An extensive English summary of an article in Russian by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov almost 30 years since the publication of their original book. There are other articles in the volume of the JOLR presenting different views (unfortunately most behind a paywall).
Indo-European homeland and migrations: half a century of studies and discussions [In Russian with English summary]
The problem of the initial place from which the original Indo- European dialects spread over Eurasia has been studied by several generations of scholars. Few alternative points of view have been proposed: first an area near the North Sea (in the works of some scholars of the border of the 19th and 20th centuries), then the North coast of the Black Sea (an old idea of Schrader revived by Maria Gimbutas and her followers) or an area closer to the more eastern (Volga-Ural) parts of Central Eurasia. 40 years ago we suggested first in a talk at a conference, then in a series of articles and in a resulting book (published in Russian in 1984) that the Northern part of the Near East (an area close to North-East Syria and North Mesopotamia) may be considered as a possible candidate for the Indo-European homeland; similar suggestions were made by C. Renfrew and other scholars in their later works. Recent research on these topics has brought up additional evidence that seems to prove the Near Eastern hypothesis for the time that had immediately preceded the dispersal of the Indo-European protolanguage. Indirect evidence on the early presence of Indo-Europeans in the areas close to the Near East can be found in the traces of ancient contacts between linguistic families in this part of Eurasia. Such contacts between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian have been suggested in the work of T. Gamkrelidze and G. Mach’avariani more than 60 years ago. The following studies have established a number of important loanwords from Proto-Indo-European in Proto-Kartvelian. Particularly interesting discoveries in this field were made by the late G. A. Klimov. He has found many new common elements of the two families in addition to a relatively long list in our joint work. The main difficulty in interpreting the results of his investigations is connected to the problem of a possible common Nostratic origin both of Proto-Indo-European and of Proto-Kartvelian. If these two linguistic families were originally cognate, then some part of the correspondences found by Klimov and other scholars might be traced back to the early period of Proto-Nostratic (more than 10 000 years ago). Only those words that were not inherited from this ancient time are important as a proof of the later presence of Proto-Indo-European in the area close to the Proto-Kartvelian (to the southwest of the Transcaucasian area in which the latter spread in the historic time). In our book, published in 1984, we suggested some common terms shared by these languages, explaining them as possible traces of later Indo-European (probably Indo-Iranian) migrations through the Caucasus. The study of this problem has been enriched through the recent research on Proto-North Caucasian. S. L. Nikolaev and S. A. Starostin have compiled a large etymological dictionary of this family, furthering the comparative studies started by Prince N. S. Trubetzkoy. Starostin has gathered a large collection of the terms of material culture common to North Caucasian and Indo-European. They include many names of domestic animals and animal body parts or products of cattle-breeding, plants and implements. In a special work on this subject Starostin suggested that all these terms were borrowed in the area of the Near East to the South of Transcaucasia in the early 5th mil. BC. Although we still use the traditional term “North Caucasian”, it is not geographically correct even if applied to such living languages as Abkhaz and to the extinct Ubykh (spoken originally at the southern part of the South-West Transcaucasian area). Since both Hurro-Urartian and Hattic (two ancient dialects of this linguistic group) were spoken in the regions to the South of Transcaucasia already in the 3rd mil. BC, it becomes possible to pinpoint the homeland of the whole family (which at that time was not North Caucasian) in the same area close to the supposed Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian homelands. The fricative š in the Hurrian name for ‘horse’, eššə, and an affricate *č (> š) in the forms of the other North Caucasian dialects correspond to the Proto-Indo-European palatal stop *k’ that has become an affricate *č and then a fricative š /s in the Indo-European languages of the satəm type. Similar changes are present in the other borrowings discussed by Starostin. He supposed that the common words discovered by him were mostly borrowed from Proto-North Caucasian (or from a dialect of it) into Proto-Indo-European. The opposite direction of borrowing from an Indo-European dialect of a satəm type can be suggested due to the typologically valid laws of sound change. But no matter which direction of the borrowing should be chosen, the existence of these loanwords is beyond doubt. They clearly point to the location of the Indo-European homeland. In our monograph we suggested that several words shared by Semitic and Indo-European (such as the ancient term for ‘wine’, Hittite wiyana) can be considered Proto-Indo-European borrowings (as distinct from the rest of the most ancient old Semitic or Afro-Asiatic loanwords in Proto-Indo-European). S. A. Starostin suggested that a large number of (mainly West) Semitic words that did not have correspondences in the other Afro-Asiatic languages had been borrowed from Proto-Indo-European. He came to the conclusion: “the original Indo-European (Indo-Hittite) homeland was somewhere to the North of the Fertile Crescent from where the descendents of Indo-Hittites could have moved in two directions (starting with early 5th millennium BC) to the South where they came into the contact with the Semites, and indeed could have driven a part of them further to the South, and to the North (North-East) whence they ultimately spread both to Europe and to India”. The interference of the early dialects of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Semitic and Proto-Kartvelian to which the early Proto-“North” Caucasian can be added might have led to the formation of a sort of linguistic zone (Sprachbund) that not only shared many words pertaining to a new farming economy, but also had several phonological and grammatical features in common. After we had published our hypothesis on the Near Eastern homeland of the Indo-Europeans, several scholars asked us why, at a time when writing had already been invented, there were no written documents testifying to the presence of Indo-Europeans in these areas. It seems that now there are several possible answers to the question. The great specialist on Iranian, W. B. Henning, who had worked for many years on the problem of the name of Tocharians, suggested in a posthumous article that their early ancestors were Gutians who had invaded Mesopotamia in ca. 2350—2200 BC. In an article written after we had already published our book, we have developed Henning’s idea (based mainly on the etymological links of Near Eastern Guti and Tukri and Central Asian names of corresponding Indo-European Kuchean and Tocharian ethnic groups), also paying attention to the possible explanation of some names of Gutian kings preserved in Sumerian texts. Recently it has been suggested that an unknown “Pre-Sumerian” language, reconstructed on the basis of the phonetic values of many cuneiform signs, was an archaic “Euphratic” Indo-European dialect spoken in Southern Mesopotamia in the second half of the 4th mil. BC. According to this hypothesis, the phonetic values of approximately one hundred of the early signs that are different from the Sumerian ones go back to the Euphratic words. A large number of Anatolian personal names (of a very archaic Indo-European type) have been found in the Old Assyrian texts from trade colonies in Asia Minor. The continuation of the excavations in Kanish that have yielded more than 23000 cuneiform tablets has made it possible to discover in them many Anatolian Indo-European names and loanwords. The Old Assyrian documents in Kanish are encountered in the archaeological levels II and Ib dated by the first centuries of the 2nd mil. BC (on the base of the recently found lists of eponyms); they precede Old Hittite texts for ca. 250 years. At that time the two Anatolian groups of dialects — a Northern (Hittite) one, displaying centum dialect features, and a Southern (Luwian), partly similar to the satəm languages — were already quite distinct. From the very beginning, the idea of the Indo-European homeland in the Near East was connected to the discovery of a possible link between the appearance of speakers of Indo-European dialects in Europe and the spread of the new farming technology. This trend of thought has been developed in the archeological works of Sir Colin Renfrew. Subsequent attempts to support this hypothetical connection were made by comparing genetic data on the time and space characteristics of the European population. The farming terms common to Indo-European and other linguistic families discussed above show that the innovations were not restricted to one group of languages and were transmitted and exchanged between different ethnic formations. The area of the interference of these families coincides with the kernel of the rising farming in the Near East. That process of global (multilingual and multicultural) change had led to the diffusion of the results of the Neolithic revolution. The main directions of this diffusion coincide with the trends of the Indo-European migrations, but the new objects might have been introduced earlier than some of their Indo-European names and the latter might precede the coming of those who coined the terms. The spread of Near Eastern innovations in Europe roughly coincides with the split of Proto-Indo-European (possibly in the early 5th mil. BC), but some elements of the new technology and economy might have penetrated it much earlier (partly through the farmers close to the Tyrrhenian population as represented 5300 years ago by the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman). The diffusion took several thousand years and was probably already all over Europe ca. 3550 BC. At that time Indo-European migrations were only beginning. The speakers of the dialects of Proto-Indo-European living near the kernel of the technological revolution in Anatolia should have acquired the main results of this development. The growth of farming economy in Europe became more active with the split of the proto-language and the dispersal of the Indo-Europeans. The astonishing scope and speed of that process were afforded by the use of the domesticated horse and wheeled vehicles. The Indo-Europeans did not have to be pioneers in this field, but they were probably skillful in spreading other peoples’ innovations. Recent work on the Botai culture of North Kazakhstan makes it possible to suppose a contribution of the Proto-Yeniseian people to the development of horse domestication. For approximately fifteen hundred years serious preparatory work on horse domestication and the use of wheeled vehicles had been going on in different parts of Eurasia. Then, almost suddenly, the results are witnessed. On the border of the 3rd and 2nd mil. BC both of these important innovations appear together, usually in a context implying the presence of Indo-Europeans: traces of Near East-type chariots and the ritual use of the horse are clear in (probably Ancient Iranian) Margiana (Gonur), we see chariots on the Anatolian type of seals in Kanish; Hurrian sculptures and other symbols of horse abound in Urkeš as if foretelling the future Mespotamian-Aryan and Hurrian excellent training of horses in Mitanni (as later in Urartu). One of the first examples of the sacrificial horses used together with chariots in an archaic ritual was found in Sintashta; the following studies of the cities of the Transuralian Sintashta-Arkaim area made it clear that some Indo-European (and maybe Iranian as well) elements were at least partly present there. The movement of Indo-Europeans to the north of the Caspian Sea in the northeast direction documented in the Sintashta-Arkaim complex led them much farther to the Altai-Sayany area where recent genetic investigations found traces of a Caucasoid element. Another Indo-European group moving in a parallel eastward direction using the South Silk Road caused the presence of a similar anthropological group among the population of Central Asia. It may be supposed that the Caucasoid anthropological type of the Iranian and/or Tocharian population of Eastern Turkestan, attested in the mummies recently found there as well as in the contemporary images of the native people, should be considered as the result of these migrations from the West to the East. The problem whether the boats played a role comparable to that of chariots at the time of early migrations is still to be decided by maritime archaeology. It seems that before the efficient use of chariots and horses, long-term mass movements were hardly possible. The first changes in the geographical position of separate dialects, e.g. when the Anatolians separated the Greeks from the rest of the East Indo-European group (that included the Armenians and Indo-Iranians), were caused by rather small-scale migrations close to the original homeland in the Near East.
Link
I have long felt that the Gutians were excellent candidates for the first of the Indo-European peoples to enter the historical record. They are in the right place at the right time. It is my further suspicion that once the Gutians were driven out of Sumer/Akkad they went North and West and would make their next appearance in the historical record as the Hittites after establishing themselves as rulers over the Hurrians in Anatolia.
ReplyDeleteSo Renfrew's theory is still going strong is it? Obviously this means that the early Indo-Europeans were replaced in Europe by someone else when the LBK and their descendants whent the way of the dodo. So how did the language survived? And why were the new populations more European genetically than those they replaced?
ReplyDeleteAnd why are these two clowns saying that the almost 100% R1a Andronovo/Scythian/Tarim Basin populations came from Anatolia? That is what they're saying right?
By the way, you clearly seem to be a fan of these two bozos. So it's interesting that they mentioned both the Andronovo and Tarim Basin aDNA in the context of Indo-European expansions.
ReplyDeleteThus, the question is, where's the J2??
- Corded Ware R1a, Copper Age, Germany, Indo-European
- Tarim Basin R1a, Bronze Age, Tarim Basin, Indo-European
- Andronovo R1a, Bronze Age, South Siberia, Indo-European
- Urnfield R1a, Bronze Age, Germany, Indo-European
- Tagar Scythian R1a, Iron Age, South Siberia, Indo-European
- Pazyrk Scythian R1a, Iron Age, Alati Republic, Indo-European
- Xiongnu R1a, Iron Age, Mongolia, non-Indo-European but assumed of Indo-European descent
- Tachtyk Scythian R1a, Iron Age, South Siberia, Indo-European
- Slavic or Germanic R1a, Middle Ages, Germany, Indo-European
He came to the conclusion: “the original Indo-European (Indo-Hittite) homeland was somewhere to the North of the Fertile Crescent from where the descendents of Indo-Hittites could have moved in two directions (starting with early 5th millennium BC) to the South where they came into the contact with the Semites, and indeed could have driven a part of them further to the South, and to the North (North-East) whence they ultimately spread both to Europe and to India”.
ReplyDeleteWell deep relation with Near Eastern population is evident for south asians both in blood and commercial reasons including farming , similar approach can be found in this article which deals with Indian pre-history with the help of South Asian Archaeological data and Autosomal findings-
http://www.dnatribes.com/dnatribes-digest-2012-04-02.pdf
The article concludes the arrival of Indo-European language in India was a Copper Age/Chalcolithic phenomenon-
''In summary, results are consistent with emerging alternative models of South Asian prehistory, in
which the Vedic cultures were descended from indigenous Harappans already resident in South Asia.
Rather than a putative “Indo-European invasion” from Central Asia in the late Bronze Age, results
suggest the possibility of an earlier and more peaceful “Indo-European diffusion” of food producing
cultures from West Asia during the Copper Age.''
So if the Anatolian/ Near Eastern Theory is the reality then the ancestors of the Arya people were present in India from surely around 4500 b.c. as records give no data of the arrival of new people for almost another 4000 years.
P.S. The date of Rigveda should be another 800 years old starting from at least around 2300 b.c. as an academic scholar informs me that the core of the Vedic culture was in the Sothi Siswal phase of the Haraapan Civilization.
Have a good day.
Thanks for putting up this particularly cogent summary of the field's history!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you clearly seem to be a fan of these two bozos. So it's interesting that they mentioned both the Andronovo and Tarim Basin aDNA in the context of Indo-European expansions.
ReplyDeleteI have no evidence of the language spoken by the Andronovo population; for example, both Fedorovo and Alakul could be IE; one of the two could be; neither of them.
We do have historical testimony about the Iron Age migration of Scythians from the East into Europe and -despite the meagre evidence- it is quite likely that Scythians were Iranic-speaking; but, I would not want to extrapolate to the Bronze Age on the basis of the Scythian evidence: after all, in the span of less than 1,000 years, the steppe Iranians were Turkicized, and I would not presume that similar turnover did not take place in the past.
The situation is, of course, even more hopeless for Bronze Age Xinjiang that is separated from the Indo-European Tocharian population by 2+ millennia of time.
@Davidski
ReplyDeleteThe problems surrounding the Gamkrelidze-Ivanov model do not justify such name calling. Regardless of their view on the point of origin, these 'clowns' and 'bozos' have made an undeniable contribution to the discipline of Indo-European linguistics. There is no need to get personal with matters of scholarship.
Interesting article.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting the region and it's surrounding geography has such complexity both in age and dispersal of Indo-European languages. Are we to conclude that they all originated from North of the Caucasus somewhere like Poland or Russia?
1}"nešili"- oldest attested I.E.
2}"Proto-Armenian"- It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian, Greek and Indo-Iranian.
3}Linear B-Mycenaean Greek- the earliest attested form of Greek, most ancient attested form of the Greek language.
4}Albanian- Indo-European language in a branch by itself, sharing its branch with no other language; the other extant Indo-European languages each in a branch by itself are Armenian and, in some classifications, Greek. Sharing lexical isoglosses with Greek, Balto-Slavic, and Germanic, the vocabulary of Albanian is quite distinct.
@CleverPrimate
ReplyDeleteas far as I know, Kurdish intellectuals at least claim that the Gutians where not only the forefathers of the Medes but also Mitanni and probably Hitites. They believe when the Gutians entered Hurrian land, they established the new Mitanni kingdom. The Gutians actually never disappeared, Greek, Persian, Assyrian sources always mention tribes with pretty similar names in roughly the same geographic territory.
in Assyrian sources they were known as Qardu, the tribe living South of the Van see, known as Kurti are also believed to be one and the same as the Gutians. And also the Karduchoi in Xenephon's anabasis are believed to have been Gutians which appeared here as Medes and Scythians. The mount Cudi in Northern Mesopotamia, is derived from the very name Guti.
Guti, Kurti, Karduchoi, Corduene, Qardu these were ultimately one and the same and they established Mitan and Media. And according to at least Kurdish intellectuals (and many Western scholars) the ethno-cultural forefathers of modern Kurds.
Nirjhar007:
ReplyDelete"The article concludes the arrival of Indo-European language in India was a Copper Age/Chalcolithic phenomenon"
That is based on the erroneous continuity argumentation proven to be unreliable:
http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Uralic.html
Archaeological continuity is evident everywhere, and linguistic expansion DOES NOT require archaeological discontinuity. The linguistic evidence shows that the Aryan languages were born on the North Caspian Steppes during the late 3rd millennium BC:
http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Problems_of_phylogenetics.pdf
Therefore it is impossible to claim the Indo-Europeanization of India so early.
