tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post4375933210599835405..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Bronze Age origin of Semitic languagesDienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-78243569147077771502010-05-26T15:37:44.957+03:002010-05-26T15:37:44.957+03:00It is strange to me how people want to cling to th...It is strange to me how people want to cling to their racist theories of the origin of J1, and the language the J1ers spoke.<br /><br />You are referring to a haplogroup whose origin point is the north of the Middle East, many thousands of years older than proto I.E or proto Semitic. J2 is thousands of years older than both those language groups. So why go on about haplogroups, farmers, pastoralists when those haplogroups predate farmers, pastoralists and I.E or Semitic languages by thousands of years. Not logical, Joyce.<br /><br />Your theory about I.E languages being spoken in Europe in the early Neolithic is somewhat fanciful. I.E languages were not spoken in many parts of Europe in the historic era. Every heard about the Iberians, Pelasgians and other folks who did not speak I.E languages. Even the Etruscans did not speak I.E languages yet they came from the I.E speaking Lydians. No one has answered that anomaly. Frankly it would not take I.E languages some many thousands of years just to cover Europe. A Bronze Age origin to I.E languages in Europe sounds logical so by the time of the Greeks or Romans, their were pockets of non I.E language speakers still present in Mediterranean Europe. The rest of Europe is basically not known as it still was unrecorded and barbarian.<br /><br />There is an anomaly in that report. All the old Semitic languages are in the north. All the young ones in the south. So both languages and haplogroups originated in the same parts of the Middle East in the ideal zone for farming and about the same time. There must be other reasons, far more logical ones, for the distribution of J2 and J1 in Eurasia. By the way both those haplogroups exist in the three continents which says one thing, they are old, older than languages, older than agriculture and older than fanciful racist theories.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-75367345388325495312009-09-17T01:41:32.601+03:002009-09-17T01:41:32.601+03:00"if we exclude Hittite, the rest of the IE la..."if we exclude Hittite, the rest of the IE languages have more recent common ancestry than the initial Neolithic colonization of Europe". <br /><br />Doesn't that rather negate the Anatolian hypothesis? After all the original Neolithic colonisation is the only one that could have spread the languages so widely. Speaking of Anatolia, we know that a steppe language, Turkic, has replaced previous languages there, including several branches of IE related to Greek. Surely earlier replacements further west are therefore quite posssible. <br /><br />"Afroasiatic is believed to be Neolithic or even earlier". <br /><br />Unlikely to be earlier, and even then we find arguments over whether many particular languages should or should not be included in it. And Semitic could well have begun its split more recently than the Bronze Age. Although Semitic languages in the horn of Africa may be Bronze age Phoenician and Hebrew for example share a common ancestry merely 3000 years ago, and Arabic may have split from those languages just a little before then. <br /><br />"There is no known span of 700 years in which any great part of Europe spoke anything other than Indo-European languages". <br /><br />In spite of your protestations it seems a fair bet that IE was introduced to Europe, so there you have it: a long period when languages other than IE were spoken there. <br /><br />I understand completely where you are coming from. You are Greek and are convinced that Greeks are totally separate from even their near neighbours, a common belief, and their history goes back a very long time. I saw a program last night about Chinese anthropologists. Most of them are convinced that the Chinese too are separate, descended from a branch of H. erectus that split off long ago. Same belief, perhaps more extreme. <br /><br />The best bet for the original spread of IE languages is still that they spread with the ability to domesticate and control the horse, presumably before the chariot's invention although that did aid the later elements. But of course the language moved beyond the genetic expansion and the horse eventually spread beyond the IE languages, for example into the Mongolian steppe and so to the Turkic and Mongolian-speaking people.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-69901121324438357072009-09-16T14:24:04.264+03:002009-09-16T14:24:04.264+03:00Are you deliberately obtuse? Hungarian and Tatar d...<i>Are you deliberately obtuse? Hungarian and Tatar did not affect most of Europe, and I specifically spoke about the impact of steppe elements from the east</i> <br />You're out of arguments and you started insulting, so this will be my last set of replies on your blog. You actually said "The point is that none of the languages that were introduced to Europe from the east [...] had a lasting influence even in a <i>small region of Europe</i>, let alone the entire continent." (emphasis mine). Both the Middle Danube plain and the north-Pontic steppes are at least some "small regions of Europe".<br /><br /><i>Celtic languages did not originate in the steppe. Celts were not steppe pastoralists. Nor did they impose their language on Anatolia by elite dominance. </i> <br />You claimed that no languages "that were introduced to Europe from the east " had a lasting influence on Europe and all IE languages (Celtic included) came from the east (even in Renfrew's hypothesis, if you know where Anatolia is). <br /><br /><i>Irrelevant, since all these were within-Europe population movements of farmers/stockbreeders</i> <br />If you don't follow the discussion it doesn't make my replies of no relevance. You earlier suggested many IE spreads and also the Celtic invasions (in Balkans and Anatolia in particular) were "folk migrations" and obviously there's no evidence for that. <br /><br /><i>Nonsense, these were small tribal units that attracted attention because they were troublesome to the Roman Empire. Most Eastern Europeans spoke Indo-European languages (principally Slavic ones) and the various intruders disappeared without a trace. </i> <br />There's no evidence whatsoever that Northern and North-western Pontic steppes were Slavic speaking until late in the Middle Ages and the <i>only</i> evidence we have for earlier periods shows Iranian, Germanic (Gothic), Turkic languages. We can't all believe in some "invisible Slavs" just to defend PCT-like positions.<br /><br /><i>It is not a preposterous claim at all as neither today nor at any time in its know history has any great part of Europe spoken a language that originated outside the continent. This is not true for the Eurasiatic steppe, or for the Levant, or for North Africa, but it is true for Europe.