Talk:Proto-Indo-Europeans/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Snow argument

This is a completely dispensable argument and the author could and should have known that snow is known nearly everywhere in Eurasia, and even in Northern (and Sothern) Africa! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.79.233 (talk) 09:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

However, it rules out most of India, and was one of the factors in pointing away from an "out-of-India" model in the nineteenth century, when linguists thought that Sanskrit was much closer to Proto-Indo-European than today's linguists do (see "Schleicher's fable)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Take it up with Calvert Watkins. Kortoso (talk) 23:20, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Combined Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis

I now think that the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in present-day Turkey. Yet the Kurgan culture does play an important role in the evolution of Indo-European languages. I think it was founded by Indo-Europeans which immigrated to the Pontic steppe. The ones which did not leave were cultural ancestors of the speakers of Anatolian languages. The language of the Kurgan culture gave rise to all other Indo-European languages. These include all the ones spoken today.

There were several early splinter groups from the Kurgan culture. Three of these were the cultural ancestors of the Armenians, Greeks and Albanians. There may have been more but the languages descended from theirs are so poorly documented we don’t know much of them.

A larger splinter group from Kurgan culture was the Beaker people. This metalworking pastoral people spread over much of Europe. The areas were they settled includes almost all of West-Central Europe, the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas, the large islands between them, the British Islands, Southern Scandinavia and probably parts of Eastern Europe north of the grasslands. With such a widespread culture they soon developed several different languages. These were ancestral of the Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic and Italic ones.

The Kurgan people themselves developed into the Proto-Indo-Iranians, many of which returned to the Middle East. With the Aryan migration to northern India the Indo-Aryan languages eventually splintered from the Iraniac ones. This happened not long before these two peoples started to write as Avestan and Vedic are relatively similar.

What do you think about this hypothesis? No “the Urheimat must be my country because we are the most superior/unique/original” argument, please! No people in the world are intrinsically superior to any other ones. It is questionable if any people are “uniquely unique”. The most original of the living Indo-European languages is probably Lithuanian. Yet no-one who is not a Lithuanian have seriously suggested the Indo-European Urheimat to be in Lithuania.

2015-01-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. -- 20:19, 3 January 2015‎ 213.114.158.174

This strongly resembles Renfrew's updated Anatolian hypothesis, where he tries to incorporate Kurgan as well. Something like this seems to be a common line of thinking among archaeologists, but I just don't see the evidence supporting it; the results of linguistic palaeontology, for example, are ambiguous at best. There is no clear evidence for a "Nuclear Indo-European" excluding Anatolian, either; instead, Anatolian can simply be a peripheral branch that became isolated early on and did not take part in some developments common to all or most other languages, without those forming a monophylum, but instead a dialect continuum or language area like early medieval Common Slavic or Old High German through which innovations could still spread (and instead, Anatolian went through innovations of its own). The Anatolian languages are now increasingly thought to have originated in the west of Anatolia (where the greatest diversity of Anatolian language is found), not the east, and the immigration route via the Aegean and the Bosporus is considered the most likely, given the Anatolian-like Parnassos-type substratum in Greece. Also, it's striking that the greatest diversity of branches is in Europe, not Asia. The only way the Anatolian Urheimat would be attractive from a centre-of-gravity point of view would be if Proto-Anatolian were identical with Proto-Indo-European itself! This would mean that either would Anatolian have to be broken up, or all other branches would have to be shown to originate from within Anatolian, which effectively means the same thing, optimally in the form of a monophyletic "Nuclear Indo-European" branch; such a re-rooting of the tree in Anatolia doesn't look plausible, though. It's difficult to get around problems with the Anatolian hypothesis such as non-Indo-European languages being spoken throughout the area in question, and apparently autochthonous there, in the sense of deeply rooted, and that Indo-European just doesn't seem to be as old as required by any version of the Anatolian hypothesis I'm aware of, both considering lexicon and reconstructed culture, and diversity. A more methodical problem with the updated Anatolian hypothesis is that it seems to dispense with the neat correlation of the spread of farming with Indo-European that originally made it so attractive. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Lena -- The core idea of the Anatolian hypothesis is actually that the early Indo-Europeans were predominant agriculturalists and that Indo-European languages generally entered Europe along a southern or Balkans route, along with the spread of cereal-grain agriculture into Europe before 5000 BC. A hypothesis which gives greater prominence to the geographic region of Anatolia than Gimbutas did, but does not posit the two main features I mentioned (crop-raising as PIE mainstay, early southern Balkans route into Europe), would not really be "Anatolian" in the most meaningful sense. As for what Florian Blaschke mentioned above, see articles Dialect continuum and Sprachbund (though a sprachbund can also apply between language which are not closely related). It has been obvious for a while that the criss-crossing isoglosses between the different IE subgroups (i.e. m/bh in endings vs. centum/satem etc.) suggest that there was a phase when "wave" influences complicated the "tree" of linguistic splitting, so in that context it's natural to suppose that the Hittite branch was not part of the continuum, and exempt from most "wave" influences. (This may or may not make the Indo-Hittite hypothesis unnecessary.) AnonMoos (talk) 15:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting ideas, but I don’t think the Indo-European languages spread with agriculture throughout Europe. This is dues to Basque (a language isolate) having many words related to agriculture which are completely unlike their Indo-European counterparts. My idea was that the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the Middle East at about the same time as the Anatolian hypothesis suggests. The Kurgan culture is suggested to have been a splinter group which emigrated northward. Eventually, this splinter group would have given rise to all Indo-European-speaking peoples other than the speakers of Anatolian ones. Please note that Proto-Anatolian is thought of as a stage between Proto-Indo-European and written Anatolian languages, just like Old English is a stage between Proto-Germanic and present-day English.

