Talk:Proto-Indo-Europeans/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Thesis Statement Rewrite

I've done a major rewrite of the thesis statement, and made it far stronger. I don't think anyone here really disagrees with what I have said. This is NOT a minor edit. --FourthAve 8 July 2005 09:17 (UTC)

that's very well, but we have Proto-Indo-European language to discuss the language. this article is supposed to discuss the people, culture, genetics, etc. dab (ᛏ) 8 July 2005 09:30 (UTC)

Possible mistake

The phrase, "they wrote heroic poetry or song lyrics," cannot be true, or at least I believe so, because they did not write. Was this meant to say, "they recited heroic poetry or song lyrics," or something similar? --xideum 16:25, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess they "wrote" it in the sense that they created it, not that they wrote it down, after that, they recited it... Sheessh, English semantics is a problem...

Yeah, words shouldn't have fixed meanings...

Corrections of map

There is good map. But there are several mistakes:

1) Corsica and Sardinia were not Indo-European up to 1000 BC, because its population (Corses and Sardes) are described by ancient authors as relatives of non-Indoeuropean Hispanic Iberes. Romanisation of these islands was made to 1st cent. AD.

2) Eastern Spain was home of non-Indoeuropean Iberes and this area was romanisated up to 1st cent. AD.

3) In Scandinavia Northern Bronze Age culture which associated with Indo-Europeans spread to Norway and more large part of Sweden.

4) Estonia had no significant Indo-European population and generally border between Finnic and Baltic populations was Daugava (Dvina River) in today Latvia.

5) It is believed that in migration in Europe Indo-Europeans are divided to 2 branch: northern (Paleoeuropeans - ancesors of Celts, Illyrians, Italics, Venets, Germans, Slavs and Balts) and southern (ancesors of Greeks, Thracians, Phrygyans and Armenians). Border between these two branch was Carpatian mountains.

6) Up to 1000 BC nor Crete nor Cyprus were not Indo-European which is fixed in historical accounts.

7) It is believed in Kurgan hypothesis and is evidenced from historical and linguistical data that Anatolians came from Agean Sea basin (for example Carians).

8) Armenian Highlands was not Indo-European up to 800 BC. Its population were predominantly Caucasian-speaking Hurrians and Urartians.

9) About Tocharians: from linguistical data is known that Tocharians is strongly contacted with Finno-Ugric tribes. From this and archeological accounts it is believed that ancesors of Tocharians were population of Fatyanovo culture (central Russia). When and by which way Tocharians came to Sinkiang (Western China) is not known, but because slightly linguistical contacts between Tocharian and Iranic languages proposed that migration went through forest zone (not steppe).

Generally I think that it will better correct map.

Dmitry Krotko (til@bigmir.net).

Posted: 17:11, 23 February 2006 by 213.227.194.78 (date added by Fama Clamosa (talk) 10:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

About lingustics and genetics

I want to say that connections between lingustic and genetic relations is not nessesary. Most of populations of Europe and India has mixed Indo-European and pre-Indo-European origin. Only Scythians and Sarmatians have practically pure Indo-European origin (because they remain on place of origin of Indo-Europeans), but they were assimilated by Ossetes, Turkic tribes and Ukrainians.

Dmitry Krotko.

Posted: 17:09, 23 February 2006 by 213.227.194.78 (date added by Fama Clamosa (talk) 10:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

What about esperanto?

me.

It's certainly an IE language, and can be put into the Slavic group. It compares rather nicely to Maltese, a Semitic language that has been radically re-lexified by IE (mainly Italian) languages. Esperanto has a Slavic sensibility to it, tho' a considerably simplified grammar, and is lexified mainly with Latin-based words. Does Esperanto really need the accusative? --FourthAve 8 July 2005 08:54 (UTC)

Esperanto is a conlang. Like pidgins and creoles, conlang are generally not put into groups in the family tree model. As a former Esperantist (I left the movement after a decade of heavy activity because I found it was a cult and learning and speaking real languages during my travels proved a richer experience), I must say that there is very little "Slavic" about Esperanto. There is no complex noun morphology in Esperanto, nor a significant distinction between perfective and imperfective verbs. Crculver 00:13, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I would put artificial languages in languages groups whenever possible. I would put Esperanto and Ido in an own group within the Indo-European group. Volapük is a Germanic language, more specifically West Germanic. Interlingua is quite obviously a Romantic language since it is mutually understandable to Italian, Corsican, Spanish and Portuguese. Where to put Occidental is anyone’s guess.

2008-12-25 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

So Quenya and Sindarin would then be Nostratic, no? But what about Pig Latin?Kjaer (talk) 19:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I am sceptic to the Nostratic hypothesis. If I understand their origin correctly Quenya would be a Finno-Ugrian (Uralic) language and Sindarin a Celtic (Indo-European) one. It all depends on where the majority of their vocabulary comes from. About Pig Latin it is a way to play with language rather than a language in itself. I don’t think such playing can be equalized to the creation of an artificial language.

2008-12-25 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.232.26.80 (talk) 19:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

But Quenya and Sindarin are genetically related. Quenya simply has the "feel" of Finnish and Sindarin has the "feel" of Welsh. Of course, describing them as Indo-Uralic would solve the issue. Bjorn Collinder, who supported the Indo-Uralic theory, was as brilliant as Lena Olin is beautiful. As for Pig Latin, it has just as much a lexicon and a grammar as any other invented tongue. To call it a mere game is highly disrespectful. I hope you are not prejudiced against Piglatinos. Kjaer (talk) 20:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

It does not really matter how smart you are. Francis Galton was one of the smartest people ever. Yet he supported ideas now considered unscientific. Björn Collinder should be written with dots over the first O because O and Ö are considered different letters in Swedish. The Indo-Uralic hypothesis is highly controversial and I am sceptic to it for the present. I know both Quenya and Sindarin use Finnish grammar. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was probably fascinated by the Finnish language. If I understand it correctly the vocabulary of Quenya consists of words ether taken from Finnish or completely made up. Most of Sindarin’s vocabulary is from Welsh wile a smaller number of words are from Old English. This is what I base my opinion on their classification on. If most of Sindarin’s vocabulary had been from Old English and a smaller part from Welsh it would have been classified as Germanic. However, I admit that it sounds more Celtic than Germanic.

I still consider Pig Latin to be a language game rather than a language of its own. Wikipedia’s article on the subject does not mention anything about grammar. If you want to criticise it please do it there.

2009-01-01 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Once again, Lena, I am mostly joking with you here, as should be obvious with my silly comment about prejudice against Piglatinos. But you will be interested to know that Tolkien did devise sound laws and proto-roots that connect Quenya and Sindarin. He is quite explicit about their common origin. I am sorry I cannot give an exact reference, since my fiction books are mostly in storage. But I think Tolkien addresses their common origin in the Lhammas and elsewhere. Also, I am not aware that it is shown anywhere that Tolkien took his roots directly from Welsh or Finnish. Merely that he was influenced by their phonology and typology. For example, Sindarin has initial consonant mutation like the Celtic languages. But Ainulindale ("Ainu-song") does not use either the Finnish laul- or the Welsh can- and while ainu means holy in Elvish aino (a Germanic borrowing?) means "only" in Finnish. Iluvatar looks suspiciously like the Germanic "Allfather". And Tolkien's atar "father" and many other roots of his have parallels in the putatively Eurasiatic (Nostratic) PIE, Uralic, Altaic, and Eskimo. I am not saying that Tolkien was familiar with the Nostraticists or was making any such point.

As I said, I was joking with you above, so please do not take this as a wish to argue with you. Happy New Year. Kjaer (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

If this is the case Sindarin and Quenya does not belong to any real-world language group but the fictional group of Elf languages. Do you have any idea of where to place Occidental?

