My proposed tree of Indo-European languages

[Garrick]

Sile
you introduced very important subject for understanding theme.

Some interlocutors mention Vucedol culture as Illyrian.

Serbian scientist Bogdan Brukner gave this hypotesis but today it is obsolete.

Vucedol culture was in period 3000-2200 BC.

Illyrians emerged 1000 BC, even proto-Illyrians didn't exist in time of Vucedol culture.

Contemporary archeology established a relationship between Vucedol culture and Sitagroi Va culture in Greece.

Archeologists link following cultures (in the picture):

Cotofeni culture 3500-2500 BC (mid Danube area, today's Romania and Serbia)

Vucedol culture 3000-2200 BC (area Eastern Slavonia and Srem, today's Serbia and Croatia)

Ezero culture 3300-2700 BC (area central Bulgaria, today's Bulgaria)

Sitagroi Va culture 3100-2300 BC (area Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in today's Greece)

What we know about these cultures they can be linked with proto-Thracians.

(also Tei-culture Muntenia, today's Romania; Bosaca culture today's Slovakia, Hungary; Kostolac culture Serbia and beyond; Yunatsite culture, Bulgaria

even Troy! although this link is more problematic).

Who were proto-Thracians?

Wikipedia: Evidence of proto-Thracians or proto-Dacians in the prehistoric period depends on the remains of material culture. It is generally proposed that a proto-Dacian or proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous people and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze Age (3,300–3,000 BC).

Warriors who came in waves (from steppe along the Danube valley or across the Carpatian pass endangered the tribes who lived in south part of Pannonia) in big extent were carriers of R1b-Z2103 haplogroup and younger clades (of course they had other haplogroups too) but this fact is especially significant if we speak about IE language.

From mix of these people and natives in Pannonia, Romania and Balkans were emerged Proto-Thracians.

 

[Sile]

What they meant by "eastern Balkan region" was likely with reference to Italy, i.e. east of Italy. After all, it references Anatolia, the steppe and the Caucasus in respect to mtDNA.

Really ! and you believe this?
so someone in reference to switzerland will brand austrian Tyrol as east-Austria ! ( i.e east of switzerland)

 

[AdeoF]

Hmm im late but i would like to say that is a very interesting map. Funny according to the map i am Celtic even if that admixture is minor to me lol

 

[Ygorcs]

link me a illyrian script and a thracian script

No, because that's irrelevant, mere diversionism. Languages exist independently of scripts and especially in ancient times predated them. Besides, whether Illyrian and Thracian scripts existed or not, and when, it has nothing to do with whether Albanian is Thracian, Illyrian or anything else - the language did not arise from a written script, and in fact that language (Albanian) was put down to written form very, veeeeery late. Ancient scripts have nothing to do with this issue. Also, it is you that needs to provide sources for speculations about the Eastern Balkans being "Thracian" since 3200 BC and self-assured correlations between genetics and linguistics (and in a very specific way, distinguishing not just different and broad language families, but specific branches like Thracian and Illyrian) when there is no way we can sort that out with the evidence that has been found until now.

 

[Ygorcs]

I read it from
An Early Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlement of discovered in Alepu lagoon (municipality of Sozopol, department of Burgas), Bulgaria
and other web sites
.
If you want to call them Pelagsian, Greeks, Indians or black sea coastal villagers or whatever , so be it.
.
A new pile-dwelling settlement has been discovered during coring investigations on the shores of the Alepu lagoon (municipality of Sozopol, department of Burgas), on the western Black Sea coast, in Bulgaria. A multi-disciplinary methodology was applied to analyze the archaeological dataset, composed of wood piles, abundant charcoals and wood fragments, seeds, fish and shell remains, a few small bone fragments, some lithic fragments and potsherds. The piles were trimmed from oak trees and sunk into lagoonal muds, and currently lie 5.8 to 6.8 m below mean sea level. It highlights a wooden building at the edge of Alepu palaeo-lagoon. Charcoal remains confirm the use of oak tree as a dominant timber resource, consistent with pollen data for this period. Palaeo-botanic remains highlight gathering activities and the consumption of wild grapes, raspberries and figs. The herbaceous assemblage evokes deforestation activities. Exploitation of coastal resources is well attested by the great density of fish remains, dominated by anchovy (61%), highlighting possible preservation of fish products. Five radiocarbon dates constrain the age of the site to between 3350 and 3000 cal. BC.
The Alepu piles-dwelling settlement sheds new light on the very beginning of the Early Bronze Age in coastal Bulgaria.
.
The area as noted by these studies are called Thracia Pontica
.
https://journals.openedition.org/mediterranee/docannexe/image/8203/img-1.jpg
where is is situated