@Jaska
ReplyDeleteIn your theory of 3rd millienium North Caspian Steppes origin of Indo European languages what route were taken by the following.
How did the Mitanni end up by the Nešili? Did they go through the Balkans, or Caucasus? Are they the same people? Did one group arrive early than the other?
a:
ReplyDelete"In your theory of 3rd millienium North Caspian Steppes origin of Indo European languages what route were taken by the following."
Aryan = Indo-Iranian, not Indo-European.
a:
"How did the Mitanni end up by the Nešili? Did they go through the Balkans, or Caucasus? Are they the same people? Did one group arrive early than the other?"
Mitanni Aryans were Indo-Aryans, so they have come through Pakistan. Both branches spread around the Caspian See (eastern side) to South Asia, Indo-Aryan first (west to Mitanni and southeast to India) and Iranian next.
More about mount cudi
ReplyDelete"The relation of the names Qardu and Judi is unclear. The origin of Judi is less clear. It is usually interpreted as a corrupted version of the same name, via al-gurdi (Reynolds 2004). The proposal that the two names are ultimately the same was first advanced by the English Orientalist George Sale in his translation of the Qur'an published in 1734. Sale's footnote reads:
"This mountain [al-Judi] is one of those that divide Armenia on the south, from Mesopotamia, and that part of Assyria which is inhabited by the Curds , from whom the mountains took the name Cardu, or Gardu, by the Greeks turned into Gordyae, and other names. ... Mount Al-Judi (which seems to be a corruption, though it be constantly so written by the Arabs, for Jordi, or Giordi) is also called Thamanin ..., probably from a town at the foot of it."
Gurdi= Guti
Curds=Kurds
Gordae = greco Roman name of Corduene
Qardu= Assyrian word for Gutians and Aramaic word for Kurds and at the same time related to the very name Urartu and Ararat. This might be one of the main reasons for the confusion about Noahs ark, cause basically mount Gudi, as well modern Ararat seem to have the same origin in Assyrian and Aramaic language. So I supposed people living around mount Ararat as well mount Cudi were the same (Gutians?) or at least related. So Muslims believe with mount Qardu, mount Cudi is meant while in Christian sources mount Ararat.
However the point here, Qardu, Corduene, Cudi, Kurti, Karduchoi, Curds=Kurds one and the same people?
I assume so!
Dear Jaska, thanks for your reasoning.
ReplyDeleteBut Archaeology plays a leading role in indo-european studies from the archaeological findings to support the kurgan model to the finding of the oldest provable existence of greeks in greece by linear pottery A and surely B and many others, without archaeology we would be blind.
By archaeology we just not mean materials or writing but other things like skeleton records also play a very significant role to sign population movements.
The case of South Asia is that when we talk about Indo-European migration to india it is mandatory to leave an archaeological sign! by its very nature as the supposed changes that the pre-existing(munda-dravidian) population face of the large and very ancient civilization is in one word catastrophic!!.
we are just not talking about a change in language but total name change of the entire topography! from the names of the all of their major rivers to every subject of flora and fauna!! including every cultural aspect.
Such a large scale of change is only possible to such a rich, ancient and urban civilization only if large amount influx of alien culture bearers( supposedly Arya people) happens randomly or invade/migrate WHICH IS BOUND TO LEAVE an archaeological record of minimum extent!! unless they use aircrafts of course:-).
But as known the evidence is absent! with textual evidence as well and forced hypothesis such as you are supporting that archaelogy does not count is innovated to explain the silence of 4500-~600bc.
It is also that there were attempts to show archaeological evidence for Arya migration to South Asia but are doomed as can be found here-
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html
And about linguistics, linguistics at best can only show the relation between the languages not the date or their origin place unless there are direct mentioning for example:-
In Rigved 10.75 the much debated sarasvati river is clearly mentioned where now Ghaggar-Hakra river is situated to clearly conclude that it was the once highly praised river sarasvati.
Jaska and other guys if you think the Chalcolithic Development of Arya culture in South Asia/South Central Asia is a joke then i also give you this article-
http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2013/02/indo-iranians-new-perspectives.html
The author of the article and the blog is an academic scholar who walks a different path a path of free thinking and logic.
He will also answer any type of question you ask! with ample detail!,ACTUALLY WE ARE LUCKY that a person of his rank has made himself available to have a discussion with any one willing.
good day.
@ Jaska
ReplyDeleteyou make the same mistake as many other people do when they hear the word "Indo-Aryan" their language is considered as an early, very archaic state of Indo-Aryan or even non splitted Indo-Iranian itself. This means, they they didn't came from Pakistan but that they belonged to the same wave of Indo_Iranians which moved roughly at the same time into South Asia.
There is no records or whatsoever pointing to a migration of Indo-Iranian Mitanni into Hurrian land. They suddenly appeared a few centuries after the records of Gutians.
And just after Mitanni was conquered by Assyria, suddenly the Mida (Medes) appeared to take revenge and the lands back which were taken from them by Assyrians.
Persians NEVER migrated from the East as some people think. They suddenly appeared after the Median Empire was established. According to sources they split from a Median group, living in a region known as Parsua, south of lake Urmiya, from which they derive their very own name.
Gutians=Mitanni=Medes=Persians.
Corduene, Karduchoi, Qardu,Kurti = vasal states of the a Gutians.
Kurti,
ReplyDeleteThank you, it is quite satisfying to hear that I am not alone in my thoughts regarding the Gutians.
Jaska:
ReplyDelete"Mitanni Aryans were Indo-Aryans, so they have come through Pakistan."
Why?
"Both branches spread around the Caspian See (eastern side) to South Asia..."
Why do you think steppe people would have "spread" across a desert like that?
It wasn't a desert.
ReplyDelete@Jaska
ReplyDeleteIf these migrations took place in a clockwise rotation around Caspian in the manner you describe define the following branches around the region in question as to Centum or Satem?
1)Nešili"[Nesite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, an Indo-European people who created an empire centred on Hattusa]- oldest attested I.E. Centum or Satem?
2)Mitanni-Centum or Satem
3)Armenian-Centum or Satem
4)Lurs[Lurs are a mixture of aboriginal Indo-Iranian tribes,]-Centum or Satem
5)Ossetian (Ossetic: Ирон, tr. Iron), also sometimes called Ossete,[1] is an Eastern Iranian language- Centum or Satem?
5)Mycean ancient Greek- Centum or Satum
@Kurti
ReplyDeleteThis very ethnonym (i.e krd) is related as well to many etymologically obscure toponyms in the Levant and Anatolia such as the river Jardanes in Israel and Gordion the old citadel on the outskirts of modern Ankara, many of the opaque ethnonyms and toponyms of the middle-east are Indo-European but since the established communis opinio did lack the intellectual open-mindness to posit for such early Indo-Europeans in the middle east, the cristal clear Indo-European ethnonyms and toponyms of the middle east remained undigged
As for the Urartu word it's clearly IE meaning "harmonious hills" or "land of Aryans" or "land of hills" or "harmonious Aryans"
Finally, you should explain to that Jaska guy that Mitannis being unquestionnably Indo-Aryan is an unadequate as well as plainly wrong label since the few words inherited from Mitannic cannot all be interpreted as exclusively and unambigously Indo-Aryans but the more correct approach is to interpret them as words of an Indo-Iranian dialect that bears archaic affinites with Iranic and as the same time shares innovations with Indo-Aryan, a strong hint for Mitanni being nothing but a language belonging to a forth Indo_Iranian branch aside from Indic, Iranic and Dardic
Finally as you know Persians were rather "lately" attested not due to them being later newcomers but due to them late interactions with the literate folks of the ancient near east
Kurti,
ReplyDeleteSo you’re saying I should consider the Gutians synonymous with the Persians? I am not disputing or dismissing your assertion, I am genuinely curious. It is a question for which I have searched fruitlessly for an answer for quite some time. I have always considered them as possible Indo-Iranians and potentially even Indo-Hittites. I have always thought that the Gutians appearance was too early to be considered Persian but they do seem to originate from the same areas that the Persians later emerge.
Nirjhar007
ReplyDelete"Such a large scale of change is only possible to such a rich, ancient and urban civilization only if large amount influx of alien culture bearers( supposedly Arya people) happens randomly or invade/migrate WHICH IS BOUND TO LEAVE an archaeological record of minimum extent!! unless they use aircrafts of course:-).
But as known the evidence is absent! with textual evidence as well and forced hypothesis such as you are supporting that archaelogy does not count is innovated to explain the silence of 4500-~600bc."
Still, we can only choose such archaeological influence which fits in the frame of the linguistic results – otherwise we cannot tell which culture spread the language. Archaeology alone is blind guessing.
http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Uralic.html
Nirjhar007
"And about linguistics, linguistics at best can only show the relation between the languages not the date or their origin place unless there are direct mentioning for example:"
Aryan contacts in many stages with the Uralic speakers are indisputable evidence for the place and time within certain frame. This result can no more be ignored.
It is never a case of total population replacement. Therefore any continuity in place names, tradition, genes etc. is not a counter-argument for the later spread of language. Your "new indologist" should also read the critique against the continuity arguments.
Nirjhar and Kurti, you seem to represent some extreme views about the ever-staying presence of the Aryan languages, but unfortunately there are no scientific evidence supporting such views. Those languages are recent newcomers from the North Caspian steppes after 2000 BC, and nothing in archaeology or in any other discipline can dispute this linguistic result.
a:
"If these migrations took place in a clockwise rotation around Caspian in the manner you describe define the following branches around the region in question as to Centum or Satem?"
Only the Aryan languages spread by that route, and they are satem-languages. Status of the other languages is irrelevant, because they didn't spread along that far route.
Libya:
"Finally, you should explain to that Jaska guy that Mitannis being unquestionnably Indo-Aryan is an unadequate as well as plainly wrong label since the few words inherited from Mitannic cannot all be interpreted as exclusively and unambigously Indo-Aryans but the more correct approach is to interpret them as words of an Indo-Iranian dialect that bears archaic affinites with Iranic and as the same time shares innovations with Indo-Aryan, a strong hint for Mitanni being nothing but a language belonging to a forth Indo_Iranian branch aside from Indic, Iranic and Dardic"
Indo-Aryan seems to be correct classification:
http://flh.tmu.ac.ir/hoseini/arya/articles-1/24.pdf
The linguistic evidence shows that the Aryan languages were born on the North Caspian Steppes during the late 3rd millennium BC:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Problems_of_phylogenetics.pdf
interesting still need to read fully. but two problems.
1) borrowings to uralic cannot be dated or localized with certainty (no physical evidence)
2) no uralic loans in Indian languages.
indo aryan speakers could have reached uralic from the south east caspian and later reached syria.
Grognard:
ReplyDelete"It wasn't a desert."
Can you provide a citation for that? All I've been able to find states that desertification in Central Asia began in the Pleistocene. Archeology seems to agree, since the Neolithic village of Jeitun, qv, was located at the terminus of a mountain stream, which was used for irrigation.
In any case, it would be very surprising to learn that ecological conditions were more favorable in what is now the Karakum Desert than they were north of the Caspian. Consequently, the question remains. Why would a steppe people move toward areas of significantly less rainfall in a time of increasing aridity?
@Jaska
ReplyDelete"Only the Aryan languages spread by that route, and they are satem-languages. Status of the other languages is irrelevant, because they didn't spread along that far route."
You have not answered the origins of the Nešili"[Nesite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, an Indo-European people] Indo-European language-Satem or Centum?.
You state the Mitanni came clockwise from Caspian and are Satem based.
And yet there is a connection between the two groups even though you classify one group as Indo-Aryan and one group as Indo-European?
"In the political turmoil following the death of his predecessor, the usurper Shuttarna III tried to murder Shattiwaza. Shattiwaza escaped and sought refuge by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I. He married the daughter of Suppiluliuma and returned to Mitanni with a Hittite army. Shuttarna III who had usurped the throne in his absence was defeated and Shattiwaza installed as king of Mitanni. The events are recorded in the treaty between Suppiluliuma I and Shattiwaza."
"In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni (between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, ca. 1380 BC), the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are invoked."
" Kikkuli's horse training text (circa 1400 BC) includes technical terms such as aika (Vedic Sanskrit eka, one), tera (tri, three), panza (pañca, five), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, nine), vartana (vartana, round). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance"
The Mitanni and Nesites shared family, treaties with same Gods and manuals.
So where exactly did the Nesites come from and how is it they shared so much in common with the Mitanni ruling elite?
@Libya
ReplyDeleteKrd is also a variety of the name Kurd. Armenians for example used to call the Kurds Krd, actually Kird with a loudless i which does not exist among Western European languages and is pronounced as Krd.
Another thing which supports my claim that Urartu as well Cudi, both derive their name from the GUtians/Qardu, is that Jewish sources confirm that Ararat was located in Corduene.
"Targum, a Jewish source of Talmudic period, consistently understands Ararat to be located in Corduene and not in Armenia.[10]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduene
@CleverPrimate
I claim that the Persians derive from the Medes and since according to me Medes are simply an extension of the Mitanni and those were Gutians, than yes ultimately the Persian ethno-genesis is connected to the Gutians too.
However we must clarify here, while the first Persian probably moved from Media and their very name derives from the lands of Parsua, yet the Persian ethno-genesis as we know it today formed ultimately in Southwestern Iran when they arrived in Elamite land.
This is apparent if you take a look at traditional Persian clothings. in contrast to all other Iranian tribes which used to wear traditional Iranian costumes, the Persians had perfectly adopted Elamite clothings as well living style.
So I assume that Persians as we know from ancient empires are the product of Medes emerging with Elamites, which were an ancient Near Eastern population with an Mediterranean appearance typical for ancient Mesopotamia.
@Jaska
"Indo-Aryan seems to be correct classification:
http://flh.tmu.ac.ir/hoseini/arya/articles-1/24.pdf"
THis is only one source, no one denied that there aren't linguists who classify it as such, and we simply disagreed about the claim that the language being classified as "Indo-Aryan" means that it moved from Pakistan because both Indo-Aryan and Mitanni are attested roughly at the same time frame and this could only mean that they belong to the same source. But than there are also many who do as Indo-Iranian.
As I said, IF there are so different opinions among linguists whether it being Indo-Aryan or Indo-Iranian, this basically means to me it must show very archaic features which can be classified as both.
And there not any sort of source which could attest a migration of them, they suddenly appear.
There is only attested that the Gutians where not native to Southern Mesopotamia, which they raided but than from where did they raid? There are two possibilities, either Southeast or west of the Caspian. I find West more plausible simply cause in ancient texts they are often compared to ancient Caucasians by appearance (as pale and often blondish). In Persian sources they are even compared to Urartains as if they had some relation.
@Kurti
ReplyDeleteThe possible Zagro-Caspian origin of the Gutians has fascinating implications for understanding the distribution of unrecorded languages around the hub of the Mesopotamian civilization, as well as Indo-European movements. However, the scant traces of the unclassified Gutian language, the phonological difficulties surrounding the ethnonyms and the vast chronological gap between the Gutian intrusion and any modern 'ethno-consolidation' are all obstacles for the confident identification with modern ethnic groups. That, of course, is not to say that the Gutians could not have been 'Indo-Aryan-related', or that they weren't among the factions contributing to the eventual Kurdish ethnogenesis- just that caution should be applied to such sheer distances before assuming uniformity and continuity.
Dienekes, that is not fair!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I post a comment about Indo-European you won't post it. This makes the second time I have commented on the origin of IE and you denied me the privilege of it being posted.
Is it because I point out the flaws in the Anatolian theory?
I don't understand why you post my other comments, but not the ones on this topic. They are not threatening, bashing, or mean. They are not stupid, or absurd. I try to give sources and be as informative as possible. So what gives?
As much as I am a fan of your blog...your actions just are not fair.
Dienekes, that is not fair!
ReplyDeleteI never deleted any of your comments.
The Mitanni and Nesites shared family, treaties with same Gods and manuals.
ReplyDeleteSo where exactly did the Nesites come from and how is it they shared so much in common with the Mitanni ruling elite?
The Nesite (=Hittite) elites shared close familial, political, religious and cultural relationships with the elites of the non-IE polities of the Hurro-Urartian lands, Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt as well. The world of the elites has always been cosmopolitan. Besides, the languages of the Nesites and the Mitanni were mutually unintelligible, as they belong to two very distant clades of the IE language family. Nesites and the Mitanni are clearly two separate groups.
Something else I found out about the Mitanni language
ReplyDeleteJaska do you actually know on what some linguists base their Indo-Aryan classification of Mitanni?
EXACTLY on one word! The word for one!
which is according to linguists aiva in Iranian and Aika in Indo-Aryan.
And Mitanni word for one was eka!
