Slavic homeland and ethnogenesis

[Taranis]

Somecommon Slavic-Latin-Ancient Greek words,some are only distributedamong Souther Slavic area.

I have a question, why do you only look at Old Church Slavic, Greek and Latin, and not at other Slavic languages (and English, which isn't a very good representative of theGermanic languages, due to its abundance of Romance loanwords), and other Indo-European branches? Because if you ignore that you're going to be deceptive towards yourself. Otherwise, you could get a good idea of which words might be borrowings, which words are borrowings into Proto-Slavic, and which ones are true cognates (inherited fromPIE).

Old.Ch.Slav ‎(ognĭ)Latin(ignis) Eng(flame,fire)

This, for example, Sanskrit has a clear cognate "agni" (Agni, in Hinduism, is also the god of fire).

Taranishere are some common Slavic-Latin words that i collect today,mightyou can explain wheter they were borrowings,proto-indo european,causesome are find in ancient Greek,note that i put words from languagesknown to me in this case South Slavic.

Some of them are borrowings, some ofthem, no doubt, are inheritances. Here are some examples:

Lat (pullum) Slav(pile) Eng(chicken)

See also Albanian “pulë”.

Lat(oves) Slav(ovca)Eng(sheep)

Common inheritance. See also English "ewe". Welsh “oen” (lamb)

Lat (cattus) Slav(kot) Eng(cat)

Old borrowing from Latin (notice the *a> *o sound shift).
See also German "Katze", Welsh “cath”.

Lat (Judaeus) Slav(židovinu,židov)Eng(Jew)

This is an ethnic name, it is obviouslya borrowing, from Hebrew "Yehūdīm" (יהודים).

Lat(machaera) Slav(mach)Eng(sword)

Borrowed from Greek “machaira”(μαχαιρα), probably contracted. The Slavic variant must be a late borrowing because otherwise it would be *mokh (мох).

Latin(sedis) with meaning(throne, abode, SEAT, chair, Bench, stool) Slav-sedi,sedis (verb*seat down,seat)

Common inheritance. English "seat",German "Sitz". Welsh “sedd”, Old Irish “suide”.

Latin nebula(cloud, mist, fog,vapor, smoke, haze) Slav nebo(sky, heaven, heavens, blue, canopy,sphere)

German “Nebel” (fog, mist). OldNorse “Niflheim” (one of the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology).
See also Welsh “nef”, Irish “neamh”(heaven). See also Old Irish “neimed” ('sanctuary), and Gaulish“nemeto-”.

 

[Милан М.]

I have a question, why do you only look at Old Church Slavic, Greek and Latin, and not at other Slavic languages (and English, which isn't a very good representative of theGermanic languages, due to its abundance of Romance loanwords), and other Indo-European branches? Because if you ignore that you're going to be deceptive towards yourself. Otherwise, you could get a good idea of which words might be borrowings, which words are borrowings into Proto-Slavic, and which ones are true cognates (inherited fromPIE).





This, for example, Sanskrit has a clear cognate "agni" (Agni, in Hinduism, is also the god of fire).





Some of them are borrowings, some ofthem, no doubt, are inheritances. Here are some examples:



See also Albanian “pulë”.



Common inheritance. See also English "ewe". Welsh “oen” (lamb)



Old borrowing from Latin (notice the *a> *o sound shift).
See also German "Katze", Welsh “cath”.




This is an ethnic name, it is obviouslya borrowing, from Hebrew "Yehūdīm" (יהודים).


Borrowed from Greek “machaira”(μαχαιρα), probably contracted. The Slavic variant must be a late borrowing because otherwise it would be *mokh (мох).



Common inheritance. English "seat",German "Sitz". Welsh “sedd”, Old Irish “suide”.



German “Nebel” (fog, mist). OldNorse “Niflheim” (one of the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology).
See also Welsh “nef”, Irish “neamh”(heaven). See also Old Irish “neimed” ('sanctuary), and Gaulish“nemeto-”.

Because Old Church Slavonic is the oldest written Slavic language and not only it was language that influenced almost all Slavic languages which we know today,it was language on which Slavonic alphabets were made,so we can not look other way arround,borrowings as much as culture vary from region to region and not all words that are common among Southern Slavic speakers are found North,or some are found but in some countries not in all,Norhern Slavic languages share different features with Southern.
Machaira-Sword is find on Mycenaean inscriptions or Homer use it for first time not sure,for the rest i agree.
Edit: I also use all other Slavic languages known to myself,majority of those words are shared among all Slavic languages and i don't think i should not use OCS but should look in other languages instead.

