Catacomb Culture as source of Greek, Albanian, Armenian

[Johane Derite]

Max Planck linguist Rasmus Bjørn posted this image as a working hypothesis for the origin of the "Balkanic IE" group, which he later in the thread suggests should be renamed "Pontic IE" instead.

Link:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1769823538121253276

 

[norbert]

I have long come to the conclusion that linguism harbours a disproportionate number of crackpots. It's not a surprise that Tolkien was a linguist. Not saying he was a crackpot, of course, for at least he knew how to separate fantasy from science. Does this guy really think that Balto-Slavic, Albanian or Indo-Iranian differentiated into separate branches of IE within the geographic realm of Yamnaya? B-S emerged from Corded Ware much further to the northwest. Indo-Iranian came out of Fatyanovo. And the precursor of Armenian must have been much closer to Greek, somewhere in the Balkans. Also, he should know better than to think that centum and satem are somehow related to geography. Tocharian, Greek and Armenian beg to differ. And (proto-)Albanian 2500-1900 BC? I don't think so.

 

[Johane Derite]

I have long come to the conclusion that linguism harbours a disproportionate number of crackpots. It's not a surprise that Tolkien was a linguist. Not saying he was a crackpot, of course, for at least he knew how to separate fantasy from science. Does this guy really think that Balto-Slavic, Albanian or Indo-Iranian differentiated into separate branches of IE within the geographic realm of Yamnaya? B-S emerged from Corded Ware much further to the northwest. Indo-Iranian came out of Fatyanovo. And the precursor of Armenian must have been much closer to Greek, somewhere in the Balkans. Also, he should know better than to think that centum and satem are somehow related to geography. Tocharian, Greek and Armenian beg to differ. And (proto-)Albanian 2500-1900 BC? I don't think so.

Your conclusions are of no relevance to anybody

 

[Archetype0ne]

I have long come to the conclusion that linguism harbours a disproportionate number of crackpots. It's not a surprise that Tolkien was a linguist. Not saying he was a crackpot, of course, for at least he knew how to separate fantasy from science. Does this guy really think that Balto-Slavic, Albanian or Indo-Iranian differentiated into separate branches of IE within the geographic realm of Yamnaya? B-S emerged from Corded Ware much further to the northwest. Indo-Iranian came out of Fatyanovo. And the precursor of Armenian must have been much closer to Greek, somewhere in the Balkans. Also, he should know better than to think that centum and satem are somehow related to geography. Tocharian, Greek and Armenian beg to differ. And (proto-)Albanian 2500-1900 BC? I don't think so.

Can you elaborate on the last sentence?

 

[Anfänger]

I have long come to the conclusion that linguism harbours a disproportionate number of crackpots. It's not a surprise that Tolkien was a linguist. Not saying he was a crackpot, of course, for at least he knew how to separate fantasy from science. Does this guy really think that Balto-Slavic, Albanian or Indo-Iranian differentiated into separate branches of IE within the geographic realm of Yamnaya? B-S emerged from Corded Ware much further to the northwest. Indo-Iranian came out of Fatyanovo. And the precursor of Armenian must have been much closer to Greek, somewhere in the Balkans. Also, he should know better than to think that centum and satem are somehow related to geography. Tocharian, Greek and Armenian beg to differ. And (proto-)Albanian 2500-1900 BC? I don't think so.

Armenian is not from the Balkans. Genetic evidence implies a migration from the Steppe into Armenia by the MLBA. That’s probably why the Armenian language is positioned right next to the Caucasus in the original post by Max Planck linguist Rasmus Bjørn.

 

[norbert]

Your conclusions are of no relevance to anybody

What makes you think yours are? Or even Mr. Rasmus "like my tweets plz" Bjørn's? No one seems to care and those who notice, laugh at his fantasies.

 

[Archetype0ne]

I found this quite interesting in the comments:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1769828207866335254

How is that for a softball if true?

 

[norbert]

Can you elaborate on the last sentence?

What' there to elaborate on? We're talking about the Paleo-Balkan phase from which something like pre-proto-Albanian could have emerged only much later.

 

[norbert]

Armenian is not from the Balkans. Genetic evidence implies a migration from the Steppe into Armenia by the MLBA. That’s probably why the Armenian language is positioned right next to the Caucasus in the original post by Max Planck linguist Rasmus Bjørn.

