Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Intresting recent Indo-European Phd thesis: supports Anatolian hypothesis and est. Proto-Indo-European to be 8,400 years old.

http://www.ceremade.dauphine.fr/~ryder/DPhil.pdf

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Genetics, like pottery and spoken dialects, are items "Ethnic community A" can look at and say "Hey, those things belong to my people, look, you can do a blood test on us and look at our genes, you can dig up our backyard and you can listen to our language". But you can equally have "Ethnic community B" which shares the same genes, the same pottery and speaks a language belonging to the same branch or family, that does not identify with "Ethnic community A", and "Ethnic community A" might also not be willing to consider it to be among its ranks. A good example of this, which I brought up before, are the Germans and Dutch living close to the border between their countries, who likely have a common heritage, but identify with their respective countries' and not with one another.

To claim certain prehistoric migratory patterns to be more closely associated with Armenians than with some other ethnic group, ignores the fact that the identity of being Armenian significantly post-dates the genetic makeup of the region. These genetic studies look at people, which through conventional language association (again, derived by political history) are known today as Armenians, but throughout human history, the holders of their very same genes beyond any doubt had a plethora of different ethnic associations, whether they existed concurrently or prior to the Armenian identity. This doesn't help to link the name of Armenians, or their identity as we know it, to those remote times when these early migrations occurred. Describing the genetic makeup of Armenians is fine, but trying to reconstruct the origin of the Armenian identity along the patterns of genetics, makes no sense to me.

You make some good points. However people and culture are hardly entirely disconnected and national identity tends to have ethnographic connotations.

Whilst the Armenian language is fairly close to Indo-Iranic in terms of it's phonetic and morphemic structure. Armenians for the most part are descended from Anatolian/Near Eastern peoples. The genetic evidence corroborates this fact and Armenians tend to cluster closely with Assyrians and Georgians.

The Near East's Indo-European component is mostly from the northern Black Sea region and in the case of the Indo-Iranics the Western steppes. As Indo-European looking elements, tracked the Neolithic expansion (back migration) of Semitic peoples into Africa via the levantine corridor. So it fairly save to assume, that they where in the region for a considerable length of time and in some numbers.

Nor is it a coincidence that certain Eurasian populations have retained more Indic/Vedic style myths and cultural associations, than others and whilst Haplogroup R predates Proto-Indo-European by thousands of years. Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1a-M17 is associated with the spread of the Indo-European languages, especially to the east. Which is likely why the Brahmins and Tajiks tend to be Haplogroup R1a.

This PDF ebook is fairly intresting and worth a look at.

Indo-European Poetry and Myth by M. L.

http://depositfiles.com/files/cd8904png

...Armenian too is a satem language, and not closely related to Phrygian, even
though both belong to the Graeco-Aryan group.

In historical times the Armenians were located far away to the east of the Phrygians,
and Herodotus (7. 73) was told that they were a Phrygian colony. Perhaps someone had
observed a similarity to the Phrygian in their language or culture. But if we set
aside this dubious western connection, their geographical situation is much
easier to understand on the hypothesis that they came there by way of the
Caucasus. They first appear in history in the seventh century; there is no
sign of them earlier, despite our having Urartian inscriptions from the area
from the immediately preceding centuries. Their arrival may be connected
with the burning of the main Urartian fortresses in around 640.25 This
was just at the time when the Cimmerians had come down from north of
the Caucasus and were causing havoc throughout Asia Minor. There seems
much to be said for the view that the Armenian influx was part of the same
movement.

If so, the Armenians had previously lived in the north-east
Pontic area, in the immediate neighbourhood of other satem-speakers such
as the Scythians (who drove out the Cimmerians according to Herodotus 1. 15).
The Iranian and Indic languages are closely related to each other, and must
be traced back to a common Indo-Iranian or Aryan. The period of Indo-
Iranian unity may be put in the late third to early second millennium, and its
territory located north and east of the Caspian Sea. From an archaeological
point of view it seems a good fit with the Andronovo culture which developed
in northern Kazakhstan between 2300 and 2100 and later spread southwards
and eastwards.

