4 ms·

Only 6500 years? That's incredibly recent for such an influential language. For comparison, Sargon of Akkad died only 4000 years ago, and there are written reco

by dsign 2y ago

Only 6500 years? That's incredibly recent for such an influential language. For comparison, Sargon of Akkad died only 4000 years ago, and there are written records from him. True, he didn't speak Indo-European, but Afroasiatic/Akkadian, and that was the language on those cuneiform tablets the researchers used for reference. On a tangent, with the advent of AI and the final decades of our species, we should make more clay tablets to leave lying around...

teleforce 2y ago
The oldest attestation of Indo-European language is now the long extinct language Hittite who used to live 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. > On a tangent, with the advent of AI and the final decades of our species, we should make more clay tablets to leave lying around The irony is that even with AI we have yet to decode Indus script perhaps due to the lack of the equivalent of Rosetta Stone [1]. I think there's a Nobel prize waiting for those who can decipher the Indus script with AI or not [2]. [1] Rosetta Stone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone [2] Indus script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script
- empath75 2y ago
  I believe the article is saying that the Hittite branch split off early from the rest of the tree, and the Yamnaya are the ones that spread it around the world -- the Hittite branch ended up being a dead end.
  - Tor3 2y ago
    The main point of the article was that the Hittite spoke an IE language (evidence from their cuneiform writing), but their DNA doesn't have any Yamnaya ancestry. So, two conflicting points. What the article describes is that they have found an ancient population which they call "the Caucasus Lower Volga people", and their DNA is present in the Yamnaya AND the Hittites, as I understand it. So the hypothesis is that these people spoke an early proto-IE language, and some of them migrated to where the Hittites originated, and others moved west and intermixed with a small region in what is today the southern part of Ukraine, and in a few villages of a few thousand people a whole new economy was developed and this is what eventually spread out as the "steppe migration", bringing proto-IE with them. So, the base of the article is that they found a population which appears to be ancestral to both the Yamnaya and the Hittites, and that the latter split off before that population became the Yamnaya by migrating elsewhere and merge with people there. What's missing is definite proof that the "Caucasus Lower Volga" people actually spoke proto-proto-IE, but if they didn't then things look even more complex. If they did it would match the current linguistic and DNA evidence pretty well.
- FlyingSnake 2y ago
  Regarding Indus script: I’ve recently come across this purported attempt by someone who claims they’ve deciphered Indus script. I’m. It not sold on it but it is making some waves in Indian circles. https://indusscript.net/ https://indusscript.net/
  - iamshs 2y ago
    That's a Hindu Nationalist website and a claim. They forcefully fit Indus Script into Sanskrit, to try to outflank the Aryan Invasion Theory. It is not making anywhere but only in Brahmin circles.
    - FlyingSnake 2y ago
      Like I said, I am not sold on the idea because it seems like curve fitting to me. However in the spirit of scientific inquiry, we should allow them to share their ideas. Purely based on the content of the website, I fail to see anywhere on the website allusions to Hindu Nationalism. The website contains a paper from acadamia.edu showing their analysis. Lastly the claim about "Brahmin circles" also seems malicious because it is being discussed on mainstream media like CNN-News18 or IIT Hyderabad. https://www.academia.edu/78867798/A_cryptanalytic_decipherment_of_the_Indus_Script https://www.academia.edu/78867798/A_cryptanalytic_decipherme... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa2ol6w7lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa2ol6w7lg
      - Justta 2y ago
        What else it is other than Hindu Nationalistic when It says Indus script is Sanskrit?
        FlyingSnake 2y ago
        This blind hate against Sanskrit is really sad. Sanskrit is a language that goes beyond Hinduism. Almost all important Buddhist Sutras and influential works like Mulamadhyamakkarika or Jaina works like Tattvartha Sutra are in Sanskrit. Lastly Sanskrit is also the language of many secular works like Siddhanta Shiromani, Sushruta Samhita, Kama Sutra or Abhigyanashakuntalam.
- canjobear 2y ago
  The problem with Indus script is that the inscriptions are all very short. This gives you very little information to go on.
fvvybfbfbyg 2y ago
English is what? ~600-800 years old? Most other major Western European languages only developed over the past ~2000 years or so. It’s not like Porto Indo-European developed out of nothing. It was related to other languages that just didn’t survive and happens to be the most recent (hypothesized) common ancestor of all other Indo-European languages)
psunavy03 2y ago
> final decades of our species Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting.
- hollerith 2y ago
  >Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting [emphasis mine]. Speaking of bubbles, how sure are you that Silicon Valley and HN are not part of a bubble composed of people with an emotional attachment to technological progress and people with a financial stake in AI? How sure are you that the AI labs aren't being even more irresponsible than the news media?
- dang 2y ago
  "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I agree it's a provocation and, worse, a generic tangent, but the rest of the comment was pretty good.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    I know you have no time, and I don't need a response. I have no skin in this exchange either, fwiw. But I just want to try to unpack here how this could be either a provocation or a noteworthy tangent. Is it that being pessimistic about the future is flamebait? Is it perhaps sneering? Is there anything to be said about the rest of the sentence in question and how its clearly just being a little cheeky? Or is that perhaps whats wrong with it? Just feels perhaps a little out of place this time that the gp would be in the wrong at all here. But I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.
    - dang 2y ago
      Generic references to "the advent of AI" are already flamebait (ok, proto-flamebait) because the topic is so hot, discussed, and divisive. But casually dropping "and the final decades of our species" as an assumed fact, sort of like the decline of CDs or something, is definitely a provocation. It's unsurprising that someone got activated and then we were off down a generic flamewar tangent.