2016-01-02 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

If you don't think that the spread of Indo-European languages in Europe is connected to the initial spread of agriculture, you disagree with the entire premise of the Anatolian hypothesis (in its original form). But the possibility that the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the Middle East is unlikely because of the early Indo-European and Indo-Iranian loanwords in Uralic (even Proto-Uralic, dated to c. 2000 BC because of these Indo-Iranian loanwords; a striking loan is *kekra/i "annual cycle", attested in Finnic and Saami and unlikely to be late, but from Pre-Proto-Indo-Iranian *kekro- instead), which significantly complicate any hypothesis that places the homeland south of the Caucasus (although your modified hypothesis does not necessarily conflict with the Uralic evidence). Also, the time-depth posited by the Anatolian hypothesis for Proto-Indo-European (including Anatolian), as much as 7000–9000 years (!), is simply implausible. One would expect reconstructed Proto-Anatolian to be much more divergent then, while it is very close to traditional Proto-Indo-European, especially phonologically (while the laryngeals are not directly attested outside Anatolian, there are many indirect effects – such as the famous prothetic vowels in Greek, which are completely missing from most other branches – which show that the laryngeals must have been present even in a hypothetical Proto-Nuclear-Indo-European). The chronology just doesn't work out. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I've failed to mention a crucial argument: The presence of words for "horse", "yoke", and especially "thill" in Anatolian (see Don Ringe at Language Log). Had Anatolian split off early, wagon-related terminology would not be present in it. (Also note that horses were unknown in Neolithic Anatolia, as were donkeys, though other equids may have been present.) IMHO, this is the nail in the coffin for all hypotheses that assign a deep prehistorical date to Proto-Indo-European – especially its final stage immediately before the breakup. It may actually be dated (with Klingenschmitt, and effectively aslo Gimbutas) to c. 3000–2500 BC – wheels and wagons are already attested in the 4th millennium BC, but only become common in the 3rd. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:20, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Yamnaya

With all the recent genetics work centred on the Yamnaya culture population, and all the references to the Yamnaya in the article text, there really should be a Yamnaya section heading somewhere. Urselius (talk) 13:58, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Maybe in Proto-Indo-European homeland where it belongs. :) Kortoso (talk) 22:43, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

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Wine-dark sea

In the current page, there is "oral heroic poetry or song lyrics that used stock phrases such as imperishable fame[2] and wine-dark sea" with no reference for wine-dark see. It is certainly not true that indo-european knew the wine. The only alcoholic beverage with a PIE name is hydromel. Of all the offsprings of PIE, only Greek and Latin had a word for wine (oenos and vinus) and their very forms indicates that they are a borrowing of a common word of some (certainly non-IE) mediterranean civilization.

If no one objects, I will remove the "and wine-dark sea" from the sentence. -- 14:04, 26 July 2015‎ 69.117.233.195

It's only an example for a stock phrase used in ancient heroic poetry, but it's not necessarily claimed to go back to PIE. Still, your argument that the word for wine cannot be Proto-Indo-European is not actually true, see wikt:wine, wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wóyh₁nom and wikt:οἶνος#Ancient Greek. Latin vīnum can in principle actually go back to an older *woinom as well (in this case, the presumed Italic cognates would be borrowings from Latin), as oi is regularly monophthongised to ī after word-initial w (compare vīcus < *woikos ~ Greek οἶκος) instead of the ū found elsewhere (else we would find *vūcus, *vūnum). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:47, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

"Wine" is actually a classic early Mediterranean word (cf. Hebrew yayin, where there was a historic sound change of initial "w" to "y" in Hebrew). The word may have been borrowed rather early into branches of IE that came close to the Mediterranean, but it's very implausible that the thing or name was known on the Pontic-Caspian steppe ca. 3000 BC, or that the word was borrowed from IE languages into early Mediterranean languages, rather than vice versa. AnonMoos (talk) 15:27, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

By "hydromel" I suspect you mean mead. Kortoso (talk) 18:34, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I suppose this referred to the Mediterranean? 89.204.139.130 (talk) 03:55, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Sharma (2009)

Regarding this third revert, which re-inserted:

Genetic studies have shown that haplogroup R1a1 originated in the Indian sub-continent.

References

Edit-summary:

To my knowledge Sharma's work has not been contradicted yet by any other study published in a peer-reviewed journal. Underhill (2015) does not appear to contradict Sharm's work.

It's not studies; it's one study, which should be attributed. Sharma is from 2009; that's outdated. Lucotte only refers to Sharma. You're WP:CHERRYPICKING to give WP:UNDUE weight to a WP:FRINGE theory. See Indo-Aryan migration#Genetics: ancient ancestry and multiple gene flows, especially Indo-Aryan migration#Haplogroup R1a and related haplogroups, for an overview of genetic research, especially Underhill 2014/2015. See also Nahasimhan (2018) for an update on the recent genetical research on the coming of the Indo-Europeans to India. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:44, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Narsimhan (2018) is not published in a peer-reviewed journal. It should not be used as referenced until it is accepted and published by one. I can point out many flaws in the study, but this not the place for that. Suffice it to say that the study us unpublished. As for other studies such as Underhill, he is discussing expansions of R1a1, not its origins. That paper does not contradict Sharma et al's work. I believe the reference should remain until anyone can point to a study published in a peer-reviewed journal that contradicts Sharma et al's study. Most works I've seen discuss later expansions of R1a, and not its origins. Sharma et al's study remains non-contradicted. I'll be happy to be proven wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.50.180.203 (talk) 06:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

You are WP:CHERRYPICKING one outdated source, ignoring all the other research, violating WP:NPOV, to promote a WP:FRINGE theory. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:53, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Just because a study is from 2009 doesn't mean it is outdated. Unless it is contradicted by a later study, it cannot be deemed outdated. There is no contradiction between Sharma et al and other works. Also, I am not promiting any theory, just posting fact relevant to the genetics section. I am not drawing any conclusions from it.

