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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

#181

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 AMT/AIT was also weaponized by certain political elements in India to proliferate harassment against the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu” I was born and raised in Tamil Nadu, having lived there for over two decades. In my experience, I have not witnessed any widespread harassment specifically targeting Brahmins. While isolated incidents may exist—just as they do for various communities across all states—there is no subst…

[deleted]

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

#183

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…

The intersection of nationalism and archaeology can get _really_ weird, and depending on how deep in they are, well, you're probably not going to convince them. If nothing else, it's likely _emotionally_ important to them in a way that it probably isn't for you, the contrived nationalistic narrative being part of, essentially, a belief system. For a particularly extreme example of this, see Great Zimbabwe, a ruined c…

> The intersection of nationalism and archaeology can get _really_ weird, and depending on how deep in they are

A lot of political mythology is based on a group of people being either ethnically homogeneous or ethnically non-homogeneous.

For example a lot of Nazi ideology would've been undermined if it could've been shown that Germans were ethnically non-homogeneous. However it would've been supported if it could've been shown that other groups of people like WW1 German Army deserters were ethnically homogeneous. Or undermined again if there were non-German ethnic homogeneity in WW1 heroes who participated in the German army.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 con…

thanks for sending me into that rabbit hole :)

I was already interested in polynesia, from quite a while ago, and had read some books about it, and also a great National geographic magazine series about ancient polynesian navigators, who did not have any modern instruments, they just used knowledge and observation carried across generations, of patterns of wind, stars, ocean waves and swells, sea and land bird movements, clouds, et cetera, to navigate thousands of miles across the Pacific, to both initially discover and settle, and later travel between, multiple islands and Island groups in the Pacific.

the hokulea saga is an example.

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

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

thanks for sending me into that rabbit hole :) I was already interested in polynesia, from quite a while ago, and had read some books about it, and also a great National geographic magazine series about ancient polynesian navigators, who did not have any modern instruments, they just used knowledge and observation carried across generations, of patterns of wind, stars, ocean waves and swells, sea and land bird moveme…

with correct spelling and a link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dk%C5%ABle%CA%BBa

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

#186

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 favorite part is that the most foundational swear words in modern Slavic languages are still recognizable from their PIE roots:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...

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

#187
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's widely believed, but the only sources we have for these confused perceptions within written history are possibly-unreliable accounts of how the Aztecs perceived the Spaniards. In particular, I think the Mycenaean Greeks from which we get the best-known versions of the centaur myth were descendants of the Proto-Indo-European horseback-riding steppe nomads we're talking about here.

As I understand it, the Bronze-Age Minoan civilization spoke an unrelated language (as evidenced by Linear A) and has a material culture relatively continuous with Neolithic Crete, not imported from the Kurgan culture. They would have been the ones experiencing the steppe-nomad-descendant invasion, the steppe nomad descendants in question being the Mycenaeans around 01450 BCE, who were at that point millennia removed from both the steppes and nomadism but presumably still rode horses at least sometimes.

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

#188
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lysenko was widely discredited and ridiculed in the late 1960's following the demise of his main proteges (Stalin and later Khrushchev). The widespread damage Lysenko had brought about upon the Soviet genetics was widely acknowledged and openly discussed in the Soviet Union at the time. What on Earth is this bloviation all about?

Did you consider reading either of my comments or did you just feel the immediate need to reply in an insulting manner without contributing anything?

I can't speak for the others, but I read entire threads before engaging in a discourse. In this particular instance, the thread[0] started out as a flagrant misrepresentation of the facts, loaded with inciting terms to bait the esteemed reader into an emotional explosion. Since there was no meaningful discourse to be had, only a factual correction was appropriate. The choice to get insulted is entirely discretionary.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43007980

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