Genetic Origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans

What else they might be! Any ethnic IE group within the IE family bear a distinct ydna haplotype. And PF7562 corresponds very well with the possible time split of Anatolian languages from their IE other branch, whom were the haplotype L23. (Yanmaya steppe people) The ydna split, corresponds with the language split; circa 4200-4000bce.

Of course, this is logical. I suppose so myself. I just thought I missed some research on the Hittites.
 
At the beginning of the seventh century, the Cimmerians invaded Urartu, Cappadocia, and Phrygia. The Phrygian king Midas appears to have been defeated in 696/695 by the invaders and committed suicide. While the Cimmerians settled on the plains of Cappadocia, Midas' kingdom was taken over by a dynasty that was based in Sardes, Lydia.

Cimmerians are North-Caucasus people, they settled in Anatolia, in Cappadocia
I touched upon this as well in a previous comment i made, https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/34414-Genetic-Origins-of-Minoans-and-Mycenaeans/page53?p=583753&viewfull=1#post583753 (3rd paragraph/segment). I don't see how this contradicts what i have written, unless you include it as supplementary information.
 
Phrygians weren't related to Greeks. Proto Phrygians were related with Illyrians, whom invaded Anatolia at the end of the bronze age. Their later language was influenced from the greek one the same as Armenian.

1) Phrygian was most closely related to Greek, according to Brixhe and others. It had variously been identified as Thracian, Anatolian, and Armenian in the past. As far as I know, no scholars have ever proposed it was Illyrian or related to Illyrian, beyond both being Indo-European.

2) Besides Herodotus' claims, there is no concrete evidence that the Phrygians entered Asia Minor. The modern consensus is that they were natives to Asia Minor due to lack of evidence suggesting otherwise.
 
According to ancient writers, Phrygians migrated in Anatolia from the Balkans.

This is just according to Herodotus.

The Illyrian tribe, Brygians were still there during the classical Greek times.

You're talking about the Bryges, which likely just meant "hill people"...or as we'd say "highlanders"/"mountaineers". This name likely came from the PIE root, bʰerǵʰ , which is present in a number of Indo-European languages (Armenian, Germanic, Greek, Celtic, etc) as well as loaned into non-IE languages like Semitic and Hurro-Urartian. This word is related to Germanic -berg. So Bryges could have simply been a general Greek term for highland or mountain peoples. 1) We don't actually know what the Phrygians called themselves--it may have been Mushki or it may have been Skudra or something else. 2) There are no reasons to believe that either the Phrygians or the Bryges were Illyrian. As I said before, they have variously been connected to Greek, Armenian, Thracian, and, in the case of Phrygian, Anatolian. As far as I am aware, no serious scholar has ever suggested that they were Illyrian, and the general consensus is that they were natives to western Anatolia who spoke a language most closely related to Greek but with Anatolian influences.


Armenian is a satem language, and I don't see how it can be closely related with the Greek one. Influence and common origin are two different things. Ydna pinpoints to a common origin between Armenian and Albanian (Z2103). According to linguists the only IE branch closest to Albanian is Armenian. Proto Albanian and proto Armenian used to be neighbors in very pre historic times. Most probably bronze age.

Armenian is actually only partially satem. The general consensus is that it occupies a space somewhere midway between Greek (centum) and Indo-Iranian (satem). No serious modern linguist (actually, for many, many years) has proposed a close relationship between Armenian and Albanian--this is a very old theory that has long fallen out of favor. Y-DNA Z2103 originated in the Armenia area and is present in many Indo-European peoples (if I remember correctly, it is believed that "genetically Armenian-like people" introduced this haplogroup to Yamnaya). It is nearly as present in Greek populations, specifically in the south of Greec and southern Italy (probably from Greeks) as in Albanians: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1RIQRMwAdjpVVZRRUhDTE91M1U/edit?pli=1
 
How is does this sound?

There was one big "Eastern" clade from which the following broke off:

Armenian
Phrygio-Hellenic (including Macedonian)
Indo-Iranian
Balto-Slavic
Illyrian
Dacian
Thracian

I think that this split off into two groups...

Illyrian (including Albanian) possibly with Daco-Thracian (I don't know a lot about these languages, FYI)
Armeno-Phrygio/Hellenic-Aryan-Balto/Slavic, possibly with Daco-Thracian

These groups then obviously split further...

