Iran_ChL and the Semitic Languages

[Stuvanè]

Thank you for replying Stuvanè. I’m not aware of any Hittite samples. Is there a paper that published something on them?

Regarding the main topic, I appreciate your comments. I think I made a mistake in my original post with the Iranian hypothesis about comparing between the hypothetical Levantines that immigrated to Iran and the Mycenaean Greeks. My original point was that it is possible for a migrating population (Indo-Europeans, Levant_N) to migrate to another population and admix with them (Native population of Greece, Iran_N) replacing their language but not their Y-DNA. (In the case of native population of Greece, to Mycenaean Greek; in the case of Iran_ChL, to pre-proto-Semitic. However, if J arrived in Greece after the Indo-Europeans, then that invalidates my example. That would make it like the Basque example actually, because the Y-DNA was replaced but not the language, Mycenaean Greek.

Do you know of any examples where an immigrant population replaced the language but not the Y-DNA?

For what very little I know, I believe that the only 2 samples that can be traced back to the Hittites for now (or a Hittite context between the 19th and 16th centuries BC) are MA2200 and and MA2203 and the reference study should be the following (I don't have direct access to the paper so what I'm telling you take it with a grain of salt)

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aar7711


I tried to spin their k13 coordinates with some ancestral components (the model is very rudimentary, there are certainly better ones) and I seem to see 2 individuals with a strong Anatolian base, very mixed with both Levant and CHG and / O Iran_N. (The third is me ...)

As for the linguistic substitution not accompanied by actual genetic substitutions - perhaps these examples are a little stretched and not fitting at best - but I would say that the Sardinians and the French are cases in which in fact the local pre-Roman populations have persisted and genetically modified in negligible part by the invaders, while the language has been irreversibly changed

 

[Hjiju6]

As for the linguistic substitution not accompanied by actual genetic substitutions - perhaps these examples are a little stretched and not fitting at best - but I would say that the Sardinians and the French are cases in which in fact the local pre-Roman populations have persisted and genetically modified in negligible part by the invaders, while the language has been irreversibly changed

I think the problem with the Sardinians is they had a lot of overlap with the Romans in their Y-DNA. But if we can extrapolate autosomal contributions to cover Y-DNA, I think that would serve as an example.

Tell me if you agree with this, and others obviously can weigh in on this.

-The issue of Levant_N in the Iranian hypothesis is very similar to CHG introducing IE to EHG.
-It is thus much more likely, though not certain, that the modified Levantine hypothesis as I laid it out in the original post is correct. It is also much more likely, though not certain, that CHG did not introduce IE to EHG, and IE originated with EHG.
-I should change my post to reflect the belief that the modified Levantine hypothesis is more likely to be correct for those joining in who don’t want to read this entire thread, as a kind of summary.

 

[Archetype0ne]

I think for the most part that is an inescapable conclusion.
With some reserves though.

I see this sort of thinking very often on fora, where language is like a post passed by one generation to the other as a static object.
I say the conclusion that EHG was the main factor of IE is cause R1b and R1a found in EHG are pretty much a common denominator in modern Indo European peoples. But on the other hand 50% CHG is too much not to contribute to language, and YDNA. Hence you can see in the past and even today J reflected in IE people, like J2a with Myceneans or J2b with Illyrians.

Otherwise stuff like this would be inexplicable in the context of IE expansion if it was simply female mediated.

Why I think considering CHG as a purely maternal contribution to EHG does not work. Certainly the only way these maps above can be explained is with Indo Europeans, except the last J2a also seems to have had a fair share in the Levant/ME.

The way I make this work in my mind, with regards to the clear splits between R1a and R1b, and the very widespread, consistent and minor J across Indo European speakers today is with waves. One in my mind would have been R1b + J(also other minor Ys) the other R1a + J(again in conjunction with other Ys). Where J's were likely part of the CHG component of the CHG + EHG mix.

 

[Hjiju6]

I think for the most part that is an inescapable conclusion.
With some reserves though.

I see this sort of thinking very often on fora, where language is like a post passed by one generation to the other as a static object.
I say the conclusion that EHG was the main factor of IE is cause R1b and R1a found in EHG are pretty much a common denominator in modern Indo European peoples. But on the other hand 50% CHG is too much not to contribute to language, and YDNA. Hence you can see in the past and even today J reflected in IE people, like J2a with Myceneans or J2b with Illyrians .

I’ll see if more people have thoughts. If not I’ll update the original post by tomorrow to reflect my thoughts on what I think is the more viable theory. Thanks for your input.

Regarding IE and J, I’m still a little bit skeptical. The Yamnaya samples that we have all have R and I to my knowledge. Even if a minority had J, it doesn’t explain the preponderance of J in the Balkans, and I honestly don’t know how it got there in such large quantities.

 

[Hjiju6]

Do you guys think pre-Arab inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula were close to a 100% Natufian-related?

Note: I had before a joke about the Ottomans being the source of J in the Balkans followed by /s, but I think the above is is a better comment to keep the discussion going.

