Post: #76

(03-06-2015 01:04 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  The Anatolian hypothesis is interesting because all the sources I read, like Razib Khan, Dienekes, Greg Cochran, seem to think the Anatolian hypothesis is not supported by the bulk of evidence. As such I have never really heard the affirmative case for the Anatolian hypothesis in detail, only heard the affirmative case for the Steppe hypothesis and heard the Anatolian hypothesis discredited.

I wonder if my impression, that the Steppe hypothesis is generally more widely accepted, is accurate.

I think I've read Dienekes side with the Anatolian hypothesis. Razib has written about it without going strongly for or against it. Not sure about Cochran.

In general, the more comfortable someone is with numbers, the more likely they support the hypothesis. The best research supporting it is pretty heavily quantitative. Most researchers in the field are not numbers people and most of them still hold onto the Steppe hypothesis.

The language we call Indo-European probably did come from the Steppe, but I don't think proto-Indo-European or Indo-Hittite originated on the Steppe.

Post: #77

^If you are comfortable with explaining the evidence, I would love to hear it.

Are you saying then that Proto-Indo-European developed in Anatolia like 10,000 years ago, but a group of people migrated to the steppe, and from there, those people spread out in accordance with the Steppe Hypothesis?

As I understand it, Hittite and other Anatolian languages being very distinct from other IE languages was the first real piece of evidence arguing in favor of the Anatolian hypothesis.

I believe the Steppe hypothesis posits that Anatolian langauges may have split off from other IE languages at some early date, and thus underwent novel innovations that are not shared with any other IE languages. Whereas the Anatolian hypothesis takes that same evidence and interprets it as showing that Anatolian languages preserved some ancestral traits that make it unique, and all other IE languages lack that because they're descended from only a subset of what was the original diversity within PIE.

Is that basically correct as you understand it?

It would be interesting if both the Anatolian and Steppe hyptheses were basically correct, ie PIE started in Anatolia but the Steppe was the real staging ground for its eventual expansion.

Any info you could drop for us innumerate laymen would be great.

Post: #78

(03-07-2015 11:27 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  ^If you are comfortable with explaining the evidence, I would love to hear it.

Are you saying then that Proto-Indo-European developed in Anatolia like 10,000 years ago, but a group of people migrated to the steppe, and from there, those people spread out in accordance with the Steppe Hypothesis?

As I understand it, Hittite and other Anatolian languages being very distinct from other IE languages was the first real piece of evidence arguing in favor of the Anatolian hypothesis.

I believe the Steppe hypothesis posits that Anatolian langauges may have split off from other IE languages at some early date, and thus underwent novel innovations that are not shared with any other IE languages. Whereas the Anatolian hypothesis takes that same evidence and interprets it as showing that Anatolian languages preserved some ancestral traits that make it unique, and all other IE languages lack that because they're descended from only a subset of what was the original diversity within PIE.

Is that basically correct as you understand it?

It would be interesting if both the Anatolian and Steppe hyptheses were basically correct, ie PIE started in Anatolia but the Steppe was the real staging ground for its eventual expansion.

Any info you could drop for us innumerate laymen would be great.

That's essentially how I understand it.

I also like the idea of combining the Steppe and Anatolian hypotheses.

This method is based on Bayesian Inference, which has a long history in genetic phylogeny but has only recently been adapted to the study of languages.

The linked articles do a better job explaining the fundamentals than I could. I'd be happy to PM about this stuff though.

The same Bayesian methods used to support the Anatolian hypothesis have been used successfully to reconstruct the phylogenies of Semitic and Polynesian languages. Language families we actually know the phylogenies of so we can confirm that the methods produce accurate results.

Post: #79

Borracho:

I am reading In Search of the Indo Europeans by J.P. Mallory.

He mentions that all IE languages share the same root, "*ekwos", for horse, and that this means that Proto-Indo-Europeans had domesticated horses. Other linguistic evidence points to this as well.

Horses were not domesticated at 11,000 years ago or even 6,000 years ago in Anatolia.

This is one of the reasons he gives for specifically rejecting the Anatloian hypothesis. His book is full of archaelogical, linguistic, and historical evidence trying to trace the Proto Indo Europeans to their homeland, and ultimately he supports the steppe hypothesis.

I wonder if you know if people who support the Anatolian hypothesis have any rebuttal to this particular fact.

Post: #80

(03-25-2015 04:03 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Borracho:

I am reading In Search of the Indo Europeans by J.P. Mallory.

He mentions that all IE languages share the same root, "*ekwos", for horse, and that this means that Proto-Indo-Europeans had domesticated horses. Other linguistic evidence points to this as well.

Horses were not domesticated at 11,000 years ago or even 6,000 years ago in Anatolia.

This is one of the reasons he gives for specifically rejecting the Anatloian hypothesis. His book is full of archaelogical, linguistic, and historical evidence trying to trace the Proto Indo Europeans to their homeland, and ultimately he supports the steppe hypothesis.

I wonder if you know if people who support the Anatolian hypothesis have any rebuttal to this particular fact.

I haven't come across an argument for that but it doesn't seem like a strong point against the Anatolian hypothesis. Cavemen drew pictures of horses. It's very likely that there was a word for horse long before it was domesticated and that once it was domesticated people continued to use the same word.

Fundamentally new inventions and discoveries would need new names, but if humans back then were anything like we are today, they probably continued using the same words, possibly in slightly modified form e.g. email is just derived from mail, computer is just derived from compute, etc.

Post: #81

Borracho,

I am not 100% on this point but I believe P.I.E. also had words for "driving" horses and other vocabulary that indicating that domestic horses were common to P.I.E. speakers.

As I read more I will comment on this more.

Post: #82

Ok Borracho I got exactly the information from Mallory I was looking for.

If you are ever interested in reading it, the book In Search of the Indo Europeans by J.P. Mallory is great.

Below is the relevant info from the book. Basically he says this:

There is no evidence of horses in Anatolia Greece or the Balkans until relatively recently. During the time period PIE would have existed there was no evidence for horses in these areas.

Wheeled vehicles also do not appear in Anatolia early enough for PIE to have originated there.

Gebetic links between Indo European and Finno Urgic languages make an Anatolian homeland unlikely because Finno Urgic languages definately originated in the Russia/Ukraine/Northern EurAsia area

Putting PIE earlier than about 4,500-2,500 B.C. is incongruous with what we know about the speed of language evolution, ie, the languages that existed like 11,000 years ago would be so distant that they could not be called descendents of thebdifferent proto languages like Proto Slavic or Proto Indo Iranian because of the sheer amount of change that occurs over thousabds of years, considering that some proto languages are attested beginning around 2,000 BC or so, you would look for their direct ancestor about one to two thousand years beforem not more.

You can read it below.

Post: #83

Interesting (possible) Indo-European connection I recently discovered:

Iranians (Persians, Kurds, etc.) have a new year (coming of spring/spring equinox) celebration where they jump over fire (Chaharshanbe Suri) that signifies a clean start to a new year.

I just recently found out that Germanic people build a large fire to celebrate Easter, called the Easter Fire. The celebration is a remnant of pagan times, and the significance of it is not clear, although some say it uses fire to symbolize the beginning of something new.

Post: #84

Good knowledge on the ancient ways

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...5L-pm5XvZA
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...vSf5Ty1_BN
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...5XQc2QuW9F