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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

#81

Post by wqaatwt »

astrange wrote: post #74
falaki wrote: post #45

I haven't read the papers in detail, but can someone explain how genetics can be used to trace spread of languages? For context, you don't need population movements for a language to spread (it is similar to religion). See this article for a logical explanation: https://medium.com/incerto/a-few-things-we-dont-quite-get-ab...

Well, you can't. In this case I believe they're already pretty confident about who the PIE speaking people are (the "Yanmaya") and this study is about tracking down where they originally lived. And they have shown that they mostly replaced the previous European population rather than transferring the languages to them. David Reich is aggressive about these genetics results though. IIRC I read a NYT story once where h…

> replaced the previous European population

Primarily the male population. Genetically much higher proportion of the female population survived.

Of course that’s an exaggeration as well. In much of Southern Europe and other areas the replacement was far from full.

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

#82

Post by singularity2001 »

kragen wrote: post #71
macleginn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the recent palaeo-DNA data suggest a horribly massive process of genetic replacement of the local population by the new arrivals. This process is of course very uneven -- e.g., the population of Ireland seems to have mostly shifted to a new IE language -- but in some cases the change was drastic. Moreover, in some parts of Europe this seems to have happened several times, with first agriculturalists replacing loc…

The Rig Veda is only 3000–3500 years old, contrary to folk traditions holding it to be much older. The Yamnaya culture is 5300 years old and only lasted 700 years. When the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were composed (and they are, incidentally, about the proper way to praise the gods, not about historical events) the Yamnaya culture had died about 1100 years ago. Those 1100 years included a lot of warfare, mostly nom…

The actual surviving texts are even less than 2000 years old. one just beliefs that the oral tradition was written down pretty unaltered but that's questionable in my opinion

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

#84

Post by FlyingSnake »

iamshs wrote: post #58
FlyingSnake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Indus script: I’ve recently come across this purported attempt by someone who claims they’ve deciphered Indus script. I’m. It not sold on it but it is making some waves in Indian circles. https://indusscript.net/

That's a Hindu Nationalist website and a claim. They forcefully fit Indus Script into Sanskrit, to try to outflank the Aryan Invasion Theory. It is not making anywhere but only in Brahmin circles.

Like I said, I am not sold on the idea because it seems like curve fitting to me. However in the spirit of scientific inquiry, we should allow them to share their ideas.

Purely based on the content of the website, I fail to see anywhere on the website allusions to Hindu Nationalism. The website contains a paper from acadamia.edu showing their analysis. Lastly the claim about "Brahmin circles" also seems malicious because it is being discussed on mainstream media like CNN-News18 or IIT Hyderabad.

https://www.academia.edu/78867798/A_cryptanalytic_decipherme...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa2ol6w7lg

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

#85

Post by o4923 »

iamshs wrote: post #58
FlyingSnake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Indus script: I’ve recently come across this purported attempt by someone who claims they’ve deciphered Indus script. I’m. It not sold on it but it is making some waves in Indian circles. https://indusscript.net/

That's a Hindu Nationalist website and a claim. They forcefully fit Indus Script into Sanskrit, to try to outflank the Aryan Invasion Theory. It is not making anywhere but only in Brahmin circles.

There is no need to outflank Aryan Invasion Theory. Invasion theory is dead and buried. Now it goes my migration theory.

btw why is it wrong for Hindus to say about their history. Should we allow only White Christian historians? Critic the text not the person. Please stop with outdated racist views.

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

#86

Post by 4gotunameagain »

astrange wrote: post #74
falaki wrote: post #45

I haven't read the papers in detail, but can someone explain how genetics can be used to trace spread of languages? For context, you don't need population movements for a language to spread (it is similar to religion). See this article for a logical explanation: https://medium.com/incerto/a-few-things-we-dont-quite-get-ab...

Well, you can't. In this case I believe they're already pretty confident about who the PIE speaking people are (the "Yanmaya") and this study is about tracking down where they originally lived. And they have shown that they mostly replaced the previous European population rather than transferring the languages to them. David Reich is aggressive about these genetics results though. IIRC I read a NYT story once where h…

For people that are interested to read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

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

#87

Post by Quarrelsome »

has anyone else encountered the Hindu nationalist perspective when discussing this? I've struggled to suggest this is a scientific reality when talking to some otherwise smart people about this and I suspect this is in part to their vulnerability to Hindu nationalist talking points which I assume tend to big up local ancestry instead of an ancestry that connects a lot of different peoples and religions together.

Just wondering if other people have experienced the same or have effective arguments to deal with the outright rejection I've previously faced. I like to think of these discoveries as great unifying ancestry many of us share, which I consider a positive thing, So it surprised me when I discovered an outright rejection of the thought.

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

#88

Post by Shorel »

incompatible wrote: post #59
suddenlybananas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It gets a bit silly when you start using archaeology to prop up modern political doctrines. Humans left Africa over 100k years ago, and groups have been moving around ever since. Whether a group moved from the Caucasus to South Asia or vice versa, around 5k years ago, shouldn't really matter. Perhaps they had moved in the opposite direction 10k years ago. Obviously, we all have human ancestors who were living 5k, 10k…

> Whether a group moved from the Caucasus to South Asia or vice versa, around 5k years ago, shouldn't really matter.

It's not that it "matters" in a political or nationalistic sense. That's an error in interpretation of the motivation for this kind of work.

It is important because the more we know about how we got where we are, the better.

Science is useful, if it is not immediately obvious, then future generations will surely find an use for it, as it has happened time after time with mathematical ideas.

I would even say it is you who are putting a modern political spin on this by rejecting it.

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

#89

Post by psychoslave »

macleginn wrote: post #5
triyambakam wrote: post #3

Can someone smarter than me explain how it's even possible to use DNA to identify the origin of a language, given that e.g. if this were tried with a language like German (or maybe any Western European language) the puzzle would look very confusing and is not DNA based.

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…

PIE reconstructions are very interesting peaces of linguistic, but they seems often mistaken. One great analogy, I first saw presented in some Linguisticae[1] video I think, is "what if we had no direct trace of Latin and we were looking to recreate proto-Romance roots." Of course Latin itself refers to very wide set of linguistic practices, with all the diversity we can imagine through time, space, individuals and even for a given individual there are difference as they age and depending of context they will use different sociolects and language register, plus of course not everyone is mono-linguistic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@Linguisticae

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

#90

Post by never_inline »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #87

has anyone else encountered the Hindu nationalist perspective when discussing this? I've struggled to suggest this is a scientific reality when talking to some otherwise smart people about this and I suspect this is in part to their vulnerability to Hindu nationalist talking points which I assume tend to big up local ancestry instead of an ancestry that connects a lot of different peoples and religions together. Just…

Both nationalist side and the other side (AIT/AMT) take this very emotionally.

Recently NCERT books were edited indicating that the Rig-vedic people were a continuation of Harappans.

On the other hand, the popular science and journalism has not done any favours by framing the IE studies as "The Aryans brought the Vedas with them from Europe", which is wrong at so many levels. The AMT/AIT was also weaponized by certain political elements in India to proliferate harassment against the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu. So it's kind of understandable why some Indians get defensive about this. But for the most part it's the same blind nationalistic spirit by which boomers claim all science was invented by Indians. Given that most Hindus today won't even know what's there in the Veda which is markedly different from the contemporary Hindu religion, that much attachment to the very small part of ancestry is not required.

Sensitive fields like IE studies should be kept to serious circles and not dumbed down to the level layman whose faith in his Gods or respect towards other humans will be changed by suggesting that people moved around and fought a lot 4000 years ago.

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