There is also a podcast with Q.D. Atkinson on the new study, as well as a website by the authors on their research; the FAQ/Controversies section seems particularly useful.
I don't hold high hopes that, despite the mounting evidence, this will dissuade people from arguing for a steppe PIE origin. And, it shouldn't. Only a vigorous debate will resolve the issue conclusively. And, since IE languages appear on the archaeological record long after their split under any scenario, this may be one of those problems that will never be solved to everyone's satisfaction.
I don't agree with all the details of the authors' model, but certainly they place the PIE homeland near to where I believe it was. Resistance to an Anatolian origin will become more convincing if adherents of different homeland solutions manage to put their ideas in quantitative form. Expert opinion is valuable, but very knowledgeable linguists and/or archaeologists have placed the PIE homeland all the way from Central Europe to Bactria-Sogdiana and from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to Mesopotamia. So, one has to wonder why expert opinion has such a high variance, but every quantitative effort to solve the problem has come up with a single solution.
As I wrote recently:
My own working hypothesis would derive the earliest Proto-Indo-Europeans with groups living in Neolithic eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. There are details to be fleshed out, such as when this group of people reached the Balkans (pending ancient DNA from the region), and how they interfaced with the populations living in the north of the Black and Caspian seas (e.g., via a trans-Caucasus movement or a counterclockwise spread around the Caspian).
The distribution for the root location lies in the region of Anatolia in present-day Turkey. To quantify the strength of support for an Anatolian origin, we calculated the Bayes factors (21) comparing the posterior to prior odds ratio of a root location within the hypothesized Anatolian homeland (11) (Fig. 1, yellow polygon) with two versions of the steppe hypothesis—the initial proposed Kurgan steppe homeland (6) and a later refined hypothesis (7) (Table 1). Bayes factors show strong support for the Anatolian hypothesis under a RRW model.
...
As the earliest representatives of the main Indo-European lineages, our 20 ancient languages might provide more reliable location information. Conversely, the position of the ancient languages in the tree, particularly the three Anatolian varieties, might have unduly biased our results in favor of an Anatolian origin. We investigated both possibilities by repeating the above analyses separately on only the ancient languages and only the contemporary languages (which excludes Anatolian). Consistent with the analysis of the full data set, both analyses still supported an Anatolian origin (Table 1).
The West Asian origin of the Proto-Indo-Europeans makes excellent sense in the light of the genetic evidence. But, as I hint at the above paragraph, the tempo of their expansion into Europe remains to be clarified. I strongly suspect, on the basis of the Iceman and Swedish Neolithic TRB farmer (Gok4) whose DNA has been published that the earliest Neolithic was not Indo-European, because these individuals lack the "West Asian" autosomal component.
The idea that ~5ka something happened in Europe is also supported by the paper:
Despite support for an Anatolian Indo- European origin, we think it unlikely that agriculture serves as the sole driver of language expansion on the continent. The five major Indo-European subfamilies—Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian—all emerged as distinct lineages between 4000 and 6000 years ago (Fig. 2 and fig. S1), contemporaneous with a number of later cultural expansions evident in the archaeological record, including the Kurgan expansion (5–7).So, while the deepest prehistory of Indo-European is firmly rooted in Anatolia during the early Neolithic, this is not inconsistent with something important happening in Europe during c. 5ka. But this was a secondary phenomenon, not the earliest seat of the Indo-Europeans. Also, I would not particularly relate this to the Kurgan expansion, but more probably to the arrival of metallurgical "guilds" with higher social complexity.
We tend to think of the Neolithic farmers, but it is quite likely that people kept coming into Europe since its initial colonization. After all, the people who came to the Americas in 1492 were the vanguard of many others who followed them. The same must have happened in Europe as well: a continuous process of settlement by various groups at different times, at least until the Bronze and Iron Ages when everyone, all over West Eurasia, seem to have become very quarrelsome and more than willing to use their swords, spears, axes, and arrows to dissuade newcomers who ventured into their territory.
Coverage of the new paper elsewhere: NY Times, Nature, Gene Expression, John Hawks.
Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family
Remco Bouckaert et al.
ABSTRACT
There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary Indo-European languages, to explicitly model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses. We found decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a steppe origin. Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago. These results highlight the critical role that phylogeographic inference can play in resolving debates about human prehistory.
Link
56 comments:
The map shown in the blog post here, and the podcast timeline evolving map both suffer from the defect of being ahistorical.
For example, neither indicates any presence if Celtic languages in Iberia or Gaul, which in fact, the Celtic languages of the British Isles are very likely derivatives of earlier Celitic language populations in Iberia and Gaul.
The map shows Tocharian languages in places where they were spoken from ca. 2000 BCE to 600 CE, but where they didn't even exist when the Romance languages were born from Latin.
Likewise, the podcast video map series fails to reflect the fact that while the Balkan languages may be relatively old, that Slavic language expansion mostly occurred in the middle of the first Millenium C.E.
The podcast video map seems to have the known direction of Indo-Iranian language expansion backward - West to East across Iran, rather than the other way around.
One of the whole points of using Bayesian statistical methods over Frequentist statistical approaches is to give weight to what you already know. We know quite a bit. We have fairly decent dates, source locations and paths of expansion for a variety of archaeological cultures. We know that languages change at a much more rapid pace at moments of language differentiation and language contact (e.g. via substrate influences and elements of creolization) than they do in "midlife" when they are in isolation. We have fairly good dates for moments like (1) the transition from Minoan (non-IE) to Mycenean (IE) Greek in Crete, (2)decent dates for a similar earlier transition in mainland Greece, (3) the date of the Hattic (non-IE)-Hittite (IE) transition in Anatolia and more generally the dates of Hittite expansion, (4) the appearance of an Indo-Aryan Mittani dialect in far eastern Anatolia, (5) the presence and general location of group of non-IE Kassites east of Mespotamia, (6) the times and places where non-IE Sumerian and Akkadian and all subsequent Mesopotamian languages were spoken, (7) the time and places where Tocharian was spoken and the plausible possible origins of those peoples, and (8) the dates when Celtic cultures appear in various places. There is good reason to think that the pre-Bronze Age IE world was very small - regardless of where within that world the actual urheimat was located - large swaths of Europe and South Asia and Iran had never encountered an IE language at that point, and quite a bit of IE expansion in Western Europe was an Iron Age phenomena.