Sharma is pre-2013, when genetic research started to be changed completely by far better research methods. When you refer to Sharma, you should add an attribution, and put him in context, such as Pamjav (2012), Underhill (2014/2015), and the host of 2018-(pre-)publications. You should also paraphrase him correctly:

Further, observation of R1a1* in different tribal population groups, existence of Y-haplogroup R1a* in ancestors and extended phylogenetic analyses of the pooled dataset of 530 Indians, 224 Pakistanis and 276 Central Asians and Eurasians bearing the R1a1* haplogroup supported the autochthonous origin of R1a1 lineage in India and a tribal link to Indian Brahmins. However, it is important to discover novel Y-chromosomal binary marker(s) for a higher resolution of R1a1* and confirm the present conclusions.

That's quite different from

Genetic studies have shown that haplogroup R1a1 originated in the Indian sub-continent.

By the way, you provided the wrong link: you've referenced a correction from 2014, to the original 2009 publication. Proper editing requires paying attention to such details... This is the correct links: Sharma et al. (2009), [https://www.nature.com/articles/jhg20082 The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system, Nature.

Lucotte et al. (2015) do not conclude that R1a1 originated in India; they state:

We have refound in our samples the clear distinction initially established by Pamjav et al. [21] between Indian Z93 populations and European Z280 populations: all our South Asian populations are Z93, while almost all our European populations are Z280. Datations show that the Z93 Pakistano-Indian group is the most ancient (about 15,5 K years); in Europe, the Eastern populations are the most ancient (about 12,5 K years) and the Northern ones the most recent (about 6,9 Kyears).

As you can infer, those datings are bullshit; they are the result of their method, which counts with steady population growth, were in reality there was rapid population growth in South Asia. Note that Pamlav (2012) concludes thet the two differentiated at the eurasian steppes. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:17, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm in two minds about this issue. I think for now it is best to remove the reference. I'll remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.50.180.203 (talk) 07:59, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. See also Pamjav (2012), Brief communication: New Y‐chromosome binary markers improve phylogenetic resolution within haplogroup R1a1*:

R1a1‐M458 and R1a1‐Z280 were typical for the Hungarian population groups, whereas R1a1‐Z93 was typical for Malaysian Indians and the Hungarian Roma. Inner and Central Asia is an overlap zone for the R1a1‐Z280 and R1a1‐Z93 lineages. This pattern implies that an early differentiation zone of R1a1‐M198 conceivably occurred somewhere within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region as they lie between South Asia and Eastern Europe.

The real point that there is a strong scholarly consensus regarding Indo-European migrations into India, contributing to the present composition of it's gene-pool. See also, for example, ArunKumar eta al. (2015), Genome-wide signatures of male-mediated migration shaping the Indian gene pool. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:04, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Central Europe?

Second paragraph of the lede: "Mainstream scholarship places them in the forest-steppe zone immediately to the north of the western end of the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Central Europe."

Central Europe is like Prague, Berlin, Warsaw. The western end of the Pontic-Caspian steppe is (according to the article) 50 degrees west at the mouth of Dnieper. North of that is like Smolensk which is well inside Eastern Europe.

So which is it? North of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, or in Central Europe? Can't be both. Herostratus (talk) 06:14, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

You're right; I've corrected it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:33, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Useful paper apparently not used by this article

I am puzzled as to why this article does not include more on the work of Anthony and Ringe [1] Among other things, this might be the missing reference (as indicated by original research tags) to the arguments in the article against the Anatolian hypothesis.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Beware of the assumption language=people

The article seems to assume without discussion that every language corresponds to a "people" (ethnic group, nation, tribe, whatever), and that the spread of a language means migration of its "people".
History shows that there are many ways by which a language L1 spoken in a region R1 can be replaced by a language L2 related to the language L3 spoken in some other region R3. Mass migration of L3 speakers from R3 to R1, with elimination or displacement of the L1 speakers, is only one of those ways; and not even the most common one. There are many cases in recent history when a nation with millions of people switched to a completely unrelated language, by imposition of a foreign militay power, even though the latter never had more than a few thousand administrators in the place, and they left after a few decades
The apparent spread of other "cultural" markers, like horse domestication, does not imply population migration and replacement, either. In fact, technology, crops, religions, and decoration styles can cross ethnic and genetic boundaries very easily -- even more easily than languages.
Therefore, the article should not tacitly equate the diffusion of Indo-European languages with the migration of a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European people. Any such claim should be backed by evidence or argument; or should be labeled as "Someone's Theory" and sourced.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree both of your argumentation, the so-called Indo-Eruopeanistic studies suffer from many uncertainties, mostly lack of evidence, so we have to be twice as careful anything regarding any possible association of the listed.(KIENGIR (talk) 19:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC))

I don't see any source for the argumentation above, nor any specific example from the article. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:32, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

