Are R1a and R1b really Indo-Europeans ?

[Taranis]

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: ek^wos = equus + hippos (horse = horse) or *g^he → 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 *b^hreus (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: *d^hereg (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

I see your reasoning, and I generally agree. I wouldn't put the word *ek´wos between 1 and 2, based on the fact that it is so widespread in IE. But based on your criteria, one would have to exclude Armenian "esh" (էշ), meaning donkey from this list though. I do agree that it certainly pokes a hole into the theory that PIE had a 'special' horse culture. If we are minimalistic here, the only thing that we can say is that the Proto-Indo-Europeans knew horses.

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.

I have to say, I find that etymology quite hair-raising as well.

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 *ek^wos reflexes in Celtic. But "cabalos" or "marc'h" are obviously not IE, which shows that the PIE horse culture is not specific.

I agree on your assessments with *kaballo- and *markos: the two words are probably not originally IE.

With regard for the so-called "taboo words", I agree that the idea makes no sense. It's especially striking that the textbook example for a taboo word, bear, happened thrice in IE: Germanic (eg. "bear" - brown one), Proto-Slavic (eg. "medved" - honey eater) and Goidelic ("mathgamain" - good calf). And, I do think the latter deserves more explanation: unlike Alinei, who claims that it's "Celtic": mathgamain is found only in Goidelic, while there are Old Irish "art", Welsh "arth", Breton "arzh", and Gaulish *arto-, which can be very much linked with Latin "ursus", Greek "arktos", etc.

As opposed to taboo words, I would suggest a completely different interpretation: calques (loan translations).

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

You're free to start a new thread about this if you like. It would be warmly welcomed.

 

[LeBrok]

Pre IE language discussion moved here:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/28354-Pre-Indo-European-languages-in-Europe

Horse thread
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/28355-Horse-Linguistic-History-and-more

 

[MOESAN]

Yes indeed; weather conditions is another forgotten aspect of the IE spread models, that's very true. Thanks for the file, it is very informative !




About Gimbutas Model :

That's Gimbutas theory (the connection with the Yamna Culture) but the horseriders' story is probably a myth based upon a misinterpretation of the Rig-Veda : Renfrew demonstrated on the basis of archaeologic finds that Kurgan people were not horsemen. At the best they used horses to bring material but they didn't ride them ; among other things, no stirrups nor snaffle bits have been found in the graves nor anywhere else. And these two pieces are a condition sine qua non for horseriding.

sure enough someones did this kind of work yet and could produce huge sets of words and meaning proving that –


horses :

And I would had an argument : contrary to Taranis, I state that the word for "horse" is generally different in the IE languages. The *ekwos etymon doesn't work in many languages : English "horse" is "of unknown origins", Spanish "caballo" (= French "cheval, = Irish "capall", = Welsh "cefyll"), Danish "heste", Breton "marc'h" (= Welsh "march") as well. I am not sure but the Albanian kalë would not fit in *ekwos without dramatic manipulations. It tends to indicate that the PIE urvolk did not have a specific horse culture.

dating :

The date of 3000 BC for the migration start is purely arbitrary, there is nothing to support it. Thus the whole story is biased right from the beginning. It goes the same way for the horseriders : why should they have been horseriders by the way ?

Hence, to me Gimbutas model does not hold. It has been so popular because it was the only model which coincidated with the theories of the linguists (Kosssina's Corded Ware spread did not fit with the horserider story).

urvolk :

To be a bit provocative (as I like to be and as Sparkey rightly stated ), I would also add : are we sure that a PIE urvolk ever existed ? We have clear linguistic convergences (although many of them are based upon heavily distorted interpretations), is it sufficient to declare that you had an urvolk and an urheimat and horses and bronze swords and conquest and the like ? Well, I don't think so. I don't discard the hypothesis of a PIE urvolk, I am just wondering, this is after all only a hypothesis.

