Does genetics prove Iran/Armenia is the original land of Indo-Europeans?

Yamnaya = Khvalynx (EHG) + CHG

The question is where does PIE, assuming it was not a creole, predominantly trace back to - north of the Caucasus (Khvalynx/Repin) or south? Arguing for the first would be continuity between late Khvalynx/Repin and early Yamnaya pottery. (Anthony, pp. 274-277, 317-323.)

But arguing the latter (i.e. south of the Caucasus) would explain a) the apparent Indo-European names related to Armi/Armani as recorded by the Eblaites in the 25th century BCE and b) PIE's early exposure to/relationship with Kartvelian, Semitic, and potentially Sumerian and Hurrio-Urartian.
 
Luwian, and Albanian, are non-Centum, but not Satem either:

"�Thus, the three-way IE reconstructed voiced ~ voiceless ~ voiced aspirated system of obstruents has been reduced, as in many IE dialects, to a double opposition: voiced ~ voiceless; and the outcomes of the three dorsal series suggest that Albanian, like Luwian, may have originally retained this three-way opposition intact and therefore is neither centum nor satem, despite the clear satem-like outcome of its palatal dorsals in most instances.The evidence for this is the palatalization of original PIE labiovelars, but not plain velars, before front vowels.�
Bardhyl Demiraj
2018 De Gruyter �Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics

It probably shows a direct migration of proto-Indo-Europeans to Albania, I just looked again at the map of E-V13:

Haplogroup-E-V13.gif


This haplogroup has a low frequency in the lands of Basques, Estonians, Finns, Georgians, Chechens, Arabs, Turks, Africans and other non-Indo-European people.

The region in the south of lake Urmia in the northwest of Iran (Hajji Firuz Tepe) has almsot all Indo-European haplogroups.

Haplogroup I:

Haplogroup_I-borders.gif


Haplogroup R1b:

Haplogroup_R1b-borders.png


Haplogroup R1a:

Haplogroup-R1a.gif


Haplogroup J2b:

Distribution-of-haplogroup-J2b-M102-in-Europe-the-Middle-East-North-Africa.png


Haplogroup T:

Haplogroup-T.gif
 
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These are both from modern samples, right? But R1b is far more prevalent in Armenians than R1a. I was under the impression that the R1b found in Armenians was an earlier and/or separate mutation than other European R1b...either Z2103 or L584.
Yes, these are from an analysis of large modern databases. Based on SNP diversity, yfull estimates a TMRCA of 3,500 BC for Armenian-coalescing clades of R1b and 2,200 BC for South Caspian-coalescing clades of R1a. My estimates based on STR diversity are both earlier - 4,500 BC for Armenian R1b and 2,400 BC for South Caspian R1a. Armenian R1b is fairly stable, behaving like other Near/Middle Eastern lineages. South Caspian R1a is expansive and nomadic, with volatile development patterns - I don't see them in general as part of the same movement. Both might have spoken IE languages - R1b an earlier centum version and R1a a later satemised version, both affecting the final language product.

That is what you're suggesting right, that the Steppe Armenians/Proto-Armenians never made it as far north as the Pontic Steppe?
The original Steppe Armenians/Proto-Armenians could have 'formed' anywhere over a fairly wide area - my guess is somewhere between North East Anatolia and Azov, but there's not enough data to be precise. Depending on where, they might have had fairly limited EHG before R1a arrived.

Regarding ancient language-speaking, the only thing I'm tentatively confident about is that early R1b-DF27 most likely brought a Basque-ancestral language to Spain, rather than a IE one, so I really have no firm idea where IE came from.
 
Again, Armenian is not totally a Satem language and the Satemization is based on only a small numbers of words. Remember too, Armenian rests between Indo-Iranian and Greek languages, so it would make sense that it's a mostly-but-not-quite Satem language. Balto-Slavic languages (including Latvian) are also Satem but also still have some Centemized words, which some have suggested means that Satemization wasn't complete in Balto-Slavic languages, for whatever reason. So perhaps Armenian features a similar phenomenon, a Satemization process that was incomplete or interrupted for whatever reason.