It is becoming increasingly certain that a genetic revolution in western and central Europe happened in the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, with the widespread and abundant introduction of genetic markers deriving from the Yamnaya Culture population of the North Pontic Steppe. This fits quite nicely with the idea that the Yamnaya were the origin of Indo-European languages. However, unlike pottery styles and DNA, unwritten languages do not leave traces that can be directly linked to 'dead people'. So although genetics does suggest wholesale migration of people the connection of that people with the spread of Indo-European languages is conjectural, though probable. Urselius (talk) 09:20, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Right on the head section: Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BC. Mainstream scholarship places them... That language strongly leads the reader to think that the existence of the "they" is not under dispute.
The Haak et al reference in the section you mention does not seem to say what you claim. From the abstract, it seems that they see evidence of rather complicated gene flow and mixing going back for more than 8000 years, well before the Bronze age (which was two millennia after the assumed spread of the PIEs).
You have two parents, four grandparents, eight grand-grandparents, etc. If one counts conservatively 33 years per generation, 1000 years ago you had 2³⁰ ancestors. That is more than one billion people, which is more than the world's population at the time. Do you know how many of those were living in Mongolia? How many in Scandinavia?
The point of this trivial exercise is to point out that simple gene diffusion -- by people moving relatively short distances and marrying out of their village -- can scatter genes over the whole world, within a millenium or two. The spread of a genetic marker does not imply mass migration; and therefore it cannot be assumed to be related to the spread of Indo-European languages.
Statistics of genetics is a very difficult subject and eevn experts can make gross mistakes. I am no expert, but I could spot a feew such bloopers. Remember the "nine Eves" theory?
Or look at the Americas. At a first glance it may seem that it is a clear case of language spread coincinding with mass migration and gene flow. Portuguese in Brazil, English in US and Canada, Spanish in the rest... But while Brazil's language was nearly 100% imported from Portugal, maybe less than 50% of the average Brazilian genes derive from Portuguese genes. For some other countries the percentage may be much smaller. For the former European colonies in Africa where European languages are official, the European gene input may be close to zero. So one can have big discrepancies between gene flow and language flow, in only a few centuries. Now think of 4-6 of those steps, over a couple of millennia...
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:00, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

No, Haak et al. says just what I have have outlined. You are confusing the genetic history of the Yamnaya, and the genetic history of western and central Europeans, before the Early Bronze Age, with the effects of Yamnaya genetic markers on Bronze Age and later Europeans. Obviously all peoples examined at any time point have antecedents. The introduction of Yamnaya genetic markers into western and central Europe is too abrupt to result from purely diffusional effects. One of the triumphs of the paper is tracing how Europeans and Amerindians came to share some of the same ancestry, an ancient Siberian population contributed to both the Yamnaya and to some of the people entering the American continent. A previously puzzling phenomenon. Ancient DNA is solving many previously insoluble problems, but, as I said, it does not give direct evidence of language. Urselius (talk) 18:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Can you be more specific with the dates? I doubt that the "genetic invasion" of Western Europe by the Yamnaya can be dated more accurately than a thousand years. Maybe for each specific find, but not for the whole. A lot of things can happen in a thousand years...

It seems to have varied depending on location. The widespread introduction of (ultimately) Yamnaya genetic markers to the British Isles seems to have been in a period of no longer than two centuries. However, accuracy is limited by the time of burial of available remains, it could have been over a shorter time-frame. Urselius (talk) 10:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

A reconstructed proto-language did not necessarily exist

The article should start by presenting the evidence or arguments, if any, suporting the hypothesis that at some time there was indeed a population that spoke the hypothetical "Proto-Indo-European language". Just because one can reconstruct a common ancestor of several languages, it does not mean that the reconstructed language was ever spoken, anywhere, anytime.
Imagine that a zombie apocalypse wipes out all of mankind except for the populations of Vietnam, Veneto, and Angola; and all linguistic and hystory knowledge is lost in the disaster. The new generation of linguists, starting from scratch, would easily identify that the languages of the last two survivor groups are more closely related to each other than to that of the first. With the tools of comparative linguistics, they would eventually reconstruct a "Proto-Veneto-Angolan" language, from which both Venetian and Angolan Portuguese can be derived by systematic phonetic shift rules. ...
... But of course we now that such a language was never spoken by anyone; and while the two languages did have a common ancestor in Vulgar Latin, it was far more removed in time than what glottochronology may indicate, and was quite different from both and from the reconstructed PVA -- in phonetics, lexicon, and grammar. In fact, the distance between Vulgar Latin and any reconstructed "PVA" would probably be greater than the difference between Venetian and Portuguese.
--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 03:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Someone who had available only Venetian dialect and Angolan Portuguese would be trying to reconstruct what linguists call "Western Romance (probably somewhat inadequately due to inadequate information). AnonMoos (talk) 02:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah,but that is the problem: it is highly unlikely that there ever was a "Proto-Western-Romance language".
Comparative linguists put languages in trees because we descend from monkeys, and therefore, (1) we have an innate ability to understand trees, but not more complex structures; and (2) back in the 19th century, after the success of Darwin's theory of speciation, other sciences and psudo-sciences instinctively tried to ape him.
Species do evolve in tree-like fashion (almost always) because the species that have evolved separately for long enough time are biologically unable to mix again. But that is not true of languages, not at all! Languages mix all the time, and there are plenty of examples (creole languages) that have happened in historic times. In order to sustain their tree classification, linguists had to either declare that all those creole languages were "not languages but creoles" hence not worthy of a place in their trees; or do some extreme gymnastics, like declare that English is a Germanic language on the basis of lexicon alone.
During the Roman Empire, armies and administrators were constantly shuffled all across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Thus it is likely that Vulgar Latin was fairly uniform through the whole Empire. When the Empire collapsed, that continent-wide shuffling stopped, so Vulgar Latin started to evolve locally in each region semi-independently, with constant diffusion between neighbors. Political boundaries eventually created some sharp language boudaries. But there was no tree, and no "Proto-Western-Romance"...
--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:20, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

