Talk:Proto-Indo-Europeans

Possible mistake

The phrase, "they wrote heroic poetry or song lyrics," cannot be true, or at least I believe so, because they did not write. Was this meant to say, "they recited heroic poetry or song lyrics," or something similar? --xideum 16:25, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess they "wrote" it in the sense that they created it, not that they wrote it down, after that, they recited it... Sheessh, English semantics is a problem...

Yeah, words shouldn't have fixed meanings...

What about esperanto?

me.

It's certainly an IE language, and can be put into the Slavic group. It compares rather nicely to Maltese, a Semitic language that has been radically re-lexified by IE (mainly Italian) languages. Esperanto has a Slavic sensibility to it, tho' a considerably simplified grammar, and is lexified mainly with Latin-based words. Does Esperanto really need the accusative? --FourthAve 8 July 2005 08:54 (UTC)

Esperanto is a conlang. Like pidgins and creoles, conlang are generally not put into groups in the family tree model. As a former Esperantist (I left the movement after a decade of heavy activity because I found it was a cult and learning and speaking real languages during my travels proved a richer experience), I must say that there is very little "Slavic" about Esperanto. There is no complex noun morphology in Esperanto, nor a significant distinction between perfective and imperfective verbs. Crculver 00:13, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I would put artificial languages in languages groups whenever possible. I would put Esperanto and Ido in an own group within the Indo-European group. Volapük is a Germanic language, more specifically West Germanic. Interlingua is quite obviously a Romantic language since it is mutually understandable to Italian, Corsican, Spanish and Portuguese. Where to put Occidental is anyone’s guess.

2008-12-25 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

So Quenya and Sindarin would then be Nostratic, no? But what about Pig Latin?Kjaer (talk) 19:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I am sceptic to the Nostratic hypothesis. If I understand their origin correctly Quenya would be a Finno-Ugrian (Uralic) language and Sindarin a Celtic (Indo-European) one. It all depends on where the majority of their vocabulary comes from. About Pig Latin it is a way to play with language rather than a language in itself. I don’t think such playing can be equalized to the creation of an artificial language.

2008-12-25 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Making it clear there's no archaeological evidence

I don't want to fiddle with this myself but have a suggestion. So far this text doesn't make it clear enough IMHO that the proof for all this info on way of life, etc. is only from the reconstructed PIE language. People could understand it to mean that there is archaeological evidence or other non-language-related proof. Take the sentence: "The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a patrilineal society. - here for example you could say "We think ... because the reconstructed elements for "father" and "head of household" (pter-) are the same." (my interpretation from http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html) This kind of example would have to be on all the related pages too, especially the religion and society pages. I know the words "hypothetical" and "reconstructed" are at the start, but I think this needs to be repeated more, with examples, to make it absolutely clear. Saintswithin 07:23, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think I see the problem. I agree that it should be made very clear that this is all just reconstruction. But giving each phrase a conditional mood would really cripple style and flow of the text. Also, it's not the case that this is only (though mostly) based on comparative linguistics. I think archaeology finally begins to play a crucial role. Even if we don't agree on the Kurgans, early IE (post PIE!) societies are identifiable, and from burials etc. much may be learnt about these societies. My present focus is to flesh out the neglected articles (PIE language, Kurgan) first, but I inserted a cautionary paragraph for now. Feel free to further add a "reconstructed" here and there if necessary, though. dab 11:29, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph is good. I agree it isn't necessary to use the conditional, but I still suggest mentioning how the reconstruction took place - you could give, say, just the one example above and then say "the following information was also inferred using this method". Or maybe a short paragraph on the reconstruction method before getting down to the descriptive passages. There aren't many examples under "comparative linguistics" either, and personally I find the examples the most interesting part; seeing the process of reconstruction is like a detective story. Saintswithin 20:21, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What strikes me as odd with the diffusion or invasion debate, is that those who attack the invasion theory seem to present a limited understanding of how historical invasions took place. Invading populations usually did not waste too much of the indigenous peoples and as far as I know there were very few "extermination invasions" prior to WWII. It was much more productive and economical to vassalize or enslave the previous population. The language of the invader would have had a higher prestige and a consequently a great advantage in the long run. There are many cases of such invasions in history, such as the Romans (very few later Latin speakers were genetically Latin), the Anglo-Saxons (genetic studies have shown that the "Germanic" genes are in minority), the Turks (the population of Turkey does not look very much like Central Asians), Slavs in Russia, Arabs in North Africa, Chinese in Southern China, etc. etc.

