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> India is much more difficult to get to from Ukraine than Xinjiang is, but they have a very strong Indo-European presence Could you elaborate? I was intriguge

> India is much more difficult to get to from Ukraine than Xinjiang is, but they have a very strong Indo-European presence Could you elaborate? I was intriguged so I measured on google maps. Ukraine to Xinjiang is around 2500 miles. Ukraine to India is around 2400 miles. "strong Indo-European presence"? I would imagine it is easier to go south along the coasts to India than it is to cross the deserts to Xinjiang.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> "strong Indo-European presence"? Hindi is an Indo-European language. As I mentioned above, that is the reason for the term "Indo-European" in the first place. India is not entirely Indo-European speaking; about 20% of the population speaks a Dravidian language instead. But I feel comfortable describing almost 80% of the population as being "a very strong Indo-European presence". > > India is much more difficult to get to from Ukraine than Xinjiang is, but they have a very strong Indo-European presence > Could you elaborate? I was intrigued so I measured on google maps. Straight-line distance is not informative as to how easy it is for a human to make the journey. Proto-Indo-Europeans used a cultural toolkit involving horse-drawn chariots. They started out in the steppes north of the Black Sea, which I've referred to above as "Ukraine". But look at this map of the steppe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe You can get to Xinjiang from Ukraine by riding a horse east through the steppe. (Admittedly, and then detouring a bit south into a desert. And riding the horse may be anachronistic.) You're spending almost the entire trip in the same climate and terrain you're already familiar with. But going to India involves leaving the steppe to cross some rather different terrain, after which you end up in the tropics. In fact we know the Aryans did get bogged down on the way to India; we have records of Indo-Aryan speakers ruling a kingdom in the north of Mesopotamia at a time when they hadn't yet reached India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni . These people did not blaze a path of conquest all the way to India; the territory around them was held by Semitic speakers and has been continuously from then to now. Wikipedia has a decent gif of the spread of Indo-Europeans over time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_migrations.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_migrations.... Note how they start in Ukraine and it's easier for them to move a couple thousand miles east along the steppe (Afanasievo) than it is to move 50 miles north (Corded Ware).

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> "strong Indo-European presence"? Hindi is an Indo-European language. As I mentioned above, that is the reason for the term "Indo-European" in the first place. India is not entirely Indo-European speaking; about 20% of the population speaks a Dravidian language instead. But I feel comfortable describing almost 80% of the population as being "a very strong Indo-European presence". > > India is much more difficult to get to from Ukraine than Xinjiang is, but they have a very strong Indo-European presence > Could you elaborate? I was intrigued so I measured on google maps. Straight-line distance is not informative as to how easy it is for a human to make the journey. Proto-Indo-Europeans used a cultural toolkit involving horse-drawn chariots. They started out in the steppes north of the Black Sea, which I've referred to above as "Ukraine". But look at this map of the steppe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe You can get to Xinjiang from Ukraine by riding a horse east through the steppe. (Admittedly, and then detouring a bit south into a desert. And riding the horse may be anachronistic.) You're spending almost the entire trip in the same climate and terrain you're already familiar with. But going to India involves leaving the steppe to cross some rather different terrain, after which you end up in the tropics. In fact we know the Aryans did get bogged down on the way to India; we have records of Indo-Aryan speakers ruling a kingdom in the north of Mesopotamia at a time when they hadn't yet reached India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni . These people did not blaze a path of conquest all the way to India; the territory around them was held by Semitic speakers and has been continuously from then to now. Wikipedia has a decent gif of the spread of Indo-Europeans over time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_migrations.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_migrations.... Note how they start in Ukraine and it's easier for them to move a couple thousand miles east along the steppe (Afanasievo) than it is to move 50 miles north (Corded Ware).