I came back again to the discussion about I-E etymologies and crossed opinions about credibility for some cognates words families -
surely when meanings of words are very far one from another and that even the forms of words are remote enough from the supposed 'model' we can have some doubt – but I 'm going to strike again on the nail for some cases, to show the alleged common origins of words roots are not always fancy of P-I-E irreductible supporters:
the contested latin root 'pull-us' («young offspring of animals») is supposed by someones having given french 'poule' (+ 'poulet') in place of 'géline' << gallina and also 'poulain' («colt») and 'poutre' («wooden beam») - amazing at first sight but is it so? In breton we have 'polog' («young offspring of birds» and every kind of very young and small offsprings, grec 'pouli' «bird») -
maybe we have here the confusion of two roots? One for the birds and one for horses? Not sure?
'poulain' could be compared to 'foal', 'fohlen', 'veulen', 'föl', 'faale', 'fyl' + 'filly' (germanic) and I see no obstacle to a comparison with 'poulain' <> 'poutre' (see 'puletro', 'poldro', 'potro' (latin: ital-span-port-) = «colt», «foal»): in french 'chevalet' («small horse») as 'chevron' («big goat») are used to name 'V'shape supports fort table or roof... in swedish and dutch 'bock'/'bok' («he-goat», see 'buck') are used for «cheval d'arçon» (gymnastic), kind of support with a «back» supported by «four paws»! French 'grue' («crane») could came from a bird name (pop-lat- *'grua' << 'gr[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ũ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]s' – [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]this word is translated by [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]'gavr' [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]in modern breton («goat» again)[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] – [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]so, same picturing words in different languages, or if different, often use of an animal name for a machine - [/FONT]


We have not to be astonished in front of very far drifts in the meanings of words in living languages: it is observable in every language, between standard and dialects but too in the very standard – in french, «bouquet», «crevette» (dialectal normand «chevrette», small goat) are used for crustaceans – always folks made funny comparisons and replace original words by others of previous different meaning – welsh and breton are separated by only 1000 years break -

welsh 'tlawd' («poor») ><breton 'treud' («meagre», = 'trist' too + «sad»)
welsh 'gwag' («empty») >< breton 'gwag' («flabby», «sluggish») <<see lat- 'vacu-um'
welsh lost 'ysgyfarn' («ear» : 'clust' << 'clywed' = br- 'klewed' «to hear», look greek 'cleos', germ- *'hlôd': 'loud', 'laut', 'luid') and it has not the breton word 'gad' («hare»)) but it has 'ysgyfarnog' for «hare» (long eared!) - this present day difference of namings in welsh and breton doesn' t prove they were different languages spoken by people of different origins of of the same origin but having loaned different words from different autochtonous populations BECAUSE SUPPOSEDLY THEY DID NOT KNOW THE HARE? Believe me, helas, the deformations of meanings are not always the proof of a not well understood language newly adopted – it would be even the opposite (when, as for «wine», a same 'cognate' kept the very same meaning in every place, here I think we can have a new enough loan word...) - in breton dialects, 'blas' means «taste» here and «smell» there, 'safariñ' means «to make a lot of noise» here and only «to speak» there! In W-I-E languages, «hart» is associated with «centre» («heart» 'cardia', 'heart', 'herz', 'hart', 'hjert', 'serdce' + 'cor'/'cuor' >> 'coraz[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ó[/FONT]n', 'coraç[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ã[/FONT]o', 'crî'/'cridhe' but = «centre» in welsh and breton('craidd', 'kreis', see czech 'sred' = «centre» too) – 'tree', 'trä', 'drvo', 'dorovo', 'derw' mean according to languages: «tree», «wooden stuff», «oak», it's to say: precise or imprecise (that an example the heart(or head?)-breaking problem of scientists trying to localize the P-I-E place origin on the basis of 'faune' and 'flore') -
sure enough someones did this kind of work yet and could produce huge sets of words and meanings proving that – every language has more than a word for the same basic thing, sometimes words sending more precisions, more often exchanges of words without any need, only confusions or «pictural words» (sorry for my very personal english!) -
to close: old peoples of Europe and near places were not too «macho» concerning females because almost every well known domestic beast had distinct names for 'father', 'mother', even for 'son' and 'daughter'! Very often too there was a 'collective' (specie) name whatever age or sex -
concerning 'horse' the debate could be very interesting in a new thread because someones here seam very well informed on languages (I 'll learn increase my knowledge) –
sure enough someones did this kind of work yet and could produce huge sts of words and meaning proving that –

