Q: Language As a Means of Tracing Human O

I've recently read an encyclopedia article which had a fascinating theory on the origins of the Germanic tribes that overwhelmed the Roman Empire in the 1st Millenium CE.  Apparently, the Germans were once part of the migrating Indo-Europeans so often associated with the rise of the West.  At some point in prehistory, they had gotten themselves separated from the rest of the IE-speaking peoples and developed the distinctive vowel and consonant sounds that typified the language they ended up speaking when the Romans first became aware of them.  The original location of these early Germans was placed either in the Baltic Sea in the vicinity of Scandinavia or in northern Europe along the coast.

This also brought to mind a diagram in a historical atlas that shows the generally accepted area from which Indo-Europeans had originated (at some point in or near central Anatolia).  It seems as though the theories trace the origins of both the Iranians and most Europeans to these ancient peoples.  Just how accurate would these theories be in tracing national and ethnic origins?  What other evidence is there that supports the theories?

I don't recall if the period of Indo-European migration was very precise, but I think that it was placed at about the time of the development of agriculture in upper Mesopotamia (the Tigris-Euphrates river valleys in central Anatolia).  Unless I'm wrong, I'm guessing that the original IEs could have migrated as a result of the resulting population expansion.

Any other suggestions?

At some point in human prehistory, virtually all cultures shared the same basic economy and rudimentary customs.  Even then it would be hard to trace a common origin because of how far humans had dispersed; for example, the migrations into Australia and the Americas occured well before the first fields were plowed.

Before agriculture, the basic economy was hunting and gathering of varying combinations.  The hunter-gatherers had rudimentary elements of culture which seem to most of us to be identical, but there have been differences pointed out.

I agree that linguistic studies pose a problem.  Since no one ever had a way to record the original Indo-European language as it was spoken, we can only make guesses based on how various sounds are created in different languages and the similarities of some definitions and grammatical structures.  The caveat is that these may have developed independently.

Archaeological evidence is scarce, but you learn more about a language from actual writing than you would from pottery fragments.  The written word didn't even come to its own until the Sumerians and Egyptians developed it around 5,000 years ago.  Prior to that, it was pictographic symbols of a ritual nature, from which we can already see the variations in human culture.

At present, we only have a general idea of where certain cultures may have originated based on the combination of archaeological, anthropological and linguistic evidence.  Beyond that, we cannot determine the exact origins of such linguistic and cultural traditions as those of hamites, semites and Indo-Europeans.

What patterns I have been able to read about seem to point to the African origin for the human species as a whole, with migrations crossing into southern Asia, central Europe and across the Ice Age land bridge into the Americas.

Wasn't Catal Huryuk (sp?) in that part of Turkey?  It certainly isn't located down-river.  At any rate, the theorized homeland of the Indo-Europeans is placed at that part of Anatolia, as well.  In which case, what (if any) archaeological fragments are identified with the early Indo-Europeans?

...I don't know much about this, especially the whold Indo European aspect of things.  But I do know there is something, called, at least my mom calls it this, the Mother language, consisting of basic words like Mother and Father.
Ex.  Madre(spanish), Mai (cantonese?), Mama(baby english), Uhmma(korean),  ect.  Japanese Okasan (is that right) seems to be the only one that doesn't fit this description...Maybe Japanese people are aliens!  I'm just kidding

Also I think that language is a pretty good basis on discovering the origions of different peoples, but you also have to take into consideration nations influenced by others and ect. 
Ex.  Vietnam, Korea, and Japan were greatly influenced by China in that they borrowed a lot of vocabulary, but each is definitely not a Sino Language.  Also the Korean word for horse, Mal, sounds a lot like the CHinese word for horse, Ma (is that right? I only know how to pronounce it in Korean), and the Mongol word Maru.  So the question remains, how can we know who influenced who, was it the Chinese, was it the Koreans, or was it the Mongols.  No one really knows.


Edited by Gubukjanggoon

Well the problem for some languages is that the words they use are sometimes borrowed from other languages, so you don't neceseraily know if there was a totally different word for the same reality before that. Like in polish, I don't know if a lot of Poles have noticed this, cukier(aka sugar) is actually very similar to zucker in pronounciation, but to say "sweet", we say slodkie(sw-od-ki-ey), so you know that the polish word for sugar was originally not cukier.

