Are R1a and R1b really Indo-Europeans ?

so why IE expand all over Europe but did not had phenomena like Poland or germany or Greece?
,
Poland and Germany didn't even exist during Roman Empire.
You are "lucky" Greece was a developed region (by era standards), and Greek was a second lingua franca or Roman Empire (all educated Romans, and their bureaucracy in Greece spoke Greek), otherwise you would have been speaking Roman language by now. If not Arabs and their conquest in Africa you would see some North African countries speaking some form of Latin too.

Also there is a possibility that it was much easier for Celts/Italics to switch to pig latin, because of closeness in language family. For some other nations it would have been more difficult. Having said that, in general, it might have not been the case, as we see on Latin America example. They all speak Spanish and Portuguese (except secluded villages) after exactly 500 years. Comparable time length to Roman Empire.
 
Poland and Germany didn't even exist during Roman Empire.
You are "lucky" Greece was a developed region (by era standards), and Greek was a second lingua franca or Roman Empire (all educated Romans, and their bureaucracy in Greece spoke Greek), otherwise you would have been speaking Roman language by now. If not Arabs and their conquest in Africa you would see some North African countries speaking some form of Latin too.

Also there is a possibility that it was much easier for Celts/Italics to switch to pig latin, because of closeness in language family. For some other nations it would have been more difficult. Having said that, in general, it might have not been the case, as we see on Latin America example. They all speak Spanish and Portuguese (except secluded villages) after exactly 500 years. Comparable time length to Roman Empire.

I agree,
But in Latin america still people resist in their own way,

what I mean we can not compare modern times with beuraucracy and tv with ancient times.
only television is enough in modern times,.

yet we must see some other cases like the will of people,

For example after Alexander we see that some areas had not problem with bilingual while others had,
for example the people of Tyros, Kαρδουχοι (possibly Kurds) and Mακαβαιοι (possibly Macambi Jews) never accepted Greek.

So I don't think is a rule that Bronze change all Europe's languages, Yes it could change a lot of Europe but not all, Especially in times with no tv, no beuraucracy, and jobs were mainly outside cities, and rebels could take the mountains,
Yet except Basquez we see no other European Language except IE family ones, Etruscan were not European origin, and Pelasgians also in borders with Asia,
 
YETOS,
I am not too often in accord with you about etymologies (I am not the only one in this case)
but here I fully agree with you concerning hasardous comparisons between ancient and modern times, about new languages adoption.
so long, fight against you again...
 
I don't see a problem with this. What we have to remember is that lingua franca when used intensively for few hundreds of years becomes a new tribal/ethnic language. Look at Latin turning into Spanish/French/Romanian. English and Spanish in America. English in Singapore and India. Colonial languages in Africa. Some examples are done deal, some showing ongoing process.
Of course it is not simple and pure transformation. There is always a twist on lingua franca from local substratum, changes in grammar, pronunciation, melody, etc.

So in this case without written sources where would a search for proto-English and its urheim bring us?? :)
 
I agree,
But in Latin america still people resist in their own way,

what I mean we can not compare modern times with beuraucracy and tv with ancient times.
only television is enough in modern times,

Yes modern times, especially 20th century brings something new to equation, like public education and mass media, that helps in unifying the main language of the country. What it does is it speeds up learning process of dominant language, but it doesn't change much, it just accelerates it.


yet we must see some other cases like the will of people,

For example after Alexander we see that some areas had not problem with bilingual while others had,
for example the people of Tyros, Kαρδουχοι (possibly Kurds) and Mακαβαιοι (possibly Macambi Jews) never accepted Greek.
Yes, every group protects its culture, and language is part of it, so it's get protected too. It gets easier to retain own language if a group feels separate and special from mainstream culture like Jews and Gypsies in Europe. Actually they all were bi-lingual, just to be able to interact with locals, and to make money/business in local economies. To the point of developing their own dialects of main language. Yiddish, is an example of German/Hebrew mix, there was also a dialect of Polish spoken by Jewish communities before WWII, a simplified grammar and (funny to Poles) accent. In many Jewish communities local language became dominant, and Hebrew was only used in liturgy (if a person decided to stick to their religion). Look at Jews in America, they are fluent in English, and some only know Hebrew from Torah classes, if religious. Actually firs Israel's parliament sessions were in Polish, at least part of it, till most re-learned Hebrew.