 

[Taranis]

Because Old Church Slavonic is the oldest written Slavic language and not only it was language that influenced almost all Slavic languages which we know today,it was language on which Slavonic alphabets were made,so we can not look other way arround,if Russian is influenced by OCS and much earlier written language,why i should take Russian as example,well like i said borrowings as much as culture vary from region to region and not all words that are common among Southern Slavic speakers are found north,or some are found but in some countries not in all,Norhern Slavic languages share different features with Southern.

The Eastern Slavs obviously also adopted eastern Christianity, but Bohemia and Poland did not adopt the Orthodox Church from the Byzantine Empire, instead they adopted western Catholicism. The same applies for the West Slavic peoples living along the Elbe, as well as the Croates and the Slovenes. They also did not adopt the Cyrilic alphabet but the Latin alphabet. I mean I agree that Old Church Slavic is the oldest Slavic language for which there is literature, but I disagree on the statement that Old Church Slavic influenced (almost) all Slavic languages, because what influence did the Orthodox Church have in Bohemia and Poland?

Machaira-Sword is find on Mycenaean inscriptions or Homer use it for first time not sure,for the rest i agree.

My point with Machaira is that this cannot be an old borrowing into Slavic, because otherwise it would be subject to the shift by which short *a > *o. As I said, the sound change is perfectly regular, and the only way for "machaira" to not be subject is that it was borrowed at a later point into Slavic.

acetum > otset (vinegar)
asellus > osel (donkey)
cattus > kot (cat)

Edit: another peculiar example that falls with the above is Dutch "schat", Swedish "skatt", German "Schatz" (which all mean 'treasure') versus Czech "skot", Russian "skoty" (скоты), etc., 'cattle'. As I hinted earlier, there is a lot of early Germanic words found in the Slavic languages.

 

[Милан М.]

The Eastern Slavs obviously also adopted eastern Christianity, but Bohemia and Poland did not adopt the Orthodox Church from the Byzantine Empire, instead they adopted western Catholicism. The same applies for the West Slavic peoples living along the Elbe, as well as the Croates and the Slovenes. They also did not adopt the Cyrilic alphabet but the Latin alphabet. I mean I agree that Old Church Slavic is the oldest Slavic language for which there is literature, but I disagree on the statement that Old Church Slavic influenced (almost) all Slavic languages, because what influence did the Orthodox Church have in Bohemia and Poland?



My point with Machaira is that this cannot be an old borrowing into Slavic, because otherwise it would be subject to the shift by which short *a > *o. As I said, the sound change is perfectly regular, and the only way for "machaira" to not be subject is that it was borrowed at a later point into Slavic.

acetum > otset (vinegar)
asellus > osel (donkey)
cattus > kot (cat)

Edit: another peculiar example that falls with the above is Dutch "schat", Swedish "skatt", German "Schatz" (which all mean 'treasure') versus Czech "skot", Russian "skoty" (скоты), etc., 'cattle'. As I hinted earlier, there is a lot of early Germanic words found in the Slavic languages.

There was Great Moravia before Bohemia and Poland,Ss Cyril and Methodius went there first on the mission,at that time Cyrillic wasnt yet in use but Glagolithic alphabet and it was much more complex in that period of time instead only adopting some form of Christianity,those alphabets especialy Cyrillic were made to reduce the Byzantine influence,to have religion in your own language,even Clement the one that made Cyrillic tried to 'make' some other forms of Christianity,Bogomilism movement which was pretty much if not same like Arian Christianity was for that reason,this matter however is complex and church had part in it,if you read the Croatian Bashka tablet written in Glagolithic you will see similarities with OCS,perhaps played some role more or less depends where.
However in most Southern Slavic countries except in Bulgarian>Kot
Cat is called Machka as far i can find in Slovakia they use Machka and lower Sorbian.
Donkey is Magare,Magarac>Donkey found in Balkans also Romanian>Magar,Albanian>Gomar.
Otset>vinegar is the same.

