Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia
Mark A. Sicoli, Gary Holton
Recent arguments connecting Na-Dene languages of North America with Yeniseian languages of Siberia have been used to assert proof for the origin of Native Americans in central or western Asia. We apply phylogenetic methods to test support for this hypothesis against an alternative hypothesis that Yeniseian represents a back-migration to Asia from a Beringian ancestral population. We coded a linguistic dataset of typological features and used neighbor-joining network algorithms and Bayesian model comparison based on Bayes factors to test the fit between the data and the linguistic phylogenies modeling two dispersal hypotheses. Our results support that a Dene-Yeniseian connection more likely represents radiation out of Beringia with back-migration into central Asia than a migration from central or western Asia to North America.
Link
This is interesting...
ReplyDeleteBut of course it is all typological.
Typologically, Uralic and Dravidian have similarities, but by no means are they related. Typological similarities occur in many unrelated languages mostly due to contact.
There is typological similarity among several languages known as "Altaic", but there is no such thing as "Altaic". "Altaic" is actually a group of languages that had strong contact with each other, but are not actually related, not closely anyway.
But I am starting to be convinced about Dene-Yeniseian. I tend to be neutral to conservative on these types of things.
Yes, I blogged about it at http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/08/dene-yeniseian-language-family-evidence-for-a-back-migration-to-the-old-world/
ReplyDeleteThe great mammoth chase?
ReplyDeleteThere likely would have been a time, say either just before or just after the Younger Dryas, when Beringia was long gone, during which the population density along the Alaskan and W Canadian coast was rather high due to favorable climatic conditions. Conversely, it would have taken NE Asians a while to re-populate the extreme NE.
ReplyDeleteSo, I call this plausible.
Does this impact Greenberg and Ruhlen's theory that Na-Dene is evidence of the second migration to the new world, after Amerind and before Eskimo-Aleut?
ReplyDeleteHow does this fit in with genetic studies?
Any explanations would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!
I miss timescale for this event. If the Beringia was split 10k years BP. Its probably also the time of the Yeniseian separation from Na-Dene. Before that they live in Beringia. But Amerind peaople lived in Beringia around 15k years BP. The Dene-Yeniseian must have come later there. So what if the separation of the Yeniseian from Na-Dene is not connected with the split of the Beringia but with the spread from Siberia to Bernigia? Timescale of the languages separation would help to solve it.
ReplyDeleteAn ongoing discussion detailing implications of back migration from the Americas during the Holocene can be found in February’s blog http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/02/ancient-clovis-genome-from-montana.html ”
ReplyDelete"Does this impact Greenberg and Ruhlen's theory that Na-Dene is evidence of the second migration to the new world, after Amerind and before Eskimo-Aleut?"
ReplyDeleteThere is argument over whether 'Amerind' is a single language family but, regardless of that, it is obvious that Na-Dene is part of a later language expansion in America. It is basically confined to the northwest of North America. With regard to Eskimo-Aleut:
"it would have taken NE Asians a while to re-populate the extreme NE".
Eskimo-Aleut is definitely not a Na-Dene language and yet it, along with other non-Ket languages such as Tungusic and Yukagir, dominate NE Asia today. Ket is suspected to be a remnant of a previoulsy much more wideaspread language family. Therefore it seems very likely that such languages have replaced Ket-related languages through the Eurasian far northeastern region.
"But I am starting to be convinced about Dene-Yeniseian".
I've been reasonably convinced for some time. Some linguists see a connection between Dene-Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan. Such a connection makes sense to me. German would claim it shows Sino-Tibetan has an American origin. I believe it is much more likely to show Dene-Yeniseian has a Eurasian origin. Ket's relationship with 'coastal' North American languages suggests the same.
@ aniasi - "Does this impact Greenberg and Ruhlen's theory that Na-Dene is evidence of the second migration to the new world, after Amerind and before Eskimo-Aleut?"
ReplyDeleteGreenberg may have erred in assuming that migrations of people implied migration of languages. It could be the a group bearing YHG C migrated across the Bering Straits but was thoroughly assimilated ("Dene-ized") in the course their travels across NE Siberia and NW North America. The time scale is also problematic: Greenberg assumed that the "Second Wave" migrations occurred 8,000 BCE. Starostin in turn estimated that the hypothetical Dene-Caucasian family broke up about 8,700 BCE, with Sino-Yeniseian diverging around 5,100BCE. It now appears that Starostin's analysis could not have been correct.
The authors of this paper note: "Within Coast there are clear groupings for North and South Pacific Coast Athabascan (PCA), Tlingit and Eyak, with Tlingit’s long branch length relative to Eyak’s shorter branch length supporting Eyak’s closer affiliation with Athabascan languages. The Yeniseian languages Ket and Kott group tightly with each other within the region of the network characterizing the Coast distribution and show a long branch length indicating a high degree of difference from the others."
This could help nail down the affinity of Basque with the Dene-Yeniseian languages.
English 'you'
Basque hi, zu
Ket ū, u, uˑ, uːge
Tlingit wa.é
Dena'ina ni (pronom. morph.; poss. and v. prefix of d. obj.)
Eyak ʔiː
English 'he'
Basque hura, bera
Ket bū
Tlingit hú
Dena'ina be- (pronom. morph.; poss. and v. prefix of d. obj.)
Eyak ʔu
English 'you' (plural)
Basque zuek
Ket ə̄k
Tlingit yeewháan
Dena'ina h-
Eyak NA
English 'they'
Basque haiek
Ket būŋ
Tlingit hás
Dena'ina yina, qu-
Eyak ʔǝ-yǝq, ʔu-yǝq
It is not just that the words sound alike in many cases - Basque plural pronouns ending (-ek is closest to Ket and Eyak ə̄k and Eyak -yǝq. In other words, the morphology of the Basque pronouns is similar to two of the westernmost Dene-Yeniseian languages, which also argues they are true cognates, and not just an accidental alignment of single-morpheme words.
Recently I read an interesting essay on the relationship of Ket to other Siberian languages by Stefan George, describing how Ket has influenced and has been influenced by other languages. Interestingly, George notes that many of their Sel'kup neighbors also speak Ket as a second language. While the Ket are almost YHG Q-M242, the Sel'kup have significant amounts of YHG R1a, R1b, and R*, which opens up the possibility that their were Yeniseian-speaking populations carrying these haplogroups roaming Eurasia, which may have some bearing on the population of Europe.
http://books.google.com/books?id=wTdyv6cF3RgC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=Georg+ket+siberian&source=bl&ots=qjNZez2oA2&sig=NMQ97wzyIaYUEq2pUNQKF5wfiDA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Ux4pU_3cKpfjoATzwoKoCg&ved=0CGQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Georg%20ket%20siberian&f=false
@aniasi
ReplyDeleteIt does not appear to impact it.
Beringia may have been the starting point for the Amerind settlement of the Americas.
The only thing I can surmise is that as far as genetics is concerned, there seems to have been a large pool of Y-DNA Hap Q in Beringia. At some point 10kya to 15kya a mutation arose within that pool which we call "Q3". It seems most of the carriers of that mutation went West as an infinitesimally little of it is detected in Asia. The Na-Dene speakers seem to have come after, at least, as far as linguistics is concerned. The Na-Dene speakers carry as much "Q3" as many Amerind poupulations. That seems to indicated a relatively small waves or bands of such speakers (if they were originally Q[x3]) or it indicates that Na-Dene speakers were already "Q3"-intensive when they arrived in North America.
It is also interesting to note that Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BCE) would have had to be spoken for literal thousands of years (~3ky - ~4ky) before undergoing dialectical diversification/ "breaking up" ~2kya. This would indicate that the population was a single one and too small before that time to induce dialectical diversification. There may have been other forms of Yeniseian but know one knows.
There are no Yeniseian toponyms or hydronyms in the area east of Lake Baikal. It is erroneously believed that Yeniseian hydronyms (sis ~ ses ~ sas, set ~ sat, det ~ dat, etc) are widespread going west toward the Ural Mountains, but this, in fact, a Uralic lexical item that was adopted into Yeniseian at the proto-level, therefore, not genuinely Yeniseian at all.
There seem to be a multiplicity of Uralic adoptions in Yeniseian which of course indicates that Uralic is older in Siberia than Yeniseian and that Yeniseian is intrusive.
I should mention that there are other no less significant areal linguistic influences upon Yeniseian, however, Yeniseian largely remains unlike all other Siberian languages.
3-19-2014 @Eastern View said in February 2014 Anzick I Blog; http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/02/ancient-clovis-genome-from-montana.html
ReplyDelete“Proto-Native American admixture is the most parsimonious model because it explains the data with no hypothetical populations of Ancestral North Eurasians or Basal Eurasians. It's a major blunder not to consider proto-Native American admixture as a viable alternative in their study. In any other scientific discipline this is a highly faulty report.
Apparently there only assumption was that there were East Asians in Siberia 24K ago and for Mal'ta to be admixed, it has fit the data of being admixed with East Asians when it should be paleo-Siberian/proto-Native Americans. It's highly presumptuous blindsided modelling that totally ignored the most parsimonious alternative right in the PCA plots before their eyes.
German maybe eccentric on most points but this point he had been clamoring on about is totally on the money.”
Thank you Eastern View!
Although your quote is from the Anzick I Clovis Paper it fits in well right here. Why are researchers afraid to look the other way, out of the Americas? May I offer up the least elusive answer, careers, not just theirs, but the careers of the career maker’s holding court over the status quo, that’s why. Who wants’ to rock the boat too much, even if Clovis First is now just Dogma, as Center for the First Americans lead archaeologists Michael Waters asserts? In past and recent conversations with geneticists they all seem to be unfamiliar with earlier works that pointed the way out of the Americas, at least, post Holocene. You won’t find the unpublished results of the Jesup Expedition led by Franz Boas in most recent journal publications dealing with Beringian or Siberian Populations. Nor will you likely find recent work drawn from Steven Ousley’s published research (Human Biology 1995) of the unopened achieves held in the Smithsonian containing the Expeditions extensive data sets. These and other published data sets, (see James Dixon 1993, German Dziebel 2007, and others, including Emoke Szathmary 1993, AJPA Editor during most of the first decade of the new millennium), are rarely, if ever, referenced by genetics’ working on Native American population scenarios. Dare to look, I have and these valuable scientific papers are still missing (unreferenced; see Tamm et al. 2007; Hoffecker et al. 2014; Derenko et al. 2010; Achilli et al. 2008 and 2013 and in an open conversation at the Odyssey Conference held in Santa Fe October 2013). Somehow, the earlier conclusive evidence that is finding the “light of day today,” might help substantiate and fill in gaps concerning a greater Amerindian contribution to the genetic makeup of present a day northern hemispherical populations. Simply, since Amerindians were in the Western Hemisphere before Clovis it makes only common sense that they would have rediscovered the backdoor to the Americas after achieving a fully Paleolithic Clovis Culture that for all means and purposes originated well south and east of the Wisconson Ice Sheets (James Dixon 1999; Stanford and Bradley 2004; Rasmussen M et al. 2014; and others). What are the alternate repercussions of a pre-Clovis habitation of the Americas?