The study's methods seem to implicitly assume a slow gradualist diffusion model when the reality was probably much more dramatic and punctuated. The archaeological record shows long periods of continuity interrupted by disruption followed by rapid expansion of new cultures often lots of places at once.
There are also points we don't know and have to guess on, with some guesses being more certain than others. We don't have any direct evidence of the linguistic affiliations of Megalithic, Corded Ware, Urnfield, BMAC or Bell Beaker archaeological cultures - although we do have when information about the when, where and to some extent, the from whence of these cultures. We don't know to what extent relatively new IE language families (e.g. Romance and Slavic) replaced IE v. non-IE predecessors in particular places and that is particularly difficult to discern in Anatolia. A useful model would focus on assigning linguistic affiliation probabilities to particular archaeological cultures on the theory that an archaelogical culture is likely to share a linguistic family affinity. Usually, there are just two or three plausible first IE language in the region candidates in any given place, and often one or two of them are far more likely than any other.
Bottom line: this is a crude toy model not a serious effort to really get at the truth using all available data.
"So, one has to wonder why expert opinion has such a high variance, but every quantitative effort to solve the problem has come up with a single solution."
The fact that the model was quantitative doesn't have any relevance to the truthfulness of the model.
@Crude toy models
My definition of a toy model tracing m429 using made up data;
"Haplogroup IJ node has been inferred"
"the lack of examples of Haplogroup IJ*"
"It may be difficult to draw conclusions"
The TMRCA,for the I clade
"with a confidence interval between 15.3-30.0 ka"
The study is trying to use a quantitative method; no different than trying to extrapolate I&J from theoretical IJ.
One of the striking features of the earliest attesting IE speaking societies is the religious connections which are apparent from Scandinavia to India in their pantheon of gods, particularly in the importance of a sky father god known as Dyaus Pitar in Sanskrit, Jupiter in Latin, Zeus in Greek and the somewhat transformed but still related Norse god Tyr.
The time period and location of the PIE homeland in south central Anatolia would correspond with archeological findings at Catal Huyuk. Whilst there are questions of the role of the mother goddess in this civilisation, there's nothing in the findings to suggest the massive importance of a sky father god.
The research team's website explains away the horse, wheel, chariot, axle connections in IE languages as an example of later developed technologies spreading in the IE speaking world with a common vocabulary.
That explanation doesn't seem to work if you want make sense of the observed religious connections. Especially as the specific local manifestations of these already come with an accumulation of local transformations of the type that develop over time.
"We tend to think of the Neolithic farmers, but it is quite likely that people kept coming into Europe since its initial colonization. After all, the people who came to the Americas in 1492 were the vanguard of many others who followed them. The same must have happened in Europe as well: a continuous process of settlement by various groups at different times"
I have long thought that we should consider all human expansions as having occurred in much the same way. The expansion of other species seems even to occur in much the same manner.
"The archaeological record shows long periods of continuity interrupted by disruption followed by rapid expansion of new cultures often lots of places at once".
Punctuated equilibrium again. Seems the concept can be applied to much more than just biological evolution.
"Bottom line: this is a crude toy model not a serious effort to really get at the truth using all available data".
I have long accepted the Kurgan hypothesis but this post is making me question it very strongly. I'm almost convinced.
"Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago".
I agree, though, that that seems far to early.
I totally agree with Andrew Oh-Willeke. The map of languages is at least controversial, the tree as well. If we will summarize what we know:
Before 20th century BC - no traces of IE language in Anatolia or around.
20th century BC - the first traces of Hittite anguage started to appear in old Assyrian from 20th century BC, they highly probably came to Anatolia from outside.
18th century - Old Hittite language with non-IE substratun appears in Anatolia
15th century - Mittanni came from the east the northern Mesopotamia
15th century - First record of Mycenaean Greek - I think we are pretty sure, they did not come from Anatolia
We can make a conclusion that the IE languages did not originated in Anatolia
Before 20th century BC - no traces of IE language in Anatolia or around.
So, the fact that Anatolian is the earliest attested IE language family is actually used as an argument against an Anatolian origin. Interesting.
Actually, writing as an innovation came at different times in different places. Some languages were written down before others, and some languages in Anatolia were never written down.
You are also forgetting that Hittite is not the only Anatolian language, several distinct Anatolian languages were written down during the Bronze Age, and many more were known during the historical period.
The argument that there were non-IE languages in Anatolia, hence IE could not have originated there does not carry force.
If one used that argument, they could say that no language originated in the Caucasus because so many languages (written and unwritten) are known from it.
There are regions of high and low linguistic diversity. For ~4ky of recorded history, Anatolia has always been home to multiple languages. It's a big place.
The model doesn't seem to take into account old Indo-Iranian placenames on the Pontic steppe, nor Indo-Iranian loan words into Uralic, which evolved west of the Urals. I don't know about the first homeland but could there be a second one on the Pontic steppe?
This is great stuff. Thanks Dienekes.
"I strongly suspect, on the basis of the Iceman and Swedish Neolithic TRB farmer (Gok4) whose DNA has been published that the earliest Neolithic was not Indo-European, because these individuals lack the "West Asian" autosomal component."
Well, at least the Mediterranean (Cardium) and Western (La Hoguette) Neolithic were clearly not IE (because IE is known to be intrusive, there, at a much later point). But that does not preclude IE from being spoken in (particularly, early and central) parts of LBK, from which it could have spread both from the North and Southwest into the Ukraine with well-established strings of settlements. Also, Black Sea trade/travel surely formed a Sprachbund that would have slowed down language change for a couple of millennia - as is required, looking at dates (e.g., Proto_Iranian is both extremely close to PIE and late!). Finally, if parts of Central Europe already spoke an early form of IE, it would make the quick acceptance of the Germanic/Italic/Celtic language groups easier to understand. In part of that region, there is zero evidence of strong outside influence or violent take-over during the crucial times.
Clearly, Anatolia and its surroundings have harbored many different language families for many millennia. Also, IE got a boost during the Bronze Age all across Europe and Western Asia. To me, that suggests that IE must have been firmly established in the crucial regions at the beginning of the Bronze Age - and that must include (at least SE) Central Europe as well as most areas around the Black Sea.