Like in polish, I don't know if a lot of Poles have noticed this, cukier(aka sugar) is actually very similar to zucker in pronounciation, but to say "sweet", we say slodkie(sw-od-ki-ey), so you know that the polish word for sugar was originally not cukier.

Sugar and sweet are of two different roots.
The English word Sugar comes from the medival French Cucre which in turn comes from the Latin Zuccarum, which would most likely be the root for the word in most European languages.
Renember, Sugar was virtualy unknown in Europe untill around 1100/1200, and even then only as a curiosity, and it didn't become widely available untill the 1400s in small quantities, and 1500s onwards in large amounts.
So it is more than likely that the Polish word is simple a local rendering of the Latin word, wether that word took a direct root, or an indirect root via an intermediary language.

One should stand extremely critical (if not downright dismissive) towards the Indoeuropean theory and it's implications. Current studies, especially in the last 2 decades, show that the artificial linguistic construct of the IE theory doesn't hold much water, after close examination.

During the 19th century and well into the 20th (see Marija Gimbutas and her Kurgan theory) the IEists (or Arryanists) talked about subsequent waves of Arryan invasion into Europe (and destruction of the "Old Europe" culture) during the late 3rd millenia and the early 2nd millenia.

The archeological findings, despite the heavy manipulation and "adjustment" to fit into the IE timeframe, didn't concur. So, new theories emerged. James Mallory modified Gimbutas' theory, to expand it to the timeframe suggested by Sharukin in his previous post (the first waves of migration coming in Europe about 4000 BC). But still evidential support was nonexistent or controversial at best. Colin Renfrew suggested in his work that the IE family was never located in the Black Sea - Ukraine area, but started off from Asia Minor, and preceeded into Europe via the Balkans. That theory made much more sense evidential-wise, since the oldest findings of permanent settlements in Europe are located in the Southern Balkans (modern day Greece and Bulgaria), something that would be funny if we accepted waves coming from above the Black Sea area. The start of those waves of migration was pulled even further back: Renfrew suggests 7000 BC as the starting point for the westward move (not invasion, since archeological evidence never could support the theory of the "advanced, warlike, supreme Arryans" who came in "to crush the pastoral, peaceful OldEuropeans"  - Renfrew talks about a peaceful massive migration over a very long time period).

But the troubles for the IE theory hadn't even started. New findings and correct (read: not manipulated) interpretation and dating of older findings, seem to strike a decisive blow into the once dominant IE hypothesis, by indicating a strong case for cultural continuity in Europe since the early neolithic, and in many cases even paleolithic, period.

The most decisive blow to the faltering IE theory seems to come from recent developments in Archeogenetics: L.L. Cavalli Sforza tried to fit his evidence into the IE framework (but undermined it by pushing even further back the starting point and by showing that the "Old Europe" and the "Kurgan" people are from the same stock) but Brian Sykes did not: His (extremely detailed and in-depth) work seems to prove (?) that the vast majority, that is 80%, of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic, tying in with the archeological data showing European continuity.  Gray and Atkinson have pushed even further back (9.000 BC) the timeline for the "IE split" - if there ever was such a thing.

The IE theory seems to resist it's fate, by adopting to the new data in hand: There is the Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT - more on this site http://www.continuitas.com/) which suggests the IE languages actually originated in Europe and have existed there since the Paleolithic.

 

There are 17,000 year old paintings of horses in Dusheh cave in Iran.

Therefore we all knew what horses were and did not have them introduced by the mythical invading Aryans.

Yeah, maybe they didn't actually ride these acient horses, but that doesn't mean they don't have a word callign these thing horses.  This actually supports some of what you said about how Anatolian didn't have horse but these's a common root word for horse in IE languages.  In fact, in the pre-historic French caves, there are paintings of horses too.  Just because they disappeared doesn't mean people don't remember them. 

 

The Chinese character for elephant is 象 (which is actually the pictoral representation of an elephant if you look at it sideways, in the more ancient chinese writings it is very clear it's an elephant).  However there hasn't been elephants in China since the last ice-age.  This doesn't mean the Chinese can't know what an elephant is.