@aniasi asks:
How does this fit in with genetic studies?"
As for the three migration hypothesis, the details are beginning to jell as we examine the evidence of the Eskimo Wedge Theory” where the Na-Dene migrated into Siberia from the Americas with later populations descending from them (and other Amerindians to the south), becoming Eskimo/Aleut Sea Mammal Hunting Cultures. One can not have several migration from Asia with only “Rare Asian mtDNAs” carried each time. The source has to be the Americas. A review of a recent Blog from February 2014 offer’s greater insights; http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/02/ancient-clovis-genome-from-montana.html
There's some interesting material on-line regarding the Ket language as well as the larger question of the Dene-Caucasian family.
ReplyDeletestarling.rinet.ru/confer/16_Vajda.pptx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETm2e4M7T4c
In his presentation, Vajda states the Na Dene speakers picked up YHG C from an existing population in north-eastern Siberia on the way to Alaska. I wonder if he is going to change his mind in light of this paper that implies that Na Dene languages may have originated in North American and crossed back over into Siberia.
An "out-of-America" scenario also might pose some real problems for the Nostratic language theory, which would have to explain how Dene Caucasian managed to get all the way from the Americas to Europe.
There have been(at least) three waves of archaeological well documented circumpolar migration to North America, after the initial population of the Americas: the Saqqaq (Arctic Paleo-Eskimos) which was present by 2000 BCE, then the Dorset (second wave Arctic Paleo-Eskimos), and finally the proto-Inuits ca. 1000 CE.
ReplyDeleteThere is also good evidence that the Na-Dene were confined to the far NW of North America (Alaska, Western Canada, the Pacific NW of the U.S.) until around 1000 CE when the Na-Dene of migrated to the American SW. So, the Na-Dene were in place before then, and the Na-Dene were on the fringe of the circumpolar region. Linguistic evidence favors a most genetically distinct (in mtDNA) of extant indigeneous populaton of the Americas other than the Inuits, suggesting an origin or partial origin from a separate circumpolar migration from Asia (for example, certain lineages of mtDNA haplogroups A and D are found in the Na-Dene but not in other American Amerindians). But, they aren't very genetically similar to the Yenesians.
Bellwood, "First Migrants" (2014) notes that autosomal SNP evidence also supports Na-Dene genetic distinctiveness from first wave Native Americans, and also argues that the Na-Dene had reached the Yukon by about 2000 BCE.
Ancient DNA reported by Rasmussen (2010) establishes that the Saqqaq were more closely related to Siberian reindeer hunting, linguistically Uralic people than to any modern indigenous population of North America, but a later study by Reich in 2012 argued that the non-first wave Native American component of the Saqqaq individual (who was about 15% first wave Native American) is similar to the non-first wave Native American component of the Na-Dene.
Another possibility is that the Na-Dene an admixed ancestors of the Dorset Paleo-Eskimos (see, e.g. arguing from skeletal Dorset remains).
A third possibility is that they represent an additional wave of migration in addition to the first wave Native Americans, two Paleo-Eskimo waves, and the Inuits.
Y-DNA confirms separate Inuit, Na-Dene and first wave Native American migration contributions, but is fairly vague on timing (tending towards earlier rather than later dates). Reich, "Reconstructing Native American population history" (2012) estimates the admixture in the Na-Dene at 10% new migration wave, 90% first wave indigenous American (and suggests that the 10% may be from the Saqqaq), while Inuits are 50% Thule and 50% first wave indigenous American.
Acilli (2013) argues from mtDNA for Na-Dene emergence ca. 2000BCE-5000BCE, preceded by an intermediate wave been a Native American founding population and them that is largely limited to North America beyond the Na-Dene that spread mtDNA X2a and C4c.
Archaeology suggests Dorset Paleo-Eskimos appeared in the Seward Peninsula in Alaska ca. 3000 BCE according to Bellwood).
From the introduction to the paper:
ReplyDelete"The aboriginal populations of America and Asia are linked through prehistoric migrations via the Bering Land Bridge. Our understanding of these migrations has been derived primarily from archaeological and biological data rather than from linguistics as most migrations preceded the generally accepted 8–10,000-year limit of the traditional comparative method of historical linguistics [1], [2]. DNA evidence supports at least three migrations with the earliest 15–40,000 BP referred to generically as the Paleoindian and associated with the greatest distribution of language and cultural groups across North, Meso, and South America; the second 12–14,000 BP is the Na-Dene distributed in North America from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest and from Canada to the U.S. Southwest; and the third ca. 9000 BP is Eskimo-Aleut with circumpolar distribution [3], [4]. "
The notion that Eskimo-Aleut dates to 9000 BP in North America is not supported by the archaeology or by most mainstream scholarship. Conventional dates are more like 1000-2000 BP.
The 15000-40000 BP range for first wave Native Americans is likewise far outside the mainstream. The scholarly consensus is heavily towards to 15000 BP end of that range and quite compact in terms of time range.
The sequence of the Na-Dene migration and order of the places to which they expanded is right as far as it goes (after the first wave of Native Americans and before the Inuits), but again, 12,000-14,000 BP is considerably older than the scholarly and archaeological consensus.
An "Yenesian Out of Beringia" description in the paper is also misleading. Berginia was almost certainly predominantly submerged by the time that a Yenesian population would have migrated from Na-Dene speaking parts of Alaska to Siberia, if indeed the migration happened in that direction.
I am not impressed with the quality of the peer review in this paper.
"Why are researchers afraid to look the other way, out of the Americas? May I offer up the least elusive answer, careers, not just theirs, but the careers of the career maker’s holding court over the status quo, that’s why".
ReplyDeleteRubbish. If any scientists was able to produce real evidence in favour of your pet belief it would be immediately accepted by everyone (or almost everyone I'm sure).
"But Amerind peaople lived in Beringia around 15k years BP. The Dene-Yeniseian must have come later there. So what if the separation of the Yeniseian from Na-Dene is not connected with the split of the Beringia but with the spread from Siberia to Bernigia?"
That is a problem with the paper. Ket is well and truly isolated from the American branches although presumably it was at one time geographically connected throuth intermediate forms. As a result it is impossible to narrow down the point of origin to exactly 'Beringia'.
"Greenberg may have erred in assuming that migrations of people implied migration of languages".
Or vice versa. Languages often spread beyong any genetic spread.
"I wonder if he is going to change his mind in light of this paper that implies that Na Dene languages may have originated in North American and crossed back over into Siberia".
Don't forget that the postulated language family breaks into four branches (fig. 4b if I remember correctly): the Yeniseian, the southern Pacific coastal population, the Tlingit/Eyak and a single line encompassing everyone else. The language's original spread in America is coastal. Its spread inland was a separate movement.
"The Na-Dene speakers carry as much 'Q3' as many Amerind poupulations".
I understand that Y-DNA C2b's ( latest classification) distribution closely coincides with that of the Na-Dene languages.
"Vajda states the Na Dene speakers picked up YHG C from an existing population in north-eastern Siberia on the way to Alaska".
That eleiminates an American origin for the languages.
"Recently I read an interesting essay on the relationship of Ket to other Siberian languages by Stefan George, describing how Ket has influenced and has been influenced by other languages".
I think it's a reasonable guess that many of those Siberian languages spread across a Dene-Yeniseian substrate.
"It is also interesting to note that Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BCE) would have had to be spoken for literal thousands of years (~3ky - ~4ky) before undergoing dialectical diversification/ 'breaking up' ~2kya. This would indicate that the population was a single one and too small before that time to induce dialectical diversification".
That is unlikely to be the case. Yeniseian is almost certaily the remnant of a much more widely spoken series of languages. Just th espeifically 'Ket' branch survived today.
As I have mentioned numerous times, for me it makes most sense that the original into-Americas population was a mixture of people. Inland large-game hunters (mostly ~35-30 kya NW Subcontinent Q men that mixed with a few earlier 50-40 kya Aurignacian people and, while with great skills and success pushing into Beringia, acquired coastal NE Asian women, because for millennia they were at a successful frontier that could easily acquire local women due to success.
ReplyDeleteSo, you have this population whose genetics and language(s) widen at entry into America, but retain a good fraction of NW subcontinent y-DNA. At the same time, coastal Beringians are left behind while the land mass vanishes, and are now dominated by the extreme NE Asian coastal expansion, which is anther language group altogether (--> Na Dene) and at a much higher percentage and at a much later developmental stage of Mongolic features.
A third wave of fully Mongolic-derived coastal people then enter into NA at very recent times during a couple of climatic difficulties.
@TerryT
ReplyDelete"If any scientists was able to produce real evidence in favour of your pet belief it would be immediately accepted by everyone (or almost everyone I'm sure). "
It always takes time for real evidence to pile up. Out-of-America is right on schedule. Only a lie such as Out-of-Africa comes fully loaded with all the "evidence" at once.
Corrections: " It seems most of the carriers of that mutation went West as an infinitesimally little of it is detected in Asia."
ReplyDeleteShould be "...most of the carriers of that mutation went East..."
"The Na-Dene speakers carry as much "Q3" as many Amerind poupulations."
Should be: "...populations."
terryt said:
"That is unlikely to be the case. Yeniseian is almost certaily the remnant of a much more widely spoken series of languages. Just th espeifically 'Ket' branch survived today."
I sort of doubted that myself, but I am just following the dates and known linguistic evidence. There is just no evidence of any Yeniseian toponyms or hydronyms east of Lake Baikal so this poses a problem. The Yeniseians could not have been a large group at that time depth. The one word in the stable vocabulary of Yeniseian that might actual be genuinely Yeniseian is reconstructed as *kʰul "water" (E. Vajda), *qoʔl (~ẋ-, -r) "water" (Starostin)
This hydronym and it's variants are only found in a specific area just west of Lake Baikal. I agree with other authors, there needs to be more investigations into substratal influences in the region.