As for my comment about IE migration into Armenia, I meant specifically the people that introduced the (proto) Armenian language. Theoretically, they would have been a Steppe-derived population, but, to my understanding, they left almost no traces of Steppe-derived ancestry in modern Armenians. In other words, modern Armenians are more similar to the EBA, pre-IE/non-Steppe people of the region. So if there were Steppe Armenians (i.e. a Yamnaya-derived population who brought the proto-Armenian language to Armenia), where did they go? They were either a) an extremely small number of people/elite class who didn't really mix in at all with the native population, which is certainly possible, and then died off or b) they didn't die off, but migrated elsewhere from Armenia. But if they migrated elsewhere, regardless of sound changes, if we can recognize that Greek and Indo-Iranian languages are closest to Armenian, and theoretically these branches split off from one another before proto-Armenian was fully developed (and proto-Greek and proto-Indo Iranian) we should be able to identify another Armenian language that derives from the Steppe Armenians and is closer to Armenian than Greek or Indo-Iranian. Meaning, a sister language to Armenian (AKA another daughter of the proto-Armenian). But obviously there is no evidence of this, so it suggests that the Steppe Armenians died off. Unless it was Phrygian (which is now thought to be closer to Greek than Armenian, so it might not be a good candidate) or some unattested language.

Armenian language is closer to Balto-Slavic than Indo-Iranian, for example we see /l/ existed in proto-Armenian phonology, genetically they are also related to Balto-Slavic people, I think the original Armenian-speaking people lived in the north of Balkan, haplogroups of these people like R1a-Z282 or I2 can be found among modern Armenians, even in Iran we see I2 has the highest frequency among Iranian Armenians, also J2b1, ...
 
Armenian language is closer to Balto-Slavic than Indo-Iranian, for example we see /l/ existed in proto-Armenian phonology, genetically they are also related to Balto-Slavic people, I think the original Armenian-speaking people lived in the north of Balkan, haplogroups of these people like R1a-Z282 or I2 can be found among modern Armenians, even in Iran we see I2 has the highest frequency among Iranian Armenians, also J2b1, ...

What are you basing that on? Most linguists agree that Armenian is closest to/occupies a space between Greek and Indo-Iranian, this includes Vaux, Hamp, Clackson, etc. It's more frequently agreed upon that Indo-Iranian is closer to Balto-Slavic than Armenian is. The idea isn't that Armenian is closer to Balto-Slavic, but that these languages were in contact with one another. If you're basing your reasoning off of /l/ existence in proto-Armenian's phonology, /f/ didn't exist in Classical Armenian (and quite possibly not in pre-Classical Armenian, and maybe not proto-Armenian). Instead, p>f was rendered in Classical Armenian as p>h (fire=hur, father=hayr). I believe that /f/ exists in Balto-Slavic languages, however.

As for the genetics, we know that people genetically similar to Armenians contributed heavily to Yamnaya. We also know that Corded Ware were genetically connected to Yamnaya. So that could explain genetic connections between Armenians and Balto-Slavics.

J2b1 is native to the Near East. I2 is originally Eastern Mediterranean. Only 8% of Armenians are R1a, which could be from Steppe Armenians, or could be from an intrusion of another Steppe-derived populations.

The most frequent Y-haplogroups in Armenians are R1b1b1 (28%), J2a2a (22%), G2 (11%) (mainly G2a3a), and J1 (11%) (J1c3d, J1c3d1).
 
Yes, these are from an analysis of large modern databases. Based on SNP diversity, yfull estimates a TMRCA of 3,500 BC for Armenian-coalescing clades of R1b and 2,200 BC for South Caspian-coalescing clades of R1a. My estimates based on STR diversity are both earlier - 4,500 BC for Armenian R1b and 2,400 BC for South Caspian R1a. Armenian R1b is fairly stable, behaving like other Near/Middle Eastern lineages. South Caspian R1a is expansive and nomadic, with volatile development patterns - I don't see them in general as part of the same movement. Both might have spoken IE languages - R1b an earlier centum version and R1a a later satemised version, both affecting the final language product.


