# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Indo-European Language Originated On The Steppe?

## Aberdeen

Eurogenes posted a link to an article published by the Linguistics Society which claimed to prove that Proto-Indo-European developed on the Eurasian Steppe about 6500-5500 BP. If that's true, and if everyone is correct in assuming that Corded Ware are closely related to those northern IE folk whose DNA hasn't actually been tested yet, that would mean that CW folk probably spoke and IE language, which is something many people have argued for but which I wasn't convinced of.

www.linguisticsociety.org/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf

I guess we need to stop thinking of the IE culture as a recently composite one at the time it expanded - the Middle Eastern farmer component must have already been there when the language developed. At least, that's my take away from that paper.

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## Angela

> Eurogenes posted a link to an article published by the Linguistics Society which claimed to prove that Proto-Indo-European developed on the Eurasian Steppe about 6500-5500 BP. If that's true, and if everyone is correct in assuming that Corded Ware are closely related to those northern IE folk whose DNA hasn't actually been tested yet, that would mean that CW folk probably spoke and IE language, which is something many people have argued for but which I wasn't convinced of.
> 
> www.linguisticsociety.org/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf
> 
> I guess we need to stop thinking of the IE culture as a recently composite one at the time it expanded - the Middle Eastern farmer component must have already been there when the language developed. At least, that's my take away from that paper.


Thanks for your link. Anything I say should be prefaced by the fact that my knowledge of linguistics is limited to one university class and what I have read as a layperson. However, doesn't it seem like they're beating a dead horse? I don't think almost anyone still believes the Indo-European languages spread with early Neolithic farmers a la the original Renfrew articulation. The question is, did it "form" on and spread from the Pontic Caspian steppe or did it form south of the Steppe in the "Armenian" highlands or even slightly east of there and then move to the Pontic Caspian steppe. The other question is did it spread with a cohesive cultural package from and with the Yamnaya Kurgan culture.

I thought the comments by "Matt" were insightful and thoughtful in pointing out the different dates provided by this group and the implications from that.

"Divergence of Hittite at 4000BC, Tocharian at 3500BC, then Greek-Armenian at 3200BC, Indo-Aryan divergence from remaining European branches at 3000BC.

So that's a divergence of Hittite before the earliest Yamnaya culture dates, Tocharian at around the beginning of the earliest Yamnaya culture and Greek-Armenian during the early Yamnaya culture.

Seems at first blush that fits with Marija Gimbutas who saw PIE as pre-Yamnaya."

Maykop influence is around 3500 BC isn't it? 

If some of it was pre-Yamnaya I wonder if that means it was prior the admixture with "Near Eastern" people?

I also wonder whether Greek/Armenian could have come south through the Caucasus and then west across Anatolia, or did it come west from the steppe then south and then east to reach Armenia?

Wouldn't this late divergence of Indo Aryan help with whatever concerns the Reich people have with the lack of WHG in certain areas?

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## Sile

> Eurogenes posted a link to an article published by the Linguistics Society which claimed to prove that Proto-Indo-European developed on the Eurasian Steppe about 6500-5500 BP. If that's true, and if everyone is correct in assuming that Corded Ware are closely related to those northern IE folk whose DNA hasn't actually been tested yet, that would mean that CW folk probably spoke and IE language, which is something many people have argued for but which I wasn't convinced of.
> 
> www.linguisticsociety.org/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf
> 
> I guess we need to stop thinking of the IE culture as a recently composite one at the time it expanded - the Middle Eastern farmer component must have already been there when the language developed. At least, that's my take away from that paper.