Moreover, I don't know of a single language which has spread by cultural diffusion in history. If anyone knows of such a case, please inform me. I would find it extremely interesting!--Wiglaf 23:20, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

Doesn't *peku mean "cattle"/"livestock", rather than "animal"...

most probably "small livestock", not cattle, but sheep and goats etc. dab (ᛏ) 10:51, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the generic word for "wild animal" possibly was *ghwer, differentiating it partly from a few common wild animals, but mainly from the domesticated animals so important for the PIE way of life.

Word for plough

Did not Proto-Indo-European have a word for “plough”? That suggests that the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived from agriculture as well. However, it might have been less important than livestock. Can anyone tell me if I am wrong?

2006-12-19 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I think *harh-tlo has been proposed: Greek arotron, Lat. aratrum, Old Norse ardr, Armenian araur (plough), related to Latin arare (to plough). Slavic plug is common, but seems likely a Germanic borrowing. 惑乱 分からん 03:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, perhaps *H₂erH₁-tr- or something is more probable? The l might be because of a wish to connect Old Slavic oralo/ ra(d)lo... (plough) 惑乱 分からん 04:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Judging dead people by appearance is not always accurate

mtDNA of Scytho-Siberian skeleton Human Biology 76.1 (2004) 109-125

Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations

François-X. Ricaut et al.

Abstract The excavation of a frozen grave on the Kizil site (dated to be 2500 years old) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia) revealed a skeleton belonging to the Scytho-Siberian population. DNA was extracted from a bone sample and analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA. The resulting STR profile, mitochondrial haplotype, and haplogroup were compared with data from modern Eurasian and northern native American populations and were found only in European populations historically influenced by ancient nomadic tribes of Central Asia.

...

The mutations at nucleotide position 16147 C→A, 16172 T→C, 16223 C→T, 16248 C→T, and 16355 C→T correspond to substitutions characteristic of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a (Richards et al. 2000). The haplotype comparison with the mtDNA sequences of 8534 individuals showed that this sequence was not found in any other population.

...

The N1a haplogroup was not observed among the native American, east Asian, Siberian, Central Asian, and western European populations. The geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a is restricted to regions neighboring the Eurasian steppe zone. Its frequency is very low, less than 1.5% (Table 6), in the populations located in the western and southwestern areas of the Eurasian steppe. Haplogroup N1a is, however, more frequent in the populations of the southeastern region of the Eurasian steppe, as in Iran (but only 12 individuals were studied) and southeastern India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh territories). More precisely, in India haplogroup N1a is absent from the Dravidic-speaking population and is present in only five Indo-Aryan-speaking individuals, four of whom belonged to the Havik group, an upper Brahman caste (Mountain et al. 1995).

...

The absence of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a in the 490 modern individuals of Central Asia (Shields et al. 1993; Kolman et al. 1996; Comas et al. 1998; Derenko et al. 2000; Yao et al. 2000; Yao, Nie et al. 2002) suggests changes in the genetic structure of Central Asian populations, probably as a result of Asian population movements to the west during the past 2500 years.

AAPA 2004

East of Eden, west of Cathay: An investigation of Bronze Age interactions along the Great Silk Road.

B.E. Hemphill.

The Great Silk Road has long been known as a conduit for contacts between East and West. Until recently, these interactions were believed to date no earlier than the second century B.C. However, recent discoveries in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang (western China) suggest that initial contact may have occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C. The site of Yanbulaq has been offered as empirical evidence for direct physical contact between Eastern and Western populations, due to architectural, agricultural, and metallurgical practices like those from the West, ceramic vessels like those from the East, and human remains identified as encompassing both Europoid and Mongoloid physical types.