The original Steppe Armenians/Proto-Armenians could have 'formed' anywhere over a fairly wide area - my guess is somewhere between North East Anatolia and Azov, but there's not enough data to be precise. Depending on where, they might have had fairly limited EHG before R1a arrived.

Regarding ancient language-speaking, the only thing I'm tentatively confident about is that early R1b-DF27 most likely brought a Basque-ancestral language to Spain, rather than a IE one, so I really have no firm idea where IE came from.

This is absolutely fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to explain it!

So what you are suggesting is that Armenian is possibly some sort of creole between a very early R1b centum language and a later R1a satem language (the latter which could be reconciled with some of what Cyrus is saying in his most recent post)? Or maybe not a creole, per se, but the R1a satemized language heavily influenced the earlier centum R1b language? Do you think that the R1b language was connected to Kura-Araxes culture? When do you think the R1b centum and the R1a satem connected (obviously it was after 2400 BCE)?

The Black Sea coastal area makes sense--Hamp specifically mentioned Batumi, Georgia as the locus for the Greco-Armenian split. I cannot remember who postulated this, but the Georgian city of Aia could be linguistically connected to Haya (which would be a native form of "Armenian"--I don't particularly care about this theory, but I thought it was interesting because it could fit your model).

Lastly, it seems that you do not believe that the genetics support (or at least necessitates) a Balkan origin for Armenians, right?
 
So what you are suggesting is that Armenian is possibly some sort of creole between a very early R1b centum language and a later R1a satem language (the latter which could be reconciled with some of what Cyrus is saying in his most recent post)? Or maybe not a creole, per se, but the R1a satemized language heavily influenced the earlier centum R1b language? Do you think that the R1b language was connected to Kura-Araxes culture? When do you think the R1b centum and the R1a satem connected (obviously it was after 2400 BCE)?
Yes to the first two questions, but I'm afraid I don't know enough or have access to enough data to be in a position to form a clear opinion about the latter two questions.

Lastly, it seems that you do not believe that the genetics support (or at least necessitates) a Balkan origin for Armenians, right?
I don't rule it out, as I do see signs of a likely Balkan formation zone for extant R1b-L51, but cannot detect significant indications of Balkan DNA moving to the South Eastern Pontic at that time.
 
What are you basing that on? Most linguists agree that Armenian is closest to/occupies a space between Greek and Indo-Iranian, this includes Vaux, Hamp, Clackson, etc. It's more frequently agreed upon that Indo-Iranian is closer to Balto-Slavic than Armenian is. The idea isn't that Armenian is closer to Balto-Slavic, but that these languages were in contact with one another. If you're basing your reasoning off of /l/ existence in proto-Armenian's phonology, /f/ didn't exist in Classical Armenian (and quite possibly not in pre-Classical Armenian, and maybe not proto-Armenian). Instead, p>f was rendered in Classical Armenian as p>h (fire=hur, father=hayr). I believe that /f/ exists in Balto-Slavic languages, however.

As for the genetics, we know that people genetically similar to Armenians contributed heavily to Yamnaya. We also know that Corded Ware were genetically connected to Yamnaya. So that could explain genetic connections between Armenians and Balto-Slavics.

J2b1 is native to the Near East. I2 is originally Eastern Mediterranean. Only 8% of Armenians are R1a, which could be from Steppe Armenians, or could be from an intrusion of another Steppe-derived populations.

The most frequent Y-haplogroups in Armenians are R1b1b1 (28%), J2a2a (22%), G2 (11%) (mainly G2a3a), and J1 (11%) (J1c3d, J1c3d1).