2009-01-01 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.19.102 (talk) 22:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

You can't really put any created language into a genetic family. Genetic families are defined by common descent. You have a population that speaks a dialect as its mother tongue. The language is genetically continuous if it is passed on from parents to children with change built up slowly over time. These created languages don't fit into any genetic family because they are not the natural product of normal transmission. Now you can certainly group them typologically if you like. The Our Father in Occidental shows only Romance roots and grammar - except for its use of English /mei/ "may" to express the optative/subjunctive mood. So you could call it typologically western IE or maybe modified Romance. You could not call it or Esperanto or any other made up language a member of a historically attested real genetic family. Kjaer (talk) 00:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Making it clear there's no archaeological evidence

I don't want to fiddle with this myself but have a suggestion. So far this text doesn't make it clear enough IMHO that the proof for all this info on way of life, etc. is only from the reconstructed PIE language. People could understand it to mean that there is archaeological evidence or other non-language-related proof. Take the sentence: "The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a patrilineal society. - here for example you could say "We think ... because the reconstructed elements for "father" and "head of household" (pter-) are the same." (my interpretation from http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html) This kind of example would have to be on all the related pages too, especially the religion and society pages. I know the words "hypothetical" and "reconstructed" are at the start, but I think this needs to be repeated more, with examples, to make it absolutely clear. Saintswithin 07:23, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think I see the problem. I agree that it should be made very clear that this is all just reconstruction. But giving each phrase a conditional mood would really cripple style and flow of the text. Also, it's not the case that this is only (though mostly) based on comparative linguistics. I think archaeology finally begins to play a crucial role. Even if we don't agree on the Kurgans, early IE (post PIE!) societies are identifiable, and from burials etc. much may be learnt about these societies. My present focus is to flesh out the neglected articles (PIE language, Kurgan) first, but I inserted a cautionary paragraph for now. Feel free to further add a "reconstructed" here and there if necessary, though. dab 11:29, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph is good. I agree it isn't necessary to use the conditional, but I still suggest mentioning how the reconstruction took place - you could give, say, just the one example above and then say "the following information was also inferred using this method". Or maybe a short paragraph on the reconstruction method before getting down to the descriptive passages. There aren't many examples under "comparative linguistics" either, and personally I find the examples the most interesting part; seeing the process of reconstruction is like a detective story. Saintswithin 20:21, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What strikes me as odd with the diffusion or invasion debate, is that those who attack the invasion theory seem to present a limited understanding of how historical invasions took place. Invading populations usually did not waste too much of the indigenous peoples and as far as I know there were very few "extermination invasions" prior to WWII. It was much more productive and economical to vassalize or enslave the previous population. The language of the invader would have had a higher prestige and a consequently a great advantage in the long run. There are many cases of such invasions in history, such as the Romans (very few later Latin speakers were genetically Latin), the Anglo-Saxons (genetic studies have shown that the "Germanic" genes are in minority), the Turks (the population of Turkey does not look very much like Central Asians), Slavs in Russia, Arabs in North Africa, Chinese in Southern China, etc. etc.

Moreover, I don't know of a single language which has spread by cultural diffusion in history. If anyone knows of such a case, please inform me. I would find it extremely interesting!--Wiglaf 23:20, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Let it be known that I agree entirely with Wiglaf.

---

Doesn't *peku mean "cattle"/"livestock", rather than "animal"...

most probably "small livestock", not cattle, but sheep and goats etc. dab (ᛏ) 10:51, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the generic word for "wild animal" possibly was *ghwer, differentiating it partly from a few common wild animals, but mainly from the domesticated animals so important for the PIE way of life.

Is this related to Italian pecorino, a sheep's cheese?

Word for plough

Did not Proto-Indo-European have a word for “plough”? That suggests that the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived from agriculture as well. However, it might have been less important than livestock. Can anyone tell me if I am wrong?

2006-12-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I think *harh-tlo has been proposed: Greek arotron, Lat. aratrum, Old Norse ardr, Armenian araur (plough), related to Latin arare (to plough). Slavic plug is common, but seems likely a Germanic borrowing. 惑乱 分からん 03:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, perhaps *H₂erH₁-tr- or something is more probable? The l might be because of a wish to connect Old Slavic oralo/ ra(d)lo... (plough) 惑乱 分からん 04:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Judging dead people by appearance is not always accurate

mtDNA of Scytho-Siberian skeleton Human Biology 76.1 (2004) 109-125

Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations

François-X. Ricaut et al.

Abstract The excavation of a frozen grave on the Kizil site (dated to be 2500 years old) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia) revealed a skeleton belonging to the Scytho-Siberian population. DNA was extracted from a bone sample and analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA. The resulting STR profile, mitochondrial haplotype, and haplogroup were compared with data from modern Eurasian and northern native American populations and were found only in European populations historically influenced by ancient nomadic tribes of Central Asia.

...

The mutations at nucleotide position 16147 C→A, 16172 T→C, 16223 C→T, 16248 C→T, and 16355 C→T correspond to substitutions characteristic of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a (Richards et al. 2000). The haplotype comparison with the mtDNA sequences of 8534 individuals showed that this sequence was not found in any other population.

...

The N1a haplogroup was not observed among the native American, east Asian, Siberian, Central Asian, and western European populations. The geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a is restricted to regions neighboring the Eurasian steppe zone. Its frequency is very low, less than 1.5% (Table 6), in the populations located in the western and southwestern areas of the Eurasian steppe. Haplogroup N1a is, however, more frequent in the populations of the southeastern region of the Eurasian steppe, as in Iran (but only 12 individuals were studied) and southeastern India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh territories). More precisely, in India haplogroup N1a is absent from the Dravidic-speaking population and is present in only five Indo-Aryan-speaking individuals, four of whom belonged to the Havik group, an upper Brahman caste (Mountain et al. 1995).

...

The absence of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a in the 490 modern individuals of Central Asia (Shields et al. 1993; Kolman et al. 1996; Comas et al. 1998; Derenko et al. 2000; Yao et al. 2000; Yao, Nie et al. 2002) suggests changes in the genetic structure of Central Asian populations, probably as a result of Asian population movements to the west during the past 2500 years.

AAPA 2004

East of Eden, west of Cathay: An investigation of Bronze Age interactions along the Great Silk Road.

B.E. Hemphill.

The Great Silk Road has long been known as a conduit for contacts between East and West. Until recently, these interactions were believed to date no earlier than the second century B.C. However, recent discoveries in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang (western China) suggest that initial contact may have occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C. The site of Yanbulaq has been offered as empirical evidence for direct physical contact between Eastern and Western populations, due to architectural, agricultural, and metallurgical practices like those from the West, ceramic vessels like those from the East, and human remains identified as encompassing both Europoid and Mongoloid physical types.

Eight cranial measurements from 30 Aeneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern samples, encompassing 1505 adults from the Russian steppe, China, Central Asia, Iran, Tibet, Nepal and the Indus Valley were compared to test whether those inhabitants of Yanbulaq identified as Europoid and Mongoloid exhibit closest phenetic affinities to Russian steppe and Chinese samples, respectively. Differences between samples were compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity were assessed with cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis.

Results indicate that, despite identification as Europoid and Mongoloid, inhabitants of Yanbulaq exhibit closest affinities to one another. No one recovered from Yanbulaq exhibits affinity to Russian steppe samples. Rather, the people of Yanbulaq possess closest affinities to other Bronze Age Tarim Basin dwellers, intermediate affinities to residents of the Indus Valley, and only distant affinities to Chinese and Tibetan samples

this article has problems

this article needs rewriting; much of what is written here is not well accepted by linguists. glottochronology, for example, is (currently at least) mostly discredited, and the claim "the results are quite robust for well attested branches" would be contested by many or most linguists and hence needs citations.

I strongly agree that it needs rewriting and is not well accepted by linguists. It looks to be about 20 years out of date and has almost no linguistic content. It seems to be most influenced by Mallory and Colin Renfrew which is at best a terribly outdated archaeo-historical perspective. Proto-IndoEuropean would by definition have to have lasted until Indo European emerged from it which is c 1650 BC rather than the neolithic. In the main it seems to prefer handwaving to content. Take for example the part about "they rode horses". There is no evidence whatsoever for horseriding prior to c 2000 BC. Rather than riding horses and having carts the Proto-Indo Europeans may well have been seapeoples. The idea that they lived on the north shore of the Black Sea would not explain the earliest known presence of Indo European in Syrio-Anatolia. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

this para

In any case, developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. They indicate a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies by Brian Sykes show that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic), suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by invasion and extermination, i.e. much more peacefully than was described in some invasion scenarios, and thus the genetic record does not rule out the historically much more common type of invasions where a new group assimilates the earlier inhabitants (e.g. Romans in Southern Europe, Britons in Brittany, Arabs in North Africa, Slavs in Russia, Chinese in Southern China, Spanish in Mexico and Turks in Anatolia, etc.). This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:

is highly confused and needs reworking.

the kurgan hypothesis may be "speculative" but it is far more accepted than renfrew's views, despite what this article tries to imply. renfrew's date of 7000 BC is very hard to reconcile with the linguistic evidence and thus is not taken seriously. there is also little if any evidence from historical times of languages spreading in the absence of political domination and much evidence of cultural spread *without* language spread. Benwing 06:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say. however, the Gray-Atkinson results are 'robust' mathematically, as they show in their paper. Lingustist still don't accept them, because they are still "just glottochronology" of course (although I doubt many linguists have bothered to look at the details of how their method is different from mere word-counting). I am an IE-ist, and I swear by the Kurgan model, but I still think the Gray-Atkinson stuff has some merit. The invasion stuff is here to appease "anti AIT" Indians. How exactly is it confused, and how should we reword it? dab (ᛏ) 06:23, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

You have read too much Mallory, Renfrew and Gimbutas and not enough of David McAlpin, Aasko Parpola and S R. Rao. Kurgans are too late, Nomadic Pastorialist transitions to agriculture are too early. The Invasion theory would probably work better if it went the other way. Gray-Atkinson is hung up on Kurgans and Renfrews nomadic pastorialsts becoming agriculturalists. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

So, chapter and verse their views.

