Here is hoping for a better 2021!
Massive migrations from Steppes to Bronze Age India was indeed a myth. We have gathered Ancient DNA evidence now. The findings will be out next year. Thanks to the great efforts of scientists from India, USA, UK and others. Warm Greetings for upcoming 2021!
— Niraj Rai (@NirajRai3) December 30, 2020
Lots of questions about this tweet. I like Niraj Rai and Gyaneshwer Chaubey personally. But, I’m pretty skeptical of how people are interpreting this. My own views are pretty straightforward, and outlined in my post the “Aryan Integration Theory”.
I believe that about 14% of the total ancestry in South Asia derives from the Central Asian steppe ~3,500 years ago. These people derive from a “reflux” migration from Central Europe of a Corded Ware related people (“Battle Axe Culture”).* The fraction is higher in Pakistan, 20-30%. Much lower in southern India, ~5% or so (excepting Brahmins). Whenever this is a “massive migration” is up to you to interpret.
I do think they brought R1a and lots of aspects of Indian culture, such as Indo-European language. On the other hand, most of the ancestry and a lot of the culture was “indigenous.” The Indic culture we see in the Iron Age is clearly a synthesis, which was present even in the Vedic corpus.
Also, in the annals of self-promotion, I had some free posts on my Substack before Christmas:
The Age of Genetic Engineering Begins
* Something I point out to people is that this assumes that the steppe people arrived from Khorasan unmixed. If the Indo-Aryans who arrived in the Punjabs already mixed with Iranian peoples in their sojourn then the fraction is an underestimate, though I doubt it is 2-fold.
The assertion that Steppes people brought an “IE language” to India is the softest “belly” part of your post. Mixed into that jam is another hidden equal claim (imo) – that there was no IE language in India before their arrival. Is that correct?
Hindu Tarka posits that truths derived by prathyaksha (witnessable evidence) have greater Valence than those derived by anumana (inference). In other words, empiricism is better than rationalism. Somewhat like the Vienna school.
The only clear fact is that modern Indians possess Steppes DNA which a individual in the Mature Harappan Phase did not possess.
The Vedic corpus provides multiple strong terminus ante quems against that 3500 ybp date. Insisting that the Steppes people brought an IE language exclusively weakens your argument in multiple ways and opens it to falsification on evidence already available.
The assertion that Steppes people brought an “IE language” to India is the softest “belly” part of your post. Mixed into that jam is another hidden equal claim (imo) – that there was no IE language in India before their arrival. Is that correct?
What are you claiming here? Are you seriously claiming that Indo-European languages were not a Steppe import?
Indo-Aryan languages have common features that other Indo-European languages tend not to have (retroflex consonants for example, which they share in common with Dravidian languages), so the most plausible explanation is Indo-European language family originated outside India and then picked up these sounds when they arrived in India and came into contact with Dravidian speakers. The alternative would be that every other Indo-European branch underwent those changes independently, which is implausible.
That’s why people hypothesized the Aryan Migration Theory long before we knew anything about genetics, based purely on linguistics.
I’m not too well-versed in this, but I think OIT proponents argue that Dravidian imports (including retroflex) into Indo-Aryan happened AFTER various out-migrations from the subcontinent (carrying the European lineages west). The timeline or plausibility of this may not have been given enough attention.
Here’s one of the OIT proponents, who grounds all his arguments on linguistics and contents of the Vedic texts: https://talageri.blogspot.com/2018/
@ Hector St Clare
The retroflex consonant argument is old hat. It has been comprehensively debunked. The Roma people have no retroflexes in their tongues today. And they left India just 700-1000 years ago.
Linguists are stuck in a time warp unwilling to move on from 40 years ago. They supposedly solved the puzzle, built a grand tree and are now refusing to climb down from that tree.
Please look up the 2019 paper of Belyayev, a Russian linguist. He has formulated a long list of Dravidian loanwords and substrate in Lithuanian, Russian, German, Irish and Greek. Now give me an explanation on how this could have happened in the AIT/AMT universe.