On top of it we only know about these Jews who survived in their culture in Europe and returned to Israel. We don't know about the ones who got assimilated, switching to local culture and language, and vanished as minority. Looking at the paternal DNA flow in Europe and in surviving Jews, possibly majority were assimilated. On top of it European Jews look more European than Jews from middle east. On genetic level, one can say that European Jews, by 20th century, are more like Europeans who accepted Hebrew tradition, and only feel like Jews.

Summarizing, the influence of local languages on Jews were huge, we also see birth of Jewish dialects of local languages in some European countries. By 20th century, Hebrew becomes only liturgical language, spoken fluently by not many, if fluently at all, and barely survives. Of course it varies in parts of Europe, and jewish communities.





So I don't think is a rule that Bronze change all Europe's languages, Yes it could change a lot of Europe but not all, Especially in times with no tv, no beuraucracy, and jobs were mainly outside cities, and rebels could take the mountains,
Yet except Basquez we see no other European Language except IE family ones, Etruscan were not European origin, and Pelasgians also in borders with Asia,
Of course the process was long. Nobody says that IEs arrived and said to locals: "From tomorrow everybody speaks IE language, ok?". There were locals who switched faster than others, many survived longer, some even till recent times. But few exceptions, are just that, exceptions who needed more time to switch. Perhaps thanks to insulation of some sort like Basque. Some of exceptions might have been a late comers. Tribes that showed up in Europe after IEs. Etruscans?
The fact is that vast majority of continent switched to IE by first millennium BC, maybe even earlier.

and jobs were mainly outside cities
If invaders are mostly farmers-warriors (like Slavs), the language change actually starts from farms and villages, and not from cities and trade centers. Villages are the economic centers for farmer-warrior. Slavic expansion, and language change in Balkans, are great example how it works.

Keep in mind that I neither like it or not, I don't keep sides what language will win. I'm not writing anything against you or others, or just in spite. For me understanding processes engaged in language shift is the exciting thing. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
So in this case without written sources where would a search for proto-English and its urheim bring us?? :)
We would be in same predicament with English, as we are with IE. With English, we would know that it came from invaders operating across the whole world (boat people). We would know that in Africa and Asia they were in minorities, as ruling class, leaving English as lingua franca, some religion and infrastructure, that are still used by locals. We would know that in USA, Canada, Australia and England, by preservation of language, by ubiquitous use of it, the English speaking invaders were in majority to local population, or that English speaking population grew faster than indigenous one, because of stronger economy/food production technology.
It would be hard to quickly say what was the homeland of English invaders of these 4 countries. Later by analyzing relation of vocabulary to each of them we would perhaps conclude that England was their homeland. Not mentioning the fact that it is still called England, and some provinces on other continent are called New England. Then by archaeology (no written records) we would find out that big ship building industry was first in England then in the rest of the English speaking world, denoting starting point of spread of English.
Too bad that English grammar is already simplified to minimum, we would have seen additional changes in grammar, pointing to proportions of invaders to locals, and direction English language spread.

The most difficult situation would be if England lost WWI, and was German speaking by now. Thus without written records, making our quest for English homeland, almost impossible to succeed. Probably genetics would solve this problem well at the end.

This last scenario is probably the one that makes deciphering IE starting point extremely difficult to pinpoint. Because of big time scale and large people movement over Eurasia, the original homeland of IE is not there anymore, linguistically speaking. People and languages moved too much to trace it at all. Hopefully one day genetics, with connection to archaeology and linguistics, can solve this mystery.
 
Would we be able to reconstruct the 'proto-English' and assume that there was a genetically uniform proto-English tribe/community? And would that be right in the light of what we actually know?
 