When I said Armenian is closer to Balto-Slavic, I meant as a Satem language, I also believe a Greek substrate about Armenian, in fact Armenian phonology is very similar to Greek phonology and we see a similar (aspirated and deaspirated) devoicing and other similar sound changes like s>h, but it means proto-Armenians as a satem-speaking people migrated to the Greek lands in the east of Anatolia.
 
When I said Armenian is closer to Balto-Slavic, I meant as a Satem language, I also believe a Greek substrate about Armenian, in fact Armenian phonology is very similar to Greek phonology and we see a similar (aspirated and deaspirated) devoicing and other similar sound changes like s>h, but it means proto-Armenians as a satem-speaking people migrated to the Greek lands in the east of Anatolia.

But neither Armenian or Balto-Slavic are truly satem unlike Indo-Iranian languages. Balto-Slavic has incomplete satemization and Armenian is somewhere between centum and satem (and is likely somewhere between Greek and Indo-Iranian). To my understanding, satemization has developed independently more than once too.

The similarity with Greek might be because a) according to Hamp's model, they branched off from each other (in southern Georgia) and/or b) because of Greek-Armenian interactions since 1000 BCE (or potentially before if the Ahhiyawans were Greek and/or the Trialeti-Vanadzor people were Armenian--which would suggest that they likely never stopped interacting with one another even after separation).

Does Armenian have s>h? I thought it was p>h and h>k. The h>(kh? khi?)>k being plural markers. For example, Hayk' being the plural for Armenians (Hyes), Barsik being the plural for Persians (Parsis).

What do you mean that the proto-Armenians were a satem-speaking people who migrated to the Greek lands east of Anatolia? This is counter to most models. So what you're suggesting is that Armenians and Greeks flipped homelands, so to speak?
 
I don't rule it out, as I do see signs of a likely Balkan formation zone for extant R1b-L51, but cannot detect significant indications of Balkan DNA moving to the South Eastern Pontic at that time.

I guess I should have been more specific. The Balkan theory I was referring to suggests that the migration of potential Balkanic (proto) Armenians into Armenia would be sometime after 1200 BCE, during or after the Bronze Age Collapse. What time period are you referring to? I'm assuming your time period is well before 1200 BCE.
 
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But arguing the latter (i.e. south of the Caucasus) would explain a) the apparent Indo-European names related to Armi/Armani as recorded by the Eblaites in the 25th century BCE and b) PIE's early exposure to/relationship with Kartvelian, Semitic, and potentially Sumerian and Hurrio-Urartian.

a) In Syria? More likely explains contacts with the Trojans (Troy I = 3,000 BCE).

b) More likely explains trading contacts rather than an incursion and language replacement. Wagons were brought from the south (by traders?).

CHG (cattle herders?) did come from the south, but did they take over and impose their language? But then why not also their pottery?
 
I guess I should have been more specific. The Balkan theory I was referring to suggests that the migration of potential Balkanic (proto) Armenians into Armenia would be sometime after 1200 BCE, during or after the Bronze Age Collapse. What time period are you referring to? I'm assuming you're time period is well before 1200 BCE.
Oh, I haven't looked that far forward into Armenia.
 
When I said Armenian is closer to Balto-Slavic, I meant as a Satem language, I also believe a Greek substrate about Armenian, in fact Armenian phonology is very similar to Greek phonology and we see a similar (aspirated and deaspirated) devoicing and other similar sound changes like s>h, but it means proto-Armenians as a satem-speaking people migrated to the Greek lands in the east of Anatolia.
Yes, I see a likely Armenian LBA contribution in present day Greeks mixed in with a lot of late steppic DNA (about 50:50 with indigenous Mycenaean). I suppose this could have affected the Greek language.
 
a) In Syria? More likely explains contacts with the Trojans (Troy I = 3,000 BCE).

b) More likely explains trading contacts rather than an incursion and language replacement. Wagons were brought from the south (by traders?).

CHG (cattle herders?) did come from the south, but did they take over and impose their language? But then why not also their pottery?