I'm not disputing that argument from a genetic viewpoint and know that the, once widely accepted, theory of their Balkan origins is no longer popular. Linguistically, however, Armenian and Greek remain very close and the genetics of a people can change drastically in time. Is the genetic make-up of the Hungarians in tune with their language? Armenian seems like a satemised language, obviously under the influence of Indo-Iranian. Be as it may, placing it on the map as Mr. Bjørn did makes more sense than putting the origins of Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian within Yamnaya territory.

 

[Archetype0ne]

What' there to elaborate on? We're talking about the Paleo-Balkan phase from which something like pre-proto-Albanian could have emerged only much later.

Well for one people can not read your mind, so arguments help.

The point remains that despite the late written attestation of Albanian which makes labeling the periods akin to Italian <- Latin <- IE impractical, we do have very strong evidence that the stem from which modern Albanian branches off of, was among the first to do so.

Now, whether we will ever have enough evidence to label the different sections of the stem is another issue. Hence the proto label for Albanian here is appropriate.

The etymology of "proto":

proto-​

---

1. a combining form meaning “first,” “foremost,” “earliest form of,” used in the formation of compound words (protomartyr; protolithic; protoplasm), specialized in chemical terminology to denote the first of a series of compounds, or the one containing the minimum amount of an element.

Do you see how it is used in its proper meaning?

Indo-European phylogenetics with R

Abstract The last twenty or so years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of computational methods for inferring linguistic phylogenies. Although the results of this research have been controversial, the methods themselves are an undeniable boon for historical and Indo-European...

brill.com

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abg0818

PS: I lied when I said I can't read your mind. I know exactly what you really mean.

 

[norbert]

Well for one people can not read your mind, so arguments help.

The point remains that despite the late written attestation of Albanian which makes labeling the periods akin to Italian <- Latin <- IE impractical, we do have very strong evidence that the stem from which modern Albanian branches off of, was among the first to do so.

Now, whether we will ever have enough evidence to label the different sections of the stem is another issue. Hence the proto label for Albanian here is appropriate.

The etymology of "proto":

proto-​

---

1. a combining form meaning “first,” “foremost,” “earliest form of,” used in the formation of compound words (protomartyr; protolithic; protoplasm), specialized in chemical terminology to denote the first of a series of compounds, or the one containing the minimum amount of an element.

Do you see how it is used in its proper meaning?

Indo-European phylogenetics with R

Abstract The last twenty or so years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of computational methods for inferring linguistic phylogenies. Although the results of this research have been controversial, the methods themselves are an undeniable boon for historical and Indo-European...

brill.com

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abg0818

PS: I lied when I said I can't read your mind. I know exactly what you really mean.

Let's face it: the only reason Johane Derite dug up some obscure linguist from the vaults of X is the sight of Albanian being projected so far back into the past which is preposterous. But I'm not subscribing to the theory (or rather ideology) that Albanian appeared out of nowhere quite recently (in historical terms). The relatively late written attestation of the Albanian language is not an argument against its long pre-history. We don't have any existing texts in Lithuanian from before 1503, yet no one can question the long history of that language, especially in the light of it being among the most archaic IE languages today. So Albanian clearly has a long history but not as long as this map suggests. Believe it or not, there really is something such as "pre-proto" which, in this case, would denote the earliest signs of the emergence of a new branch or language from proto-IE with mutual intelligibility still reasonably possible. The question is: did this "branching off" of pre-proto-Albanian happen directly from proto-IE (unlikely imo) or Paleo-Balkanic, provided the latter really existed? All in all, I find the roots of the Albanian language fascinating, alone for the fact that it managed to resist full assimilation for so long, even though the huge amount of Latin loanwords reveals that this could have happened.

I know the paper on the "south of Caucasus" origins of IE that you posted. It wasn't well-received by the academic community for good reasons. One of the authors, Johannes Krause, has allowed himself some shenanigans recently. Perhaps he should stick to Jacques Derrida.

 

[Jovialis]

I have long suggested Catacomb as a source for Greek, particularly, because of cultural similarities.