 

[Stuvanè]

@Hjiju6
@Archetype0ne,

clearly even the Sardinians have not remained untouched by introgressions, there has been a Roman contribution and even before that they are also reached by Middle Eastern / Iranian influences (see Fernades 2020), but I would say not such as to upset their autosomal and their peculiar haplogroup "package". In the PCA the Sardinians remain fundamentally outliers with respect to the continental Italians and all Europeans and remain fundamental to balance the statistics. I don't know how up-to-date they are, but according to Maciamo's tables on the island the share of R1b (Indo-European? Roman?) Remains among the lowest, stopping at 18%, while the share of Neolithic G is consistent (12%) and the even more archaic one of I2a stands out (about 38-39%).

https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/italian_dna.shtml#frequency


BTW: another important case in which the invaders introduce a new language - not local - without however impacting particularly on the DNA of the conquered I would say that it is the Hungarian one, where an Ugrian language is adopted by a mass that is genetically composed of mostly Central Europeans. of ancient Germanic, Slavic and Danubian / Illyrian stock.


As for the issue of relations between the Caucasus and Indo-Europeans, at the moment I am following what Anthony wrote 3 years ago, who in turn tries to exemplify what Bomhard discussed with regard to linguistic aspects. The Caucasian contribution would be a bit more than a hypothesis, it is not only genetic, but also linguistic, with phonological, morphological and lexical elements that would come from the Caucasus mountains. In a nutshell, the Indo-European that is formed in the steppes should be considered as a sort of creole or symbiotic language that combines ancient pre- or proto-Uralic idioms with this Caucasian background, which for Bomhard seems to be above all that of the northwestern Caucasus (the authors also call it proto-pontic). This would be consistent with the autosomal of early Indo-Europeans, composed of EHG + CHG.

https://www.academia.edu/40002289/B..._Number_1_and_2_Spring_Summer_2019_pre_print_

https://www.academia.edu/39985565/A..._Language_in_the_Steppes_A_Comment_on_Bomhard



It remains to be understood why male lineages are not found in significant quantities of the latter and here for now it seems to me that we can only give vent to the imagination.
They haven't been found yet but do they exist somewhere? Did EHGs superimpose on CHG males by taking females? The tribes of the steppe are born in a somewhat artificial way, on the basis of exchanges and political conveniences where more evolved communities of CHG (I'm thinking of something like Maykop and its surroundings) give up part of their female population to ingratiate themselves with turbulent neighbors and ally with them?
Is this absence a phenomenon that only affects the western fringes of IE? (After all, going eastward, the J2 reappear in Central Asia and some also in Siberia ... Tajiks and Uyghurs, which are born from the mixture of Turkish-Mongols with IE Tocarians, Saka and other ancient Iranians, retain abundant percentages of J2 in their lineages, which would already appear there well before the Islamic expansion).
I would not even feel like ruling out that this lack of data (or these presences distributed in a discontinuous way for the continent) can be attributed in various cases to funeral preferences for cremation, which would make it impossible to find a solution.


But I don't want to go off topics. I believe that in the Middle East the J haplogroups impose themselves on the protosemitic communities especially in the middle of the Bronze Age, but in a predatory way, without reaching an equal cultural symbiosis. I imagine these "barbarians" of the Caucasus, from the mountains north of Mesopotamia and/or form Zagros who impose or accentuate patriarchal and polygamous customs but not the language that remains the Semitic one of the conquered. I also think that a numerical fact counts here: while in the early Indo-Europeans the shares of EHG and CHG are often balanced, in the Semitic populations starting from the Bronze Age the main autosomal share remains the Natufian, followed many points away by CHG. / Iran, which makes me think these latter were a narrow elite

 

[Stuvanè]

Do you guys think pre-Arab inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula were close to a 100% Natufian-related?

Note: I had before a joke about the Ottomans being the source of J in the Balkans followed by /s, but I think the above is is a better comment to keep the discussion going.

Maybe some J's really made it up in the Balkans in the Ottoman era.
Defining it then as "Ottoman" / "Turkish" could be difficult since above all the J2 is in some way "indigenous" to the pre-Turkish Anatolia and Caucasus, but let's not forget that Aegean world, Greece itself and the Danube have hosted it for millennia (Minoan Greeks and Neolithic people from Lengyel and Sopot, Hungary).

This is one of the most southern and ancient Levantines I know, from Neolithic Jordan (I ran the ancestral coordinates with the k13 of yesterday and today with the G25). With the oracle of the K13 I suspect that he is the reference champion of the natufian and is immediately 100% superimposable; with the G25 it is adjusted with about 1/3 of European Neolithics.
Net of the inaccuracies of the oracles, I believe that the main "ingredient" of the archaic Arab world remains the natufian

Target: Jordan_Late_PPNB:BAJ001 Distance: 7.4180% / 7.41796763
100.0	Levant_Natufian

Target: Levant_PPNB:BAJ001 Distance: 0.0326% / 0.03262260
68.6	Levant_Natufian
29.1	EEF
2.3	IRN_N

Target: Levant_PPNB:BAJ001 Distance: 0.0326% / 0.03262260
68.6	Levant_Natufian
29.1	EEF
2.3	IRN_N

 

[Hjiju6]

BTW: another important case in which the invaders introduce a new language - not local - without however impacting particularly on the DNA of the conquered I would say that it is the Hungarian one, where an Ugrian language is adopted by a mass that is genetically composed of mostly Central Europeans. of ancient Germanic, Slavic and Danubian / Illyrian stock.