So? How on earth did you deduce the specific linguistic identity of that place using this study? What kind of evidence can be used to affirm that those people spoke Thracian or Proto-Thracian (which, by the way, most definitely didn't even exist as a distinct IE branch as early as 3200 BC, and it certainly couldn't be much differentiated from the ancestors of Illyrian or Greek)? Because the area investigated in these studies is known, thousands of years later, as Thracia Pontica? So are we to simply assume that the linguistic and cultural identity of the area remained intact for some 3000 years until the Romans conquered the Balkans? And how on earth can we then extrapolate from this series of speculations to now speculate that Albanian derived from this eastern Thracian, without any possibility of language shift in thousands of years, especially with the attested Illyrian migration/expansion in the Western Balkans? Honestly, you mustn't be talking seriously...

 

[Sile]

So? How on earth did you deduce the specific linguistic identity of that place using this study? What kind of evidence can be used to affirm that those people spoke Thracian or Proto-Thracian (which, by the way, most definitely didn't even exist as a distinct IE branch as early as 3200 BC, and it certainly couldn't be much differentiated from the ancestors of Illyrian or Greek)? Because the area investigated in these studies is known, thousands of years later, as Thracia Pontica? So are we to simply assume that the linguistic and cultural identity of the area remained intact for some 3000 years until the Romans conquered the Balkans? And how on earth can we then extrapolate from this series of speculations to now speculate that Albanian derived from this eastern Thracian, without any possibility of language shift in thousands of years, especially with the attested Illyrian migration/expansion in the Western Balkans? Honestly, you mustn't be talking seriously...

ok.............lets call these people .......people from Thracia or people from East-Balkans if you prefer. Whatever you prefer
.

 

[Sile]

No, because that's irrelevant, mere diversionism. Languages exist independently of scripts and especially in ancient times predated them. Besides, whether Illyrian and Thracian scripts existed or not, and when, it has nothing to do with whether Albanian is Thracian, Illyrian or anything else - the language did not arise from a written script, and in fact that language (Albanian) was put down to written form very, veeeeery late. Ancient scripts have nothing to do with this issue. Also, it is you that needs to provide sources for speculations about the Eastern Balkans being "Thracian" since 3200 BC and self-assured correlations between genetics and linguistics (and in a very specific way, distinguishing not just different and broad language families, but specific branches like Thracian and Illyrian) when there is no way we can sort that out with the evidence that has been found until now.

There is none and you know there is none, so any script are assumptions by linguistics in the past are found to be untrue................we even have now that we cannot really/fully separate centrum from Satem linguistic neighbours

 

[Ygorcs]

ok.............lets call these people .......people from Thracia or people from East-Balkans if you prefer. Whatever you prefer
.

That's much better, at least you're not implying that a certain ethnic and linguistic identity was surely the same in Early Bronze Age and in the early Roman Era, and thus incorrectly assuming that, because of that information about Copper Age/Early Bronze Age population movements into Italy, we can now safely say that Albanians, whose language was attested in the Middle Ages milennia later, were Thracians (such a huge leap of reasoning!).

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Just keep waiting for (real) Steppe L51 - it isn’t going to come...

Tomenable’s Beaker+Corded theory is extremely plausible to me. We’ll see what happens in the end, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s 80% odds in favour of it against Yamnaya.

It’s just by deduction - it’s now become very clear L51 wasn’t on the Steppes, nor in the Balkans. It can’t have come across the Northern European plain without leaving an archaeological trace, so the only remaining option is literally just Beaker.

 

[Ygorcs]

Just keep waiting for (real) Steppe L51 - it isn’t going to come...

Tomenable’s Beaker+Corded theory is extremely plausible to me. We’ll see what happens in the end, but if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s 80% odds in favour of it against Yamnaya.

It’s just by deduction - it’s now become very clear L51 wasn’t on the Steppes, nor in the Balkans. It can’t have come across the Northern European plain without leaving an archaeological trace, so the only remaining option is literally just Beaker.

So wasn't it Indo-European and it became IEized in their interaction and intermarrying with CWC women? I understand that this hypothesis is very enticing and plausible because it explains so many of the holes in the narrative until now, but I find this fact really unlikely: women of a less prominent culture - as we're talking about the period of widespread expansion and prestige of BB material culture - making men of the more expansive culture shift their language and much of their culture, since the supposed BB-derived IE cultures were decidedly Indo-European in many cultural aspects, not just in language.