So, for all to make sense, IMO the region West of the Black Sea must have been part of an IE domain very early on. That region may have also been more homogenous and in the long run more influential on future IE spread than the multi-faceted Anatolia.
There were few languages before Hittite in Anatolia and they were not IE (Hattians, Hurrians, Assyrian...). The reason why I think, IE does not originate in Anatolia is that there are no IE languages in the area very close to or even within Anatolia long time after hypothetical split of them. If the IE languages would originated in Anatolia before 8000 year, I guess, there should be some IE words in the records of northern Mesopotamia before 2000 BC, but there are none.
Even the first Hittite city Kültepe was originaly Assyrian. The Haiite people came there in 17th century. This is one piece of the complete mosaic with a conclusion that Hittite people came into Anatolia and did not originate there and there were no IE people before them.
I was so much surprised when our maid at our home told us that her name in her Turkish ID was Kaduşa. You may pronounce it as Khatusha or Hattusha. Her home town is very close to ancient Hattusha the capital of the Hittite Empire. The more surprising thing was the picture we saw in the Turkish newspapers about an Anatolian woman 2500 years old. Her sculpture looked like exactly our maid at home: http://www.milliyet.com.tr/iste-2500-yil-onceki-anadolu-kadini/yasam/haberdetay/10.07.2010/1261601/default.htm
They also place the Celtic branch way west of its oldest proven whereabouts in central Europe.
"They also place the Celtic branch way west of its oldest proven whereabouts in central Europe."
You have to distinguish between culturally Celtic and linguistically Celtic. Based on toponyms, very little Celtic was ever spoken East of the Rhine river and outside of the Swiss region. Most of the few Celtic place names there are that of oppida erected as trades places by an outside elite (similar to the Roman ones, soon later). Everything points to the local population (that supported the trade) speaking a different language (likely somewhere along the proto-Celtic-Italic-Germanic and proto-Germanic continuum. From about Eastern Bavaria eastward, even culturally there was a clear distinction. During Celtic expansion, powers changed, but there is no evidence that local languages changed to any significant extent.
However, the map gets the Slavic language origin horribly wrong, and ignores the important region along the northern Black Sea shores (Moldova & Southern Ukraine) and Uralic/Iranian connections there to the immediate East.
@Vaclav Hrdonka
Au contraire mon ami, there was a sea of highly divergent IE languages interlopped (Milian, Psidian, Pamphylian, Sidetic, Lutescan, Luwian, Late Luwian, Early Hittite, late Hittite, Palaic, Lycian, Lydian...) by clearly intruder (because consisting of single languages lacking internal diversity) Caucasic languages (Hattian and Hurrian)
This proves that IE Anatolic languages are autochtonous and indigenous to Anatolia+Armenia and Hattic were the intruder ones from the Caucasus
As about your "arguments" ie:
1/"if Anatolic was autochtonous why it appears later than Hattic"
2/"absence" of IE words in the Mesopotamian languages
Both are incorrect and betrays your ignorance about this subject:
First of all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts
Luwian Hittite and other Anatolic languages were attested BEFORE Hattic
Even Hurrian was first attested in HITTITE TEXTS and Hurric was closer to Mesopotamia (laying in Northern Syria) than Anatolic does (laying in Armenia and Anatolia) but despite that Hurric was contemperaneous with Anatolic in its first attestation
Secondly and more importantly your whole point lacks any weight as you know very well that your Slavic languages were attested at a very late date as the middle ages but that of course does not mean that Slavs are recent intruder conquerors to eastern Europe that conquered Finno-Ugric peoples because for whatever reason (peacefullness; isolatin in farmland valleys etc etc) a folk could have his language not historically attested until very lately despite it being the original folk of that area
As for argument 2 it shows your ignorance on linguistics because linguists have already found several IE words in various mesopotamian languages (assyrian; sumerian; elamite etc etc) and those are Proto indoeuropean words not words of the daughter branches and there is as well Semitic Sumerian and Elamite words in the Proto Indoeuropean level and not the daughter IE languages ones
Finally I have already posted in this blog a recent paper of 2012 that explains that the IE loanwords into Uralic were borrowed as early as the Indo-Iranian level way after even late IE one (let alone PIE one)and the author concluded that PIE homeland could not have been in the steppes otherwise we would have PIE loanwords into Uralic
That study does not prove anything. In the nut shell:
1. Anatolian is seen as the first branch to split off even in the mainstream view (steppe homeland). The authors of the article believe that words disappear with a constant rate, which is not true: with intensive contacts, and especially with a substrate language, the rate of the word loss is much higher. Therefore the Anatolian branch looks too old.
2. So, Anatolian is the first branch to split off, but that cannot testify for the homeland being in Anatolia. It is equally possible that the homeland was in Ukraine, of course: 50-50. (If no other evidence is considered here.)
3. Even Anatolian has words connected to wheel and wheeled vehicles, derived from Proto-Indo-European. This sets the upper limit for the dispersal of Proto-Indo-European which no phylogenetic calculations can overrule. Paleolinguistic evidence is much more robust than phylogenetic calculations, which have many possible error sources.
4. They have located the early Aryan languages in South Asia, so they get the result that Proto-Indo-European was spoken in Anatolia. But the earliest forms of Proto-Aryan were spoken in the North Caspian steppes, which is proved by Early, Middle and Late Proto-Aryan loanwords in Uralic. If they calculate with that location, the Proto-Indo-European homeland would not be in Anatolia any more but more north: in the Pontic steppes.
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/UralicEvidence.pdf
1. Anatolian is seen as the first branch to split off even in the mainstream view (steppe homeland). The authors of the article believe that words disappear with a constant rate, which is not true: with intensive contacts, and especially with a substrate language, the rate of the word loss is much higher. Therefore the Anatolian branch looks too old.
1. The paper does not only conclude that Anatolian is basal in the IE tree, but also that IE languages expanded from Anatolia. The spatially explicit model does not support the idea that Anatolian expanded from the steppe.
The rate of linguistic change is not assumed constant.
"Third, we can compare the t of a range of models of language
lineage evolution and spatial di usion, including di erent cognate replacement
models and relaxing the assumption of constant rates of change across the tree."
Finally, under any model the vast majority of the territory where IE languages were/are spoken included substrata, so it is very suspicious to claim that Anatolian would have been especially effected by substrata.