"I think it's a reasonable guess that many of those Siberian languages spread across a Dene-Yeniseian substrate."
I doubt this, terryt. one Yeniseian group, the Yugh, called themselves by a securely Eskimo-Aleut word. According to Mr. Vajda, "The term Yugh is the Eskimo word for "human being," which suggests that the Yughs are Keticized Siberian aborigines originally related to the Eskimo. There is additional evidence for this connection in a number of other Ket words, which seem borrowed from a language related to Eskimo.
"I understand that Y-DNA C2b's (latest classification) distribution closely coincides with that of the Na-Dene languages."
I think you speak of C-P39? Yes, it does strongly. It is suprising that there are no known "Altaic" wanderwort's in Na-Dene. There are known Eskimo-Aleut words in Na-Dene however. This is because of them being in close proximity in Alaska. I think there are perhaps some Uralic words there also, not sure if I trust the work of that author though.
Sorry, Dienekes, for the back to back posts. I forgot to add this to my comments earlier.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting discussion here about this paper:
http://languagehat.com/beringian-in-the-news/
This is what Franz Boas had to say about the relationship outlined in this Paper...Sicoli, and Holton 2014;
ReplyDeleteBoas, F. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Americanists. (1905) Easton, PA: pp. 91-100.
“Extended migrations must have taken place also in northern British Columbia and in the adjoining parts of Alaska. Here we find the Haida on Queen Charlotte Islands, the Tlingit in southern Alaska, and the Tsimshian on the coast of northern British Columbia ( p. 97)."
"It seems, therefore, that the expedition has established, on the other hand, a break between the East Siberian tribes and the Eskimo: and, on the other hand, a relationship between the East Siberian tribes and the coast Indians. The investigations of Messrs. Jochelson and Bogoras have also resulted in clearing up the relationship of the Northeast Siberian tribes to the adjoining Asiatics, particularly to the Tungus and Yakut. There is a fundamental break between the types of culture of these Asiatic tribes and of the East Siberian tribes; and comparisons of type, language and culture make it at once evident that the Northeast Siberian people are much more closely akin to the Americans than to other Asiatics.
The data collected by the expedition thus establish the fact that the Chukchee, Koryak, Kamchadal and Yukaghir must be classed with the American race rather than with the Asiatic race (p. 99)."
"Future researchers may somewhat modify our views as to the lines of migrations here discussed, particularly, it seems possible that a more thorough investigation of the Alaskan Eskimo may correct our present conclusions as to the role that this tribe played in communicating Asiatic culture to America, and American culture to Asia, but it may be expected that the question which the expedition tried to solve will be modified by these researchers only in detail. The main fact of the existence of a close relation between the aborigines of Siberia and of America seems to be well established ( p. 100)."
Alvah’s comment: Few researchers cite this work and/or the conclusions made of a back-migration following the end of the last Glacial. Boas’s “Eskimo Wedge theory” encompasses two separate migrations; the Eastern Siberian Populations then the ancestors of the Eskimo including . Both of these groups were identified by Boas as coming from North America. Thus, according to Boas, populations often identified as the ancestors of Native Americans, could actually be refluxes of aboriginal Amerindians into the Old World. Since this paper is rarely cited I thought the Berigian standstill et al. conclusions should at least qualify its existence!
"It always takes time for real evidence to pile up. Out-of-America is right on schedule".
ReplyDeleteNeither you nor Alvah have yet provided a single piece of evidence for your belief, let along anything piling up. If you have any 'evidence' please let us see it.
"I think you speak of C-P39? Yes, it does strongly"
Yes, I was and I'm glad you agree.
"The term Yugh is the Eskimo word for 'human being,' which suggests that the Yughs are Keticized Siberian aborigines originally related to the Eskimo".
Interesting. And if the Kets too are 'Keticized Siberian aborigines' that would explain the lack of haplogroup commonality between them and Na-Dene.
"This is what Franz Boas had to say about the relationship outlined in this Paper"
And nothing in the quote even hints at a movement out of America except for some indication in the far northeast of Siberia. He even adds:
"Future researchers may somewhat modify our views as to the lines of migrations here discussed, particularly, it seems possible that a more thorough investigation of the Alaskan Eskimo may correct our present conclusions as to the role that this tribe played in communicating Asiatic culture to America, and American culture to Asia"
Future research has modified his views. Besides which he is hinting that he actually beieves the connection is cultural rather than genetic anyway.
"The main fact of the existence of a close relation between the aborigines of Siberia and of America seems to be well established"
I doubt anyone disagrees with that comment.
AdygheChabadi wrote:
ReplyDelete"terryt said:
"That is unlikely to be the case. Yeniseian is almost certaily the remnant of a much more widely spoken series of languages. Just th espeifically 'Ket' branch survived today."
I sort of doubted that myself, but I am just following the dates and known linguistic evidence. There is just no evidence of any Yeniseian toponyms or hydronyms east of Lake Baikal so this poses a problem. The Yeniseians could not have been a large group at that time depth. The one word in the stable vocabulary of Yeniseian that might actual be genuinely Yeniseian is reconstructed as *kʰul "water" (E. Vajda), *qoʔl (~ẋ-, -r) "water" (Starostin)
This hydronym and it's variants are only found in a specific area just west of Lake Baikal. I agree with other authors, there needs to be more investigations into substratal influences in the region."
Stefan George also believes that Yeniseian languages were much more widely spoken in Eurasia, and cites his personal opinion that the Xiongnu, who many historians identify with the Huns, spoke a Yeniseian language.
Hydronyms in the Balkans may also be related to Yeniseian. Words such as *alda (noun), *alta- (adj.) which have been reconstructed for Dacian, and have been related to a supposedly PIE words *olda, *olta ("water", "odorous") may in fact possibly be related to Ket ul and Kott ur instead.
Why the wide range? Some scholars have suggested that the first culture to domesticate the horse (the Botai culture) may have been Yeniseian speakers, and have even suggested that the Proto Indo-European word for 'horse' (*ek^wos) may have been derived from Yeniseian *ku?s. (Vajda, however, thinks that the Ket borrowed the word for 'horse' and not vice-versa.)
One important thing to note: The words for 'this' in Ket consists of several variations on ki-. According to Fortson's reconstruction of Proto Indo-European, ki- is also 'this'. The Ket word for 'that' tu- (+endings) also resmbles PIE to-. It might be easy to chalk this up to the IE pronoun being borrowed by Ket, except that it also shows up in Iroquoian languages of North America as well, with some interesting results:
'this':
ki-... (Ket)
ki- (PIE)
ὁ (ho), ἡ (hē), τό (to) (Ancient Greek)
hau (Basque)
kí:ken/ken' í:ken (Mohawk)
hina (Cherokee) (Note: Cherokee underwent the same 'ki' - 'hi' shift as Germanic - compare to hier.)
'that'
tu- (Ket)
*sa (M), *tód (N) (PIE)
hori, hura (Basque)
ekeinos (Ancient Greek)
thí:ken/tho í:ken (Mohawk)
na (Cherokee)
'here'
kiseŋ (Ket)
N/A (PIE)
edó
hemen, hon- (Basque) (k- to h- shift?)
kèn:'en(here)/kèn:tho (Mohawk)(right here)
ahani (Cherokee)
'there'
qaseŋ (Ket)
*tar- (PIE)
hor, han (Basque)
ekei (Ancient Greek)
tho/eh (Mohawk)
nahnai (Cherokee)
I threw Basque in to make a point: while Basque has been linked to the theoretical Dene-Caucasian language family and its personal pronouns look obviously Dene, some of its lexicon resembles Iroquoian words, making it likely a mixed language, which could account for the frustration linguists have in trying to positively link it to other languages. I've only recently begun a comparison of Basque and Iroquoian, but I have already found some possible cognates, including 'mouth' (aho in Basque and aholi in Cherokee), 'where' (non in Basque and ka' nón:we in Mohawk).
@TerryT
ReplyDelete"Neither you nor Alvah have yet provided a single piece of evidence for your belief, let along anything piling up. If you have any 'evidence' please let us see it."
Other creationists, too, believe that Darwin hasn't presented any evidence for evolution. Terry, why don't you come out of the closet and just openly acknowledge that you reject science in favor of the Bible.
"Other creationists, too, believe that Darwin hasn't presented any evidence for evolution".
ReplyDeleteBut unlike your case Darwin, and many others since, have provided ample evidence in favour of evolution. You have not provided a single realistic piece of evidence to support your belief. This leaves the rest of us with the impression it is you who rejects evolution and accept the literal truth of the Bible.
"Terry, why don't you come out of the closet and just openly acknowledge that you reject science in favor of the Bible".
I fully accept the scientific method and the conclusions it provides regarding our evolution from an Old World ape. In fact, again unlike you, my training was in science. Regarding your training I quote (I presume this is you):
"I’m a fully integrated strategic planner, business anthropologist and thought leader with 15+ years of experience in emerging markets and mature markets, think tanks, digital marketing shops, full-service advertising agencies and product design groups"
Marketing. That appears to be what you are doing here. Advertising your book. Nothing to do with 'science'.
Alvah believes humans descend from a New World monkey. Do you agree with him on that? If not it remains for you to provide some date for human entry into America. The only way you can make the evidence fit any sort of 'out of America' scenario is to completely dismiss the widely accepted, and well-researched, currently accepted haploid phylogenies as well as dismissing virtually all other genetic evidence as well. Against all that accumulated evidence you provide not a single piece of evidence supporting your dismissing of such evidence.
@Gary Moore
ReplyDeleteHydronyms in the Balkans may also be related to Yeniseian. Words such as *alda (noun), *alta- (adj.) which have been reconstructed for Dacian, and have been related to a supposedly PIE words *olda, *olta ("water", "odorous") may in fact possibly be related to Ket ul and Kott ur instead."
I do not think they are related. The Yeniseian forms you mention are derived of Proto-Yeniseian: *kʰul "water" (E. Vajda), *qoʔl (~ẋ-, -r) "water" (Starostin). The inital velars are dropped (or perhaps uvular in the case of Starostin). The PIE or Dacian forms you adduce do not have the velar or the uvular consonant in the onset (word-initial) position.
Merritt Ruhlen gives this set for Yeniseian "horse"...132 HORSE *kuʔs, Ket: kuʔś 'cow', Yugh: kuʔs, Kott: huš, Arin: kus,
Pumpokol: kut. Cf. Proto-Dagestanian: *kwać ̅wΛ 'mare’. Notice he compares it to Northeast Caucasian Dagestanian.