Eight cranial measurements from 30 Aeneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern samples, encompassing 1505 adults from the Russian steppe, China, Central Asia, Iran, Tibet, Nepal and the Indus Valley were compared to test whether those inhabitants of Yanbulaq identified as Europoid and Mongoloid exhibit closest phenetic affinities to Russian steppe and Chinese samples, respectively. Differences between samples were compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity were assessed with cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis.

Results indicate that, despite identification as Europoid and Mongoloid, inhabitants of Yanbulaq exhibit closest affinities to one another. No one recovered from Yanbulaq exhibits affinity to Russian steppe samples. Rather, the people of Yanbulaq possess closest affinities to other Bronze Age Tarim Basin dwellers, intermediate affinities to residents of the Indus Valley, and only distant affinities to Chinese and Tibetan samples

Thesis Statement Rewrite

I've done a major rewrite of the thesis statement, and made it far stronger. I don't think anyone here really disagrees with what I have said. This is NOT a minor edit. --FourthAve 8 July 2005 09:17 (UTC)

that's very well, but we have Proto-Indo-European language to discuss the language. this article is supposed to discuss the people, culture, genetics, etc. dab (ᛏ) 8 July 2005 09:30 (UTC)

this article has problems

this article needs rewriting; much of what is written here is not well accepted by linguists. glottochronology, for example, is (currently at least) mostly discredited, and the claim "the results are quite robust for well attested branches" would be contested by many or most linguists and hence needs citations.

I strongly agree that it needs rewriting and is not well accepted by linguists. It looks to be about 20 years out of date and has almost no linguistic content. It seems to be most influenced by Mallory and Colin Renfrew which is at best a terribly outdated archaeo-historical perspective. Proto-IndoEuropean would by definition have to have lasted until Indo European emerged from it which is c 1650 BC rather than the neolithic. In the main it seems to prefer handwaving to content. Take for example the part about "they rode horses". There is no evidence whatsoever for horseriding prior to c 2000 BC. Rather than riding horses and having carts the Proto-Indo Europeans may well have been seapeoples. The idea that they lived on the north shore of the Black Sea would not explain the earliest known presence of Indo European in Syrio-Anatolia. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

this para

In any case, developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. They indicate a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies by Brian Sykes show that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic), suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by invasion and extermination, i.e. much more peacefully than was described in some invasion scenarios, and thus the genetic record does not rule out the historically much more common type of invasions where a new group assimilates the earlier inhabitants (e.g. Romans in Southern Europe, Britons in Brittany, Arabs in North Africa, Slavs in Russia, Chinese in Southern China, Spanish in Mexico and Turks in Anatolia, etc.). This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:

is highly confused and needs reworking.

the kurgan hypothesis may be "speculative" but it is far more accepted than renfrew's views, despite what this article tries to imply. renfrew's date of 7000 BC is very hard to reconcile with the linguistic evidence and thus is not taken seriously. there is also little if any evidence from historical times of languages spreading in the absence of political domination and much evidence of cultural spread *without* language spread. Benwing 06:05, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say. however, the Gray-Atkinson results are 'robust' mathematically, as they show in their paper. Lingustist still don't accept them, because they are still "just glottochronology" of course (although I doubt many linguists have bothered to look at the details of how their method is different from mere word-counting). I am an IE-ist, and I swear by the Kurgan model, but I still think the Gray-Atkinson stuff has some merit. The invasion stuff is here to appease "anti AIT" Indians. How exactly is it confused, and how should we reword it? dab (ᛏ) 06:23, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

You have read too much Mallory, Renfrew and Gimbutas and not enough of David McAlpin, Aasko Parpola and S R. Rao. Kurgans are too late, Nomadic Pastorialist transitions to agriculture are too early. The Invasion theory would probably work better if it went the other way. Gray-Atkinson is hung up on Kurgans and Renfrews nomadic pastorialsts becoming agriculturalists. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

So, chapter and verse their views.

