speak a language that's related to the | languages spoken on the other side of the Red Sea - which | is exactly what they do. | | Edit: also, if you look at pictures of Ethiopians and | Eritreans and of Yemenites you'll see they're way more | similar in appearance than Ethiopians and, say, | Nigerians. | bangkoksbest wrote: | Yeah, my wife is Ethiopian and she was shocked to see in | TV news coverage how "Ethiopian" a lot of the Houthi | rebels in Yemen looked, but this is actually not | surprising once you know the histories of the Horn of | Africa and Red Sea at a greater detail. | trompetenaccoun wrote: | The Semitic languages are Afroasiatic languages. I agree | with your general point but ironically you yourself now | try to link language to genetics (skin color). | | In the horn of Africa they've always spoken Semitic | languages as far as we know, and actually it's possible | the entire language family originated in Africa, not in | West Asia as I guess you assume. This hasn't been proven | one way or another, both theories exist. | Ericson2314 wrote: | Ethopians also just don't really look very much like west | African (Niger-Congo speakers, but it is nonsense to | presume Ethopians area "hybrid" population while west | African Niger-Congo speakers and west Asian Semitic | speakers are are "basal". | mdp2021 wrote: | The direct answer, you have been given: we suppose leads | between migration and cultural propagation. | | It should also be noted marginally that haplogroups are, for | similar reasons, a recent focus in history. | mojuba wrote: | DNA analysis allows to follow migrations and with it the | migrations of languages. | Sharlin wrote: | Except that DNA and languages are only loosely coupled, and | wrong conclusions have historically been drawn due to | assumptions they're more tightly correlated than they | actually are. | bigbillheck wrote: | Language Log had a post on this | https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=59908 and their | commentariat seems unimpressed. Linguist Andrew Garrett had some | tweets about that: | https://twitter.com/ndyjroo/status/1684636445854875648 and, for | traditionalists, was quoted in an article: | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-indo-european... | | The paper hasn't made it to sci-hub yet (at least not the one I | checked) but it seems like they're going to have a tough row to | hoe. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Haven't read the articles or papers yet, but I am really | skeptical of the kind of statistical inferences talked about in | the article -- _" we were able to prove Romance from Latin | using our model, so using the same model we got #..."_; it | seems to me this kind of thing assumes they can project a model | of language mutation built from data out of the iron age back | to neolithic, which is... a really giant assumption. | | I'd say dynamics of human history are really full of all sorts | of variance and instances of punctuated equilibrium. | | Still... it wouldn't surprise me to find surprises around the | Anatolian languages and their age and origins. They do seem to | fall outside the 'norm' of the mainstream of Indo-European | languages and the age of their split from the origin of | whatever variant of early Indo-European that Yamnaya spoke I | suspect could be a lot further back then expected. And it | wouldn't also surprise me to find back and forth flow for a | period of time from Anatolia to/from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. | tgv wrote: | That's been my problem with this approach too. It's an | arbitrary model, fitted onto very limited data that doesn't | generalize, under the very assumption that they all derive | from a common root. I'm totally willing to accept that the | language and DNA models can be thought of as complementing | each other, but any conclusion stronger than "perhaps | (almost) all European languages have a common origin" remains | speculative. And that's not a very interesting conclusion. | canjobear wrote: | The only substantive objection I see there is archeological- | linguistic. Words related to chariot technology like "wheel" | and "yoke" are cognate across IE languages, so the languages | probably split after this technology was invented. But the | invention seems to have happened later than 8000 BP. | Archelaos wrote: | Can we say something about how often a particular | technological adaptation is accompanied by an adoption of the | corresponding verbal expression? In other words: If the wheel | has been adopted by a neighbouring community, is it not very | likely that the word for it will be adopted in a | linguistically similar version? | | As an aside: I looked for the origine of