2. So, Anatolian is the first branch to split off, but that cannot testify for the homeland being in Anatolia. It is equally possible that the homeland was in Ukraine, of course: 50-50. (If no other evidence is considered here.).
It's not 50-50. The Bayes factor for the Anatolian vs. steppe model is at a minimum 11.4 for a wide set of experimental choices, and mostly above 100. So, the Anatolian hypothesis is much more supported by the evidence than the steppe one.
3. Even Anatolian has words connected to wheel and wheeled vehicles, derived from Proto-Indo-European. This sets the upper limit for the dispersal of Proto-Indo-European which no phylogenetic calculations can overrule. Paleolinguistic evidence is much more robust than phylogenetic calculations, which have many possible error sources.
When wheeled vehicles were invented, different IE groups adopted common words in their vocabulary to describe their parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racquet#Tennis
"The parts of a tennis racquet are the head, rim, face, neck,butt/butt cap, handle, and strings."
All of the above words were in use before the tennis racquet was invented, but we don't have to imagine that the tennis racquet itself was that old.
In a single living population of two or more languages groups, a word or several, and upwards through Language in general, can move from an individual B to another individual A - "borrowing". "A" can then pass that word onto a child, grandchild and so on. The latter reflects a genetic relationship. But the in the initial exchange everyone's genes stayed firmly in place, so to speak. So language has flowed but the genes may not. This is at least one of root causes, IMHO, of misconceptions applying when concepts of genetics are applied to language change. Genes only every move "vertically", but language can move _horizontally_ as well, as it were.
"So, the fact that Anatolian is the earliest attested IE language family is actually used as an argument against an Anatolian origin. Interesting."
The IE words/names Somasena and Arisena attested at Akkad in middle of third millennium BC are not Anatolian.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6lPzhfNRZ9IC&pg=PA374
"Ur texts, were (prae-Indo-Aryan) Indian words, e.g., words like kapazum and lahaki-tum, mentioned in II 9 and UET ... It may be observed that most of these words have an Akkadian, and not a Sumerian form"
http://books.google.com/books?id=-PsUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA166&
' "The parts of a tennis racquet are the head, rim, face, neck,butt/butt cap, handle, and strings."
All of the above words were in use before the tennis racquet was invented, but we don't have to imagine that the tennis racquet itself was that old.'
Going with this analogy, you're saying that PIE had names for the parts of the tennis racquet before the tennis racquet was invented, and that thousands of years later the daughters all chose those same source words.
[Picture of Fry squinting]
"The rate of linguistic change is not assumed constant."
This is a strawman. The argument is that they inferred the incorrect date due to an assumption of a constant rate of word loss.
Is jaska wrong on this point?
Dienekes:
> 1. The paper does not only conclude that Anatolian is basal in the IE tree, but also that IE languages expanded from Anatolia. The spatially explicit model does not support the idea that Anatolian expanded from the steppe.
Their spatial model is totally dependent on the early IE languages they chose. They chose that Aryan languages were early spoken in South Asia, so they got the result pointing towards Anatolia. If they would choose the earliest known Aryan stage, it would be located in the North Caspian steppes, and the homeland would not be in Anatolia any more: it would go north, too!
Dienekes:
> The rate of linguistic change is not assumed constant.
"Third, we can compare the t of a range of models of language
lineage evolution and spatial diffusion, including different cognate replacement
models and relaxing the assumption of constant rates of change across the tree."
Sorry, I didn't mean constant as in physics; I meant that they nevertheless think that because Anatolian shares the least words with the other branches, it must be oldest. but that is not the case, and there is a counter-example in Uralic studies: the Samoyed branch has for a century seen the first to split off from Proto-Uralic, because it shares the least words with every other branch. But the new phonological analysis proves that Samoyed descends from East Uralic (Ugro-Samoyedic) branch, so the phonological evidence overrules the lexical evidence. (Forthcoming in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 61 at this autumn.)
Even though the Anatolian branch still is the first branch to split off, it may be like Samoyed in that respect, that it has replaced the old words much faster than the other IE branches.
Dienekes:
>Finally, under any model the vast majority of the territory where IE languages were/are spoken included substrata, so it is very suspicious to claim that Anatolian would have been especially effected by substrata.
Why? It spread to the area of very high cultural level, whereas the other branches did not - except the Indic branch, and it has similarly huge substrate from Dravidian.
Dienekes:
> It's not 50-50. The Bayes factor for the Anatolian vs. steppe model is at a minimum 11.4 for a wide set of experimental choices, and mostly above 100. So, the Anatolian hypothesis is much more supported by the evidence than the steppe one.
What evidence? Not the linguistic evidence, clearly. Remember the wheel and wheeled vehicle?
> When wheeled vehicles were invented, different IE groups adopted common words in their vocabulary to describe their parts.
Nice hypothesis, but very weak. Those words are phonologically regular, so they go back to the Proto-Indo-European stage. It may have been a stage of areally but not yet linguistically differentiated dialects, but still it is a necessity that (1) the common Proto-Indo-European stage was very close, and (2) the dialects were spoken in adjacent areas.
It is impossible that the words could have been spread over huge distances to the clearly differentiated languages. In that case they would not be phonologically regular. We can see it by watching all the late loanwords in the IE languages: they look too similar, they are not regular.
Dienekes:
> All of the above words were in use before the tennis racquet was invented, but we don't have to imagine that the tennis racquet itself was that old.
Of course not. But how do you explain that the word for 'wagon' is old, too - not only the words denoting it's parts? Besides, word for 'wheel' alone disproves the connection of Proto-Indo-European to the expansion of farming from Anatolia, because there are no wheels even nearly that old in the world.
Their spatial model is totally dependent on the early IE languages they chose. They chose that Aryan languages were early spoken in South Asia, so they got the result pointing towards Anatolia. If they would choose the earliest known Aryan stage, it would be located in the North Caspian steppes, and the homeland would not be in Anatolia any more: it would go north, too!
There is no evidence that the earliest Aryan languages were spoken in the north Caspian steppe.
I meant that they nevertheless think that because Anatolian shares the least words with the other branches, it must be oldest.
