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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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

The problem with that "decipherment", from what I've been told by others who are far more educated than I am, is that it does the equivalent of deciphering Anglo-Saxon runnic texts by using modern slang like "yo" in order for it to work out. As a non-linguist, non-Sankrit speaker I can't evaluate those claims, but considering that this script declines as the Indus Valley Civilization fades away, along with the arriva…

I learned Sanskrit as a kid and I’m familiar with Dravidian languages as well. They’ve heavily influenced and assimilated each other’s features. Although there are no attestations of Dravidian languages before 5th C BCE, we never know what future discoveries might tell about its connection to IVC, if any.

If we can decipher letters from burnt, rolled up scrolls, I’m sure eventually we’ll figure out what IVCs writings meant.

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

#172
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not so much that the Rigveda by itself gives us a direct insight into Proto-Indo-European culture, but rather that if we compare it to Western texts it can help us reconstruct elements of a shared ancestral culture, or at least a shared ancestral language (from which we can perhaps infer something about culture).

Certainly. But what I was commenting on was the claim that, because "there are basically no migration stories in _any_ indo-european mythological cycles or oral traditions," we can conclude, "migration or invasion (...) was a gradual process that wouldn't have been particularly noticeable in any one life time." I don't think that conclusion is justified.

What about centaurs? One theory about the centaur myth is that it originated from the confused perceptions of a culture that had never seen men on horseback being suddenly invaded by steppe nomads.

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dyaus-pitar and Jupiter, Zeus-pater This one is slightly more interesting than a mere cognate as it is believed that the Proto-Indo-European speakers worshipped a sky god with the reconstructed name *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr ("sky-father") which is the ancestor of these (also Tyr and the like on the Germanic side). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Dy%C4%93us "*Dyēus is considered by scholars the most securely reconstructed…

What I find interesting is that the primary Turkic/Mongolic deity, Tengri, is also a sky father. There’s no shared genetic or linguistic ancestry there, just two different steppe nomad populations independently deifying the daylight sky the same way.

What you are talking abyis gök/kök tengri (lit. sky god). There are other gods in Turkic/Mongolic pantheon, like ülgen/ulgan, yer tengri (earth god).

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research is fine. I'm referring to the likes of Hindutva trying to establish that the Aryans were "indigenous" to India and subsequently migrated elsewhere, thus proving that Hindus alone are indigenous to India. The out-of-india theory referred to above.

Hindutva says Islamists and white Europeans were invders. Hows that wrong?

It's correct, but so what? It's part of history, nobody alive was involved, and it shouldn't have political implications for how we want to live today.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 certai…

> "The Aryans brought the Vedas with them from Europe", That's still the theory, except it's not politically correct to say it out loud. There was an idiot re-tweeted by the VP, who claimed "Buddha was Blonde with Blue-eyes; so was Pāṇinī". You might claim he's an idiot and "AMT is a sophisticated theory you pleb", but it actually is not. As we speak, Indologists like Bronkhorst, Beckwith and many others in EBT are s…

>The way West frames/manipulates History (based on so little evidence) is deeply violent

Violence is the use of physical force to coerce or to cause harm. The "way [someone] frames [something]" can't be anywhere close to "violent".

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

#176
post #22

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…

> Pitara (S) Father (E) Vater (G) > Matara (S) Mother (E) Mutter (G) > Bhratara (S) Brother (E) Bruder (G) > Duhitar (S) Daughter (E) Tochter (G Since you seem to be quoting the Sanskrit words in their root forms, (to which the case-lacking English and German equivalents most closely correspond) your spellings are incorrect. The correct forms are: pitr mātr bhrātr duhitr No thematic 'a' on the end. You might be confu…

Thanks for the info, that makes the words even more similar to each other across three main languages of Indo-European family.

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

#177

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…

>Pitara (S) Father (E) Vater (G) >Matara (S) Mother (E) Mutter (G) Also some roots of the smaller natural numbers, like (E): one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, etc. (G) eins, zwei, drei, ... (S) eka, dvi, tri, ... See the "Table" here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_numerals Although it is about numerals, there are words in a few languages, on the right side. And Sanskrit is the an…

The numbers of one to ten across the three main Indo-European namely Sanskit, English and German just confirmed they are from the same language tree.

The same goes to Malay-Austronesian language family that is spoken in Taiwan, Malay archipelago and further away in Polynesian islands including native people of New Zealand and Hawaii, their numbers of one to ten are very similar accross very wide geographical area confirming they are from the same language tree. Fun facts their most common word is (nyior/nyiur) which further cemented their status as the community with largest number of islands because coconut tree is trademark of their islands environment.

[1] Austronesian peoples:

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

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

#178

I wonder how this lower Volga group interacted with the earliest known civilization (5000-3000 BCE), in modern day Ukraine, the Cucuteni–Trypillia [1].They had cities with between 20-40k people that overlapped with the Yamnaya people’s discussed in the article (3500-2500 BCE). They had agriculture as well as wheels for transportation and pottery. All predating middle eastern civilizations. They also burned down their…

how do archaeologists know they burned down their own cities? One would expect the more neutral statement 'Their cities were burned every 50-100 years".

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

#179
post #178

I wonder how this lower Volga group interacted with the earliest known civilization (5000-3000 BCE), in modern day Ukraine, the Cucuteni–Trypillia [1].They had cities with between 20-40k people that overlapped with the Yamnaya people’s discussed in the article (3500-2500 BCE). They had agriculture as well as wheels for transportation and pottery. All predating middle eastern civilizations. They also burned down their…

how do archaeologists know they burned down their own cities? One would expect the more neutral statement 'Their cities were burned every 50-100 years".

My wild guess would be the coexistence of human remains and maybe other non-structural debris with burn layers.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 certai…

> "The Aryans brought the Vedas with them from Europe", That's still the theory, except it's not politically correct to say it out loud. There was an idiot re-tweeted by the VP, who claimed "Buddha was Blonde with Blue-eyes; so was Pāṇinī". You might claim he's an idiot and "AMT is a sophisticated theory you pleb", but it actually is not. As we speak, Indologists like Bronkhorst, Beckwith and many others in EBT are s…

>This is precisely the issue with this racial theory from the backdoor, and anyone with any shred of morality/ethics should stand with India, and for the indegeneity of its culture, civilization and languages.

I don't know the facts, but it sounds to me like there's no evidence that could convince you to accept the position opposite yours.

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