the English "wheel" | and the German "Rad", and they seem to have been different IE | roots: _kwe-kwlh1-o- /_rot-h2-o-[1], but the word is | nevertheless often given as a example for a common IE | origine. So what does scholars make so sure that the original | Indo-Europeans already had the wheel? Could these words not | have been derived somewhat later independently from IE roots | of a somewhat different meaning, or when the area occupied by | Indo-Europeans was still small via techno-lingustic transfer? | | [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indogermanische_Ursprache#c | ite... | canjobear wrote: | Roots undergo semantic shifts in their meaning. So English | "deer" is cognate to German "Tier" despite the fact that | Tier means animal in German, but only one specific kind of | animal in English. The German meaning is the original one | for the root; in English it shifted to the more specific | meaning. | | In German, "Rad" was originally a word that meant something | like "rolling" and it generalized in meaning to encompass | what was originally referred to using the cognate of | English wheel, which then died out in German. It would have | been something like *Wiel (Dutch still retains "wiel"). | | The evidence for a shared root for wheel goes much much | farther back than the split between English and German. The | Proto-Indo-Euopean root was something like *kwekwlos, which | gives Germanic *hwel (> English wheel), Greek kyklos/cycle, | Sanskrit cakra, all according to regular sound changes. So | it goes back all the way to the split between these | languages. | kaba0 wrote: | Wow, I am an absolute layperson, only having listened to | the History of English podcast before from where I get | some minor context, but I find the whole of linguistics | so interesting. Thank you for sharing these details! | OfSanguineFire wrote: | > Could these words not have been derived somewhat later | independently | | That would require that the independent languages | maintained the exact same derivational process of | reduplication + zero-grade ablaut in the root. We know from | the attested history of IE language that derivational | processes last only for a while before they die out. That | independent languages maintained that particular | derivational process (which is inseparable from historical- | phonological developments, too) for thousands and thousands | of years, is extremely unlikely, which is just one of the | many pieces of evidence against the Anatolian hypothesis. | Archelaos wrote: | But could not a horizontal process between already | separated languages/dialects smoothed that out by | adapting the incorporated term to its host language, so | that the date of the general phonetic bifurcations of two | languages and the history of a lot of their vocabulary | might be very distinct? | | I am thinking of such cases as certain Anglicisms that | were phonetically adapted when they were incorporated | into German. For example the English term "password" is | in the process to replace German "Kennwort", but its | final consonant is adjusted to German "Wort" as | "Passwort". So phonetically "Passwort" and "Wort" vs. | "password" and "word" seem to share the very same | derivational process, while their actual history of | adaptation is quite distinct. | OfSanguineFire wrote: | As I said, the derivational process we find here is a | very specific one involving reduplication and zero-grade | ablaut of the root. If we look at the documented history | of the Indo-European languages, both reduplication and | ablaut had already become subject to erosion, or even | total loss. It is just not realistic for those two things | to have survived (and, in this particular derivational | process, to survive in sync!) for thousands and thousands | of years. | bigbillheck wrote: | You might be interested in 'The Horse, the Wheel, and | Language': https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780 | 691148182/th... | biorach wrote: | Excellent book | guerrilla wrote: | I'm reading Colin Renfew's (outdated) book on the Anatolian | hypothesis. From what I understood, Renfew had already conceded | that he was wrong* and that Maria Gimbutas was right about Steppe | hypothesis (but not the matriarchal character of the pre-Indo- | European cultures.) So it surprises me to see that anyone would | still be taking Anatolian hypothesis seriously. Did Renfew have | follows that did not give it up when he did? | | Anyway, the thing about this new research is that it'll depend on | whether people accept this methodology or not. It's not clear to | me that people will form a consensus on that any time soon | because historically methodology is a central part of _why_ | people