Would we be able to reconstruct the 'proto-English' and assume that there was a genetically uniform proto-English tribe/community? And would that be right in the light of what we actually know?
Yes, all you have to do is to analyze vocabulary of Canadian, Australian and England English, and it will show you that most commonalities are between Canada-England and Australia-England, and least connection between Canada-Australia in English language.
This automatically tells us that Canadians didn't go directly to Australia, and vice versa. Simply, statistics and math points to England is intermediary or the actual source of English. Now, archaeological tells us that Canada and Australia was settled by new culture from Europe (existing in Europe for long time), at roughly same time in both. This would be the final proof that England was the source of new culture and English language. Farther works in the rest of English speaking countries, would confirm same findings, connecting new cultural shifts (ship building and architecture in style, like rulers palaces, found in England) to English language found in only in these areas.
Simply by statistics, math and pattern recognition. Exactly how science works.
 
@ LE Brok

so simple?

but what about if in England's archaiological DNA we find modern English DNA, especially from London?

we would find Much E much J etc HG,

I mean what England did in 18-19th Century works opposite in 20 and 21rst century,

I mean after 3000 years someone who excavate London of today what HG will find?

I mean we are gathering ancient DNA and yet we find so many HG in England of Past, what about England had the male composition that has today? Then?
How many ex-colonists live in today England? from India China Africa Caribean?

and what we will find in Jamaica of today?, if we do a search after 2000 years? we will find enough African DNA,
and we will say what Le brok? that Jamaica was invaded by Africans and spoke African? or English was Spoken in Africa of today? (today we know the case of Slave merchants, but if we did not and make a search today what will we say?)


with more simple words because i read many times that I can not express good in English,

England colonise Jamaica and part of Africa (lets say Sierra Leone), so sends R1b there,
Slave merchants Bring E from Africa to Jamaica, so E exists in Jamaica,
Ex-colonists from Africa and Jamaica move to England (that is happening today) to work or merchandise, and slowly they create their small societies, and mix.
a Nature disaster buries all 3 lands,
after 3000 years an archaiologists and a gennetists finds London cemetery, Kingston and Freetown, some written in English in all 3, and nothing else.
what results about religion, language possible invasions or slave people, a scientist of future will say?

we see English Hg colonising and rule Americas but we dont see African Dna colonising America, and especially we do not see american and African DNA colonizing England,

a future scientist image will include all 3 Hg, same language to all 3, so what he will guess?
He also finds guns and people killed in a sugarcane revolt.
he could say
1) guns so invasion, so Africans invade Jamaica !!!!
2) or Jamaica spoke African before British !!!!
3) or
even diversity law can be different, since Balkans have enough R1 diversity, but we consider it due to sink.
so England of future might have bigger diversity in E Hg for example than each African country alone due to Sink phenomena and make more mistakes and say that E Hg was English one!!!!

same is with IE, since historical data limit is milleniums after, and genetical data are limited and not clear, so we suggest the diversity law of modern people as possible homeland etc,
But is the DNA time-photo of past correct?

IT is not so easy as we describe it.
only one excavation in leyla teppe, sends IE from georgia to North Iran and can harm theories and works of decades.
 
Yes, all you have to do is to analyze vocabulary of Canadian, Australian and England English, and it will show you that most commonalities are between Canada-England and Australia-England, and least connection between Canada-Australia in English language.
This automatically tells us that Canadians didn't go directly to Australia, and vice versa. Simply, statistics and math points to England is intermediary or the actual source of English. Now, archaeological tells us that Canada and Australia was settled by new culture from Europe (existing in Europe for long time), at roughly same time in both. This would be the final proof that England was the source of new culture and English language. Farther works in the rest of English speaking countries, would confirm same findings, connecting new cultural shifts (ship building and architecture in style, like rulers palaces, found in England) to English language found in only in these areas.
Simply by statistics, math and pattern recognition. Exactly how science works.
But this would not tell us that English came from Anglo-Saxons would it? And how about the genetic composition of 'proto-Englishmen'? :) I think that we face similar problems in the case of IE..
 