 

[Taranis]

There was Great Moravia before Bohemia and Poland,Ss Cyril and Methodius went there first on the mission,at that time Cyrillic wasnt yet in use but Glagolithic alphabet and it was much more complex in that period of time instead only adopting some form of Christianity,

I'm pretty sure that the Polabian Slavs (the Obotrites in particular) and the nucleus of Poland were never part of Greater Moravia, nor that Greater Moravia was ever Orthodox.

those alphabets especialy Cyrillic were made to reduce the Byzantine influence,to have religion in your own language,even Clement the one that made Cyrillic try to 'make' some other forms of Christianity,

Why is it then that the Cyrilic alphabet was adapted from the Greek alphabet (the basis was clearly medieval Greek, mind you), with a few additional letters taken from the Hebrew alphabet, namely Ш (ש) and Ц (צ)?

Bogomilism movement which was pretty much if not same like Arian Christianity was for that reason,

Bogomilism has nothing to do with Aranianism. It was an offshot of gnosticism.

this matter however is complex and church had part in it,if you read the Croatian Bashka tablet written in Glagolithic you will see similarities with OCS,perhaps played some role more or less depends where,however in most Southern Slavic countries except Bulgaria,Cat is called Machka also as far i can find in Slovakia they use Machka and lower Sorbian,

This is irrelevant because the word "kot" still obeys to the sound shift I have described.

for Donkey we use Magare,Magarac>donkey found in Balkans also Romanian Magar,Albanian Gomar,Otset>vinegar is the same.

Honestly, I don't know what you're trying to say there. Slavic "Osel" is derived from Latin "asellus". I don't see why that would be controversial for you.

 

[Милан М.]

I'm pretty sure that the Polabian Slavs (the Obotrites in particular) and the nucleus of Poland were never part of Greater Moravia, nor that Greater Moravia was ever Orthodox.



Why is it then that the Cyrilic alphabet was adapted from the Greek alphabet (the basis was clearly medieval Greek, mind you), with a few additional letters taken from the Hebrew alphabet, namely Ш (ש) and Ц (צ)?



Bogomilism has nothing to do with Aranianism. It was an offshot of gnosticism.



This is irrelevant because the word "kot" still obeys to the sound shift I have described.



Honestly, I don't know what you're trying to say there. Slavic "Osel" is derived from Latin "asellus". I don't see why that would be controversial for you.

What Orthodoxy has to do with what we were talking,im not religious if you want to debate those things,Great Moravia didn't survived to became anything let alone 'Orthodox' it was destroyed,why the Greek alphabet was adopted from Phoenican and Latin from Greek,yet were waging wars on Carthage,we had more wars with Byzantium then anyone,so called Orthodoxy was not ruled by one crown or pope,simple own church was tried to be maintained,we will debate Arianism and Bogomilism next time,i never said Osel is not adopted from Latin,i said what words we use and what alphabets has to do with theology and someone belives and own intentions,that Cyril was in serve of emperor at first no doubt,that Slavic states or maybe the peasants wanted separate everything from Byzantium no doubt,we are talking about times when theology was above all,let alone 'nations' we had patriarchs of Slavic origin in Constantinople,Slavs fighting for Byzantium against Slavs on other side,other prominent positions,same goes for Armenians and other ethnicities.

 

[Милан М.]

Slavic-Latin and maybe even Akkadian and Classical Hebrew cognates upon "Axe"
Slavic (sekira, "axe")Latin (secūris , “axe”). Compare Akkadian ‎(šukurru, “axe”), Classical Hebrew ‎(šegōr, “axe”).
Latin and Slavic forms are derived from the PIE root *sek-(to cut) thus Old.Ch.Slav(seko) Latin (seco) "to cut" and many other similar forms formed upon "Sek"
The Thraco-Illrian weapon "Sica" is from the same root also used in Rome and along Mediteranian.
What is interesting to me the Latin "Machaira" and Slavic "Mach" ancient Greek "Makhaira" with meaning "sword" for instance the suffix Machaira if it is? we find it in Sekira "axe" but certainly this word is not from the same root "Sek"

 

[Taranis]

Slavic-Latin and maybe even Akkadian and Classical Hebrew cognates upon "Axe"
Slavic (sekira, "axe")Latin (secūris , “axe”). Compare Akkadian ‎(šukurru, “axe”), Classical Hebrew ‎(šegōr, “axe”).
Latin and Slavic forms are derived from the PIE root *sek-(to cut) thus Old.Ch.Slav(seko) Latin (seco) "to cut" and many other similar forms formed upon "Sek"
The Thraco-Illrian weapon "Sica" is from the same root also used in Rome and along Mediteranian.
What is interesting to me the Latin "Machaira" and Slavic "Mach" ancient Greek "Makhaira" with meaning "sword" for instance the suffix Machaira if it is? we find it in Sekira "axe" but certainly this word is not from the same root "Sek"

Before you start to randomly dismantling words and claim that speakers of Slavic had language contact with the Akkadians, I would recommend that you read this article. Its a bit older, but its well-written, and it addresses a lot of problems you're facing here.

