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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

#121

Post by xXx_uwu_xXx »

Sharlin wrote: post #16
johnmyleswhite wrote: post #6

Earlier 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...

A nice counter-example is Finnish (and other Finno-Ugric languages) – back in the early 1900s it was argued that Finns as an ethnicity must have originated from the Urals because the language seemed to have its roots there. (Notably in the era's racial "science" this had clear racist implications.) But modern genetics have revealed that the origins of the people are quite separate from the origins of the language.

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Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#123

Post by Slava_Propanei »

Sharlin wrote: post #16
johnmyleswhite wrote: post #6

Earlier 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...

A nice counter-example is Finnish (and other Finno-Ugric languages) – back in the early 1900s it was argued that Finns as an ethnicity must have originated from the Urals because the language seemed to have its roots there. (Notably in the era's racial "science" this had clear racist implications.) But modern genetics have revealed that the origins of the people are quite separate from the origins of the language.

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Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#124

Post by Slava_Propanei »

alephnerd wrote: post #24
thaumasiotes wrote: post #9

Earlier 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…

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Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#125

Post by jackcosgrove »

One question I've always had about Indo-European languages is that they seem to have become less inflected over time. First off, is this true? There seems to be a loss of cases and genders as time goes by.

If true, I'm sure there is some linguistic explanation as to why but I'm not aware of it.

It would seem counterintuitive to me that a language would start out complex and simplify over time, but I'm sure simplicity is - for me as a native English speaker - defined as a non-gendered and mostly positional language.

Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#126

Post by throwaway290 »

lkrubner wrote: post #104
throwaway290 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is well known that Sapiens arrived in Spain 40k years ago and that they demonstrated modern behavior: arts, music, advanced hunting tools Anyone to whom this is complete news? How did they manage this all without wheels?

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_modern_humans This population in Belgium and Spain seems to have died out: "Earlier EEMH (10 tested in total), on the other hand, did not seem to be ancestral to any present-day population, nor did they form any cohesive group in and of themselves, each representing either completely distinct genetic lineages, admixture between major lineages, or have highly dive…

That's interesting! I didn't know those figurines came from a population unconnected to modern humans.

Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#127

Post by edgyquant »

Roark66 wrote: post #25

I find it fascinating modern humans are thought to have evolved 300k years ago, but we haven't got any idea what happened before last ice age. I find it hard to believe people would just "stay in Africa" prior to last ice age (120k years ago and before) when the moment climate allowed it (~10k years ago) they spread out all over the planet.

People definitely didn’t “stay in Africa”[1] we find skulls and the like from ancient humans all over Eurasia basically at every point in time for the last 1-2 million years. Any claim that Homo sapiens didn’t exist outside of Africa is disputed.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petralona_skull

Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#128

Post by cco »

lkrubner wrote: post #101
cco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point the 3 oldest fossils we have that look like homo sapiens are all from Morocco or the Levant or Greece, suggesting homo sapiens first evolved near the Mediterranean. This is fascinating and new to me, can you provide any articles or podcasts that discuss it?

I've been meaning to write this up in one place, and maybe this week would be a good time to do so. I thought the news from Morocco was now well known, see here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.22114 Homo sapiens and some other form of human were living in the Levant 200,000 years ago: https://www.earth.com/news/new-type-of-prehistoric-human-fou... The reference to the skulls found on an island Greece, I'…

Fascinating, I was able to find some references to Greece around 200kya, but not much around the Levant.

Very neat, turns a lot of previous evidence on its head.

Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#129

Post by funnybusiness2 »

Playing devil's advocate here: Given that there is not a shred of evidence that we have found so far that supports the idea of the existence of the Proto-Indo-European language, why are so many linguists (and researchers from other disciplines) continuing to invest in research with a firm belief/assumption that PIE ever existed?

Is it because it would be a career ending move for a linguist to conduct research that assumes that PIE did not exist? We have seen this before in history where researchers are punished for researching topics that go against the leading voices in the field.

Re: New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

#130

Post by ffhhttt »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #55
euroderf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed this is so, but where does one find further information online (or not online) ? Such a case where language and genetics do not align is unusual in the world, but I have read that there are a few cases. Mostly associated with conquest and/or assimilation IIRC.

This is very common. The Romans did not genocide and repopulate everywhere they conquered, for example. A lot of romance language speakers genetically contiguous with Celts and other such things. And going back further there is evidence of genetic continuity with pre-Indo-European European populations too.

True but something like this is hard to accomplish without a centralized state or other institution which encourage assimilation.

Prior to that it’s more likely that the invaders killed and/or subjugated most of the mean and put themselves at the top of local hierarchy meaning that they and their descendants were more likely to have successful offspring.

Based on genetics that seems to have been the case in Europe.

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