A) Yes, Ebla in Syria or southern Turkey. I'm referring to Damgaard et. al 2018 research. You can find a supplement here which summarizes some of the information: https://zenodo.org/record/1243933#.XSJZKy2ZMWo.

I'm a little confused what you're getting at with Troy I. As far as I know, we don't know what language was spoken in Troy I.

B) That seems possible.

Not sure about the CHG, but we know for a fact that they were there because of their genetic input, right?
 
A) Yes, Ebla in Syria or southern Turkey. I'm referring to Damgaard et. al 2018 research. You can find a supplement here which summarizes some of the information: https://zenodo.org/record/1243933#.XSJZKy2ZMWo.

I'm a little confused what you're getting at with Troy I. As far as I know, we don't know what language was spoken in Troy I.

B) That seems possible.

Not sure about the CHG, but we know for a fact that they were there because of their genetic input, right?

Mallory: "Troy I and related sites might mark the earliest intrusion of Indo-Europeans (Proto-Anatolians?) into Anatolia." Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, p. 605.
 
Mallory: "Troy I and related sites might mark the earliest intrusion of Indo-Europeans (Proto-Anatolians?) into Anatolia." Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, p. 605.

Thanks! Could be, although there's also the theory that the Anatolians came directly from the east. I guess this doesn't necessarily negate that.
 
tyuiopman said:
But neither Armenian or Balto-Slavic are truly satem unlike Indo-Iranian languages.

That is certainly opposite, for example about proto-IE ḱerd- "heart" that I mentioned, we see Balto-Slavic *sirdis and Armenian sirt but Indo-Iranian *jʰrda, also compare to Celtic *krid-, or about proto-IE *leyǵʰ "to lick, tongue", we see Balto-Slavic *laizit and Armenian lizem but Indo-Iranian *rijʰati, also comapre to Celtic *lega, ...

tyuiopman said:
Balto-Slavic has incomplete satemization and Armenian is somewhere between centum and satem (and is likely somewhere between Greek and Indo-Iranian).

I don't know why you insist that Armenian is not a Satem language, there are certainly many Greek and Iranian words in Armenian but it doesn't mean that Armenian is a mixture of those languages, not an independent language.

tyuiopman said:
Does Armenian have s>h? I thought it was p>h and h>k.

Debuccalization of /s/ is one of the main characteristics of Armenian language, voiceless bilabial stop (p) is gernerally changed to voiced labiodental fricative (v) in Armenian, for example look at Old Armenian evt from proto-IE *septm "seven" or Old Armenian uver from proto-IE *uper "above, up, over", /p/ is changed to a glottal stop usually in initial syllables.

tyuiopman said:
What do you mean that the proto-Armenians were a satem-speaking people who migrated to the Greek lands east of Anatolia? This is counter to most models. So what you're suggesting is that Armenians and Greeks flipped homelands, so to speak?

When we talk about substrate language and we see a similar phonology, it means the same people adopted a new language, for example Azeri language in Iran is a Turkic language on a Persian substrate because Azeri and Persian have also similar phonologies and sound changes, there was certainly a Turkic migration to Azerbaijan but with a minimum effect on genetics, the same thing can be said about Armenians.
 
That is certainly opposite, for example about proto-IE ḱerd- "heart" that I mentioned, we see Balto-Slavic *sirdis and Armenian sirt but Indo-Iranian *jʰrda, also compare to Celtic *krid-, or about proto-IE *leyǵʰ "to lick, tongue", we see Balto-Slavic *laizit and Armenian lizem but Indo-Iranian *rijʰati, also comapre to Celtic *lega, ...

Opposite of what? Nobody contests that Indo-Iranian languages are satem.

I don't know why you insist that Armenian is not a Satem language, there are certainly many Greek and Iranian words in Armenian but it doesn't mean that Armenian is a mixture of those languages, not an independent language.