You also adduced a series of proximal (near)/ distal (far) demonstrative pronouns also.
Cf. Proto-Afroasiatic: *ka/*ka or *kV > Egyptian: (Pyr): kjj m., kj.t f., Coptic: ke- m., ket- f. “other, another”; > Afroasiatic: *kV > Central Cushitic (Agaw): *-yw (the 'w' should be superscripted); > Proto-East Cushitic: *ka, (subj.) *ku "this"; > Cushitic: (South): *kaa “this” m.; > Omotic: (North [Nomotic]): Dizi: εkε/yεk m./f. id., εŋkε/yεŋk m./f. “that”, cf. also Mocha: òkkabi “that” || (South [Somotic]): Hamer: ka, Ari: kona or koona id., koona-see "that".
There are matches in Afroasiatic for your other examples as well.
You might want to look at Ehret's work on this...http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/ehret/World_deictics.pdf
He gives several proto-form examples from languages around the world.
German Dziebel said:
Terry, why don't you come out of the closet and just openly acknowledge that you reject science in favor of the Bible.
Why does one have to reject science to be a Bible-believer? You atheists are quite funny in your ignorance of things (especially for people who supposedly know everything there is to know ~ 'rolls eyes'). I happen to proudly be both a Bible-believer and a participant in the sciences. :)
@terryt:But unlike your case Darwin, and many others since, have provided ample evidence in favour of evolution
ReplyDeleteI agree, in a Darwin vs Creationism analogy, Out Of America is clearly the Creationism - it's not a serious proposition in any scientific institution and its adherents reject solid data and claim they know better than the best trained scientific minds in the world.
@AdygheChabadi: I happen to proudly be both a Bible-believer and a participant in the sciences.
So what to you do when science and the Bible contradict each other, like when science says modern humans evolved from primates and the bible said God made them out of dust?
Please note I'm not trying to have a go at you, I'd just like to know how you go about resolving differences that to me seem irreconcilable... I imagine you'd have to take either a "the Bible is a metaphor" or a "science hasn't discovered everything yet" approach.
AdygheChabadi wrote:
ReplyDelete"I do not think they are related. The Yeniseian forms you mention are derived of Proto-Yeniseian: *kʰul "water" (E. Vajda), *qoʔl (~ẋ-, -r) "water" (Starostin). The inital velars are dropped (or perhaps uvular in the case of Starostin). The PIE or Dacian forms you adduce do not have the velar or the uvular consonant in the onset (word-initial) position.
Merritt Ruhlen gives this set for Yeniseian "horse"...132 HORSE *kuʔs, Ket: kuʔś 'cow', Yugh: kuʔs, Kott: huš, Arin: kus,
Pumpokol: kut. Cf. Proto-Dagestanian: *kwać ̅wΛ 'mare’. Notice he compares it to Northeast Caucasian Dagestanian."
Keep in mind that construction of protolangauges is one of the weak links in comparative linguistics. In truth, we really don't have any way of knowing for sure if any putative western Dene-Yeniseian languages may have already dropped the initial velars by the time they reached Europe. If one accepts the relationship between Basque and Dene-Caucasian languages, then it follows that intermediate languages must have existed in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
I think that the Iroquoian and Ket languges were the source of these relative pronouns in Indo-European, and as corroboration, I would like to note that the most commonly accepted word for 'water' on Proto Indo-European, *akwa, much more like Iroquoian awa than the typical Afro-Asiatic ma.
Regarding the Caucasus, Armenian shows possible influence of Yeniseian. In most Dene-Yeniseian languages (an in Iroquoian languages as well), the marker for the plurals form of pronouns is an ending in 'n'. In Basque it's '-ek', Ket, '-ŋ', and Eyak '-eq'. Armenian splits the difference, and it's plural ends in '-nk':
'he' na
'they' nəˈɾɑnkʰ
In Indo-European languages, the 3rd person singular and plural personal pronouns are typically formed using relative pronouns for 'this'/'that'/'those'. In Armenian, these are:
'this' ɑjs
'that' ɑjn
Neither of these look much like the personal pronouns for 'he' and 'they' above, but here is where is gets interesting:
'he' nahi/a-
'they' an-/ani-
'this' hina
'that' na
All of the above are personal/relative pronouns in Cherokee. To make things even more confusing, the Mohawk pronominal 3rd person sing. affixes are:
ra-/ro-/ren-/re-/rao-/raw-
In other words, as incredible as it sounds, the Armenian 3rd person pronouns appear to be derived from Iroquoian sources, with the addition of a Basque-Dene-Yeniseian plural ending.
On a final note, the Cherokee word for 'what' is gadousdi. This is actually one of those polysynthetic 'sentences-in-single-word'. Deconstructing it yields gado- + -usdi (literally, 'what is it'?) The resemblance to PIE *kʷod (the source of English 'what') + Ancient Grk esdi ('it is') is readily apparent. This is no longer "long-ranger" or fringe stuff - we are crossing into the realm of standard comparative linguistics.
I think we can see why Father Lafitau, who noted strong similarities between ancient Greek and Anatolian words, could have remarked: "For besides those which I have mentioned, I can cite more of them which, without alteration, are purely Huron and Iroquoian; and others which having all the construction and flavor of these (ancient Greek) languages, can be found in them with slight changes." Lafitau was writing in the early 18th century before the groundbreaking work on the Indo_European languages was published.
@Tobus
ReplyDelete" in a Darwin vs Creationism analogy, Out Of America is clearly the Creationism - it's not a serious proposition in any scientific institution and its adherents reject solid data and claim they know better than the best trained scientific minds in the world."
Out-of-America overcomes the Darwinian vs. Creationist debate. One of its adherents has a more solid and well-rounded, anthropological education than most other single-discipline scientists such as geneticists. It's not really geneticists' call who came from where, they should submit their data to people who have an idea how all sciences fit together. And anthropology is the only discipline that's set up to make such cross-disciplines "decisions."
@Tobus
ReplyDeleteHi, yes, I understand. When the Bible says that we are made of dust. What about that is in conflict with what many scientists think? How many times has science proved the WE ARE made of the dust of the earth. Human life and indeed all life could not exist without the elements we are composed of. Many scientists have long said that life on Earth (and the Earth itself) is derived of the dust of stars or comets and the like. I think it was Carl Sagan that popularized it? So what conflict do you speak of? I think I had a conversation of this type in a recent and similar thread about East African genes...http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/02/west-eurasian-ancestry-in-eastern-and.html
@Gary Moore
While agree with you about comparative work. It can be difficult and unwieldy. I must disagree with you about Iroquoian. The people who would come to speak Iroquoian left Asia long before Indo-European formed as a proto-language. I am not sure from which direction Yeniseian comes from. Perhaps East Asia if E. Vadja is correct or from somewhere near the Caucasus if the Caucasian theory is to be believed.
Also, Afroasiatic has look-a-like forms that easily match IE *akwa, though unrelated, better than Iroquoian awa. Cf. Cushitic: *-k^w’- “to be wet” | Proto-Agaw (Central Cushitic): *ak^w’ “water” ||| East Cushitic: *k’oyy- “wet” ||| South Cushitic: Iraqw: qoqoʔamo “mist” (Paul Fallon). Also cf.Semitic: √ ʕ-q-q | Arabic: ʕaqq “to make the cloud to rain”, √ʕ-q-y | Arabic: ʕaqa “to give to drink” (Steingass 1988, 710, 714) ||| ?Egyptian place name ʕq3 “Pehhu-waters” (WPS 292) ||| ?East Chadic: Mokilko: ‘à’ó (pl.) "water" (Lukas, J., Afrika und Ubersee, 60, 1977, p. 224), and Jegu: 'aky "to bathe" (Jungraithmayr, H., Afrika und Uberse, 45, 1963, p. 118) ||| East Cushitic: Konso: haqa "water", D’irayta: haḳa id. ||| Omotic: North: Yemsa: akà id. (Appleyard 2006, 144) (Blazek)
What you are doing is very long range comparison which is very wobbly for sure. One has to be careful of mere look-a-like forms that are not related.
"One of its adherents has a more solid and well-rounded, anthropological education than most other single-discipline scientists such as geneticists".
ReplyDeleteI wonder who that might be? Someone with a very high opinion of himself, perhaps? What about the other three adherents? Do they have two doctorates as well?
@German: And anthropology is the only discipline that's set up to make such cross-disciplines "decisions."
ReplyDelete... and the consensus among anthropologists is that that modern humans originated in Africa.
There is no acceptance of "Out of America" in any scientific discipline - that's why it's analogous to Creationism in the Darwinism vs Creationism analogy.
@AdygheChabadi -
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but I think the number and range of possible cognates makes Iroquoian a better candidate source language for the precursor of Indo-European. I've already posted a lot of material in previous threads indicating likely candidate for cognates for body parts and numbers as well as ki-based relative pronouns and 'water'. Just this morning, I was going through some papers on Cherokee grammar and was struck by the resemblance of English 'knee' to Cherokee ka-ni-ge-ni ('his knee'; also see PIE root *g(e)neu). I am already up to over 20 from the 207-word Swadesh list, which is remarkable because not every word on the Swadesh list has a PIE equivalent. I think with a little work I can get the number of possible cognates over 40, or 20% of the Swadesh list, which would translate to an estimated divergence of around 8-10 KYrs BP, or on the order of what S. A. Starostin and the Tower of Babel project estimates for the divergence date of Dene Caucasian. The genetics also supports links between Native American and western Eurasian populations (i.e., the YHG Q to R relationship).
Regarding resemblance between the word for 'water' in Cushitic and some other African languages, the presence of R1b in much of central Africa (particularly along the Nile Valley) indicates a fairly recent migration from the Middle East or Central Asia that may have resulted in these linguistic similarities to IE. You might want to check out this article, "Is Omotic Afroasiatic? A Critical Discussion"
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iln/LING2110/v07/THEIL%20Is%20Omotic%20Afroasiatic.pdf
I only recently became aware of Lafitau and his theory of the the origins of Native Americans. While Lafitau is highly regarded in anthropological circles as a pioneer in scientific ethnology, his speculations about links between the Iroquois and the ancient populations of Greece and Anatolia seem to have been suppressed as something of an embarrassment to the community. ("...a great part of the American peoples and perhaps the Huron and Iroquois in particular, are descended from the barbarous people who first occupied Greece.") Lafitau challenged to theory of Georg Horn who maintained that the Iroquois were descended from the Turks by asserting that they and the Hurons were descended from the ancient Lycians. One author commented: "The bizarre thing is that Lafitau's surmise is based on linguistic comparisons between Greek and Iroquoian...(!)" Unfortunately, apparently no one seems to have ever undertaken a critical appraisal of Lafitau's work in the area of comparative linguistics to evaluate this theory. If one substitutes "primitive Indo-Europeans" for "the barbarous people who first occupied Greece" and assumes they had a common origin with the Iroquois, things begin to make sense. When you think about it, Native American languages have not been successfully linked to Turkic, Japonic, Mongolian, Tungusic, or Uralic. Indo-European is about the only major northern Eurasian language family left to which they can be linked.