its a poor paper, it does not even take ito account the split of late latin into east and west romance language which still to today, dictate the influence of todays romance languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Romance_languages

the paper wants to ignore the isoglosses of all these languages its presents

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## Aberdeen

> Thanks for your link. Anything I say should be prefaced by the fact that my knowledge of linguistics is limited to one university class and what I have read as a layperson. However, doesn't it seem like they're beating a dead horse? I don't think almost anyone still believes the Indo-European languages spread with early Neolithic farmers a la the original Renfrew articulation. The question is, did it "form" on and spread from the Pontic Caspian steppe or did it form south of the Steppe in the "Armenian" highlands or even slightly east of there and then move to the Pontic Caspian steppe. The other question is did it spread with a cohesive cultural package from and with the Yamnaya Kurgan culture.
> 
> I thought the comments by "Matt" were insightful and thoughtful in pointing out the different dates provided by this group and the implications from that.
> 
> "Divergence of Hittite at 4000BC, Tocharian at 3500BC, then Greek-Armenian at 3200BC, Indo-Aryan divergence from remaining European branches at 3000BC.
> 
> So that's a divergence of Hittite before the earliest Yamnaya culture dates, Tocharian at around the beginning of the earliest Yamnaya culture and Greek-Armenian during the early Yamnaya culture.
> 
> Seems at first blush that fits with Marija Gimbutas who saw PIE as pre-Yamnaya."
> ...


I certainly never took Renfew's theory seriously. I always thought IE languages came from the steppe. However, prior to this paper, and the paper about R1b Yamnaya, I had wondered whether the Proto-IE language had originated with Maykop before Maykop mixed with Russian hunter gatherer types to become steppe pastoralists. But it looks now as if the influence went the other way, so I'm wondering whether IE people migrated into the Caucasus and west from there, to become the Greeks and Anatolians. Mostly because I don't know of any archeological evidence for any major migration from the Balkans into Anatolia.

A lot of things Gimbutas said that other people dismissed are starting to look pretty accurate.

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## Diurpaneus

> But it looks now as if the influence went the other way, so I'm wondering whether IE people migrated into the Caucasus and west from there, to become the Greeks and Anatolians. Mostly because I don't know of any archeological evidence for any major migration from the Balkans into Anatolia.


This is an old paper from the 70's.They have found strong similarities( pg.50) between two horse-headed scepters :
one from Dobruja(Casimcea), the other from Anatolia(Konya).
Their place of origin:from Northern Caucasus till Kuibasev(the commy name of Samara).

https://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j...85970519,d.d24

of migration(pg.127-128):

http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&...85970519,d.d24

Population movements also occurred,as far as I know,during the Bronze Age Collapse,evidenced by the presence of Babadag poterry in the VIIb2 layer of Troy.

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## Alan

the paper was extremely criticized by Dienekes for beeing rather unproffesional. But as Angela I think they are beating a dead horse. The neolithic Anatolian hypothesis is almost out of question. We only have two, three theories remaining.

PC Steppes, West Asian highlands(Zagros/North Mesopotamia/Transcaucasus), South_Central Asia.

http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2015/02/...eological.html

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## Aberdeen

> the paper was extremely criticized by Dienekes for beeing rather unproffesional. But as Angela I think they are beating a dead horse. The neolithic Anatolian hypothesis is almost out of question. We only have two, three theories remaining.
> 
> PC Steppes, West Asian highlands(Zagros/North Mesopotamia/Transcaucasus), South_Central Asia.
> 
> http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2015/02/...eological.html


Dienekes seems to be more critical of the paper by Anthony and Ringe, although he did say he doesn't think the paper by Chang et al proves that the steppe hypothesis is more probable than the Caucasian hypothesis. And, considered in isolation, it probably doesn't, but when combined with new information suggesting that Yamnaya might not have been a recent mixture of Caucasian and Russian hunter gatherer but more of a long time steppe population, it does lend more support to the idea of IE languages invading the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia from the steppe. And I don't think we should criticize Chang et al for pointing out that the Neolithic European IE hypothesis is well and truly dead.

