Post by okarinaofsteiner on Aug 18, 2023 7:12:59 GMT
www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2023/08/03/computational-linguistic-phylogenetics-and-indo-europeans/
Interesting post. Not an expert on indo-European linguistics by any means, but I am familiar with South Asian archaeogenetics thanks to listening to some of the Tides of History podcasts and from following Razib Khan. So I have some idea of what Razib's talking about when he describes the genetic history of Indo-Aryan speakers and of South Asia.
A new paper, Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages, has made a splash by inferring a far older date of diversification of these languages than has been assumed by other linguists, archaeologists and geneticists. As you can see above, the splits start a bit earlier than 5000 BC in this model, 1,500-2,000 years before the “classic” Pontic-steppe hypothesis. There are divergences in the typology from what some have assumed, for example, the deep split of Indo-Iranian from other groups. Nemets in Proto-Indo-European Urheimat Debate has given some skeptical thoughts, while Iosif Lazaridis of the “Southern Arc” fame has also offered his two cents.
I can’t speak to the linguistics... But I’ll comment a few issues that jumped out at me informed by ancient DNA.
First, the position of Tocharian is not surprising…it often comes out as diverging early from the other languages. Tocharian languages were found in the northern and northeast regions of the Tarim basin. Historically, the southern rim of the basin was dominated by Iranian languages. It seems the most likely candidate for the people that gave rise to the Tocharian languages is the Afanasievo culture. The Afanasievo we now know were basically an eastern branch of the Yamnaya that show up in the Altai 3300 BC. This is 5,300 years BP. In the paper, the Tocharian split from other Indo-Europeans 5,400 to 8,600 years BP over a 95% confidence interval. The only way this makes sense to me is if there was deep linguistic structure within the Yamnaya despite overall genetic homogeneity maintained through mate exchange. In the text the authors seem to imply that the Tocharians are an early eastward migration, perhaps from the south Caucasus region. This does not align very well with the ancient DNA. The Afanasievo early on are replica copies of Yamnaya. Were the Tocharians already there? Did the Afanasievo just adopt their language?
The second issue I have broadly is with the Indo-Iranians. The authors propose that the Indic and Iranian branches separated in 3,500 BC. While earlier work indicates that the Indo-Iranian languages descend from the Sintashta language and the cultures of the Andronovo horizon, these authors emphasize the role of populations from the south Caucasus traversing Iran south of the Caspian Sea.
Interesting post. Not an expert on indo-European linguistics by any means, but I am familiar with South Asian archaeogenetics thanks to listening to some of the Tides of History podcasts and from following Razib Khan. So I have some idea of what Razib's talking about when he describes the genetic history of Indo-Aryan speakers and of South Asia.
A new paper, Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages, has made a splash by inferring a far older date of diversification of these languages than has been assumed by other linguists, archaeologists and geneticists. As you can see above, the splits start a bit earlier than 5000 BC in this model, 1,500-2,000 years before the “classic” Pontic-steppe hypothesis. There are divergences in the typology from what some have assumed, for example, the deep split of Indo-Iranian from other groups. Nemets in Proto-Indo-European Urheimat Debate has given some skeptical thoughts, while Iosif Lazaridis of the “Southern Arc” fame has also offered his two cents.
I can’t speak to the linguistics... But I’ll comment a few issues that jumped out at me informed by ancient DNA.
First, the position of Tocharian is not surprising…it often comes out as diverging early from the other languages. Tocharian languages were found in the northern and northeast regions of the Tarim basin. Historically, the southern rim of the basin was dominated by Iranian languages. It seems the most likely candidate for the people that gave rise to the Tocharian languages is the Afanasievo culture. The Afanasievo we now know were basically an eastern branch of the Yamnaya that show up in the Altai 3300 BC. This is 5,300 years BP. In the paper, the Tocharian split from other Indo-Europeans 5,400 to 8,600 years BP over a 95% confidence interval. The only way this makes sense to me is if there was deep linguistic structure within the Yamnaya despite overall genetic homogeneity maintained through mate exchange. In the text the authors seem to imply that the Tocharians are an early eastward migration, perhaps from the south Caucasus region. This does not align very well with the ancient DNA. The Afanasievo early on are replica copies of Yamnaya. Were the Tocharians already there? Did the Afanasievo just adopt their language?
The second issue I have broadly is with the Indo-Iranians. The authors propose that the Indic and Iranian branches separated in 3,500 BC. While earlier work indicates that the Indo-Iranian languages descend from the Sintashta language and the cultures of the Andronovo horizon, these authors emphasize the role of populations from the south Caucasus traversing Iran south of the Caspian Sea.