But this would not tell us that English came from Anglo-Saxons would it? And how about the genetic composition of 'proto-Englishmen'? :) I think that we face similar problems in the case of IE..

Still unhappy Kardu?

No exactly, English didn't come only from Anglo-Saxon. English is a new language made of Germanic (mostly Anglo-Saxon), French, Latin, and local Celtic, therefore many IE parts. We know exactly its evolution, that's why it helps us to understand how new languages are created and shift in time.

And yes, as long as French, German, Celtic languages exist we would have found connection of English to these, even without written records.

And how about the genetic composition of 'proto-Englishmen'?
For god sake, that's why we don't use only linguistics, but all the other tools to connect dots together, like archaeology and modern DNA tools, plus more to come in the future.

I think that we face similar problems in the case of IE
We face much greater problems, because of huge time scale.

How about stopping being contrarian only, and bringing something creative and positive to the thread?
 
@ LE Brok
I mean after 3000 years someone who excavate London of today what HG will find?

I mean we are gathering ancient DNA and yet we find so many HG in England of Past, what about England had the male composition that has today? Then?
How many ex-colonists live in today England? from India China Africa Caribean?

and what we will find in Jamaica of today?, if we do a search after 2000 years? we will find enough African DNA,
and we will say what Le brok? that Jamaica was invaded by Africans and spoke African? or English was Spoken in Africa of today? (today we know the case of Slave merchants, but if we did not and make a search today what will we say?)


with more simple words because i read many times that I can not express good in English,

England colonise Jamaica and part of Africa (lets say Sierra Leone), so sends R1b there,
Slave merchants Bring E from Africa to Jamaica, so E exists in Jamaica,
Ex-colonists from Africa and Jamaica move to England (that is happening today) to work or merchandise, and slowly they create their small societies, and mix.
a Nature disaster buries all 3 lands,
after 3000 years an archaiologists and a gennetists finds London cemetery, Kingston and Freetown, some written in English in all 3, and nothing else.
what results about religion, language possible invasions or slave people, a scientist of future will say?
And that's pretty much (only change names) story how Greece was created. That's why we have such hard times figuring out who came when and bring what, and who was the first Greek. The point is that we know much more and better clarity than Greeks new about their origin 200 years ago. This is a good progress, more to come, and you should be happy about this.

The rest I can't answer, I don't really get what you meant and what is the reason behind all this fantasy about future. We have enough interesting cases from past to keep us busy. Let's talk positive, constructive, progressive. We have enough questions already, now we need answers.
 
I would like to pick up the ideas about lingua francas and 'imperial' languages from earlier:

Literacy, in my opinion, creates a huge difference with respect for how languages spread, and how they are distributed, and I would argue it makes a big difference wether we are talking about before or after literacy:

- Sumerian was the first language to be written down, and that status allowed the language to survive considerably past it's extinction as a spoken language. Sumerian was, however, gradually replaced by Akkadian.

- Akkadian was eventually eclipsed by Aramaic as the lingua franca in the Near East (Aramaic was also important throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods), and Aramaic actually retained an important status well into the Islamic period.

- Alexander's conquests established Greek as the lingua franca amongst the Hellenistic successor states.

- conquests of Ashoka in India, and spread of Buddhism (Sanskrit and it's vernacular counterparts into Southeast Asia).

- The Roman Republic (and later empire) established the use of Latin within it's domain.

- it was elegant for the Romans to continue the use of Greek, as it was already. As a result, Greek became the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean whereas the western Mediterranean would adopt Latin (and this status would quite outlive the Roman Empire, and be continued by the Byzantines).

- the Islamic conquests established Arabic as the language of the Islamic world.

