New theory about Indo-European language origin
by Andrew Sibley | This article is from
Creation 46(3):45, July 2024
https://creation.com/indo-euro-language-theory
First, he doesn't know linguistics.
No PIE writings are known; rather, PIE has been reconstructed from comparing its known descendants, especially old languages like Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. PIE must have had a very complex grammar.
Latin, Sanskrit and Ancient Greek don't have a "very complex grammar." They have a rich verb morphology, which alleviates the need for complexities in syntax. In Latin (which I know better than Greek), the sentence "si me vocavisses, venissem" means "if you had called me, I would have come" ... so, "venissem" corresponds to "I would have come" (in this context). One could say that "I would have come" is just morphology, like "venissem" but let's negate: "etsi me vocavisses, non venissem" = "even if you had called me, I wouldn't have come" ... is adding the negation after would, as a clitic, still morphology or is it syntax? I think most would say it is syntax. The negation is in English added after the verb form that is both "finite" (that is, in relation to Latin terminology not quite applicable to English, defined as to which of the three persons) and an "auxiliary" (a verb that modally or temporally defines the main verb, which is then a non-finite, often the infinitive). We can take the past as statements. "Cum me vocaveris, veni" = "when you called me, I came" and now take the negated form "cum me vocaveris, non veni" ... how do you say this in English? If the negation is added after any finite verb, as in other Germanic languages, it's "when you called me, I came not" ... this is understandable, but it's Biblical or Shakespearean, in current English, only auxiliaries can take the question inversion or the negation, so, "when you called me, I didn't come" ...
When you speak English, all of this is obvious, and you don't think of it as complex syntax, but it really is. In Swedish or German, the last sentence would have a finite main verb, but also use the V-2 rule, and consider the subsidiary temporal clause as "word/phrase" 1 in the main clause, another complexity of syntax: "när du kallade mig, kom jag intet" or "als du mich ruftest, kam ich nicht" ... the apparent inversion between subject and predicate, reminiscent of the question inversion is actually explained by positions within the main clause: 1) när du kallade mig 2) kom 3) jag 4) intet / 1) als du mich ruftest 2) kam 3) ich 4) nicht. Non-English Germanic languages, and I think Anglo-Saxon too, have this rule, called the V-2 rule. Note also, here the negation doesn't immediately follow the verb, but the subject (even if it is a noun) is interposed between finite verb and the negation. If the finite verb is an auxiliary in German, the main but non-finite verb comes very last: 1) als du mich ruftest 2) bin 3) ich 4) nicht 5) gekommen.
I think you will agree, Germanic languages overall, even English, have a quirky and "over regulated" syntax in compensation for simplicity of morphology. But there is more. Since Bopp, some have taken Hittite into account when reconstructing Proto-Indo-European.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_grammar#Verb_conjugation
When compared with other early-attested Indo-European languages, such as Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, the verb system is Hittite is morphologically relatively uncomplicated. There are two general verbal classes according to which verbs are inflected, the mi-conjugation and the ḫi-conjugation. The names are drawn by the ending of the first person singular in the present tense.
And Hittite is not only much older, but also less related to Greek and Latin than they are to each other (not sure if this would be the case with Celtic as well, Old Irish has similar verb prefixes to Hittite), so it is presumed to to have split off earlier than the rest from each other. This would suggest to people buying into this theory, that Hittite reflects an older version of the Indo-European verb system (Greek and Latin declinsions in -o are considered by linguist to correspond to Hittite declinsion in -ḫi, and obviously the Hittite declinsion in -mi corresponds to the Greek declinsion in -mi and in Latin mainly the verb sum). And this would suggest that the oldest Proto-Indo-European had a much simpler verb system than Latin, Greek, and especially Sanskrit. In other words, verb systems have become more complex (has also happened in English, which has 16 tenses, compared with 8 for the other Germanic languages). Don't worry. Doesn't mean development or evolution adds information, it is clearly a case of intelligent design ... yes, from time to time people intelligently re-design their own language.
"I like beer." — "Me too." — "Me three"
Reinterpreting "me too" as "me two" = "myself the second in the category you introduced" which allows for "me three" is obviously an intelligent redesign of English syntax. It's not a mutation.
But, the title of this essay asked about geography, how good Sibley is at that.
The new proposed location is about 1,000 km (600 miles) from Mesopotamia, some 500 km (300 miles) closer than Anatolia (2), previously the closest suggested origin location of PIE.
Anatolia and Mesopotamia overlap. Anatolia basically means "rising sun" so "east" and in context "east of Asia Minor within the modern state of Turkey as well as its predecessor Ottoman and possibly Byzantine Empires" or perhaps rather "Eastern parts of Asia Minor, with coast line to the Black Sea, but none to the Mediterranean" ... and this divides into, West to East, and starting in the Southern part for now: 1) Cilicia inside the coastal region, 2) Mesopotamia, 3) Armenia. If you follow the Black Sea coast, indeed there is no Mesopotamia up there, since Mesopotamia means "between Tigris and Euphrates", since these two rivers flow South and since NO rivers start from the Sea and flow inland. So, the parts of Turkey with Mesopotamia go, from North to South: 1) Black Sea, 2) Taurus Mountains, 3) Mesopotamia, which latter continues into Syria and Iraq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_Mountains#Southeastern_Taurus
The Southeastern Taurus Mountains form the northern boundary of the Southeastern Anatolia Region and North Mesopotamia. They include the Nurhak Mountains, Malatya Mountains, Maden Mountains, Genç Mountains, and Bitlis Mountains. They are in the watershed of the Euphrates River and Tigris River.