And what about Lafitau's link to ancient Lycians?
Lycian: uwe 'person, being'
Cherokee: yvwi 'person, being', uwesa 'himself'
@Gary Moore
ReplyDelete"Some scholars have suggested that the first culture to domesticate the horse (the Botai culture) may have been Yeniseian speakers, and have even suggested that the Proto Indo-European word for 'horse' (*ek^wos) may have been derived from Yeniseian *ku?s. (Vajda, however, thinks that the Ket borrowed the word for 'horse' and not vice-versa.)"
I'm with Vajda on this. Although I haven't published it yet but IE *ek'wos 'horse' has an internal IE etymology. It's related to the IE verbal root *sekw- 'follow' (Gk hepomai, Lat sequor, etc.). The IE word for horse originally meant 'companion' and is closely paralleled by Lat socius 'follower, companion'. A previously undescribed phonological change (*sekwo- > *ek'wo-) affected the HORSE root, which obfuscated the true origin of IE *ekwos from IE *sekw-.
@Tobus
ReplyDelete"and the consensus among anthropologists is that that modern humans originated in Africa."
There's no such consensus among anthropologists. And I'm pretty much the only one who actually applies the 4-field anthropology plus interpretative anthropology framework to human origins.
"There is no acceptance of "Out of America" in any scientific discipline - that's why it's analogous to Creationism in the Darwinism vs Creationism analogy."
In the past, Darwinism was a target of the same kind of bigotry. Nothing has changed because creationism reigns even among self-proclaimed "scientists."
Correction: E. Vajda
ReplyDelete@Gary Moore
Clearly I am skeptical of your claims.
Cherokee: kanigeni "knee" almost appears to be a reduplicative form. You would have to do more than compare forms. You need to demonstrate actual phonological correspondence. Can you demonstrate phonological correspondence between the Cherokee form and the Indo-European form for "knee"?
Yes, I am aware of Mr. Theil's Omotic paper. I disagree with him. To me, Omotic is an Afroasiatic language, especially, North (non-Maoid) Omotic which seems to be less influenced by Nilo-Saharan languages than Maoid and South Omotic.
In all honesty, Indo-European seems closer to Uralic than anything Amerind. There are legitimate connections with Uralic and Indo-European. They may just be areal, but they no less exist. I would say any genuine similarity between Amerind languages and Indo-European maybe contact induced adoptions due to the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. By most accounts, Indo-European is just not old enough to have existed 10 - 15 kya and it did not exist in Beringia. Proto-Indo-European is at the most 8kya by the majority opinion.
I think you need to establish genuine, sound phonological correspondences. I would have to wonder why well-respected experts in Amerind and Indo-European never connected the two groups.
"In the past, Darwinism was a target of the same kind of bigotry".
ReplyDeleteRubbish. He had many supporters from the word go. In fact he'd tested his ideas on many aquaintances before he published. That is called 'peer review'. How much of that have your ideas been subjected to? What's more Darwin was 'forced' to publish because Alfred Wallace, for one, had reached the same conclusion. You certainly don't appear to have that problem.
"Nothing has changed because creationism reigns even among self-proclaimed 'scientists'".
Maybe in the USA but very much a minority elsewhere.
@German:There's no such consensus among anthropologists.
ReplyDeleteEvery anthropology paper I've read in the last 10 years accepts it, as do the first 10 anthropology departments/institutions I just googled. I'm sure you've squirreled away a prized collection of deniers and fringe theorists which you're about to throw at me, but it's pretty clear that Out of Africa is by far the predominent model across all scientific disciplines.
@Tobus
ReplyDelete"Every anthropology paper I've read in the last 10 years accepts it, as do the first 10 anthropology departments/institutions I just googled. I'm sure you've squirreled away a prized collection of deniers and fringe theorists which you're about to throw at me, but it's pretty clear that Out of Africa is by far the predominent model across all scientific disciplines."
Show me a single paper by a four-field anthropologist (meaning not a geneticist, or a physical anthropologist such as John Hawks or Henry Harpending but an anthropologist trained in biological anthropology, linguistics, ethnology and archaeology) working within a reflexive paradigm (which has been dominant within anthropology for the past 30 years) that argues, on the basis of a critical analysis of all these disciplines that modern humans originated in Africa and colonized America relatively recently. Needless to say, out-of-Africa-with-Recent-Peopling-of-the Americas was a dominant paradigm for 20 years, but it was produced from a non-anthropological evidentiary base by subsets of the anthropological field as defined above.
Linguists have vehemently denied a) the Greenbergian classification of Amerindian languages, which was geared toward the 12,000 year baseline for the colonization of the Americas; b) the existence of a serial bottleneck out of Africa effect in global phonological data. Even genetics mainstream has walked away from simple out of Africa and most American archaeologists have walked away from Clovis-I. The models you have in mind are increasingly fringe and passe.
An anthropologist who just recently started looking at the data across disciplines, Alan Barnard, lists out-of-Africa and my out-of-America theory as alternatives. http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/07/barnard-on-dziebel-social-anthropology-meets-human-origins/
Plus, if you are again trying to appeal to authority in a conversation about facts, I won't consider your argument valid.
@terryT
ReplyDelete"He had many supporters from the word go."
I wasn't talking about support. I was talking about bigotry that Darwin(ism) had to face. But if you'd like to talk about instant support that he received, this is indeed very noteworthy. Although he didn't have a tad of evidence for the "descent of man" from African apes, he found supporters for it. This speaks to the fact that the amount of popular support a theory receives is not at all reflective of the amount of data it's based on.
"I'm sure you've squirreled away a prized collection of deniers and fringe theorists which you're about to throw at me"
ReplyDeleteOf course he has, as shown by:
"Show me a single paper by a four-field anthropologist (meaning not a geneticist, or a physical anthropologist such as John Hawks or Henry Harpending but an anthropologist trained in biological anthropology, linguistics, ethnology and archaeology) working within a reflexive paradigm (which has been dominant within anthropology for the past 30 years) that argues, on the basis of a critical analysis of all these disciplines that modern humans originated in Africa and colonized America relatively recently".
You see? German has managed to eliminate any anthropologists without exactly his qualifications and there you have your answer. Mind you that process of elimination has narrowed the options down to just one particular anthropologist: German.
"An anthropologist who just recently started looking at the data across disciplines, Alan Barnard, lists out-of-Africa and my out-of-America theory as alternatives".
But as an alternative he specifies 'German Dziebel's model' with a not very long list of supporters. You are coming across very mush as a 'conspiracy theorist', not many facts but lots of bluster.
"Although he didn't have a tad of evidence for the "descent of man" from African apes, he found supporters for it".
ReplyDeleteAs usual you are spouting rubbish. In fact he said that much light would be thrown onto human origins in the future. But in the meantime he used his eyes to provide him with enough evidence to convince him that humans were much closer to African apes than they were to American monkeys (which you and Alvah seem to believe is the case). To many others his conclusion was equally obvious, but to you it seems unbelievable because you cannot open your own eyes. Are you in fact the evolution-denier (creationist) amoung us?
@TerryT
ReplyDelete"You are coming across very mush as a 'conspiracy theorist', not many facts but lots of bluster."
It doesn't suit a creationist like you, Terry, to talk about facts. Your out-of-Antarctica model is a case in point.
"'German Dziebel's model' with a not very long list of supporters."
How does popular support for a theory change the nature of the facts?
"Mind you that process of elimination has narrowed the options down to just one particular anthropologist: German. "
I know you're obsessed with me, Terry. Why don't you go and read an academic paper instead.
@AdygheChabadi
ReplyDelete"Cherokee: kanigeni "knee" almost appears to be a reduplicative form. You would have to do more than compare forms. You need to demonstrate actual phonological correspondence. Can you demonstrate phonological correspondence between the Cherokee form and the Indo-European form for "knee"?"
It is not a reduplicative form. I followed the convention of using the 3rd person singular for the word ("his knee' - Iroqouian uses pronominal affixes.) The root word is -nigeni vs. PIE *g(e)neu.
"In all honesty, Indo-European seems closer to Uralic than anything Amerind. There are legitimate connections with Uralic and Indo-European. They may just be areal, but they no less exist. I would say any genuine similarity between Amerind languages and Indo-European maybe contact induced adoptions due to the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. By most accounts, Indo-European is just not old enough to have existed 10 - 15 kya and it did not exist in Beringia. Proto-Indo-European is at the most 8kya by the majority opinion."
I've presented ample material that demonstrates the likely relationship between the two families, including not only probable cognates but also similarities in grammar. You evidently have not seen my material on numbers: for instance, the Mohawk and Nottaway words for 'two' are tekeni and dekeni respectively. The 'd-/t-' affix indicates dual case, and the -ek- component is the same as Persian word for 'one' and is similar to the word for 'one' in many other Indo-Iranian languages. However, the words for 'one' in Mohawk and Nottaway respectively are not like 'ek but enskat and unte. Do these words remind you of the words for 'one' in another language family? And what is the word particle -ek- doing in these two words for 'two' a continent away? Is it a coincidence that the word for 'two' in Singhalese, an Eastern Indo-Iranian language, is deka? What is the relationship between enskat an the Lithuanian word for 'to count', skaityti?
The Cherokee words for 'one' and two' are sawu and tali, respectively. The Tocharian equivalents are sa (or sas) and wu respectively. Moreover, the Cherokee pronunciation of the 't-' in tali trends towards 'd-', and the '-li' is another affix, so the core word is more like the archetypal IE da.