Illyrian
Daco-Thracian
Armenian-Phrygio/Hellenic
Aryan-Balto/Slavic, and perhaps Daco-Thracian

If Daco-Thracian is connected to Aryan, it split off first. Then Balto-Slavic split off.

As for Helleno-Armenian, Armenian split off first. Then Phrygian. Then Macedonian (if it was indeed an independent language and not simply a Greek dialect).

Could this have worked?
 
At the beginning of the seventh century, the Cimmerians invaded Urartu, Cappadocia, and Phrygia. The Phrygian king Midas appears to have been defeated in 696/695 by the invaders and committed suicide. While the Cimmerians settled on the plains of Cappadocia, Midas' kingdom was taken over by a dynasty that was based in Sardes, Lydia.

Cimmerians are North-Caucasus people, they settled in Anatolia, in Cappadocia

It's not that they were from the North Caucasus, but from north OF the Caucasus...likely from somewhere in modern Ukraine. They may have been Thracians, or Thraco-Aryans (somewhere between Thracian and Indo-Iranian). This if this is the case, they could have come through the Balkans.

However, the Assyrians placed their homeland in modern northern Iran area. Maybe this is where they migrated to from Ukraine?

I'm confused why you brought up the Cimmerians though. What were you suggesting?
 
That hand tree is interesting.

The Greek and Armenian words do not seem as close to Albanian as they do other languages' versions of the word *ǵʰesr.

To me, the Greek word looks to be the most close to the Anatolian word.

The Armenian word (pronounced "dzer") seems the most close to the Tocharian word.

I'd imagine that the Armenian word comes from a Greco-Armenian form similar to kheir that has undergone satemization, but I'd think that that would render something "seir" or "ser".
 
You write, "Y-DNA Z2103 originated in the Armenia area".
You are correct. Indeed R1b-Z2103 appears to have originated from the broader region of Armenia, and then moved northwards. I should have used another word in my comment (in relation to the Poltavka culture), certainly not "the origin". As for the route hypotheses i made, these were mostly in relation to the spread of it to other Indo-Europeans, not so much the Armenian (or Transcaucasian) people who already must have had it.

You write, "
That hand tree is interesting.
The Greek and Armenian words do not seem as close to Albanian as they do other languages' versions of the word *ǵʰesr.
To me, the Greek word looks to be the most close to the Anatolian word.
The Armenian word (pronounced "dzer") seems the most close to the Tocharian word.
I'd imagine that the Armenian word comes from a Greco-Armenian form similar to kheir that has undergone satemization, but I'd think that that would render something "seir" or "ser".
".
Yeah, indeed it is very interesting. As for the Armenian word for hand that is presented, namely "jer-n", this is to my knowledge a Middle Armenian word, maybe you can correct me if i am wrong.

PostScript: Sorry for being short, i am just leaving for vacation in a few minutes. Maybe i will find internet there as well. You must have returned from yours, right?
 
The Armenian word for "hand" is spelled with a ձ, which is voiced as dz. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ձ

It comes from this word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ձեռք#Old_Armenian

I don't think that ձ was ever pronounced with as English "j". The way that Armenian is written in Western scholarship is not phonetic and seemingly arbitrary, at least according to English conventions.

For example, the Armenian word for "God", Astvats (or Astuvatz), is near-universally written as "Astuvac" in Western academia. The c is used to represent a ts sound. I wish it was a more phonetic representation because it is misleading for those who don't know how to "de-code" it.
 
The Armenian word for "hand" is spelled with a ձ, which is voiced as dz. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ձ

It comes from this word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ձեռք#Old_Armenian

I don't think that ձ was ever pronounced with as English "j". The way that Armenian is written in Western scholarship is not phonetic and seemingly arbitrary, at least according to English conventions.

For example, the Armenian word for "God", Astvats (or Astuvatz), is near-universally written as "Astuvac" in Western academia. The c is used to represent a ts sound. I wish it was a more phonetic representation because it is misleading for those who don't know how to "de-code" it.
OK, thanks for the clarification. I now totally understand it. In any case, the English pronunciation of "J" closely renders the "dz" sound. For example we say, Jessica, which is phonologically close to "Dzessica" (not real spelling, just for the sake of an example). "dz" can also be compared to "tz", right? In English, it's not like the Spanish "J", where Jiménez would be pronounced as "h", or this for example, https://translate.google.gr/#view=home&op=translate&sl=es&tl=en&text=Jim%C3%A9nez.
 