Everyone seems to agree that Anatolian is basal to other IE languages, even supporters of the steppe model. Also your argument is irrelevant, because an Anatolian origin is inferred by the authors even when they consider only extant languages (i.e., they ignore Anatolian altogether when they fit their spatial model) and the answer still turns out to be Anatolia.
Nice hypothesis, but very weak. Those words are phonologically regular, so they go back to the Proto-Indo-European stage. It may have been a stage of areally but not yet linguistically differentiated dialects, but still it is a necessity that (1) the common Proto-Indo-European stage was very close, and (2) the dialects were spoken in adjacent areas.
Indeed, the words for the _parts_ go back to PIE, but there is no word for the _whole_ and different languages used native PIE words to describe the parts of wheeled vehicles when they were invented. Incidentally, to address the question of another user, they didn't even use the same words always for the same parts always.
Besides, word for 'wheel' alone disproves the connection of Proto-Indo-European to the expansion of farming from Anatolia, because there are no wheels even nearly that old in the world.
Anatolian does not have an IE word for wheel. Also, as mentioned by other posters it is ridiculous to claim that the word for "wheel" was invented only when transportation wheels were invented, since there were both round/rolling/rotating things before the invention of the transportation wheel and the relevant words were used to denote non-transportation circles as well.
Dienekes : "There is no evidence that the earliest Aryan languages were spoken in the north Caspian steppe."
The _proto-Indo-iranian_ loanwords (among them "wheel") - and even the old Indic and old Iranic loanwords - in Uralic (that everyone agrees on, even the opponents of the Kurgan theory, BTW) don't fit as possible evidences? How so? (let's not even mention the cultural similarities between some early Andronovo sites and what we see in later "Aryan" customs...)
Actually, even the archaic IE found in Uralic supports it as it shows the IE presence in this region was everything but superficial and "recent".
The _proto-Indo-iranian_ loanwords (among them "wheel") - and even the old Indic and old Iranic loanwords - in Uralic (that everyone agrees on, even the opponents of the Kurgan theory, BTW) don't fit as possible evidences?
These count as evidence of contact, they do not count as evidence that Indo-Iranian was spoken in the north Caspian steppe. In order to draw that conclusion you have to make a whole number of other assumptions (e.g., that the contact did not occur as early Indo-Iranians moved north, that the Proto-Uralic homeland was west of the Urals, and so on).
Proto-Indo-European has words for "wheel" and "metal" and "boat" (a Semitic loan). This would indicate that PIE split later, perhaps at the tMRCA of the Semitic languages around the 5.9 Kiloyear Event.
There is a postulated North Caucasian proto-language, and of course Afro-Asiatic, but no one has accounted for the position of Kartvelian in the region or the similarities of Kartvelian to PIE.
What if PIE clusters with Kartvelian, and the tMRCA for both is right at the earliest Pre-Pottery Anatolian Neolithic (Gobeklitepe)? That would be right around the time of the tMRCA of the North Caucasian language family as well, but this would be a separate expansion.
It would make sense if wheeled wagons (horse domestication came later) and metal (early Bronze) tools and boats were the impetus for the initial PIE expansion, but this was secondary to an earlier PIE-Kartvelian linguistic phylum which existed alongside a North Caucasian phylum, before the Afro-Asiatic proto-Semitic speakers arrived from Northeast Africa.
Dienekes:
>There is no evidence that the earliest Aryan languages were spoken in the north Caspian steppe.
Oh, please! Read my link. Are you claiming that Proto-Uralic originates in South Asia?
Dienekes:
>These count as evidence of contact, they do not count as evidence that Indo-Iranian was spoken in the north Caspian steppe. In order to draw that conclusion you have to make a whole number of other assumptions (e.g., that the contact did not occur as early Indo-Iranians moved north, that the Proto-Uralic homeland was west of the Urals, and so on).
These assumptions are very well based, you just haven't studied them.
1. The contacts did not occur so late, because you can see in my link that there are [b]Early, Middle and Late Proto-Aryan loanwords in Proto-Uralic.[/b] Therefore the Aryan language must have been born near the Uralic homeland - it is impossible that the later Aryans could have brought Early and Middle Proto-Aryan loanwords to the north!
2. Proto-Uralic has never seriously been located south from the taiga zone. So the only place for these Aryan contacts is the border zone between the North Caspian steppe and the North Eurasian taiga.
Dienekes:
>Everyone seems to agree that Anatolian is basal to other IE languages, even supporters of the steppe model. Also your argument is irrelevant, because an Anatolian origin is inferred by the authors even when they consider only extant languages (i.e., they ignore Anatolian altogether when they fit their spatial model) and the answer still turns out to be Anatolia.
Only because they have chosen southern IE languages. If they correct their Aryans to the North Caspian steppes, they would no more get any support for the Anatolian homeland. How many times I must say this?
Dienekes:
>Indeed, the words for the _parts_ go back to PIE, but there is no word for the _whole_ and different languages used native PIE words to describe the parts of wheeled vehicles when they were invented. Incidentally, to address the question of another user, they didn't even use the same words always for the same parts always.
There are wide-spread, phonologically regular and even formally identical words for 'wagon, vehicle': Latin vehiculum ~ Sanskrit vahitram 'vehicle' is one; Greek ókhos ~ Old Church Slavic vozu 'chariot/wagon' is another; Old Irish fēn ~ Old English waegn 'wagon' is yet another.
Even you cannot ignore that Proto-Indo-Europeans already knew the wheeled vehicle.
Dienekes:
>Anatolian does not have an IE word for wheel.
What are you talking about? Of course it has: Hittite hurki 'wheel' has a regular cognate in Tocharian wärkänt 'wheel'.
Dienekes:
>Also, as mentioned by other posters it is ridiculous to claim that the word for "wheel" was invented only when transportation wheels were invented, since there were both round/rolling/rotating things before the invention of the transportation wheel and the relevant words were used to denote non-transportation circles as well.
It is true that for example Balto-Slavic word for 'neck' is formed from the same root as the English word wheel 'wheel'. But there are no words denoting to 'neck' in one language and 'wheel' in another. All the wheel-words have only the meaning 'wheel'. So your counter-argument does not work.
It seems that you have already decided what you believe - arguments don't seem to make you reconsider things. That means you lack objectivity in the matter.
Oh, please! Read my link. Are you claiming that Proto-Uralic originates in South Asia?