 

[Милан М.]

Before you start to randomly dismantling words and claim that speakers of Slavic had language contact with the Akkadians, I would recommend that you read this article. Its a bit older, but its well-written, and it addresses a lot of problems you're facing here.

I never said such thing,nor i will ever say they had contacts,i just don't know why you think that way,just said maybe a cognate,those "cognates" were put by others not myself but they wrote compare instead,my bad should have wrote the Latin cognates only because you misunderstand me.
From wiktionary perhaps they put them;
References

• n Max Vasmer (1986), Etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkogo jazyka [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language], in 4 vols (second edition), Moscow: Progress — Translated from German and supplemented by O. N. Trubačóv

 

[MOESAN]

I'm not sure genetics can answer too easily linguistic questions (look at (P-)I-Eans question) but I put here something found in 'For they were we are', just an info:

[h=2]September 23, 2015[/h][h=3]Negligible genetic flow in Slavic expansion to the Balcans[/h]

A new genetic study comes to confirm what most of us already knew: that Southern Slavs don't show any significant signature of immigration from the core Slavic area North and NE of the Carpathian Mountains that can be attributed to the so-called Slavic migrations of the Dark Age.


Alena Kushniarevich et al., Genetic Heritage of the Balto-Slavic Speaking Populations: A Synthesis of Autosomal, Mitochondrial and Y-Chromosomal Data. PLoS ONE 2015. Open access → LINK[doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135820]

Abstract

The Slavic branch of the Balto-Slavic sub-family of Indo-European languages underwent rapid divergence as a result of the spatial expansion of its speakers from Central-East Europe, in early medieval times. This expansion–mainly to East Europe and the northern Balkans–resulted in the incorporation of genetic components from numerous autochthonous populations into the Slavic gene pools. Here, we characterize genetic variation in all extant ethnic groups speaking Balto-Slavic languages by analyzing mitochondrial DNA (n = 6,876), Y-chromosomes (n = 6,079) and genome-wide SNP profiles (n = 296), within the context of other European populations. We also reassess the phylogeny of Slavic languages within the Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European. We find that genetic distances among Balto-Slavic populations, based on autosomal and Y-chromosomal loci, show a high correlation (0.9) both with each other and with geography, but a slightly lower correlation (0.7) with mitochondrial DNA and linguistic affiliation. The data suggest that genetic diversity of the present-day Slavs was predominantly shaped in situ, and we detect two different substrata: ‘central-east European’ for West and East Slavs, and ‘south-east European’ for South Slavs. A pattern of distribution of segments identical by descent between groups of East-West and South Slavs suggests shared ancestry or a modest gene flow between those two groups, which might derive from the historic spread of Slavic people.​

This is most evident in the identity-by-descent (IBD) analysis:

Fig 4. Distribution of the average number of IBD segments between groups of East-West Slavs (a), South Slavs (b), and their respective geographic neighbors. The x-axis indicates ten classes of IBD segment length (in cM); the y-axis indicates the average number of shared IBD segments per pair of individuals within each length class.

For non-acquainted: shorter segments (left) indicates older relatedness, now very fragmented by repeated chromosome recombination, while longer segments (right) indicate more recent one, which had less time to be chopped into pieces.



The authors explain:

The presence of two distinct genetic substrata in the genomes of East-West and South Slavs would imply cultural assimilation of indigenous populations by bearers of Slavic languages as a major mechanism of the spread of Slavic languages to the Balkan Peninsula. Yet, it is worthwhile to add here evidence from the analysis of IBD segments: the majority of Slavs from Central-East Europe (West and East) share as many IBD segments with the South Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula as they share with non-Slavic populations residing nowadays between Slavs (Fig 4A and 4B; Table G in S1 File). This even mode of IBD sharing might suggest shared ancestry/gene flow across the wide area and physical boundaries such as the Carpathian Mountains, including the present-day Finno-Ugric-speaking Hungarians, Romance-speaking Romanians and Turkic-speaking Gagauz. A slight peak at 2–3 cM in the distribution of shared IBD segments between East-West and South Slavs (Fig 4A and 4B) might hint at shared “Slavonic-time” ancestry, but this question requires further investigation.​

Another graph of interest is surely the Principal Component Analyses of the three types of genetic markers:

Fig 2. Genetic structure of the Balto-Slavic populations within a European context according to the three genetic systems. a) PC1vsPC3 plot based on autosomal SNPs (PC1 = 0.53; PC3 = 0.26); b) MDS based on NRY data (stress = 0.13); c) MDS based on mtDNA data (stress = 0.20). We focus on PC1vsPC3 because PC2 (S1 Fig) whilst differentiating the Volga region populations from the rest of Europeans had a low efficiency in detecting differences among the Balto-Slavic populations–the primary focus of this work.