OK, thanks for the clarification. I now totally understand it. In any case, the English pronunciation of "J" closely renders the "dz" sound. For example we say, Jessica, which is phonologically close to "Dzessica" (not real spelling, just for the sake of an example). "dz" can also be compared to "tz", right? In English, it's not like the Spanish "J", where Jiménez would be pronounced as "h", or this for example, https://translate.google.gr/#view=home&op=translate&sl=es&tl=en&text=Jim%C3%A9nez.

It's not a "djuh" sound like the English J is--it's an entirely different sound. It's a "dzuh" sound--like a hard Z. I think in some dialects it's a little bit less harsh and intense, something more like "tsuh". It's not a sound that exists in English natively--the only word I can think of that has a similar sound that is commonly used in English (albeit a loan from Slavic) is tsar/czar, but tsar might not be as harsh. Maybe tsi fly is another.

So the word for hand in Armenian is pronounced like "dzer" or "tser".

EDIT: Google has an audible translation. It's in a weird tense for some reason and the voice sounds very robotic, but you can kind of get the gist of the "dz" sound:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+say+hand+in+armenian
 

PostScript: Sorry for being short, i am just leaving for vacation in a few minutes. Maybe i will find internet there as well. You must have returned from yours, right?

Yes, sorry for not having replied for a bit. I have been traveling and now am in the process of moving, so I wasn't really keeping an eye on the forum as much! I hope that you're enjoying your vacation!

I'm curious what your thoughts on Thracian (and Dacian) languages are. What do you think their relationship was to other subfamilies--I've seen Greek, Armenian, Iranian, Baltic, and Illyrian all mentioned in relation to Thracian languages.
 

You write, "
Armenian is a satem language, and I don't see how it can be closely related with the Greek one. Influence and common origin are two different things.".
Armenian is actually obscure in terms of the centum/satem division. In any case, what you have to understand is that the Graeco-Armenian grouping is in the end a hypothesis. I have even pointed to that myself in a previous comment, https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/34414-Genetic-Origins-of-Minoans-and-Mycenaeans/page53?p=583888&viewfull=1#post583888 (10th paragraph/segment). And in the case of Armenian you also have to consider another possibility that @Maciamo had written, namely "The language (Armenian) was later satemised due to the long influence of Indo-Iranian languages, for example during the Mitanni (Indo-Aryan ruling class) period (c. 1500-1200 BCE) and during the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) when the region was part of the Satrapy of Armenia (the first historical state to be called 'Armenia')". The first scenario would require an early proto-Armenian migration, while the second falls in line with any scenario/hypothesis. Therefore indeed, influence and common origin are two different things, and in the end nothing is certain.

Furthermore, take note that the Phrygian language for which we have plenty of records, is classified as Centum.

Were the Anatolian languages centum or did they exist outside of those categories? Either way, this could maybe support your theory of an original Anatolian Armenian...perhaps it just had a satem overlay. Then again, the Anatolian similarities/influence could come from Luwian (and maybe Hittite) too. The Luwian influence is quite widely accepted.
 
Anatolian languages were centum, and not only but they are considered archaic with the possible date of split circa/maximum 4000bce. It corresponds with the split of R1b PF7562 from its sibling R1b L23. As far as I know there's not found any PF7562 in Yanmaya sites of Caspian steppes.
 
Anatolian languages were centum, and not only but they are considered archaic with the possible date of split circa/maximum 4000bce. It corresponds with the split of R1b PF7562 from its sibling R1b L23. As far as I know there's not found any PF7562 in Yanmaya sites of Caspian steppes.

Interesting, PF7562 is my branch too. I'd give you an up-vote, but I'm currently out for the day.

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Anatolian languages were centum, and not only but they are considered archaic with the possible date of split circa/maximum 4000bce. It corresponds with the split of R1b PF7562 from its sibling R1b L23. As far as I know there's not found any PF7562 in Yanmaya sites of Caspian steppes.

Okay, because I thought I also read that they existed outside of the centum/satem binary?
 
Okay, because I thought I also read that they existed outside of the centum/satem binary?

You are right. Luwian shows all three dorsal consonant rows survived separately in Proto-Anatolian. This means it is non-centum, and is one of the reasons that more and more linguists are beginning to consider satem as more conservative and centum as an innovation.
 