 

[Expredel]

It’s just by deduction - it’s now become very clear L51 wasn’t on the Steppes, nor in the Balkans. It can’t have come across the Northern European plain without leaving an archaeological trace, so the only remaining option is literally just Beaker.

Beakers first showing up in Iberia pretty much guarantees they came from North Africa, almost no ancient DNA from that region though.

 

[noman]

What about R2? Isn't that Neolithic Iranian?

 

[Taranis]

Johane Derite posted a list of different phylogenetic trees of IE languages proposed by various linguists in another thread. I thought it would be an ideal opportunity for me to post my proposed phylogenetic tree, which I have not only based on linguistic evidence, but also on archaeological and especially genetic evidence (using Y-chromosomal phylogeny). It differs radically from all the trees proposed by professional linguists, but mine is the only one that makes sense based on Y-DNA phylogeny and the known patterns of migrations combining archaeology and ancient DNA.

I have kept it simple and schematic, but I felt it was necessary to add the associated haplogroups to show that language evolve through population hybridisation, which tends to affect pronunciation and involves the absorption of loan words.

Good work! Your tree is heavily genetics-based (in particular based off Y-DNA phylogeny), and there's some points where one would disagree on linguistic grounds. My main example there would be putting P-Celtic as closer to Italic than Goidelic. However, as you said, you can explain it that way that they intermingled more heavily (I should also add the remember that there's a parallel development too in the Osco-Umbrian languages, which, just like the p-Celtic languages, shifted the *kw (Q) sound to *p). One could make the case that Tocharian is closer with the Centum languages of Western Europe, but that isn't really necessary (you can explain this through archaicisms just as well). With Armenian, I'd like to add that you had heavy language contact with speakers of Iranian languages.

My conclusion is that even though your tree is heavily DNA based, the end product is reasonably close to what I'd say is general agreement.

 

[Twilight]

Nice work on the Language tree
Btw Marciamo, there is a language in Ireland called the Goidelic Substrate Language. I’m curious to see how the Goidelic Substrate Language would compare against Germanic Substrate.

Some Goidelic Sudstrate words
[FONT=&quot]bréife: Ring or Loop
partán: Crab
Pattu: Hare
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic_substrate_hypothesis[/FONT]

 

[Zeus10]

Johane Derite posted a list of different phylogenetic trees of IE languages proposed by various linguists in another thread. I thought it would be an ideal opportunity for me to post my proposed phylogenetic tree, which I have not only based on linguistic evidence, but also on archaeological and especially genetic evidence (using Y-chromosomal phylogeny). It differs radically from all the trees proposed by professional linguists, but mine is the only one that makes sense based on Y-DNA phylogeny and the known patterns of migrations combining archaeology and ancient DNA.

I have kept it simple and schematic, but I felt it was necessary to add the associated haplogroups to show that language evolve through population hybridisation, which tends to affect pronunciation and involves the absorption of loan words.

I believe that the Italo-Celtic branch intermingled more extensively with Neolithic European farmers than the Goidelic branch. This is obvious from the relatively high percentages of G2a-L497 and E-V13 among Hallstatt-derived Celts and Italics. I believe that this EEF mixture came originally from the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, although indirectly. The R1b-L51 branch expanded along the Danube to Central Europe while the R1a/R1b-Z2103 branch of the Corded Ware spread along the North European Plain. The latter would probably have been the ones who mixed with the scattered and by now nomadic tribes who abandoned the Trypillian cities in Western Ukraine. Corded Ware tribes met R1b-L51 tribes in Germany, Czechia and western Poland. But by that time some R1b-L21 and R1b-DF27 adventurers had already permeated the Bell Beaker trade network all the way to the Atlantic coast, before they got the chance to mix with Corded Ware people - hence the absence of E-V13 and G2a-L497 from these Atlantic Celts (Q-Celtic speakers). The Neolithic influence on language eventually led to the Q to P shift in Hallstatt and La Tène Celtic tongues, soon after the split with the Italic tribes.

Proto-Germanic R1b-U106 also mixed with the Corded Ware people and with the earlier inhabitants of the Netherlands, northern Germany and Denmark, who were probably heavier on Mesolithic ancestry and would have carried haplogroups I1 and I2-L801. I believe that a small but noteworthy non-IE pre-Germanic substratum exists in Germanic languages, although many linguists seem to be confused by the fact that some of these loan words eventually found their way in other IE languages because of the Germanic migrations. Germanic loan words infiltrated not only Romance, but also Slavic, Baltic, Albanian and possibly also Greek languages. Germanic languages also seem to have some Balto-Slavic influence, perhaps by the absorption of predominantly R1a Corded Ware tribes.