Right, because clearly there is nothing in the world between the North Caspians steppe and South Asia. Strawman argument.
2. Proto-Uralic has never seriously been located south from the taiga zone. So the only place for these Aryan contacts is the border zone between the North Caspian steppe and the North Eurasian taiga.
Proto-Indo-Iranian homeland east of the Caspian as I have argued is more than sufficient to account for Uralic contacts.
There are wide-spread, phonologically regular and even formally identical words for 'wagon, vehicle': Latin vehiculum ~ Sanskrit vahitram 'vehicle' is one; Greek ókhos ~ Old Church Slavic vozu 'chariot/wagon' is another; Old Irish fēn ~ Old English waegn 'wagon' is yet another.
You need a few more to claim that it was in PIE.
What are you talking about? Of course it has: Hittite hurki 'wheel' has a regular cognate in Tocharian wärkänt 'wheel'.
Both David Anthony and Don Ringe don't accept this, and they're not exactly friends of the Anatolian model, are they?
All the wheel-words have only the meaning 'wheel'.
Incorrect, the Greek word κύκλος has the primary meaning of "circle"; the meaning of "wheel" is secondary, and the common word for mechanical wheel, including a transportation wheel is τροχός.
Dienekes:
>Right, because clearly there is nothing in the world between the North Caspians steppe and South Asia. Strawman argument.
I included Iran in South Asia, because it looks to be there, but officially it belongs to Western Asia. Sorry.
Dienekes:
>Proto-Indo-Iranian homeland east of the Caspian as I have argued is more than sufficient to account for Uralic contacts.
So, there is the whole steppe belt, full of nomads, between your Proto-Aryans and Proto-Uralic speakers? How, then, there could be all these Aryan loanword layers in Uralic? Uralic has no Semitic loanwords, either - languages usually (until modern times) have loanwords only from nearby languages. East of Caspian see is too far south to explain the Uralic contacts: Proto-Aryans must have been in the North Caspian steppe, close to the taiga belt.
Jaska:
>>There are wide-spread, phonologically regular and even formally identical words for 'wagon, vehicle': Latin vehiculum ~ Sanskrit vahitram 'vehicle' is one; Greek ókhos ~ Old Church Slavic vozu 'chariot/wagon' is another; Old Irish fēn ~ Old English waegn 'wagon' is yet another.
Dienekes:
>You need a few more to claim that it was in PIE.
Why? Are you claiming that there could be a later loanword between Latin and Sanskrit? Impossible. You cannot ignore the evidence of these wide-spread words: the wagon was known at least at the level of Proto-Indo-European dialects.
[b]And this makes any connection with the spread of farming utterly impossible.[/b]
Jaska:
>>What are you talking about? Of course it has: Hittite hurki 'wheel' has a regular cognate in Tocharian wärkänt 'wheel'.
Dienekes:
>Both David Anthony and Don Ringe don't accept this, and they're not exactly friends of the Anatolian model, are they?
I would like to see some evidence. Source?
Jaska:
>>All the wheel-words have only the meaning 'wheel'.
Dienekes:
>Incorrect, the Greek word κύκλος has the primary meaning of "circle"; the meaning of "wheel" is secondary, and the common word for mechanical wheel, including a transportation wheel is τροχός.
How do you know which meaning was original? Comparing to the other IE languages, 'wheel' seems to be the primary meaning.
I would like to see some evidence. Source?
It's in Anthony's book, p.64 so go ahead and read it.
"Jaska said -> Oh, please! Read my link. Are you claiming that Proto-Uralic originates in South Asia?"
Kelteminar culture - Neolithic culture of Caucasoid fishermen who lived in the southern Aral Sea region in the VI-III millennium BC. e. [1] [2] [3] V.A. Alekshin "Archaeology of Central Asia". Researchers have drawn parallels and believe that culture related to Pit–Comb Ware culture and belonged to the circle of the Finno-Ugric peoples. [4] Replaced by the tazabagyabsky culture. The existence of this culture is often used as an argument against the existence of the Aryan ancestral homeland in Central Asia. Discovered by expedition in 1939 (Tolstov)
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0
The debate here is interesting, firstly we know that wheel (and various other words connected to wagins)is not a post-PIE loan word because it follows a systematic set of sound changes associated with the different IE families.
The racket example simply doesn't work.
Secondly, this type of research is entirely without value. We know, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that languages can change beyond intelligibility within a few generations, or remain essentially the same for 100's of years. British English Jamaican English and American English "diverged" at exactly the same time, yet one two are completely mutually understandable, whereas the third is an entirely different language.
And that's without even getting on to ideas like dialect chains and language replacement.
And this radical change can happen an unlimited number of times over a language's history, or it might never occur. So how can there possibly be any validity in trying to establish a point of departure using language difference as a starting point?
I've no problem with the Anatolian theory per se, but this is the kind of research where you have to be really, really, clever to be so stupid.
Finnish has some common words with South Indian. and language structure is like North Indian.
Ex:
Akka , Sarakka.
Miten: My( hindi)
Tanaan(today): Taana( South Indian)
What does it matter. After another 50 years or so nobody even cares language. Take it easy guys.
The proto-Anatolian was neither Centum nor Satem, so it is more basal and more relict, than the other IE languages.
But I think that the proto-Anatolian originated in Greece, because of some toponymy Amphi-ssa A-ssa O-ssa Dory-ssa.
And the Kartvelian have substrate from an unknown IE language.
So maybe in Anatolia were other IE people before the Hittite-Luvians.
And the first wheels and wagons were discovered in north west Balkans(Baden culture 3600 BC), and horse first domesticated in north east Balkans(Cernavodă culture 4000 BC).
Even the proto-Scythian originated in West Asia.
An inscription from Saqqez(north west Iran) written in the Hieroglyphic Hittite script may represent Scythian: [8]
Transliteration:
pa-tì-na-sa-nà tà-pá wa-s₆-na-m₅ XL was-was-ki XXX ár-s-tí-m₅ ś₃-kar-kar (HA) har-s₆-ta₅ LUGAL | par-tì-ta₅-wa₅ ki-ś₃-a₄-á KUR-u-pa-ti QU-wa-a₅ | i₅-pa-ś₂-a-m₂
Transcription:
patinasana tapa. vasnam: 40 vasaka 30 arzatam šikar. UTA harsta XŠAYAL. | Partitava xšaya DAHYUupati xva|ipašyam
Translation:
"Delivered dish. Value: 40 calves 30 silver šiqlu. And it was presented to the king. | King Partitavas, the masters of the land property."