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## Aberdeen

> This is an old paper from the 70's.They have found strong similarities( pg.50) between two horse-headed scepters :
> one from Dobruja(Casimcea), the other from Anatolia(Konya).
> Their place of origin:from Northern Caucasus till Kuibasev(the commy name of Samara).
> 
> https://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j...85970519,d.d24
> 
> of migration(pg.127-128):
> 
> http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&...85970519,d.d24
> ...


I wasn't able to fully understand the first paper, which is written in a Romance language I'm not familiar with. The second paper roams over a vast expanse of time and geography, and seems to be suggesting that early Copper Age people from the Balkans brought IE languages to Anatolia during the Bronze Age collapse as a result of being pushed out of their homeland by climate change and Yamnaya migration. I do not think that makes any sense at all.

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## Alan

> Dienekes seems to be more critical of the paper by Anthony and Ringe, although he did say he doesn't think the paper by Chang et al proves that the steppe hypothesis is more probable than the Caucasian hypothesis. And, considered in isolation, it probably doesn't, *but when combined with new information suggesting that Yamnaya might not have been a recent mixture of Caucasian and Russian hunter gatherer but more of a long time steppe population, it does lend more support to the idea of IE languages invading the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia from the steppe.* And I don't think we should criticize Chang et al for pointing out that the Neolithic European IE hypothesis is well and truly dead.


Which new informations, I am not aware of, suggest that, if even Reich personally speaks of an Near Eastern introduction into the Steppes?

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## Aberdeen

> its a poor paper, it does not even take ito account the split of late latin into east and west romance language which still to today, dictate the influence of todays romance languages
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Romance_languages
> 
> the paper wants to ignore the isoglosses of all these languages its presents


Given that the paper is about the IE steppe hypothesis, I have no idea why you think it should concentrate on the development of Romance languages after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

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## Sile

> Given that the paper is about the IE steppe hypothesis, I have no idea why you think it should concentrate on the development of Romance languages after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.


Then they should show only steppe languages, but point still stands, it avoids isoglosses regardless of language.....

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## Aberdeen

> Then they should show only steppe languages, but point still stands, it avoids isoglosses regardless of language.....


I suggest that you get a good dictionary and a book on the basics of linguistics and find out what the authors meant by the phrase "phylogenetic model". That will help you understand why they talked about Greek and Armenian versus Germanic and Balto-Slavic without specifically discussing what the centum-satem isogloss is all about. And no, they don't have to discuss the evolution of Romance languages in detail in order to be permitted to show the place of Romance languages in the Indo-European language tree.

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## Maciamo

> the paper was extremely criticized by Dienekes for beeing rather unproffesional. But as Angela I think they are beating a dead horse. The neolithic Anatolian hypothesis is almost out of question. We only have two, three theories remaining.
> 
> PC Steppes, West Asian highlands(Zagros/North Mesopotamia/Transcaucasus), South_Central Asia.
> 
> http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2015/02/...eological.html


Dienekes has always supported the Anatolian Neolithic diffusion of Indo-European languages. I don't think he has much expertise as a linguist anyway. He trained as a computer scientist and became a hobbyist population geneticist before making it his career thanks to his admixture tools. But if you look back at his theories, most of them have been proved wrong:

- He claimed (e.g. here, here and here) that modern humans did not have any Neanderthal DNA.
- He claimed (e.g. here and here) that R1b came during the Neolithic and even guessed that Ötzi would be R1b.
- He has always said (e.g. here) that IE languages originated in what he calls the "Womb of Nations" in West Asia (or his ancestral Anatolia).
- He thought that E-V13 expanded from Greece to the Balkans during the Bronze Age

He seems to have been wrong on all the important theories.

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## Diurpaneus

> 1)I wasn't able to fully understand the first paper, which is written in a Romance language I'm not familiar with. 
> 
> 2)The second paper roams over a vast expanse of time and geography, and seems to be suggesting that early Copper Age people from the Balkans brought IE languages to Anatolia during the Bronze Age collapse as a result of being pushed out of their homeland by climate change and Yamnaya migration. I do not think that makes any sense at all.