</i> <br />Unless humans invented languagse in Europe and one of the languages born there became PIE after millenia of evolution, obviously the languages most spoken in Europe today originate outside it(for the record, Anatolia is also outside Europe) and consequently Europe shows no particular resilence to changes from outside. Actually we know nothing about all the languages spoken in Europe in prehistory and this Eurocentrist religion of continuity is an intellectual deadend.<br /><br /><i>Barbarian warrior peoples were often invited into Roman territory, but being warriors is only one part of the equation of "elite dominance". The other part is "dominance". The Galatians did not dominate Roman society despite being "warriors". </i> <br />Galatians did not dominate Roman society because there were no Romans in 3rd century BCE Anatolia, they dominated Phyrgians, Cappadocians and other Hellenistic peoples.<br />Galatians were not invited into Roman territory but they were eventually conquered by Romans. <br /><br /><i>Nonsense, Celts had no special position in the Roman Empire. Certainly no evidence at all that they "dominated" either the Roman Empire itself or any part thereof. </i> <br />But they had, as most aboriginals in their provinces (which is also why Celtic, Basque, Albanian and such languages survived Romanization) except for the more troublesome ones such as Dacians. They had their local elites, they could preserve their language (being bilinguals), they could preserve their religion, etc. After all, Celtic outcompeted Latin in Britain.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-44087321289444106572009-09-16T13:27:46.871+03:002009-09-16T13:27:46.871+03:00Errata to my last reply: Bithynians instead of Byt...Errata to my last reply: Bithynians instead of Bythinians and civitates (pl.) instead of civitas (sg.)<br /><br />I agree with Maju that this thread is too long, so I'll leave some scholars to make their points about language shifts, demic difussion and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/slavic/faculty/andersen/Review_of_Examining.pdf" rel="nofollow">Here's the review </a> of a book on the spread of farming and language, of particular interest are the chapters signed by Comrie and Zvelebil. The latter, though a supporter of the Anatolian hypothesis, speaks of Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic lingua francas replacing the languages of the local communities. <br /><br />J. Nichols is one of those scholars supporting language shift as a main drive of IE expansion. She authored a nice study in Archaeology and Language, here's the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=DWMHhfXxLaIC&pg=PA224" rel="nofollow">introduction</a> and the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=DWMHhfXxLaIC&pg=PA260" rel="nofollow">conclusion</a> (I don't think Google Books will let you read all those pages between).<br /><br />And finally a <a href="http://www.ulb.ac.be/socio/anthropo/CH4-BLENCH.pdf" rel="nofollow">good chapter</a> by Roger Blench, though not focused on IE, but showing that language shift is an important phenomenon, a process which should be taken in account by "any convincing model of the relation between language and prehistory"Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-1819232763354144542009-09-16T13:14:31.728+03:002009-09-16T13:14:31.728+03:00Would we call it 'irrelevant' if we were h...<i>Would we call it 'irrelevant' if we were having this discussion during those 700 years? </i><br /><br />There is no known span of 700 years in which any great part of Europe spoke anything other than Indo-European languages. <br /><br /><i>But often not the IE language they had originally replaced. In many cases a new one introduced from outside the particular region</i><br /><br />But none outside Europe, except for the eastern edge of Europe, in the border of the Eurasiatic steppe where Iranian-type languages gave way to Slavic-type ones in historical time.<br /><br /><i>Would we be able to discern any relationship at all within what we know as the Indo-European language family if its spread was really that ancient?</i><br /><br />Why not? Semitic is Bronze Age, and Afroasiatic is believed to be Neolithic or even earlier, but linguists have no trouble discerning the relationships between them. Moreover, if we exclude Hittite, the rest of the IE languages have more recent common ancestry than the initial Neolithic colonization of Europe.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-61469849280374301322009-09-16T13:14:23.123+03:002009-09-16T13:14:23.123+03:00So the Kurgan theory actually
works when Renfrew ...<i>So the Kurgan theory actually <br />works when Renfrew uses it. How convenient!</i><br /><br />Renfrew uses it for the eastern expansion of Indo-Iranians (and perhaps Tocharians), which is the only fairly documented one, given the close relationship between Indo-Aryans and Iranians, and the historical presence of Iranian speaking Scytho-Sarmatian type people in the steppe.<br /><br />He does not, of course use it for Europe and Anatolia where there is absolutely no evidence for linguistic change effected from the steppe<br /><br /><i>Ignorance is no argument. There is plenty of evidence the Galatians arrived in Anatolia in 3rd century BCE as mercenaries (not as traders) invited by Bythinians (no Romans settled them, moreover as there was no Roman Empire in 3rd century BCE there couldn't be any imperial policy!), they had their kings, they participated in many local armed conflicts as mercenaries and allies and they spoke a Celtic language (as contemporary testimonies point out) so all evidence suggests a local Celtic language maintained through elite dominance. </i><br /><br />Stupidity is no argument either. Barbarian warrior peoples were often invited into Roman territory, but being warriors is only one part of the equation of "elite dominance". The other part is "dominance". The Galatians did not dominate Roman society despite being "warriors". <br /><br /><i>Also Celts in general had positions of power in the Roman Empire through civitas peregrinae and similar institutions.</i><br /><br />Nonsense, Celts had no special position in the Roman Empire. Certainly no evidence at all that they "dominated" either the Roman Empire itself or any part thereof. After they -like other subject peoples- were granted Roman citizenship, they could hold various offices, but there is no evidence that they were in anyway dominant, and in any case it was the ones that had knowledge of Latin (or Greek in the east) that could really hold such position. It is laughable to think that monolingual Celts spread their Celtic language by being powerful officers of the Roman Empire!<br /><br /><i>In fact the Ummayad Caliphate did not pursue conversion (specially as that meant that subjects would not pay taxes anymore). The Ottoman Empire didn't either, at least not too much, (as they relied heavily on Christian populations to feed their janissary infantry).</i><br /><br />Both states' policies facilitated conversion, since non-Muslims had every incentive of abandoning their relgion in order to gain posts and avoid the head tax. It is no accident that Christians have all but disappeared from the vast majority of Muslim states, and with them their languages (Syriac, Coptic, Greek, Assyrian, Armenian, etc.)