What can also posture here also that language adoption seems easier if the language is more similar:
- the replacement of Akkadian by Aramaic because both are Semitic languages.
- the replacement of the various Celtic and Italic languages in western Europe by Latin.
- the replacement of various Semitic (Punic, Aramaic, various South Semitic dialects) and otherwise Afroasiatic languages (Berber, Coptic) by Arabic during the Abassid period.

There is outliers in the above, of course but I do not want to enumerate them right now. The point is that with the spread of literacy, languages are possible to spread without large-scale demic movements (which does not mean large-scale demic movements don't happen anymore), and this effect is greatly amplified by the spread of scripture-based religions (eg. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam). If we look at the Migration period in Europe, we can see this:
- the migration period brought Germanic into Britain and the Alpine region, and Slavic languages across a large patch of Central Europe and the Balkans. On the other hand, the Germanic warlords who had sized various parts of the former western Roman Empire (eg. Franks in Gaul, Visigoths in Spain, Vandals in North Africa) were unable to press their language upon the population of these areas, rather the opposite.

The question is, thus, how did language expansion happen in the wholesale preliterate period? Was this wholesale through demic movement? Archaeologists are fundamentally unhappy with that idea, because evidence for large-scale demic movements is so inconclusive at large in the archaeological record...
 
How about stopping being contrarian only, and bringing something creative and positive to the thread?

This thread is about if R1a and R1b are IndoeEuropean. But how can we answer this question if we don't define clearly what we mean under something/someone being IndoEuropean. Hence my "apophathic" approach :)
 
If we look at the Migration period in Europe, we can see this:
- the migration period brought Germanic into Britain and the Alpine region, and Slavic languages across a large patch of Central Europe and the Balkans. On the other hand, the Germanic warlords who had sized various parts of the former western Roman Empire (eg. Franks in Gaul, Visigoths in Spain, Vandals in North Africa) were unable to press their language upon the population of these areas, rather the opposite.

The question is, thus, how did language expansion happen in the wholesale preliterate period? Was this wholesale through demic movement? Archaeologists are fundamentally unhappy with that idea, because evidence for large-scale demic movements is so inconclusive at large in the archaeological record...

I must say it has baffled me for some time now. How come two expansions, Slavic and Germanic, though both consisted of farmer/warrior gave at the end so different outcomes? Slavic culminating in changing east and central Europe, and Balkans into large Slavic speaking region (with only 4 exceptions) Germanic on other hand, though taking over whole western and southern Europe, only managed to implement heavily modified version of Germanic language in Britten, small Holland and over some Alps.


Let's start from similarities.
They were both mostly farmers, who doubled as warriors when time came. They had small ruling elites. Both elites rather uneducated compared to Roman and Greek standards. We know that Goths and few other germanics had started writing their stories, but this is a far cry from having educated, not only elite, but trades people that build cities, run commerce collect taxes, produce things, etc. Yes, they had conquered Rome and lands of empire, but they were unable to carry over the educational, technological organizational achievements of Roman Empire. To the point of great collapse of European culture into abyss of Dark Ages, shortly after taking over.
They were both lacking, as Taranis mentioned, literacy advantage to implement their language over conquered nations.

The question is what worked for Slavs and didn't for Germanics?

The simple answer might be in their numbers. The ratio of invaders to local population.
From archaeology and historical records we know that central Europe got very depopulated, and I mean depopulated. By some estimates population density could have shrunk to only 10% in late fifth century. Hunic wars, hunger, plague, and many tribes like Goths, Vandals, Swabians leaving this area. I don't think Slavs were particularly strong in numbers, but in this case they didn't need to be. The land was very empty. Therefore wherever they settled they might have become instant majority. This obviously pushed chances of locals learning Slavic on their side, especially in rural areas where they took land from locals, and forced locals working with them on fields. The numbers, the proximity of villages, Slavic and locals, and working together farming and herding, pushed original inhabitants into learning Slavic.