If what you claim is true, then it would be basically impossible to construct linguistic trees at all, but that's not the case. Trees are sometimes disturbed by "wave" influences resulting from dialect continuums and sprachbunds (both of which have been well-known to linguists for basically a century, by the way), but it's not as common as you seem to think for wave influences to cause linguists to throw up their hands in despair with respect to constructing trees, and the idea of dispensing with linguistic trees altogether is quite fringe in the field of linguistics... AnonMoos (talk) 18:06, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Each new language L takes some of its phoneme inventory, root lexicon, morphology and grammar from other languages, and introduces some original changes in all those aspects. (That is true even artificially constructed languages, and even when the authors specifically intend to make their conlang utterly unlike any existing language.)
Most of the time, there is just one previous language P1 that accounts for an overwhelming portion of the features of L - say, 80% or 90% in some arbitrary metrics. Then one may be forgiven to informally call P1 the "parent language" of L.
That is usually the case, for example, when a population stably inhabits some region without being colonized or otherwise dominated by a foreign population: then P1 is simply the language that was spoken by the previous generation of speakers in that region. But, even then, L will not inherit 100% of its features from P1: it will take some from other languages P2,P3, ..., that it has contact with, and will still add new elements or mutations.
What the comparative linguists dogmatically do, and should not be acceptable to any scientist, is to claim that the relation between the majority contributor P1 is qualitatively different from other languages P2, P3, etc, that also contributed to L: namely "genetic descent" versus "mere borrowing". That is what they are implicitly claiming when they draw language trees.
And that is why they for a century refused to consider creoles "languages", and are still reluctant to do so: because there was no clearly dominant source for the lexicon, and the grammar was mostly innovative rather than copied -- so they were obvious counter-examples to their dogma, and would not fit in their trees.
The problem with that dogma is that, in a chain of languages L0, L1, L2, ... where each language was 80% "inherited" from the previous one, the contribution of L1 to L5 or L10 may be so small as to be undetectable. So, if L10 "inherited" only 5% of its features from L0, but copied 10% from some other language P37, why is still the relation between L1 and L10 qualitatively more significant than the one between P37 and L10?
The differences between classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, and between that and modern Romance are quite large, but maybe one could still say that each was the ancestor of the next one. But if there was a Proto-Indo-European language, it was separated from Latin by at least two or three equally large steps. Thus the contribution of that PIE language to any modern "IE" language must be very small...
And even if it still make sense to group all IE languages together, separately from non-IE languages, the separation of "Western Romance" from other Romance is much less convincing. I am afraid that the grouping exists only because the linguists must put the Romance languages in a tree...
--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 10:38, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

It is odd, and somewhat irritating, that linguists did not take up the idea of hybridisation from biology. It is increasingly evident that hybridisation between related species has been of great importance in evolution. Gene-flow through hybridisation has been especially important in the ancestry of the Pantherine cats (lions, tigers, leopards etc.). How easy it would have been to call Modern English a hybrid Romance-Germanic language rather than insisting that it is an Ingvaeonic, West Germanic language. I have never talked to a monoglot Frisian speaker (if such exists), but I'm certain I would understand much less than when speaking to a French speaker. Urselius (talk) 08:04, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

First off, evolutionary biologists are also quite preoccupied with trees, to the degree that some have spoken of a "cladistic revolution" in taxonomy -- cladistics being an approach to biological species classification which treats trees more seriously and rigorously than had been done before. Second, when a donkey and a horse (or whatever) mate, then both parents contribute more or less equally to most aspects of the resulting hybrid -- but this ALMOST NEVER happens in language histories (except perhaps in a few cases of creolization, which is not a normal type of language descent). That's why it doesn't make sense to speak of English as a Germanic-Romance hybrid -- in English, all of the basic grammatical machinery is Germanic-derived. English pronouns, definite articles, demonstratives etc. go back to Germanic forms, and have nothing to do with Romance forms. Similarly, English irregular verbs are connected with Germanic verb inflections, and have nothing to do with Romance verb inflections. And so on. In diagnosing language descent relationships, grammar considerations are almost always more decisive than vocabulary, while among vocabulary, basic vocabulary items are more decisive than esoteric and specialized words which are usually less frequently used. (Glottochronology has a lot of problems as a dating method, but the various glottochronology lists, such as the Swadesh lists and Leipzig-Jakarta list, give a good idea of the vocabulary items usually resistant to borrowing.) By all these criteria, English is a Germanic language. The Middle English creole hypothesis has not found all that much favor with mainstream professional linguists, and the idea of English as a Germanic-Romance hybrid would receive even less support... AnonMoos (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