In the mtDNA graph (c) it is hard to discern any pattern, as the various studied populations seems to form rings of eccentricity around the Balcans, probably because no Western Europeans are present in this particular PCA.


However in the autosomal (a) and Y-DNA (b) figures more defined patterns do emerge. Quite apparently in all three graphs, South Slavs appear as strictly Balcanic.


More interesting is probably the relative position of Russian and Baltic speakers: the first showing very notable diversity almost representative of the whole East European region and again indicative of assimilation rather than replacement being the main drive in Russian ethnic expansion, at least in the North.


Balto-Slavic peoples appear intermediate between Russians and Finns (and overlapping Estonians) in the Y-DNA graph and somewhat extreme in the autosomal graph, something that comes as no surprise, as they seem the best preserved vessel of Eastern Paleoeuropeans. Curiously a few Sorbian individuals also tend to that same extreme, what may well be a reason to increase interest on the study of this forgotten and neglected Slavic minority of Eastern Germany. Their Y-DNA is, also intriguingly, most similar to that of Swedes, rather than to their geographic neighbors or ethno-linguistic relatives.


Other Western Slavs, form two clear distinct sub-clusters: with Czechs being notably more Western than Poles and Slovaks, who tend to cluster with mainline Russians and Ukrainians instead. One can of course think that this Polish-Slovak-Ukranian-Russian cluster could be the demic or genetic core of the Slavic cluster. However I can't but wonder how much of that clustering, as well as the differences shown by Czechs and Sorbians should be attributed to older periods like those of Corded Ware Culture, Eastern Bell Beaker, etc.


Posted by Maju at Wednesday, September 23, 2015

 

[LeBrok]

What negligible mean, 1%, 5%, 20%? The research show that South Slavs are quite distinct from Norther Slaves, and also that West Slavs are distinct from East Slavs. Was there equally negligible gene flow from East to West, especially to Czechs and Sorbs? Actually chart C puts Balkanian Slavs in the middle of all Slavs. Well, what does that mean?

PC3 points to Slavic influence over Balkans. All Slavic countries plot to the right of the rest of all Balkan nations. And a bit more Northern too on PC1. Surprisingly Bosnia plots most to the right, way out off its geographic location. Like it is more genetically Slavic of them all.

One thing is not addressed, that there were possible two ethnic groups of Slavs already separated genetically before expansion. South Slavs might indeed come from Antes or Sklaveni, who were located most South from other Slavs. In this case their Slavic genetic influence might have been stronger than shows on the graph, being already relatively similar to Balkan gene pool.

I would guess that Slavs donated 15-25% of their genetic material to Balkanian population. Surely in some regions more in some less.

 

[Sile]

What negligible mean, 1%, 5%, 20%? The research show that South Slavs are quite distinct from Norther Slaves, and also that West Slavs are distinct from East Slavs. Was there equally negligible gene flow from East to West, especially to Czechs and Sorbs? Actually chart C puts Balkanian Slavs in the middle of all Slavs. Well, what does that mean?

PC3 points to Slavic influence over Balkans. All Slavic countries plot to the right of the rest of all Balkan nations. And a bit more Northern too on PC1. Surprisingly Bosnia plots most to the right, way out off its geographic location. Like it is more genetically Slavic of them all.

One thing is not addressed, that there were possible two ethnic groups of Slavs already separated genetically before expansion. South Slavs might indeed come from Antes or Sklaveni, who were located most South from other Slavs. In this case their Slavic genetic influence might have been stronger than shows on the graph, being already relatively similar to Balkan gene pool.

I would guess that Slavs donated 15-25% of their genetic material to Balkanian population. Surely in some regions more in some less.

since as you say, all slavs are distinct from each other , doesn't that tell you that the ONLY union between each slavic group would be only linguistic and not ethically:distrust: similar and this also states that this linguistic is not exacting either.