You write, "It's not a "djuh" sound like the English J is--it's an entirely different sound. It's a "dzuh" sound--like a hard Z. I think in some dialects it's a little bit less harsh and intense, something more like "tsuh". It's not a sound that exists in English natively--the only word I can think of that has a similar sound that is commonly used in English (albeit a loan from Slavic) is tsar/czar, but tsar might not be as harsh. Maybe tsi fly is another.
So the word for hand in Armenian is pronounced like "dzer" or "tser".
EDIT: Google has an audible translation. It's in a weird tense for some reason and the voice sounds very robotic, but you can kind of get the gist of the "dz" sound:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+say+hand+in+armenian".
OK, i see what you mean.

You write, "I'm curious what your thoughts on Thracian (and Dacian) languages are. What do you think their relationship was to other subfamilies--I've seen Greek, Armenian, Iranian, Baltic, and Illyrian all mentioned in relation to Thracian languages.".
My linguist friend Philippos Kitselis has written a great article (http://www.palaeolexicon.com/Thracian) on this. Here is the segment that relates.

"The language of the Thracians
The Thracian language is scarcely attested and survives only through few inscriptions and glosses recorded by ancient authors. This makes its classification within the Indo-European languages very difficult. Was it a centum or satem language? Was it closer to Greek or Baltic languages? Was Dacian a Thracian dialect or a closely related language? Those are the issues that we’re gonna discuss below.

Back in time, it was believed that Thracian, Illyrian and Phrygian shared a development which showed that they were still closely related in late prehistoric times: a 'sound-shift' which had affected the occlusive consonants ('stops') of Indo-European. We know now that Phrygian was a centum language, however, Thracian and Dacian have one of the main satem characteristics, the change of IE *k and *ĝ or *g to s and z. Some other satem characteristics though are doubtful or completely missing which leads us to the conclusion that the development of satem characteristics was a late change in central or residual dialects of Indo-European, such as Thracian and Dacian. That means that although Thracian was a satem language in classical years, proto-Thracian might have been centum. Those partially satem characteristics and the similarities of Thracian to the Baltic group suggest that an ancestral Thraco-Dacian people was settled in Dacia until part of it migrated into Thrace.

Another big issue within Thracology is whether the people of Dacia were Thracians or not. It might have been that the Thraco-Dacian area was inhabited by tribes, speaking closely related tongues, with differences that are enough to classify them as different languages and not dialects. For example differences between the ancient place-names of Dacia and Moesia on the one hand and Thrace on the other indicate that the native idioms of the two former areas diverged somewhat from those of the latter in vocabulary and word formation. In Dacia name of towns are formed with the suffix -deva/-dava while place names ending in -bria, -para, -sara are confined in to southern Thrace. On the other hand, evidence seems to indicate divergence of a 'Thraco-Dacian' language into northern and southern groups of dialects, not so different as to rank as separate languages, with the development of special tendencies in word formation and of certain secondary phonetic features in each group. In ancient times, Strabo states that the Dacians spoke the same language as the Getae and later he states that the Getae spoke the same as the Thracians, which means that more or less Dacian was Thracian. However, Strabo was a geographer not a dedicated linguist that we can rely on with full confidence. For practical reasons, Palaeolexicon is grouping Dacian within Thracian, without however taking a definite side on the nature of Dacian (dialect or sibling language).

The position of Thracian within the IE languages is also uncertain. There is evidence, that links Thracian to Ancient Greek, Albanian as well as the Baltic languages. It is easier however to start with what Thracian was not.
a) Thracian was not Phrygian (or the opposite). In the past many linguists grouped Thracian in one group with Phrygian (Thraco-Phrygian). However, Phrygian is a centum language with such an affinity to Greek that it is evident both languages had a common pre-historic background.
b) Thracian was not Illyrian. A grouping of Illyrian with the Thracian and Dacian language in a “Thraco-Illyrian” group or branch, an idea popular in the first half of the 20th century, is now generally rejected due to a lack of sustaining evidence, and due to what may be evidence to the contrary. Also, the hypothesis that the modern Albanian language is a surviving Illyrian language remains very controversial among linguists.

So, what about Baltic?
In the 70s Ivan Duridanov presented a respected work, where he proposed the connection of Thracian with the Baltic languages. Indeed a number of cognates seem to exist between Thracian and the Baltic languages, e.g: Thr. Sautes = lazy ->Latv. Sautis = lazy man, Thr. Zibythides = nobble Thracians ->Lith. Zibute = shining. Although the cognates are many, no conclusive evidence exists that can support a very close relation between Thracian and Baltic. Also, the few Thracian inscriptions that exist are not apparently close to Baltic.