You are right - the estimated divergence time of 8-10 Kyrs BP is a problem. Iroquoian has been traditionally assigned to the Amerind language family, implying that their ancestors arrived with the first wave of post-glacial settlement about 12-15 Kyr BP. Either the Iroquoian languages arrived with a later wave of migration, or one branch migrated back to Siberia. as did Yeniseian (and possibly other Dene languages as well). Obviously, IE could not have given rise to Iroquoian, so it must be that the former is somehow derived from the latter. Probably the IE languages originated in Siberia and were essentially Iroquoian initially but subsequently transformed by the combination of acquiring labial consonants as well as contacts with other languages groups, such as Uralic in the north and Dene-Yeniseian-Caucasian-Vasconic in the south and east.
Frankly, I am not impressed by the evidence presented by advocates of the Indo-Uralic theory - and neither is most of the linguistics community. Let's take a look at a couple of words, and you can draw your own conclusions:
“BONE”
ὀστοῦν ostoun (Ancient Greek)
óhstien (Mohawk)
ostokhān (Persian)
kost (Czech)
luu (Finnish)
“EYE”
ὀφθαλμός ophthalmos (Ancient Greek)
okà:ra (Mohawk)
oculus Latin
akis (Lithuanian)
oko (Czech)
silma (Finnish)
Plus, if you are again trying to appeal to authority in a conversation about facts, I won't consider your argument valid.
ReplyDeleteThis is a conversation about opinions - in particular whether Out of America is more like Darwinism or Creationism. The "appeal to authority" is to establish if there is widespread scientific support to Out of America. There isn't, so in my opinion, that makes it more like Creationism (no scientific support) than Darwinism (widespread scientific support).
You may have your own criteria and use it arrive at a different opinion, but please don't try to tell me that Out of America is taken seriously by the widespread scientific community. That, my creationist friend, is bullshit.
Getting back on the main topic of Dene-Yeniseian languages in Eurasia, AdygheChabadi's remarks motivated me to go back and take another look at Uralic, and it appears that some languages in this family may have Dene-Yeniseian borrow words as well. For instance, some Uralic languages such as Hungarian, Komi, and North Mansi have words for 'lake' that appear to be derived from typical Dene to/ta/tu words for 'water' or bodies of water, and not Finnish or Baltic prototypes. Proto-Iroqouian also seems to have borrowed from Dene for the word for 'lake', *otar/*nytar.
ReplyDeleteWords for 'lake':
tó Hungarian (word for water is víz
ты Komi-Zyrian(word for water is va
tūr North Mansi(word for water is wit
The Finnish word for 'lake' is järvi and the word for water is vesi
Dene-Yeniseian languages:
deˀ Ket ('water' = ul)
tooh Navajo ('water' = tó)
to Hupa ('water' = tʰaʔ=naːn
*otar, *nytar Proto-Iroquoian
tar Persian word for 'wet'
-tar Hittite, component of wa-a-tar
(Note: The tar/tur forms may have been produced through rhotacism.)
This suggests that Dene languages other than Yeniseian languages may have also been present in Eurasia, and quite far west.
@Gary Moore
ReplyDelete"It is not a reduplicative form. I followed the convention of using the 3rd person singular for the word ("his knee' - Iroqouian uses pronominal affixes.) The root word is -nigeni vs. PIE *g(e)neu.
Then the two forms are not related if the (proto-)forms are Cherokee: -nigeni and PIE: *g'enw-, *g'new- "knee" (Sergei Nikolayev), *g̑enu-, *g̑neu- (J. Slocum < J. Pokorny). I need to know what the Iroquoian proto-form is.
Also there is a well-known list of look-a-like words across all language families. They famously show how the words for "one" and "two" are similar across a number of language families.
There is a major group of languages that are missing from your consideration...the "Altaic" sprachbund. The "Altaic" languages are postulated to have originated in the area you speak of (North East Siberia). The Dene languages do not appear to have been affected as much as the Yeniseian languages. It is postulated that the Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-AET diverged 5kya which is younger than so called "Proto-Altaic". Proto-Uralic is considered by many to be older also.
E. Vajda noted that both the reconstructions of Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Na-Dené are estimated [contradictory] to be on the order of 5,000 years old, and as a result it may still be possible (if difficult) to find enough lexical similarities to reconstruct Proto-Dené–Yeniseian at a proposed 13,000- to 15,000-year time depth (Wikipedia ~ Dene-Yeniseian). One can see that is a bit contradictory. If both Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-AET go back to 5kya then how could Proto-Dene-Yeniseian be 13kya to 15kya. This is the same thing I pointed out earlier about the dates for Proto-Yeniseian...Proto-Yeniseian would have had to be spoken for 3 thousand years before dialectically breaking up. Proto-Yeniseian 5kya and the date proposed for dialectical divergence 2kya.
By the way there may be smattering of Uralic forms in Na-Dene. Not sure if the author is correct though.
Also cf. http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\ie\piet&first=1&off=&text_proto=&method_proto=substring&ic_proto=on&text_meaning=knee&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_hitt=&method_hitt=substring&ic_hitt=on&text_tokh=&method_tokh=substring&ic_tokh=on&text_ind=&method_ind=substring&ic_ind=on&text_avest=&method_avest=substring&ic_avest=on&text_iran=&method_iran=substring&ic_iran=on&text_arm=&method_arm=substring&ic_arm=on&text_greek=&method_greek=substring&ic_greek=on&text_slav=&method_slav=substring&ic_slav=on&text_balt=&method_balt=substring&ic_balt=on&text_germ=&method_germ=substring&ic_germ=on&text_lat=&method_lat=substring&ic_lat=on&text_ital=&method_ital=substring&ic_ital=on&text_celt=&method_celt=substring&ic_celt=on&text_alb=&method_alb=substring&ic_alb=on&text_rusmean=&method_rusmean=substring&ic_rusmean=on&text_refer=&method_refer=substring&ic_refer=on&text_comment=&method_comment=substring&ic_comment=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=proto&ic_any=on
and http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/iedocctr/ie-ling/ie-sem/BP/BP_KN.html
@Tobus
ReplyDelete" The "appeal to authority" is to establish if there is widespread scientific support to Out of America. There isn't, so in my opinion, that makes it more like Creationism (no scientific support) than Darwinism (widespread scientific support)."
Like I said, out-of-America overcomes the Creationism vs. Darwinism debate, hence you can't use Creationism vs. Darwinism as the two options to interpret out-of-America. The proper scale is between data-driven, evolving systems of knowledge vs. dogma-driven and static systems of knowledge. The denial of the possibility of the animal origin of the (Old World) man by Creationists forms a "clade" with the denial of the possibility of the New World origin of the Old World man. Out-of-America is an "outgroup" to both.
"I know you're obsessed with me, Terry. Why don't you go and read an academic paper instead".
ReplyDeleteI invite you to provide an academic paper that supports your belief and I will certainly read it.
"How does popular support for a theory change the nature of the facts?"
If you had been able to supply at least some 'facts' you would at least have some scientists considering the possibility you may be correct. The lack of facts explains your lack of any sort of support, popular or otherwise.
"It doesn't suit a creationist like you, Terry, to talk about facts. Your out-of-Antarctica model is a case in point".
Proving, yet again, that you are an idiot. Do you really think I was serious? I used it as an example to show how ridiculous your out of America claim was by using the logic you use. And you couldn't see that? Idiot!
"The 'appeal to authority' is to establish if there is widespread scientific support to Out of America. There isn't, so in my opinion, that makes it more like Creationism (no scientific support) than Darwinism (widespread scientific support)".
Yes. Actually no evidence at all for out of America, just a whole lot of juggling an extremely small amount of data and correspondingly ignoring a mountain of inconvenient evidence.
"You may have your own criteria and use it arrive at a different opinion, but please don't try to tell me that Out of America is taken seriously by the widespread scientific community. That, my creationist friend, is bullshit".
Amen.
@terryT
ReplyDelete"In fact he said that much light would be thrown onto human origins in the future."
I'm also saying that much light would be thrown onto human origins from the Americas in the future, but for some reason people assume that everything was found by the year 2000 or even earlier.
"But in the meantime he used his eyes to provide him with enough evidence to convince him that humans were much closer to African apes than they were to American monkeys (which you and Alvah seem to believe is the case). "
Have you even read http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/out-of-america-family-of-hypotheses/ ?
"To many others his conclusion was equally obvious, but to you it seems unbelievable because you cannot open your own eyes."
That's exactly the argument a creationist would put forth: just look around, can't you see that this beautiful world could have only been created by God?!
We need evidence, not appearances, and while I personally don't question that hominins evolved from an ape-like ancestor in Africa, modern humans, or our own immediate evolutionary ancestors, likely evolved from an East Eurasian hominin that speciated into "us" in the Americas.
Mansi, Khanty and Ket seem to share some specific mtDNA haplotypes, such as U4a1, C4a2, C4b, D4e4, A4b, and probably also H* haplotypes. When you check the Figure 2 in this ancient mtDNA paper (http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1003296), you see that the Khanty and Mansi and Kets and Selkups are placed in the same segment. On the basis of this, it is to be expected that they also share linguistic features. Wkipedia tells us that ”around 500 AD, the Komis further divided into the Komi-Permyaks (who remained in the Kama River basin) and the Komi-Zyrians (who migrated north)”. This means that the Komi Zyrians assimilated linguistic and cultural features and genes from the groups inhabiting the far north of Central Siberia.
ReplyDelete'while I personally don't question that hominins evolved from an ape-like ancestor in Africa, modern humans, or our own immediate evolutionary ancestors, likely evolved from an East Eurasian hominin that speciated into "us" in the Americas.'
ReplyDeleteClose, but not close enough. Prüfer's figure 9.1 clearly indicates this ancestral hominin already was a hybrid whose heterozygosity was clearly distinct from homozygous mid-paleolithic hominins.
@German: Like I said, out-of-America overcomes the Creationism vs. Darwinism debate, hence you can't use Creationism vs. Darwinism as the two options to interpret out-of-America.
ReplyDeleteThen stop bringing it up every time someone disagrees with you.
@Tobus
ReplyDelete"Then stop bringing it up every time someone disagrees with you."
I'm fine with disagreements. But I'm not fine with the lack of respect for the scientific standards that out-of-America advocates for and fully meets.
"Have you even read http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/out-of-america-family-of-hypotheses/ ?"
ReplyDeleteYes, and it didn't make sense. I couldn't be bothered going through the whole mass disputing every single item.
" But I'm not fine with the lack of respect for the scientific standards that out-of-America advocates for and fully meets".
I didn't see too many 'scientific standards' in your blog.
"I'm also saying that much light would be thrown onto human origins from the Americas in the future"
First off you need to find some actual evidence for the belief. I am not aware of any reputable scientist who is prepared to consider it anything more than 'conspiracy theory'.