by dsign 2y ago

teleforce 2y ago

The oldest attestation of Indo-European language is now the long extinct language Hittite who used to live 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. > On a tangent, with the advent of AI and the final decades of our species, we should make more clay tablets to leave lying around The irony is that even with AI we have yet to decode Indus script perhaps due to the lack of the equivalent of Rosetta Stone [1]. I think there's a Nobel prize waiting for those who can decipher the Indus script with AI or not [2]. [1] Rosetta Stone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone [2] Indus script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script

empath75 2y ago
I believe the article is saying that the Hittite branch split off early from the rest of the tree, and the Yamnaya are the ones that spread it around the world -- the Hittite branch ended up being a dead end.
- Tor3 2y ago
  The main point of the article was that the Hittite spoke an IE language (evidence from their cuneiform writing), but their DNA doesn't have any Yamnaya ancestry. So, two conflicting points. What the article describes is that they have found an ancient population which they call "the Caucasus Lower Volga people", and their DNA is present in the Yamnaya AND the Hittites, as I understand it. So the hypothesis is that these people spoke an early proto-IE language, and some of them migrated to where the Hittites originated, and others moved west and intermixed with a small region in what is today the southern part of Ukraine, and in a few villages of a few thousand people a whole new economy was developed and this is what eventually spread out as the "steppe migration", bringing proto-IE with them. So, the base of the article is that they found a population which appears to be ancestral to both the Yamnaya and the Hittites, and that the latter split off before that population became the Yamnaya by migrating elsewhere and merge with people there. What's missing is definite proof that the "Caucasus Lower Volga" people actually spoke proto-proto-IE, but if they didn't then things look even more complex. If they did it would match the current linguistic and DNA evidence pretty well.
FlyingSnake 2y ago
Regarding Indus script: I’ve recently come across this purported attempt by someone who claims they’ve deciphered Indus script. I’m. It not sold on it but it is making some waves in Indian circles. https://indusscript.net/ https://indusscript.net/
- iamshs 2y ago
  That's a Hindu Nationalist website and a claim. They forcefully fit Indus Script into Sanskrit, to try to outflank the Aryan Invasion Theory. It is not making anywhere but only in Brahmin circles.
  - FlyingSnake 2y ago
    Like I said, I am not sold on the idea because it seems like curve fitting to me. However in the spirit of scientific inquiry, we should allow them to share their ideas. Purely based on the content of the website, I fail to see anywhere on the website allusions to Hindu Nationalism. The website contains a paper from acadamia.edu showing their analysis. Lastly the claim about "Brahmin circles" also seems malicious because it is being discussed on mainstream media like CNN-News18 or IIT Hyderabad. https://www.academia.edu/78867798/A_cryptanalytic_decipherment_of_the_Indus_Script https://www.academia.edu/78867798/A_cryptanalytic_decipherme... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa2ol6w7lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa2ol6w7lg
    - Justta 2y ago
      What else it is other than Hindu Nationalistic when It says Indus script is Sanskrit?
      - FlyingSnake 2y ago
        This blind hate against Sanskrit is really sad. Sanskrit is a language that goes beyond Hinduism. Almost all important Buddhist Sutras and influential works like Mulamadhyamakkarika or Jaina works like Tattvartha Sutra are in Sanskrit. Lastly Sanskrit is also the language of many secular works like Siddhanta Shiromani, Sushruta Samhita, Kama Sutra or Abhigyanashakuntalam.
canjobear 2y ago
The problem with Indus script is that the inscriptions are all very short. This gives you very little information to go on.

fvvybfbfbyg 2y ago

English is what? ~600-800 years old? Most other major Western European languages only developed over the past ~2000 years or so. It’s not like Porto Indo-European developed out of nothing. It was related to other languages that just didn’t survive and happens to be the most recent (hypothesized) common ancestor of all other Indo-European languages)

psunavy03 2y ago

> final decades of our species Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting.

hollerith 2y ago
>Oh, come on. This is what we get from social media bubbles and breathless irresponsible media reporting [emphasis mine]. Speaking of bubbles, how sure are you that Silicon Valley and HN are not part of a bubble composed of people with an emotional attachment to technological progress and people with a financial stake in AI? How sure are you that the AI labs aren't being even more irresponsible than the news media?
dang 2y ago
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I agree it's a provocation and, worse, a generic tangent, but the rest of the comment was pretty good.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  I know you have no time, and I don't need a response. I have no skin in this exchange either, fwiw. But I just want to try to unpack here how this could be either a provocation or a noteworthy tangent. Is it that being pessimistic about the future is flamebait? Is it perhaps sneering? Is there anything to be said about the rest of the sentence in question and how its clearly just being a little cheeky? Or is that perhaps whats wrong with it? Just feels perhaps a little out of place this time that the gp would be in the wrong at all here. But I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.
  - dang 2y ago
    Generic references to "the advent of AI" are already flamebait (ok, proto-flamebait) because the topic is so hot, discussed, and divisive. But casually dropping "and the final decades of our species" as an assumed fact, sort of like the decline of CDs or something, is definitely a provocation. It's unsurprising that someone got activated and then we were off down a generic flamewar tangent.