<br /><br /><i>But Turks were expanding and assimilating peoples long before they became Muslims.</i><br /><br />But not in Europe or Anatolia.<br /><br /><i>I'm pretty sure they were tribal and bellicose but also that they had some sort of political organization as well</i><br /><br />I don't share your certainty as there is nothing to support a "Kurgan state", and the fact that the Indo-Europeans -whatever their origin- splintered off into a dozen different language groups, each of them fighting each other, suggests rather that there was no central powerful authority (like the Sultan or Khalif) co-ordinating their expansion.<br /><br /><i>In fact Latin (including vulgar Latin) consolidated its position, it seems, in the Dark Ages, after Rome was gone. It was the language of the elites (even if these elites were often Germanic they assumed Latin as the state language) and that kept Latin expanding even after Rome was dead.</i><br /><br />Latin did not expand after Rome was dead. The limits of Latinity are pretty much the limits of the Roman Empire, and in the periphery Latin contracted (e.g., in Britain, North Africa, Central Europe, and the Balkans).Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-77622975648558122642009-09-16T13:13:49.081+03:002009-09-16T13:13:49.081+03:00False, the non-IE Hungarian and Tatar are still sp...<i>False, the non-IE Hungarian and Tatar are still spoken today. IE languages were also introduced from east (whether from Anatolia or north-Pontic area).</i><br /><br />Are you deliberately obtuse? Hungarian and Tatar did not affect most of Europe, and I specifically spoke about the impact of steppe elements from the east. We have absolutely no data points about migrations from Anatolia, but we have several data points about migrations of steppe elements from the east, none of which effected the change postulated for "Kurgan" folk.<br /><br /><i>But there are Celtic languages (even Renfrew, Gray and Atkinson mention them). </i><br /><br />Celtic languages did not originate in the steppe. Celts were not steppe pastoralists. Nor did they impose their language on Anatolia by elite dominance. Your example is muddle-headed on at least three counts. The example adds zero evidence in favor of the idea that Kurgan folk could have spread their language into Europe.<br /><br /><i>There's no evidence whatsoever for massive migrations of Germanic, Celtic, Slavic speakers</i><br /><br />Irrelevant, since all these were within-Europe population movements of farmers/stockbreeders, not intrusions into Europe by steppe warriors as the postulated "Kurgan" expansions.<br /><br /><i>Pechenegs, Uzes, Cumans, Tatars were the dominant population and Turkic was the dominant languages over vast areas of Eastern Europe for centuries</i><br /><br />Nonsense, these were small tribal units that attracted attention because they were troublesome to the Roman Empire. Most Eastern Europeans spoke Indo-European languages (principally Slavic ones) and the various intruders disappeared without a trace. <br /><br /><i>I actually said Roman colonists and of course they were. Do you know what a nomad is?</i><br /><br />I sure as hell know what a nomad is, and Roman colonists were not nomads. <br /><br /><i>There's no red herring as you actually said "What does matter is that Europe has been resilient to linguistic change from outside" (nothing about pastoralists) which is a preposterous claim. </i><br /><br />It is not a preposterous claim at all as neither today nor at any time in its know history has any great part of Europe spoken a language that originated outside the continent. This is not true for the Eurasiatic steppe, or for the Levant, or for North Africa, but it is true for Europe.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-15718733856126893162009-09-16T07:38:35.915+03:002009-09-16T07:38:35.915+03:00"The fact that it lasted 7 centuries is irrel..."The fact that it lasted 7 centuries is irrelevant". <br /><br />Would we call it 'irrelevant' if we were having this discussion during those 700 years? <br /><br />"And, their linguistic presence was short-lived, with the Indo-European elements winning out in the end". <br /><br />But often not the IE language they had originally replaced. In many cases a new one introduced from outside the particular region<br /><br />"the influx of a sharply genetically differentiated population in Europe during the Neolithic would almost have certainly have brought a new language (Indo-European) into Europe". <br /><br />Would we be able to discern any relationship at all within what we know as the Indo-European language family if its spread was really that ancient?terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-35175185012251721412009-09-16T07:11:17.990+03:002009-09-16T07:11:17.990+03:00Neither Brennus nor Attila made even a tiny change...<i>Neither Brennus nor Attila made even a tiny change in a small part of the linguistic landscape of Europe, so I don't see why much more primitive Kurgan people would have changed the languages of the whole of Europe</i>. <br /><br />They are examples of the political organization that "tribal" societies can achieve. Certainly Brennus consolidated the Celtization of Northern Italy that "other Brennus" before them had estabilished just decades or centuries earlier. <br /><br />How come the people of Roman Modena could claim being of Etruscan origins if all the Emilia had been conquered by the Gauls long before? If, as you seem to imagine, each conquest implied a total ethnic cleansing and new settlement, there was no way a single Etruscan remained in the city. History tells us otherwise. Would enough time have passed, they would even had forgotten their Etruscan ancestral identity though. <br /><br /><i>Latin spread because it was the language of an organized state that pursued a policy of expansion for many centuries</i>. <br /><br />In fact Latin (including vulgar Latin) consolidated its position, it seems, in the Dark Ages, after Rome was gone. It was the language of the elites (even if these elites were often Germanic they assumed Latin as the state language) and that kept Latin expanding even after Rome was dead. Only in the rare places where no state that claimed itself the local heir of Rome (Goths and Franks legitimized their rule on grounds of vassalage to Rome and both used the Catholic Church as tool of their power) existed, like Vasconia, Britain or the Slavic territories of the Balcans, Latin lost positions or took longer to consolidate. <br /><br />Think North Africa: it was as Western Roman as anywhere else but Berber, not Latin, persists from that time. The Western Empire was not fully Latinized when Rome fell. The process of Latinization was completed after Rome succumbed - under "tribal" states (Franks and Goths deserve no other name).<br /><br />Well... we could go for centuries like this: c. 200 posts is enough for me. It's a fascinating debate but I doubt we can persuade Dienekes (nor vice versa) and this format is kind of limiting too... Guess I'm done with this discussion.