A much more straightforward model looks at the trading links up the gulf in the Jemdet Nasr connecting Daravidian with Elamite and Indo European with the ships of Meluhha docking at the Quays of Agade. Language develops with civilization, commerce and the multiplication of interactions inherent with settlement. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Are you arguing the Out-of-India hypothesis?

Yes, I completely agree with both of you, but even in Europe (*cough* Sweden) the politically correct POV is that there were no migrations or conquests at all. This is not for the same reasons as that of the Hindutva, but for the reason that after WWII the implication of conquests is frowned upon.--Wiglaf 06:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It's confused esp. because it appears to be a refutation of Gimbutas, but then it looks like someone added this "This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:", which is contradictory with what the previous para says about Gimbutas.

Gimbutas is archaeologically interesting but not linguistically interesting. People didn't begin riding horses on the steppes until after there is already evidence of IE in Syro-Anatolia.Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Of course there is evidence of IE in Anatolia by this time. There is also evidence of Indo-Iranian lanaguages intruding ca 2000 BC, bringing horse-drawn chariots with them.

Anyway, someone added this, which I removed because it is totally POV:

Archaeologists have searched for many years for traces of their culture in the presumed homeland on the north shore of the Black Sea, but have not found any trace from the right time. Although the kurgan burrials in southern Russia and the Crimea are suggestive, it appears that they are all remains of people who lived 3000 years after the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

I don't know who wrote that but they appear to favor Renfrew. Modern theory holds that language developed so rapidly during the international urbanization that began in the Chalcolithic that it overwhelmed any earlier roots. Take a look at unclassified Summarian and Hurrian as they interact with Elamite on the one side, Semitic Akkadian coming in from the deserts, Afroasiatic Egyptian coming up from the south and the emergence of IE to their west.Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

I get the feeling recent edits are trying very hard to discredit the Kurgan theory and establish a 7000 BC date.

Benwing 04:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Both are wrong Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Out of Where?

I and lots of others dismiss Out of India and Out of Anatolia out of hand, but one is free to defend it.

As for the Kurgan hypothesis, I think it is fair to say no one is entirely happy with it, but it works better than any other proposed so far.

• Kurgan doesn't work at all. Renfrew doesn't work at all.

• How do you feel about combining Parpola - Rao (the more you push things apart the closer you bring them together) with the concept that c 2600 BC a waterborne trading language develops in the Gulf with the ships of Makkan, Meluhha and Dilmun docking at the quays of Agade bringing together an interesting cluster of cross group ickthiophagi proto languages?

Makkan = Proto Arabian with some Afro Asiatic roots

Meluhha = Harrapan Daravidian at Lothal and IA Pushtu/Brahui at Mohenjo Daru

Dilmun = Tepe YaYah up to Elam = Elamite and UAR up to Failakah unclassified Hurrian

Agade = Sumerian - Akkadian

[Asko Parpola]

[S R Rao]

[ethnolouge]

Rktect 02:10, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

what has that got to do with anything rktect? Oh, you're the guy who thinks PIE is derived from Ancient Egyptian, never mind then. dab (ᛏ) 05:49, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

What it has to do with anything is this. Most PIE models are land based. Renfrew uses nomadic pastorialists as a mechanism to make contact between the people of India and Europe and starts c 9,000 BC which means that from one end of his language chain to the other there is a 9,000 year development gap. The model is too slow, too interupted and has no way of modeling rapid exchange as civilization and technology add new words to the system.

Gimputas and Mallory and Kurgans use horses to expedite communications but start too late and too far removed from the major nodes of civilized interaction to make a case that they would be knowledgable about things like the jargon of civilization regarding agriculture, settlement, urbanization, infrastructure and social stratiifcation.

A third model, allows that even before horses were being ridden c 2000 BC, people from Syrio-Anatolia were connecting to India by Sea trade down the Gulf using a long series of middlemen who needed some sort of lingua franca in order to do business. This is pretty well documented but if you are unfamiliar with the studies I can provide you some cites. The advantages of this model for the incorporation of PIE into the language base is that it allows very rapid interaction back and forth between urban areas and focuses on the jargon of civilization regarding agriculture, settlement, urbanization, infrastructure, commerce and social stratiifcation.

A counter argument is that language develops only very slowly and that it would take thousands of years rather than hundreds for people to incorporate so much new vocabulary and grammar that their old language would be entirely replaced. That argument may or may not be correct in terms of PIE, but in America many Native American languages have been completely replaced by English, French, Spanish Dutch or Portugese in a few centuries.

And no, I'm not the guy who thinks "PIE is derived from Ancient Egyptian". I did mention elsewhere that English is an amalgamated language composed of bits and pieces of different languages that have been borrowed into it from everywhere English speakers have gone. I also presented a well known list of a couple of dozen Egyptian words that have been borrowed into English as an example. There is a difference between the terms "borrowed from" and "derived from". Rktect 12:21, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

The embedded map of PIE is not a good model. Rktect 20:24, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The present wording is much too certain of speculative reconstructions of a hypothetical language implying a hypothetical group of speakers of that language would fit one of several contraversial models. The primary change to the wording is to corectly rephrase as conjecture what is said now with unwarrented certainty. Rktect 23:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Indo-European Migration and Climate

I recall a Russian TV program in which Vyacheslav V. Ivanov argued that two waves of Indo-European migrations - in the late 3rd millenium BC and ca. 1200 BC - were occassioned by considerable climate changes. Global warming at these points led to drastic shortening of grazing areas in the Great Steppe, which caused Indo-Europeans to seek new areas for settlement. Can anybody comment as to whether this data should be included in the text of the article? --Ghirla | talk 14:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

What about agriculture spreading influence on languages and Lord C.Renfrew's theory?

Presented ide Kurgan origin theory is only one possibility. It was discussed and criticised sharply in nineties. Kurgan wawes existed, but they were not necessary varriesrs of indoeuropean similarities to languages. Agriculture spreading was much more powerfull process and left lots of phono-semantic sets in ide languages wchich were formed when languages of hunters and fishermen mixed with agriculturers speaches. Genetists prooved, that migration of agriculturers to europe yield aproximately only 10-25%. . Lithuanian is one of the most archaic ide languages. Turbo from Lithuania. 2006, February 10, Vilnius.

It all depends on how quick a language is supposed to change. Gimbutas imagined the PIE as warmongers on horseback, a kind of Scythians placed back in time. Well, everybody knows such extravert behaviour, invoking contact with other cultures and extraordinary conditions including trade and domination/submission, accelerate the development of language. Actually, the process tends to degenerate morphology, as we have seen clearly with the development of English, Afrikaans and Western European languages in general. Assuming exactly such an attested rapid change to modern languages pressed Gimbutas and others to push the chronologic origin of PIE as recent as to the Yamna culture, 3600-2300 BC. However, the exclusion of other contemporain archeological cultures has never been generally accepted:

• Corded Ware culture, 3200-2300 BC (proposed as being proto-(western)centum/proto-Balto-Slavic, IE-fied according to the Kurgan hypothesis)
• Afanasevo culture, 3500—2500 BC (proposed as being proto-Tocharian)
• Maykop culture, 3500—2500 BC (traditionally classified as IE or IE-fied, links to known IE languages like proto-Anatolian deemed problematic)

Maybe it would help to consider a more peaceful PIE way of living, including a strong introvert and agricultural component among the early cultures, and accept linguistic change wouldn't necessarily have been always as rapid as to exclude more ancient non-Kurgan archeological cultures to be more probable candidates to PIE: already more ancient alternative archeological cultures have been proposed with names like Dnieper-Donets culture, Samarran Culture, Khvalynsk culture and Sredny Stog culture. Rokus01 12:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Question

I remember reading in the 80's about an identification of th PIE people with the Starcevo and related cultures in the Danube basin. Is the Danubian theory forgotten?

About Danubian theory

Danubian theory is obsolete at the time. It is shown that Danubian cultures bearers were coming from Anatolia and from this point of view is Renfew's PIE. But most linguists and archeologists believe that PIE were Kurgan people from Pontic steppes that conquer and assimilate Tripolye and Danubian peoples.