Meaning, South-East Anatolia, and North Mesopotamia, overlap. Now, if Nimrod's Babel was in this region, as I believe and as some already reputed Creationists have supported, though not specifically my take of Göbekli Tepe, which is in this region, this would make Anatolia a pretty ideal origin for Indo-European, whether it was a family or a Sprachbund. Let's pursue this too, for good measure:
PIE was one of several (perhaps several dozen) ‘stem’ languages created at that time.
I would certainly agree stem languages were created at the time. But more like exactly 72. Exactly matching names in the Table of Nations. And I would argue, several of them came to influence each other, in a Sprachbund, in Anatolia West of Babel. Hittite and Celtic would originate in the territory of Gomer, then part of Gomer (Celtic) would go West and get modified by other languages. West of (original place of) Gomer, you had Javan in Greece, and between Javan and Gomer you had the Semitic Lud in Western Asia Minor.
The genetic origins from Yamnaya or Caucasus became relevant for the peopling of Europe, but linguistically they were outside the original Indo-European Sprachbund — just as languages influencing West-Gomeric to become Celtic were. If you agree all of Iberia spoke languages related to Basque in pre-Celtic and pre-Roman periods of Spain, the Basque-Iberic language coincides with the input from Bell Beaker genetics, apart from in Basque country itself where it mixed with Western Hunter Gatherers. In a ratio as dominant for Bell Beaker genetics as Yamnaya is for Bell Beaker. These guys certainly contributed something to Indo-European languages, but not all of it, and they contributed more to Basque, which explains Basque and Caucasus cognates (or related words). I'll let you read this one:
The Anthropological Context of Euskaro-Caucasian
Bengtson, J. D. | Santa Fe Institute, 2017
https://santafe.edu/research/results/papers/6557-the-anthropological-context-of-euskaro-caucas
The article was written before the more recent research linking Yamnaya to Basque-Iberian.
Origins and spread of Indo-European languages: an alternative view
8th December 2024 | by Alberto
https://adnaera.com/2024/12/08/origins-and-spread-of-indo-european-languages-an-alternative-view/
By the time they reached Central Europe around 2800 BC*, the CWH** people had around 30% admixture from the Neolithic farmers. Quite a significant amount, but not surprising given how fast a small population can change genetically when they start incorporating “foreign” genes into their pool.
And
On their way to the Iberian peninsula and in the peninsula itself, however, they did find some surviving Neolithic communities as again we see further admixture coming from the “foreign” females they were incorporating into their own communities. By the time they had settled the Iberian peninsula, this admixture had increased to around 70%. .... What all the process described in the above paragraphs basically means is that Northern and Western Europe were completely (re)populated by people who came from the steppe. By communities, clans, of people that came from the steppe. This was not a 50% replacement of the previous Neolithic population. It was a 100% replacement.
This means, it was the whole Iberian Peninsula, peopled mainly by Steppe communities, that spoke Ibero-Basque, so, the Steppe communities spoke Ibero-Basque too.
The same learned team, for which Alberto González is a spokesman along with a Robert, argues that the actual Indo-European languages spread later over this repeopled Europe, but also the South East which was outside the current and kept more Early European Farmers, from the Balkans or the South-East.
Which fits neatly with my view on a Sprachbund between Anatolia and Greece being the starting point.
By carbon dated 1400 to 1200 BC*** we have a Mycenaean Greek influx into the Terramare Culture of North Italy, and it's trading all the way up to the Baltic, making for conditions for other combinations of languages influencing each other, in which Mycenaean Greek would already start out as Indo-European and other languages become so by adopting Indo-European traits.
In other words, a PIE unity is not absolutely vital to explaining the IE unifiers, both vocabulary and grammar.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Maurilius of Angers
13.IX.2025
Andegavi, in Gallia, sancti Maurilii Episcopi, qui innumeris miraculis claruit.
PS, if some say that Basques as to Basques, not the rest of Iberian Peninsula, have unique DNA, yes, but, the thing is if Basque is identic to Iberian back in the day, Iberian outside the Basque country presumably didn't get their Basque like language from the small Basque minority./HGL
* Carbon dated 2800 BC = c. 1700 BC, death of Joseph's pharao who would be Djoser, in my tables, see Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt Carbon dated 2500 BC, also mentioned in the text, sounds like 300 years later, but is between 1678 and 1656 BC according to Newer Tables, Joseph in Egypt to Fall of Troy
** Chorded Ware Horizon
*** 1395 to 1210 would really be 1349 to 1203 BC, according to Newer Tables, Joseph in Egypt to Fall of Troy