Yet ironically there is absolutely no Iranian language I know which uses v instead of k! in Persian one is Yek, in Kurdish it is yek and there are some Kurdish dialects around mount Cudi (the Badini) which use eke for one ! Mitanni eka = Badini Kurdish eke.
And lets now come to the point. I am not an expert on linguistics yet I have enough knowledge to say, that if we try to reconstruct proto indo-Iranian, proto indo-Iranian would probably have more similarities to Indo-Aryan than Iranian, simply cause Indo-Aryan preserved the archaic parts of their language better, while Iranian languages had much more shifts.
And I also know that the k in Aika is older in origin than the v in Aiva. This means in Proto Indo-Iranian it would be Aika too.
So using Aika as reason to classify it as Indo-Aryan is in my eyes negligent.
A few of my (I think innocuous) comments have disappeared in the past. I think it's something with blogger.
ReplyDeleteAs for who is who it can be hard to sort out but genetically we only have so many candidates. You are going to have a lot of x=y=z=p=q=r relationships coming out.
Not equivalent cultures perhaps, but genetically related.
But like I said in the other comments for the r1b if you look for bull symbol and chariots you will always find a great number of similarities. Same idea for r1a, which seems to be hinted at in parts of this review.
I think it will eventually come out that the obvious solution is the real one. The vedic people were as old as they claim, and they either are or were related to the indo-europeans who went on to dominate europe. The IE were not the people who conquered indus, they were those people.
If we listen to history, believe some of what people say is true, an eastern hypothesis is the only thing to fit, though they may have come down from the north before that.
Otherwise though, there'd be some vedic DNA type, or it would be an eastern type. But clearly there's not. India is just a mixture of outside DNA, not an epicenter for DNA like the middle east or east asia.
After 6+ thousand years of washing out there's not much scythian DNA in iran but we know where scythians came from and it does exist there in small patches...and virtually all over the place west of there. It's just more washed out when you go further east.
"So using Aika as reason to classify it as Indo-Aryan is in my eyes negligent."
ReplyDeleteIf you go into word soup guessing you can come up with anything. But I think there's some place at least for it, when it comes to the names of places or peoples. I won't go into derailing over what is possible nonsense but you could paint quite a picture that way, when looking at the origins of people.
@Aren Allahverdian
ReplyDeleteGutians a mountain people living an highlands of Western Asia
they disappear, Mitanni appear, again a people living in highlands of Western Asia.
Mitanni get conquered a new mountain people in the Zagros appear, the Medes.
Xenephon travels through Media and a tribe of Media, the Karduchoi, a people living in the mountains, appear.
Median empire goes down and throughout of the former Median empire little vasal states like Corduene and its people the Karduchi and more mountain people, like the Crytians appear in the former borders of Media.
the people of Corduene are confirmed by sources to be Gutians which appeared and acted here as Medes and Scythians.
while the Karduchi slightly disappear a new people the Kurds appear.
And now google the phrase "no friends but the MOUNTAINS" and you will realize what kind of people the Kurds are.
Of course there must have been some mixing throughout the time but for me there is no doubt that an ethno-cultural and strong genetic continuity exists all the way from Gutians to modern Kurds.
Kurti,
ReplyDelete"which is according to linguists aiva in Iranian and Aika in Indo-Aryan.
And Mitanni word for one was eka!
Yet ironically there is absolutely no Iranian language I know which uses v instead of k!"
This is a typographic error. The attested form is "aika." there are some other etyma,mostly having to do with horses.
But the main argument is based on personal names of kings, which are clearly Indo-Iranian and refer to gods familiar from Hinduism.
That is not evidence that the language itself was IE, and it certainly is not evidence that even if that specific language of the royalty was IE, that that same language was what society generally spoke. There is no evidence that the Mitanni state was a majority IE speaking society at any time.
@Onur
ReplyDeleteSo where exactly did the Nesites originate from; same location as Mitanni, North of the Caspian somewhere? Yet they could not understand each others language, one of which was Indo-Aryan and one was Indo-European? Is this your explanation of two different branches of PIE dispersal?
Interesting article, thanks.
ReplyDeleteSo, according to G&I there are traces of mutual influence between PIE, Proto-Kartvelian, Proto-North Caucasian and early Semitic. According to Mallory and Anthony on the other hand, there are contacts between early Indo-Iranian and Proto-Uralic. OK, the former and the latter don't necessarily rule each other out...
But strangely, in 1984 G&I appear to have ascribed the IE-Kartvelian contacts to later Indo-Iranian migrations through the Caucasus, hence relativizing the evidentiary value of their argument?
As far as I know, the existence of a North Caucasian language family is no longer generally accepted among linguists. Nowadays they distinguish between a Northwest Caucasian and a Northeast Caucasian family, which are not indubitably linked by common descent.
Furthermore, to my knowledge, the affiliation of Hattic to at least one of these two families hasn't yet been firmly established, because it's still too scarcely known. Hurro-Urartian seems more securely affiliated to Northeast Caucasian. In any case, languages of both northern families did and do exist also in the southern part of the Caucasus. But I see no compelling reason why all of them should have originated in the south. And interestingly, the common words between „North Caucasian“ and IE appear to stem from a Satem language, at least judging from the example in the article, so this would rather not be a PIE influence.
And by the way (@ Davidski) if you read carefully, it becomes evident that G&I do not at all agree with Renfrew's theory of an IE diffusion with farming:
The main directions of this [neolithic] diffusion coincide with the trends of the Indo-European migrations, but the new objects might have been introduced earlier than some of their Indo-European names and the latter might precede the coming of those who coined the terms. The spread of Near Eastern innovations in Europe roughly coincides with the split of Proto-Indo-European (possibly in the early 5th mil. BC), but some elements of the new technology and economy might have penetrated it much earlier (partly through the farmers close to the Tyrrhenian population as represented 5300 years ago by the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman). The diffusion took several thousand years and was probably already all over Europe ca. 3550 BC. At that time Indo-European migrations were only beginning. [...] It seems that before the efficient use of chariots and horses, long-term mass movements were hardly possible. The first changes in the geographical position of separate dialects, e.g. when the Anatolians separated the Greeks from the rest of the East Indo-European group (that included the Armenians and Indo-Iranians), were caused by rather small-scale migrations close to the original homeland in the Near East.
"Jaska do you actually know on what some linguists base their Indo-Aryan classification of Mitanni?
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY on one word! The word for one!
which is according to linguists aiva in Iranian and Aika in Indo-Aryan.
And Mitanni word for one was eka!
Yet ironically there is absolutely no Iranian language I know which uses v instead of k! in Persian one is Yek, in Kurdish it is yek and there are some Kurdish dialects around mount Cudi (the Badini) which use eke for one ! Mitanni eka = Badini Kurdish eke."
In Old Persian and in some East Iranian languages you can find "v/w" instead of "k" in the word "one". Below is a list.
Mitanni aika
Iranian "
" Avesta aēuuō
Iranian West-Iranian Old Persian aiva
Iranian West-Iranian Middle Persian ek, ew
Iranian West-Iranian Persian yek/yak ( يِك ), hargiz, hargez, هرگز
Iranian West-Iranian Tajik yak
Iranian West-Iranian Kurdish yêk, êk, yek
Iranian West-Iranian Balochi yak, ya
Iranian East-Iranian Pashto jav
Iranian East-Iranian Waziri yo
Iranian East-Iranian Sogdian ’yw
Iranian East-Iranian Khwarezmian ʾyw (*ēw)
Iranian East-Iranian Wakhi yi, i, yiu
Iranian East-Iranian Parachi žū
Iranian East-Iranian Munji yūγa
Iranian East-Iranian Bactrian ywg (Manichean script)
Iranian East-Iranian Shughni yīw, yak,
Iranian East-Iranian Sariqoli i(w)
Iranian East-Iranian Iron (Ossetic) jiw
Iranian East-Iranian Digor (Ossetic) jew
Iranian East-Iranian Ossetic iu
Nuristani-Dardic Nuristani Kata/Kati ɛw
Nuristani-Dardic Dardic Kashmiri oku, ax
Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit ḗkas, sa-kṛ́t सकृत्,
Indo-Aryan Urdu ʔek
Indo-Aryan Northwestern Sindhi hiku
Indo-Aryan Northwestern Lahnda hik
Indo-Aryan Northwestern Gypsi Gk yek
Indo-Aryan Northwestern Punjabi St ikk
Indo-Aryan Western Gujarati ek
Indo-Aryan Western Marwari ēk
Indo-Aryan Central Hindi ek
Indo-Aryan Khaskura yota
Indo-Aryan Northern Nepali ek
Indo-Aryan Eastern Bihari ek
Indo-Aryan Eastern Magahi ek ( एक )
Indo-Aryan Eastern Assamese ek, āg,
Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali ek
Indo-Aryan Eastern Oriya ekɔ
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgVZU9mN1R6ldDNrSEJYcmZOS2FZYl9PdEkxUWJKaGc#gid=0
It is weird that in the Caucasus/Iran you can find the ancient Alanian Serbi (sounds like Serbs), Caucasian Albania (sounds like Albania), Caucasian Iberia (sounds like Iberia), Kerman (sounds like German), Gutians (sounds like Goths).
To Jaska-
ReplyDelete''Still, we can only choose such archaeological influence which fits in the frame of the linguistic results – otherwise we cannot tell which culture spread the language. Archaeology alone is blind guessing.
http://www.elisanet.fi/alkupera/Uralic.html''
You are seriously suggesting that a hypothetical notion should be placed first instead of scientific evidences found by different scholars?? what will be the practical base of that notion can you please tell me?.
The instances which are shown to suggest that archaeology don't pick population movements in certain cases can not be applied in the case of South Asia! Because the reasoning is dead from the start as those population movements are clearly RECORDED IN HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS!! so archaeology is not the decisive factor by any means for those examples!!
It is not ''which culture spread the language'' but which culture can be connected with it with the help of the linguistic records and cultural aspects!
''Aryan contacts in many stages with the Uralic speakers are indisputable evidence for the place and time within certain frame. This result can no more be ignored. ''
That is wrong as the Uralic has the Arya influence but Indic Arya don't have any Uralic influences!!
A simple logical reasoning for that is a branch or some branches of the Indo-arya stock leaving their home came into the contact of uralic people and influenced them! and that home is no need to be in the caspian as Records don't show (with linguistic records) that the area was their home instead of that show that Indus valley people had clear trade contacts with the BMAC and cultures like Andronovo which is quite closely situated in the Uralic population zone had contacts with BMAC!! and as known cultures like Andronovo is connected by many to the Indo-Arya people.
''It is never a case of total population replacement. Therefore any continuity in place names, tradition, genes etc. is not a counter-argument for the later spread of language.
When did i write about ''total population replacement''?? i wrote about the impact that the hypothetic Aryan migration was supposed to give to the previous vast civilization which is bound to leave some type of practical trace!! which is missing both from Language and Archaeology.
''Nirjhar and Kurti, you seem to represent some extreme views about the ever-staying presence of the Aryan languages, but unfortunately there are no scientific evidence supporting such views. Those languages are recent newcomers from the North Caspian steppes after 2000 BC, and nothing in archaeology or in any other discipline can dispute this linguistic result. ''
My view is the result of practical approach not any extremism and there is no evidence from linguistics which point outs movements of ''recent newcomers from the North Caspian steppes after 2000 BC'' instead it shows about some patchy contacts for the out going Arya people to new areas in near east and in central asia area just that.
There is even ancient textual reference for Indo-Arya clans moving outside from their home in South Central Asia as you can find in Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra 18.44 as clarified in this article-
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html
Oldest linguistic literature of Arya stock with Vedas and Avesta also hints no population movements but gives the information of a steady progress of their culture.
Sapta Sindhu which is the home for the Vedic aryas is also mentioned in Avesta as Hapata Hindu one of the 16 lands created by Ahura Mazda!
that single actual evidence alone hints that the Arya home was around South Central Asia not the Caspian!
good day.
(Sorry Dienekes text size was too long and here i finish)
ReplyDeleteTo jaska-
''Your "new indologist" should also read the critique against the continuity arguments.''
You laugh me Jaska:-) you think he is not aware about them?
Tell you what why don't you go to his blog and test your metal and prove anything that you think is undeniable! as i said before you will not be disappointed with his response.
To Grognard-
''t's just more washed out when you go further east.''
Still lots of washing needed though a big washer named aDNA of Farmana (2500 bc)is coming.
To Kurti-
''And I also know that the k in Aika is older in origin than the v in Aiva. This means in Proto Indo-Iranian it would be Aika too.
So using Aika as reason to classify it as Indo-Aryan is in my eyes negligent.''
Well the text also has hapta for seven which is a Indo-Arya linguistic change from middle indo-arya sound change Sapta>hapta.
Mayrhofer has shown clear Indo-Arya influences-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_superstrate_in_Mitanni
good day.
Neo:
ReplyDelete"1) borrowings to uralic cannot be dated or localized with certainty (no physical evidence)
2) no uralic loans in Indian languages.
indo aryan speakers could have reached uralic from the south east caspian and later reached syria."
Impossible.
First, there are many layers of Aryan loanwords in Uralic:
1. Pre-/Early Proto-Aryan
2. Middle Proto-Aryan
3. Late Proto-Aryan
4. Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan
It is practically important that all these waves would have arrived from South Asia, especially when there are no such layers in the native Dravidian or Munda languages of India.
Lack of Uralic loanwords is no problem, because the contacts may have been superstratal by nature: Aryan speakers arrived in the Uralic area.
Palaeolinguistic evidence for Proto-Uralic (metal names, agricultural words) and Proto-Indo-European (words related to agriculture and animal husbandry, metal names, wheel and wagon vocabulary) give clear temporal terminus post quem ("limit after which") for the protolanguage stages. Late Proto-Aryan is contemporaneous with Late Proto-Uralic: around 2000 BC.
a:
"You have not answered the origins of the Nešili"[Nesite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, an Indo-European people] Indo-European language-Satem or Centum?"
There are traces that Proto-Anatolian was neither. Hittite was a centum-language.
But still, this is all irrelevant for the locating of the Proto-Indo-European speech area.
a:
"You state the Mitanni came clockwise from Caspian and are Satem based.
And yet there is a connection between the two groups even though you classify one group as Indo-Aryan and one group as Indo-European?"
Between what two groups? Anatolian and Mitanni Aryan? It is very normal that languages spread apart and meet again. Anatolian and Aryan are very different branches, so there is no basis to suppose common origin for them.
a:
"So where exactly did the Nesites come from and how is it they shared so much in common with the Mitanni ruling elite?"
The Anatolian languages can easily be derived from Bulgaria and further from the Pontic Steppes.
Kurti:
"As I said, IF there are so different opinions among linguists whether it being Indo-Aryan or Indo-Iranian, this basically means to me it must show very archaic features which can be classified as both.
And there not any sort of source which could attest a migration of them, they suddenly appear."
Their language is still the descendant of Late Proto-Aryan, which was born on the North Caspian Steppes. Like Indic and Iranian, it seems to have arrived via the eastern side of Caspian Sea.
Kurti:
"I find West more plausible simply cause in ancient texts they are often compared to ancient Caucasians by appearance (as pale and often blondish)."
Population continuity there probably was, because no newcomers have totally killed the old inhabitants. But population or cultural continuity cannot testify about the linguistic continuity. Language was brought to them seemingly from the east.
Kurti:
"Jaska do you actually know on what some linguists base their Indo-Aryan classification of Mitanni?
EXACTLY on one word! The word for one!"
No, they also have Indo-Aryan god names unknown in Iranian languages.
@ Jim
ReplyDeleteit says that Aika is the Indo-Aryan variant while Aiva the Iranian but it is said that Mitanni was eka and because of the k=v loudshift they assume it must be rather Indo_Aryan but than I also wrote, the k loud is older in Indo-European and proto Indo-Iranian must have been also most likely with k rather than v.
And that the personal names of the Kings where Indo-Iranian as you said, but who telly you that these names of the Gods typical for present day Indo-Aryans was not proto Indo-Iranian as well? Zoroastrianism for example is simply an offshoot of the much older Mithraism (sun worshiping) which is known in India as Mitra too.
"So using Aika as reason to classify it as Indo-Aryan is in my eyes negligent.''
ReplyDeleteWell the text also has hapta for seven which is a Indo-Arya linguistic change from middle indo-arya sound change Sapta>hapta."
You guys seem to be not that fit in linguistics otherwise you would have realized that again, Septa is much older as hepta and in a supposed proto Indo Iranian language it would have been much more likely Septa.
If you compare Mitanni to Indo-Aryan or Iranian obviously it would rather fall into the Indo-Aryan classification simply cause, as I stated already, Indo-Aryan could preserve much better its archaic features while Iranian had much more loudshifts. Like in Iranian from s sound to h and later to x, while Indo Aryan stayed s.
One of the main reasons might be because of the cast system and because the Indo-Aryans in South Asia took their language much more "holy".