One of the major points of this paper that contradicts some theories in historical linguistics is a rejection of the tentative connection between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian. Genetically, the curious aspect of the two language families is that Y chromosomal haplogroup R1a is very frequent in both, but differentiated into two lineages that seem to have diverged 5,500-6,000 years ago. But there is more than just Y chromosomes here; over the past decade autosomal genome analyses show that many South Asians, in particular those in the northwest and upper caste populations are enriched for a minority ancestral component that resembles Eastern Europeans. We now know what happened due to ancient DNA: Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain. A branch of the Corded Ware Culture (CWC) migrated eastward, becoming the Fatyanovo Culture, then the Balanovo Culture, then the Abeshevo Culture, and finally the Sintashta Culture. The Sintashta seem to have given rise a group of societies known as Andronovo that are hypothesized to evolved into Iranians and Indo-Aryans.
The result here does away with all this. Rather than Indo-Aryan speech being brought by steppe pastoralists between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago, as genetics would imply, the Indo-Aryan speech was likely present during the Indus Valley Civilization. These results imply that Indo-Aryan arrived in India thousands of years before the intrusion of steppe pastoralists, and it was carried eastward by farmers from the Caucasus. The Vedas and Sanskrit then come down from the IVC. And yet strangely the Vedas do not depict a very complex society like the IVC, but a more simple agro-pastoralist one. And, the sacred language of the IVC people presumably, Sanskrit, was maintained in particular by a Brahmin priestly caste that is notable for having a very high fraction of steppe ancestry, that much arrived later.
A massive issue of this paper is that it makes a hash of a major phenomenon that we know between 3500 and 2500 BC, and that’s the spread of steppe-people in all directions, especially out of the Corded Ware complex. The CWC are notable for having a major admixture of Globular Amphora Culture (GAC) Neolithic ancestry, about 25-35% of their genetics, and then spreading into all directions. As noted by the authors and other observers, ancient DNA suggests that Anatolian, Armenian, and perhaps Greek and Illyrian (Albanian), are exceptions to this, deriving directly from Yamnaya or pre-Yamnaya (in the case of Hittites) Indo-European people (remember, CWC is a mix of Yamnaya and GAC). The genetics is very clear that a major wave of post-CWC people went into Asia, and south into the Indian subcontinent and Iran. The Y chromosomes imply this was male mediated, and post-CWC Y chromosomes are found in appreciable quantities as far south as Sri Lanka. But these data place this demographic migration far too late to have been the origin of Sanskrit, which is associated with Arya culture.
As Lazaridis points out on social media, the divergence of European language groups like Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Balto-Slavic also predates the CWC expansion westward. For example, Italic language split off in 3500 BC, 500 years earlier than the expansion of CWC into Eastern Europe, with a 95% lower-bound of 2200 BC, about when steppe ancestry shows up in the Italian peninsula according to ancient DNA. If the dates are true then it seems that the various Indo-European language groups were differentiated already very early on in the Yamnaya, and not later on through their expansion across Europe. In other words, this is a model of “ancient linguistic substructure.”
The result here does away with all this. Rather than Indo-Aryan speech being brought by steppe pastoralists between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago, as genetics would imply, the Indo-Aryan speech was likely present during the Indus Valley Civilization. These results imply that Indo-Aryan arrived in India thousands of years before the intrusion of steppe pastoralists, and it was carried eastward by farmers from the Caucasus. The Vedas and Sanskrit then come down from the IVC. And yet strangely the Vedas do not depict a very complex society like the IVC, but a more simple agro-pastoralist one. And, the sacred language of the IVC people presumably, Sanskrit, was maintained in particular by a Brahmin priestly caste that is notable for having a very high fraction of steppe ancestry, that much arrived later.
A massive issue of this paper is that it makes a hash of a major phenomenon that we know between 3500 and 2500 BC, and that’s the spread of steppe-people in all directions, especially out of the Corded Ware complex. The CWC are notable for having a major admixture of Globular Amphora Culture (GAC) Neolithic ancestry, about 25-35% of their genetics, and then spreading into all directions. As noted by the authors and other observers, ancient DNA suggests that Anatolian, Armenian, and perhaps Greek and Illyrian (Albanian), are exceptions to this, deriving directly from Yamnaya or pre-Yamnaya (in the case of Hittites) Indo-European people (remember, CWC is a mix of Yamnaya and GAC). The genetics is very clear that a major wave of post-CWC people went into Asia, and south into the Indian subcontinent and Iran. The Y chromosomes imply this was male mediated, and post-CWC Y chromosomes are found in appreciable quantities as far south as Sri Lanka. But these data place this demographic migration far too late to have been the origin of Sanskrit, which is associated with Arya culture.
As Lazaridis points out on social media, the divergence of European language groups like Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Balto-Slavic also predates the CWC expansion westward. For example, Italic language split off in 3500 BC, 500 years earlier than the expansion of CWC into Eastern Europe, with a 95% lower-bound of 2200 BC, about when steppe ancestry shows up in the Italian peninsula according to ancient DNA. If the dates are true then it seems that the various Indo-European language groups were differentiated already very early on in the Yamnaya, and not later on through their expansion across Europe. In other words, this is a model of “ancient linguistic substructure.”