1)This is the passage:
"A doua problemă se leagă de descoperirea în Anatolia a unei piese foarte asemănătoare cu cele discutate pînă aici. Acest nou sceptru, descoperit întîmplător în apropierea sau pe locul unei aşezări chalcolitice din SV Anatoliei - în zona oraşului Konya - este lucrat dintr-o rocă dură , fiind tratat mai realist, avind sprîncenele foarte puternic reliefate şi indicaţia căpăstrului , şi apropiindu-se ca înfăţişare generală mai mult de sceptrul de la Casimcea."

"The second matter regarding the discovery of a piece in Anatolia very similar to those disscused here.This new scepter,accidentally found in a Chalcolithic site from Anatolia,Konya city area,polished from hard rock,exhibiting more realistic traits,pronounced eyebrows and bridle,
is closer,in its overall appearance, to the scepter from Casimcea."(my translation)


pg.46:

"l. Studiind sintetic problema "culturii curganelor" din U.R.S.S.,(răspîndită în stepele pontice şi în regiunea inferioară a fluviului Volga),ale cărei triburi sînt considerate de autoare proto-indoeuropene, şi a pătrunderii lor în spre vest şi sud-vest, Marija Gimbutas aminteşte în această oreline ele idei - în chip cu totul firesc, după părerea noastră -şi ele sceptrele în formă ele cap ele cal, pe care ea le pune în legătură tocmai cu triburile stepelor, care au transmis vecinilor dinspre vest şi calul domestic."
The author agrees(about the scepters) with Gimbutas;they're of Kurgan origin.

2)Sorry, I haven't been paying attention exactly on the referring part.
This still is the conventional Kurgan hypothesis.The Yamna pastoralists who relentlessly chased/pushed out , initially westward and later southward, some tribes from Cucuteni and Gumelnitsa(that weren't IE),until they've reached NW Anatolia.It doesn't matter if the IE people have also arrived there by following them or not;that's point's 1 business,who obviously points to a N-to-S route.
It clearly states(pg. 126-127) that the Kurgan herders were present in Thrace and Macedonia and they used horse-headed scepters.Both PDFs agreed that these items were of Kurgan origin.

The last phrase from my previous post was about the LATE Bronze Age Collapse.

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## holderlin

HXsNcmX.jpg

Beat a dead horse indeed. The irony.

I think the model above might help some people understand.

And I encourage everyone to consider horses more scrupulously. Domesticated ones.

*EDIT*

It occurred to me that I should comment on the wave model I posted. This is an oldy, but a goody. I think it was published in 1972. Here you see 24 Isoglosses, and 1 is Centum/Satem. Some of these are only relevant to subfamilies, but it's still a baller chart. In spite of Centum/Satem you see that Greek-Irainian/Indic-Armenian share many similarities as do Germanic-Baltic-Slavic and even Celtic-Italic-Tocharian-Hittite. Of particular interest to this discussion would be Tocharian and Hittite/Anatolian. Both very conservative, very similar to each other, and yet about as far apart as possible. This means that both of these languages departed from the PIE seat very early, retaining archaisms. Especially Hittite. In Hittite we even see a lack of forms that developed in ALL other IE languages indicating that it was likely the first departure. In fact it may have left before PIE even became the PIE whence all other IE languages came from. This sort of rules out an Anatolian homeland, on a purely linguistic geographic basis. 

Given some of the similarities we see my guess is that Italic/Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian were early departures forming the initial periphery. Latter departures were Greek/Armenian and Indo-Iranian, and Baltic/Slavic-Germanic form the center of gravity that didn't move all that much. The similarities between Germanic and Celtic are likely from latter interactions, which fit the archaeological and historical record perfectly.

