4 ms·

This study is about prehistoric Steppe peoples, there are no Indo-European inscriptions from this time period nor would there be any until several millennia aft

by DC-3 2y ago

This study is about prehistoric Steppe peoples, there are no Indo-European inscriptions from this time period nor would there be any until several millennia after this time.

teleforce 2y ago
> there are no Indo-European inscriptions from this time period nor would there be any until several millennia after this time That's a very negative presumptions. How about the oldest attestation of Indo-European language or the long extinct language Hittite who once lived in Bronze age Anatolian Steppe? The language is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th to the 13th centuries BCE. Hittite people created an empire centred on Hattusa, and also around northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia [1]. [1] Hittite language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language
- fvvybfbfbyg 2y ago
  So? What about the Hittites? There is a slight gap between 1700 BC and 4500 BC.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    Prior to the discovery of the Hittite language, linguists had compared the various Indo-European languages they knew of and did much of the work of reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European language based on comparative linguistics. This work was highly conjectural, but it provided something akin to a falsifiable theory that could be tested by the discovery of another written Indo-European language. Such a language was Hittite, and the Hittite language fits the model of Indo-European languages that had been constructed prior to its discovery.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- canjobear 2y ago
  The Proto-Indo-European language is usually dated to something like 6000 years ago, well before any writing.
- kragen 2y ago
  That is about 2500 years after the period we're discussing, and in a region conventionally considered to be on a different continent. It isn't a mere presumption that the Kurgan culture didn't have writing; archaeologists have been looking for it diligently for more than a century and have found extensive collections of well-preserved grave goods, but no writing. Writing was invented about 1000 years later in Sumeria, probably in Egypt, and possibly in South America, but not in the Lower Volga homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. (The North American and Chinese inventions of writing seem to have been independent, but were another 2000 years later still.) The Hittites adopted the Sumerian form of writing; they did not bring a writing system with them from the Volga. Neither did other Indo-European groups have writing, which is why Hittite is, as you say, the oldest attested Indo-European language.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    The Hittite documents, besides recording several Indo-European languages from the same (Anatolian) branch of the Indo-European language family, also record some fragments from an Indic language, making that the older attestation from another Indo-European branch than that of the Hittites. (The next attested Indo-European branch is Mycenaean Greek). That Indic language was the language of some group of people who at some point in time, perhaps after a war victory, had become the main members of the elites who ruled Mitanni, a Southern neighbor of the Hittites, located mostly in present Syria, where most inhabitants were speaking Hurrian, a non-Indo-European language. Those Indic-speaking people were renowned as expert horse trainers, so the quotes from their language were encountered in Hittite documents about horse training. Most known data is consistent with an older migration towards South Asia of the people speaking Indic languages, who had gone both towards East, reaching India, and towards West, reaching as far as Syria, where they entered in contact with the Hittites and other related populations, who had migrated towards South at an even earlier date and through a different path, reaching present Turkey. The Indic migration has been followed much later by a migration on the same path of people speaking the closely related Iranian languages, who have reached the present territories of Iran, Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, forming the ancient Persian empires, after various conquests. The people whom we now name Hittites used another name for themselves, and they called Hittites a non-Indo-European population, who were the former inhabitants of the territory ruled by what we call Hittites.

by DC-3 2y ago

This study is about prehistoric Steppe peoples, there are no Indo-European inscriptions from this time period nor would there be any until several millennia after this time.

teleforce 2y ago

> there are no Indo-European inscriptions from this time period nor would there be any until several millennia after this time That's a very negative presumptions. How about the oldest attestation of Indo-European language or the long extinct language Hittite who once lived in Bronze age Anatolian Steppe? The language is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th to the 13th centuries BCE. Hittite people created an empire centred on Hattusa, and also around northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia [1]. [1] Hittite language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language

fvvybfbfbyg 2y ago
So? What about the Hittites? There is a slight gap between 1700 BC and 4500 BC.
- philwelch 2y ago
  Prior to the discovery of the Hittite language, linguists had compared the various Indo-European languages they knew of and did much of the work of reconstructing the Proto-Indo-European language based on comparative linguistics. This work was highly conjectural, but it provided something akin to a falsifiable theory that could be tested by the discovery of another written Indo-European language. Such a language was Hittite, and the Hittite language fits the model of Indo-European languages that had been constructed prior to its discovery.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
canjobear 2y ago
The Proto-Indo-European language is usually dated to something like 6000 years ago, well before any writing.
kragen 2y ago
That is about 2500 years after the period we're discussing, and in a region conventionally considered to be on a different continent. It isn't a mere presumption that the Kurgan culture didn't have writing; archaeologists have been looking for it diligently for more than a century and have found extensive collections of well-preserved grave goods, but no writing. Writing was invented about 1000 years later in Sumeria, probably in Egypt, and possibly in South America, but not in the Lower Volga homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. (The North American and Chinese inventions of writing seem to have been independent, but were another 2000 years later still.) The Hittites adopted the Sumerian form of writing; they did not bring a writing system with them from the Volga. Neither did other Indo-European groups have writing, which is why Hittite is, as you say, the oldest attested Indo-European language.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  The Hittite documents, besides recording several Indo-European languages from the same (Anatolian) branch of the Indo-European language family, also record some fragments from an Indic language, making that the older attestation from another Indo-European branch than that of the Hittites. (The next attested Indo-European branch is Mycenaean Greek). That Indic language was the language of some group of people who at some point in time, perhaps after a war victory, had become the main members of the elites who ruled Mitanni, a Southern neighbor of the Hittites, located mostly in present Syria, where most inhabitants were speaking Hurrian, a non-Indo-European language. Those Indic-speaking people were renowned as expert horse trainers, so the quotes from their language were encountered in Hittite documents about horse training. Most known data is consistent with an older migration towards South Asia of the people speaking Indic languages, who had gone both towards East, reaching India, and towards West, reaching as far as Syria, where they entered in contact with the Hittites and other related populations, who had migrated towards South at an even earlier date and through a different path, reaching present Turkey. The Indic migration has been followed much later by a migration on the same path of people speaking the closely related Iranian languages, who have reached the present territories of Iran, Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, forming the ancient Persian empires, after various conquests. The people whom we now name Hittites used another name for themselves, and they called Hittites a non-Indo-European population, who were the former inhabitants of the territory ruled by what we call Hittites.