Indic was already differentiated from Iranian by the sixteenth century,
when a horde of Aryan warriors established themselves as rulers of the land of
Mitanni in north Syria. Their personal names, their gods, and other evidence
of their speech show that they were Indic-speakers. We may suppose that
Indic had been the dialect of the southern Aryans, and that they had made a
major southward movement down the east side of the Caspian.
....

[Mukuch]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

this is as primitive as azeri/turkoid can get: posting his parents photos all around net....
WHY THIS MONKEY IS STILL AROUND? NO ONE TO SHOOT IT? I LOVE MONKEY GRILL! ))

[BakuDude]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

new armenian style

http://www.blacknews.com/blackcelebr...n_sex_tape.jpg

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

How do you or we know this?

Fairly straightforward, but I'll give a lengthy answer explaining 2 reasons why languages can't have "age" so to speak: 1. If you think of the "German language" as distinct from all others, you will find a complication once you approach the German-Dutch border, because if you speak to the locals on either side, their dialects will be more similar to eachother than they are to the dialect spoken in their respective capital cities (also the source of their respective standard languages). But if you ask the Dutch living near the German border what language they're speaking, they'll tell you it's indeed Dutch. If you ask the Germans living near the Dutch border, they'll tell you it's German! Of course we know why their dialects sound similar, they live so close to eachother that prior to the drawing up of borders, the same language community occupied the area each group lives on, but what's changed are their respective ethnic identities, to the point where they call their language whatever their capital city makes them believe it is. How then, could "German" or "Dutch" as a language group have an age, if its dialects can only be associated with the labels of "German" or "Dutch" according to conventional identity created by living on one side of the border?

2. a) Old English, a Germanic language, is pretty different from Middle and New English, not only grammatically, but also in terms of vocabulary. Old English lacked all the loanwards that got into English by means of the Norman conquest and subsequent rule of England. Infact, if you try to read Old English and Middle English, you'll be able to understand the latter much better than the former, unless you have a good knowledge of a Germanic language which preserves cognates to Old English for much of the vocabulary that was lost (replaced by French/Latin) by the time of Middle English. So why do we consider English to include both old and new English as part of one and same language, if infact they are so different not only due to grammatical evolution, but if "French", a foreign language, has had such a drastic impact on its vocabulary that it's a big reason why modern English speakers can't even recognize half the words being said in Old English? Again, why do we call these the same language? Because we treat language in a conventional sense, along the lines of politics. We know that the land called England has been a name for a kingdom since the time of the Anglo-Saxons, and has continued without stop until today. It is on this basis that we attribute its standard language to the name of the kingdom, "England", not for any linguistic reason.

b) When you mentioned Jamaican English recently, well it's the same idea, the only reason we call it "English" is for historical reasons, namely English colonization of Jamaica and a politically motivated decision to make its standard language one comprehensible to the rest of the English Commonwealth, despite the fact that the Creole dialects in Jamaica are likely so divergent in grammar and even vocabulary (even if many of the words historically come from English, they could be pronounced so differently that as first glance, you might not even be able to recognize it as English) that if someone wasn't told to consider them to be speaking English, we'd readily say, "Hey, that's some funky language that mixes up some English into it!".

Both a) and b) are problematic to attributing an "age" for the English language, in both cases, we see an "English" so varied and mixed up, both in a) the motherland, and b) in its colonies that the only way you can attribute it an age is through political association of all its dialects, whether standard or vernacular, to the name of the country, England. This is exactly the the same problem with attributing Armenian, Greek and every language existing on the globe that shares a common identity with a political entity, be it a province or country, an age.

This is why Latvian is as old as Greek and Armenian, and in fact, any other human language. Because linguistically, its age stretches back to the time when they shared a common linguistic ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, which in turn can stretch all the way back in time to its own linguistic ancestor that it shares with other language families (this ancestor being known as Nostratic, whose study is quite unpopular in modern academia due to its speculation-ridden claims that escape verification too easily, and is thus largely ignored as a domain of research), with this process of stretching back to proto-language of a proto-language all the way to the first people who spoke human language. Every language, linguistically, is thus as old as one another. What is not as old, are the various political/ethnic identities that spoken dialects are attached to. It is precisely this latter sense of "language" which we attribute age to, in which case you can indeed say that Greek is older than Armenian, which in turn is older than Latvian.