BUT, if one flips things, which given the strangeness of the archaeology and culture of the Hittites isn’t too crazy, we could reverse it and propose that “Proto-Hittite” is actually the real PIE that the cattle herders brought to the steppe through the Caucuses. I believe this is what the R1b cattle driver theorists would need to stand on. This sounds like a brilliant reversal, but makes explaining latter IE expansions, and how they arrived at their historical seats nearly impossible. Unless we say that the “cattle breeding R1bs” infiltrated the steppe through the caucuses, enveloping the steppe peoples and converting them to their pastoralist culture and language while leaving remnants of the true PIE back home in Anatolia. Such a model teeters on the edge of exceeding the scope of the homeland problem, and I would probably have to argue that the PIE homeland would still be the Pontic-Steppe on the basis that expansions would still need to have begun there. I think this is, if not impossible, extremely unlikely on countless other grounds, but an interesting idea. PIE would have been surrounded by non IE languages which it no doubt would have shared much more similarities with; Hattic, Hurrian, Semitic, etc. just before teleporting across the caucuses to found PIE version 2 – Horses and hunters. There are also a ton of Hurrian and Hattic loanwords in Hittite. Why don’t we see at least some of these in PIE? If the true PIE is really a sort of proto-Hittite, then it would probably extend deep into the Neolithic. So we would not only have expected form similarities along with word sharing by the Early Bronze age, but also expected to see a deeply rooted agricultural lexicon easily reconstructed to PIE. 

PIE from Anatolian R1b cattle drivers moving from their Anatolian homeland not only doesn’t fit, but it’s an answer to a different question. PIE is a Bronze age language, and if we push theories too far back we’re talking about something that couldn’t be PIE in the first place.

Here's another chart showing distance between languages through ascribing a binary structure to the isoglosses: 0->1 for innovation or change.

Cj2sGSM.jpg

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## Sennevini

This kind of statistical analysis on historical linguistics can be dangerous (think of last year's paper in favour of the Anatolian hypothesis).

Just the fact that words regarding farming (crops and tools) are borrowed into the Indo-European daughter languages means that the Proto-Indo-Europeans
were not a people of farmers and that the languages spread into areas in which farming already existed.

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## holderlin

> This kind of statistical analysis on historical linguistics can be dangerous (think of last year's paper in favour of the Anatolian hypothesis).
> 
> Just the fact that words regarding farming (crops and tools) are borrowed into the Indo-European daughter languages means that the Proto-Indo-Europeans
> were not a people of farmers and that the languages spread into areas in which farming already existed.


This is too obvious for people.

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## Aberdeen

> This kind of statistical analysis on historical linguistics can be dangerous (think of last year's paper in favour of the Anatolian hypothesis).
> 
> Just the fact that words regarding farming (crops and tools) are borrowed into the Indo-European daughter languages means that the Proto-Indo-Europeans
> were not a people of farmers and that the languages spread into areas in which farming already existed.


Nobody is disputing that the Indo-European pastoralists migrated into areas of Europe that had crop farming and borrowed some agricultural terms from the people who were already living there. But certain words with relevance to pastoralists are of IE origin (e.g., the English word horse is derived, through old Germanic language, from the IE word ekwo), so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

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## holderlin

> Nobody is disputing that the Indo-European pastoralists migrated into areas of Europe that had crop farming and borrowed some agricultural terms from the people who were already living there. But certain words with relevance to pastoralists are of IE origin (e.g., the English word horse is derived, through old Germanic language, from the IE word ekwo), so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.


I think his point would be to further underscore the unlikelihood of a West Asiatic origin, whether by Pastoralists or not. If, as many theorize, PIE was brought by "R1b cattle herders" from the epicenter of agriculture the language would no doubt already contain a vast breadth of native agricultural terms reconstructable to PIE. This isn't the case. The terms are spotty and often known loan words. I believe the only solid reconstructs are "grain", "to sow", and possibly "field", but "field" doesn't necessarily mean "farmland" in all languages. In Iranian it can be any wild field.