A much more straightforward model looks at the trading links up the gulf in the Jemdet Nasr connecting Daravidian with Elamite and Indo European with the ships of Meluhha docking at the Quays of Agade. Language develops with civilization, commerce and the multiplication of interactions inherent with settlement. Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Are you arguing the Out-of-India hypothesis?

Yes, I completely agree with both of you, but even in Europe (*cough* Sweden) the politically correct POV is that there were no migrations or conquests at all. This is not for the same reasons as that of the Hindutva, but for the reason that after WWII the implication of conquests is frowned upon.--Wiglaf 06:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It's confused esp. because it appears to be a refutation of Gimbutas, but then it looks like someone added this "This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:", which is contradictory with what the previous para says about Gimbutas.

Gimbutas is archaeologically interesting but not linguistically interesting. People didn't begin riding horses on the steppes until after there is already evidence of IE in Syro-Anatolia.Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Of course there is evidence of IE in Anatolia by this time. There is also evidence of Indo-Iranian lanaguages intruding ca 2000 BC, bringing horse-drawn chariots with them.

Anyway, someone added this, which I removed because it is totally POV:

Archaeologists have searched for many years for traces of their culture in the presumed homeland on the north shore of the Black Sea, but have not found any trace from the right time. Although the kurgan burrials in southern Russia and the Crimea are suggestive, it appears that they are all remains of people who lived 3000 years after the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

I don't know who wrote that but they appear to favor Renfrew. Modern theory holds that language developed so rapidly during the international urbanization that began in the Chalcolithic that it overwhelmed any earlier roots. Take a look at unclassified Summarian and Hurrian as they interact with Elamite on the one side, Semitic Akkadian coming in from the deserts, Afroasiatic Egyptian coming up from the south and the emergence of IE to their west.Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

I get the feeling recent edits are trying very hard to discredit the Kurgan theory and establish a 7000 BC date.

Benwing 04:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Both are wrong Rktect 22:37, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Out of Where?

I and lots of others dismiss Out of India and Out of Anatolia out of hand, but one is free to defend it.

As for the Kurgan hypothesis, I think it is fair to say no one is entirely happy with it, but it works better than any other proposed so far.

• Kurgan doesn't work at all. Renfrew doesn't work at all.

• How do you feel about combining Parpola - Rao (the more you push things apart the closer you bring them together) with the concept that c 2600 BC a waterborne trading language develops in the Gulf with the ships of Makkan, Meluhha and Dilmun docking at the quays of Agade bringing together an interesting cluster of cross group ickthiophagi proto languages?

Makkan = Proto Arabian with some Afro Asiatic roots

Meluhha = Harrapan Daravidian at Lothal and IA Pushtu/Brahui at Mohenjo Daru

Dilmun = Tepe YaYah up to Elam = Elamite and UAR up to Failakah unclassified Hurrian

Agade = Sumerian - Akkadian

[Asko Parpola]

[S R Rao]

[ethnolouge]

Rktect 02:10, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

what has that got to do with anything rktect? Oh, you're the guy who thinks PIE is derived from Ancient Egyptian, never mind then. dab (ᛏ) 05:49, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

What it has to do with anything is this. Most PIE models are land based. Renfrew uses nomadic pastorialists as a mechanism to make contact between the people of India and Europe and starts c 9,000 BC which means that from one end of his language chain to the other there is a 9,000 year development gap. The model is too slow, too interupted and has no way of modeling rapid exchange as civilization and technology add new words to the system.

Gimputas and Mallory and Kurgans use horses to expedite communications but start too late and too far removed from the major nodes of civilized interaction to make a case that they would be knowledgable about things like the jargon of civilization regarding agriculture, settlement, urbanization, infrastructure and social stratiifcation.

A third model, allows that even before horses were being ridden c 2000 BC, people from Syrio-Anatolia were connecting to India by Sea trade down the Gulf using a long series of middlemen who needed some sort of lingua franca in order to do business. This is pretty well documented but if you are unfamiliar with the studies I can provide you some cites. The advantages of this model for the incorporation of PIE into the language base is that it allows very rapid interaction back and forth between urban areas and focuses on the jargon of civilization regarding agriculture, settlement, urbanization, infrastructure, commerce and social stratiifcation.