 

[LeBrok]

'cardia', 'heart', 'herz', 'hart', 'hjert', 'serdce' + 'cor'/'cuor' >> 'corazón', 'coração', 'crî'/'cridhe' but = «centre» in welsh and('craidd', 'kreis', see czech 'sred' = «centre» too) – 'tree', 'trä', 'drvo', 'dorovo', 'derw' mean according to languages: «tree», «wooden stuff», «oak», it's to say: precise or imprecise (that an example the heart(or head?)-breaking problem of scientists trying to localize the P-I-E place origin on the basis of 'faune' and 'flore') -

I was musing about it, that "serdce" denotes center. "cor", "cred" versus "sred" is a great example of centum/satem too. We have platora of simple words (personal, body parts, numerals) to undeniably create one big IE language family.

I have a strong feeling, judging by vocabulary and (pronunciation) that Slavic, Latin/Celtic show stronger relation, than Slavic and Germanic. That Slavic/Celtic shows less substratum influences, and points stronger to common origin of IE. Common grammar points to the strongest relation too.
Germanic on other hand (again by pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar) points to stronger retention of original I1 substratum, under two IE waves. One R1a Corded Ware (5k ago), other R1b/celtic (4-3 k ago).

(sorry for my very personal english!) -

I definitely see the progress you made through last year. So much easier to read and understand your writing now.

sure enough someones did this kind of work yet and could produce huge sts of words and meaning proving that –

I wish someone thrown all known vocabularies, and other knowledge of languages, in super computer. Cranked the numbers and showed us all the statistical relations between languages. It would be interesting to see what is confirm and what we missed.
Often correlation by one word is misleading. Could be borrowed, original or accidental with same probability. Correlation by hundreds or thousand of words denotes a strong connection to the source or even common origin.

 

[zanipolo]

[/I]I was musing about it, that "serdce" denotes center. "cor", "cred" versus "sred" is a great example of centum/satem too. We have platora of simple words (personal, body parts, numerals) to undeniably create one big IE language family.

I have a strong feeling, judging by vocabulary and (pronunciation) that Slavic, Latin/Celtic show stronger relation, than Slavic and Germanic. That Slavic/Celtic shows less substratum influences, and points stronger to common origin of IE. Common grammar points to the strongest relation too.
Germanic on other hand (again by pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar) points to stronger retention of original I1 substratum, under two IE waves. One R1a Corded Ware (5k ago), other R1b/celtic (4-3 k ago).




I definitely see the progress you made through last year. So much easier to read and understand your writing now.




I wish someone thrown all known vocabularies, and other knowledge of languages, in super computer. Cranked the numbers and showed us all the statistical relations between languages. It would be interesting to see what is confirm and what we missed.
Often correlation by one word is misleading. Could be borrowed, original or accidental with same probability. Correlation by hundreds or thousand of words denotes a strong connection to the source or even common origin.

this Slavic/Celtic is only based on the fact that the celts migrated to the euxine sea via the danube/ister river as well as the upper vistula river area, but its not from an R1a source , as scandinavian R1a as from 2004 documents states that it came from central-asia and not germanic or polish areas. the I1 'Germanic" could only have been taught in scandinavia for the british isles. DOES IT HAVE SLAVIC INFLUENCES OR BALTIC INFLUENCES, ?
the slavic/celtic as stated is only visible in moldovia and slovakia areas.......the balkan area is non existent ( maybe Latin got in the way in the balkans)

 

[LeBrok]

this Slavic/Celtic is only based on the fact that the celts migrated to the euxine sea via the danube/ister river as well as the upper vistula river area, but its not from an R1a source , as scandinavian R1a as from 2004 documents states that it came from central-asia and not germanic or polish areas. the I1 'Germanic" could only have been taught in scandinavia for the british isles. DOES IT HAVE SLAVIC INFLUENCES OR BALTIC INFLUENCES, ?
the slavic/celtic as stated is only visible in moldovia and slovakia areas.......the balkan area is non existent ( maybe Latin got in the way in the balkans)

Zanipolo, you're jumping through time mixing epochs again.
At the time of Corded Ware there was no Slavic or Baltic, not even proto, same imply to Germanic. I'm talking about possible first influence of IE language over local I1 (in future mostly found in Germanic people) people in central/north Europe, through mixing with R1a people of Corded Ware.