WHAT archaeologists and linguists? The Pontic steppe cultures were far too primitive to conquer or assimilate neolithic Europeans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.79.5.34 (talk) 00:10, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

What About Sanskrit?

Sanskrit is the earliest Indo-European language. With that said, isn't it most likelly that the PIE came from India? I am going to mention this in the article. Zachorious 06:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

no on both counts; Anatolian languages are attested significantly earlier than, and Greek contemporaneously to, Sanskrit. Out of India models have been proposed, but are almost universally rejected. dab (𒁳) 17:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The oldest Indo-European language is actually Hittite. Furthermore, there are two points of criticism not listed in the article “Out of India”. Firstly, Proto-Indo-European had a word for “snow”. All language only have words for things that the speakers feel a need to talk about. Northern India is mostly tropical. A smaller part is subtropical but in that area the climate is so dry that snow is highly unlikely. Secondly, the language of the Indus Valley Civilisation was probably Dravidian not Indo-European. Their characters have not been decoded but the clues we have points towards a Dravidian language. Eather the Kurgan hypothesis is true or the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in a part of the Middle East rougly corresponding to present-day Kurdistan. In the later case it must have been some time before the people in that area begun to write since Proto-Indo-European is purely reconstructed language.

2007-01-21 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

these aren't compelling arguments though. Sanskrit and every other Indian language have words for "snow" too. The scene of the Rigveda is roughly between Khabul and Delhi, and snow is very well known in the Hindukush. The possibility that the IVC was Dravidian cannot be proven either. The absence of the horse is a much more compelling argument against an Indian PIE Urheimat, but the reason it isn't an attractive scenario is mostly because nothing really speaks for the possibility. You might as well suggest China, nothing speaks dead against China either, and yet nothing speaks for it, so why consider it, when "steppe PIE" is perfecly coherent.dab (𒁳) 16:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

When I wrote “Northern India” I thought about the northern plains. How often does it snow in this region? I beat it have not happened for generations! If you thought about Hindukush it is more suitable to call it “out of Kashmir” (an area highly disputed today) or “out of the Himalayas”. The Sanskrit word for “snow” might well have been a rarely used word inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Words for “snow” in modern Indian languages are ether derived from the Sanskrit word or relatively recent loanwords.

2007-03-10 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

There are numerous words for snow in Sanskrit, al least more than your poor swedish language, Indo-aryan seat was Kabul to yamna(a river near Delhi). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.69.21.93 (talk) 16:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

If we only count unrelated words Swedish have four words for snow:

Frost = frost.

Lavin = avalanche.

Skare = snow with a frozen crust.

Snö = snow in general.

Anyway, the present discussion within the scientific community is whether the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived north or south of the Caucasus, not whether they lived in India, on the Balkan Peninsula or anything such.

2008-05-26 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Look, here in New Jersey, we have plenty of snow related words: snow, frost, blizzard, hail, sleet, flurry, rime, slush, powder, and about 100 others. It is quite obvious that the Proto-Indo-Europeans originated somewhere between Philadelphia and New York City, most likely on the Mullica River. Merry Christmas. Kjaer (talk) 17:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I don't know of any PIE root word for "a putrid, rotten-egg and feet smell," which means they probably weren't from New Jersey. ;-) RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

The PIE root word in question, *perd-, is attested in the names of the neolithic New Jersey settlements of both Paterson (metathesis) and Princeton (nasal infix), cognates which partisans of the Nordpolheimat theory are wont to pass over in silence. Also, please note that I now reside in New York, and so can be viewed as an impartial observer. Bada bing! Kjaer (talk) 18:22, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Kjaer, are you kidding with me? I have hard to think that obviously literate people like you would be so ignorant of the history of English as believe such crackpot ideas. My point with listing the Swedish words for snow was to provide a fair comparison with the numbers in other languages. To me your claims sound like an extreme form of pseudoscientific language comparison!

2008-12-29 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I am sorry, I forgot the most important city in New Jersey which shows a reflex of the *perd- root, Perth Amboy.

Yes, Lena, I am kidding! But if you ever visit the US, you should visit the Mullica River, it is quite beautiful.

I am an adherent of the Kurgan hypothesis. Kjaer (talk) 22:34, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mean the Bergen Hypothesis? (Alright, I'll stop now) RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Good, if the claims had not been so outlandish I would have taken them seriously.

2009-01-01 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.19.102 (talk) 19:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Given the chronology of the languages and other linguistic data, I should think it highly probable that PIE speakers were located around the Black Sea area. India is entirely out of the question. I tend to disagree with the Kurgan Hypothesis and rather I place PIE origins as somewhere in the Balkans, spoken by Neolithic settlers possibly originally from Anatolia.

Can anyone provide citations for an author that provides a similar Balkan theory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 12:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Haplogroup R1b

Shouldn't we mention HG R1b when talking about Sykes' hypothesis. He has published a new book just recently about it. --Kupirijo 04:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

you mean R1a1? Which is in the article? or what is the "R1b hypothesis"? Our article dates it to the days of Cro Magnon. dab (𒁳) 11:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

improper synthesis

Sunilsrivastava,

I have removed the material you added due to improper synthesis.

The sources you cite do not identify the movements of people you refer to as those of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

As you yourself state, the migrations you refer to took place in time frames of either "50,000 to 40,000 BC" or "40,000 to 30,000 years ago".

The predominant Kurgan hypothesis dates the Indo-European expansion to the 3rd millennium BCE and even the Anatolian hypothesis dates the Indo-European expansion to the 7th millennium BCE at the outside.

It is WP:OR to link these migrations dated 50,000–30,000 BCE to the Proto-Indo-Europeans when the sources you cite do not do so themselves.

JFD 15:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

When did man start talking? Was it suddenly? Were you and I there to listen to them? And words he chose to use were there before. IE Prototype is just one answer to the commoness of IE Languages. But surely these people moved around from one region to another from time to time. And the frequency becomes more and more till recent times because of (1) Migration out of dire necesstity, like employment, export business, professional pursuits, drought and earthquakes(2) Colonization, which comes with conversion and aculturation, etc. But if you assume that these speakers were communicating for time before, like whales and chimps even communicate, their vocabulary was established much before even IE is dated and Aryan Invasion talked about. The same stock of people were recycled, more and more as times became recent and adding to confusion. If you look at Indus Valley Civilization, you see continuation of Shiva And Yogic Postures to present time. And you see the pictures of Shiva in Europe, Ireland. You see Swastika carvings in ROcks in Europe. You see snake worship all over Arabia and Middle east, as discovered by Discovery, and where do you think it is still happening. How can you explain all this? The sad part is that Anglo-Saxon culture of world view predominates with white wash and they become the gate keepers of the truth. In Hindu history, it is said that at one time the influence was all over the world. We tend to undermine our ancestors and the long stay of civilization here on earth. Only 300 years back, the same people were saying that Earth was made 5000 years back because Genesis said that. Where do you think there is a land with maximum numbers of rivers covering a biggest fertile valley and where there are maximum mountains to seek elevation in case of floods and which supply max water, and where do you think the climate is not very cold like Northern Europe and not hot like Southern Hemisphere. It is matter of time only when people would realize that Indus Valley area provided a big impetus to the civilization of the world and beyond ruins, there is a continuity of culture and civilization which is still running among us, and was there the same in 2500 BC. There are 105 languages in India and more than half are connected to Sanskrit. But Indians did not have time and resources to publish papers and prove that they are all connected to Sanskrit because they know it and do not have to prove it.

If you want to add material to wikipedia, then I'm afraid it does have to come from papers published in peer-reviewed journals. JFD 03:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Your comment about the date not being mentioned in NG is wrong. Please look up the Atlas and they mention this.

Show me where in the NG Atlas it says that the Indo-European languages were brought to Europe from India. That's what you want to say, and so must the NG Atlas if you're going to cite it as your source. JFD 10:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

man, JFD tells you to not conflate paleolithic migrations with PIE expansion, and we get to hear general musings on epistemology, and a sermon on Yogic postures in Harappan art? What is wrong with you? Thankfully, Wikipedia is not usenet where people chatter for chatter's sake.

the topic of paleolithic migration is fascinating in itself, and it is certainly interesting that Europe should have been reached full 30,000 years(!) later than India. This belongs on Historical_migration#Early_migrations. It has nothing (literally nothing, as in zero) to do with Proto-Indo-Europeans. In the context of "Out of India" it merely goes to show that India is a much, much more attractive migration target than migration starting-point. If left to themselves, populations will gravitate towards India, not "out of India" (this holds for pre-modern times, of course India is not a migration target today, for economic reasons). dab (𒁳) 11:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Homour

am I the only one that thinks that the name could be shortend into pieians which sounds like a civilization that bases its living off pie Atomic1fire 21:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

little do you know that *pie- is in fact the term for "small spoon for stirring curdled mare's milk", an extremely important artefact in pieian daily life as well as royal ceremony. --dab (𒁳) 18:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Homophony between one word and a completely unrelated abbreviation is not even a basis for making talk page edits, much less contributions to articles. Anything else useless to say? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 11:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

What is the source for...