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-52343281548437332762009-09-16T07:11:04.036+03:002009-09-16T07:11:04.036+03:00The only worthwhile examples are of Arabs and Turk...<i>The only worthwhile examples are of Arabs and Turks who spread because of their organization, i.e., they were organized states (Khalifate, various Turkish sultanates) which pursued a policy of conversion over many generations</i>.<br /><br />In fact the Ummayad Caliphate did not pursue conversion (specially as that meant that subjects would not pay taxes anymore). The Ottoman Empire didn't either, at least not too much, (as they relied heavily on Christian populations to feed their janissary infantry). Just that certain sectors, (Arabized or Turkicised) Muslims in these cases, were clearly privileged and there was a gate open to join their ranks. But that happened in all Muslim polities and, equally in all polities that prime one identity over other others. <br /><br />But Turks were expanding and assimilating peoples long before they became Muslims. And Akkadians, Persians, etc. never had a religious discrimination policy that I know of. <br /><br />Even the Iroquois, a quite interesting historical example of matrifocal neolithic society, when defeated some enemy offered them the opportunity to join their league (or emigrate). Joining the Iroquois would of course suppose renouncing partly to their original identity and become assimilated, even if as a tribe with equal rights.<br /><br />But the age of Indoeuropeans (Chalcolithic and further on) was more advanced in most aspects and was evolving from mere tribalism into the proto-feudalism that surely existed in the Iron Age. People think of La Tène Celts as "tribes" but apart of having some tribal structure, they were also organized as city states (oppidae per the Roman accounts) ruled by monarchs and with strong social inequality: slavery and serfdom, as well as aristocracy, existed already and were not just anecdotal. <br /><br />And that was already being formed in the Chalcolithic.<br /><br /><i>... no evidence of a great Kurgan "state" whatsoever</i>. <br /><br />Ok, so the Baalberge culture, that opened and colonized the, till then uninhabited, huge Brandenburg forest, conquered Cuyavia and northern Moravia and had a capital town with clear signs of "rural" aristocracy, were just a band of warriors with no organization whatsoever. <br /><br />I'm pretty sure they were tribal and bellicose but also that they had some sort of political organization as well, maybe an elected monarchy like the kind we see in so many historical "tribal" aristocratic societies. That is enough, as you can see in Anglosaxon England for instance. <br /><br />Even Slavs that were initially pretty reluctant to high-level political organization, managed to assimilate wide areas without such tool. Hungarians? Just feared tribal hordes that raided half Europe... Well, they happened to have a monarchy. <br /><br />Each case is surely unique in many details but elite dominance and political organization can perfectly happen (and in fact happened almost all the time) in Metal Ages "tribal" societies.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-72206571380749149462009-09-16T01:38:55.126+03:002009-09-16T01:38:55.126+03:00It doesn't matter one iota what their professi...<i>It doesn't matter one iota what their profession was. Elite dominance is the process by which individuals assume positions of power through which they are able to spread their language and culture. There is absolutely zero evidence that Celts had a position of power in the Roman Empire in the regions where they were settled. The Galatians were troublesome barbarians that the Romans settled in Anatolia, like the common imperial policy. They practiced regular economic activities in the area, not warfare -as there were no Roman enemies in Central Anatolia.</i> <br /><br />Ignorance is no argument. There is plenty of evidence the Galatians arrived in Anatolia in 3rd century BCE as mercenaries (not as traders) invited by Bythinians (no Romans settled them, moreover as there was no Roman Empire in 3rd century BCE there couldn't be any imperial policy!), they had their kings, they participated in many local armed conflicts as mercenaries and allies and they spoke a Celtic language (as contemporary testimonies point out) so all evidence suggests a local Celtic language maintained through elite dominance. <br /><br />Also Celts in general had positions of power in the Roman Empire through civitas peregrinae and similar institutions. During centuries of Roman domination many of them eventually switched to Latin but not all of them (Roman Britain is a notable example) <br /><br /><i>The fact that it lasted 7 centuries is irrelevant.</i><br /><br />That it lasted seven centuries it is very relevant to show a permanent language shift. When Galatians were assimilated they didn't revert to some ancient Anatolian language but they learnt Koine Greek (and later that area became Turkic speaking as it is today).Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-7597777063598157712009-09-16T01:30:35.716+03:002009-09-16T01:30:35.716+03:00The point is that none of the languages that were ...<i>The point is that none of the languages that were introduced to Europe from the east </i> <br />False, the non-IE Hungarian and Tatar are still spoken today. IE languages were also introduced from east (whether from Anatolia or north-Pontic area).<br /><br /><i>Celtic, BTW, is not such a language</i><br /><br />But there are Celtic languages (even Renfrew, Gray and Atkinson mention them). <br /><br /><i>On the contrary, there is ample anthropological, genetic, and archaeological evidence for migrations of Neolithic farmers from Anatolia to Europe. And no evidence of similar strength regarding the impact of Kurgan people on Europe.</i> <br /><br />There's no evidence whatsoever for massive migrations of Germanic, Celtic, Slavic speakers, there's no evidence for the massive prehistoric migrations of IE speakers, consequently when addressing a Germanic, Celtic or Slavic "folk migration" is a wild speculation rooted in wishful thinking. <br /><br /><i>That is incorrect. Turks were never a majority in any region of eastern Europe. They certainly did not affect at all most of Europe. And, their linguistic presence was short-lived, with the Indo-European elements winning out in the end.</i> <br /><br />Pechenegs, Uzes, Cumans, Tatars were the dominant population and Turkic was the dominant languages over vast areas of Eastern Europe for centuries, Their language is often the only language attested by the contemporary sources (see Constantine Porphyrogenitus' ethnographic description of Patzinakia) and it even left considerable traces in toponymy. The IE element which won was actually the assimilation policies of the modern states not some vigour of the IE languages spoken by farmers, thus this argument is of no relevance.<br /><br /><i>Exactly. Historical steppe movements only affect parts of Eastern Europe, and eventually (except in the case of Hungary) fail, and the IE element reasserts itself.