But again, it comes back to my point about why you can't attribute a common ethnic or political identity to the proto-Indo-Europeans, to be more closely associated with a few of its daughters' identities moreso than with the rest. There is no "proto-Indo-European" community so to speak, to identify itself and say "Aha, this is my age, these are my attributes and f*** you to anyone who disagrees!" like Armenians, Greeks and Latvians might. Instead, with the absence of the proto-Indo-Europeans fighting about identity and keeping in check those who lay claim over its attributes for themselves, we have precisely the opposite situation, Armenians (as an example, since speakers from all the branches do this too, especially on sites that advocate Aryanism) laying claim over proto-Indo-European language and culture as their own!

Whilst I agree with you that language is very important. The problem is as you point out that people accultrate languages and cultures. Which limits approaches based on their study and far more in regards to ancient migration patterns can be discerned from the gentic evidence, than the distribution of languages.

Genetics, like pottery and spoken dialects, are items "Ethnic community A" can look at and say "Hey, those things belong to my people, look, you can do a blood test on us and look at our genes, you can dig up our backyard and you can listen to our language". But you can equally have "Ethnic community B" which shares the same genes, the same pottery and speaks a language belonging to the same branch or family, that does not identify with "Ethnic community A", and "Ethnic community A" might also not be willing to consider it to be among its ranks. A good example of this, which I brought up before, are the Germans and Dutch living close to the border between their countries, who likely have a common heritage, but identify with their respective countries' and not with one another.

To claim certain prehistoric migratory patterns to be more closely associated with Armenians than with some other ethnic group, ignores the fact that the identity of being Armenian significantly post-dates the genetic makeup of the region. These genetic studies look at people, which through conventional language association (again, derived by political history) are known today as Armenians, but throughout human history, the holders of their very same genes beyond any doubt had a plethora of different ethnic associations, whether they existed concurrently or prior to the Armenian identity. This doesn't help to link the name of Armenians, or their identity as we know it, to those remote times when these early migrations occurred. Describing the genetic makeup of Armenians is fine, but trying to reconstruct the origin of the Armenian identity along the patterns of genetics, makes no sense to me.

[retro]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

We have a limited number of attested branches of Indo-European, imagine how many other branches existed in human history, that we have no access to knowing about, ever, unless we are lucky enough to discover written archives that reveal their language to us. The biggest treasure of an archaeological discovery is precisely this... their language."

Whilst I agree with you that language is very important. The problem is as you point out that people accultrate languages and cultures. Which limits approaches based on their study and far more in regards to ancient migration patterns can be discerned from the gentic evidence, than the distribution of languages.

Whilst it is belived to of emerged in the Near East/Western Asia. mtDNA Haplogroup X2 (Armenians 4% - Georgia 8%) has a widespread distribution throughout West Eurasia at low levels.

mtDNA Haplogroup X2 is of intrest to Anthropologists as it is found amongst north eastern, Amerindian groups, such as the Ojibwa people. Intriguingly the Ojibwa also have 79% Haplogroup R1 and this isn't (as some suggest) the result of recent European admixture. Since Haplogroup R and Q are very distantly related, phylogeographicly Western/Central Asian markers and R1* like Q1a3a reached the Americas from Eurasia along with C3 (Mongols). As the global distribution of these haplogroup are associated with the re-settlement of Eurasia following the last glacial maximum.

mtDNA Haplogroup X: An Ancient Link between Europe/Western Asia and North America?

