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Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

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Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#31

Post by dang »

psunavy03 wrote: post #26
dsign wrote: post #13

Only 6500 years? That's incredibly recent for such an influential language. For comparison, Sargon of Akkad died only 4000 years ago, and there are written records from him. True, he didn't speak Indo-European, but Afroasiatic/Akkadian, and that was the language on those cuneiform tablets the researchers used for reference. On a tangent, with the advent of AI and the final decades of our species, we should make more…

> final decades of our species Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting.

"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I agree it's a provocation and, worse, a generic tangent, but the rest of the comment was pretty good.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#32

Post by [deleted] »

psunavy03 wrote: post #26
dsign wrote: post #13

Only 6500 years? That's incredibly recent for such an influential language. For comparison, Sargon of Akkad died only 4000 years ago, and there are written records from him. True, he didn't speak Indo-European, but Afroasiatic/Akkadian, and that was the language on those cuneiform tablets the researchers used for reference. On a tangent, with the advent of AI and the final decades of our species, we should make more…

> final decades of our species Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting.

[deleted]

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#33

Post by flir »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #30
macleginn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story with the Indo-Europeans is basically as follows: 1. By intersecting ancient word sets of ancient Indo-European languages using comparative phonetics we can try and reconstruct the words of the proto-IE language, both their approximate sounds and approximate meanings. This gives us some information about the society. E.g., the PIE language very likely had a word for wheel, which puts the common PIE community…

> the society of Rig-Veda I fail to understand how the Rigvedic society can be connected to this DNA research. Rigveda never mentions anything beyond the Punjab/Swat/Haryana region in any of the hymns. The flora and fauna mentioned in it is also exclusive to this region. Lastly there is no mention of an ancient homeland both in Rigveda and Avesta.

I believe there's some stuff around burial practices that parallels some steppe practices. Something about horses and mound construction, I think?

Here we go: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/chariot-racers... - make of that what you will.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#34

Post by FlyingSnake »

flir wrote: post #33
FlyingSnake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the society of Rig-Veda I fail to understand how the Rigvedic society can be connected to this DNA research. Rigveda never mentions anything beyond the Punjab/Swat/Haryana region in any of the hymns. The flora and fauna mentioned in it is also exclusive to this region. Lastly there is no mention of an ancient homeland both in Rigveda and Avesta.

I believe there's some stuff around burial practices that parallels some steppe practices. Something about horses and mound construction, I think? Here we go: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/chariot-racers... - make of that what you will.

While I don’t mind if they’re related, the evidence is rather thin. Interestingly, chariots and royal burials were also found in Sinauli, India which provide an interesting alternative to this theory.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/...

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#35

Post by Archelaos »

I recently came across this presentation of Kristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg: "Towards a New European prehistory: genes, archaeology and language" (2023): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxTVSwt-jsU [video], which I enjoyed very much. Prof. Kristiansen is a leading researcher in this area.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#36

Post by Hemospectrum »

gbuk2013 wrote: post #24
teleforce wrote: post #9

Related HN posts [1], [2]. Fun facts, the most common words of Indo-European Family are surprisingly very similar across Sanskrit (S) English (E) German (G) [3]. Pitara (S) Father (E) Vater (G) Matara (S) Mother (E) Mutter (G) Bhratara (S) Brother (E) Bruder (G) Duhitar (S) Daughter (E) Tochter (G) [1] New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages (147 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369…

My dad has literally just published a book (in Russian) with about 850 words with near identical sound and meanings in Russian and other Slavonic languages. :) https://borissoff.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/russian-sanskrit-... For my part I built the web based editing tool, DB and LaTeX generation system that he used to assemble this massive undertaking over the years. :) https://borissoff.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/first…

The complexity of natural human languages comes in different forms, but as a general rule, whenever you see something that's built into another language and "missing" from your own, you can express it by using more words. For example, PIE had a lot of noun cases that aren't in English, but you don't need the instrumental case to precisely express its purpose. You can say something like "by means of a forklift."

Some studies actually suggest that literacy systematically pressures languages to use longer, more complex sentences, thus disincentivizing complex inflection rules.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#37

Post by beepbooptheory »

dang wrote: post #31
psunavy03 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> final decades of our species Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting.

" Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I agree it's a provocation and, worse, a generic tangent, but the rest of the comment was pretty good.

I know you have no time, and I don't need a response. I have no skin in this exchange either, fwiw. But I just want to try to unpack here how this could be either a provocation or a noteworthy tangent. Is it that being pessimistic about the future is flamebait? Is it perhaps sneering? Is there anything to be said about the rest of the sentence in question and how its clearly just being a little cheeky? Or is that perhaps whats wrong with it?

Just feels perhaps a little out of place this time that the gp would be in the wrong at all here. But I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#38

Post by suddenlybananas »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #34
flir wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there's some stuff around burial practices that parallels some steppe practices. Something about horses and mound construction, I think? Here we go: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/chariot-racers... - make of that what you will.

While I don’t mind if they’re related, the evidence is rather thin. Interestingly, chariots and royal burials were also found in Sinauli, India which provide an interesting alternative to this theory. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/...

Do you believe in out-of-india theory for IE or are you just sceptical about the use of the Rig Veda specifically.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#39

Post by gbuk2013 »

Hemospectrum wrote: post #36
gbuk2013 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad has literally just published a book (in Russian) with about 850 words with near identical sound and meanings in Russian and other Slavonic languages. :) https://borissoff.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/russian-sanskrit-... For my part I built the web based editing tool, DB and LaTeX generation system that he used to assemble this massive undertaking over the years. :) https://borissoff.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/first…

The complexity of natural human languages comes in different forms, but as a general rule, whenever you see something that's built into another language and "missing" from your own, you can express it by using more words. For example, PIE had a lot of noun cases that aren't in English, but you don't need the instrumental case to precisely express its purpose. You can say something like "by means of a forklift." Some…

I get that part - I speak both English and Russian and the latter is more concise and nuanced due to the more complex grammar.

It’s just interesting that the apparent trend is from complexity to simplification, like what I observed with English as grammar is not taught so much here in England anymore. It could well be (and likely is) an illusion stemming from my shallow knowledge of the subject of linguistics.

Re: Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family

#40

Post by dang »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #37
dang wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I agree it's a provocation and, worse, a generic tangent, but the rest of the comment was pretty good.

I know you have no time, and I don't need a response. I have no skin in this exchange either, fwiw. But I just want to try to unpack here how this could be either a provocation or a noteworthy tangent. Is it that being pessimistic about the future is flamebait? Is it perhaps sneering? Is there anything to be said about the rest of the sentence in question and how its clearly just being a little cheeky? Or is that per…

Generic references to "the advent of AI" are already flamebait (ok, proto-flamebait) because the topic is so hot, discussed, and divisive. But casually dropping "and the final decades of our species" as an assumed fact, sort of like the decline of CDs or something, is definitely a provocation. It's unsurprising that someone got activated and then we were off down a generic flamewar tangent.
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