</i> <br /><br />Since steppe movements affected considerably the languages spoken in the territories where these people migrated (your examples were about Eastern Europe), it strongly suggests that this could be also the case for similar prehistoric movements. <br /><br /><i>Romans were not "nomads" and neither were Anglo-Saxons. Do you even know what a nomad is?<br /></i> <br /><br />I actually said Roman colonists and of course they were. <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nomad" rel="nofollow">Do you know what a nomad is?</a><br /><br /><i>That is a red herring. I spoke specifically about linguistic change effected by steppe pastoralists from the east. <br /></i><br /><br />There's no red herring as you actually said "What does matter is that Europe has been resilient to linguistic change from outside" (nothing about pastoralists) which is a preposterous claim. <br /><br /><i>Renfrew originally proposed two models for the Asian spread: with either early farmers, or the traditional Kurgan theory.</i> <br /><br />So the Kurgan theory actually <br />works when Renfrew uses it. How convenient!Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-67089534489034479702009-09-15T21:26:57.352+03:002009-09-15T21:26:57.352+03:00Celts arrived in Anatolia in 3rd century BCE as wa...<i>Celts arrived in Anatolia in 3rd century BCE as warriors and mercenaries</i><br /><br />It doesn't matter one iota what their profession was. Elite dominance is the process by which individuals assume positions of power through which they are able to spread their language and culture. There is absolutely zero evidence that Celts had a position of power in the Roman Empire in the regions where they were settled. The Galatians were troublesome barbarians that the Romans settled in Anatolia, like the common imperial policy. They practiced regular economic activities in the area, not warfare -as there were no Roman enemies in Central Anatolia.<br /><br />And, as we all know their language was lost. The fact that it lasted 7 centuries is irrelevant. Obviously whenever a new language is introduced, it will be spoken for some -shorter or longer- time. The point is that none of the languages that were introduced to Europe from the east -and Celtic, BTW, is not such a language- had a lasting influence even in a small region of Europe, let alone the entire continent.<br /><br /><i>I must repeat (because so do you), there's no archaeological and anthropological evidence for massive migrations. Consequently invoking the "folk migrations" is a speculation.</i><br /><br />On the contrary, there is ample anthropological, genetic, and archaeological evidence for migrations of Neolithic farmers from Anatolia to Europe. And no evidence of similar strength regarding the impact of Kurgan people on Europe.<br /><br /><i>Not true, large areas of Eastern Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia became Turkic speaking (erasing the older Iranian, Gothic, Slavic and whatever other languages) for most of the Middle Ages and early modern era until their languages were mostly assimilated by Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian. </i><br /><br />That is incorrect. Turks were never a majority in any region of eastern Europe. They certainly did not affect at all most of Europe. And, their linguistic presence was short-lived, with the Indo-European elements winning out in the end.<br /><br /><i>"Permanent" is in the eye of the beholder and most steppe movements you mention affected only regions of Eastern Europe. </i><br /><br />Exactly. Historical steppe movements only affect parts of Eastern Europe, and eventually (except in the case of Hungary) fail, and the IE element reasserts itself.<br /><br /><i>Tatar is spoken even today in some countries of Eastern Europe</i><br /><br />Irrelevant. The point is that Turks (and all the other eastern steppe people) did not affect large areas of Europe. That there are small remnants of them is testament to their inability to win out against native IE languages of Europe.<br /><br /><i>Most languages are brought by nomads, be them colonists (in the case of Roman Empire) or wandering groups (like the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England).</i><br /><br />Romans were not "nomads" and neither were Anglo-Saxons. Do you even know what a nomad is?<br /><br /><i>Arabs, Turks, Iranians brought linguistic change in Europe.</i><br /><br />Short-lived change in the periphery of Europe that disappeared within a few centuries. Even though (at least Arabs and Turks) had real conquering armies and a central government co-ordinating their expansion. <br /><br /><i> Obviously Europe is not resilient to linguistic change, otherwise we would have spoken the same languages since Paleolithic.</i><br /><br />That is a red herring. I spoke specifically about linguistic change effected by steppe pastoralists from the east. Clearly there has been linguistic change within Europe (e.g., the spread of Latin or Germanic), and the influx of a sharply genetically differentiated population in Europe during the Neolithic would almost have certainly have brought a new language (Indo-European) into Europe. <br /><br /><i>One of the problems with your Anatolian theory is that it fails to account for the spread of IE in Asia.</i><br /><br />The Anatolian theory is equivalent to the Kurgan theory in terms of the spread of IE in Asia. Renfrew originally proposed two models for the Asian spread: with either early farmers, or the traditional Kurgan theory.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-63542682806939655692009-09-15T21:03:15.231+03:002009-09-15T21:03:15.231+03:00This is an example of a folk migration, NOT of eli...<i>This is an example of a folk migration, NOT of elite dominance, as there is no evidence that the Celts in either the Balkans or in Anatolia imposed their language on the natives at all, and indeed their language was lost very quickly by that of the larger surrounding population.<br /></i> <br />Celts arrived in Anatolia in 3rd century BCE as warriors and mercenaries (invited by Nicomedes I in his struggle for the Bithynian throne) and their language survived at least until the 4th century CE (when it is attested by Jerome), which would account for some seven centuries. Also it's impossible that from Britain to Anatolia Celts spread through "folk migration", as there was no endless source of Celts somewhere in Central Europe! Moreover, the same Celtic tribes are attested in Galatia and Western Europe (for instance Tectosagi), showing that only smaller groups migrated, not the entire community, and moreover the contemporary sources attest mostly Celtic armies and warriors, battles and plunders, which is further proof that those migrating Celts were military elites. <br /><br />I must repeat (because so do you), there's no archaeological and anthropological evidence for massive migrations. Consequently invoking the "folk migrations" is a speculation.<br /><br /><i>Which makes it even more surprising that absolutely none of the language shifts within Europe (with the exception of Hungarian) originated in the steppe region, the alleged homeland of the PIE.