The results identified a consensus haplogroup X motif that characterizes our European and Native American samples. Among Native Americans, haplogroup X appears to be essentially restricted to northern Amerindian groups, including the Ojibwa, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth, the Sioux, and the Yakima, although we also observed this haplogroup in the Na-Dene–speaking Navajo. Median network analysis indicated that European and Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs, although distinct, nevertheless are distantly related to each other. Time estimates for the arrival of X in North America are 12,000–36,000 years ago, depending on the number of assumed founders, thus supporting the conclusion that the peoples harboring haplogroup X were among the original founders of Native American populations. To date, haplogroup X has not been unambiguously identified in Asia, raising the possibility that some Native American founders were of Caucasian ancestry.

http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297%2807%2961629-2

First, haplogroup X variation is completely captured by two ancient clades that display distinctive phylogeographic patterns—X1 is largely restricted to North and East Africa, whereas X2 is spread widely throughout West Eurasia. Second, it is apparent that the Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs derive from X2 by a unique combination of five mutations. Third, the few Altaian (Derenko et al. 2001) and Siberian haplogroup X lineages are not related to the Native American cluster, and they are more likely explained by recent gene flow from Europe or from West Asia. Fourth, the split between “African” X1 and “Eurasian” X2 subhaplogroups of X is phylogenetically as deep as that within the branches of haplogroup U that also differ profoundly in their phylogeography. Thus, subhaplogroup U6 is largely restricted to North Africa (as X1), whereas subhaplogroup U5 is widespread in West Eurasia (as X2). The phylogeographic patterns and the coalescence times that we obtained here suggest that the basic phylogenetic structures of the mtDNA haplogroups in West Eurasia and North Africa are as ancient as the beginning of the spread of anatomically modern humans in this region. Finally, phylogeography of the subclades of haplogroup X suggests that the Near East is the likely geographical source for the spread of subhaplogroup X2, and the associated population dispersal occurred around, or after, the LGM when the climate ameliorated. The presence of a daughter clade in northern Native Americans testifies to the range of this population expansion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180497/

[Armanen]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

"Within every branch of a language family, there are a multitude of cases just like Avestan which died out due to accidents of history. Some of these languages are lucky enough to have the ethnic identity of their speakers recorded in history, but nothing more. Others, like Avestan, are remembered in written history for just their language content, and not for the ethnic identity of its speakers. Still others, in fact the majority, are not remembered at all in written history, they simply don't make it to the books.

Even more thought provoking is that there are entire branches of language families which die out and leave no traces for us to read or speak. We have a limited number of attested branches of Indo-European, imagine how many other branches existed in human history, that we have no access to knowing about, ever, unless we are lucky enough to discover written archives that reveal their language to us. The biggest treasure of an archaeological discovery is precisely this... their language."

Yes, it is very thought provoking to think of the peoples who were either assimilated or wiped out and thus didn't leave us a trace. It is the same with animals, many of them we may never know even existed.

So now, if the symbols and motifs found in Metsamor are associated to Armenians (i.e. the culture associated to speakers of Armenian dialects/language), my question is: "Are they only associated to Armenians. Is it not possible that they were associated with speakers of a non-Armenian language, which could have been 1. part of the Indo-European branch known as "Armenian" but whose speakers did not share the same ethnic identity as Armenians, 2. part of another Indo-European branch, or 3. part of a non-Indo-European branch... What if these symbols and all were associated with a multitude of groups, which could potentially have been individually grouped in some or all of the above mentioned categories?

Right, a forerunner civilizations that influenced nearby groups who were not as sophisticated. This is certainly a very valid observation and one that I was going to point out in my previous post when I mentioned Metsamor, but decided that it was pretty self evident that there has to be many historical accounts to attest an item or object to be from a certain ethnic group or civilization.

What if Armenians claim the Metsamor culture as their own, only because the Armenian speaking community, has assimilated the attributes of this region which they've occupied for quite some time? Much like how Tibetan Buddhists have assimilated the symbol of the Swastika, and claim it is genuinely Tibetan, despite the consensus being that it originates from Hinduism from India? Are the Tibetans wrong for claiming/believing it's Tibetan? Are Armenians wrong for claiming, believing that Metsamor's symbols are Armenian? No. Each culture has made use of those motifs, and naturally attribute them to belong to their culture. Where they are hardpressed to find convincing arguments however, is when they claim it's "theirs, and theirs only", unless of course they've wiped out/assimilated every other culture which could argue with them, as might be the case with Armenians lacking a serious rival who claims Metsamor and its symbols to instead belong to their culture (though maybe I'm wrong, do Georgians bother to fight over this?)