 

[LeBrok]

since as you say, all slavs are distinct from each other , doesn't that tell you that the ONLY union between each slavic group would be only linguistic and not ethically:distrust:

You love to contradict yourself

similar and this also states that this linguistic is not exacting either.

What states that??? It could have been one Slavic language, or if there was a difference could have been link American versus Australian English. Besides language they had the same religion, pottery and farming practices, etc. These are also classified as a culture. They could have been more different genetically than culturally.
You are also missing the fact that this research compares current Slavs and not the ones at the beginning of expansion 1,500 ya.

 

[Милан М.]

What negligible mean, 1%, 5%, 20%? The research show that South Slavs are quite distinct from Norther Slaves, and also that West Slavs are distinct from East Slavs. Was there equally negligible gene flow from East to West, especially to Czechs and Sorbs? Actually chart C puts Balkanian Slavs in the middle of all Slavs. Well, what does that mean?

PC3 points to Slavic influence over Balkans. All Slavic countries plot to the right of the rest of all Balkan nations. And a bit more Northern too on PC1. Surprisingly Bosnia plots most to the right, way out off its geographic location. Like it is more genetically Slavic of them all.

One thing is not addressed, that there were possible two ethnic groups of Slavs already separated genetically before expansion. South Slavs might indeed come from Antes or Sklaveni, who were located most South from other Slavs. In this case their Slavic genetic influence might have been stronger than shows on the graph, being already relatively similar to Balkan gene pool.

I would guess that Slavs donated 15-25% of their genetic material to Balkanian population. Surely in some regions more in some less.

By what token we declare one being more Slavic over other?by R1a haplogroup or one being from Poland?that is more then a bias to say if we think that way,if we talk first and foremost for linguistic group later for the rest,in our knowledge we know the Sclavenes and Antes if both of them we conect to South Slavs,then who are the Northern?the same can be said for the bearers of I2a and when they migrated up north in some region to be found above 30%,we neglect that i guess,while R1a majority of it is much older in Balkans,can be linked with first expansion of it's bearers.

 

[Taranis]

I'd like to remind you that we actually do have linguistic data from the Balkans from the Roman period, and that there is no evidence for Slavic languages being spoken in this area before the migration period - in so far the option that Slavic languages developed autochthonous on the Balkans and spread from there later does not exist. Milan, I know that you brought up a lot of place names from the Balkans and the Pannonian basin (approximately from the 1st through 5th century AD), but none of them are convincing as Slavic, in particular because they are ignorant of the phonetic evolution of early Slavic, which is well-established.

Based on the internal evidence from the Slavic languages, its more probable that the Slavic languages were introduced from somewhere else, rather than that they evolved in-situ. To reconcile that with the apparent genetic evidence, I would say its far more probable to argue that the modern population of the Balkans in fact derives from the pre-Slavic population, and that Slavic languages spread to the Balkans mainly through acculturation, rather than large-scale population replacement. Which, I might add, I brought up way earlier in this thread already.

You love to contradict yourself

What states that??? It could have been one Slavic language, or if there was a difference could have been link American versus Australian English. Besides language they had the same religion, pottery and farming practices, etc. These are also classified as a culture. They could have been more different genetically than culturally.
You are also missing the fact that this research compares current Slavs and not the ones at the beginning of expansion 1,500 ya.

I would not be surprised if the early Slavic peoples were never homogenous to begin with, with the Slavic peoples in Central Europe being more Germanic, and the South Slavic peoples being more Roman (that is, probably largely the Romanized pre-Roman population of the Balkans), and so forth. Another ethnic group (or groups) from the Antiquity that likely contributed to the Slavic ethnogenesis, in my opinion, are the various Scytho-Sarmatian peoples. The impact of Scytho-Sarmatian languages on Slavic is contested, and that discussion has been going forth and back, but given that Scytho-Sarmatian tribes inhabited much of the land that later became to speak Slavic (in particular East Slavic), there should be a fair share of ancestry there.

 

[Милан М.]

I'd like to remind you that we actually do have linguistic data from the Balkans from the Roman period, and that there is no evidence for Slavic languages being spoken in this area before the migration period - in so far the option that Slavic languages developed autochthonous on the Balkans and spread from there later does not exist. Milan, I know that you brought up a lot of place names from the Balkans and the Pannonian basin (approximately from the 1st through 5th century AD), but none of them are convincing as Slavic, in particular because they are ignorant of the phonetic evolution of early Slavic, which is well-established.