disagree about this in the first place. In fact, as | another commenter below mentions, this methodology assumes an | identification of genes and language-speakers which has been | explicitly and heavily criticized in this area before and I think | the consensus is that that is invalid. | | * It doesn't surprise me. The positive arguments in this book are | very weak. | mantas wrote: | Regarding ,,matriarchal character", what Marija Gumbutiene | wrote and how postmodernist society nowadays is | (mis)interpreting her writing is very different. It wasn't | ,,matriarchal" as in ruled-by-women. Instead, those societies | were glorifying maternity (and women) through and through. | | Which is funny when modern feminists try to glorify Gimbutiene | and those societies. While doing exactly opposite to what those | societies were doing. | guerrilla wrote: | Yes, I and Renfew know that but he still disagreed with her | as do many other anthropoligists. | | I just read a book by a feminist, Karin Bojs, who concludes | basically* what you just said but I don't think she'd | appreciate your overheneralized jab at feminists. | | * Her thesis is that those societies valued women's work | which included pottery and textiles in addition to maternity | while the later IE societies were overtly patriarchical. | Personally I don't think there's enough evidence for anyone's | position on this and I'm fine not knowing for now. | mantas wrote: | My stab was more at people who ain't anthropologists and | just take whatever they can fit into their fantasies. | | I'm not so sure about not valuing women work though. Home | goods and arts (fairytales, singing etc) etc were valued | for a loooong time. And virtually all IE cultures looove | nice items. Heirloom traditions and alll that jazz. I'd | argue only industrial revolution changed that. Although | more war-oriented man-first cultures popped up all the | time. It looks like ultimately they'd conquer Gimbutiene's | Old Europe. But maternal tradition would survive to big | extent. Raiding warriors ain't raising kids. And they have | damn hard time controlling how women back home raise the | next generation. It's on women to form and propagate the | culture. | | Well, till recent era. When women are out there raiding the | job market and men spend unbelievable amount of time with | their offsprings. On the other hand, women have upper hand | in public education system which is #1 by time spent with | the next generation. | mrangle wrote: | The key to clickbait articles is not to provide one click | access to methodology, if any at all. | joh234p2342343 wrote: | India twitter is laughing it rear-side off. | | For years, the Europeans 'scholars' have dogmatically asserted | that 'Aryans' were European. That Indian culture, and thus all of | its achievements were brought in by the 'mighty European white- | skinned warriors' who 'by their grace' not only conquered them | violently, but also 'graciously' brought everything valuable in | Indian civilization, which of course was then 'corrupted' by the | despicable dark-skinned natives. | | This is the driving theology (it's derived from xtianity) in | Indology, and behind all the misappropriation of India culture | that happens to this day (though they'll never admit it openly). | | This was then used to justify not only colonization, but also to | simultaneously destroy India's culture by the proselytizers to | nullify opposition (aka 'harvest'). The damage to consciousness | is so great that indeed, it's routine in India's filthy politics | to hear people asking 'Brahmins & Aryas' even today (code for | 'Hindus') to either be genocided or be sent back to Volga (for | ref. this has happened in 2022, 2023, by some of the West's | chosen 'liberal' crowd). Unsurprisingly, the only solution | 'Indologists' offer for India today is no less than genociding | all 'evil Brahmins'. | | Of course, there was/is, like all 'xtian-white-supremacist' | 'academic consensus' by the 'enlightened crowd', next to no | archaeological evidence; the linguistic evidence was always | flimsy at best; the genetic evidence has always remained nebulous | (and doesn't really track language/culture in any case). | | Quite amusing today to see the homeland now moved to Iran, | solidly back to Asia, though still at the extremities of | historical Indo-Aryan memory (in Rg. Veda / Avesta). | | A bit pre-mature, but still, Yay! | | Now all those jack-asses in neo-Nazis (and those hateful | genocide-mongering Indologists) who go around talking about | 'Indo-European Aryan' peoples with all the implicit Nazi | background theories can go pound sand about how all their '300' | fantasies fell apart. | | Ofc. they still want to see India's