Germanic tribes, on other hand, didn't have easy task swaying language on their side. The South and West of Europe didn't see too many wars before Germanic expansion. The population numbers where much larger than invaders. Locals were also more literate than invaders. It has culminated in invaders learning Latin faster than locals their tongue.
At least if invaders came with some technological advances in food production, or building strong economic centers, that would have given them some edge. But it wasn't the case.
What surprises me the most is that even powerful Francs didn't managed to turn East-North Gaul into German speaking region, except little Netherlands. I'm suspecting that they left their strong pronunciation and guttural R in North France, which actually can mean that they had managed to turn locals into German speaking, but this process was reversed later by strong French speaking input, possibly same one, which add French vocabulary to English language. But this is too much speculation already. :grin:
 
This thread is about if R1a and R1b are IndoeEuropean. But how can we answer this question if we don't define clearly what we mean under something/someone being IndoEuropean. Hence my "apophathic" approach :)

Why don't you start. :)
 
I would like to pick up the ideas about lingua francas and 'imperial' languages from earlier:

Literacy, in my opinion, creates a huge difference with respect for how languages spread, and how they are distributed, and I would argue it makes a big difference wether we are talking about before or after literacy:

- Sumerian was the first language to be written down, and that status allowed the language to survive considerably past it's extinction as a spoken language. Sumerian was, however, gradually replaced by Akkadian.

- Akkadian was eventually eclipsed by Aramaic as the lingua franca in the Near East (Aramaic was also important throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods), and Aramaic actually retained an important status well into the Islamic period.

- Alexander's conquests established Greek as the lingua franca amongst the Hellenistic successor states.

- conquests of Ashoka in India, and spread of Buddhism (Sanskrit and it's vernacular counterparts into Southeast Asia).

- The Roman Republic (and later empire) established the use of Latin within it's domain.

- it was elegant for the Romans to continue the use of Greek, as it was already. As a result, Greek became the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean whereas the western Mediterranean would adopt Latin (and this status would quite outlive the Roman Empire, and be continued by the Byzantines).

- the Islamic conquests established Arabic as the language of the Islamic world.

What can also posture here also that language adoption seems easier if the language is more similar:
- the replacement of Akkadian by Aramaic because both are Semitic languages.
- the replacement of the various Celtic and Italic languages in western Europe by Latin.
- the replacement of various Semitic (Punic, Aramaic, various South Semitic dialects) and otherwise Afroasiatic languages (Berber, Coptic) by Arabic during the Abassid period.

There is outliers in the above, of course but I do not want to enumerate them right now. The point is that with the spread of literacy, languages are possible to spread without large-scale demic movements (which does not mean large-scale demic movements don't happen anymore), and this effect is greatly amplified by the spread of scripture-based religions (eg. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam). If we look at the Migration period in Europe, we can see this:
- the migration period brought Germanic into Britain and the Alpine region, and Slavic languages across a large patch of Central Europe and the Balkans. On the other hand, the Germanic warlords who had sized various parts of the former western Roman Empire (eg. Franks in Gaul, Visigoths in Spain, Vandals in North Africa) were unable to press their language upon the population of these areas, rather the opposite.

The question is, thus, how did language expansion happen in the wholesale preliterate period? Was this wholesale through demic movement? Archaeologists are fundamentally unhappy with that idea, because evidence for large-scale demic movements is so inconclusive at large in the archaeological record...

you left out the important Mediterranean one which lasted 800 years

The Mediterranean Lingua Franca or Sabir ("know") was a pidgin language used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th century.[1]

The name "lingua franca" in Italian literally means "Frankish language",[2] came to mean any language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with one another. The other name of the language, Sabir, comes from the Italian word "sapere" for "to know", of Romance origin.[3]
Based mostly on Northern Italian languages and Occitano-Romance languages in the eastern Mediterranean at first, it later came to have more Spanish and Portuguese elements, especially on the Barbary coast (today referred to as the Maghreb). It also borrowed from Turkish, French, Greek and Arabic. This mixed language was used for communication throughout the medieval and early modern Middle East as a commercial and diplomatic language. It was also the language used among slaves of the bagnio, Barbary pirates and European renegades in pre-colonial Algiers. Historically the first to use this language were the descendants of the Genoese and Venetian colonies in the eastern Mediterranean, in their commerce trade with Middle Eastern populations after the year AD 1000.
 