"The denial of the possibility of the animal origin of the (Old World) man by Creationists forms a 'clade' with the denial of the possibility of the New World origin of the Old World man. Out-of-America is an 'outgroup' to both".
But much more similar to the last, as it is based solely on faith. But I agree with Gary: it is time to get back to the topic of the post.
@kristiina
ReplyDeleteThat is excellent genetic evidence for Uralic being present in the region before Yeniseian. That is, of course, if the Yeniseians did not share the same genetic background in the first place. But if they did not share the same background, then what you say clearly shows that Yeniseian was intrusive and backs up the linguistic evidence solidly.
What you say about the Komi, also means that Uralic needs to be investigated for non-Siberian, non-IE adoptions. It is known that there is a substrate beneath Saamic and a few other Western Uralic languages. I do know that there is a postulated substrate beneath the Northern Samoyedic languages and it is postulated to be related to the peoples who inhabited the Taiga before the Uralic expansion. We must also contend with the Uralic substrate beneath many Turkic languages and what that implies. There is also evidence of a Tungusic substrate beneath the Yakut (Uralic) language and the Korean, Mongolic, and (some?) Turkic languages also. Which implies the Tungusic speakers were at one point more widespread. We must not leave out consideration for Yukaghiric and Uralic to be related and what that may imply. Does Yeniseian and Proto-AET (Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit) contain influences from these and other isolate and non-isolate languages of Siberia. Yeniseian definitely contains such influences, but are there traces in Proto-AET?
Also, I am about finished with your email. I have to study when you write because I know little of Siberian and Uralic genetics...superficial at best, hahaha.
@kristiina
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input on how the genetics shed light on the relationship of these central Siberian groups. It certainly puts the hypothesis that the word for 'lake' is a borrow word from Dene Yeniseian. The fact that the form looks more like that of North American Dene languages is intriguing.
@AdegyeChabadi -
There was probably a sprachbund in this region like the famous Altaic one in NE Asia that complicstes sorting out linguistic relationships. I hope to take a closer look at Vajda's and Georg's papers regarding borrow words in these languges.
Here is a link to an interesting article by Arnaud Fournet discussing hydronyms of Ob and Yenisei river basins. Fournet argues that the Ket and related tribes are fairly recent arrivals to western Siberia.
ReplyDeletehttp://diachronica.pagesperso-orange.fr/TMCJ_vol_3.1_Fournet_Hydronyms.pdf
The author disagrees with Vajda's assertion that Ket has few borrow words. Furthermore, he believes that the Yeniseian speakers came to the region from the west, which contradicts the model of a back migration from the Americas.
Fournet writes:
"The corpus of hydronyms was first published in Maloletko (2002) and appears in Tome 3 of Werner's (2005) etymological dictionary. It provides the basis on which Werner and Vajda posit a large area of Yeniseian first-settlers. In that hypothesis the different items are linked with the following languages:
-
sas,zes,zas,šeš - reminiscent of Ket and Yugh,
-
čet,šet - reminiscent of Kot,
-
set - reminiscent of Arin,
-
tat,tet,dat - reminiscent of Pumpokol."
The Pumpokol words for 'river' resemble the equivalents in North American Dene languages.
Fournet goes on to write:
"In my opinion the theory described above conflicts with a number of points which need to be developed. A first point is the phonetic structure and geographic distribution of the hydronyms which is strikingly reminiscent of sound correspondences attested in the Ugric branch of Uralic. The sound pattern
s~
l~
t
exists in Ostyak dialects. For example, UEW452 *sOsV- ‘[to become wet] naß werden’:
- Komi (Zyrian) sëz - ‘[to become wet] feucht werden’
- Khanty (Ostyak) : 1. Kazym dialect lol
- ‘[to make wet] feucht, naß machen’
2. Vakh dialect lal -, jal
- ‘[to become wet] feucht, naß werden’
3. Vasjugan dialect jal
- ‘[to become wet] feucht, naß werden’
4. Kamin tat
- ‘[to gush forth (water)] quellen (Wasser)’
- Mansi (Vogul) :
1. Tavda dialect tat'
- ‘[to become wet] naß werden’
2. Konda dialect tot
- ‘[to become wet] naß werden’
3. Pelym dialect tit
- ‘[to become wet] naß werden’
4. Sosva dialect tit - ‘[to become wet] naß werden’
This Uralic proto-lexeme, which can easily get specialized to mean ‘river’, can account for all formatives:
sas, zes, zas, šeš, tat, tet, dat, and for set, čet, šet or lat, let , with a mixed phonology (initial #l- but final -t).
Several observations can be made: (1) Hydronyms with a phonology reflecting Vasjugan dialect also exist: like jelok, a tributary of the Yenisei river, (2) Two out of three hydronyms with initial #l- are precisely located close to Vakh dialect, which has the -l- reflex (3) The items with initial #t- are located in the south, which is coherent with the internal isoglosses of Ostyak and Samoyedic dialects."
I think the association he draws is rather weak. I would expect a word for 'river' to more closely resemble a wprd for 'water', and not just 'wet'. These forms themselves = that is, the words for 'wet' - may be borrow words and not originally Uralic - they don't look like the equivalents in Finnic. Moreover, Komi and Mansi have words for 'river' that do not resemble the hydronyms proposed by Fournet:
ю (jū) Komi (Zyrian) / (ва (va) = 'water')
jā Mansi / (wit = 'water')
Both of these words resemble the words for 'river' in Hungarian (jo) and Finnish joki. Contrast Fournet's proposed derivation with *h₂ekw-eh₂- in *PIE and equoni in Cherokee, both of which are rooted in a word for 'water', not just 'wet'. (BTW - I did notice in my research that the word for 'river' in Nottaway, an Iroquoian language of the east coast of the United States, is joke, which I have also seen transcribed as 'chi-yo-ke'. The word for 'water' in the Muskogean languages is oka.)
I think that U4a1 is very old in western Siberia, it was found in ancient Russian-Karelian burials dated c. 7700–7300 BP. C4a2 is typical for the Altaians and surely old in the Baikal area. It is common in Selkups and was probably brought in the area with them. Instead, C4b is typical for Uralic groups and was probably introduced with them. D4e is widespread in East Asia, and one of its subclades, D2b / D4e1, is found in the extreme Northeast (Yukaghir, Eskimos, Aleuts, Chukchi) and in Altaians and Daur. D4e4 is a candidate for the Beringian backflow. A4b probably came from Altai and the Baikal area, and perhaps with the Kets. However, a typically Beringian and Na-Dené A2 has been detected in Selkups. Moreover, Kets and Selkups carry both A8a while Mansis and Khantys do not, and it could also be a result of a Northeastern backflow.
ReplyDeleteMy current understanding is that the ancestors of Selkups inhabited first the Central Siberia and the Uralic groups arrived some time after the Ice Age but may have reached the far North quite late. Kets were probably the last to arrive in the area, but both the Uralic groups and Kets passed through/near Baikal/Altai and carried along local mtDNA. Tungusic groups are also old in Norteast Siberia (yDNA C3c) and their presence probably predates the presence of Uralic groups.
Sorry for double posting. On second thoughts, D4e4 may in fact be a Tungusic marker. It is found in Evens and Oroks. I think that Yukaghir is a mixed language. There may well be a Uralic layer on a Tungusic/ Chukotko-Kamchatkan basis.
ReplyDeleteterryt you are so correct. At the Pennsylvania Society for Archeology this past weekend, I alluded to professors who would rather adapt their Beringia dates and other absurdities such as claiming they paused for 10,000 years waiting for a passage to open to the U.S. My paper was entitled: Chasing the Beringian Land Bridge Myth and Finding Solutrean Boats. At the keynote dinner that night, a husband and wife, both professors, sat at our table. As soon as the topic worked around to Beringia and the apparent fraud that triggered its creation, she became irate, told me I had failed to do sufficient research and left the table in a huff. I learned after that she also writes archeology textbooks. As a a lifelong professional journalist, publicist and author, I'm far less thin-skinned than she. I also realize such behavior usually indicates my writing as hit a sensitive nerve. While I realize it's likely there was more than one migration to the Americas, I believe they all came by sea, just as Thor Heyerdahl demostrated back in the 1940s on Kon Tiki. I believe the Solutreans came here roughly 20,000 years ago and have found multiple indicators to that effect, including drawings done by them in the caves of Altamira. Based on the contraditions of time, date, weather and the LGM, I seriously doubt the credibility of those who continue to maintain the first migration was across Beringia.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to Vajda's paper discussing borrow words in Yeniseian:
ReplyDeletehttp://linguistics.uoregon.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Vajda-Ket-Loans.pdf
Vajda's talk on the Ket is available on YouTube, and he brings up some interesting points. Vajda theorizes that the population of east Asia may have once had more Y haplotype diversity before the migration to the Americas, but the other YHGs were outcompeted by carriers of YHG Q, Some of these other YHGs, he suggests, may have survived in trace amounts in the Americas. (This may account for the R1a found in some populations in central/South America noted by Shurr and Sherry.) Also, he discusses the reindeer herder wedge theory that may account for the linguistic and genetic gap between the Yeniseians and North Americans. He noted that is was likely that other groups that were closely related to North American populations were once present in eastern Siberia but were pushed aside or absorbed by the wave of reindeer herding peoples.
I think that if you read his paper and watch his video lecture explaining the parallels between Dene and Yeniseian languages, you will be convinced of the Dene-Yeniseian connection.
@Gary Moore
ReplyDeleteYes, I have long had Arnaud Fournet's paper and even shared it with Kristiina. Also I have many of Mr. Vajda's articles also...the one you mentioned included.
Also, I think Fournet's is on to something with his comparison of Uralic forms to Yeniseian forms. I do not agree with many of his comparisons, but the one's concerning Yeniseian hydronyms, "sas, zes, zas, šeš, tat, tet, dat, and [possibly] for set, čet, šet or lat, let " seem somewhat valid.
In my study of Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic, it is commonly seen that forms for "to wet; wet" and "to pour; to flow" etc...have reflexes for "river" and/ or "water" in the daughter languages.
The similarity bewteen the Pumpokol words and Dene words could be a case of mere look-a-likes.
I suggest you look at the Uralic etymological database at starling.rinet.ru...http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?basename=\data\uralic\uralet&root=config&morpho=0
Again, I am skeptical of comparing Iroquoian forms with IE...one has to be very careful in analyzing possible adoptions.