The example of the Hungarians is an excellent example of the phenomenon I was describing. Thank you for providing that.

>Did EHGs superimpose on CHG males by taking females? The tribes of the steppe are born in a somewhat artificial way, on the basis of exchanges and political conveniences where more evolved communities of CHG (I'm thinking of something like Maykop and its surroundings) give up part of their female population to ingratiate themselves with turbulent neighbors and ally with them?

I think the first of these 2 is the standard explanation that’s given, but the 2nd one is a take I haven’t seen and that piques my interest. It’s always fun to imagine what the political landscape of the past that gave rise to genetics must’ve been.

Regarding the gradual increase in Iran-related component in the Levant, the elite theory is a good one. It might be complemented by the theory that there might’ve been multiple migrations. From an article by National Geographic:

”The Canaanites spoke a Semitic language and were long thought to derive from earlier populations that settled in the region thousands of years before. But archaeologists have puzzled over red-and-black pottery discovered at Canaanite sites that closely resembles ceramics found in the Caucasus Mountains, some 750 miles to the northwest. Historians also have noted that many Canaanite names derive from Hurrian, a non-Semitic language originating in the Caucasus.

Whether this resulted from long-distance trade or migration was uncertain. The new study demonstrates that significant numbers of people, and not just goods, were moving around during humanity’s first era of cities and empires. The genes of Canaanite individuals proved to be a mix of local Neolithic people and the Caucasus migrants, who began showing up in the region around the start of the Bronze Age.
Carmel adds that the migration appears to have been more than a one-time event, and “could have involved multiple waves throughout the Bronze Age.”

I think the Hurrians were one of the later waves, one that immigrated when the Canaanite languages were already established. An earlier Iranian culture probably immigrated during the proto-Semitic period. The whole article is an interesting read for those interested in the topic.

I’m interested about your opinion about the history of the Arabian peninsula.
I think that before proto-Semitic other Afro-Asiatic languages were spoken, and Arabians were ~100% Natufian-related.

Then Proto-Semitic speakers immigrated to Arabia and formed the South Semitic languages, which I propose were spoken throughout the Peninsula. These people introduced an Anatolian and Iranian component to the Arabs.

Then the Arabs came from the Levant and introduced the Arabic language, and introduced a further Anatolian and Iranian genetic component, pushing the South Semitic languages south.

I said in one of the posts that I wonder if a Canaanite-like component might be found in Arabia, but Canaanites probably had more Iranian from later migrations, and probably did not resemble the earlier Proto-Semitic speakers.

 

[Stuvanè]

The subject is fascinating, but also tremendously complicated and I'm no expert.
Often in order to understand and review that historical period, I see this short animation, imo really well done

 

[Mmiikkii]

It's unlikely that Natufians created AfroAsiatic languages. We know that IndoEuropeans and Semites are peoples that first expanded during the Bronze Ages.

So were the kingdoms/Empires that those poeple created/consolidated. So we have to assume that modern languages where created with the rudiments of modern civilizations. Rather than from a Mesolithic culture.

Besides herding seems a factor correlating with AfroAsiatic languages. And Natifuans gathered cereals.

 

[Hjiju6]

The subject is fascinating, but also tremendously complicated and I'm no expert.
Often in order to understand and review that historical period, I see this short animation, imo really well done

You’re right, the subject is complicated, but it’s also very fascinating.

 

[Hjiju6]

Obviously anyone can give their thoughts about my theory regarding the (genetic) history of the Arabian peninsula I didn’t just mean Stuvanè.

 

[Bekas]

For what very little I know, I believe that the only 2 samples that can be traced back to the Hittites for now (or a Hittite context between the 19th and 16th centuries BC) are MA2200 and and MA2203 and the reference study should be the following (I don't have direct access to the paper so what I'm telling you take it with a grain of salt)

Cappadocian and Pontic Greeks and Turks are the closest proximal groups with ADMIXTURE to the Ikiztepe LC remains (Hittite city of Zapulwa has been associated with this site, but not confirmed obviously).

 

[lynxbythetv]

is it possible that semetic languages are actually part of the indo european family tree albeit very divergent. i think aramaic sounds subtly celtic.
as been been mentioned neither the J2 chechens, ingush nor the heavy J1 dagestani groups speak semetic/indo european languages.
what we do see is a proliferation of R1B in the middle east + anatolia groups like Assyrians, Egyptians and southern Iraqis have a small percentages of R1b, why ?
maybe the horse cart traders spread earlier forms of their langauge.