I have not come across georgian claims of Metsamor but they can be quite jingoistic so it would not shock me to learn that they try to claim Metsamor as theirs. However, it would be easy to call them out on it should they attempt to do so.

Their language is as old as Armenian and Greek languages.

How do you or we know this?

[jgk3]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

I don't think I am understanding you correctly. If we find an artifact in Armenia, and we date it to 3000BC, and it has some symbols on there which are associated with Armenians or Proto-Armenians, where does the language factor come in? Also, one could say that these symbols were used by a people/culture that existed prior to Armenians/Pro-Armenians. Currently this is the case with Metsamor culture.

While I was editing my last post, I noticed you beat me to it and responded. I'll post my intended addition here, to hopefully explain something about language families and how they operate independently of our conventional ideas about the age of a known ethnic group:

"Within every branch of a language family, there are a multitude of cases just like Avestan which died out due to accidents of history. Some of these languages are lucky enough to have the ethnic identity of their speakers recorded in history, but nothing more. Others, like Avestan, are remembered in written history for just their language content, and not for the ethnic identity of its speakers. Still others, in fact the majority, are not remembered at all in written history, they simply don't make it to the books.

Even more thought provoking is that there are entire branches of language families which die out and leave no traces for us to read or speak. We have a limited number of attested branches of Indo-European, imagine how many other branches existed in human history, that we have no access to knowing about, ever, unless we are lucky enough to discover written archives that reveal their language to us. The biggest treasure of an archaeological discovery is precisely this... their language."

So now, if the symbols and motifs found in Metsamor are associated to Armenians (i.e. the culture associated to speakers of Armenian dialects/language), my question is: "Are they only associated to Armenians. Is it not possible that they were associated with speakers of a non-Armenian language, which could have been 1. part of the Indo-European branch known as "Armenian" but whose speakers did not share the same ethnic identity as Armenians, 2. part of another Indo-European branch, or 3. part of a non-Indo-European branch... What if these symbols and all were associated with a multitude of groups, which could potentially have been individually grouped in some or all of the above mentioned categories?

What if Armenians claim the Metsamor culture as their own, only because the Armenian speaking community, has assimilated the attributes of this region which they've occupied for quite some time? Much like how Tibetan Buddhists have assimilated the symbol of the Swastika, and claim it is genuinely Tibetan, despite the consensus being that it originates from Hinduism from India? Are the Tibetans wrong for claiming/believing it's Tibetan? Are Armenians wrong for claiming, believing that Metsamor's symbols are Armenian? No. Each culture has made use of those motifs, and naturally attribute them to belong to their culture. Where they are hardpressed to find convincing arguments however, is when they claim it's "theirs, and theirs only", unless of course they've wiped out/assimilated every other culture which could argue with them, as might be the case with Armenians lacking a serious rival who claims Metsamor and its symbols to instead belong to their culture (though maybe I'm wrong, do Georgians bother to fight over this?)

Thanks for the links, I will read them.

No problem, enjoy!

So are you suggesting that the Latvians for example are as old as Armenians or Greeks?

Their language is as old as Armenian and Greek languages.

[Armanen]

Re: Origin of Indo-European element in Armenian

Again, only if you can positively link the people to the language, in this case, the entire language family's ancestor. Can't say I didn't warn ya!

I don't think I am understanding you correctly. If we find an artifact in Armenia, and we date it to 3000BC, and it has some symbols on there which are associated with Armenians or Proto-Armenians, where does the language factor come in? Also, one could say that these symbols were used by a people/culture that existed prior to Armenians/Pro-Armenians. Currently this is the case with Metsamor culture.


Thanks for the links, I will read them.

So are you suggesting that the Latvians for example are as old as Armenians or Greeks?

[jgk3]

I'm glad you are going to dig into this and try to come out with some conclusions. Like I said, my main issue was that you were making sound as if the Armenian claims, which I believe are legit, are not legit and that western academia is somehow superior and has all the answers. I know you did not come out and state this word for word, but that is the impression that I was getting from you. However, you doing the work yourself is 100 times better than reading a book by this or that author and assuming that they hold the truth, so kudos on that!