A counter argument is that language develops only very slowly and that it would take thousands of years rather than hundreds for people to incorporate so much new vocabulary and grammar that their old language would be entirely replaced. That argument may or may not be correct in terms of PIE, but in America many Native American languages have been completely replaced by English, French, Spanish Dutch or Portugese in a few centuries.

And no, I'm not the guy who thinks "PIE is derived from Ancient Egyptian". I did mention elsewhere that English is an amalgamated language composed of bits and pieces of different languages that have been borrowed into it from everywhere English speakers have gone. I also presented a well known list of a couple of dozen Egyptian words that have been borrowed into English as an example. There is a difference between the terms "borrowed from" and "derived from". Rktect 12:21, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

The embedded map of PIE is not a good model. Rktect 20:24, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The present wording is much too certain of speculative reconstructions of a hypothetical language implying a hypothetical group of speakers of that language would fit one of several contraversial models. The primary change to the wording is to corectly rephrase as conjecture what is said now with unwarrented certainty. Rktect 23:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Indo-European Migration and Climate

I recall a Russian TV program in which Vyacheslav V. Ivanov argued that two waves of Indo-European migrations - in the late 3rd millenium BC and ca. 1200 BC - were occassioned by considerable climate changes. Global warming at these points led to drastic shortening of grazing areas in the Great Steppe, which caused Indo-Europeans to seek new areas for settlement. Can anybody comment as to whether this data should be included in the text of the article? --Ghirla | talk 14:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

What about agriculture spreading influence on languages and Lord C.Renfrew's theory?

Presented ide Kurgan origin theory is only one possibility. It was discussed and criticised sharply in nineties. Kurgan wawes existed, but they were not necessary varriesrs of indoeuropean similarities to languages. Agriculture spreading was much more powerfull process and left lots of phono-semantic sets in ide languages wchich were formed when languages of hunters and fishermen mixed with agriculturers speaches. Genetists prooved, that migration of agriculturers to europe yield aproximately only 10-25%. . Lithuanian is one of the most archaic ide languages. Turbo from Lithuania. 2006, February 10, Vilnius.

It all depends on how quick a language is supposed to change. Gimbutas imagined the PIE as warmongers on horseback, a kind of Scythians placed back in time. Well, everybody knows such extravert behaviour, invoking contact with other cultures and extraordinary conditions including trade and domination/submission, accelerate the development of language. Actually, the process tends to degenerate morphology, as we have seen clearly with the development of English, Afrikaans and Western European languages in general. Assuming exactly such an attested rapid change to modern languages pressed Gimbutas and others to push the chronologic origin of PIE as recent as to the Yamna culture, 3600-2300 BC. However, the exclusion of other contemporain archeological cultures has never been generally accepted:

• Corded Ware culture, 3200-2300 BC (proposed as being proto-(western)centum/proto-Balto-Slavic, IE-fied according to the Kurgan hypothesis)
• Afanasevo culture, 3500—2500 BC (proposed as being proto-Tocharian)
• Maykop culture, 3500—2500 BC (traditionally classified as IE or IE-fied, links to known IE languages like proto-Anatolian deemed problematic)

Maybe it would help to consider a more peaceful PIE way of living, including a strong introvert and agricultural component among the early cultures, and accept linguistic change wouldn't necessarily have been always as rapid as to exclude more ancient non-Kurgan archeological cultures to be more probable candidates to PIE: already more ancient alternative archeological cultures have been proposed with names like Dnieper-Donets culture, Samarran Culture, Khvalynsk culture and Sredny Stog culture. Rokus01 12:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Corrections of map

There is good map. But there are several mistakes:

1) Corsica and Sardinia were not Indo-European up to 1000 BC, because its population (Corses and Sardes) are described by ancient authors as relatives of non-Indoeuropean Hispanic Iberes. Romanisation of these islands was made to 1st cent. AD.