R1a source , as scandinavian R1a as from 2004 documents states that it came from central-asia

Sure, most likely R1a evolved and spent most of it's time in central Asia. Possibly for good 10k years (very long long time) before becoming IE. At the time it became IE I would say, it moved closer to West Asia by Caspian Sea, and even to Eastern Europe of Black Sea are.
In times of Corded Ware, some IE R1a expended further West into future Slavic area, some even further to Scandinavia.
At the same time in West Asia, (5k ago) R1a overrun some R1b groups, changing them into IE. When most R1b entered Europe one thousand years later, they were already IE speaking.

There is also a possibility that R1a and R1b spend a long time close to each other as small hunter gatherers groups, both keeping their original pre-split language sheltered and intact, plus influencing each other languages because of close distances. The big R1a and R1b expansions and separation happened after they became successful herders and farmers in central Asia about 7-6k years ago. This would be the time of splinting some of IE languages, with Slavic/Celtic split not later than 5k.

We know that some celtic (maybe Italics) groups spent some time close to Slavic people around Carpathian Mountains area, influencing each other language again. Possibly that R1b folks took the Ukraine route to get to Middle of Europe from Asia. If their journey was slow (one thousand years) they've could have leaned IE from local tribes of East and Central Europe 5-3k ago. The last leg of their trip was to push from Balkans to Western Europe.
If R1b "trip" was faster to the West they didn't learn IE, like Basques.

 

[Kentel]

[/I]
I have a strong feeling, judging by vocabulary and (pronunciation) that Slavic, Latin/Celtic show stronger relation, than Slavic and Germanic. That Slavic/Celtic shows less substratum influences, and points stronger to common origin of IE.

I have the opposite feeling, for the following reasons :

- being a speaker of both Breton and Polish, I can see very few convergences between the two : Polish is much closer to PIE than Breton is.
- the number of non-IE words in Breton is huge, and of non-IE features in Celtic syntax as well (declinable prepositions, mutations, systematic use of non-conjugated verbs - as in Basque - and so on).
- On the contrary, many exclusive lexical convergences between Celtic and Germanic can be found, and they are not IE (maybe connected with the Nordwestblock substratum ?).

We're off topic once again :disappointed:

 

[LeBrok]

I have the opposite feeling, for the following reasons :

- being a speaker of both Breton and Polish, I can see very few convergences between the two : Polish is much closer to PIE than Breton is.
- the number of non-IE words in Breton is huge, and of non-IE features in Celtic syntax as well (declinable prepositions, mutations, systematic use of non-conjugated verbs - as in Basque - and so on).
- On the contrary, many exclusive lexical convergences between Celtic and Germanic can be found, and they are not IE (maybe connected with the Nordwestblock substratum ?).

:disappointed:

I shouldn't have used "Celtic" term, or perhaps strong regional substratum changed it too much in Britten. I should have stuck to just Italic/Slavic correlation.

We're off topic once again

Still talking about R1a and R1b people, right?

 

[Kentel]

the contested latin root 'pull-us' («young offspring of animals») is supposed by someones having given french 'poule' (+ 'poulet') in place of 'géline' << gallina and also'poulain' («colt») and 'poutre' («wooden beam») - amazing at first sight but is it so? In breton we have 'polog' («young offspring of birds» and every kind of very young and small offsprings, grec 'pouli' «bird») -

Thank you for "polog", I didn't know that word. It sounds like a borrowing from French "poule" or "poussin", don't you think ? This is just a guess, it sounds like a celticisation of something else.

maybe we have here the confusion of two roots? One for the birds and one for horses? Not sure?
'poulain' could be compared to 'foal', 'fohlen', 'veulen', 'föl', 'faale', 'fyl' + 'filly' (germanic) and I see no obstacle to a comparison with 'poulain' <> 'poutre' (see 'puletro', 'poldro', 'potro' (latin: ital-span-port-) = «colt», «foal»): in french 'chevalet' («small horse») as 'chevron' («big goat») are used to name 'V'shape supports fort table or roof... in swedish and dutch 'bock'/'bok' («he-goat», see 'buck') are used for «cheval d'arçon» (gymnastic), kind of support with a «back» supported by «four paws»!