in regards to English, unless the BBC was wrong its its program the adventures of English, the English came from old-Germanic from friesland

Old Frisian,[6] however, was very similar to Old English. Historically, both English and Frisian are marked by the loss of the Germanic nasal in word like us (ús; uns in German), soft (sêft; sanft) or goose (goes; Gans): see Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels, the Germanic k softened to a ch sound; for example, the Frisian for cheese and church is tsiis and tsjerke, whereas in Dutch it is kaas and kerk, and in High German the respective words are Käse and Kirche. Contrarily, this did not happen for chin and choose, which are kin and kieze.[7]
 
some thoughts of mine:
We have to be cautious about presence or absence of cognates words in languages

1- old words can have disappeared (and recently enough sometimes)
2- the litteral meaning of old words can evolve, even if giving birth to new meanings close enough or still related to old meanings (see the exchanges between meanings like «horse», «stallion», «mare», «foal» or «colt», «filly» ...)
3- on another side, without shift of meaning, by instance, in a population where horses are common and well used for different purposes, a lot of names can exist for them

I agree with that, such evolutions are indeed a reality and I don't deny it. The problem is rhetorical: we have a PIE etymon A and its reflexes in the attested IE languages (let's call them A1,A2,A3 etc). We have thus three possible situations:

1- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is the same as the meaning of the etymon A : A = A1 (and possibly A2, A3, etc). Ex: ekwos = equus + hippos (horse = horse) or *ghe → go, gå (to quit → to go)

2- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is not the same as the meaning of the etymon A BUT you can observe similar distorsions in other IE languages' reflexes (A2,A3, etc). A → A1,A2,... . Ex: PIE *bhreus (to blow up) → Gaulish brunnio (breast) ↔ PGmc *brustiz (eng. "breast", dan. "bryst" etc.)

3- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is not the same as the meaning of the etymon A AND you CANNOT observe any similar distorsions outside the language considered : A → A1. Ex: *dhereg (to hold) → Danish dreng (=boy).

To put it simply : In 1 the PIE etymon is clearly reliable, in 2 its likelihood is acceptable although not certain (it can be a borrowing, a wandering word, or a non-IE etymon) and in 3 is speculatory. Unfortunately, most PIE etymons belongs to the last category.

You have two schools, as in the reading of the Bible : the "maximalists" who think that, since all the attestable historical events of the Bible are true (eg the exile to Babylon) then all the non-attested historical events should be true as well, and the "minimalists" who think that only the attested events are true.

In historical linguistics, you have the same dichotomy : people who believe that since processes of semantic distorsions are "attested" and true, non-attested semantic distorsions should be true as well. And people who believe only in what is attested. From this perspective I am clearly a minimalist : I agree with 1, sometimes with 2, never with 3.

Your example is at the very edge of 2 and 3. As long as we are talking about horses, I agree with the connection horse/stallion, not with horse/mare. As for myself, and for most of us I suspect, I couldn't make the difference between a horse and a mare and I wouldn't care riding either of them (if I could ride a horse). But for people from the Neolithic, the probability that they could have mixed the two seems very unlikely.

You have such alleged evolutions in French with Vulgar Latin, as f.ex. with *pulla (offspring - of an animal) → poule (hen) , poulain (colt), poutre (beam). Maybe it is true, but to me it is pure guesswork.

Moreover, I don't believe at least in two semantic distorsion processses which are :

- Echoism
- Taboo words

If you discard the situation3, echoism and taboo words, the remaining lexical stock is rather small. I agree with you and Taranis about the existence of *ekwos reflexes in Celtic. But "cabalos" or "marc'h" are obviously not IE, which shows that the PIE horse culture is not specific.

We should have a thread devoted to this horse question, since it is in fact so critical within IE studies.
 