King Partitava equates to the Scythian king called Prototyēs in Herodotus (1.103) and known as Par-ta-tu-a in the Assyrian sources. ("Partatua of Sakasene" married the daughter of Esarhaddon c. 675 BC)
Kelteminar? No.
[IMG]http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Keski-AasiaU.jpg[/IMG]
Evidence for Proto-Uralic location:
[url]http://www.sgr.fi/susa/92/hakkinen.pdf[/url]
Evidence for Pre-Proto-Uralic location:
[url]http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust264/sust264_hakkinenj.pdf[/url]
Evidence for Early, Middle and Late Proto-Aryan location:
[url]http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/UralicEvidence.pdf[/url]
Dienekes:
>It's in Anthony's book, p.64 so go ahead and read it.
Thanks. He quotes Ringe; I will try to find out the original source.
Anthony, page 34:
"The meaning of wheel is given additional support by the fact that it has an Indo-European etymology - - That root was *kwel-, a verb that meant 'to turn'. So *kwekwlos is not just a random string of phonemes reconstructed from the cognates for wheel; it meant 'the thing that turns.' This not only tends to confirm the meaning 'wheel' rather than 'circle' or 'vehicle' but it also indicates that the speakers of Proto-Indo-European made up their own words for wheels."
"Even the proto-Scythian originated in West Asia."
Interesting.
How do we know this is proto-Scythian (a very amorphous name that could be applied to a variety of peoples). The transcription looks quite like Old Persian which is very close to Avestan and Sanskrit.
"DAHYUupati" could very well be king of the Dahae (Dasyu).
The Dahae are supposed be from near the Caspian but Tacitus also puts them near the Indus (unless his Sindes is not Indus): "Vardanes winning a complete victory, and in a series of successful engagements subduing the intermediate tribes as far as the river Sindes, which is the boundary between the Dahae and the Arians. There his successes terminated." http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.7.xi.html
Periplus also calls the lower Indus delta, Scythia:
"seaboard of Skythia, a region which extends to northward. It is very low and flat, and contains the mouths of the Sinthos, the largest of all the rivers which fall into the Erythraean Sea, and which, indeed, pours into it such a vast body of water that while you are yet far off from the land at its mouth you find the sea turned of a white colour by its waters." http://www.archive.org/stream/commercenavigati00mccrrich/commercenavigati00mccrrich_djvu.txt
How do we reconcile a Neolithic Anatolian IE homeland (from the south) with the the westward dispersals of Baltic-Slavic nations from farther eastern Europe to their current locations, and with their interactions with Finnish tribes in that process? Would this imply that the Slavic languages came from the Balkans and the Danube basin and wet farther north?
The inscription is about the King Partitava(Partatua from Assyrian data), in Herodotus Historiae you may found the Scythian King Prototyes, this King was in West Asia, his son Madyes King of Scythians conquered the Median empire and entered the Syria and Palestine.
George,
You cannot prove a West Asian origin for Scythians from an inscription (whose language and even script are highly disputed by the way) that is from what is now Iranian Kurdistan and dated to the 7th century BC. Even if we assume that the language of the inscription in question is Scythian, its script is the Luwian hieroglyphic script (there is no such thing as Hittite hieroglyphs, there is Luwian hieroglyphs, so I take the researcher, János Harmatta, to actually mean Luwian hieroglyphs by "Hittite hieroglyphs") and its reading is correct, that does not point to a West Asian origin for Scythians, because it is historically well documented and archaeologically well corroborated that a relatively large number of Scythians migrated from the Scythian country in the Pontic steppe into West Asia through the Caucasus during the early 7th century BC (probably in search of riches), established Scythian rule in the territory between Urartians and Medes, directed from there attacks on much of West Asia and had big effects on the politics of West Asia for about a hundred years (the political and military affairs of Partatua and Madius are especially well recorded) until finally being crushed and pushed back into the Pontic steppe by Medes during the early 6th century BC. So Scythians in West Asia were a short-lived colony originating from the Pontic steppe, just as Cimmerians in West Asia were, irrespective of the cause (though Cimmerians in West Asia would never return to the Pontic steppe, as it had been occupied by Scythians, who had caused them to migrate into West Asia in the first place, so they stayed in West Asia and were gradually absorbed by West Asian natives and disappeared from the record).
Coments I found on this here
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.lang/2008-08/msg00765.html
Cuneiform Luvian wasn't used for mundane texts like this (neither was
hieroglyphic, for that matter), so this is probably ordinary Hittite.
You can see from this inscription, that the word for King is "Kisaa", and Scythian word for King is "Ksay"("Ksaj") from Herodotus (Lipo-Xai-os, Arpo-Xai-os, Kola-Xai-os).
The Ossetian word is Hisaw =Lord or Hsaw=Lord,God .
And Diodorus wrote that the first Scythians (proto-Scythians) originated near to Araxes river. Herodotus belived too that Scythians came from west Asia.
Herodotus
Asia=West Asia
Ano Asia=Persia+India
Arimaspia(Altay region)is in Northern Europe.
Coments I found on this here
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.lang/2008-08/msg00765.html
Cuneiform Luvian wasn't used for mundane texts like this (neither was
hieroglyphic, for that matter), so this is probably ordinary Hittite.
Totally anachronistic and misleading. First, as I said, there has never been Hittite hieroglyphs, NEVER. Second, Hittite ceased to be a written (probably also spoken) language with the Bronze Age collapse. Third, not only Hittite cuneiform but also Luwian cuneiform (essentially the same cuneiform script as Hittite cuneiform) disappeared with the Bronze Age collapse and Luwian was only written with Luwian hieroglyphs thereafter. Capisci?
And Diodorus wrote that the first Scythians (proto-Scythians) originated near to Araxes river. Herodotus belived too that Scythians came from west Asia.
Herodotus
Asia=West Asia
Ano Asia=Persia+India
Arimaspia(Altay region)is in Northern Europe.
Well, according to Herodotus, Scythians originated in the vicinity of Massagetae, whom he places in the great plain east of the Caspian (i.e., Central Asia).