As a biologist, I am aware of trends in evolutionary biology. I can assure you that increasing knowledge concerning hybridisation in lineages, brought about by comparative genomics, has challenged a view of speciation being a simple branching event. The discovery of archaic ancestry (Neanderthal, Denisovan etc.) in essentially all modern humans (Sub-Saharan Africans have evidence of archaic ancestry, just not the same as non-Africans) has highlighted the importance of hybridisation in our own lineage. I know that Modern English grammar is very different to that of Anglo-Saxon, which was heavily inflected, I also know that Modern English vocabulary is very different to that of Anglo-Saxon. I always enjoy how easily linguists get rattled by this topic - endless fun. Urselius (talk) 17:21, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

If the Neanderthal contribution to the genome of non-Africans is generally 2% or less, while the Neanderthal contribution to the genome of Africans is close to 0%, then that throws an interesting sidelight on many matters, but does nothing to shake up the basic cladistic species-divergence diagram or tree. Also, if by "being rattled" you mean that a significant number of linguists are questioning the basic presuppositions of their academic field, then linguists are not "rattled" by the idea of language hybrids (in most cases a layman's idea which quickly reveals many flaws when examined by actual experts). And much of the loss of inflections in the transition from Middle English to Old English can be explained simply by phonological simplifications and reductions in unstressed final syllables (where most of the inflectional distinctions were expressed). Germanic languages have had basically word-initial stress for all of their attested history, and many simplifications at or near the ends of words were already visible in early Old English (when comparing it to reconstructed Northwest Germanic or proto-Germanic, or even attested Biblical Gothic). A simple acceleration of this already-existing trend would give you much of the inflectional loss seen in Middle English... AnonMoos (talk) 17:54, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

The paper by Haak et al.

The article cites an article by Haak et al. (2015) with a very categorical title: "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe". The abstract further claims DNA evidence of a "massive migration" from the "Yamnaya region" to "Central Europe" around 2500 BCE.
However, Wikipedia editors must be aware the abstract softens that categorical statement in the second half of the title, and the paper itself practically takes it back. Moreover, the terms "massive migration" and "Central Europe" used in the title and abstract are rather misleading.
As explained in the supplementary files included in the paper and provided as attachements ExtendedDataFigure1 and OnlineTable1,

• the "Central Europe" is actually a small region Z in central Germany, a strip about 12 by 100 km from NW to SE, centered at 51.52 N,11.42 E;
• the "massive migation" is 22 individuals from 7 archaological sites, all in region Z, dated 2500-100 BCE.

According to the paper, up to 3000 BCE, the population of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe (including region Z) consisted mainly of farmers and hunter-gatherers (FHG), and each group was genetically fairly uniform over that whole area.
The paper gives no information about what happened with the population genetics between 3000 and 2500 BCE in the Z area, much less over Europe.
The paper reports only that the remains of those 21 individuals from region Z between 2500 to 1000 BCE seem to be a mix of

• 50-80% of the genome previously found in the kurgans dated 5600-2600 BCE in the Yamnaya region (YMN), 2600 km east of Z; and
• 20-50% of FHG genome.

The paper has no evidence for or againts a similar influx in that epoch into any area outside of region Z.
Moreover, the genetic makeup of those 21 people drifted partially back towards the FHG genome, from 25% to about 50%, in the period 2500-1000 BCE; suggesting that the FHG population was not completely replaced, and was still around.
The paper concludes that a migration from the Yamnaya area to Central Europe may have brought IE language(s) to that area; but admits that there is no way to know whether the migrants spoke an IE language. The Anatolian Homeland and other theories are not dismissed. The Anatolian hypothesis only loses an advantage that it had over the Kurgan hypothesis: now it is not the only one that could be associated to a migration.
--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 14:53, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I think that you missed the section on modern genetics. The population of all regions of modern central, northern and most of southern Europe has substantial levels of Yamnaya-derived ancestry. It has a higher incidence in northern than in southern Europe, but over all it constitutes around a third. Only the Sardinians were shown to only have negligible amounts of Yamnaya ancestry. This, combined with a total lack of Yamnaya markers prior to the Early Bronze Age in human remains from these areas, suggests a massive influx of genetic material, and therefore people. Like I have repeatedly said, bones and genes do not speak, so yes there is no proof of any connection between the Yamnaya and IE languages, just circumstantial indications. Urselius (talk) 17:00, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Possible link with the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis?

The largest Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis postulates about a year to fill the sea in c8000BP. This would require a speedy flight a la Flood to escape - and then perhaps to keep spreading as fast as possible. Does this also link with the Kurgan hypothesis?

Is it feasible to link any of these hypotheses? I have seen nothing on such an idea - is there anything out there yet of this hypothesis based on other hypotheses???? Nojoking (talk) 18:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC) JK

Not really -- the "Yamnaya horizon" (which is connected to the initial spread of early Indo-European across a significant geographical area, according to most current versions of the Kurgan hypothesis) is a little before 3,000 B.C., and so quite a few years removed from 6,000 B.C. AnonMoos (talk) 17:14, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Adapting sections from Proto-Indo-European society

I have done some work improving the article Proto-Indo-European society over the last couple of months. If contributors are interested, we could import/adapt some parts to this article in a dedicated section. Azerty82 (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Your work at building Proto-Indo-European society is very much appreciated. If you have the time to provide a concise summary of Proto-Indo-European religion and Proto-Indo-European society at Proto-Indo-Europeans#Culture, it would be a great improvement. I'd be happy to provide assistence if necesarry. Krakkos (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Caspian route?!!