This paragraph? With ORry phrases like this - "take away much of the edge", "obviously cannot yield", "what Gimbutas had in mind" - I have to admit I was very surprised to see that dab was the one who restored this. - -- Merzbow (talk) 18:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

well, it's not my wording, and it could definitely do with some cleanup for tone, but I maintain that the gist of the paragraph is well-informed and perfectly straightforward. Perhaps I should have cleaned it up instead of just restoring it though. I certainly do not defend the precise phrasing here. dab (𒁳) 18:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

On 'hypothetical'

Concerning my edit a few minutes ago: as I wrote in my summary, it isn't the language itself, nor its ancient speakers who are hypothetical. Rather, in the case of the language it is the reconstructed forms of the words, mostly, that are hypothetical, being unattested in written sources. And the existence of that (spoken) language attests to the existence of its speakers. SamEV (talk) 22:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

relationships between men

i can't find how the source wording is about that thing. what does it mean? hierarchy? or equal/random relations? should we let it relationships. make it relations between men? hierarchy between men? interaction? CuteHappyBrute (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As opposed to relations among women. Do women marry into a family, or do men? The Bible says that a man leaves his family for his wife's; the practice of the patriarchs, however, was to take a woman and bring her into his father's household. Among the PIE people, the latter was the case. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 15:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

R1b Haplotypes

I don't understand why the R1b material is in the PIE article. R1a appears to correspond with predicted PIE migrations. R1b looks like a group that was already in Europe when PIEs got there, possibly intermarried with Germans and Celts and moved with their migrations. Why is the information in the PIE article?Ekwos (talk) 18:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I found it interesting regarding the question of the link between IE languages and the hypothetical spread of a people: it suggests that the two are not necessarily linked, or that the language spread beyond the spread of a particular people. It would therefore bear on the plausibility of the various theories concerning PIE. I found it a good way to present the relevant information without offending WP:NPOV, and appreciate the work done recently to clarify the genetics section. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 03:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Lead list

Ekwos, I see nothing wrong with the list format. It would be child's play to turn it into a prose-like paragraph, of course, but it would still read like a list — minus the superior clarity of the list. SamEV (talk) 05:12, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The list actually constitutes something fairly important in PIE studies. I've been mulling over if there isn't a way to clarify a few more details of how the list was arrived at, and what it means exactly without making the thing more tedious. As it is, it is just an unmotivated list that doesn't mean much to someone who isn't filling in the blanks with what they know from the PIE literature. I think it could do well to expand each into a paragraph with the relevant reconstucted roots and some cognates in attested languages included.Ekwos (talk) 04:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you should do that. This detailed version should go in the main body of the article, thus not affecting the list, do you agree? SamEV (talk) 04:59, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Proto indo-europeans are persons of J haplotype linked via the Nostratic languages family!??

We know that:

First of all forgive your brother for my bad english and thank you for this article

-R1 haplogroup are "paleolithic"haplotypes(0)

-The originel language of persons of R1 haplogroup is linked with Basque and dont has any link with indo-european languages(1)

-Semitic and indo-european languages are linked via the nostratic(2)languages theory and are all languages of neolithic timed origin(3)

-The haplogroup J is very present among Indians,Persians,Greeks,Indians(4)

-The linguistic aryanisation of india for example is only a linguistic process,in fact we have aryanic speaking populations as much racially different as Sindhis and Danish(5)

-Carleton Coon says: Linguistically, Indo-European is probably a relatively recent phenomenon, which arose after animals had been tamed and plants cultivated. The latest researches find it to be a derivative of an initially mixed language, whose principal elements were Uralic, called element A, and some undesignated element B which was probably one of the eastern Mediterranean or Caucasic languages.5 The plants and animals on which the economy of the early Indo-European speakers was based were referred to in words derived mainly from element B. Copper and gold were known, and the words for these commodities come from Mesopotamia.(6)

The sources are below

(0) http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8432/europemaptreeta1.jpg

(1) http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n12/full/5201482a.html

(2) Please note that these words are not borrowings but commun nostratic roots

Semitic/Indo-european

men/manne

hala/hola,hello

kassara/casser

ardh/earth

sahar/soir

ente/tu

me/mai

barr/bur

omm/madar

ab/badar

seb3a/septa

sitta/sesta

al/le

qata3/cut

batr/obturer

maridh/malade

haql/agro

thawr/taureau

qarn/corne

sarab/sarabas

keme/comme

silah/sird

yaafukh/fuukhir

wetr/water

lugha/lingua

qalb/lobos,cor

mawt/mort

rajol/ragazzo

lobb/lobos

bard/freddo

ward/rodos

wajh/visage

anf/nez

dawra/tour

dwaran/tourner

Greek/Arabic

Emena/Minni

Alla/Illa

Odhi/Hedhe

Arabic/English

Ma3na/Mean

Jorm/Crime

3eyn/Eye

Hu/His

Ha/Her

Dhak/That

Hedhi/This

Fatasha/Fetch

Qit/Cat

Arabic/French

Nahnu/Nous

Masha/Marche

Turab/Terre

Sama/Ciel

Jam3=>Gam

Somme=>Gam

Sound change o=>a et j=>g

Eardh=>ardh

Eye=>3ayn

Taureau=>thawr

Corne=>qarn

Ble=>Burr

Agro=>Haql

g=>q et l=>r

Agro=>Haql (g<=>q)(r<=<l)

Ble=>Burr (r<=>l)

(3) http://free.of.pl/g/grzegorj/lingwen/afil.html

The scheme on The Tower of Babel shows yet another approach to both genetic relations and dating of particular language families and protolanguages. According to its author, Proto-Indo-European was in use ca. 5000 BC, Eurasiatic ca. 9000 BC, and Proto-Afro-Asiatic ca. 10000 BC. The Nostratic language, which existed ca. 13000 BC, is said to have given birth to Eurasiatic and Afro-Asiatic.

(4) File:Haplotype middle east.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J_(Y-DNA)

(5) http://www.algerie-dz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101980&page=4

(6) http://carnby.altervista.org/troe/06-01.htm (also please take a look at the great J haplogroup concentration in the caucasian Daghestan)

Humanbyrace (talk) 11:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 11:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 11:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC) Humanbyrace (talk) 10:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I happen to support greenberg's Eurasiatic theory which is a bit more conservative than the Nostratic theory. But the evidence provided above is largely useless. You cannot use a word like ragazzo, which occurs only in Italian, but not Latin or elsewhere as support for an Indo-European root. Almost all of the comparisons made above suffer that same fault. You have to pay attention to the internal history. For example, does "el" which means "the" in Spanish and arabic show a connection? Spanish "el" comes from Latin "illus" > *id-l-os while Arabic "el" comes from semetic *Har. If you truly want to investigate real cognates, you should get Bjorn Collinder's three volume Uralic grammar/vocabulary, Fortescue's Proto-Eskimo dictionary, his Proto Chukchi-Kamchatkan dictionary, Poppe's Altaic grammar (in german) (BEWARE Starostin's "Altaic Dictionary" is very flawed!) Vovin's Proto-Ainu dictionary, any of the many dictionaries of Nivkh and Yukaghir and start comparing those reconstructed roots. I have found some 600 cognates, all much stronger than those above. Look at the charts of Eurasiatic cognates in merritt Ruhlen's books, they will show much better correspondences of form and meaning. Finally, you compare lobb and lobo. Lobo comes from PIE *wlkwos and this is the form to which you must compare any Semetic root. Kjaer (talk) 00:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

What about the root "WRD" Arabic: ward Aramaic: wardo Persian: vard Armenian: vart Greek: rodos OR Arabic: 3ayn English: eye

These cognates are present in different languages and in very old texts so we can consider them as common nostratic roots and not simple borrowings

This is the same as in

"lobb"(arabic), "lubbu"(Akkadian), "lev"(hebrew), "liebe"(deutsch), "lobos"(greek), "love"(english), "lobe"[of heart](french)

cordially

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

While I am a believer in the linkage of Indo-European to Afro-Asiatic, I must point out that many of the words here are later borrowings. Ragazzo, for example, was borrowed by Medieval Latin from Arabic raqqas, messenger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 12:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

No Original Research, Please

I'm sorry, but this is not a message board about linguistic families. Discussions about the validity/plausibility of any hypothesis are wholly inappropriate here. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 20:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

added references

I added some references Rktect (talk) 13:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Copper?