So where exactly did the Nesites originate from; same location as Mitanni, North of the Caspian somewhere? Yet they could not understand each others language, one of which was Indo-Aryan and one was Indo-European? Is this your explanation of two different branches of PIE dispersal?
ReplyDeleteThe IE ancestors of Nesites as well as the other Anatolian-branch-IE-speaking populations, presumably have a westerly origin while those of the Mitanni and the other Indo-Iranian-speaking populations have an easterly origin. The former group is much more ancient in West Asia. Thus the two IE dispersals are both spatially and temporally distinct. There is nothing surprising since the Anatolian and the Indo-Iranian languages are two quite distant branches of the IE language family, they have zero mutual intelligibility.
Kurti,
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding concisely and clearly, you have given me food for thought.
Aren,
An excellent summary of the various hurdles which have made my inquiries into the Gutians so fruitless.
the indo aryan affiliation for mittani is made not just on linguistics grounds but on religious ones
ReplyDeleteof the four gods mentioned
mitra and varuna are sacred in both iran and india. But indra is a demon in the avesta and naasatya is a non entity.
@Dienekes:
ReplyDeleteVery sorry for the accusation, but it is weird...this is my third attempt at posting this...the second didn't make it either.
I do not buy this theory...it makes no sense as there are Uralic borrowings in PIE and a southern homeland does not account for this.
Also the Euphratic theory of the "Sumerian Problem" is falsified as I said in an earlier post on a different article. There is little evidence, if any at all, that IE was a substrate of Sumerian. Most unexplained words in Sumerian have been explained as Sumerian innovations, general Semitic, non-Semitic Afroasiatic, Hurrian, and Elamite. Most of the words that are left over, have not not even a remote IE explanation.
To add to this...I. M. Diakonov and A. Starostin said, "Qutian...is known practically only from a few dozens of proper names, but there are also borrowings in Sumerian which can be traced to an East Caucasian language different from Hurrian...it is a safe guess that these are borrowings from Qutian; the latter may have been rather close to [the Lezgian branch]. There has even been made a suggestion that the name Udi is a reflex of *q̇ut.ī …PEC /q̇/ > Udi /∅/ and PEC /t./ > Udi /d/."
Others link the Qutians with the Hurrians.
Wolfgang Schulze, an expert on the Northeast Caucasian Udi Language, links the ancestors of the Udi people with the Urartian ethnonym Etiu/ Etio/ Etiuni and with the ancient Caucasian Albanian inscriptions in Azerbaijan.
And about the Tocharians...their language is recognized as centum and shares isoglosses with the ancient Western European IE languages moreso than with the eastern ones. Also if Tocharian was in contact with Sumer...would it not stand to reason to find Sumerian words in Tocharian??? Why would the far more civilized Sumerians borrow words from much less civilized Tocharians instead of the other way around? Are there any detected Sumerian loans in Tocharian? There should be, but none have pointed any out. There are however BMAC loans in Tocharian. The BMAC language may have been related to non-IE Burushaski. The authors in this article fails to mention the substrate in Indo-Iranian also the strong Aegean substrate in Greek and why the Hattic and Hittite loans are found in early Greek but, scantily as opposed to a plethora of Aegean substrate words. Wouldn't there be just as many Hattic and Anatolian IE words if Greek and its relatives came from Anatolia? And where are the Hattic and Aegean substrate words in Armenian and Indo-Iranian? We know the "Minoans"/ Keftians came from Anatolia and so did the Tyrrhenians and they both had populations still on the coasts of Anatolia. There is no evidence of such Armenian and Indo-Iranian contact loans in Tyrrhenian or "Minoan" or vice versa of Tyrrhenian and “Minoan” in Armenian or Indo-Iranian if indeed they were a single proto language in Anatolia before their break up. Also beyond the Uralic loans in PIE...the Uralic loans in Indo-Iranian and Indo-Iranian loans in Uralic which could only happen if Indo-Iranian did not originate south of the Caspian, but north of it. There are a number of huge questions that all this brings up. Too many to bring up here.
Also check this out: The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History a section titled “Part III: Philology and Linguistics” is an article by S. S. Misra that speaks of Indo-Aryan loans in Uralic (bunk) but I think some of you will be interested.
Kurti, you are right in that the shared features of Mitanni Aryan with Indic are mainly archaisms. Still, there is for example the change *pt > tt in Dumont I linked earlier, and also Indic patronymic forms.
ReplyDeleteof the four gods mentioned
ReplyDeletemitra and varuna are sacred in both iran and india. But indra is a demon in the avesta and naasatya is a non entity.
That is an anachronistic argument. During the time of the Mitanni there were no Avesta and Zoroastrianism in sight and the Iranian religion then was probably much closer to the Indo-Aryan religion. It was a polytheistic religion with a pantheon very similar to that of the Indo-Aryan religion.
@Onur
ReplyDeleteBut sources indicate a Southeastern of Hithites, at least there Kings came from a city southeast of Kussara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kussara
Also interesting I find, if the object are Indo-European populations of the Near East, I always come across terms starting with Kur, Krd.
The Hithite kingdom was called "KUR URU"
the Mitanni kingdom was called "KUR Mi-ta-a-ni"
For people who might be interested, an article on an Iranian website about the connections of Gutians and Kurds.
http://iranian.com/History/2005/March/Gutians/
double post, note I do not agreee with many things written in the article, since I have very different views, just about the connection of Guti and Kurds I agree since there is an obvious fluent deriving from the very name of the Karduchoi (Gutians) which are known by Aramaic sources as Kardu, to Arabic Kurdu and its plural form Akrad (which is the modern term for Kurdistan in Arabic).
ReplyDeleteJaska:
ReplyDelete"Their language is still the descendant of Late Proto-Aryan, which was born on the North Caspian Steppes. Like Indic and Iranian, it seems to have arrived via the eastern side of Caspian Sea."
Why would a steppe people leave an environment north of the Caspian Sea for the Karakum Desert in a time of increasing aridity? Is there any archaeological evidence that they actually did this thing?
AdygheChabadi:
"There are however BMAC loans in Tocharian. The BMAC language may have been related to non-IE Burushaski."
I am having difficulty interpreting those two sentences. Unless you know for certain that the BMAC language was related to Burushaski, how can you confidently state that there were BMAC loan words in Tocharian? And whatever the case, can you provide examples?
At least from a geographic standpoint, a relationship to Burushaski wouldn't be too terribly surprising, since the BMAC appears to be intrusive in Turkmenistan and may well have originated in Iran or Afghanistan.
@Onur
ReplyDelete"That is an anachronistic argument. During the time of the Mitanni there were no Avesta and Zoroastrianism in sight and the Iranian religion then was probably much closer to the Indo-Aryan religion. It was a polytheistic religion with a pantheon very similar to that of the Indo-Aryan religion."
Right, Indra was declared a demon in Avesta by Zarathustra. During that time even Mithraists were persecuted and there was long time rivalry between these two.
Zarathustra declared Indra as "Evil" to get more support for his own religion. Iranian religions do not start with the Avesta.
Did Mitanni converse in ancient Vedic Sanskrit?
ReplyDeleteIf so are the following translations correct?
For example,
Latin-pōtare-"to drink"
Sanskrit pā-,- "to drink"
Hittite pahs-"to drink, to swallow".
Greek anti- "against"
Latin ante-"in front of, before", Sanskrit anti-"near,in presence of".
Hittite hants- "front, face".
AdygheChabadi
ReplyDeleteYou probably just misspelled the captcha. When you type in the captcha wrong, the system forward you to the top of window the same way as if you were successful. The only difference is that the sentence about your comment showing up after moderation is missing. The error message about the wrong captcha is on the bottom of the window, so it is easy miss it. Happened to me in the past too.
@Kurti
ReplyDeleteThe sole trait common to these disparate groups is their association with mountainous terrain, which is hardly a satisfactory criterion of ethno-cultural identification. The 'perpetual highland refuge' scenario assumes an unlikely regularity across processes of history. If anything, mountains tend to be non-conductive to uniformity.
For what it's worth, Gutian may just be another 'catch-all' geographic term, and of course we know nothing of the genetics. Mitanni was certainly multi-ethnic, and separated spatially and temporally from the future Median area of concentration. Scythians, on the other hand, are notoriously allergic to mono-ethnic identification. Diversity is much more likely than continuity over such vast expanses.
To reiterate, I am by no means denying the possible relation of all these groups with respect to Kurds or any West Asian populations- I just think we should mind all the gaps.
By the way, the same tendency to overlook vast expanses of time and spaces often stifle the Indo-European discussion.
Hello, Va_Highlander!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I can do that for you. That statement is derived from the work of Alexander Lubotsky and Michael Witzel.
Wikipedia: Language of the BMAC
A. Lubotsky, The Indo-Iranian Substratum
Michael Witzel, Central Asian Roots and Acculturation in South Asia. Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence from Western Central Asia, the Hindukush and Northwestern South Asia for Early Indo-Aryan Language and Religion
Michael Witzel, Early Loan Words in Central Asia - Indicators of Substrate Populations, Migrations, and Trade Relations
I hope those PDFs and the Google Books links from A. Lubotsky and M. Witzel help.
To jaska-
ReplyDelete''It is practically important that all these waves would have arrived from South Asia, especially when there are no such layers in the native Dravidian or Munda languages of India. ''
Good jaska a nice point, here i reply-
The reason that the ''layers'' are missing is that the Arya people of the Northern India came into contact of Dravidian people quite lately who were present in the far South and as for munda unfortunately we don't have any ancient records for archaic munda language that suggests remarkable early contacts with the Arya people.
Even for the Dravidians themselves speaking with their most ancient literatures as can be found here-
http://controversialhistory.blogspot.in/2007/07/who-are-aryans-let-us-see-from.html
The Arya people were a local people of the north not any outsiders! compared to others non-locals like Yavanas etc.
Not to forget also that neither Dravidian and Munda has any names for the rivers and places of Aryavarta as well.
If we consider the Chalcolithic development of the Arya culture in south central asia aka the area around Mehrgarh Baluchistan then we have to understand that Vedic is not the oldest of the Indo-Arya branch as there were older forms of it since bulk of the Vedic literature can be dated from late third Millennium BC and records show Harappan people already trading around eurasia since at least 4th millennium BC! but that is absent for them if we consider the rest of india (south and eastern part) as the oldest Sindhu Script of south India which reflects trade relations with north is merely 16th century BC old.
The mixing with the munda and later Dravidian people started from around 2000 BC when climate change which was catastrophic forced the harrapans to move East from their adored Sarasvati river-
http://news.yahoo.com/huge-ancient-civilization-collapse-explained-123449804.html
That also triggered the Ancestral north indian(main component of harappan people) and Ancestral South indian( main component of Munda-Dravidian people) mixing as found by Moorjani et al whom dates the main ANI ASI mixing date starting from 4000YBP.
Kurti-
ReplyDelete''You guys seem to be not that fit in linguistics otherwise you would have realized that again, Septa is much older as hepta and in a supposed proto Indo Iranian language it would have been much more likely Septa.''
Of course Sapta is the older form sorry if i confused you.
''If you compare Mitanni to Indo-Aryan or Iranian obviously it would rather fall into the Indo-Aryan classification simply cause, as I stated already, Indo-Aryan could preserve much better its archaic features while Iranian had much more loudshifts. Like in Iranian from s sound to h and later to x, while Indo Aryan stayed s.''
Yes!There is no doubt that Mitanni language belonged to the Indo-Arya and it also makes it doubtful that whether any branch called ''Indo-Iranian'' ever existed!.
''One of the main reasons might be because of the cast system and because the Indo-Aryans in South Asia took their language much more "holy".''
They showed great art to nourish their language in Vedic and later in Sanskrit also, an art which can't be compared with any other I-E Language.
jaska-
ReplyDelete''It is practically important that all these waves would have arrived from South Asia, especially when there are no such layers in the native Dravidian or Munda languages of India. ''
I am highly doubt these are missing in dravidian. Can you please point me to examples. Most IA in borrowing in uralic seem to be vedic or post vedic. Is there any layer that is IA but pre vedic?
Munda speakers today are mainly hunter gatherers and its understandable that borrowings are limited.
there are words in non IA tribal south asian languages common in western Europe. These are not studied well. It would be interesting to know which intervening languages families they show up in.
One can easily suppose that IA speakers migrated to uralic zones multiple times. None of them ever made it back to the core speaking areas.
But sources indicate a Southeastern of Hithites, at least there Kings came from a city southeast of Kussara
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kussara
Also interesting I find, if the object are Indo-European populations of the Near East, I always come across terms starting with Kur, Krd.
The Hithite kingdom was called "KUR URU"
the Mitanni kingdom was called "KUR Mi-ta-a-ni"
For people who might be interested, an article on an Iranian website about the connections of Gutians and Kurds.
http://iranian.com/History/2005/March/Gutians/
Not from southeast of Kussara, but from Kussara itself. Kussara was a Hittite/Nesite city and had nothing to do with the Iranic peoples (the Iranic peoples were not even in sight yet, at least not anywhere near the Hittite/Nesite and Luvian lands).
The rest of your post is pure speculation, so I won't touch on it.
AdygheChabadi, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteWitzel seems confident that the BMAC originated in southern Turkmenistan, which does not seem to be supported by archaeological evidence. While refuting Johanna Nichols, he states that there was no agriculture in Bactria until the arrival of the BMAC, when the reality is that we know very little about Bactrian archeology. Since cultural influences, and quite possibly people as well, from the agricultural communities of southern Turkmenistan had reached as far east as western Tajikistan by 3000 BCE, I think his assumption is questionable, at best, and certainly unproven.
Such sloppy reasoning is troubling. It is difficult to say to what extent such questionable interpretations of the archaeological record undermine Witzel's conclusions. Since the BMAC was likely a mercantile trading culture, we cannot even be sure that they spoke a single language, as Witzel obviously assumes.
@Slumbery
ReplyDeleteThank you! I will check that from now on and, again, many apologies to, Dienekes.
Also just saw your recent comments as I was about to post this, hahaha.
Yes, the BMAC was very much mercantile. They had intensive trade relations with the Indus Valley/ Harappa Civilization (IVC) and Elam. They also had trade relations with the Indo-Iranians to the north. There is also evidence of trade with the Syria-Anatolia area. We also know that they had contact with the so called "Tocharians" in the Tarim Basin area. The real Tocharians were actually Bactrian and spoke Bactrian a much different IE language from the one (actually 3 dialects/ languages known so far) spoken in the Tarim Basin. The IVC had a colony (Shortugai) within the geographic range of the BMAC.
Michael Witzel and A. Lubotsky say based on this substrate they sussed out that this was the language of the BMAC and that it was used as a linga franca across the region.
There are some shortcomings in some of Michael Witzel's theories, especially, as it concerns Harappa and the Rigveda. George van Driem points out some of these. Also the error you pointed out. Witzel has since revised some of his earlier theories.
I forgot to mention the BMAC when I posted about the relation of Elam and Harappa to the Maikop culture, if you remember that article that Dienekes posted.
@Aren Allahverdian
You are correct that Gutian and Gutium had become catch-all terms.
From Wikipedia:
"In the first millennium BC, the term "Gutium" was used to refer to the region between the Zagros and the Tigris, also known as western Media. All tribes to the east and northeast who often had hostile relations with the peoples of lowland Mesopotamia, were referred to as Gutian [10] or Guti. Assyrian royal annals use the term Gutians to refer to Iranian populations otherwise known as Medes or Mannaeans; and as late as the reign of Cyrus the Great of Persia, the famous general Gubaru (Gobryas) was described as the "governor of Gutium".
The link to Google Books appears to be broken:
Michael Witzel, Michael Witzel, Early Loan Words in Central Asia - Indicators of Substrate Populations, Migrations, and Trade Relations
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDelete"re are however BMAC loans in Tocharian. The BMAC language may have been related to non-IE Burushaski."
didn't linguists just recently proved that Burushaki is Indo European, shows me again that often if linguists classify a language as isolated, it could simply mean that they can't categorize it
@Alen Allahverdian
The sole trait common to these disparate groups is their association with mountainous terrain, which is hardly a satisfactory criterion of ethno-cultural identification. The 'perpetual highland refuge' scenario assumes an unlikely regularity across processes of history. If anything, mountains tend to be non-conductive to uniformity.
If you read my previous posts, you will realize that the connection is not simply based on their association of mountain terrain, but there is historic evidences of terminologies used for Gutian groups and token over to Kurds.
Like the Aramaic term of Qardu for the Karduchi and the aramaic word for Kurds which is Qurdu. Or the Arabic plural word of Akrad for Karduchi which is also basically the term for Kurds in Arabic. By such obvious evidences its hard to not see the connection imo.
For what it's worth, Gutian may just be another 'catch-all' geographic term, and of course we know nothing of the genetics. Mitanni was certainly multi-ethnic, and separated spatially and temporally from the future Median area of concentration. Scythians, on the other hand, are notoriously allergic to mono-ethnic identification. Diversity is much more likely than continuity over such vast expanses.