2) Eastern Spain was home of non-Indoeuropean Iberes and this area was romanisated up to 1st cent. AD.

3) In Scandinavia Northern Bronze Age culture which associated with Indo-Europeans spread to Norway and more large part of Sweden.

4) Estonia had no significant Indo-European population and generally border between Finnic and Baltic populations was Daugava (Dvina River) in today Latvia.

5) It is believed that in migration in Europe Indo-Europeans are divided to 2 branch: northern (Paleoeuropeans - ancesors of Celts, Illyrians, Italics, Venets, Germans, Slavs and Balts) and southern (ancesors of Greeks, Thracians, Phrygyans and Armenians). Border between these two branch was Carpatian mountains.

6) Up to 1000 BC nor Crete nor Cyprus were not Indo-European which is fixed in historical accounts.

7) It is believed in Kurgan hypothesis and is evidenced from historical and linguistical data that Anatolians came from Agean Sea basin (for example Carians).

8) Armenian Highlands was not Indo-European up to 800 BC. Its population were predominantly Caucasian-speaking Hurrians and Urartians.

9) About Tocharians: from linguistical data is known that Tocharians is strongly contacted with Finno-Ugric tribes. From this and archeological accounts it is believed that ancesors of Tocharians were population of Fatyanovo culture (central Russia). When and by which way Tocharians came to Sinkiang (Western China) is not known, but because slightly linguistical contacts between Tocharian and Iranic languages proposed that migration went through forest zone (not steppe).

Generally I think that it will better correct map.

Dmitry Krotko (til@bigmir.net).

About lingustics and genetics

I want to say that connections between lingustic and genetic relations is not nessesary. Most of populations of Europe and India has mixed Indo-European and pre-Indo-European origin. Only Scythians and Sarmatians have practically pure Indo-European origin (because they remain on place of origin of Indo-Europeans), but they were assimilated by Ossetes, Turkic tribes and Ukrainians.

Dmitry Krotko.

Question

I remember reading in the 80's about an identification of th PIE people with the Starcevo and related cultures in the Danube basin. Is the Danubian theory forgotten?

About Danubian theory

Danubian theory is obsolete at the time. It is shown that Danubian cultures bearers were coming from Anatolia and from this point of view is Renfew's PIE. But most linguists and archeologists believe that PIE were Kurgan people from Pontic steppes that conquer and assimilate Tripolye and Danubian peoples.

What About Sanskrit?

Sanskrit is the earliest Indo-European language. With that said, isn't it most likelly that the PIE came from India? I am going to mention this in the article. Zachorious 06:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

no on both counts; Anatolian languages are attested significantly earlier than, and Greek contemporaneously to, Sanskrit. Out of India models have been proposed, but are almost universally rejected. dab (𒁳) 17:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The oldest Indo-European language is actually Hittite. Furthermore, there are two points of criticism not listed in the article “Out of India”. Firstly, Proto-Indo-European had a word for “snow”. All language only have words for things that the speakers feel a need to talk about. Northern India is mostly tropical. A smaller part is subtropical but in that area the climate is so dry that snow is highly unlikely. Secondly, the language of the Indus Valley Civilisation was probably Dravidian not Indo-European. Their characters have not been decoded but the clues we have points towards a Dravidian language. Eather the Kurgan hypothesis is true or the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in a part of the Middle East rougly corresponding to present-day Kurdistan. In the later case it must have been some time before the people in that area begun to write since Proto-Indo-European is purely reconstructed language.

2007-01-21 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

these aren't compelling arguments though. Sanskrit and every other Indian language have words for "snow" too. The scene of the Rigveda is roughly between Khabul and Delhi, and snow is very well known in the Hindukush. The possibility that the IVC was Dravidian cannot be proven either. The absence of the horse is a much more compelling argument against an Indian PIE Urheimat, but the reason it isn't an attractive scenario is mostly because nothing really speaks for the possibility. You might as well suggest China, nothing speaks dead against China either, and yet nothing speaks for it, so why consider it, when "steppe PIE" is perfecly coherent.dab (𒁳) 16:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

When I wrote “Northern India” I thought about the northern plains. How often does it snow in this region? I beat it have not happened for generations! If you thought about Hindukush it is more suitable to call it “out of Kashmir” (an area highly disputed today) or “out of the Himalayas”. The Sanskrit word for “snow” might well have been a rarely used word inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Words for “snow” in modern Indian languages are ether derived from the Sanskrit word or relatively recent loanwords.