The complicated part that really get most linguists confused is the Eastern branch. This is because it is in fact two branches: the original East Yamna (R1b-Z2103) and the extension of that Yamna branch into the forest-steppe, which in my opinion is when the satem shift took place. The southern tribes of the Late Yamna and Catacomb (2800–2200 BCE) cultures (both R1b-Z2103) were ousted from the Pontic Steppe by the expansion of the Srubna culture (R1a with some R1b-Z2103) to the north, and the R1b-Z2103 migrated to the Balkans, where they became the Illyrians (incl. Proto-Albanian), Mycenaean Greeks, Phrygians and Proto-Armenians. The latter two eventually migrated from the Balkans to Anatolia around the time of the Bronze Age collapse c. 1200 BCE. Later influence from Iranian tribes in Armenia caused a partial satemisation of Armenian language. The same thing might have happened for Albanian and Greek due to the migrations of other Iranian tribes (Bulgars) and Slavs to the region. This is why Albanian and Armenian in particular cannot be definitely classified as centum or satem.

The Tocharian branch is in all likelihood descended from the Afanasievo culture (3300-2500 BCE), a Steppe culture in the Altai region that is contemporary to Yamna (3500-2500 BCE), but started a few centuries later.

I have wracked my brain about the Anatolian branch, bu IMO the most likely explanation remains that it was an early offshoot from the Pontic Steppe to the Balkans dating from 4200 to 3700 BCE. These people would have stayed a while in the Balkans then, like the Phrygians and Armenians much later, would have moved east to Anatolia. The oldest archaeological site associated with Anatolian IE speakers might be Troy, a city that was founded c. 3000 BCE to control the trade between the Aegean and the Black Sea region, including the Pontic Steppe. It makes sense that Steppe people should have wanted to control trade with their homeland. The language likely to have been prevalent in the historical city of Troy is Luwian, an Anatolian IE language.

I believe the idea which finds the tribal movement/s in the basis of language/race/s creation is wrong. Most of the aforementioned "races" are not even such, but cultures. For example, the Slavic people are just a linguistic group. They were never a race, but local religious communities established by local patriarchs of the same religion in a long but relatively recent process. It's not the paleo IE tribal migration, which created the Eastern-Western linguistic division, but the Eastern-Western religious dominion. Being such, most of the aforementioned languages, are NOT a modern development of an ethnic vernacular local IE split, but a modern development of a cultivated language developed by the religion.
The language itself is a cultural phenomenon and only relatively recently has developed a symbiosis with the ethnicity, thus with the genetics we subjectively associate with it.

 

[Joey37]

The haplogroup correlations look suspiciously like those promulgated by the quack Carlos Quiles, where nearly all of the branches of the Indo-European family are in fact bastardized creoles and there was no united family. And also comes up with the absurd idea that R1a-M417 spoke Uralic, despite the fact that no majority R1a people speak a Uralic language today (and spare me the Hungarians, they are assimilated Slavs). My belief is that Proto-Indo-European was a creole of sort, but not its descendants. The parent dialects are a Northwest Caucasian language spoken by the R1b-L23 people coming up from Maykop and the, for lack of a better term, Aryan dialect spoken by the R1a-M417 people already in the Pontic forest-steppe. There was also some minor Uralic contact from the N1c Uralic speakers just to the north of the R1a tribes.

 

[markod]

My belief is that Proto-Indo-European was a creole of sort,

Impossible, PIE has none of the typological features of a creole.

 

[Cyrus]

What do you mean by "Celto-Germanic" and "Italo-Celtic"?!

 

[Joey37]

I only associate the Z2103 tribes with the first stages of the expansion of proto-Indo-European. L51 is Bell Beaker and broadly Vasconic; their L23 ancestors went through Anatolia and into Europe while Z2103 headed through the Caucasus and into the Steppe, where they met the pre-Proto-Indo-European R1a-M417 and adopted their language, later taking it into Europe and Indo-Europeanizing their L51 cousins. The oldest R1b-Z2103 is from 5500 BC, a long enough time frame to allow this. This connects the Basque language to the Caucasian tongues and also allows a great deal of Basque survival, as their main clade, R1b-DF27, is descended from L51.

 

[Joey37]

With this I have divided the Indo-European languages into three groups; the Indo-Europeanized L51 group (Germanic, Italo-Celtic); the Southern group, derived from R1b-Z2103 (Illyrian, Greek, Armenian); and Balto-Aryan, the R1a-M417 group (Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian). Tocharian is very likely Southern, but very far-flung, and Daco-Thracian is an enigma, being extinct, located in the R1b-Z2103 area, yet sharing traits with the Baltic languages.