The interesting the about Medes is, that in Assyrian sources they are often simply referred to as Gutians.
"The Assyrian royal annals use the word Gutians when they refer to Iranian populations otherwise known as the Mannaeans or the Medes (Parpola, p. 138)." (Encyclopedia Iranica; Gutians) Thus, the term "Gutian" referred to Iranic populations in general, and apparently included the Medes as well."
About the Scythians, we know for a very fact from historic sources, that they ( the Saka) were so similar to Medes, that they were often mistaken for each other. And there are also quite a lot Scythian sites in former Media.
To reiterate, I am by no means denying the possible relation of all these groups with respect to Kurds or any West Asian populations- I just think we should mind all the gaps.
I do not disagree with with you on that. I also wrote that it is impossible to assume that there is a 100% genetic boundary from Gutians all the way to Kurds, yet I assume that there must be enough genetic match and I believe the Gutians to be the ethno-cultural forefathers of the Kurds from whom they adopted their living style.
@Onur
but before the expansion of the Hitithe empire, Kussara was located in the borders of the Mitanni empire.
The main purpose of pointing to Kussara was because I doubted that the Hitithes came from the west.
@AdygheChada
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia:
"In the first millennium BC, the term "Gutium" was used to refer to the region between the Zagros and the Tigris, also known as western Media. All tribes to the east and northeast who often had hostile relations with the peoples of lowland Mesopotamia, were referred to as Gutian [10] or Guti. Assyrian royal annals use the term Gutians to refer to Iranian populations otherwise known as Medes or Mannaeans; and as late as the reign of Cyrus the Great of Persia, the famous general Gubaru (Gobryas) was described as the "governor of Gutium".
What about if all these tribes between Zagros and Tigris river where related tribes of the Gutians? Aren't the Lullubis for example often connected to them too?
Isn't that the case today with the Kurds who do live exactly in the mentioned geographic territory, and at the same time appear as one of the most homogeneous groups of Western Asia.
Isn't that actually always the way it turns if a group of people expand? When Scythians expanded suddenly, all tribes inside of Scythia became Scythians, though many of the tribes might not have been Scythians yet most were at least related like Sogdians and Massagaeta.
AdygheChabadi: "They also had trade relations with the Indo-Iranians to the north."
ReplyDeleteBased on what? Wiki claims that Sintashta traded with the BMAC but gives no obvious citation. As Lamberg-Karlovski observed some years ago, the BMAC and the Andronovo peoples were likely aware of each other but seemed to have had very limited interaction, if any at all.
In any case, I see no compelling evidence that Sintashta or any other people of the Andronovo horizon spoke Indo-Iranian.
"I forgot to mention the BMAC when I posted about the relation of Elam and Harappa to the Maikop culture, if you remember that article that Dienekes posted."
Isn't that wildly anachronistic? Maikop was apparently part of a trade network that included the Namazga III culture north of the Kopet Dag, not the BMAC. Maikop seems to have developed under the influence of the Leyla-Tepe Culture of Transcaucasia, which in turn was influenced by the northern Ubaid expansion.
@Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''Witzel seems confident that the BMAC originated in southern Turkmenistan, which does not seem to be supported by archaeological evidence. While refuting Johanna Nichols, he states that there was no agriculture in Bactria until the arrival of the BMAC, when the reality is that we know very little about Bactrian archeology. Since cultural influences, and quite possibly people as well, from the agricultural communities of southern Turkmenistan had reached as far east as western Tajikistan by 3000 BCE, I think his assumption is questionable, at best, and certainly unproven.''
I think you may have seen some analysis of the BMAC archaeology in this vast article for sure-
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/19th-century-paradigms.html
''Such sloppy reasoning is troubling. It is difficult to say to what extent such questionable interpretations of the archaeological record undermine Witzel's conclusions. Since the BMAC was likely a mercantile trading culture, we cannot even be sure that they spoke a single language, as Witzel obviously assumes.''
Yes,It is the very ''Assumptions'' which creates all the troubles specially when you are defending a theory(''Aryan-Migration Theory'') which is more of a Creationist type rather than an honorable scientific one.
@postneo
''there are words in non IA tribal south asian languages common in western Europe. These are not studied well. It would be interesting to know which intervening languages families they show up in.''
Please give me a link of such examples, i think they can be very interesting!.
''One can easily suppose that IA speakers migrated to uralic zones multiple times. None of them ever made it back to the core speaking areas.''
Exactly.
Guys good day!.
The IE ancestors of Nesites as well as the other Anatolian-branch-IE-speaking populations, presumably have a westerly origin while those of the Mitanni and the other Indo-Iranian-speaking populations have an easterly origin. The former group is much more ancient in West Asia. Thus the two IE dispersals are both spatially and temporally distinct. There is nothing surprising since the Anatolian and the Indo-Iranian languages are two quite distant branches of the IE language family, they have zero mutual intelligibility.
ReplyDeleteOnur,
Exactly. And I would go one step further and argue that because the former is clearly much more ancient then the latter (especially with unbiased PIE reconstruction), thus, a steppe origin of PIE or proto-PIE can be excluded for yet another reason.
In the above context, I would like to make two points. Firstly, after initial PIE expansion, until the Bronze Age, isolation may have been the norm rather than the exception. As such, the various distinct sub-groups (e.g., Proto Celtic-Italic-Germanic, "CIG", Balto-Slavic, Proto Indo-Iranian, Anatolian, Proto Greek) are simply the surviving ones out of perhaps 3-4 times as many, just before Bronze Age expansion. As always, in addition, written-record-bias skews PIE towards Indo-Iranian and anachronistically makes Indo-Iranian look much closer to the root than historically/ archaeologically possible.
Secondly, the regions over which the above (and other) branches extended ~2,000 BCE away from the Pontic should be measured in a wide thousand to a few thousand kilometers.
For example, at that time, in a simplistic view one could divide the Pontic into:
Proto Balto-Slavic: N Pontic
Proto CIG: W Pontic
Proto Balkan: WSW Pontic
Proto Greek: SW Pontic
Anatolian IE: S Pontic
Proto Indo-Iranian: SE Pontic
The "hole", i.e. E Pontic, is then closed by the contemporaneous (but not progenitor) Maykop culture.
However, the above ignores substantial evidence that (P)IE likely had a much wider distribution even at and before 2,000 BCE: for example, the Corded Ware culture (~2,900 – 2,200 BCE) is most often associated with PIE and predates the above by ~1,000 years. So, at least for the (very wide) Pontic region, it makes sense to assume:
(a) a period of intial expansion >~3,000 BCE, followed by
(b) a secondary period of fragmentation and regional development, and
(c) a tertiary period of selective, further Bronze Age expansion
...while only the latter carried forward the IE language groups known today.
Albanian, Greek, and Armenian are then slight exceptions in that they condensed a bit earlier than the others, yet survived (c) unscathed.
Nirjhar007, yes, I am familiar with B B Lai's work. I have yet to find anyone that can refute that paper. There seems to be insufficient empirical evidence to support an Aryan invasion, at least as usually stated.
ReplyDeletebut before the expansion of the Hitithe empire, Kussara was located in the borders of the Mitanni empire.
ReplyDeleteThere was no Mitanni state yet when that Hittite royal line was in Kussara. You confused the chronology. Kussara was a well-established Hittite city.
The main purpose of pointing to Kussara was because I doubted that the Hitithes came from the west.
Kussara is the place of origin of one of the royal lines of Hittites, not of Hittites as a people. The Hittite people had already dispersed to many parts of Asia Minor many centuries if not millennia before the appearance of the known Hittite royal lines. We cannot deduce anything about the homeland of the Hittite people based on the place of origin of a Hittite royal line that appear long after the appearance of the Hittite people in Asia Minor.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Kurti
ReplyDeleteHon, Burushaski is about as Indo-European as South Cushitic (Afroasiatic). I Suppose you are referencing that bunk (with all due respect of course) authored by Prof. Ilija Čašule. I remember that Dienekes posted about that. Burushaki is very clearly non-IE…that is beyond well-established. Mr. Čašule says that Burushaski is ancient Phygian and that the language came from the Balkans 3000 years ago to Anatolia (he was speaking of Phrygian, which he is correct to that point) and made its way to India and Pakistan (which I and many, many others strongly disagree with on a number of levels). That was enough for me to dismiss his proposal. I was willing, ever so slightly, to give it a thought, but that stopped me. The Burushaski people are genetically unrelated to the Greeks or anyone in Eastern Europe. Dienekes and many of you can attest to that. Also, just for the sake of information sharing…Burusha (name of the people) + ki (means: language). Burushaki does share cognates with Basque and (North) East Caucasian which are only shared by those three languages.
Here is a short Interview by Prof. Čašule from NPR’s All Things Considered: Pakistan's 'Burushaski' Language Finds New Relatives
One of many critiques of Prof. Čašule’s work on the topic by J. Bengston and V. Blazek: On the Burushaski–Indo-European hypothesis by I. Čašule
Also, you might want to check out the comments here: New Indo-European Language Discovered is an article on the Issue from Sci-News.com. There is an expert on Phrygian commenting on the article.
Hmmm, Kurti, a good question about the Lullubi and the like. As far as is understood by Mesopotamian experts, Hamazi (“many-tongued”), Lullubum/ Zamua, were of unknown ethic and/ or linguistic affiliation. Ellipi was Elamite. The term Lullubi became synonymous “highlander”. Lullubi/ Zamua may have been Hurrian-related, like the Kassites and Mannaeans (Biblical Minni), given the geographical location (Zamua [also: Mazamua] was an ancient kingdom, corresponding with the earlier kingdom of Lullubi, which stretched from Lake Urmia to the upper reaches of the Diyala River in what is northeastern Iraq, the Sulaymaniyah Province…it also corresponds with the Mannaean territory which was south of Lake Urmia). As for their relation to the Gutians, you can refer to my comments above for that…the Gutians could have been just as likely to be of some type of Hurrian relation as anything else.
We know the Kurds are essentially native to that region at least genetically. The are very close to the Armenians at least in Admixture analysis...the major difference being Armenians have slightly higher percent of the Med. component and the Kurds have slightly higher North Eur. and South Asian componenents. I don't think that the percentages are enough to be statistically very different. The Iranian language they speak came much later. It is safe to say that the Kurds or their ancestors were likely and predominantly Hurrian (also Semitic) speakers before the Indo-Iranian expansions or invasions (whichever you prefer).
As for the Scythians…the Scythians were known as the Saka in the east. They were Sacae of Herodotus. They are also mentioned in the Bible as the Ashkenaz and in Assyrian annals as Ashkuz. From what I gather they are generally considered to be Indo-Iranians of various types. They obviously had mutual contact with the Uralic speakers at the PIE level and at the Proto-Indo-Iranian level, so there is the strong chance that some Uralic tribes may have been in those areas also.
See the links I gave to Va-Highlander below for the Uralic tribe references.
@Va_Highlander
ReplyDeleteI did a pretty good Google search and all the links that came up talk about a relation between the Indo-Iranians and the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC. Also it is pretty much agreed that the peoples of the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC were contemporaneous with the Maikop/ Maykop culture. The BMAC did not reach its height until 2300 BCE. It is agreed that the BMAC as a culture/ civilization is much older than that. Just the same as we consider Harappa/ IVC to be confined to its mature phase, but it is older than that. The Mehrgarh Culture (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE) is, in fact, the matrix from which the IVC sprang forth. In effect, the IVC is the evolution of Mehrgarh. It is the same with the cultures that preceded the height of the BMAC, they were the matrix of what we consider the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC. So, again, the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC is older than just its mature phase.
M. Witzel (2003), Sintashta, BMAC and the Indo-Iranians. A query.
David W. Anthony, Sintashta and the BMAC
David W. Anthony, The Sintashta Genesis
E. Elena Efimovna Kuz'mina, Victor H. Mair, The Prehistory of the Silk Road
C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Langauge and Archaeology
@Onur and Eurologist:
ReplyDeleteI do not buy that Maikop/ Maykop was Indo-European. Also Anatolian is quite distinct from Eastern IE and Western IE. It shares few if any of the innovations present in both those IE groupings. That is why it is said to be the oldest group of Indo-Europeans to split off. Also if one looks at the vocabulary of Hittite it is significantly non-IE. I have seen it quantified as only about 20% IE. Martin Bernal says it is vastly less than that of Greek which has less than 40% inherited IE words. However, renowned Anatolianist, H. Craig Melchert says, “Even in the case of vocabulary, the borrowing of words is largely limited to expected areas: terms relating to aspects of the cult, items of higher culture, and the names for some flora and fauna. The impression that Hittite replaced most of its inherited vocabulary is false, being based merely on the fact that most of our documentation relates to ritual practice. At least 75 percent of the core vocabulary is based on inherited Indo-European material.” I cannot tell you exactly how much of the known vocabulary is core or non-core, but I can tell you that in a Swadesh list of Old Hittite…~ 24.55% of the words are not cognate to anything in IE, unclear, borrowed, or isolated within Anatolian and IE. Swadesh lists are supposed to be composed of words that are considered to be core. Given this apparent massive borrowing even that amounts to possibly nearly 25% of the core lexicon based on a Swadesh list of Old Hittite, it seems that Anatolian IE is intrusive. Intrusive from where, that is a very good question. The massive borrowings go well-beyond vocabulary and into culture (which includes religion) and even the name of the land itself.
@Onur and Eurologist:
ReplyDeleteI do not buy that Maikop/ Maykop was Indo-European. Also Anatolian is quite distinct from Eastern IE and Western IE. It shares few if any of the innovations present in both those IE groupings. That is why it is said to be the oldest group of Indo-Europeans to split off. Also if one looks at the vocabulary of Hittite it is significantly non-IE. I have seen it quantified as only about 20% IE. Martin Bernal says it is vastly less than that of Greek which has less than 40% inherited IE words. However, renowned Anatolianist, H. Craig Melchert says, “Even in the case of vocabulary, the borrowing of words is largely limited to expected areas: terms relating to aspects of the cult, items of higher culture, and the names for some flora and fauna. The impression that Hittite replaced most of its inherited vocabulary is false, being based merely on the fact that most of our documentation relates to ritual practice. At least 75 percent of the core vocabulary is based on inherited Indo-European material.” I cannot tell you exactly how much of the known vocabulary is core or non-core, but I can tell you that in a Swadesh list of Old Hittite…~ 24.55% of the words are not cognate to anything in IE, unclear, borrowed, or isolated within Anatolian and IE. Swadesh lists are supposed to be composed of words that are considered to be core. Given this apparent massive borrowing even that amounts to possibly nearly 25% of the core lexicon based on a Swadesh list of Old Hittite, it seems that Anatolian IE is intrusive. Intrusive from where, that is a very good question. The massive borrowings go well-beyond vocabulary and into culture (which includes religion) and even the name of the land itself.
Adyghe Chabada,
I did not say anything about the ethnic identity/language of Maikop. Also, I did not say anything about the Anatolian branch of the IE language family other than merely stating that it is quite distinct from the Indo-Iranian branch and probably more western in origin and much more ancient in West Asia than the latter.
AdygheChabadi:
ReplyDelete"Also it is pretty much agreed that the peoples of the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC were contemporaneous with the Maikop/ Maykop culture."
BMAC begins 2300 BCE or a bit later, roughly Namazga V, and as Lamberg-Karlovski noted in, "Archeology and Language: The Indo-Iranians":
"Although some scholars advance the notion that [the BMAC] has indigenous roots, the fact remains that its material culture is not easily derived from the preceding Namazga IV culture. Its wide distribution, from southeastern Iran to Baluchistan and Afghanistan, suggests that its beginnings might lie in this direction -- an area of enormous size and an archaeological terra nullius. In fact, the Bactrian Margiana complex of Central Asia may turn out to be its northernmost extension, while its heartland may lie in the vast areas of unexplored Baluchistan and Afghanistan."
I strongly suspect that his suggested heartland is correct.
Having spent some time looking at Mehrgarh and the IVC, I don't think the latter necessarily develops from the former. Balochistan seems to have been part of a different cultural tradition than the Indus region. The homeland of the IVC will quite possibly be found on the Ghaggar-Hakra, as one might reasonably expect. If you are claiming very broad regional affinities, then sure, we should expect no less.
As you are probably aware, that 7000 BCE date for Mehrgarh is disputed and the pre-pottery Neolithic there may be somewhat later, in agreement with other sites.
Anthony presents a narrative in which he is very heavily invested. He, along with his admirers and fellow travelers, insists that his narrative is plausible but much of it collapses on close examination.
Kuz'mina's thesis, that the Andronovo spoke Indo-Iranian, is convincing if, and only if, one already believes that Indo-European arose on the Pontic steppe. As Lamberg-Karlovski also demonstrates in his paper, above, her argument is easily dismantled. There is no compelling evidence that the peoples of the Andronovo horizon even spoke a single language, let alone that they spoke Indo-Iranian.
@Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''There seems to be insufficient empirical evidence to support an Aryan invasion, at least as usually stated.''
What is your own opinion on the Arya people?
''There is no compelling evidence that the peoples of the Andronovo horizon even spoke a single language, let alone that they spoke Indo-Iranian.''
The aDNA is R1a dominant that can be called a connector to the Indo-Iranian, but other thing to note also that Iranians of present day clearly lack R1a compared to the Indo-Aryas.
So, the chances are that they were more Indo-arya rather than "indo-iranians"?.
''As you are probably aware, that 7000 BCE date for Mehrgarh is disputed and the pre-pottery Neolithic there may be somewhat later, in agreement with other sites.''
Can you please give a link providing the conclusion?
@ AdygheChabadi
''~ 24.55% of the words are not cognate to anything in IE, unclear, borrowed, or isolated within Anatolian and IE. Swadesh lists are supposed to be composed of words that are considered to be core. Given this apparent massive borrowing even that amounts to possibly nearly 25% of the core lexicon based on a Swadesh list of Old Hittite, it seems that Anatolian IE is intrusive. Intrusive from where, that is a very good question. The massive borrowings go well-beyond vocabulary and into culture (which includes religion) and even the name of the land itself.''
Quite correct your conclusion but as far i know as Dienekes says northern/western highlands of Anatolia has only I-E people names/tribes names from the oldest records so either I-E people were present there from earlier or they were native to the land.
good day.
Dienekes is it possible to delete the first two comments of my previous posts. They are double posted by error. I thought they did not go through.
ReplyDeleteHi, Onur!
I was directing the comment at both you and Eurologist. It was mentioned in the dialogue between the two of you. My comments were just an addendum to the conversation. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.
@Va_Highlander
Well, with all due respect to Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky, a craniometric study performed by B. E. Hemphill in 1999 states, Three hypotheses have been offered by archaeologists to account for the origins of Oxus civilization populations. These include the early influence model, the late colonization model, and the trichotomy model. Eleven craniometric variables from 12 Aeneolithic and Bronze Age samples, encompassing 657 adults from Central Asia, Iran, and the Indus Valley, are compared to test which if any of these hypotheses are supported by the pattern of phenetic affinities possessed by the Oxus civilization inhabitants of the north Bactrian oasis...Mr. Hemphill further states in his conclusion that, ”the results provide no support for models that Oxus Civilization inhabitants of the North Bactrian Oasis owe their origin to transplanted northern Iranian-affiliated populations from the Kopet Dagh foothills plains to the west or the Indus Valley populations from the south-east”. Things also noted by Mr. Hemphill are...The pattern of phenetic affinities rather suggest gene flow between northern Iranian-affiliated urban populations and an extant population within the northern Bactrian oasis, emphasis the local temporal continuity of Central Asian populations (Hemphill, 1998). The assertion that some local populations must have contributed to the formation of the Oxus Civilization is compelling (Hemphill, 1999). Further studies show no relation between the Burusho and BMAC (Hemphill, 2008).
To add a caveat to Mr. Hemphill’s statement about the Burusho, craniometric studies tell us nothing about language. Many people have similar physical phenotypes but speak different languages. An example would be Northeast Africa or the Horn of Africa. There are some correspondences between Burushaski and the proposed BMAC substrate propounded by both Witzel and Lubotsky.
Also an article from Discover Magazine, in which they interviewed both Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky and Mr. Sarianidi, states what I stated about the relation of the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC and earlier cultures in the same area.
Connects the BMAC to Anau and Kopet Dag cultures
Also, as I stated earlier…linguists associate those cultures with Indo-Iranians because of the mutual linguistic and commercial exchange between the Indo-Iranians and the Uralic speakers. Those cultures seem to fit the right time and place for many linguists. The Uralic speakers were known to be in the area of those cultures also. They use “linguistic archaeology”…that is to say they dig through the different strata of languages to find out where they have been or came from and who they had contact with.
Also I agree with you about the Ghaggar-Hakra. I still believe that Mehrgarh and the IVC are closely related. Massive civilizations like the IVC (486488.72mi²) do not spring up like that ex nihilo.
@Nirjhar007
Thank you! Also there are proposed Tyrrhenian place names in Northwest Anatolia according to R. S. P. Beekes
Caucasian mummies found in China prove china and beyond (east of china in Atlantic continent Australia and islands all above sea level 5300 years ago all the way to easter islands where the Caucasian statues are facing west their homeland).The deluge AKA Noah flood destroyed the Caucasians home land so they had to winter it in Sca-end (Scandinavia) whch started rising slowly after the flood after the heavy load of the water lake (sea) in the northern ice emptied ubruptly in the flood. all North asia was marches and swamps because of the flood emptying east into the pacific and west into the black sea and the baltic. after 2000 years stay in Scandinavia , Berik the great and his clan went to gdabsk , terrorized the Vandals and then on to Caucasus the land between the black sea and the Scuthian sea to the east staying one thousand years untill Darius the Great plundered them, so they decided to invade Celtic Europe (black eyed whites J and I haplogroup (who hailed from India (F haplogroup mother there ).
ReplyDeleteNow the current Europpeans are the ancient chinese!
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDelete''Also, as I stated earlier…linguists associate those cultures with Indo-Iranians because of the mutual linguistic and commercial exchange between the Indo-Iranians and the Uralic speakers. Those cultures seem to fit the right time and place for many linguists. The Uralic speakers were known to be in the area of those cultures also. They use “linguistic archaeology”…that is to say they dig through the different strata of languages to find out where they have been or came from and who they had contact with.''
Trade i think is the best reason if we have to think BMAC had people of the arya tongue, same can be said for influencing the Uralic also,in case of culture there was probably not much relation at all.
''Also I agree with you about the Ghaggar-Hakra. I still believe that Mehrgarh and the IVC are closely related. Massive civilizations like the IVC (486488.72mi²) do not spring up like that ex nihilo.''
Yep!.
''Thank you! Also there are proposed Tyrrhenian place names in Northwest Anatolia according to R. S. P. Beekes''
Thanks! i will look into his findings.
good day.
Broken link again:
ReplyDeleteCentral Asia's Lost Civilization | DiscoverMagazine.com
The article connents the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC with Anau and Kopet-Dag culture.
AdygheChabadi:
ReplyDeleteI do not see how Hemphill refutes Lamberg-Karlovski or is even particularly relevant. He seems to be specifically addressing the population of Bactria, not the peoples of the BMAC more generally. In the quotations you provide, he says nothing of the heartland suggested by Lamberg-Karlovski and, in any case, the study has no direct bearing on the material culture and origin of the BMAC.
Culture is one thing, phenotype another, and language yet another still. To assume without proof that any of these things might be strongly coupled with one or more of the others is woefully simplistic, at best.
In that article from Discover Magazine, all Lamberg-Karlovski states is that Sarianidi's methodology was highly suspect, which indeed it was. It also seems to offer an even later date for BMAC than you have suggested. If anything, the article seems to undermine your claim more than support it.
You stated that the BMAC peaked at 2300 BCE. Given the data we have from known BMAC sites that does not appear to be true. Did it arise on virgin soil in a cultural vacuum? Of course not but that does not mean that we can assume cultural continuity on known sites when the material evidence suggests otherwise.
"I still believe that Mehrgarh and the IVC are closely related. Massive civilizations like the IVC (486488.72mi²) do not spring up like that ex nihilo."
I fail to see the logic connecting those two sentences. Belief has nothing to do with it. If you can demonstrate close relations between Mehrgarh and the IVC based upon the archeological remains of both, then do so.
As for the Indo-Iranians, contact with Uralic does not prove that the peoples of the Andronovo horizon spoke a single language or that the language that they spoke was Indo-Iranian, at least not while the BMAC still flourished. Moreover, the idea that Indo-Iranian arose in the north and spread southward seems the least plausible scenario.
Nirjhar007:
"What is your own opinion on the Arya people?"
If you mean the peoples of northern South Asia, I assume that they were indigenous until someone proves otherwise.
"Can you please give a link providing the conclusion?"
"Food-producing communities in Pakistan and Northern India"
I was directing the comment at both you and Eurologist. It was mentioned in the dialogue between the two of you. My comments were just an addendum to the conversation. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteNo problem. I just want to clarify that the statements you responded to are exclusively Eurologist's and not mine.
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDeleteI pretty much doubt that the Gutians where bin Indo-European or closely Indo European related people.
If you missed my citation, Medes and other Iranic people were generally considered as "Gutians".
sorry made a tipping mistake above. I meant, "I pretty much doubt that Gutians were not Indo European are at least Indo European related" .
ReplyDelete@Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''If you mean the peoples of northern South Asia, I assume that they were indigenous until someone proves otherwise.''
Thank you for your thought and the link, i will reply about the links value in your blog after analysis.
''I fail to see the logic connecting those two sentences. Belief has nothing to do with it. If you can demonstrate close relations between Mehrgarh and the IVC based upon the archeological remains of both, then do so.''
I am also giving this conclusion a check...
good day.
Hi, Va_Highlander!
ReplyDeleteI adduced Hemphill’s conclusion because he indeed is talking about the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. That is specifically mentioned in his paper and in the extract and abstract I posted. The craniometry of the skulls indicate that these people did not originate from where Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky states. You are correct that culture and as I mentioned, language, have nothing to do with phenotypes (sometimes), but to a degree the latter should be considered, while keeping the former in mind. Because, sometimes, phenotype does match language and culture…note the Chinese.
You said, the article is in contrast to what I stated, but it isn’t.
”The ancient Oxus culture may have arisen at sites like Anau, a settlement at the base of the Kopet-Dag mountains, which dates back to 6500 B.C. Later settlements like Gonur, roughly 4,000 years old, may have been founded by people from the Kopet-Dag cultures”. Later in the article, ”Why the Oxus culture vanished may never be known. But researchers think they have pinned down the origin of these mysterious people. The answers are turning up in traces of mound settlements bordering the rugged Kopet-Dag mountains to the south, which rise up to form the vast Iranian plateau. The most prominent settlement there lies a grueling 225-mile drive from Gonur. At this site, called Anau, three ancient mounds poke up from the plains…Years later, Soviet archaeologists working along the mountain foothills confirmed that as early as 6500 B.C., small bands of people were living in the Kopet-Dag, raising wheat and barley and grazing their sheep and goats on the mountains' foothills and slopes. That's a few thousand years after these grains were domesticated in the Near East but much earlier than most researchers had thought likely, supporting Pumpelly's view that Central Asian culture developed much sooner than commonly believed. By 3000 B.C., the people of the Kopet-Dag had organized into walled towns. They used carts drawn by domesticated animals, and their pottery resembles the kind later found in Gonur. Many Soviet and Western archaeologists suspect that the Oxus civilization—at least in Margiana, the region in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—evolved from this Kopet-Dag culture…Hiebert likens the Oxus civilization to Polynesia—a scattered but common culture held together by camels rather than canoes. ~Andrew Lawler, Discover Magazine - Central Asia's Lost Civilization, November 2006 issue, emphasis mine.
Hiebert and Pumpelli are archaeologists that were at that time excavating the Anau site. Pumpelli is the great-granddaughter of the Pumpelly mentioned in the article.
(continued)
(part 3)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I never said they spoke a single language in the Andronovo Culture. I clearly said there were very likely Uralic peoples throughout those territories. Uralic toponyms and hydronyms are known in that area, at least the northern part of the Andronovo cultural horizon. Some people would argue that Yeniseian peoples where in that area, but this is based upon a common Uralic hydronym, and its variants, that was borrowed into Yeniseian at the “proto” stage and, thus, reconstructable for proto-Yeniseian (but, again, it is not a Yeniseian word). The Yeniseians are intrusive to that region based upon linguistic considerations. I said, “linguists associate those cultures with Indo-Iranians because of the mutual linguistic and commercial exchange between the Indo-Iranians and the Uralic speakers. Those cultures seem to fit the right time and place for many linguists. The Uralic speakers were known to be in the area of those cultures also. They use “linguistic archaeology”…that is to say they dig through the different strata of languages to find out where they have been or came from and who they had contact with.'' There was not only linguistic and commercial exchange, but also some genetic exchange between the Uralic speakers and Indo-Iranians. In my opinion, the North European component seems to be more representative of Indo Europeans in the East than anything else in Dienekes ‘Globe 13’ Admixture analysis. Notice the much higher amount in Greece that in Anatolia, but that maybe because of Slavic movements into Greek territory over quite some time. Balto-Slavic and Western Uralic speakers seem to carry immense amounts of that component. That component is found at moderate frequency throughout all populations who speak an Indo-Iranian derived language and even those non-IE populations that had contact with populations north of the Caspian. If the Indo-Iranians came from north of the Caspian it seems that this is the component that would be a clear sign of that. These moderate frequencies of the North European component is just what one would expect from small bands of people migrating into new territory. There was never any massive migrations of people, just small groups. There were small bands of lndo-Iranians that diffused throughout the local populations and their language(s) likewise. So the Indo-Iranian migrations did not necessarily change the overall genetic composition of the local populations, but did contribute. A similar scenario is with Arabs, the Arabic language, and the spread of Islam (which was by conquest rather than peaceful diffusion). I do not believe the Aryans are indigenous, at least, the language is not. The people are still generally the same genetically regardless of Indo-Iranian migration, genetic contributions are expected. To me…the Dravidians are represented by the West Asian component, at least, they contributed some of it to the Indian population. The Dravidians are intrusiecve to India as well, in my opinion. The South Asian component is of the pre-Aryan and pre-Dravidian Tribals as it is close to the dominant component of the Andaman Islanders.
@Kurti
You might should reconsider that. It is much more likely that they were non-IE given the linguistic situation of that area, but we may never know for sure.
Part 2 didn't post so 2nd try...
ReplyDeleteSo, in fact, the article actually agrees with my whole statement! I am not sure what article you read, but it was not this one, obviously. In that whole article only one part of a paragragh is dedicated to Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky’s comments. He does not mention anything about Mr. Sarianidi’s methods. In fact, only two sentence fragments (quotes actually). Those were in praise of Mr. Sarianidi’s work. The aritcle author talks about his personality as being considered abrasive by some.
It is just like I observed, authors linked these cultures to the origins of the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC. So in fact it is older than just its high phase. Even the Wikipedia article states that the roots of the BMAC are older than its later high phase.
As for the supposed heartland…Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky is speaking of peripheral Elam and peripheral IVC…Mundigak (Southeast Afghanistan) is considered part of the IVC. Shahr-e Sūkhté is part of the Jiroft Culture (southeast Iran – Sistan and Baluchistan) which is peripheral Elam and is widely considered part of Elamite civilization, though not quite universally accepted (as of yet). Michael Witzel among others consider the Jiroft Culture to be the polity of Marhashi, Marhasi, Parhasi, Barhasi; in earlier sources Waraḫše. From Brill Online Dictionaries (a very good source), Elamite, which is now extinct, was located primarily in southwestern Iran in the vicinity of the Zagros Mountains as well as the adjacent plains of Khuzistan and to the south along the coast of the Persian Gulf. There is good reason to believe that Elamite once occupied all or nearly all of the Iranian plateau.
As for the IVC, I fail to see the logic behind denying what has been proven…a great source of links are at Wikipedia’s Mehrgarh article and Indus Valley Civilization article. The IVC clearly had at its foundation in cultures that preceded it and those cultures were, as I said the matrix of the IVC. That matrix includes Mehrgarh. Scientists believe a lot of things for which there is no conclusive proof. That is a standard part of science…belief and faith. I have heard many, many scientists use the words “belief” and “believe”. So your point is, at least, moot, if not outright falsifiable. I made my statement based on my database of papers on the issue. The evidences clearly point to a relationship between Mehrgarh and the IVC. So based on those evidences…I strongly BELIEVE they are closely related.
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDelete''I do not believe the Aryans are indigenous, at least, the language is not. The people are still generally the same genetically regardless of Indo-Iranian migration, genetic contributions are expected. To me…the Dravidians are represented by the West Asian component, at least, they contributed some of it to the Indian population. The Dravidians are intrusiecve to India as well, in my opinion. The South Asian component is of the pre-Aryan and pre-Dravidian Tribals as it is close to the dominant component of the Andaman Islanders.''
It does not matter what you believe,it matters what actual evidences do you have! sorry but please give me the reasons why you ''think'' that there was an ''Indo-Iranian migration'' i would love to see them.
As for the components there is no way you can relate them to any population movements,specially when we are talking about hypothetical migrations!! which have no real totems.
Yes ANI component seems new to the ASI for sure but as latest researches indicates the Major Mixture between ANI and ASI started from the time(~4000YBP) when Sindhu civilization started to fade and the people of the civilization moved eastward!, so it is practically thinkable that the civilization was ANI dominant.