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## Sennevini

Yes that's what I mean. It is obvious to most of us, but somehow those in favour of the Anatolian model ignore these facts.

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## arvistro

@holderlin,

Interesting, so Slavic B is as close to Slavic A as to Baltic. Do you know what is meant there by Slavic B and Slavic A?

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## Goga

*" Indo-European before the Indo-Europeans? - new evidence from Mesopotamia*


_Fresh evidence from the Land of the Two Rivers suggests otherwise. For many decades now, leading Assyriologists have speculated on the existence of an early population in the 4th millennium B.C. that preceded the Sumerians, hitherto generally regarded as the first settlers of the region. Evidence for such a population comes from place names, the names of deities, technical vocabulary and even from environmental terms. Such speculation has proven fruitless, since no linguistic group or archaeologically attested society could be shown to be related. However, in a number of recent publications data have been presented that suggest that one such linguistic group is indeed comparable -- the Indo-European family of languages. Polysyllabic terms lacking a Sumerian etymology can be demonstrated to resemble segmentable Indo-European words with comparable meanings. Furthermore, the cuneiform writing system can be shown to preserve traces of Indo-European influence in its sign values and in its sign composition._ "

http://rootsofeurope.ku.dk/english/calendar/archive_2009/euphratic/

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## Goga

I'm sure that the Sumerians were the ancestors of the proto-Iranic people, like the Mitanni. I believe that the Medes & Persians evolved from those Mitanni Sumerian folks! There’re many links between the Sumerian mythology, ancient Iranic religions and my native current Iranic religion called the Yezidism.
Look at the *BIRDS* on two lions of the Mitanni ROYAL seal with the SUN between the wings!

*Šauštatar's royal seal*:



And look at the holy bird of my native Iranic religion, the Yezidism. 



Birds were also ancient Mythological angels according to the Sumerians.

Also look at the *Sumerian cuneiform for An*, same as we the Ezdi Kurds have, left of that bird.





Also, Sumerians were the *SUN* worshippers, just like my people, the Iranic Ezdi Kurds, and our Iranic ancestors the Medes and Mitanni…

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## Goga

Sumerian *Bird God*, the *Annunaki*




*Aquatic - Enki - Sumer - Zoroaster above Tree of Life - Persia* 


http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_sumeranu/sumeranu14_09.jpg

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## holderlin

> @holderlin,
> 
> Interesting, so Slavic B is as close to Slavic A as to Baltic. Do you know what is meant there by Slavic B and Slavic A?


I think Slavic A is West/South and B is East, but I'm not entirely sure. It's Isogloss 17.

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## holderlin

> Sumerian *Bird God*, the *Annunaki*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Aquatic - Enki - Sumer - Zoroaster above Tree of Life - Persia* 
> 
> 
> http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_sumeranu/sumeranu14_09.jpg


Goga if PIE is actually proto-euphratic it would be the coolest thing ever. But it's not because it's an absurd theory. I'm trying to think of an analogy that would impart a more universal measure of this absurdity but such a tool is escaping me at the moment.

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## arvistro

Where did you get this table from then?

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## holderlin

> Where did you get this table from then?


Original wave model is from a 1972 (1989 2nd addition) book by Raimo Anttila http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=2C25_9m7U-AC

It's expounded up by Heggarty in this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981917/

And I stumbled upon some supplementary information on the Heggarty paper here http://www.languagesandpeoples.com/E...eighborNet.htm

Enjoy.

It's actually a relatively simple model compared to some of the crazier way people can try to quantify language change, which I think might be a waste of time given all of the chaotic variables.