You get the point for "poutre". I agree with you : semantic evolutions do exist, I don't deny the fact. But it is not enough to assume that, because two words are phonetically similar (like poule/poulain (hen/colt)) they have automatically the same root. And this bias is systematic in the reconstruction of the PIE lexicon, and in etymology in general. By doing that, you can connect almost every word from a IE to a PIE root, every French word to a Latin root, etc. That's what is done actually. And that's why I am so suspicious. Maybe too much, I confess.

But hen/colt : do you think it is realistic that people who were 90% farmers or more, could use the same word for both animals ? Moreover, if "colt" is the offspring (*pullus) of a horse, a hen is the offspring of nothing. It doesn't match the meaning of the root.

'tree', 'trä', 'drvo', 'dorovo', 'derw' mean according to languages: «tree», «wooden stuff», «oak», it's to say: precise or imprecise (that an example the heart(or head?)-breaking problem of scientists trying to localize the P-I-E place origin on the basis of 'faune' and 'flore') -

Yes, but here the situation is different because :

1- the evolution is attested in many different languages
2- there's no real meaning distorsion, all these meanings are tightly connected.

 

[Kardu]

Why don't you start.

First we must define the term Indo-European, because it seems different people here assign different meanings to it.

Secondly we should reformulate the question of the thread: "Are R1a and R1b really Indo-Europeans ?" Because R1a and R1b people are certainly among those who speak today what we call IE languages, but if the author of the thread means whether or not IE was the original language of R1a and R1b then that's a totally different story.

 

[Yetos]

Continuing to spread more ideas that can be crup or usefull to Linguisτ


Q-Greek P-Greek Modern Greek Rest IE Meaning in English
Iκκος Ιππος Ippos Αλογο Alogo-alowo equus Horse
????? Φορβας Phorbas Φοραδα Phard Female horse
????? επιβητωρ επιβητορας male horse for reproduction
????? Πωλος (Polos-Pulos) Πουλαρι young horse
????? ?????? Καποuλια (plural) the back of the horse, the body above back legs
???? ????? Kαβαλα riding ( horse bike etc) above of something
Σκελη Σκελη Σκελη or Καβαλος τhe upper area of feet near genital organs, area that body stands when rides
????? ?????? Ατι war Horse

the case of equus and hepphew as Ikkos and ippos reminds me the Q-P Celtic and Greek
has anyone thought if could happened to some other languages?
or cavallo is something like επιβητωρ (=επι +βητωρ)
a composite word of IE? (ca+vallo = equus +????) for example equus+phalus,
just spreading ideas that can be usefull or crup.

 

[Kentel]

First we must define the term Indo-European, because it seems different people here assign different meanings to it.

Secondly we should reformulate the question of the thread: "Are R1a and R1b really Indo-Europeans ?" Because R1a and R1b people are certainly among those who speak today what we call IE languages, but if the author of the thread means whether or not IE was the original language of R1a and R1b then that's a totally different story.

That's exactly what I meant

 

[kamani]

why do you guys want to challenge the status quo of things ? You're making a whole bunch of people in western europe less proud of their heritage.

 

[Kentel]

Continuing to spread more ideas that can be crup or usefull to Linguisτ


????? Φορβας Phorbas Φοραδα Phard Female horse

This one sounds pretty close to "horse", unfortunately the Greek ph is a reflexe of PIE *b^h while Germanic h is a reflexe op PIE *k (or *k'). So it does not work.

????? Πωλος (Polos-Pulos) Πουλαρι young horse

I like this one much more than the Vulgar Latin *pullus for the French "poulain" (colt). Do you have an etymology ?

or cavallo is something like επιβητωρ (=επι +βητωρ)
a composite word of IE? (ca+vallo = equus +????) for example equus+phalus)
just spreading ideas that can be usefull or crup.

But *ek^wo cannot yield ka- nor ca-, thus it doesn't work.

 

[Kardu]

That's exactly what I meant

Then we don't even need to start digging into linguistics and IE vocabulary.
Considering the age of those haplogroups and the approximate time of their split it's impossible that proto-IE (even if it existed) was their initial language.