We just need the confirmation from the aDNA.
good day.
AdygheChabadi:
ReplyDelete"I adduced Hemphill’s conclusion because he indeed is talking about the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. That is specifically mentioned in his paper and in the extract and abstract I posted."
The quotes you provided explicitly stated, "North Bactrian oasis", only a part of the area on which BMAC remains are found. If you are claiming that he included samples from other regions, you have not provided evidence to support that claim.
"The craniometry of the skulls indicate that these people did not originate from where Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky states."
No, it does not. Nothing you provided indicates that any of Hemphill's samples came from the heartland Lamberg-Karlovsky suggests.
"You are correct that culture and as I mentioned, language, have nothing to do with phenotypes (sometimes), but to a degree the latter should be considered, while keeping the former in mind.Because, sometimes, phenotype does match language and culture…note the Chinese."
In this case, phenotype may be safely ignored, and with advantage, since no one is claiming population replacement or anything of the sort. As I say, the reasoning behind Hemphill's study is woefully simplistic. What is at issue, here, is the apparent discontinuity of material culture on all known BMAC sites. The fact that you either cannot or will not address that issue is rather striking.
"The ancient Oxus culture may have arisen..."
Or may not have done.
"Many Soviet and Western archaeologists suspect..."
And some archaeologists do not, including the very prominent archaeologist that you mistakenly thought would support your claim, Dr C C Lamberg-Karlovski of Harvard University. You cannot reasonably expect me to take such vaguely-worded pablum seriously.
"Hiebert and Pumpelli are archaeologists that were at that time excavating the Anau site."
Yes, I know. I have read Hiebert. I am familiar with the Anau site and all the others mentioned. I have read V I Sarianidi, too, and Lamberg-Karlovski, and V M Masson. The Bactrian-Margiana culture, specifically, and the oasis culture of southern Central Asia, more generally, have been of special interest to me for some years.
I understand the temptation to assume that anyone disagreeing with you does so out of ignorance but it can make you seem a bit condescending, in this case rather comically so.
"Also, I never said they spoke a single language in the Andronovo Culture."
Then I fail to see why you would cite Kuz'mina, since that is precisely what she claims and why other Kurganistas champion her work.
The most parsimonious, and I dare say most reasonable, scenario is that Indo-Iranian originated in Bactria or Sogdiana and expanded west, rather like Turkic and Mongolian are known to have done in subsequent ages. Witzel objects, of course, but his grasp of the ancient history of this region is so demonstrably weak that it is impossible to take his speculations seriously.
Dienekes, I apologize for back-to-back posts and trust you will indulge me.
ReplyDeleteAdygheChabadi:
"He does not mention anything about Mr. Sarianidi’s methods. In fact, only two sentence fragments (quotes actually). Those were in praise of Mr. Sarianidi’s work."
I stand corrected but, being familiar with Lamberg-Karlovski's writing, I know that he does indeed find Sarianidi's methodology suspect, as do I. The writer of that piece was either ignorant of this fact or concealing it.
"Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky is speaking of peripheral Elam and peripheral IVC…Mundigak (Southeast Afghanistan) is considered part of the IVC."
As so often seems to be the case, what a world of difference you conceal behind that passive voice! You are conflating cultures out of convenience, not necessity. Mundigak seems to have some relation to the Baluchistan tradition but is by no means "part of the IVC".
The Helmand civilization is its own thing and Mundigak is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Had you actually looked at McIntosh's book, instead of just swallowing whole whatever you happened to read at Wikipedia, you would know this.
"Shahr-e Sūkhté is part of the Jiroft Culture (southeast Iran – Sistan and Baluchistan) which is peripheral Elam and is widely considered part of Elamite civilization, though not quite universally accepted (as of yet)."
No, it is not accepted as part of the Elamite sphere and for good reason. The material culture of the Burnt City is strongly related to that of Mundigak and a third of the painted pottery from the lowest levels of Shahr-e Sokhta can in fact be classed with the ceramic assemblage of southern Turkmenistan. Again, had you bothered to read McIntosh, you would know that it too was part of the Helmand civilization.
"As for the IVC, I fail to see the logic behind denying what has been proven…a great source of links are at Wikipedia’s Mehrgarh article and Indus Valley Civilization article."
Ironically, following one of Wiki's references we discover Shaffer and Thapar's, "Pre-Indus and Early Indus Cultures of Pakistan and India". The authors find Mehrgarh to be part of what they call, "the Baluchistan Tradition", which they differentiate from, "the Indus Tradition", and bowing to their expertise I merely follow their lead.
What is interesting, and possibly telling, is that Shahr-e Sokhta and Mehrgarh were abandoned, and Mundigak dwindled away, all around the same time, roughly coincident with the appearance of the BMAC in southern Turkmenistan.
@Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''The most parsimonious, and I dare say most reasonable, scenario is that Indo-Iranian originated in Bactria or Sogdiana and expanded west''
Why do you think indo-iranian originated in Bactria or Sogdiana?.
''The authors find Mehrgarh to be part of what they call, "the Baluchistan Tradition", which they differentiate from, "the Indus Tradition", and bowing to their expertise I merely follow their lead.''
It is possible that SSC had a root of its own as latest researches also finds origins of SSC to be very old-
http://indiawires.com/13837/news/national/indus-valley-civilization-as-old-as-7380-bc-asi/
though my query is not complete yet.
good day.
Nirjhar007:
ReplyDelete"Why do you think indo-iranian originated in Bactria or Sogdiana?."
The area of greatest diversity for the Indo-Iranian family of languages extends from Bactria and Sogdiana south to northern India. Linguistically, it is difficult to imagine PIE originating in South Asia and positing that Indo-Iranian originated there would imply two linguistic movements, one into the subcontinent and then another out again. Since languages tend to spread from lowlands to the highlands, the most parsimonious solution is therefore an origin in Bactria or Sogdiana.
"It is possible that SSC had a root of its own as latest researches also finds origins of SSC to be very old--though my query is not complete yet."
I should not be at all surprised to find Neolithic or Pre-Pottery-Neolithic sites in what would become the heartland of the Indus Valley Civilization. Just how old those sites might be is difficult to say. The radiocarbon dating of Mehrgarh is deeply problematic and the 7000 BCE date reported for the earliest strata is only a guess.
As for Bhirrana, the subject of that article to which you linked, those dates have yet to be confirmed and a full report on the site has not been published. Looking around on-line, what they seem to be claiming is that the earliest dates range from 7380-6201 BCE. Assuming those are calibrated and from the earliest strata, that yields an average of 6790 BCE, which is old but not that old and may help justify an early date for Mehrgarh. More significant, perhaps, they seem to be claiming a continuity of material culture from that early date through the Hakra phase. If true, then Bhirrana may represent the origin of the Early Harappan culture.
In any case, we shall have to wait for the report in order to interpret those claims.
@ Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''The area of greatest diversity for the Indo-Iranian family of languages extends from Bactria and Sogdiana south to northern India. Linguistically, it is difficult to imagine PIE originating in South Asia and positing that Indo-Iranian originated there would imply two linguistic movements, one into the subcontinent and then another out again. Since languages tend to spread from lowlands to the highlands, the most parsimonious solution is therefore an origin in Bactria or Sogdiana.''
1. Diversity-
No that is not fruitful as for the evidences Indo-aryan is more archaic than other branches of the ''indo-iranian'' and it should have recorded memories of Bactria-Sogdianas flora and fauna if its seed was there and of course there is no record suggesting the supposed movement.
There are some linguistic points also which hints that it was the Pre-iranian aryans moved away from the ''common indo-iranian area'' as kazanas have shown here-
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/RAI_Aug_2012.pdf
I say the pre-Avestans were the people like the Nuristanis or Dardics whom had a vedic similar religion but their doctrine was not preserved or nourished like the latter and eventually was reformed by Zarathustra.
2.Tendency of Language spread-
Well the out of South Central Asia movement could have been caused by environmental catastrophe which was evident around the time of 2000b.c. with the probability population expansion also which is independent of the tendency?.
''they seem to be claiming a continuity of material culture from that early date through the Hakra phase. If true, then Bhirrana may represent the origin of the Early Harappan culture.
In any case, we shall have to wait for the report in order to interpret those claims.''
I agree.
good day.
I apologize in advance Dienekes…this will be a long one.
ReplyDelete@Va_Highlander
About Northern Bactria, Valerii P Nikonorov states, ”In other words, according to modern geographical definition, the former Bactrian territory consists of two areas, namely that lying in Northern Afghanistan, which may be conditionally denominated "Southern Bactria" and that to the north of the Amu Darya, or "Northern Bactria", which embodies southern regions of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well as a south-eastern extremity of Turkmenistan.” North Bactria, with its oases (most now dried up), is the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization geographic area proper. The BMAC/ Oxus Civilization was within the North Bactrian Oasis. Again, from Mr. Hemphill’s paper…”…the results provide no support for models that Oxus Civilization inhabitants of the North Bactrian Oasis…”. So once more you stand corrected.
As for the craniometry...Hemphill states, “Eleven craniometric variables from 12 Aeneolithic and Bronze Age samples, encompassing 657 adults from Central Asia, Iran, and the Indus Valley, are compared to test which if any of these hypotheses are supported by the pattern of phenetic affinities possessed by the Oxus civilization inhabitants of the north Bactrian oasis.” Central Asia encompasses Afghanistan too. He also says Iran without specification which could include samples from several areas including southern and eastern Iran. The IVC is representative of the southeast. So in fact, Mr. Hemphill’s samples very likely included the areas Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky said were possibly the heartland of the BMAC. Until you can prove otherwise, you cannot refute the validity of my suggestion.
About the roots and origins of the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization…I have yet to come a across any mention of a break in the material culture of the BMAC. In fact, in the article from Discover Magazine, it says, ”That's a few thousand years after these grains were domesticated in the Near East but much earlier than most researchers had thought likely, supporting Pumpelly's view that Central Asian culture developed much sooner than commonly believed. By 3000 B.C., the people of the Kopet-Dag had organized into walled towns. They used carts drawn by domesticated animals, and their pottery resembles the kind later found in Gonur.” Nothing about that statement says anything about a break in the material culture…it instead suggests there was a consistency. None of the articles I have in my database mention anything about a break across the material culture of the whole BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. That is why I have not mentioned it.
(Continued)
(part 2)
ReplyDeleteAbout condescension and the comicalness of it….Hahaha, that is such a case of the hippo calling the tea kettle fat, hahaha, aren’t you quaint. We are definitely amused. I completely had the same sentiment about you.
About Kuz’mina…I quoted Kuz’mina only as a reference to the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization having had contacts with Indo-Iranians from the north. If she (Kuz’mina) believes that all of the Andronovo/ Sintashta-Arkhaim Cultural Horizon was Indo-Iranian that is another topic for another day. So the failure was in your ability to distinguish between the reference to the topic at hand and her theory about the Indo-Iranians being the whole of Andronovo/ Sintashsta-Arkhaim.
As for Mundigak...many papers I have read and most books classify Mundigak as part of the IVC’s pre-Harappan phase or transitional phase. For instance a book called, The Origins of Globalization, by Karl Moore, David Charles Lewis published in 2009, states: The IVC is connected with Mundigak and the Helmand culture. Also Aurangzeb Khan* and Carsten Lemmen in their paper Bricks and Urbanism in the Indus Valley rise and Decline published in 2012 state, “The Indus Valley cultural tradition dates back to 7000 BC and the foothills and valleys of Baluchistan. At the site of Mehrgarh, early food production was dated to 6500 BC (Jarrige et al., 1995).” Also within that paper Mundigak is shown in a diagram as part of the early phase of the IVC. Again, you amuse me, your assumptions about my reading habits, again, one should not assume because we know what that does, don’t we? I read many sources and even suggest scholarly sources to the editors at Wikipedia (mostly about topics that interest me) as I am active there also.
(Part 3)
ReplyDeleteAs far as Elam and Shahr-i-Sokhta are concerned…Ms. McIntosh says, ”HELMAND CULTURE: The third-millennium culture on the Helmand and Argandab Rivers and the large Hamun-i Helmand lake in Seistan. The culture depended on irrigation agriculture and trade. Its main settlement was the city of Shahr-i Sokhta.” This is interesting as Shahr-i Sokhta is considered a major “Jiroft Culture” city along with its type site Konar Sandal as well Tepe Bampur, Espiedej, Shahdad, Tal-i-Iblis and Tepe Yahya. All of which have been associated with Proto-Elamites. According to Yousuf Majidzadeh, the archaeologist who excavated Konar Sandal, in an article from Iran’s PressTV.ir, "The inscription, discovered in a palace, was carved on a brick whose lower left corner has only remained,”…“The two remaining lines are enough to recognize the Elamite script,”…”The only ancient inscriptions known to experts before the Jiroft discovery were cuneiform and hieroglyph,”…”The new-found inscription is formed by geometric shapes and no linguist around the world has been able to decipher it yet.” The article further states, “Archeologists believe the discovered inscription is the most ancient script found so far and that the Elamite written language originated in Jiroft, where the writing system developed first and was then spread across the country.” Since Majidzadeh made his statements, something great has happened. Dr. Jacob Dahl is on verge of possibly solving the riddle of Proto-Elamite. The article from the BBC states, ”Dr. Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before. In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light. This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software. This way of capturing images, developed by academics in Oxford and Southampton, is being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran. And the Oxford team think that they could be on the brink of understanding this last great remaining cache of undeciphered texts from the ancient world.” Of course, proto-Elamite may have first developed in the east if Majidzadeh is correct. Proto-Elamites are also associated with Tepe Hissar in northeast Iran. At least their materials are found there. This all seems to agree with the Brill article about the Elamite Language if not the people themselves. Just so you know, I have read Ms. McIntosh’s work…as is said…to assume is to make an ASS of U and ME. While on the topic of Ms. McIntosh and your implicit love for her work, she also says, ”Mehrgarh. Around the same time, there was also a community practicing agriculture, as well as hunting and gathering, at Mehrgarh on the arid Kachi plain in Pakistan, a triangular extension of lowland alluvium west of the Indus plains. Excavations there uncovered a settlement going back to about 7000 BCE.” Interesting date he uses…I wonder where I have seen that before, hmmm. Also your favorite scholar, Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky (and Philip Kohl) had an article about TepeYahya in which he states Tepe Yahya is part of Proto-Elamite culture. ”…involve problems distinctive from those of southern Iran and appear to belong to different cultural zones largely unrelated to the Early Bronze Age proto-Elamite culture of southern Iran.” From the article, The Early Bronze Age of Iran as Seen from Tepe Yahya.
(part 4)
ReplyDeleteAs for Shaffer and Thapar…that link is to a book that is 21 years out of date. Much has been learned in the meantime since that book was published in 1992.
@Nirjhar007 and Va_Highlander
I will address the both of you on this one.
Va_Highlander, we don’t disagree, technically, about the Iranians and the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. What we disagree about is the direction from which they arrived at that point. I say from north of the Caspian…I think you believe they arrived from south of the Caucasus. I disagree with the ‘south of the Caucasus’ theory on genetic and linguistic grounds. The intensive contact between PIE and Uralic cannot be ignored. Neither can intensive contact between Proto-Indo-Iranian and Uralic be ignored. It is rather strange that Aryan would have Uralic loans if it was in India. The only way such loans could be shared across Indo-Iranian is if they encountered Uralic before the languages split (Iranian and Aryan) and also inherited some from PIE. Uralic speakers were not known south of the north shore of the Caspian, they were only known north of the Caspian as toponyms and hydronyms would attest. The substrate Lubotsky and Witzel discuss in their papers contain numerous Uralic words (see below).
I will change my position concerning my earlier statement about the language in the Indo-Iranian substratum being possibly related to Burushaski. Upon examination of the words I have found (based on what Burushaski language material I could get my hands on) maybe one or two words are possibly Burushaki. Many are rather possibly Dravidian in origin, some outright Dravidian (highly interesting). There are a number of possible Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian words. And, of course, many Uralic words. Even a couple of possible Elamite words such as Elamite: hiša “praise, glory” and the inherited Indo-Iranian substratum word: * i̯aćas > Skt. yáśas- n. `fame'; OAv. Yasō.xiiən (the x has an acute accent above it) `to attain fame', LAv. yasō.bərəta- `brought with dignity' (Lubotsky). There may be some other language families represented, but I have not done a thorough examination, so I cannot be sure. It seems that this language substratum of Indo-Iranian is not of one language and that the language of the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization may or may not be represented (Dravidian? or Elamite?). There is one word *sikatā-/ ćikatā- ‘sand, gravel’ which could be related to a number of lemmata across a swath of different language families in Asia.