</i> <br /><br />Not true, large areas of Eastern Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia became Turkic speaking (erasing the older Iranian, Gothic, Slavic and whatever other languages) for most of the Middle Ages and early modern era until their languages were mostly assimilated by Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian. <br />However Celtic, Germanic, Latin, Slavic speakers, who caused the indo-Europeanization of most of the Europe, were no longer "steppe warriors" at the time of their expansion.<br /><br /><i>They did. We have repeated movements of Iranian, Turkic, Mongolian, and Uralic speakers into Europe from the Eurasiatic steppe. None of their languages succeeded in making any sort of permanent change in any great part of Europe. Always the Indo-European languages of the larger settled farming populations win out in the end. <br /></i> <br />"Permanent" is in the eye of the beholder and most steppe movements you mention affected only regions of Eastern Europe. Tatar is spoken even today in some countries of Eastern Europe (and Mongol invasions brought the Tatars, the Mongol armies retreated). <br /><br />Most languages are brought by nomads, be them colonists (in the case of Roman Empire) or wandering groups (like the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England).<br /><br /><i>Indeed, it doesn't really matter one bit if one accepts elite dominance or folk migration or demic diffusion as more important in the spread of language in Europe. What does matter is that Europe has been resilient to linguistic change from outside: neither the Arabs, nor the Turks, nor the Mongols, nor the various Iranians, nor the various Uralic speakers that came to it were able to effect real linguistic change.</i> <br /><br />Arabs, Turks, Iranians brought linguistic change in Europe. Obviously Europe is not resilient to linguistic change, otherwise we would have spoken the same languages since Paleolithic. Only <a href="http://www.continuitas.com" rel="nofollow">PCT</a> and similar fringe positions make such arguments.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-19685252709560695712009-09-15T18:55:16.768+03:002009-09-15T18:55:16.768+03:00Dienekes,
One of the problems with your Anatolian...Dienekes,<br /><br />One of the problems with your Anatolian theory is that it fails to account for the spread of IE in Asia.<br /><br />How did Anatolian languages spread to Sri Lanka and who spread them, and when, if not IE speakers.<br /><br />Also, how do you account for reconstructed PIE containing words associated with Steppe life?pconroyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10312469574812832771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-22971128411256859572009-09-15T18:41:30.506+03:002009-09-15T18:41:30.506+03:00Celts expanded from British Isles and Iberian peni...<i>Celts expanded from British Isles and Iberian peninsula to Anatolia (Galatians) being rather military elites (the case is quite obvious for Balkans and Anatolia where they are mentioned as such by historical records)</i><br /><br />This is an example of a folk migration, NOT of elite dominance, as there is no evidence that the Celts in either the Balkans or in Anatolia imposed their language on the natives at all, and indeed their language was lost very quickly by that of the larger surrounding population.<br /><br /><i>There are regions of Europe changing their dominant language several times in history!</i><br /><br />Which makes it even more surprising that absolutely none of the language shifts within Europe (with the exception of Hungarian) originated in the steppe region, the alleged homeland of the PIE. Quite simply, steppe nomads, despite their repeated intrusions into Europe have been singularly unsuccessful in effecting linguistic change in Europe. <br /><br /><i>But they didn't remain "completely unaffected" therefore there's nothing to explain</i><br /><br />They did. We have repeated movements of Iranian, Turkic, Mongolian, and Uralic speakers into Europe from the Eurasiatic steppe. None of their languages succeeded in making any sort of permanent change in any great part of Europe. Always the Indo-European languages of the larger settled farming populations win out in the end. <br /><br />Indeed, it doesn't really matter one bit if one accepts elite dominance or folk migration or demic diffusion as more important in the spread of language in Europe. What does matter is that Europe has been resilient to linguistic change from outside: neither the Arabs, nor the Turks, nor the Mongols, nor the various Iranians, nor the various Uralic speakers that came to it were able to effect real linguistic change.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-20510431874955378872009-09-15T16:13:41.490+03:002009-09-15T16:13:41.490+03:00The spread of Celtic, Germanic (and Slavic) was pr...<i>The spread of Celtic, Germanic (and Slavic) was primarily one of folk migration or demic diffusion NOT of elite dominance. We see this clearly in the states where there was indeed clearly a Germanic elite over a foreign population (among Latins, Slavs, and Finns alike) where the language of the population remained unchanged.<br /></i> <br />There's no archaeological or anthropological evidence of overwhelming migrations in these cases (and the historical evidence is often dubious and contested, see W. Goffart for Germanic migrations, F. Curta and P. Barford for Slavic migrations, etc.), on the contary most evidence supports language shift (through some sort of elite dominance). Celts expanded from British Isles and Iberian peninsula to Anatolia (Galatians) being rather military elites (the case is quite obvious for Balkans and Anatolia where they are mentioned as such by historical records), and Germans also expanded over Celts and other non-Germanic populations also as military elites. Witnessing these wide linguistic spreads of Celtic, Slavic and even Germanic (from far north to Alps, from Britain to Black Sea) demic difussion becomes unverosimile as we can't reasonably expect that repeatedly in European history the population of a small territory overcame demographically vast areas of Europe. There are regions of Europe changing their dominant language several times in history! Where is the evidence for some flooding migrations?<br /><br /><i>Moreover, both Celts and Germans were not steppe pastoralists but European farmers/stockbreeders. So, where are all the examples of steppe warriors changing the language of Europe? There have been numerous examples, and only the Hungarians succeeded and for a tiny bit of Europe. </i> <br />Steppe pastoralists were stock breeders. Also, contrary to your claims, there were already several examples like Scythians, Magyars, Tartars who succeeded to impose their language over some Eastern and Central European territories with little if any resistence. And there's no theoretical constraint that initially the IE languages spread over huge areas (Slavic languages notably started to expand only some 1500 years ago), so there's no reason to expect a more exceptional situation than those we already know for other steppe horsemen.