Did not Proto-Indo-European have a word for copper? If so, did it give rise to the Ancient Greek word for “copper” (“kypros”)?

2009-06-10 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.167.70 (talk) 11:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

there is not, to the best of my knowledge, any PIE lexeme that can unambigously be recnostructed as meaning "Copper", as opposed to "Bronze". The aes etymon means "metal, Copper, Bronze" but I don't think we can be more specific than that. Copper was possibly just the "red metal", so ayos rudhos is the best I can give you for "Copper". You may speculate that of the aes and the zelezo etymons one once meant "Copper" and the other "Bronze", but it would be anyone's guess which was which. The kupros etymon is probably not Indo-European at all. Perhaps Sumerian, Hurro-Urartian, Caucasian, Pelasgian or what have you. Greek has lots and lots of non-Indo-European words. --dab (𒁳) 20:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring

There seems to be a dispute going on regarding the proper place of some scholarship about genetics. Instead of simply reverting each other's edits and giving your explanation in the edit summaries, perhaps the editors involved could hash things out here on the talk page, leaving the article alone until then. Agreed? RJC ^Talk_Contribs 01:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry just saw this post. Yes this is getting out of hand but so what's new on wikipedia. Anyway my "counterpart" is trying to open a dialouge (of sorts) on my talk page but I have a feeling this will go into similar negative territory as I can already tell by his tone. We shall see. Geog1 (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)Geog1

the genetics sectino ishorrible. We need to apply WP:SYNTH very strictly and scrap every reference that does not address "IE expansion and genetics" explicitly. Otherwise, this will always just degenerate into an unreadable heap of detail on various haplogroups googled from random research papers. --dab (𒁳) 09:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Yeah I was trying to counterbalance some of the less neutral posts on account that removing sourced info creates bigger wars (or so it seems) but things spiraled out of control anyway. Just so you know the same thing was happening in the R1a article. May want to swing around there when you got the time and see what's up. Geog1 (talk) 12:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)Geog1

unreadable clutter and {{synthesis}} is a well-known and recurring problem at the genetics articles. There is no easy way to address this. But we should at least manage to contain the problem within the genetics articles and not let them spill into "genetics" sections in articles of different scope. We should still apply common sense, but the basic rule must be that no source should be used in the "genetics" section of the "PIEans" article that does not explcitly mention both genetics and PIEans and is making some point about a relation between the two. --dab (𒁳) 13:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, otherwise it is original research. Dougweller (talk) 13:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds right to me. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

R1b and its relevance

Hi SamEV,

Thanks for explaining some of your points in the history section but let's start a discussion here. Often times even when a citation tag is added no one ever seems compelled to eventually provide a source. The tag will be in place for a year or so and the article just stagnates with a piece of information that no one's sure is true or not. Case in point there was no source for the Basque comment or even R1b's spatial-temporal distribution/migratory process. Furthermore its never been associated with PIEs in any peer reviewed source. Again I appreciate your efforts to open a dialouge but I'm afraid R1b does not have any real relevance to this article unless someone suspects it has something to do with PIEs in a peer reviewed source.Geog1 (talk)Geog1 —Preceding undated comment added 18:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC).

Exactly. As we have established in the section right above this one,

the basic rule must be that no source should be used in the "genetics" section of the "PIEans" article that does not explcitly mention both genetics and PIEans and is making some point about a relation between the two.

Thus, random observations about the genetics of the Basques and what not has no place in this article even if it is properly referenced. This is not the R1b article, so please don't burden it with irrelevant tangents about the distribution of R1b. People interested in that can go and read the dedicated article. --dab (𒁳) 20:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Geog: "Furthermore its never been associated with PIEs in any peer reviewed source." Dab: "This is not the R1b article".

First, I repeat: I didn't add any of that material. (I've never added content, I think—not unsourced, anyway; I've only copyedited what's at times been a quite messy article; No offense intended to anyone.) However, I always understood its inclusion (by whoever added it) as an effort to account for R1b: not because the author thought the PIE-ans were R1b, but because of R1b's importance in European genetics; i.e., because so many Europeans are R1b.

Thus, imagine a simple conversation about PIE-ans between an expert and a layperson who has an interest in European genetics and who knows about R1b's great presence in Europe. After the expert expounds on the PIE-ans' origins and their likely genetics, the layperson asks an innocent, layperson-ish question: "What about R1b?" Perhaps following up with, for the benefit of our great expert, "Where does it fit in this conversation, if at all?" The expert would briefly and deftly swat away the issue with a sentence or two that explain that R1b has no known connection to the PIE-ans. Case closed, and the layman's simple (or as perhaps some experts might be tempted to say, "simpleton") question is answered.

That's all I meant.

BTW, I have no interest in the paragraph, except this: whether it helped the reader or not. I thought it did that, so I tried to win it a reprieve. I thought that R1b would otherwise be a huge elephant in the room in an article about the PIE-ans, in a section about their genetics, to boot, if it did not receive at least a passing mention that disposes of it. Thanks, and good day. SamEV (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok but no one was accusing you of putting the info in there in the first place. Also no one here is trying to scold you or make you feel bad so let's just be perfectly clear of that. But again the info had to come out since part of Wiki policy does indeed state 1)that info must be directly relevant to the article 2)sources should be provided and 3)the sources should ideally be from peer reviewed literature. I am taking the liberty here to readdress all this here because people do have trouble with these guidelines. Myself and DAB are particularly protective of this article and reinforce the guidelines strictly here because we've seen POV synth on Wiki pages as a huge reoccurring problem in relation to people, genes, and languages. Over the last several years we've seen everything from Paleolithic continuance theories espoused with some of the most bizarre splicing of ethno-linguistic data in a campaign that would make even the most fervent POV Synther's or sock puppeteer's head spin. Out of India theorists have also been active espousing everything from the notion of "Golden Skinned" Aryan's spreading IE culture and language throughout Eurasia but also waging some of the most acrid verbal assaults on good faith users. Therefore we need to adhere closely to the data that is most relevant to the debate so that we don't go off into wild fringe theories.

With all being said, it seems that you are a good faith user and that you felt this info would be beneficial to understanding the debate. So I understand why you acted and felt the way you did. However for our purposes in the article R1b just isn't relevant to the debate at the moment and who knows if it will ever be.

I hope you don't take the reversions to heart and continue researching here on Wikipedia as well as adding info in accordance with Wiki policy, procedure, and guidelines. Cheers.Geog1 (talk) 02:34, 12 January 2010 (UTC)Geog1

"people do have trouble with these guidelines."

I don't. I've helped enforce them. It's in the article's edit history.

But WP also talks about context. I've also ran into Wikipedians who don't understand that. Context requires mention of things other than the subject. Context becomes impossible if you limit yourself to the subject in some absolute, machine-like fashion. I can't imagine how we're supposed to put things in context, to compare or contrast the subject of the article, by mentioning only the subject. As for whether there's any utility in contextualizing anything: how useful is it to talk about the concept of "east" without relating it to "west"?

The paragraph makes no attempt to connect the PIE to R1b. There's no synthesis, only a seeming statement of fact: R1b is not the PIE haplogroup, but the earlier people's. I consider that "context", and helpful to the reader.

My involvement in this article will continue in the same limited way as before. Thanks. SamEV (talk) 03:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

You've definitely made some good points and have demonstrated that you are a good faith user so thank you. R1b's position is actually relevant to the present day debate surrounding the populating of Europe and to a lesser degree language. I know there are some publications that have touched base on the relation of R1b to language specifically Euskera and Celtic. Oppenheimer's and Sykes' books discuss this but Alonso et al. 2005 presents a rather polemic view to Oppenheimer's Euskera and Celtic stance. Still nothing explicitly exists as mentioning R1b representing Proto-Indo-Europeans. If there was some way to make R1b more relevant to the context by say someone like Oppeinhemer or Sykes explicitly mentioning it as a "male lineage likely representing one of the most indigenous non-IE speaking groups in Europe" than perhaps it could fit in but I don't recall if any of these authors used such wording in any of their books. Regardless, we don't want to go on a slippery slope here so its perhaps best to leave all this in the discussion forum like we all seem to be agreeing to. Again I see your point but I think adhering to a strict policy like DAB has suggested is the best thing to do.Geog1 (talk) 05:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)Geog1

SamEV, your principles are certainly sound, but for present purposes, you need to recognize that "genetics" sections attract cruft. They do so every time, and they are a nightmare to clean up once the cruft has piled up. For the purposes of this article, it is completely sufficient to mention briefly that haplogroup R1b has been connected with stages of early IE migrations. Also, haplogroups are never "a people's", it doesn't work that way. This article is not about population genetics, and it should avoid tangents into that can of worms at all cost. The point of R1b's importance in European genetics; i.e., because so many Europeans are R1b is grounds for including material on R1b at genetic history of Europe. It is, on its own, no grounds whatsoever for even mentioning R1b at Proto-Indo-Europeans. --dab (𒁳) 10:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Geog: "you are a good faith user"

I already knew that, Geog. But thanks.