Bernard Sergent says "Indo-Europeans were a small people grammatically, phonetically and lexically close to Semitic-Hamitic populations of the Near East", how it can be related to the Caspian sea?! Semitic-Hamitic people lived there?! MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 17:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Not sure what that means -- early Indo-European speakers (Yamnaya etc.) were geographically quite remote from any non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages, and also quite remote from any likely Proto-Semitic homeland. Indo-European speakers were very unlikely to be in any sustained meaningful contact with Semitic-language speakers until various branches of Indo-European had already split off... AnonMoos (talk) 20:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

One of the earliest known Indo-European speakers were Hittites who, according to recent studies of ancient DNA, didn't come from Yamnaya, so the geographic location of Yamnaya doesn't matter here. --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 09:21, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

First off, DNA doesn't have necessarily have a direct connection with language origins, since a person's native language is the language they heard spoken around them as a child, regardless of whether or not earlier generations in their biological ancestry also spoke the same language. DNA evidence can be very useful in some circumstances, but there must always be a certain degree of caution when trying to extrapolate biology to linguistics. Second, as has been discussed a number of times on the talk pages of various Wikipedia articles about Indo-European subjects, during the last half-century or so, there has never been a large number of those linguists who study early Indo-European languages who have favored an Indo-European origins hypothesis significantly different from the generalized overall kurgan or steppe hypothesis (which of course can occur in many slightly-variant forms). In short, people living in Anatolia in 4000 B.C. could be ancestors of those who later spoke Hittite, but most linguists with relevant expertise would be highly doubtful that they were speaking an Indo-European language in 4000 B.C. (Not too surprising, since we know that Hittite-speakers displaced non-IE languages such as Hattic etc. at dates much later than 4000 B.C.) AnonMoos (talk) 20:40, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Geneticists like David Reich talk about evidence, when there is absolutely no ancient DNA evidence which shows some Indo-Europeans migrated from the steppe to Anatolia, the only thing which can cause adoption of an Indo-European culture which originated in the steppe by Anatolians in the ancient times is an unbelievable miracle! --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 09:29, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Sergent proposes some pre-pre-proto (my words) ur-origin in the Levant of a people who moved norgh, to the east of the Caspian Sea, and from there to the Volga basin. Far off, but the interesting partis the eastside of the Caspian sea. There seem to have been cultural influences ftom this area on the eastern steppe cultures.

As for PIE coming from the steppes to Anatolia, the mainstream theory is that this influence came via the Balkans (or the Black Sea?), and that it was a gradual influence. Migrating is not the only possible explanation for such influences; and miracles are surely not needed. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@MojtabaShahmiri: Reich mentions that Steppe dna has not yet been found in known ancient Anatolian remains. But it is not known whether or not these remains were from Hittites or other Indo-European speakers (Reich mentions that this is not known, and that thus the evidence is "circumstantial") and they (those remains) could have come from one of many non-Indo-European-speaking cultures that lived in Anatolia before the arrival of Indo-European languages there. And (as User:AnonMoos seems to allude above) even if the remains did belong to a Hittite/Indo-European-speaking population, this would not prove anything regarding the origins of the Indo-European family. Languages can be adopted by a population with a minimum of genetic transfer or migration. Sometimes all it takes is the imposition of the language by a foreign elite (with the general population adopting the language imposed from above gradually, and the average member or every member of that host population not necessarily having admixture derived from the in-coming group - at least not having very much or in every case); an example of this being the adoption of a Uralic language by the population of Hungary (and to a lesser extent Estonia), where the levels of dna from the migrants (associated with those branches of Uralic) who brought those languages from the East are usually very low in the population (which is genetically overwhelmingly European, in many cases entirely so). (And a gradual cultural influence in Anatolia is another possibility, as mentioned above.) No miracle is required. (Also, refer to the response of User:Joshua Jonathan above.) Skllagyook (talk) 10:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: What you said about influence via Balkans or the Black Sea (!!), if it really existed, could be seen as some Indo-European loanwords in the Hattic or Hurrian languages, not a fundamental cultural change in Anatolia, the fact is that other than genetic evidences, there are also many historical and archaeological evidences which show an invasion from the east (south of Caucasus and Iran) to Anatolia in the bronze age. --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 10:55, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: Reich also says "the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians", as I said historical and archaeological evidences also show the same thing, for example Mellart says "Archaeological evidence shows that the cities of Erzerum, Sivas, Pulur Huyuk near Baiburt, Kultepe near Hafik, and Maltepe near Sivas were destroyed during the Middle Bronze Age. The great trading city of Kanesh (Level II) was also destroyed. From there in the hill country between Halys the destruction layers from this time tell the same story. Karaoglan, Bitik, Polatli and Gordion were burnt, as well as Etiyokusu and Cerkes. Further west near the Dardanelles the two large mounds of Korpruoren and Tavsanli, west of Kutahya, show the same signs of being destroyed." All evidences show that a foreign elite that you talk about them came from the east. --MojtabaShahmiri (talk) 11:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

MS, you're looking for support for your ideas which is not there. Please don't use Wikipedia as a WP:FORUM for this. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Should the Corded Ware and Andronovo culture be on this page?

Though those cultures are identified by most linguists and archeologists as Indo-European offshoots, they are not identified as "Proto Indo-European". I don't see why they are on this page. We can perhaps keep the information about the Corded Ware descending 73% from the Yamnaya but not put it under a header that makes it look equivalent to Yamnaya. Arch Hades (talk) 00:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

What is the issue with genetic studies?

