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" Indo-European before the Indo-Europeans? - new evidence from Mesopotamia
Fresh evidence from the Land of the Two Rivers suggests otherwise. For many decades now, leading Assyriologists have speculated on the existence of an early population in the 4th millennium B.C. that preceded the Sumerians, hitherto generally regarded as the first settlers of the region. Evidence for such a population comes from place names, the names of deities, technical vocabulary and even from environmental terms
... in a number of recent publications data have been presented that suggest that one such linguistic group is indeed comparable -- the Indo-European family of languages. Polysyllabic terms lacking a Sumerian etymology can be demonstrated to resemble segmentable Indo-European words with comparable meanings. Furthermore, the cuneiform writing system can be shown to preserve traces of Indo-European influence in its sign values and in its sign composition. "
http://rootsofeurope.ku.dk/english/calendar/archive_2009/euphratic/
SUMERO-INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE CONTACTS
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~asahala/asahala_sumerian_and_pie.pdf
(1) Sum. anše 'equid; donkey; ass' ~ Hitt. (ANŠE) /?/; HLuw. (ASINUS)-na 'donkey; mule'; Arm. ēs11 'donkey'; Lat. asinus; PCelt. *assin 'ass'; Lith. asilas; OCS osl; OE. assa; → Finn. aasi 'donkey'
Sumerians were not really native to the Mesopotamia and in their time they were immigrants from the mountains. First Sumerians were also not the only people in the region. At the time when Sumerians already settled down in Mesopotamia, they mentioned Gutians as their neighbors. It's possible that those Gutians were in Mesopotamia before the Sumerians and the Sumerians (or Sumerian language) replaced those so called Gutians.Theoretical they all, farmers, should have spoken First Farmer language, or at least belong to it's family, because by far they were the dominant force and population of known ancient world. However there were few dominant languages among ancient farming societies, Sumerian, Semitic and IE as the main ones. In this case some of them had to be picked up by farmers from blending with hunter gatherers and herders, I'm assuming.
Sumerians were not really native to the Mesopotamia and in their time they were immigrants from the mountains. First Sumerians were also not the only people in the region. At the time when Sumerians already settled down in Mesopotamia, they mentioned Gutians as their neighbors. It's possible that those Gutians were in Mesopotamia before the Sumerians and the Sumerians (or Sumerian language) replaced those so called Gutians.
I'm sure that Proto-Indo-Europeans speakers were from the south of the Caspian Sea. Around the Leyla-Tepe, areas between Gilan, Talysh, Mazandaran -and - Kurdistan. On the Iranian Plateau. I think that Sumerians were neighbours of those PIE folks who livedon the Southern shore of the Caspian Sea. It's possible that those PIE folks (known as Gutians in Mesopotamia) from Leyla-Tepe were in the Mesopotamia first even before the Sumerians.
Northern Sumerians / Gutians gave birth to Mitanni & Kassites. Those folks in turn gave birth to Medes & Persians. Kurds are from the Medes.Although I see where you are coming from, geography speaking the Indo-Iranian/Aryan language seems to be in close proximity to Gutish territory making the Gutish R1a as well; Hypothetically speaking.
Perhaps archeological Dna testing on Gutish remains are called for to solve the Indo-European/Gutish hypothesis mystery.
Northern Sumerians / Gutians gave birth to Mitanni &Kassites. Those folks in turn gave birth to Medes & Persians. Kurds are fromthe Medes.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't think Gutianswere exclusively R1a, but also R1b, J2a, R2a, T, G and maybe even J1, since they have descovere Sarmatian J1.
Personally, I'm much more interested in Mitanni/Kassites than Gutians.
And you're trying to convince us you believe all that not because you have the pre-fabricated dogma (that Kurds are the navel of the Indo-European-speaking world), because you yourself are Kurdish, and you try to make everything fit to that to that dogma?
I might add, if Gamkrelidze is actually correct, and Gutian is actually related with Tocharian (questionable, and I might add that Gamkrelidze is an adherent of the Glottalic Theory, and places the Indo-European homeland in the Caucasus), that this would invalidate your own ideas: inside Indo-European, the Tocharian languages are not closely related with the Indo-Iranic languages, instead they are much more similar to the Italic and Celtic languages in particular.
Also on the Mitanni, I have a few remarks to make, too: the Mitanni loanwords in Urartian are from an Indo-Iranic source, yes, but not an Iranic one. They preserve *s- (shifted to *h- in Proto-Iranic), so we're talking about a language that was either closer with Proto-Indo-Iranic, or closer with the Indic languages.
Northern Sumerians / Gutians gave birth to Mitanni & Kassites. Those folks in turn gave birth to Medes & Persians. Kurds are from the Medes.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't think Gutians were exclusively R1a, but also R1b, J2a, R2a, T, G and maybe even J1, since they have descovered Sarmatian J1.