Dab, don't read too much into my use of "people"; I only meant "inhabitants".

"For the purposes of this article, it is completely sufficient to mention briefly that haplogroup R1b has been connected with stages of early IE migrations."

Fine. I honestly can't say it matters to me one way or the other, though. Do whatever you honestly think will help our readers most.

And in case your question wasn't rhetorical and you really wanted to know "who wrote this stuff?", here's the answer: [1]. (But I happen to think that all of us did: he, and the three of us and more, because we've been editing that section for two years, and yet that mistake remained during that time.)

Also, could you see Template talk:Ancient Near East? Nice template, but needs some small tweak in the collapsing. SamEV (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sam: I honestly can't keep track of who's new here and not anymore but assumed you might be new in lieu of the way you suggested the info be kept. Regardless I'm glad we're all on the same page now. Let's all in the future try not to acuse specific individuals of doing this and that right or wrong. I know we have to state our stance and justifications but there's no need to take the defensive or say so and so did this wrong. That goes for all of us. I think most of the corrective measures that were required have been taken for some of the bad faith users and edit wars on related topics seemed to have died down significantly (or at least for now). I take this as a sign that we are moving in the right direction for the time being. Its easy to still be mad and have feelings of frustration stemming from those individuals who pushed the envelope but we're moving forward now. Peace.Geog1 (talk) 21:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)Geog1

Good sentiments. I second them.

On a different note, you don't have to write your name after a comment. The four tildes take care of that. SamEV (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure sounds good...BTW you mean you "second that" as such is typically the expression in English. Thanks and peace yet again.Geog1 (talk) 20:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

R1a an Indo-European marker!? how sure are we!?

R1a an Indo-European marker!? how sure are we!?

Thank you for this enlightening article.

First of all we could not associate language which is a cultural criterium with Y-DNA which is a biological criterium.

Secondly,how R1a could be an Indo-European,have you invented a time machine,travel to first Proto Indo-European speaking hordes' tents,prevailing DNA then go back to the present!!!

3/R1a peack is amongst Turkic speaking asian looking Kyrghiz.

4/How could you suppose that R1a steppe hordes succed to impose their languages upon technologically more advanced European neolithic farmers?!!

5/Closest language family to Indo-European,both morphologically and lexically(please read works of linguists and anthropologists Bomhard,Ruhlen,Starostin,Cavalli Sforza,bernal,Dolgopolsky,Hodge)is Semitic family which is connected with the J subclade of the IJ haplotype and J's farmers "indo-europeanised" Borean(Turkic,Uralic...)speaking R1a carriying steppe hordes,whereas I is most likely connected with the early Indo-European languages of Europe(Pelasgian,Etruscan,Pictish.....).

So as a brief nutshell:

A/J hg=south lislakh that branched to:

A1/northern branch that was imposed upon R1a hordes giving birth-by creolisation-to Indo-European languages(ie northern lislakh branch spoken by originally borean speaking R1a's=Indo-European)

A2/southern Semito-Egyptian-Tchadico-Berber(kushitic has just a Semito-Egyptian superstratum)branch.

B/I hg=north lislakh=>pre indo-european languages of Europe spoken by the original I hg carriying peoples of Europe.

Of course these are just speculations that seemed somehow very possible and I suggest their being incuded in this article as long as the IE/R1a association is almost as hypothetical and not proven as the other hypothesis concerning the ie's hg marker(J2,G2,I and perhaps also my hg R1b etc...).

Best Regards

Humanbyrace (talk) 20:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

stop connecting haplogroups with language families. thank you. Also, your naive cliches of "steppe hordes" are not helpful. If IE expansion beyond the steppe was due to the spread of technology, this is about metallurgy, horsemanship and the chariot, all of which your "neolithic farmers" did not have.

If it is at all meaningful to speak of "an Indo-European marker", this is in the sense of "a marker that allows us to trace the population movements associated with the Bronze Age expansion of Indo-European speakers". This is topic of archaeogenetics, and it is irrelevant if many non-IE speakers today have the marker in question, or if many, if not most, IE speakers today do not have it. --dab (𒁳) 10:08, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

So I think it should be well unerlined in this article the FACT that the connection of R1a with Bronze technology or at least with Indo-European languages are pure hypothetical specualtions that without a genetic prelievment of human groups belonging to a well attesed LITERATE PROTO INDO-EUROPEAN speaking sciety,CAN NOT BE CONFIRMED.

Humanbyrace (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

As you said, Indo-European culture is not directly connected to racial issues, but as the theory holds, languages were conveyed through Eurasia by different means (Migration, Cultural Assimilation, Class of rulers, ...). The genetic studies may express that along other factors, the languages were in fact spread by migration of the original PIE speaking people. I do not see how this fact offends you?!! As this study suggests, the Germans and Romans adopted the IE languages mostly through cultural assimilation. Don't be afraid of a revival of the "Aryan Superiority" theory!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.183.127.95 (talk) 19:28, 4 July 2010 (UTC) 94.183.127.95 (talk) 19:30, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Redirected Indo-Europeans

Indo-European people used to be a disambiguation page, then became a redirect to Indo-European (disambiguation), and is, since October 2008, a redirect to Proto-Indo-Europeans. Both these links are present in the template at the top of the page. Makes no sense to me. Shouldn't "Indo-Europeans" at least be mentioned in the article? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 11:04, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure who should be mentioned in the article. Proto-Indo-Europeans, or all those people now living who speak Indo-European languages? The latter is covered under Aryan race, a discredited idea. Actually, now that I think about it I'm not sure we should suggest that there is a linkage among all these peoples in the template (the entire "Indo-European Peoples" section). RJC ^Talk_Contribs 14:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, very confusing. I changed the redirect back to Indo-European (disambiguation). According to Template talk:Indo-European topics#People, these people were added to the {{Indo-European topics}} template "because the culture of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is included, and because this template is used in places that are not specific to language." --Fama Clamosa (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

There was already a section in the template on PIE culture (language, society, religion). The section on IE peoples has links to the Balts, Slavs, Indo-Iranians, Germans, Greeks, etc. The fact that the articles for these peoples might inappropriately link them all together via template (such that Swedes have more in common with Spaniards than Finns) isn't much reason to repeat that mistake in the template itself. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 16:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

So, maybe the peoples section should go and the template be removed from all articles not related to languages? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 03:45, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Someone removed the link to Indo-European people from the template, so I guess things makes more sense now... somehow. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 17:36, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Although this doesn't resolve the problem that the template intimates that indo-european-speakers are somehow related as peoples. I'd like some other editors to chime in before removing it, but I may just have to go ahead. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 16:40, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Archive

This talk page is approaching a 100kB. I propose we should ask MiszaBot to archive inactive threads after 125 days. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 05:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done No objections, so a bot archive has now been set-up. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 05:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Genetics

I've just reverted a new chunk of stuff on genetics. It's my opinion that sources need to actually specifically discuss proto-Indo-European language, and if they don't, using them is original research. What in the current section actually discusses language? Dougweller (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19449030. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Eurocentrism In Indology

The amount of Eurocentrism in the field of Indology is overwhelming and far from any neutral status. 1.Most of the textual interpretations are the straw snogs of the centuries old hypotheticy and biased colonial view of India and Have no conclusiveness at all as we must note recent historic structure can never be put on archaic and totally unseen criteria. 2.No archaeologic evidence have ever been found 4 any aryan intrusion to the subcontinent, same goes to archaeogenetics 3.The racial interpretation of the word arya is a good joke. 4.If there is no clue of a theory then it should be treated as a theory and other theories should be having their space at a same level. 5.I challenge anyone to discard the conclusions. Nirjhara (talk) 04:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Failures of Academic Criteria