2007-03-10 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

There are numerous words for snow in Sanskrit, al least more than your poor swedish language, Indo-aryan seat was Kabul to yamna(a river near Delhi). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.69.21.93 (talk) 16:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

If we only count unrelated words Swedish have four words for snow:

Frost = frost.

Lavin = avalanche.

Skare = snow with a frozen crust.

Snö = snow in general.

Anyway, the present discussion within the scientific community is whether the Proto-Indo-Europeans lived north or south of the Caucasus, not whether they lived in India, on the Balkan Peninsula or anything such.

2008-05-26 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Look, here in New Jersey, we have plenty of snow related words: snow, frost, blizzard, hail, sleet, flurry, rime, slush, powder, and about 100 others. It is quite obvious that the Proto-Indo-Europeans originated somewhere between Philadelphia and New York City, most likely on the Mullica River. Merry Christmas. Kjaer (talk) 17:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I don't know of any PIE root word for "a putrid, rotten-egg and feet smell," which means they probably weren't from New Jersey. ;-) RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

The PIE root word in question, *perd-, is attested in the names of the neolithic New Jersey settlements of both Paterson (metathesis) and Princeton (nasal infix), cognates which partisans of the Nordpolheimat theory are wont to pass over in silence. Also, please note that I now reside in New York, and so can be viewed as an impartial observer. Bada bing! Kjaer (talk) 18:22, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Haplogroup R1b

Shouldn't we mention HG R1b when talking about Sykes' hypothesis. He has published a new book just recently about it. --Kupirijo 04:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

you mean R1a1? Which is in the article? or what is the "R1b hypothesis"? Our article dates it to the days of Cro Magnon. dab (𒁳) 11:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

improper synthesis

Sunilsrivastava,

I have removed the material you added due to improper synthesis.

The sources you cite do not identify the movements of people you refer to as those of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

As you yourself state, the migrations you refer to took place in time frames of either "50,000 to 40,000 BC" or "40,000 to 30,000 years ago".

The predominant Kurgan hypothesis dates the Indo-European expansion to the 3rd millennium BCE and even the Anatolian hypothesis dates the Indo-European expansion to the 7th millennium BCE at the outside.

It is WP:OR to link these migrations dated 50,000–30,000 BCE to the Proto-Indo-Europeans when the sources you cite do not do so themselves.

JFD 15:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

When did man start talking? Was it suddenly? Were you and I there to listen to them? And words he chose to use were there before. IE Prototype is just one answer to the commoness of IE Languages. But surely these people moved around from one region to another from time to time. And the frequency becomes more and more till recent times because of (1) Migration out of dire necesstity, like employment, export business, professional pursuits, drought and earthquakes(2) Colonization, which comes with conversion and aculturation, etc. But if you assume that these speakers were communicating for time before, like whales and chimps even communicate, their vocabulary was established much before even IE is dated and Aryan Invasion talked about. The same stock of people were recycled, more and more as times became recent and adding to confusion. If you look at Indus Valley Civilization, you see continuation of Shiva And Yogic Postures to present time. And you see the pictures of Shiva in Europe, Ireland. You see Swastika carvings in ROcks in Europe. You see snake worship all over Arabia and Middle east, as discovered by Discovery, and where do you think it is still happening. How can you explain all this? The sad part is that Anglo-Saxon culture of world view predominates with white wash and they become the gate keepers of the truth. In Hindu history, it is said that at one time the influence was all over the world. We tend to undermine our ancestors and the long stay of civilization here on earth. Only 300 years back, the same people were saying that Earth was made 5000 years back because Genesis said that. Where do you think there is a land with maximum numbers of rivers covering a biggest fertile valley and where there are maximum mountains to seek elevation in case of floods and which supply max water, and where do you think the climate is not very cold like Northern Europe and not hot like Southern Hemisphere. It is matter of time only when people would realize that Indus Valley area provided a big impetus to the civilization of the world and beyond ruins, there is a continuity of culture and civilization which is still running among us, and was there the same in 2500 BC. There are 105 languages in India and more than half are connected to Sanskrit. But Indians did not have time and resources to publish papers and prove that they are all connected to Sanskrit because they know it and do not have to prove it.