A summary of several genetic studies published in Nature and Cell during the year 2015 is given by Heyd (2017):

• The Yamnaya migrations are linked to the spread of Indo-European languages (Allentoft et al. 2015; Haak et al. 2015);
• Yamnaya peoples were fair-skinned but had dark eye colours; blue eyes were more common in the Corded Ware–Single Grave–Battle Axe Complex, but the lactase persistence mutation was not yet present (Allentoft et al. 2015)
• Western Steppe Herders component "is lower in southern Europe and higher in northern Europe", where it is shared by more than 50 per cent of the current inhabitants of Norway, Lithuania and Estonia (Haak et al. 2015);
• It is linked to the migrations of Yamnaya populations dated to ca. 3000 BCE (Allentoft et al. 2015; Haak et al. 2015);
• Genetic transmission passed from steppe Yamnaya directly to the Corded Ware–Single Grave–Battle Axe Complex (Haak et al. 2015);
• Third-millennium Europe (and prehistoric Europe in general) was "a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacement" (Allentoft et al. 2015);
• The plague (Yersinia pestis) has killed prehistoric humans in Europe during the third millennium BCE (Rasmussen et al. 2015), and it stems from the Eurasian steppes;
• Yamnaya peoples have the highest ever calculated genetic selection for stature (Mathieson et al. 2015);Azerty82 (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

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In popular cultures ???

I think there was A science fiction comic that portrayed Proto-Indo-Europeans As Ancient astronauts , I'm sure of that but i do not remember it' name .

there is likely other Modern artwork and Literature which depicts Ancient Indo-Europeans in popular culture !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.161.114.180 (talk) 17:04, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh Also

If you know about any popular culture depiction of Proto-Indo-Europeans you should mention it as will , that will be very interesting section . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.161.114.180 (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Mistake in the general map.

I want to signal a mistake in the general chronological map, last image. The Italic languages are there extended to all of Italy. This is wrong, Northern Italy spoke mostly Celtic languages. It's true that, after 200 BC, Latin spread also into Northern Italy, but at the same time it spread also into nowadays Spain and just a few decades later into Southern France. Why then ignore that Northern Italy actually used to speak CELTIC languages, and NOT Italic ones? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.116.66.169 (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunataley WP is full with inaccurate maps (not necessarily deliberately, but having good faith mistakes), thanks for the info, hope someone will update/correct it.(KIENGIR (talk) 16:07, 29 October 2020 (UTC))

Anthropological depiction of proto IE people?

proto-IE people looked like Gypsy people or Iranians, black hair brown eyes olive skin.--II.kerulet (talk) 05:49, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe this is necessarily the case, there isn't a widely-accepted theory in regards to Indo-European phenotypes, and it's very much possible the PIE were a group of phenotypically diverse tribes united under a common language or culture. --II.GGiustiniani (talk) 02:47, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Correct. Here is not the place for unsubstantiated views and believes, the more when not being recognized as such. -- 15:48, 2 May 2021 2a02:8108:9640:ac3:61ba:41cb:5788:1115

Mislocated paragraph

A duplicate para "Kurgan hypothesis" was mistakenly placed within the "Genetics" chapter; done.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:1098:BDE6:C738:9417 (talk) 09:34, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Logical nonsense

Who writes such non-logical nonsense as "postglacial [sic](Holocene) spread of the R1a1 haplogroup from north of the Black Sea during [sic] the time of the Late Glacial Maximum, ..."2A02:8108:9640:AC3:1098:BDE6:C738:9417 (talk) 09:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

And what kind of editor chooses to remove solid facts instead of improving such perceived non-logicalities? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:04, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Dear JJ, I did not object the "facts", as you might conceive but the contradictions and tautologies - if you kno what that is...? -- 2 May 2021 2a02:8108:9640:ac3:61ba:41cb:5788:1115

Iran is "South Of Caucasus"

Included Iran in section because David Reich explicitly mentioned Iran as being "South of the Caucasus" -- 19:20, 9 August 2019‎ 104.188.185.139

"Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya (although the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the Hittites themselves has yet been published). This suggests to me that the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians. If this scenario is right the population sent one branch up into the steppe-mixing with steppe hunter-gatherers in a one-to-one ratio to become the Yamnaya as described earlier- and another to Anatolia to found the ancestors of people there who spoke languages such as Hittite." - David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. New York: Pantheon, 2018.

This suggests nothing because skeletons in ruins with no further marks can never been identified regarding their ethnicity, because they could be the buildes as well as servants, aggressors, traders, or what ever. This is the pity with all these genetics. Accepting they are genetically correct, the conclusions generally are by far too bold, given the few and not at all representative and often mistakenly/coarsely dated bones. I just try to solve a problem with one and the same ID6561, which is interpreted by four different authors to hundreds of km and thousands of years (!) apart.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:61BA:41CB:5788:1115 (talk) 15:59, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

climate with winter snow

Watkins obviously has never been outside England or even Europe in winter. We find winter snow even in northern Africa and in the Levante, let alone the generally assumed homelands Anatolia, or, better, Eurasian steppes. From this primitive kind of palaeolinguistics has suffered a whole gneration of Indo-Europeanists up to the present, not because of the method but because of their very poor knowledge of environment, biology, and archaeology. I therefore started cancelling the "snow" nonsense. There is a lot more.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:7959:B579:688D:805E (talk) 13:51, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

It rules out much of India... AnonMoos (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

No. Fancy the migration route into India. Please have a look on any map.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:1098:BDE6:C738:9417 (talk) 09:37, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the word "fancy" is supposed to mean in your sentence, but it basically does rule out the Ganges river valley. AnonMoos (talk) 00:50, 3 May 2021 (UTC)