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New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
21–30 of 157 posts
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
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Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#23Language Log had a post on this https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=59908 and their commentariat seems unimpressed. Linguist Andrew Garrett had some tweets about that: https://twitter.com/ndyjroo/status/1684636445854875648 and, for traditionalists, was quoted in an article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-indo-european...
The paper hasn't made it to sci-hub yet (at least not the one I checked) but it seems like they're going to have a tough row to hoe.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
People migrate -- they always bring their DNA with them and their language. No? The connections between these have been studied for a long time -- for example, this popular book was published 20 years ago: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520228733/genes-peoples-and...
People can change their language. Hungary and Turkey speak the languages of conquerors who have left very little genetic trace. (France is in a similar position!) Many Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for reasons unknown to us. Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic people. The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese (they speak Thai). I assume the argument here is that if you…
Your point is correct, but because this is HN, I'm going to be ridiculously pedantic and correct 2 statements in your example.
> The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese (they speak Thai)
That was because of forced assimilation in the 1930s-50s by their proto-Fascist dictator.
> Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic people
Because there was plenty of intermarriage and the community was in Central Europe since Roman times
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#25I find it fascinating modern humans are thought to have evolved 300k years ago, but we haven't got any idea what happened before last ice age. I find it hard to believe people would just "stay in Africa" prior to last ice age (120k years ago and before) when the moment climate allowed it (~10k years ago) they spread out all over the planet.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
People migrate -- they always bring their DNA with them and their language. No? The connections between these have been studied for a long time -- for example, this popular book was published 20 years ago: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520228733/genes-peoples-and...
People can change their language. Hungary and Turkey speak the languages of conquerors who have left very little genetic trace. (France is in a similar position!) Many Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for reasons unknown to us. Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic people. The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese (they speak Thai). I assume the argument here is that if you…
>Many Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for reasons unknown to us.
Amharic isn't the only Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia. We have other Semitic languages spoken both in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is just the Red Sea that divides these two countries from the other Semitic speaking countries. Yemen, across the sea has other Semitic languages other than Arabic. Also, just like Indo-European is a large grouping of languages, the Semitic languages are ordinarily grouped under Afro-Asiatic languages. Thus, besides some of the Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, we also have two other subgroups of Afro-Asiatic namely, Cushitic and Omotic languages that are also spoken in Ethiopia. Amharic thus is well contextualised for Ethiopia.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#27I find it fascinating modern humans are thought to have evolved 300k years ago, but we haven't got any idea what happened before last ice age. I find it hard to believe people would just "stay in Africa" prior to last ice age (120k years ago and before) when the moment climate allowed it (~10k years ago) they spread out all over the planet.
That narrative is changing. Scientists are starting to think the peopling of the americas happened a lot earlier than we previously to believed.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
People can change their language. Hungary and Turkey speak the languages of conquerors who have left very little genetic trace. (France is in a similar position!) Many Ethiopians speak a Semitic language (Amharic) for reasons unknown to us. Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic people. The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese (they speak Thai). I assume the argument here is that if you…
Your point is correct, but because this is HN, I'm going to be ridiculously pedantic and correct 2 statements in your example. > The Chinese of Thailand often cannot speak any Chinese (they speak Thai) That was because of forced assimilation in the 1930s-50s by their proto-Fascist dictator. > Yiddish is a Germanic language spoken by a non-Germanic people Because there was plenty of intermarriage and the community was…
I think that is their point. Languages often spread by processes unrelated to genetics.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#29Language Log had a post on this https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=59908 and their commentariat seems unimpressed. Linguist Andrew Garrett had some tweets about that: https://twitter.com/ndyjroo/status/1684636445854875648 and, for traditionalists, was quoted in an article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-indo-european... The paper hasn't made it to sci-hub yet (at least not the one I checked) but…
Haven't read the articles or papers yet, but I am really skeptical of the kind of statistical inferences talked about in the article -- "we were able to prove Romance from Latin using our model, so using the same model we got #..."; it seems to me this kind of thing assumes they can project a model of language mutation built from data out of the iron age back to neolithic, which is... a really giant assumption.
I'd say dynamics of human history are really full of all sorts of variance and instances of punctuated equilibrium.
Still... it wouldn't surprise me to find surprises around the Anatolian languages and their age and origins. They do seem to fall outside the 'norm' of the mainstream of Indo-European languages and the age of their split from the origin of whatever variant of early Indo-European that Yamnaya spoke I suspect could be a lot further back then expected. And it wouldn't also surprise me to find back and forth flow for a period of time from Anatolia to/from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.
Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
#30I find it fascinating modern humans are thought to have evolved 300k years ago, but we haven't got any idea what happened before last ice age. I find it hard to believe people would just "stay in Africa" prior to last ice age (120k years ago and before) when the moment climate allowed it (~10k years ago) they spread out all over the planet.
A big part of the challenge is that most of the areas that might have been inhabited before the last ice age are now underwater.
Really hard for early artefacts to survive being under the ocean for 10k years.
Nonetheless, I think its fair to say now that we can at least push back the timeline for early civilized settlements to at least the time of Gobekli Tepe (~10k years).