Based on the internal evidence from the Slavic languages, its more probable that the Slavic languages were introduced from somewhere else, rather than that they evolved in-situ. To reconcile that with the apparent genetic evidence, I would say its far more probable to argue that the modern population of the Balkans in fact derives from the pre-Slavic population, and that Slavic languages spread to the Balkans mainly through acculturation, rather than large-scale population replacement. Which, I might add, I brought up way earlier in this thread already.



I would not be surprised if the early Slavic peoples were never homogenous to begin with, with the Slavic peoples in Central Europe being more Germanic, and the South Slavic peoples being more Roman (that is, probably largely the Romanized pre-Roman population of the Balkans), and so forth. Another ethnic group (or groups) from the Antiquity that likely contributed to the Slavic ethnogenesis, in my opinion, are the various Scytho-Sarmatian peoples. The impact of Scytho-Sarmatian languages on Slavic is contested, and that discussion has been going forth and back, but given that Scytho-Sarmatian tribes inhabited much of the land that later became to speak Slavic (in particular East Slavic), there should be a fair share of ancestry there.

I already gave my opinion or is more opinion of others,in my first post i name them Oleg Trubachov,Johanna Nichols,Horace Lunt,all of them being Slavists and with similar opinion choose the Danube region,the spread of Balto-Slavic was roughly perhaps in same places like today and i stand behind Anatolian hypothesis,for the Slavic ethnogenesis Mario Alinei make good points,as for his Paleolithic continuity not very sure,also i doubt that all Thracians and Illyrians were "Romanized".
For the acculturation will quote Alinei;
Not even modern mass migration and colonization, despite the enormous
technological and cultural difference between the migrants and the indigenous people,
have caused the total extinction of all autocthonous languages in the New World. The
ideal of the extinction of all alleged pre-Indo-European languages because of a Copper
Age IE migration is already hard enough to admit, given the same reason, plus the fact
that research on pre-Indo-European has never produced any serious result (Alinei 1996,
2000). How can we accept such an idea for the Early Middle Ages, and for the highly
civilized areas of Southern Eastern prehistoric Europe? What and where would the preIndo-European
substrate be in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Slovenia? Unless we associate this late migration to a gigantic genocide – a
phantascientific hypothesis – this hypothesis does not belong to serious scientific
thinking.

 

[Taranis]

I already gave my opinion or is more opinion of others,in my first post i name them Oleg Trubachov,Johanna Nichols,Horace Lunt,all of them being Slavists and with similar opinion choose the Danube region,the spread of Balto-Slavic was roughly perhaps in same places like today and i stand behind Anatolian hypothesis,

The Anatolian hypothesis has its own problems, but I feel that should be started in a different thread. Most importantly, Indo-European has common terminology for 'wheel' or 'wheeled vehicle', which makes it implausible to argue for the first farmers in Europe to have spoken PIE.

for the Slavic ethnogenesis Mario Alinei make good points,as for his Paleolithic continuity not very sure,

I personally don't take Alinei serious (see below for a further discussion). The Paleolithic continuity makes an assumption that doesn't stand up to the evidence of history: that languages are supposedly insanely immobile. However, people are mobile.

also i doubt that all Thracians and Illyrians were "Romanized".

On this, I actually agree. There's an ethnic group today on the Balkans that avoided full romanization - the Albanians. At the other hand you do have the Romanians, who speak, as their name already suggests, a Romance language. I have made the case earlier in this thread, Albanian is a language that has a very large share of Latin loanwords, it suggests itself as a prime candidate for a pre-Roman language that survived in a "sea of Romance".

For the accultation will quote Alinei;
Not even modern mass migration and colonization, despite the enormous
technological and cultural difference between the migrants and the indigenous people,
have caused the total extinction of all autocthonous languages in the New World. The
ideal of the extinction of all alleged pre-Indo-European languages because of a Copper
Age IE migration is already hard enough to admit, given the same reason, plus the fact
that research on pre-Indo-European has never produced any serious result (Alinei 1996,
2000). How can we accept such an idea for the Early Middle Ages, and for the highly
civilized areas of Southern Eastern prehistoric Europe? What and where would the preIndo-European
substrate be in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Slovenia? Unless we associate this late migration to a gigantic genocide – a
phantascientific hypothesis – this hypothesis does not belong to serious scientific
thinking.