Also, Vajda himself admits that there are some shortcomings in his analysis even though he followed rigorous standards. Starostin and Campbell pointed many of those shortcomings out and that prompted Vajda to respond with the above words.
@Kristiina:
I agree that Tungusic seems quite old in the region because it forms a substrate beneath other languages in the area.
The linguistic data seems to support a great deal of what you posit.
By the way, the Saami word for water is čáhci. All other Uralic words for water are related to forms resembling the finnish "vesi/veden". In which Yeniseian language do you have šeš? It is similar to this Saami word.
ReplyDeleteIn this paper (http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/tvarminne.html) they say that
”The common Saami word for ‘water’ (e.g. North Saami čáhci) has namely a cognate in nowhere else but Khanty, where the meaning is ‘tide, flood’. The most plausible scenario involves a semantic shift from ‘water’ to ‘tide, flood’ in Khanty, which is consistent with the fact that the common Khanty word for ‘water’ is based on the root meaning ‘ice’. The Saami word and its Khanty cognate can therefore be regarded as reflexes of the original Uralic word *śäčä ‘water’, retained in the northern periphery of the Finno-Ugrian language area but replaced by an Indo-European borrowing elsewhere.”
As now we know that Khantys are genetically among the most Native American like people in Eurasia (together with Selkups), it could just as well be that this word postulated as the original Uralic word for water is, instead, a result of Yeniseian backflow from the Northeast.
According to the recent Anzick paper, Khantys share with Yeniseian resembling groups 20% of their genes! Selkups share even more. When you compare Northern Khantys (c. 63% yDNA N) with Nganassan (over 90% yDNA N), the difference is striking, as Nganassan do not have any Yeniseian like ancestry at all.
Anzick paper is available here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7487/full/nature13025.html#figures
AdygheChabadi -
ReplyDelete"Also, I think Fournet's is on to something with his comparison of Uralic forms to Yeniseian forms. I do not agree with many of his comparisons, but the one's concerning Yeniseian hydronyms, "sas, zes, zas, šeš, tat, tet, dat, and [possibly] for set, čet, šet or lat, let " seem somewhat valid.
In my study of Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic, it is commonly seen that forms for "to wet; wet" and "to pour; to flow" etc...have reflexes for "river" and/ or "water" in the daughter languages."
If you look at the intrusive pattern of Y-haplogroup R1b in NE and central Africa. I think we can see that there is a likely vector for linguistic influence from SW/Central Asia, and this might explain the similarities that you noted in water-related words.
In general, words for 'river' or 'lake' in most languages are strongly linked to words for 'water' or 'to flow - for example *h₂ekw-eh₂- in *PIE, potamos ("flowing water") in Greek, 'fluvius' in Latin. Frankly, if these hydronyms are of Uralic origin, then they ought to bear a much stronger association to the primary words for 'water' or 'river' in Uralic. I suspect when we see words for 'wet' or 'damp', in many cases we are seeing 'junior words' for 'water' that are a relic of the less dominant language in the case of linguistic mergers - e.g. 'wed-' in northern IE languages (Uralic into IE) or 'tar' in Indo-Iranian (Dene into IE). The Yeniseian tat, tet, dat correspond well to Dene ta, to, tu forms for 'water', and sas, zes, zas, šeš can be derived from these forms by assibilation (e.g. Anc Grk 'su from *PIE tu). What is interesting is the similarity between the proto Yeniseian *kʰul 'water' (E. Vajda) and Old Turkic Köl, 'lake'. The Old Turkic word for 'water', (Suv, is very different.
BTW - I earlier noted the remarkable parallel between *PIE *h₂ekw-eh₂- ('river') and its Cherokee equivalent equoni. The -ni ending happens to be a locative particle in *PIE: ex. *nisdos 'nest' - literally, "place where (the bird) sits"). This may shed some light on the seeming paradox in Proto Iroquoian of two forms for 'lake', *otar and *nytar. The ny- affix of the latter form is probably a locative related to the the *PIE counterpart. (As related earlier, the -tar word particle is probably derived from a Dene word for 'water' and may be generically related to the -tar component of Hittite wa-a-tar.)
As a general observation, I think that Greenberg and many post-war linguists may have had an agenda in their work: to undo the damage caused by the unfortunate fusion of historical linguistics and evolutionary biology that formed the pseudo-science behind Nazi ideology, and to restore the unity of West Eurasian culture. Greenberg characterized any relationship between Native American languages, which he lumped together as 'Amerind', to his "Eurasiatic" family as very remote, despite evidence to the contrary. I think that a major reason that Greenberg and other linguists did not find any links between North American and Eurasian languages is, frankly, because they were not looking for them and did not feel that any such links would have contributed to the narrative that they were trying to weave.
Correction(s): "Also, I think Fournet's is on to something..." = "Also, I think Fournet is on to something..."
ReplyDelete@Kristiina
I think it is Ket. You also quoted a paper which said, "The Saami word and its Khanty cognate can therefore be regarded as reflexes of the original Uralic word *śäčä ‘water’, retained in the northern periphery of the Finno-Ugrian language area but replaced by an Indo-European borrowing elsewhere." That is quite interesting and suggests that Mr. Fournet IS on the right track in his proposal.
@Gary Moore
Yeniseian: tat, tet, dat are reflexes of "Proto-Yeniseian" *cēˑc (E. Vajda), *ses (Starostin), *set / *tet (Werner), therefore, what you propose is not possible.
"What is interesting is the similarity between the proto Yeniseian *kʰul 'water' (E. Vajda) and Old Turkic Köl, 'lake'. The Old Turkic word for 'water', (Suv, is very different."
Hmmm, it would appear the Yenseian adopted this word from the "Altaic" sprachbund! The Turkic word is well represented in that family, but also other members of the "Altaic" sprachbund. Cf. http://www.academia.edu/3678465/Kol_lake_flood_source_moor_in_Northem_Mongolian_Hydronyms
Yeniseian *kʰul 'water' can now be ruled out as a candidate for a native Yeniseian word, it appears to be Turkic. This would seem to further the notion of Yeniseian being intrusive to Siberia. I wonder if the language retains any native word(s) for water?
Also, about the junior words for 'water', see my comments to Kristiina in this post.
Also, Hittite (Nesian): wa-a-tar is descended of PIE *wod-(or/en-) 'water'. See here...http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\ie\piet&first=1&off=&text_proto=wod-%28or%2Fen-%29&method_proto=substring&ic_proto=on&text_meaning=&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_hitt=&method_hitt=substring&ic_hitt=on&text_tokh=&method_tokh=substring&ic_tokh=on&text_ind=&method_ind=substring&ic_ind=on&text_avest=&method_avest=substring&ic_avest=on&text_iran=&method_iran=substring&ic_iran=on&text_arm=&method_arm=substring&ic_arm=on&text_greek=&method_greek=substring&ic_greek=on&text_slav=&method_slav=substring&ic_slav=on&text_balt=&method_balt=substring&ic_balt=on&text_germ=&method_germ=substring&ic_germ=on&text_lat=&method_lat=substring&ic_lat=on&text_ital=&method_ital=substring&ic_ital=on&text_celt=&method_celt=substring&ic_celt=on&text_alb=&method_alb=substring&ic_alb=on&text_rusmean=&method_rusmean=substring&ic_rusmean=on&text_refer=&method_refer=substring&ic_refer=on&text_comment=&method_comment=substring&ic_comment=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=proto&ic_any=on
About you undoing the damage of the past, I am, in a way, inclined to agree and on a different level inclined to disagree. I guess I am in the same vein as many linguists. I just do not see the connection. Again, one has to be very careful about serious research. I was once told by a professional linguist friend that when you begin to see cognates even where there are none, it is time to step back and do something else for a bit, then you can come back to the task with refreshed eyes and mind.
@AdygheChabadi -
ReplyDelete"Hmmm, it would appear the Yenseian adopted this word from the "Altaic" sprachbund! The Turkic word is well represented in that family, but also other members of the "Altaic" sprachbund. Cf. http://www.academia.edu/3678465/Kol_lake_flood_source_moor_in_Northem_Mongolian_Hydronyms"
Except a related word is also found in Eyak, a North American Dene language: kʼu=leh (n.) 'rain'. BTW - The word ta is also the word for 'lake' in Ainu, which has the word wakka for 'water'.
The Uralic derivation for the word for 'water' in Indo-European is not accepted by most scholars. The most commonly accepted form for the *PIE word is h₂ekʷeh₂ (commonly written as 'akwa'), and the Proto Germanic form is usally stated as *ahwō, which is very close to Proto Iroquoian *ahwa. The proposed Indo-Uralic derivation fails because it does not take into account the numerous root words for 'water' in various branches of Indo-European that begin with 'a'', such as Persian ab. I already demonstrated in a post in another thread in these blogs that the Hittite equivalent probably at one time had the initial 'a-' and transposed behind the second syllable before it was dropped altogether. This may have allied at one time to Tocharian war. In fact, I suspect that both the water words tar and war may have both acquired the final '-r' sound as an areal trend towards rhotacism in the region near the Caspian Sea, where mixing of Iroquoian and Dene languages may have taken place, resulting in a compound word for 'water' in Hittite ((a)wa+ta(r)).
Regarding water-related words in Uralic languages, they may have ultimately been derived from the Dene words for 'water' (ta/to/tu) through assibilation. (t --> s) Ex. Old Turkish Suv, Finnish vesi. In fact, Proto-Finnic *weti may itself have been a compound word for 'water' like Hittite 'wa-a-tar resulting from a merger of two linguistically distinct groups.
@Gary Moore
ReplyDeleteThe word if indeed represented in Eyak, is no problem. thiss word could still be adopted from the "Altaic" sprachbund. In fact, I would be delighted to see an adoption from the "Altaic" sprachbund in the AET languages.
Again, the Hittite (Nesian) word is derived of Proto-IE: *wod-(or/en-)'water' > Hittite: watar n. (r/n), dat.-loc. weteni (Friedrich 249-250)(Sergei Nikolayev). This word is an isogloss with Old Greek: hǘdōr, -atos n. `Wasser' and Germanic: *wat-an-, *wat-ar- n. among others.
Also note, Proto-Finnic *veci, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *wete, from Proto-Uralic *weti. Cognates include Hungarian víz. May be a cognate of Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥. Compare to Scottich Gaelic uisge, Irish uisce, Russian вода (vodá) or English wet.
Proto-Uralic is considered to be about the same age Proto-AET, both about 5kya. That presents some difficulty.