It is possible that MassaGetae first originated in Balkans close to the Getae people.
The Mushki(Meskhi) hitted the Hittite empire, and it is possible that Mushki(Meskhi) came from Balkans and Mushki(Meskhi)=Massagetae.
Compare the Anatolian tribal names and the Scythian tribal names.
Anatolia: Scythenes, Alizones, Alazones, Amazones, Isauroi etc.
Scythia: Scythae, Alizones, Alazones, Amazones, Sauromatae etc.
Ninurta King of Assyria hitted the Hittite empire, after that the empire collapsed.
"Ninus" ended the 1500 years old Scythian empire in Asia.
Hittites had a war with Ramses
Ramsis-Vesoz-Sesostris(different Greko-Romean sourses) had a war with Scythians
Amazones builded Ephesus and Smyrna - Luvians had these towns.
Amazones origineted in Capadocia - Luvians had their Kingdom in Capadocia
Amazones were lefted in Capadocia by Scythians - Luvians were in Capadocia after the Hittites and before the Capadocians(Assyrians).
The first historical Scythian Kings were in West Asia
1)Ishpakai
2)Prototyes Partitava Partatua
3)Madyes
The first Mythical Scythian Kings were in Phases river region(Now west Georgia) Colaxes king of Scythians and Auches king of Kimmerians fighting against the Colchians and Amazonians.
The Askanaz(Ashkenaz) kingdoms were in the borders of Ararat kingdom.
The Ashkuza(Ishkuza) kingdom was in the borders of Urartu kingdom.
etc etc
An explanation for my a few days-long silence on this thread:
After George's last posts on this thread I was thinking of sending a reply to him again, and wrote an excellent reply to him accordingly. But then I decided to ignore him and have not sent him the reply I wrote. I am ignoring him because I read his writings on other boards on the Internet too and saw how ridiculously false, ideological and biased his arguments are, just like his arguments on this thread. He is basically an Ossetian nationalist who recklessly distorts history according to his nationalist wishes and fantasies, and I can have nothing to share with such a person. It really does not matter to me to which nationalism he adheres to or the simple fact that he is a nationalist; it is only with his agenda-drivenness and dishonesty I have problems.
The explanation is, that you can not answer to my post. I can not be a nationalist because I live in other country. I am an immigrant.
The explanation is, that you can not answer to my post. I can not be a nationalist because I live in other country. I am an immigrant.
As I already explained in my previous post, I already answered your post but decided not to send my answer and to ignore you due to your agenda-drivenness and dishonesty. Again as I already explained in my previous post, I have no problem with your nationalism but only with your distortion of history in accordance with your nationalist agenda. Being an immigrant in no way prevents nationalism for the homeland and the ethnic group, your argument is absurd. This shall be my last post to you, and I shall ignore you completely from now on. I have no time to waste with the likes of you.
Фенынмæ!
What are the facts atm.?
Oldest wheel found in Slovenia:
(Ljubljana Marshes Wheel)
Oldest wheeled vehicle found in the Balkans, too. At the Cucuteni Tripolye Culture (3800BC).
[B]Proto-Indo-European Roots[/B]:
Meanings: a wheel, round
Cognates (32): Greek polos (a round axis) - remember *kw becomes Greek p before o, a, u
Latin colere (to cultivate, move around), bucolicus (a cattleman) = bou- (a bull) + col-
Common Celtic *kol- (to move around), bowkolos (a cattleman); >
Old Irish bochaill (a herdsman), Irish & Scottish Gaelic buachaill, Welsh bugail, Cornish & Breton bugel
Sanskrit carati (he moves, wanders)
Avestan c'axra (a chariot, a wagon)
Tocharian kuka"l (a wagon)
Common Germanic *hwel-, >
Old Norse hvel (a wheel), Old English hweol, >
English wheel, Swedish hjul
Common Baltic *kel- (a wheel), >
Old Prussian & Sudovian kelan (a wheel; neut.), Lithuanian kelias (a road, a way)
Common Slavic *kolo (a wheel), >
Ukrainian & Old Russian & Serbo-Croatian & Slovene & Czech & Slovak & Polish & Sorbian kolo, Lower Sorbian kolaso, Russian koleso (a wheel).
Old Slavic Word is Kolo. Kolo can be linked to the Balkan-Neolithic -Complex. We know from pottery of the cucuteni tripilan culture that the people of this culture played kolo as a dance:
What is Kolo?
The word kolo is an old Slavic word and it can be found in the same form in all the Slavic languages, meaning a wheel, circle, circuit. It also means a group of people associated or organised under the same interest.
What are the facts atm.?
Oldest wheel found in Slovenia:
(Ljubljana Marshes Wheel)
Oldest wheeled vehicle found in the Balkans, too. At the Cucuteni Tripolye Culture (3800BC).
[B]Proto-Indo-European Roots[/B]:
Meanings: a wheel, round
Cognates (32): Greek polos (a round axis) - remember *kw becomes Greek p before o, a, u
Latin colere (to cultivate, move around), bucolicus (a cattleman) = bou- (a bull) + col-
Common Celtic *kol- (to move around), bowkolos (a cattleman); >
Old Irish bochaill (a herdsman), Irish & Scottish Gaelic buachaill, Welsh bugail, Cornish & Breton bugel
Sanskrit carati (he moves, wanders)
Avestan c'axra (a chariot, a wagon)
Tocharian kuka"l (a wagon)
Common Germanic *hwel-, >
Old Norse hvel (a wheel), Old English hweol, >
English wheel, Swedish hjul
Common Baltic *kel- (a wheel), >
Old Prussian & Sudovian kelan (a wheel; neut.), Lithuanian kelias (a road, a way)
Common Slavic *kolo (a wheel), >
Ukrainian & Old Russian & Serbo-Croatian & Slovene & Czech & Slovak & Polish & Sorbian kolo, Lower Sorbian kolaso, Russian koleso (a wheel).
Old Slavic Word is Kolo. Kolo can be linked to the Balkan-Neolithic -Complex. We know from pottery of the cucuteni tripilan culture that the people of this culture played kolo as a dance:
What is Kolo?
The word kolo is an old Slavic word and it can be found in the same form in all the Slavic languages, meaning a wheel, circle, circuit. It also means a group of people associated or organised under the same interest.
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