If you want to add material to wikipedia, then I'm afraid it does have to come from papers published in peer-reviewed journals. JFD 03:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Your comment about the date not being mentioned in NG is wrong. Please look up the Atlas and they mention this.

Show me where in the NG Atlas it says that the Indo-European languages were brought to Europe from India. That's what you want to say, and so must the NG Atlas if you're going to cite it as your source. JFD 10:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

man, JFD tells you to not conflate paleolithic migrations with PIE expansion, and we get to hear general musings on epistemology, and a sermon on Yogic postures in Harappan art? What is wrong with you? Thankfully, Wikipedia is not usenet where people chatter for chatter's sake.

the topic of paleolithic migration is fascinating in itself, and it is certainly interesting that Europe should have been reached full 30,000 years(!) later than India. This belongs on Historical_migration#Early_migrations. It has nothing (literally nothing, as in zero) to do with Proto-Indo-Europeans. In the context of "Out of India" it merely goes to show that India is a much, much more attractive migration target than migration starting-point. If left to themselves, populations will gravitate towards India, not "out of India" (this holds for pre-modern times, of course India is not a migration target today, for economic reasons). dab (𒁳) 11:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Homour

am I the only one that thinks that the name could be shortend into pieians which sounds like a civilization that bases its living off pie Atomic1fire 21:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

little do you know that *pie- is in fact the term for "small spoon for stirring curdled mare's milk", an extremely important artefact in pieian daily life as well as royal ceremony. --dab (𒁳) 18:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the source for...

This paragraph? With ORry phrases like this - "take away much of the edge", "obviously cannot yield", "what Gimbutas had in mind" - I have to admit I was very surprised to see that dab was the one who restored this. - -- Merzbow (talk) 18:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

well, it's not my wording, and it could definitely do with some cleanup for tone, but I maintain that the gist of the paragraph is well-informed and perfectly straightforward. Perhaps I should have cleaned it up instead of just restoring it though. I certainly do not defend the precise phrasing here. dab (𒁳) 18:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

On 'hypothetical'

Concerning my edit a few minutes ago: as I wrote in my summary, it isn't the language itself, nor its ancient speakers who are hypothetical. Rather, in the case of the language it is the reconstructed forms of the words, mostly, that are hypothetical, being unattested in written sources. And the existence of that (spoken) language attests to the existence of its speakers. SamEV (talk) 22:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

relationships between men

i can't find how the source wording is about that thing. what does it mean? hierarchy? or equal/random relations? should we let it relationships. make it relations between men? hierarchy between men? interaction? CuteHappyBrute (talk) 12:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As opposed to relations among women. Do women marry into a family, or do men? The Bible says that a man leaves his family for his wife's; the practice of the patriarchs, however, was to take a woman and bring her into his father's household. Among the PIE people, the latter was the case. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 15:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

R1b Haplotypes

I don't understand why the R1b material is in the PIE article. R1a appears to correspond with predicted PIE migrations. R1b looks like a group that was already in Europe when PIEs got there, possibly intermarried with Germans and Celts and moved with their migrations. Why is the information in the PIE article?Ekwos (talk) 18:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I found it interesting regarding the question of the link between IE languages and the hypothetical spread of a people: it suggests that the two are not necessarily linked, or that the language spread beyond the spread of a particular people. It would therefore bear on the plausibility of the various theories concerning PIE. I found it a good way to present the relevant information without offending WP:NPOV, and appreciate the work done recently to clarify the genetics section. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 03:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)