(Last part) Again thank you for your tolerance Dienekes
ReplyDeleteI will re-iterate my theory of Indo-Iranians from the north. Again, the North European component, of Dienekes’ ‘Globe 13’ Admixture analysis, is immense in populations north of the Caspian, namely Balto-Slavic and western Uralic peoples. All across the Indo-Iranian derived populations in Dienekes’ ‘Globe 13’ analysis, you have moderate frequencies of this component which is to be expected for small groups of migrants mixing with the local populations. Again, even those populations that have historically been known to have contact with these populations bear traces of it, like the Burmanese and Cambodians. In fact, the Cambodians have a higher frequency than the Burmanese. Cambodia is known to have had historical ties to India for a long period. The North European component is the best representative for Indo-Iranians if they come from the north as I believe they do. The genes and linguistics evidence this strongly. Further linguistic evidence from the Aryan languages shows a substantial substrate beneath Hindi flora and fauna, Colin Masica’s “Language X”, not to mention the goodly Dravidian influence on the Aryan languages, plus Munda (Austroasiatic). This all very strongly points to Aryan being intrusive. Even gene studies have shown this. The first peoples were likely the Tribals related to the Andaman Islanders, then came the Munda and Munda related peoples, then the Dravidian, then the Aryans if not the Tibeto-Burman peoples before them. We also have to contend with the remnant languages evidenced across the Subcontinent, Kusunda (Nepal), Nihali (Central India), and the Vedda (not Vedic) substrate in Sri Lanka. There are other substrates in the other languages of the Subcontinent. There are even substrates (“Pre-Dravidian”) to be sussed out in Dravidian. Which shows it is also intrusive to the area where it now abides. There is a substrate similar to Nihali found in the area of Bhili, Ahirani, Dangi, and Katkari (where Gujarat, Madya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan border each other) which is seen in the vocabulary and grammar of those Aryan languages. Which could be related to the peoples who inhabited the region before the Dravidians entered. A Dravidian substrate is very much evidenced in Marathi and Gujarati.
Nirjhar007:
ReplyDelete"No that is not fruitful as for the evidences Indo-aryan is more archaic than other branches of the ''indo-iranian''..."
That is irrelevant. Indo-Aryan is found on the periphery of the area of greatest Indo-Iranian diversity. The Indo-Aryan languages have prominent features that are not found in any other Indo-European family. Therefore, from a linguistic standpoint, there is a very robust argument that Indo-Iranian originated elsewhere and expanded into the Indian subcontinent, and not out of it.
"...and it should have recorded memories of Bactria-Sogdianas flora and fauna if its seed was there..."
Not necessarily, no, and an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
"...and of course there is no record suggesting the supposed movement."
There is none needed. Language, human phenotype, and material culture, can be orthogonal and quite often are orthogonal. Continuity of population and even culture do not necessarily imply linguistic continuity.
As for textual evidence, if some sort of written history of the region existed in that era, it has not survived. Treating any religious text as written history is profoundly problematic in multiple ways. It certainly has no place in any sound scientific investigation and analysis.
"I say the pre-Avestans were the people like the Nuristanis or Dardics whom had a vedic similar religion but their doctrine was not preserved or nourished like the latter and eventually was reformed by Zarathustra."
The supreme deity of the BMAC was a water goddess and she was still worshiped in Bactria when the Achaemenids arrived. There is no reason to doubt that this cult was indigenous. It is extremely difficult to imagine such a religion being Vedic in any way.
In any case, the "Out of India" model has been thoroughly debunked by better minds than my own and I suspect it is pointless to rehearse those arguments here.
Broken link again...I will learn to do these flawlessly some day.
ReplyDeleteMundigak and IVC connected - The Origins of Globalization by Karl Moore, David Lewis
Also two interesting addendums...Indra (the god) may be Northwest Caucasian in origin. The word for "sea, wide expanse", Sanskrit: jrayas, Old Persian: drayah, Avestan: zraiiah may derive from Northeast Caucasian. This has implications for the origin of Indo-Iranian.
And the words Lubotsky tentatively associates with the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. He states, "It is tempting to suggest that the word *gadā- 'club, mace' refers to the characteristic mace-heads of stone and bronze abundantly found in the towns of the so-called “Bactria-Margian Archaeological Complex”. Also *u̯ āćī- 'axe, pointed knife' may be identified with shaft-hole axes and axe-adzes of this culture.
From Lubotsky: *u̯ āćī- 'axe, pointed knife'; Sanskrit: vā́sī- f. 'axe, adze, chisel'; Late Avestan: (Yasna 42.4) vāsī- `pointed knife(?)', Ossetian: wæs (better was?)6 'axe, wood chopper'
Footnotes: 6 As Johnny Cheung points out to me, this word is undocumented in Ossetic. Both Abaev and Miller & Frejman s.v.
wæs refer to Miller 1903: 10, but there this word is spelled as vas, i.e. was.
Proto-Dravidian : *vas-
Meaning: sharp
Proto-South Dravidian: *vas-i
Proto-Telugu: *vas-i
Proto-Gondi-Kui: *vac-
Derivative meanings: point, edge, pointed stake, to be pointed, sharpened; point, sharpen, that which is pointed > sharp > or keen, etc... (G. Starostin)
M. Witzel has *wāćī "axe, pointed knife" ("seems cognate with Circassian /wǝšΎǝ/ "small axe for splitting rails," J. Colarusso, pers. comm.) The y-like letter should be superscripted.
From Lubotsky, *gadā- 'club, mace', Sanskrit: (Sū+) gadā-; Late Avestan: gaδā-, MiP gad.
Proto-Telugu : *gaḍ-
Meaning : pole, staff, rod, stick, stalk, mast
Telugu : gaḍa
Number in DED : 1370 (G. Starostin)
Make of those what you will.
AdygheChabadi:
ReplyDeleteI am sure Nikonorov's broad definition is fine for his purposes but obviously unsuitable for the purposes of this discussion.
"So in fact, Mr. Hemphill’s samples very likely included the areas Mr. Lambert-Karlovsky said were possibly the heartland of the BMAC."
You have no material evidence supporting that claim and continue to steadfastly ignore the fact that Hemphill's study is irrelevant to the matter at hand. You obviously do not know enough about the BMAC and the history and geography of southern Central Asia to even understand what Lamberg-Karlovsky is suggesting.
"I have yet to come a across any mention of a break in the material culture of the BMAC."
Yes, you have. I quoted Lamberg-Karlovsky's peer-reviewed paper some days ago, the same expert that you mistakenly assumed would support your claim. But what is the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard, a man who has published multiple papers on the Bactrian Margiana complex, compared to Discover Magazine?
"This is interesting as Shahr-i Sokhta is considered a major “Jiroft Culture” city..."
Again with the passive voice! Who considers Shahr-e Sukteh to be a "Jiroft" city? You and Wikipedia, and the latter without citation. What peer-reviewed paper defines the "Jiroft Culture" in an archaeological context? There is no such paper and Muscarella does a fine job of dismantling Madjidzadeh's specious and self-serving claims. Why on earth would you quote MacIntosh when she clearly contradicts you in plain English?
And now I see you're appealing to the BBC. Jeezus Gawd...
With all due respect, it is a waste of my time to sort through these mountains of repetitious word salad. No scholar of any standing denies the existence of the Helmand Culture and there is no defensible argument that Helmand was merely a part of the IVC. What you read in Wikipedia is clearly a misunderstanding, misreading, or even deliberate misrepresentation, of what MacIntosh wrote and you fell for it. You only bear witness to your own ignorance when you stubbornly flail about like this.
The fact that Indo-Aryan is obviously intrusive is neither here nor there. Genetics may or may not tell us something about the origins of Indo-Iranian. The fact remains that there is no compelling reason whatsoever for a steppe people, their culture or their language, to expand into an arid region in a time of increasing aridity and there is no compelling evidence suggesting that they did.
Now, if your personality demands that you and Discover Magazine have the last word, then have at it. I shall not waste more time stopping you.
@Va_Highlander
ReplyDelete''That is irrelevant. Indo-Aryan is found on the periphery of the area of greatest Indo-Iranian diversity. The Indo-Aryan languages have prominent features that are not found in any other Indo-European family. Therefore, from a linguistic standpoint, there is a very robust argument that Indo-Iranian originated elsewhere and expanded into the Indian subcontinent, and not out of it.''
First have you read the Kazanas article?.
Well, location is not the issue, issue is the archaicness of a language from a language family which seems to be quite local concerning the evidences and about the ''prominent features'' in Indo-aryan if you are talking about 'Munda and Dravidian influences' unfortunately for munda we don't know its ancient form do we? and Dravidian well there is no proven influence trust me.
And as scholars like witzel says most 'non-IE influences' in Vedic are from Munda.
The problem however is that we know only modern Munda, and Munda languages have many Aryan loans, some so-called ''Dravidian loans'' also do have clear IE parallels for example- daṇḍa 'staff', is regarded as a Dravidian loan, but it can be easily compared with Greek 'dendron' 'tree', and the cerebralization with the disappeared 'r'. Anyway, of course there is no need to derive IE languages from Vedic Sanskrit, obviously the language spoken in regions of India where Mundas (lower Ganges) and Dravidians (Deccan) lived is not the language which was brought to Europe.
Though there seems to be presence of south asian tribal lexicon in western Europe and are of specifically non sanskritic type.
''Not necessarily, no, and an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.''
Lets just be honest there are been no evidences so far.
''There is none needed. Language, human phenotype, and material culture, can be orthogonal and quite often are orthogonal. Continuity of population and even culture do not necessarily imply linguistic continuity.''
add Discontinuity also;-).
''As for textual evidence, if some sort of written history of the region existed in that era, it has not survived. Treating any religious text as written history is profoundly problematic in multiple ways. It certainly has no place in any sound scientific investigation and analysis.''
Well Deciphering IVC script can be decisive and as Kazanas have shown in the Article i linked there are some factual linguistic data in the
religious texts like in Rikveda which do not need assumptions.
''The supreme deity of the BMAC was a water goddess and she was still worshiped in Bactria when the Achaemenids arrived. There is no reason to doubt that this cult was indigenous. It is extremely difficult to imagine such a religion being Vedic in any way.''
B.B. Lals article have debunked the real possibility to connect Indo-Iranian with BMAC atleast in cultural manner and i didn't talk about BMAC did i? Avesta clearly shows indo-aryan influence as you know.
''In any case, the "Out of India" model has been thoroughly debunked by better minds than my own and I suspect it is pointless to rehearse those arguments here.''
Here is a ''better mind''-
http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2013/02/indo-iranians-new-perspectives.html
You can talk and ask as much you wish if you want to.
Good day.
@Va-Highlander:
ReplyDeleteDone...I feel the same about you as you stated. No need for this to continue...wasted time. I have other things to do, I am busy.
Late to the party.
ReplyDeleteAll the weekend warriors pushing their Agendas.
IVC spread around 100s of miles. Just across the border within 50 miles is BMAC. Not sure what is the need to define a separate theory instead of including and expanding current theory. I am sure there will be a model in future that can put together genetics and linguistics covering Asia and Europe. For me all the linguistic and genetic Lucy models from South Asia or Armenia is Lunatic.
@Va-Highlander and AdygheChabadi-
ReplyDeleteFirst Va-Highlander, about the link on archaeology you gave me i have finished my query with the help of a scholar, here are the conclusions-
1.The book is very good but not very recent also.
2.The common date is 7000b.c.
3.If neolithic is proven earlier for IVC then it can be a different origin hinter,harappan civilization has very ancient roots in India.
AdygheChabadi-
As i said and showed SC Asia had deep connections with Near East and other areas so borrowing some words if fact then is not surprising at all! as they do not show any migrations but influence!
''Indra (the god) may be Northwest Caucasian in origin. The word for "sea, wide expanse", Sanskrit: jrayas, Old Persian: drayah, Avestan: zraiiah may derive from Northeast Caucasian. This has implications for the origin of Indo-Iranian.''
That is utter nonsense my friend i'm sorry, the most possible connection to the word indra is Indriya which means Senses in Sanskrit and texts like Upanishads associates the word Indra with Lightning and Rain not with the Sea anywhere.
I have given the explanation of ''Munda, Dravidian influence'' to Va-Highlander.
Now to both i have something to say-
It is by no mean ''neither here nor there'' but what is the most cleanest conclusion, a conclusion of similar value on the very related subject is been provided right here-
http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2013/02/indo-iranians-new-perspectives.html
The author comes from the highest possible authority at least in the case of field knowledge! so it will be a true ''waste of time'' if someone does not see and read what the author is providing with the rare opportunity to discuss with having ample freedom with the author himself.
Good day.
Nathan Paul:
ReplyDelete"IVC spread around 100s of miles. Just across the border within 50 miles is BMAC."
I'm sorry? 50 miles across what border and at what time?
"Not sure what is the need to define a separate theory instead of including and expanding current theory."
If there was a single current theory, one which was plausible, universally accepted, and fit all the data we have, while making as few assumptions beyond the data as possible, then there would be no need. Unfortunately, there is no such theory. What we have are multiple competing theories and narratives, each with its own merits, weaknesses, and deeply entrenched partisans, all at least to some extent mutually exclusive of one another.
Hello, Nirjhar007!
ReplyDeleteI think you are greatly confused, my new friend. “Indra” is unrelated to the words for “sea, wide expanse”. The two words may originate from two very different language sources. To add to what I said before about Indra (in my haste to be through with that response to Va_Highlander)…I forgot to mention the word may indeed be Elamite also which has implications for the origin of Indo-Iranian if it is true.
Here is a quote from M. Witzel about Indra, Nirjhar007, you make of it what you like.
“*indra “name of the “king" of the present generation of gods", Vedic: "Indra", Mitanni: Indara, Avestan: Indara, “a demon”, *g(h)andharw/b(h)a, Vedic: Gandharva "name of a semi-divine spirit of lust and procreation”, Avestan: gaṇdarǝβa “a demon, monster”. -- Blazek 2002: 232-3 compares Indra with the Old Elamite names Int(a)ri, Inda(p) from d/ta “to put, lie”. J. Colarusso (pers. comm.) thinks that “Indra/ lndara, Hittite: Inara (Inra, Inar), all point to this name having been an epithet. Note Circassian: /yǝna-ø-ra/ ”big-be-gerund”, Abkhaz: /a-yn-ar/ “the-big-(be-) gerund” (the name of the god of the forge), all meaning “the big, great one”.
Also this must be the break Va_Highlander (jerk) was speaking of…”Later, apparently after the abandonment of the BMAC and successor settlements around 1650/1500 BCE and the spread of pastoralism all over Iran (Anthony, in Lamberg-Karlovsky 2002: 76).” ~Michael Witzel - Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia
Another source says this abandonment happened in 1700 BCE. They say this break lasted 500 years. So I was correct…there was no break in the build up to the high phase of the BMAC/ Oxus Civilization. The break happened when all the settlements and urban centers had been abandoned. But whatever…that break had nothing to do with the evolution of earlier cultures into what is now known as the Oxus Civilization/ BMAC just as I thought and said. (Crossroads and Cultures, Volume I: To 1450: A History of the World's Peoples by Bonnie G. Smith, Marc Van De Mieroop, Richard von Glahn, Kris Lane [2012])
Also Nirjhar007, you should take this into account also…”The question of the location and spread of early Iranian is not discussed here. It is likely (see above) that this form of lIr. developed further north in the steppes and spread both westwards (Scythians) and eastwards (Saka) as well as southwards (E. Iranian), and still later, also south-westwards (W. Iranian: Median, Persian). This took place only after an early southward move of the (pre-)OIAs from the northern steppes, as suggested by Burrow in 1973; d. Lubotsky 2001: 308 sq. and Chlenova (1984) who "shows a correspondence between Iranian place names and the distribution of the Timber Grave, Andronovo, and related cultural groups. Place names of Indo-Aryan character are scattered or absent in that area.” (Makkay in Lamberg-Karlovsky 2002: 79). ~M. Witzel - Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia
That quote contains some of what I said to Kurti.
Onur,
ReplyDeleteI did not say anything about the ethnic identity/language of Maikop. Also, I did not say anything about the Anatolian branch of the IE language family other than merely stating that it is quite distinct from the Indo-Iranian branch and probably more western in origin and much more ancient in West Asia than the latter.
Again, I agree. I characterized Maikop as a (rather late) hole in the simplistic, but nevertheless attractive and generally easily apparent radial expansion model of IE from the wider Pontic region - due to the fact that Maikop is rather late in this context and does not have a clear, early Eastern IE branch associated with it. It is therefor difficult to associate an (or an important, recognized ) IE language with it.
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDelete''I think you are greatly confused, my new friend''
First thanks for the friendship;-).
secondly,Thanks again for clearing me but i do not say Indra has non-IE origins as word but surely those comparisons you kindly cited some of them may be just similar in sounding or can be a token of an early influence of the Arya culture in west Asia and Near East as SC Asia had ancient relations with those areas.
''Also Nirjhar007, you should take this into account also…''
No, i'm not buying that as i have linked a more practical explanation from a practical academic scholar is available,just go in his blog....
Good Day.