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## Sile

> Original wave model is from a 1972 (1989 2nd addition) book by Raimo Anttila http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=2C25_9m7U-AC
> 
> It's expounded up by Heggarty in this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981917/
> 
> And I stumbled upon some supplementary information on the Heggarty paper here http://www.languagesandpeoples.com/E...eighborNet.htm
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> It's actually a relatively simple model compared to some of the crazier way people can try to quantify language change, which I think might be a waste of time given all of the chaotic variables.


some of the stuff is from this 2012 paper from univ. of california

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9v44n49p#page-10

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## holderlin

> some of the stuff is from this 2012 paper from univ. of california
> 
> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9v44n49p#page-10


Wow, that's some dude's dissertation. Jam packed with info.

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## MOESAN

> Nobody is disputing that the Indo-European pastoralists migrated into areas of Europe that had crop farming and borrowed some agricultural terms from the people who were already living there. But certain words with relevance to pastoralists are of IE origin (e.g., the English word horse is derived, through old Germanic language, from the IE word ekwo), so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.


HORSE < > *EKWO ??? My head feathers are dropping down on my shoes! please check your sources... just concerning this very word

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## MOESAN

> Original wave model is from a 1972 (1989 2nd addition) book by Raimo Anttila http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=2C25_9m7U-AC
> 
> It's expounded up by Heggarty in this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981917/
> 
> And I stumbled upon some supplementary information on the Heggarty paper here http://www.languagesandpeoples.com/E...eighborNet.htm
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> It's actually a relatively simple model compared to some of the crazier way people can try to quantify language change, which I think might be a waste of time given all of the chaotic variables.


I suppose there is no unique parfect representation, family tree and waves of propagation interfere - basically the tree system seems more reliable, the waves system requires uninterrupted contacts and inter-intelligibility at some level, which is linked too to time - loan words for material consumering is another story, we can see today, everyday - even tolks are not needed then -

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## holderlin

> I suppose there is no unique parfect representation, family tree and waves of propagation interfere - basically the tree system seems more reliable, the waves system requires uninterrupted contacts and inter-intelligibility at some level, which is linked too to time - loan words for material consumering is another story, we can see today, everyday - even tolks are not needed then -


Yes, as with every model you have to take all considerations when drawing broader conclusions. I like the wave because as you say it allows you to look at the languages themselves for a moment, which is very revealing. Trees for some reason, with me at least, seem to confer some sort of presupposition. I end up taking more from them than they are actually meant to give. I dunno.

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## Aberdeen

> HORSE < > *EKWO ??? My head feathers are dropping down on my shoes! please check your sources... just concerning this very word


I got that from an online Proto-Indo-European dictionary I can't seem to find at the moment, but the University of Texas site says the Indo-European word for horse is ekuos and I found the word ekwos at an Indo-European dictionary site. So it looks as if the experts differ slightly, or perhaps it's the difference between PIE and IE, but all three sources seem to agree that the IE name for equine creatures is ekwo, ekwos or something similar. And the Gaelic name for horse is eich, the Latin name for horse is equus and the Sanskrit is azva. I realize the French word for horse is different.

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## MOESAN

> I got that from an online Proto-Indo-European dictionary I can't seem to find at the moment, but the University of Texas site says the Indo-European word for horse is ekuos and I found the word ekwos at an Indo-European dictionary site. So it looks as if the experts differ slightly, or perhaps it's the difference between PIE and IE, but all three sources seem to agree that the IE name for equine creatures is ekwo, ekwos or something similar. And the Gaelic name for horse is eich, the Latin name for horse is equus and the Sanskrit is azva. I realize the French word for horse is different.


OK it's laughable of mine - I misunderstood and thought you were saying *ekwos was from the same I-E root as "horse" when you was saying, I guess, both have same meaning, what is not same etymology - apologize- good night

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## Melancon

> HORSE < > *EKWO ??? My head feathers are dropping down on my shoes! please check your sources... just concerning this very word


I read somewhere and I think I found out the same thing about PIE and Horse/Ekwo. Although, I think it probably had an accent. So it wasn't necessarily pronounced as Ekwo. (at least in an English/Latin/Greek way)

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