Because Armenian and Balto-Slavic are not fully satemized. They are both officially classified as satem but they contain dual reflexes, so in actuality they straddle the line between both. So they are satem with an asterix. Albanian may be this way too but I'm not sure because I don't know enough about it. And again (this is beside the point but), the satemization in Armenian is based on a small number of words (like sirt).

And nobody was saying that Armenian is a mixture of Greek and Iranian. Everybody knows that it is it's own language. The point is, it's difficult to study Armenian because there was significant lexical replacement of native Armenian words with Iranian words (and many other languages including Greek, Latin, Hurrian, Urartian, Luwian, Syriac, etc) by the time that Armenian was first written down. This makes it difficult to fully analyze Armenian as a language. The Greek influence in Armenian is overstated (I think it's only like 200 root words). But there are only something like 450 native (i.e. words from PIE-->ProtoArm-->Arm without having an intermediary, i.e. Iranian) root words in Armenian that survive. Whereas the Iranian lexical influence in Armenian is something like 60% or 80% (I cannot remember) of the modern Armenian language (hence why Armenian was classified as an Iranian language originally). Additionally, a significant chunk of Armenian words are unclassified (I can't remember the exact number). Some of these could be borrowings from unattested languages/linguistic isolates, but perhaps some are divergent Indo-Euro root words that haven't been identified.


When we talk about substrate language and we see a similar phonology, it means the same people adopted a new language, for example Azeri language in Iran is a Turkic language on a Persian substrate because Azeri and Persian have also similar phonologies and sound changes, there was certainly a Turkic migration to Azerbaijan but with a minimum effect on genetics, the same thing can be said about Armenians.

Yes, but the substrate languages in Armenian are Hurrian and Urartian and I think some Caucasian languages, not Greek. And that doesn't necessarily mean that Armenians migrated from far away. It could be that Armenians were in northern Armenian/NE Turkey, and over time, as they spread out, they assimilated Hurrio-Urartian and Caucasian-speaking peoples (this could have happened more than once and started very early on). When Armenian became a lingua-franca of E Turkey/Armenia, and it began to be written down, these words used in various dialects became standardized (we know that this happened in the 19th century CE too, so I don't know why it couldn't have happened before, earlier on). There were something like 500 dialects of Armenian as recently as the last century, and that was well after Armenian was written down. Imagine how many there were prior to the 5th century.
 
Actually, Cyrus, I just read an article ("The Indo-European and Ancient Near Eastern Sources of the Armenian Epic" by Armen Petrosyan) that the names of certain mountains in Turkey, Armenia, and western Iran (Zagros, Taurus (Tauros), Artos, Grgros (Grgur), Arnos) may be from some sort of Hellenic language. If true, that doesn't necessarily mean that Armenians came from the Balkans and Greeks came from Armenia (i.e. Greeks and Armenians flipped), but, rather, to me, supports a Hampian model of Greco-Armenian diffusion (i.e. they inhabited a similar geographic area in the south Caucasus and the Hellenic-speaking tribes branched out and the Armenian-speakers remained behind). This model could also potentially explain the Mushkis (especially if they were a Phyrgian-esque south Caucasian group). I also once read an article that postulated that Urartian Haldi was a form of Helios+di ("di" being the Proto or Classic Armenian word for "god"). Hal would have become Hel in Greek, Hal would have become Har>Ar in Armenian. The problem with this theory is whether Khaldi was pronounced with an Kh or whether this was due to limitations of cuneiform (i.e. there being no H symbol in cuneiform).

https://www.academia.edu/3656244/Th...es_of_the_Armenian_Epic._Washington_D.C._2002
 
Urartians and Mannaeans occupied Armenia and northwest of Iran just in the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC, I believe even this period the majority of inhabitants were IE speaking people, in the 2nd millennium BC we see not only Anatolian and Hellenic culture in this region but also many elements of Indo-Aryan culture in Mitanni, Slavic culture in Kassite, Germanic culture in Guti, Celtic culture in Cadusii, ...
 

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