This, in my opinion, shows the ignorance that underlies Alinei's assumptions. In the Near East, especially in Mesopotamia, we have historic evidence for several language replacements: in Mesopotamia, you see a replacement of Sumerian by Akkadian, in turn by Aramaic and later by Arabic. Anatolia was heavily hellenized, and today speaks largely Turkish. North Africa was romanized (hellenized in the east) in the Antiquity, but later on Arabicized. None of these language replacements occured via a phantasmic large-scale genocide that Alinei so readily accuses the adherents of other theories of. If we follow Alinei's ideas, we should probably argue that North Africa and Mesopotamia always spoke Arabic, and Anatolia always spoke Turkish. Which, and I don't think I need to tell you this, is complete bogus.

 

[Милан М.]

The Anatolian hypothesis has its own problems, but I feel that should be started in a different thread. Most importantly, Indo-European has common terminology for 'wheel' or 'wheeled vehicle', which makes it implausible to argue for the first famers in Europe to have spoken PIE.



I personally don't take Alinei serious (see below for a further discussion). The Paleolithic continuity makes an assumption that doesn't stand up to the evidence of history: that languages are supposedly insanely immobile. However, people are mobile.



On this, I actually agree. There's an ethnic group today on the Balkans that avoided full romanization - the Albanians. At the other hand you do have the Romanians, who speak, as their name already suggests, a Romance language. I have made the case earlier in this thread, Albanian is a language that has a very large share of Latin loanwords, it suggests itself as a prime candidate for a pre-Roman language that survived in a "sea of Romance".



This, in my opinion, shows the ignorance that underlies Alinei's assumptions. In the Near East, especially in Mesopotamia, we have historic evidence for several language replacements: in Mesopotamia, you see a replacement of Sumerian by Akkadian, in turn by Aramaic and later by Arabic. Anatolia was heavily hellenized, and today speaks largely Turkish. North Africa was romanized (hellenized in the east) in the Antiquity, but later on Arabicized. None of these language replacements occured via a phantasmic large-scale genocide that Alinei so readily accuses the adherents of other theories of. If we follow Alinei's ideas, we should probably argue that North Africa and Mesopotamia always spoke Arabic, and Anatolia always spoke Turkish. Which, and I don't think I need to tell you this, is complete bogus.

So according to you and what you are trying to convince me is that some Slavs emerged and Slavicized the Thraco-Illyrians the Scytho-Sarmatians,the Goths,will expell the Germans from elsewhere and in just 100 and so years,but the groups you mentioned needed much more time,how can this theory hold?especialy if not only archeology doesn't agree with this,but now even genetics and all other fields,Akkadian and Sumerians borrowed from eachother languages,not that Sumerians went extinct,their alphabet were used,in north Africa there is people that keep their languages,as well their faith,so called Egyptian-Arabic,Morrocan-Arabic,Berber etc Muslim Arab conquests were brutal to degree maybe,also Arab is the language of the prophet,same goes for Anatolia and the Muslim Turkish conquest,there is yet Armenians,Kurds also many Greeks prior and even Slavic speakers,apart from that Turkish has heavy borrowings from Persian and Arabic and other influence with languages that came into contact with,all this people were overhelemed and conquered,which base on genetics and archeology we doesn't find in South East Europe,where are the Pre-Slavic words in the Thraco-Illyrian region,at least some will stay not widely replaced,while we find words exchanging with Greek and Latin, if Romanians speak Romance doesn't tell as a lot,Latin being official as well soldiers spoke it and many others cause was lingua franca,also they have many Slavic words,arround 20% of it's vocabulary if im not mistaken,Albanian origin is disputed regardless you are pointing here otherwise.

 

[LeBrok]

By what token we declare one being more Slavic over other?by R1a haplogroup or one being from Poland?.

Where did I say that R1a or Polish nationality is more Slavic?!!!

 

[Tomenable]

"For what they were we are" is Maju's blog, as I can see. Maju is registered at Anthrogenica.

Well, he titled his article: "Negligible genetic flow in Slavic expansion to the Balcans".

But is this "negligible" actually a legitimate conclusion from these publications ???:

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001555

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135820

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(15)00949-5

All of these publications found noticeable traces of Slavic migrations to the Balkans.

By contrast, NO of these 3 publications found traces of Germanic migrations to Roman lands.

Neither did Patrick Geary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilECKqdte8

So if Slavic genetic flow was "negligible", then what was Germanic? - "totally minuscule" ???