Personally, I'm much more interested in Mitanni/Kassites than Gutians.
Why have you deleted my post? Oh, never mind, it was LeBrok AGAIN!!!And you're trying to convince us you believe all that not because you have the pre-fabricated dogma (that Kurds are the navel of the Indo-European-speaking world), because you yourself are Kurdish, and you try to make everything fit to that to that dogma?
I might add, if Gamkrelidze is actually correct, and Gutian is actually related with Tocharian (questionable, and I might add that Gamkrelidze is an adherent of the Glottalic Theory, and places the Indo-European homeland in the Caucasus), that this would invalidate your own ideas: inside Indo-European, the Tocharian languages are not closely related with the Indo-Iranic languages, instead they are much more similar to the Italic and Celtic languages in particular.
Also on the Mitanni, I have a few remarks to make, too: the Mitanni loanwords in Urartian are from an Indo-Iranic source, yes, but not an Iranic one. They preserve *s- (shifted to *h- in Proto-Iranic), so we're talking about a language that was either closer with Proto-Indo-Iranic, or closer with the Indic languages.
I don't think Gutians were proto-Indo-European speakers. They were maybe one of the many Indo-European speakers in their region. The homeland of PIE was NorthWest Iranian Plateau, Leyla Tepe. From there Indo-European folks migrated into the Mesopotmia and the Maykop from where they (R1b folks) later migrated into the Yamnaya.According to the "Ydna by countries graph", the Kurds are 17%R1b and 11%R1a making ydna R1 a minority Ydna lineage among Kurds. It's still not impossible that I do-Europeans were involved in the Gutian language via conquest or close contact with PIE. However let's just say that Indo-Europeans are only a small contributor of the Kurdish ethogenesis.
Goga said:In my previous post I wrote that I'm as much biased as Polish, German, Baltic and other Eurocentric folks on such kind of sites
Well - unlike you, I have never claimed that Indo-Europeans originated in my own homeland.
I just think that they originated in the Eurasian steppe. It isn't as "self-centric" as your claims.
============================================
But some Polish bloggers in the internet indeed pursue a theory that Kuyavia / Cuiavia - a region in north-central Poland - was the cradle of PIE, and that the original PIE culture was GAC, Globular Amphora Culture (which is closely related to CWC, Corded Ware Culture).
For example this guy:
http://eng.molgen.org/viewtopic.php?t=1529
http://www.tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/polacy1.htm
Here is a good publication about the Globular Amphora Culture in English (you can download a PDF for free):
"Between West and East. People of the Globular Amphora Culture in Eastern Europe":
https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/handle/10593/3819
If I remember correctly, there is also some aDNA from this culture, but only mtDNA samples, no Y-DNA.
Well - unlike you, I have never claimed that Indo-Europeans originated in my own homeland.
I just think that they originated in the Eurasian steppe. It isn't as "self-centric" as your claims.
============================================
But some Polish bloggers in the internet indeed pursue a theory that Kuyavia / Cuiavia - a region in north-central Poland - was the cradle of PIE, and that the original PIE culture was GAC, Globular Amphora Culture (which is closely related to CWC, Corded Ware Culture).
For example this guy:
http://eng.molgen.org/viewtopic.php?t=1529
http://www.tropie.tarnow.opoka.org.pl/polacy1.htm
Here is a good publication about the Globular Amphora Culture in English (you can download a PDF for free):
"Between West and East. People of the Globular Amphora Culture in Eastern Europe":
https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/jspui/handle/10593/3819
If I remember correctly, there is also some aDNA from this culture, but only mtDNA samples, no Y-DNA.
Why have you deleted my post? Oh, never mind, it was LeBrok AGAIN!!!
In my previous post I wrote that I'm as much biased as Polish, German, Baltic and other Eurocentric folks on such kind of sites who believe that their folks are the navel of the Indo-European-speaking world.
Mitanni spoke proto-Iranic, ancestral to Avestan and Sanskrit.
Later on Sanskrit mixed heavily with Dravidian and evolved into Indic languages.
Kurdish language is still very very close to Avestan.
Call it whatever you want. But the language the Mitanni spoke is ancestral to Kurdish, Persian, Sanskrit etc.If you're talking about including Sanskrit and the Indic languages, that would be Proto-Indo-Iranic then.
As I said earlier, one of the key sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranic to Proto-Iranic is the sound shift of *s- > *h-. Since they do not exhibit that sound change, the Mitanni loanwords clearly did not come from an Iranic language. As I said, Mitanni was either undifferentiated Indo-Iranic, or actually Indic.
EDIT: I also fail to see how Kurdish is supposedly "very close" to Avestan.
It should be further added that Hurrian itself was obviously a non-Indo-European language (together with Urartian they form the Hurro-Urartian languages).
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