native culture destroyed, | much like the Xtians did to Europe's own native culture. We'll | see how all this will fare in a few hundred years (signs are not | good). | | Jaya Isis! | | (Isis is the goddess of knowledge.) | biorach wrote: | > For years, the Europeans 'scholars' have dogmatically | asserted that 'Aryans' were European. That Indian culture, and | thus all of its achievements were brought in by the 'mighty | European white-skinned warriors' who 'by their grace' not only | conquered them violently, but also 'graciously' brought | everything valuable in Indian civilization, which of course was | then 'corrupted' by the despicable dark-skinned natives. | | That is not what Western science claims. You seem to be | describing a garbled version of some junk pseudo history that | the Nazis spouted decades ago but that is not at all | representative of any reputable modern science | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Despite your best attempts to skim-read and then cake a Hindu- | nationalist veneer on it, what you're saying is not even close | to what this article is saying, even if it were correct. No | serious scholar argues for an origin of the the language tree | in the subcontinent or Iran. | | Also nobody other than Nazis calls the Aryans "European"; | | The origin of the Indo-European language family tree is from | the Pontic-Caspian steppe region; what is today southeastern | Ukraine and southern Russia, roughly from the Dniepro to the | Volga. The "Aryans" (really multiple names and multiple | peoples) were people who moved eastwards from there, carrying | early Indo-Iranian languages with them. (Over a 1000+ year | history, winding their way eastwards across central Asia, so | I'm not sure how you could spin that as "European") | qersist3nce wrote: | There is also a micro-aggression against Iranians by fringe | communities of Europe/US and even our Arab/Turk neighbors! They | somehow think that the name of Iran is "fake" or "manufactured" | in 1930s! at the request of Hitler [1]. | | While we literally have attestations in government letters (in | almost every century prior to 20th), local literature and | population awareness of the continuity of the freaking name of | the country but somehow they completely ignore it. | | They also frequently use the word "Aryan" as a derogatory/fake | term for Iranians and say "why you don't look like white | Europeans if you claim to be Aryan". | | [1]: https://www.les-crises.fr/l-origine-nazie-du-nom-de-liran- | un... | DiscourseFan wrote: | I don't think the Aryan invasion theory was appropriate to | justify colonization, but I'm also not sure this constitutes | evidence against it. In any case, Sanskrit is far more archaic | than Hittite, and even with the genetic evidence it doesn't | make sense that Hittite would precede the Indo-aryan languages. | | The Bhagavad Gita is quite clear about the cultures of the old | Aryan peoples. They were nomadic, cowherding peoples, who were | highly patriarchal, that valued prowess in battle and the | ability to kill your enemies ruthlessly, even if they were | members of your own family. They were probably white because | Tocharian speakers in western China are depicted in cave | painting as having blond hair and blue eyes[0], a group of | people who completely split off the rest of the Indo-European | tribal peoples well before they entered the subcontinent. | | Is Nazi race science as a justification for brutal genocide and | the destruction of labor organizing something I agree with? No, | but the Nazis understood that anyone can spin a story to | justify any political regime, and that whoever is in power is | constantly inventing their own histories to justify their | power. None of these things are very meaningful, in the end. | Language, culture, and history is far more diverse than the | question of Yamnaya genetics. | | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocharian_languages#/media/Fil | ... | cscurmudgeon wrote: | > The Bhagavad Gita is quite clear about the cultures of the | old Aryan peoples. They were nomadic, cowherding peoples, who | were highly patriarchal, that valued prowess in battle and | the ability to kill your enemies ruthlessly, even if they | were members of your own family. | | Not this again. This is an old missionaries tale. There are | descriptions of large cities and palaces in Mahabharata (of | which Gita is part). Nomads don't construct palaces and large | cities. Also, the Gita is about duty to preserve good not | killing. (A few months ago I debunked a similar comment on | this site lol) | | https://vedicfeed.com/places-mentioned-in-mahabharata/ ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-30 23:00 UTC)