 

[Jovialis]

 

[johen]

I think there is no tiny one evidence that ancient steppe admixture people spoke PIE. As cimmerian, scythian and sarmatian have different origins, yamna people were different from z2103 catacomb people, b/c their culture is so different. Anthony tried to connect catacomb clay-covered mask to mycenaean gold-foiled mask, but mycenaean one is too similar to gold-foiled mask at china at bronze age. Catacomb shaft tomb looks similar to old mexican tomb while mycenaean tomb to china tomb:

How can IE migration be explained without mentioning Seima Turbino?

"there is, probably, one more testimony to the invasion of central europe by the seima-turbino peoples. on bronze age settlements in saxony, burials are known of skulls and pieces of bones showing signs of cannibalism. unfortunately, the publication does not define more exactly to which period...

www.eupedia.com

It is a fact that PIE spread by chariot people and they believed in sky god ( square shoulder one below). Every european linguists know that PIE reached china at bronze age also. Archaeologically the following petroglyphs represent the altai and lake baikal culture. The archaeology tells that seima turbino culture arrived at china and Balkan.

chinese script or character of 天 (sky): 3rd one

 

[Jovialis]

On the other hand, it is also quite viable that Corded Ware could be a source for "northern" ancestry, at least for for these Northern Greeks. But at least not necessarily linguistic influence, save for some dialectic augmentation (if there is any).

IMHO, the Mycenaeans possibly received steppe straight from a source like Yamnaya or Catacomb. But I think later Greeks, such as Dorians could have received more "Northern" ancestry from Central Europe (likely through mediation via neighbors in a more complex process overtime, rather than a direct climactic invasion from Central Europe)

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1768655394904174652

 

[Yetos]

I think that map is too early to the terms proto Greek or proto Albanian.

 

[torzio]

Let's face it: the only reason Johane Derite dug up some obscure linguist from the vaults of X is the sight of Albanian being projected so far back into the past which is preposterous. But I'm not subscribing to the theory (or rather ideology) that Albanian appeared out of nowhere quite recently (in historical terms). The relatively late written attestation of the Albanian language is not an argument against its long pre-history. We don't have any existing texts in Lithuanian from before 1503, yet no one can question the long history of that language, especially in the light of it being among the most archaic IE languages today. So Albanian clearly has a long history but not as long as this map suggests. Believe it or not, there really is something such as "pre-proto" which, in this case, would denote the earliest signs of the emergence of a new branch or language from proto-IE with mutual intelligibility still reasonably possible. The question is: did this "branching off" of pre-proto-Albanian happen directly from proto-IE (unlikely imo) or Paleo-Balkanic, provided the latter really existed? All in all, I find the roots of the Albanian language fascinating, alone for the fact that it managed to resist full assimilation for so long, even though the huge amount of Latin loanwords reveals that this could have happened.

I know the paper on the "south of Caucasus" origins of IE that you posted. It wasn't well-received by the academic community for good reasons. One of the authors, Johannes Krause, has allowed himself some shenanigans recently. Perhaps he should stick to Jacques Derrida.

could this resistance of assimilation of the albanian language indicate it roots are from medieval times onwards ?

 

[Hawk]

Rasmus for simplification manners named the language Albanian just to make it clear what he is talking about. Doesn't really matter if it's pre-pre-proto Albanian really, he didn't put much emphasize on that, it's pretty obvious what he meant.

He puts Albanian under the satemization phenomenon which is interesting, i guess Daco-Thracian falls under this Satem umbrella as well, these are shared innovations in IE languages.

 

[norbert]

could this resistance of assimilation of the albanian language indicate it roots are from medieval times onwards ?

I'm not sure what you mean by "resistance of assimilation" but Albanian was definitely spoken before the Middle Ages. Joachim Matzinger alleges that a precursor of Albanian, pre-proto-Albanian (which he calls Frühuralbanisch in his German publications), must have been spoken in the first millenium BCE. Proto-Albanian was spoken during the Roman conquests in the 2nd century BCE, whereas the split into Gheg and Tosk dialects happened in the 7th century CE. The Albanians themselves are first mentioned in the 11th century by the Byzantines. A Christian text from 1462, a kind of manual for baptism, is the oldest known written proof of the Albanian language.

 

[Joey37]

Balto-Slavic is a Corded Ware language. Satemization is only an areal feature, propagating out from the Indo-Iranian speech community, in which it has its fullest realization. If you want to put Greek, Armenian, and Albanian in Catacomb Culture, feel free to do so, but Balto-Slavic is a Corded Ware language, while Indo-Iranian may have Catacomb influences.