 

[Kentel]

Then we don't even need to start digging into linguistics and IE vocabulary.
Considering the age of those haplogroups and the approximate time of their split it's impossible that proto-IE (even if it existed) was their initial language.

Simple and true : it is impossible to connect R1a and R1b with the IE. I see at least two main reasons :

1- The one you mention :the dating goes far beyond the expected departure of the PIE from their homeland, wherever it was. We have to remember that each dating of an haplogroup is the date when it splits, not the date of its emergence, so R1 splitted in R1a and R1b around 20 000 - 10 000 BC.

2- The phylogenetic model : if we assume that R1a and R1b where IE, then we assume that R1 was IE already, which is impossible as we've seen in 1. Moreover: what shall we do with the guys in Africa and the others in Siberia, who obviously do not speak an IE language ?

Now let's be logical : genetics allows us to see all the migration routes throughout Europe. Hence, one of the Y-DNA mutations should be related with the arrival of the IE. There's no other possibility. We are thus left with two possibilities :

A - The IE migration corresponds to a subclade of R1a or R1b.
B- The IE urvolk never existed.

If we rely on A, we have to deal with two problems :

1- if the IE migration is related to, say, a subclade of R1b, what shall we do with the R1a people in Eastern Europe (or the contrary) ?
2- No R1a or b subclade is connected with a penetration of people into the whole European continent. This is actually the same problem which we have with the archaeologic cultures.

Now I'm waiting for counter-arguments (which will certainly come )

 

[Kardu]

Very good points, I wanna hear counter-arguments too

 

[sparkey]

1- The one you mention :the dating goes far beyond the expected departure of the PIE from their homeland, wherever it was. We have to remember that each dating of an haplogroup is the date when it splits, not the date of its emergence, so R1 splitted in R1a and R1b around 20 000 - 10 000 BC.

Is anybody making the case that proto-IE must have existed at the splitting event? I thought it was apparent that proto-IE peoples probably carried some subclades of R1, but not necessarily all of them, and it's also not necessary that the earliest R1* spoke proto-IE for this to hold.

It's much more useful, of course, to look at subclade dating. I personally quite like the tree at the R1a Project.

2- The phylogenetic model : if we assume that R1a and R1b where IE, then we assume that R1 was IE already, which is impossible as we've seen in 1. Moreover: what shall we do with the guys in Africa and the others in Siberia, who obviously do not speak an IE language ?

I'm not making this case, but theoretically, an argument could be made that at one point all extant R1a and R1b subclades belonged to IE speakers, with non-IE brother branches having gone extinct... hence it's not true that "if we assume that R1a and R1b where IE, then we assume that R1 was IE already."

Now let's be logical : genetics allows us to see all the migration routes throughout Europe. Hence, one of the Y-DNA mutations should be related with the arrival of the IE. There's no other possibility. We are thus left with two possibilities :

A - The IE migration corresponds to a subclade of R1a or R1b.
B- The IE urvolk never existed.

How about C the IE migration corresponds best to a subclade of J2 or G2. Or D the IE migration expanded subclades that it picked up along the way at the expense of ones it began with. (Although I currently favor A.)

1- if the IE migration is related to, say, a subclade of R1b, what shall we do with the R1a people in Eastern Europe (or the contrary) ?

What about them? They have R1b as well, just in lower concentrations. Why are we looking for a subclade anyway as opposed to a collection of subclades, which had their relative percentages in different populations change over time?

2- No R1a or b subclade is connected with a penetration of people into the whole European continent. This is actually the same problem which we have with the archaeologic cultures.

R1a1a1b Z645+ with possible initial minorities of R1b1a2a L23+, J2b, and G2a1c2a P303+? Combined, these fit some patterns nicely.

 

[Kardu]

But how come that all those various haplogroups and/or subgroups started to talk Proto-IE? When? Where?

Still the question remains: was pre-protoIE ethnic language of some tribe/subhaplogroup which managed to spread it around, or it was a lingua franca like let's say Swahili...

 

[kamani]

the fact that r1b became redhead and r1a became blonde shows that they were apart for a few thousand years to acheive that kind of phenotype dichotomy.