1. In theory : http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/articles/indhistory/whatisamt/index.htm http://www.stephen-knapp.com/death_of_the_aryan_invasion_theory.htm http://gosai.com/writings/the-myth-of-the-aryan-invasion http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/indology_en.asp — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nirjhara (talk • contribs) 11:17, 25 September 2011 (UTC) 2. In Genetics. http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n9/full/ejhg201065a.html http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/genetics-aryan-debate.html http://www.pnas.org/content/103/4/843.full?sid=99aa9f1b-76b7-4e0e-9f36-b5400c4d3791

3.In Archaeology. http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2011/03/still-no-trace-of-aryan-invasion.html http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/12203 So, I request the kind editors to check the evidences and researches to put some neutrality in this article.Nirjhara (talk) 04:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The onus is not on editors who wish the article to present the majority position as the majority position. Nor are we to judge the horrible state of current scholarship, making sure that the article calls that scholarship horrible. We reflect scholarship, end of story. We do not give prominence to fringe theories even when persuaded by them. Please do not interpret my failure to do busywork as any sort of consent or concession regarding these points. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 02:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well you have to go through the evidences and the logic of arguements with fruits of recent researches in every category! If Academics and its Scholaship stands for copying the past conclusions with no recent advances in science, archaeology, textual references or anything then it is the FRINGE.Nirjhara (talk) 03:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No that is not normally what "fringe" means. Fringe positions are ones which are not widely believed in. From your description you are saying that the sources are out of date, which is something else? But if they are out of date, then there must be newer sources we can use which clearly state the newer mainstream positions? What we can NOT do on Wikipedia is try to put together the pieces of what the next mainstream position will be. There is nothing bad about doing such creative thinking of course, but it is just not what Wikipedia aims to do. As a community we have learned that if we allow individuals to present new ideas before they are published, then not all individuals will agree, and Wikipedia starts to look more like an internet discussion forum than an encyclopedia. There are heaps of good internet discussion forums already.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

well, not Out of date but out of date mentality in current academic scholarship (biassed) which makes random copy of the colonial view of a country which has the oldest religion by iminterpreting researches with glasses of past and gives any protest a tag of lunaticism.Nirjhara (talk) 04:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be your personal opinion. Our policy on sources is at WP:VERIFY, with guidance at WP:IRS. See also WP:NOR. And we do not attempt to be neutral, but to present a neutral point of view, showing significant points of view in proportion to their significance. Dougweller (talk) 04:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Nirjhara, you might be right and if so then maybe publications in the near future will improve the "mainstream" and after the mainstream improves we can follow. But Wikipedia is not the place for trying to get change initiated. We follow here (although many Wikipedians might be trying to initiate change in other parts of their life). There are lots of places on the internet aiming at new knowledge. This is the backroom. We are just keeping score. Our aim is low, but we are building something on a large scale. You have to use Wikipedia for what Wikipedia is good for and not try to make it something else. It seems like you know something about these subjects and you have enthusiasm, so you will possibly be able to find a way to please yourself partially by editing Wikipedia. But you'll need to remember that there are some itches which won't go away from editing Wikipedia. Hope that makes some sense!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

History of Research

I have just edited the H.O. portion and added recent research conclusions regarding indian history which are done via eminent and peer archaeologists and archaeogenologists.Nirjhara (talk) 03:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Racial reality

Its a blog/website so why a reference?Nirjhara (talk) 08:05, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

By the late-2nd millennium BC offshoots of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached Anatolia, the Aegean, Western Europe, and the Iranian plateau;[1] they reached northern India later.

Er, shouldn't that be 'late 3rd millenium'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noitseuq (talk • contribs) 10:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

R1b- Missing

This article seems to omit R1b and all it's subclades, which is a bit shocking considering most males in W Europe are R1b. (15/10/2012 - S C Grant-Davies) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.243.166.218 (talk) 13:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Difficult Language

Regular people don't know phrases like "well attested". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.213.209.31 (talk) 21:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Original research tags

There is presently an "original research" tag at the beginning of the Culture section and the beginning of the Genetics section. Since I have read several books on the Indo-Europeans (plus back issues of JIES - the Journal of Indo-European Studies going back to vol. 1, no. 1, 1973) I don't see anything here that remotely resembles original research. Some of it is a bit dated, but it's hardly original. Thus, I am going to remove the first tag. If someone wants to put it back, please leave a comment here. If something is merely unsourced, then maybe a "citation needed" tag would be helpful (as many as are needed). As for the second tag, the work of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is quite well-known. Summarizing the results of his research hardly counts as original research. On the other hand, I haven't fully studied the Genetics section, so I'll leave that tag for now. Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:05, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to add cites. Kortoso (talk) 18:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Update

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/full/ncomms2656.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 22:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Article needs to be bought.

Still here are some parts of the text:

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/04/mtdna-haplogroup-h-and-origin-of.html

Here is part of the text:

From around 2800 BC, the LNE Bell Beaker culture emerged from the Iberian Peninsula to form one of the first pan-European archaeological complexes. This cultural phenomenon is recognised by a distinctive package of rich grave goods including the eponymous bell-shaped ceramic beakers. The genetic affinities between Central Europe’s Bell Beakers and present-day Iberian populations (Fig. 2) is striking and throws fresh light on long-disputed archaeological models3. We suggest these data indicate a considerable genetic influx from the West during the LNE. These far-Western genetic affinities of Mittelelbe-Saale’s Bell Beaker folk may also have intriguing linguistic implications, as the archaeologically-identified eastward movement of the Bell Beaker culture has recently been linked to the initial spread of the Celtic language family across Western Europe39. This hypothesis suggests that early members of the Celtic language family (for example, Tartessian)40 initially developed from Indo-European precursors in Iberia and subsequently spread throughout the Atlantic Zone; before a period of rapid mobility, reflected by the Beaker phenomenon, carried Celtic languages across much of Western Europe. This idea not only challenges traditional views of a linguistic spread of Celtic westwards from Central Europe during the Iron Age, but also implies that Indo-European languages arrived in Western Europe substantially earlier, presumably with the arrival of farming from the Near East41.

It seems that genetic evidence supporting the Iberian hypothesis, paired with archaelogy, is ever-growing. A lot has been already published concerning the Iberian-Basque-British Isles connection. Now this seems to continue in other European areas like Germnay.

Pipon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

That would certainly be an interesting contribution to the Proto Celtic article. Kortoso (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Language and other things

There are many examples in history of a language being imposed on a population without a significant genetic or even cultural link. I'm thinking of Latin America for starters. The theory that there is a 1:1 correlation between the language and the genetics of the speakers may have holes in it. Not sure where to begin on this, however...Kortoso (talk) 19:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Aurignacian

No connection to PIE. Am removing link. Kortoso (talk) 19:21, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1a1 is thought to have originated

There's a problem with this. First is the sourcing - we need to use the original sources, not an interpretation on a non-academic site. Second, R1A1 redirects to Haplogroup R-M420 and that says "R-M420 and R-M17 are believed to have originated somewhere within Eurasia, most likely in the area from Central Europe to South Asia inclusive (see R-M17 for details on proposed origins)." and in a later sub-section "There is no simple consensus concerning the places in Eurasia where R-M173, R-M420 or R-M343 evolved." R-M17 says "Until 2012, there was extensive scholarly debate as to the origins of haplgroup R-M17. Some researchers found that Indian, or more generally, South Asian populations, had the highest STR diversity.<ref>({{Harvnb|Kivisild|2003}},{{Harvnb|Mirabal|2009}},{{Harvnb|Underhill|2009}},({{Harvnb|Sengupta|2005}},{{Harvnb|Sahoo|2006}},{{Harvnb|Sharma|2009}},{{Harvnb|Thangaraj|2010}}),{{Harvnb|Sharma|2012}})</ref> Other studies variously proposed Eastern European, Central Asian and even Western Asian origins for R-M17.<ref>({{Harvnb|Underhill|2009}}{{Harvnb|Regueiro|2006}}{{Harvnb|Kivisild|2003}}{{Harvnb|Semino|2000}}){{Harv|Zhao|2009}}{{Harv|Semino|2000}}</ref>" The "until 2012" comment was part of a reorganisation by Slovenski Volk and and makes no sense now as more changes were made after that. Dougweller (talk) 10:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

By the way, the first bit of that paragraph is broken. It used to read "Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1a1, a lineage thought to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, is associated with the Kurgan culture, the Indo-European languages, as well as with the postglacial Ahrensburg culture which has been suggested to have spread the gene originally." but now reads "Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1a1 is thought to have originated in either the Eurasian Steppe (north of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea), or the Indus Valley.[18] the Indo-European languages, as well as with the postglacial Ahrensburg culture which has been suggested to have spread the haplogroup originally." Dougweller (talk) 10:56, 22 January 2014 (UTC)