Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages

mpg.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 157 posts

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

#131

Post by ffhhttt »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #94
DiscourseFan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Aryan invasion theory was appropriate to justify colonization, but I'm also not sure this constitutes evidence against it. In any case, Sanskrit is far more archaic than Hittite, and even with the genetic evidence it doesn't make sense that Hittite would precede the Indo-aryan languages. The Bhagavad Gita is quite clear about the cultures of the old Aryan peoples. They were nomadic, cowherding peopl…

> The Bhagavad Gita is quite clear about the cultures of the old Aryan peoples. They were nomadic, cowherding peoples, who were highly patriarchal, that valued prowess in battle and the ability to kill your enemies ruthlessly, even if they were members of your own family. Not this again. This is an old missionaries tale. There are descriptions of large cities and palaces in Mahabharata (of which Gita is part). Nomads…

I’m not sure how do these things contradict each other? Nomadic civilizations can definitely transition to almost fully sedentary ones and ‘start building palaces’ while preserving some of their cultural history and social norms.

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

#132

Post by funnybusiness2 »

funnybusiness2 wrote: post #129

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 as…

My question got downvoted. I wonder whose feathers I ruffled.

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

#133

Post by tbdenney »

anon84873628 wrote: post #106

For the layperson I highly recommend The History of English Podcast. Although the focus is on English is starts from square one with the Proto Indo European people -- what we know about their culture/technology, the various migrations and branches, how the language was reconstructed, etc. The host is always careful to point out how these conclusions were drawn and where there are competing hypotheses or uncertainty.…

+1 to this recommendation! I binged the entire 150+ episode series during various lockdown periods and found it fascinating. It's so well researched and despite covering some potentially very dry topics the host, Kevin Stroud, manages to weave in interesting facts that keep my attention engaged throughout.

Link: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

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

#134

Post by amitprayal »

daliusd wrote: post #90
canjobear wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laryngeal consonants were guttural sounds produced in the back of the throat, like English h, German ch, Arabic `ayn or qaf, etc. We don't know exactly what the pronunciations were, but in other existing languages, laryngeal sounds like this tend to have an effect on the surrounding vowels. This happens because your tongue has to movie continuously between the sounds it produces, and so there's some blurring that…

Nice, sheep in Lithuanian is “avis” ( https://lt.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/avis ) what I assume sounds like “hawis”

Avi in sanskrit

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

#135

Post by ashleney »

funnybusiness2 wrote: post #129

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 as…

What is your proposed theory? It is understandable to be sceptical considering the scandal that was proto-altaic, however there is evidence in form of successful reconstructions of PIE languages.

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

#136

Post by ashleney »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #125

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…

Languages that lose cases will replace them with adpositions which can then again develop into cases. I unfortunately can't think of any PIE languages but Hungarian has 18 cases while proto-uralic only had 6.

PIE languages are currently in the process of losing cases and we can statistically expect some of them to start gaining cases again sometime in the next few millennias.

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

#137

Post by ashleney »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #125

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…

Languages tend to lose grammatical features (english gender) but also gain them (english habitual tense). A common way you can see languages get complex is due to sound changes making grammar irregular (english past participles).

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

#138

Post by ashleney »

nologic01 wrote: post #111

Its quite difficult to fathom how these early linguistic branches have sounded around 8000 bc when they have changed so dramatically from 1000 bc to today. Is there any way (for a layman) to get a feel about this?

It is very hard to predict how fast a language will evolve even for linguists.

I'd like to recommend a video https://youtu.be/evJ_E7k1pvY

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

#139

Post by fsckboy »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #112
ninja-ninja wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

idk in school they really go ham on how exactly our language has elements from the "core" of the indo-european branch, not sure how well the steppe works with the narrative

It's irrelevant, as I point out below. Armenian is not an Anatolian language despite it existing in the Anatolian region. The Anatolian languages are all extinct, and Armenian has its origins out of the Yamnaya migration out of the steppe just like the rest of living Indo-European languages. Armenian is Armenian, not related to Hittite, Luwian, etc. of the Bronze age in any way except as extremely distant cousins.

are you saying that the arrows on the map of TFA do not indicate, or are not correct, that Greek and Albanian did not come from the steppe?

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

#140

Post by angiosperm »

canjobear wrote: post #48
teleforce wrote: post #44

Fun facts, the oldest attestation of Indo-European language is now the long extinct language Hittite. The language is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th to the 13th centuries BCE. Hittite people created an empire centred on Hattusa, and also around northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia [1]. [1]Hittite language: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language

Hittite is also interesting because it provided one of the biggest validations of the methodology for reconstructing languages. Based on subtle patterns in vowels in other Indo-European languages, Saussure was able to figure out that there must have been three “laryngeal” consonants in Proto-Indo-European which were lost in all the attested languages. And lo and behold, when Hittite was deciphered, there were the lar…

For anybody who has doubted that history can be a science, consider the issue firmly resolved.
Post reply on HN