Thanks

I'm sure it can. However, this family as I said, is involved in anti-Armenian activities, similar in fashion to ArmeniaNow, and that is what makes it seem likely to me and others that richard would include bs along with legit history. I can post some of the political articles that have been written by raffi or his son recently. I can ask my friend who helped make the video about the historical inaccuracies which are said to be more than just what was included in that short video. But by all means if you have the time to read his books go right ahead, I never meant to imply that one shouldn't read his books. Just that the man, his son, and grandson have an anti-Armenian agenda.

Alright.

Are you trying to learn grabar in order to speak it or are you just looking at it from a purely lingustic aspect?

I want to learn the grabar specifically from the 5th-7th centuries, because afterwards it was a dead language, losing touch with vernacular Armenian as the centuries progressed. In this way, Medieval grabar was like Medieval Latin, it evolved since the authors could not help but produce grammatical mistakes in their attempts to mimic the classical form that was no longer available to them as a natural, spoken language. Being able to speak Grabar thus has little meaning to me, as it is not even a language of correspondence or modern literature anymore. I'm looking at it for 1. to be able to compare it with other Indo-European (and in some cases, non-Indo-European) languages. 2. To hopefully get the hang of determining the date and location/school an Armenian manuscript might've come from (one of my main interests is to determine this for the Sourp Badarak, which according to official accounts by our church dates to the 5th century... I want to verify this for myself, but first I have to familiarize myself with the different stages of evolution in Armenian literature of different genres and styles.). 3. For my own benefit, to be able to read/listen (to)/sing it and actually understand what's being said, i.e. in church. I find it fun to talk about and explain to other people who know all the words in the songs, and stuff the priest and his deacons say, but don't know exactly how to translate due to the funny grammatical patterns and odd word forms. Plus, modern Armenian has often reanalyzed the meanings of certain words and forms from Classical Armenian.

But if we were to find the PIE homeland, would this not help to show a closer connection to one or more ethnic groups? Some of the ethnic groups that spoke an IE language, such as the Iranics, Armenians, and Greeks have been a cohesive ethnic group much longer than others, such as Balts.

Indo-Iranians are quite a diverse group, not all of whom survive today. Avestan (the oldest strata of liturgical language in Zoroastrianism, used in the Gathas) for instance, though spoken by a community once, was extinct centuries before it was written down by the Sassanians. Thus, there is no ethnic group, on the basis of natural speakers of its language, for Avestan to associate itself with in recorded history.

It is an accident of history that the Baltic group experienced the literarization of their languages at such a late date. We take for granted that this literarization by the way was extraordinarily instrumental in consolidating the cohesive ethnic identity we recognize when we think of Armenians. Yes Armenia existed before the 5th century when we started writing in our own language, but do you have any idea how much gravitational pull the Armenian identity had once it spewed out its language from every church? It was able to assimilate non-Armenians in just a generation, just take a kid, no matter their ethnic background, and raise them in an Armenian church. They will be Armenian. It is on this basis that some ethnic identities flourished, and most diminished to oblivion (the number in the latter category likely outweighs the former, 1000-fold). I'm sure that the comparatively late date of the conversion to Christianity among Baltic peoples has more to do with their ability to consolidate their ethnic identity, than does its geographic location vis-a-vis the PIE homeland, no matter where one might posit it to be.

Where is a good place to start reading up on the myths that you mention? Perhaps the Central Asian turkics have these myths thru their interactions with the IE Tocharians, Indo-Aryans, and even the Scythians. Or it could be similar to the fact that many of the major peoples/civilizations of the world share story about a Great Flood.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-I...opean_religion
2. "How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics" by Calvert Watkins:
description of the book: http://www.fravahr.org/spip.php?article271
link to preview on google books, check out p. 433 for example, a neat showcase of Mithra in an Avestan hymn.

The pots and pans though do tell us more about the culture of the people. This is where I believe it is more useful than historical lingustics.

Again, only if you can positively link the people to the language, in this case, the entire language family's ancestor. Can't say I didn't warn ya!