<br /><br /><i>The Kurgan hypothesis does NOT support the second option as it was not a pan-European phenomenon, but one that affected only the periphery of Europe, moreover none of the known steppe intruders had any success in changing the language of Europe.<br /></i> <br />But actually it does, as Anthony, Mallory et al. point out. The IE speakers changed the linguistic map of Europe during several millenia, not in their initial expansion. They came as horsemen but they eventually succeeded through some other ways but horseriding and burial rites.<br /><br /><i>The spread of farming -unlike the Kurgan intrusions- is clearly one process that affected most of Europe. <br /></i> <br />Most of Europe started to learn IE languages relatively recently (in 1st millenium BCE and after). Do you really believe Western Europe switched from Paleo-Iberian and Aquitanian to Celtic and Latin because of farming? <br /><br /><i>It's up to those who think that the large agricultural populations of Bronze Age group changed completely their language into IE due to "steppe pastoralists" to explain why the later agricultural populations of Europe remained completely unaffected by repeated intrusions by real centrally organized eastern cavalry armies.</i> <br />But they didn't remain "completely unaffected" therefore there's nothing to explain. And the burden of proof is on the supporters of demic difussion, as they claim that the most common scenario of linguistic spread is a demographic expansion in an underpopulated space, possibly with the extermination/migration of the previous speakers. Where is the evidence? Language shift may leave no trace in the archaeological or anthropological record, such demographic changes certainly would.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-49493639509030054702009-09-15T14:10:34.896+03:002009-09-15T14:10:34.896+03:00Moreover, language families such as Celtic or Germ...<i>Moreover, language families such as Celtic or Germanic experienced succesful expansions even though there was no prehistoric Celtic or Germanic state, but mostly tribal dominations.</i><br /><br />The spread of Celtic, Germanic (and Slavic) was primarily one of folk migration or demic diffusion NOT of elite dominance. We see this clearly in the states where there was indeed clearly a Germanic elite over a foreign population (among Latins, Slavs, and Finns alike) where the language of the population remained unchanged.<br /><br />Moreover, both Celts and Germans were not steppe pastoralists but European farmers/stockbreeders. So, where are all the examples of steppe warriors changing the language of Europe? There have been numerous examples, and only the Hungarians succeeded and for a tiny bit of Europe. <br /><br /><i>:: Why should we believe that out of all the steppe groups that entered Europe only one (the Kurgans) not only affected the continent linguistically in a little way, but changed its entire linguistic landscape. <br />Because this is the reality: most of today Europe speaks IE languages. There are only two options: 1) Europe was always mostly IE speaking (PCT) or 2) IE speakers changed drastically the linguistic map of Europe. Both Kurgan and Anatolian hypotheses support the second option.</i><br /><br />The Kurgan hypothesis does NOT support the second option as it was not a pan-European phenomenon, but one that affected only the periphery of Europe, moreover none of the known steppe intruders had any success in changing the language of Europe.<br /><br />The spread of farming -unlike the Kurgan intrusions- is clearly one process that affected most of Europe. <br /><br />It's up to those who think that the large agricultural populations of Bronze Age group changed completely their language into IE due to "steppe pastoralists" to explain why the later agricultural populations of Europe remained completely unaffected by repeated intrusions by real centrally organized eastern cavalry armies.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-73915652030257705852009-09-15T13:21:16.785+03:002009-09-15T13:21:16.785+03:00Latin spread because it was the language of an org...<i>Latin spread because it was the language of an organized state that pursued a policy of expansion for many centuries. Nothing of the sort can be postulated for prehistoric "Kurgan folk".<br /></i> I don't see why would anyone want to do that, as virtually no one suggests that Proto-Italic, for instance, occupied the entire space from Atlantic to Middle East. Moreover, language families such as Celtic or Germanic experienced succesful expansions even though there was no prehistoric Celtic or Germanic state, but mostly tribal dominations.<br /><br /><i>Moreover, Latin was the language of Central Italian farmers, not of steppe nomads</i><br />They didn't spread their language because of superior farming technology, but through their military and political success, consequently the spread of IE languages with agriculture is rather unlikely as most (all?) "IE conquests" we know were political and military, not agrarian. If someone cultivates cereals better than you it doesn't look like a good reason to learn his language.<br /><br /><i>We do have countless names of nomadic people from the east who invaded Europe: Scythians, Avars, Huns, Bulgars, Alans, Mongols, to name but a few. None of them could so much as change the linguistic landscape of the settled populations of Europe in the least. Hungarians, a tiny bit of Europe is all that's left of all these steppe nomadic invaders.<br /></i> Actually many of them did. Ancient Eastern Europe had an important group of Iranic speakers, Medieval Eastern Europe had Turkic speakers (Pechenegs, Cumans, Tartars - the latter surviving even today). All these nomads assimilated some local settlers and imposed their language for a while (they even left some durable traces such as toponymy), long enough for us to detect it as a historical change.<br />Also you're enumerating only steppe nomads, because otherwise Slavs, Celts and many other IE populations were also nomadic, though not in a "steppe way".<br /><br /><i>Why should we believe that out of all the steppe groups that entered Europe only one (the Kurgans) not only affected the continent linguistically in a little way, but changed its entire linguistic landscape.</i> <br />Because this is the reality: most of today Europe speaks IE languages. There are only two options: 1) Europe was always mostly IE speaking (PCT) or 2) IE speakers changed drastically the linguistic map of Europe. Both Kurgan and Anatolian hypotheses support the second option.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-28225774128711407842009-09-15T11:11:57.599+03:002009-09-15T11:11:57.599+03:00Latin started out as the language of a city and it...<i>Latin started out as the language of a city and its surroundings and swept over many languages both IE (Oscan, Umbrian, Illyrian, Celtic dialects etc.) and non-IE (Etruscan, Aquitanian, Punic) and probably also languages we'll never know they existed.</i><br /><br />Latin spread because it was the language of an organized state that pursued a policy of expansion for many centuries. Nothing of the sort can be postulated for prehistoric "Kurgan folk".