What about Ancient Greek?
Sorin M. Olteanu, the Romanian thracologist who suggested that early Thracian was a centum language that later changed to satem, proposed the connection to Ancient Greek, though a number of cognates (including a substratum of words in Romanian). One example of the remote kinship of Greek and Thracians is a word that appears in the inscription of Flavius Dizalas, son of Ezbenis (IGB b4.2338). Ζραικῆς (referring to a Thracian strategy) as rendered in Greek, read as Zrayka in Thracian and could have been the native Thracian word for the ethnonym “Thracian”. Based on the theory of the late satemization of Thracian and the IE sound-laws, the semi-satem version of Zrayka should be ġrayk(o) (same root as one of the ethnonyms of the Greeks). The question that remains in such cases is, whether such evidence signifies remote kinship or a generic common Indo-European ancestry? The discovery of ~300 inscribed ceramic items from Zone, Samothraki has reignited the discussions about the relationship of Thracian with Greek. However, most inscriptions remain unpublished leaving us with nothing else than speculations. In fact, the language of the inscribed objects remains unknown and could even be unrelated to the language spoken in Thrace proper.

What about Albanian?
Even though, Illyrian has been the first language to be compared to Albanian, Thraco-Dacian is the strongest contestant. A number of linguists have been examining the possibility of Albanian being a descendant of a Dacian relic. The initial Roman conquest of part of Dacia did not put an end to the language, as free Dacian tribes such as the Carpi may have continued to speak Dacian in Moldavia and adjacent regions as late as the 6th or 7th century AD, still capable of leaving some influences in the forming of Slavic languages. According to the hypothesis of Hasdeu (1901), a branch of Dacian continued as the Albanian language. A refined version of that hypothesis considers Albanian to be a Daco-Moesian dialect that split off before 300 BC, and that Dacian became extinct. Strong evidence to this theory is the shared substratum of words in Romanian and Albanian.
".

You write, "Were the Anatolian languages centum or did they exist outside of those categories? Either way, this could maybe support your theory of an original Anatolian Armenian...perhaps it just had a satem overlay. Then again, the Anatolian similarities/influence could come from Luwian (and maybe Hittite) too. The Luwian influence is quite widely accepted.".
The Anatolian languages have had their own divided camps of linguists. There are linguists who view Anatolian (especially Luwian) to have preserved the three-row velar consonant distinction from Proto-Indo-European, rendering it outside the centum/satem division. While there are others such as Hrozný and Melchert who view Anatolian as a "centum" branch. As Melchert wrote, "The three-way contrast of dorsal stops in Luvo-Lycian is due to a conditioned split of palatovelars before their merger with velars, not an unconditioned three-way contrast preserved from Proto-Indo-European. Anatolian is thus, as per already Hrozný, “centum” (Melchert 2012a).". Furthermore, Hittite shows no assibilation of palatovelars (satemization), but there are also those who propose that the centumization that is observed in Hittite occurred only after the breakup of Proto-Anatolian (which would be closer to PIE).
 
You are right. Luwian shows all three dorsal consonant rows survived separately in Proto-Anatolian. This means it is non-centum, and is one of the reasons that more and more linguists are beginning to consider satem as more conservative and centum as an innovation.

Interesting! Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source for the satem being more conservative? I'd like to learn more about this theory!
 
Nice to have you back, Demetrios! I hope that you enjoyed your vacation.

I'll read your friend's whole article when I get time.

From the excerpt that you linked, it'd be interesting if Thracian was connected to Balto-Slavic, because Balto-Slavic is often thought to have been connected to Indo-Iranian, and there is a theory that the Cimmerians spoke a language that was a midway point between Thracian and Indo-Iranian.

I wonder how sure they even are that all the Thracian and Dacian languages were indeed from one or two language families. For example, the article addresses Phrygian being connected with Thracian. If I'm not wrong, Macedonian was linked to Thracian too, but of course that's now thought to have been a Hellenic language or a dialect of Greek (which seems obvious--Phillip and Alexander were Macedonians/Greeks).

I don't have any opinion on Albanian being Illyrian or Thracian, but from a geographic standpoint, Illyrian seems it would make the most sense.
 

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