I agree with that, such evolutions are indeed a reality and I don't deny it. The problem is rhetorical: we have a PIE etymon A and its reflexes in the attested IE languages (let's call them A1,A2,A3 etc). We have thus three possible situations:

1- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is the same as the meaning of the etymon A : A = A1 (and possibly A2, A3, etc). Ex: ekwos = equus + hippos (horse = horse) or *ghe → go, gå (to quit → to go)

2- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is not the same as the meaning of the etymon A BUT you can observe similar distorsions in other IE languages' reflexes (A2,A3, etc). A → A1,A2,... . Ex: PIE *bhreus (to blow up) → Gaulish brunnio (breast) ↔ PGmc *brustiz (eng. "breast", dan. "bryst" etc.)

3- The meaning of the reflexe A1 is not the same as the meaning of the etymon A AND you CANNOT observe any similar distorsions outside the language considered : A → A1. Ex: *dhereg (to hold) → Danish dreng (=boy).

To put it simply : In 1 the PIE etymon is clearly reliable, in 2 its likelihood is acceptable although not certain (it can be a borrowing, a wandering word, or a non-IE etymon) and in 3 is speculatory. Unfortunately, most PIE etymons belongs to the last category.

You have two schools, as in the reading of the Bible : the "maximalists" who think that, since all the attestable historical events of the Bible are true (eg the exile to Babylon) then all the non-attested historical events should be true as well, and the "minimalists" who think that only the attested events are true.

In historical linguistics, you have the same dichotomy : people who believe that since processes of semantic distorsions are "attested" and true, non-attested semantic distorsions should be true as well. And people who believe only in what is attested. From this perspective I am clearly a minimalist : I agree with 1, sometimes with 2, never with 3.

Your example is at the very edge of 2 and 3. As long as we are talking about horses, I agree with the connection horse/stallion, not with horse/mare. As for myself, and for most of us I suspect, I couldn't make the difference between a horse and a mare and I wouldn't care riding either of them (if I could ride a horse). But for people from the Neolithic, the probability that they could have mixed the two seems very unlikely.

You have such alleged evolutions in French with Vulgar Latin, as f.ex. with *pulla (offspring - of an animal) → poule (hen) , poulain (colt), poutre (beam). Maybe it is true, but to me it is pure guesswork.

Moreover, I don't believe at least in two semantic distorsion processses which are :

- Echoism
- Taboo words

If you discard the situation3, echoism and taboo words, the remaining lexical stock is rather small. I agree with you and Taranis about the existence of *ekwos reflexes in Celtic. But "cabalos" or "marc'h" are obviously not IE, which shows that the PIE horse culture is not specific.

We should have a thread devoted to this horse question, since it is in fact so critical within IE studies.

when cross and compare enters?

I mean Mycanean Ικκος ancient Greek Ιππος in general and Φορβας the female (horse farm = ιπποφορβειον) Modern Greek Alogo, Φοραδα
but in modern Greek we see καπουλια = the behind back of the horse, (the area where second rider stands, above back legs, sometimes means the muscles from feet to ass. καβαλα = riding, above, and καβαλος in trousers is the up near genital organs area
so what loses its meaning in one language can be in another,
for example female horse φορβας-φοραδα cognates with Germanic Phard,
and possibly male horse could be Cavallo, since the word επιβητωρ or after πωλος πουλαρι= young horse seems to after synthesis, a component word that has επι+Βητωρ.

Marc and Ars can be same like gods Mars and Ar(e)s, War horses.

all the above unatested, but if true then you can have another clear vision,

so Horse Ikkos Marc Phard can mean also the same but transited with different meaning and stand with different meaning

so in the begin could be different words
like
Ikkos = horse general meaning
Phard = female horse
Caballo etc = the male horse or small horse
Marc Ars = a horse trained for war, soldiers horses, and ended as they are today,

so they could be as above and developed different.
or they can be from different languages,
or they can be from same language but transmited different (waves, pre horse IE, after horse IE)
 

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