<br /><br />Moreover, Latin was the language of Central Italian farmers, not of steppe nomads: We do have countless names of nomadic people from the east who invaded Europe: Scythians, Avars, Huns, Bulgars, Alans, Mongols, to name but a few. None of them could so much as change the linguistic landscape of the settled populations of Europe in the least. Hungarians, a tiny bit of Europe is all that's left of all these steppe nomadic invaders.<br /><br />Why should we believe that out of all the steppe groups that entered Europe only one (the Kurgans) not only affected the continent linguistically in a little way, but changed its entire linguistic landscape.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-9635027299445454712009-09-15T10:57:13.050+03:002009-09-15T10:57:13.050+03:00Of course nothing of the sort is attested for Euro...<i>Of course nothing of the sort is attested for Europe; prehistoric Kurgan people almost certainly lacked the organization of the Arabs and Turks: they were illiterate, they formed small independent bands -no evidence of a great Kurgan "state" whatsoever. </i><br />Europe was mostly non-IE speaking in "Kurgan era" and most IE dialects were spoken in relatively small territories. Latin started out as the language of a city and its surroundings and swept over many languages both IE (Oscan, Umbrian, Illyrian, Celtic dialects etc.) and non-IE (Etruscan, Aquitanian, Punic) and probably also languages we'll never know they existed.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-47681226506755217902009-09-15T02:30:04.497+03:002009-09-15T02:30:04.497+03:00I don't see why much more primitive Kurgan peo...<i>I don't see why much more primitive Kurgan people would have changed the languages of the whole of Europe.</i><br />If one doesn't hold PCT or similar extremist views then obviously the IE speakers eventually changed the language of Europe.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-41085997930889705822009-09-15T02:19:27.177+03:002009-09-15T02:19:27.177+03:00Germanic speakers took control of the entirety of ...<i>Germanic speakers took control of the entirety of Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. They did not impose their language in the greatest part of the territory they controlled. </i> <br />They imposed in some of the territory (it may be that Frankish Austrasia is responsible for the spread of Germanic languages over Romance in Western Europe), which is good enough as it shows the language shift existed also in the case of early Medieval Germanic spread. Also Gothic was spoken in Crimea until 17-18th centuries or so. <br /><br /><i>What about all the rest of the Balkans? The Slavs invaded the Balkans with Avar leaders, but it's the language of the Slavic farmers that prevailed, not that of the Avars? What about the Bulgars? Again, it was Slavic that prevailed, not the language of the Bulgars.</i> But the Slavic languages didn't spread by demic difussion as it's virtually impossible to have some tribes living in some Eastern European marshes (where traditionally the Slavic homeland is placed) to overcome demographically only in several centuries most of the Eastern Europe. Slavic languages spread also by language shift, and near the Roman border, where we have a better picture, there were more or less Romanized Gepids, Goths, Heruls, Celts, Sarmatians, Alans, Thracians, Illyrians, Greeks, Huns, Avars who learnt Slavic and became Slavs. Read <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/fcurta/lingua.pdf" rel="nofollow">this</a> article for a recent synthesis of a theory of a Slavic lingua franca in the Avar khaganate. <br />And early Slavs were not only farmers, the sources attest them to be warriors, to have leaders of their own (Samo, Dauritas, Musocius, Perbundos, Peiragastus, Ardagastus), to be recruited as mercenaries, etc. Consequently there was also a Slavic military and political elite. However Hungarians are a better example for understanding IE spread because their honfoglalás matches better the scenario of horsemen conquering a land and imposing their language. <br /><br /><i>The spread of language by elite dominance is the historical exception. In most documented cases in Europe, it is the language of the settled population that wins out. The only major exception is that of Romance languages, but here we have an advanced bureaucratic central state which advanced its language and culture methodically over many centuries.<br /></i> There are also linguistic substrata identified in most IE languages (also in Greek, see for example <a href="http://www.indo-european.nl/ied/pdf/pre-greek.pdf" rel="nofollow">this paper</a>) testifying for a new community of speakers changing the language of the original settlers (however not necessarily in the territory where that language is historically attested). Maju also provided several other relevant examples of language shift which should make us conclude safely enough that it is not an exception but a common phenomenon, possibly the most common one.Ardagastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10825142896040320234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-79450841769974557012009-09-15T01:37:58.028+03:002009-09-15T01:37:58.028+03:00Was by chance Brennus, who vanquished Rome, less o...<i>Was by chance Brennus, who vanquished Rome, less of a political and military leader than Quintus Fabius? was by chance Atilla less of a emperor than Theodosius? </i><br /><br />Neither Brennus nor Attila made even a tiny change in a small part of the linguistic landscape of Europe, so I don't see why much more primitive Kurgan people would have changed the languages of the whole of Europe.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-90397204343308710252009-09-15T01:33:52.306+03:002009-09-15T01:33:52.306+03:00Some examples of historical linguistic replacement...<i>Some examples of historical linguistic replacements by tribal invaders are</i><br /><br />Your list is full of conjectural invasions, and examples of folk migration/demic diffusion rather than elite dominance. <br /><br />The only worthwhile examples are of Arabs and Turks who spread because of their organization, i.e., they were organized states (Khalifate, various Turkish sultanates) which pursued a policy of conversion over many generations.<br /><br />Of course nothing of the sort is attested for Europe; prehistoric Kurgan people almost certainly lacked the organization of the Arabs and Turks: they were illiterate, they formed small independent bands -no evidence of a great Kurgan "state" whatsoever. <br /><br />The notion that the effected the linguistic conversion of the entire European continent is unbelievable. <br /><br />Wave after wave of eastern invader (Finnic/Iranian/Turkic/Mongolian), most of them at a much higher level of social organization than the Kurgan people failed to change the language of even a small part of Europe (with the sole exception of the Hungarians), and yet we are supposed to believe that the much more primitive Kurgan people changed the language of the entire continent.<br /><br />Credulity has its limits.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.com