The assertion that Steppes people brought an “IE language” to India is the softest “belly” part of your post. Mixed into that jam is another hidden equal claim (imo) – that there was no IE language in India before their arrival. Is that correct?
the sintashta brought the ancestor of the indo-aryan languages. as for the supposition there was no IE before them, that’s possibly true, but likely not definitive. the sintashta are late arrivals. the afanesevio/yamna culture was around central asia way earlier and may have have ‘outriders’ south.
also, you use quotes really weird. “IE language” and “belly”? must be an indian norm? (americans use quotes kind of sarcastically)
The only clear fact is that modern Indians possess Steppes DNA which a individual in the Mature Harappan Phase did not possess.
this is false. there are lots of clear facts, many of which you do not know, because like many indians you live in the bubble of india and refuse to take into account other facts.
There are equal amounts of inconvenient facts which are swept aside by the AMT/AIT camp.
Primary one being the description of Saraswati in the Vedic corpus – a river that is now established as being extinguished by 4000 ybp. This coincides with the onset of Meghalayan Age with the 4.2 kiloyear aridification event.
Paradoxically, we finally almost came to the general consensus agreement. We all (including common sense OIT guys) agree that some people (you can all them Aryans, steppes, reflux, whatever) came to SA, we almost agree that they brought their, let’s say ‘Indo-European’, language (Razib gave a concession that this may not be 100% than 95% probability) which localized version became Sanskrit. A synergy of newly arrived and local mythologies we can leave for the next round of discussions.
And, here we go – we made it, a great success in just the 2nd day of the New Year which I expect will be very successful.
Personally, I would specify who exactly these Aryans were and which actually was this ‘Indo-European’(meaningless term) language but I do not insist so as I did not in a case if Aryans had moustaches or not. Now is up to the local researchers to take over and build on this foundation.
Go girls and guys, Happy New Year!
One of the most interesting things to me a ihr the aryan migrations to South Asia is that the Yamna people didn’t slowly come to SA from north of the Caspian Sea at the same time that they migrated westwards to Europe around 5,300 years ago.
Instead, the Yamnas gave rise to many other IE groups about 6,000 years ago. One group went to Central Europe, and became the corded ware culture.
One thing that boggles my mind is that from Central Europe, some of these Corded Ware people was that a subset went BACK TO THE EAST and became lighter in complexion (as evidenced by how much EHG genes they picked up from 5,300 years ago to around 4,300 years ago). One subset were the Sintashta who lived north of where mongolia and Kazakhstan meet in modern day Novosibirsk at 55E and 55N. These folks were the proto-indo-Iranians, and they were lighter in color to the yamnas.
I have all kinds of questions:
1. How do we know that some IE migrated from Central Europe to the east, and when did we know this?
2. Does this mean that my Punjabi and Marathi friends were correct when they stated that NI are “from Switzerland/Sweden?”
3. There are quite a few similarities between all IE religions. Are there more between the Germanic pagan religions and Vedic Hinduism, and if so, would this have anything to do with the eastward migration of the IE back to the steppes
4. Why wouldn’t this eastward expansion not leave a linguistic legacy eastwards in the form of Baltic-Slavic in Kazakhstan?
“ . Does this mean that my Punjabi and Marathi friends were correct when they stated that NI are “from Switzerland/Sweden?”“
Punjabi perhaps, Marathi not so much, Jats most certainly.
Btw did u know we UP-wallahs are from Jupiter ?
“There are quite a few similarities between all IE religions. Are there more between the Germanic pagan religions and Vedic Hinduism, and if so, would this have anything to do with the eastward migration of the IE back to the steppes”
Idk if you’ve ever visted this blog by Manasataramgini, some of his posts on the greater IE-sphere are quite illuminating
A post on possible Visnu cognates in the Norse, Celtic and Indo Iranian pantheon:
https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2020/01/02/the-roots-of-vai%e1%b9%a3%e1%b9%87avam-a-view-from-the-numerology-of-vedic-texts/
Some common motifs in the Hindu and Iranian epic traditions: https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2019/09/29/indo-iranica-epic-ruminations/
Visnu (or Vishny) came from Serbian language. It is still used, especially as a reference to God in church services, and its meaning is – The Highest. We will talk more about this in our next discussion round – mythology.
so the yamna flourished btwn 3300 and 2500 in the altai as the afanesevio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasievo_culture
they were exact same people. i have some ‘inside’ sources and researchers have found yamna ppl on the volga who are ‘thrid cousins’ genetically to afanesevio people in the altai. this means that culturally they were probably the same even though they were separated by a huge distance
Instead, the Yamnas gave rise to many other IE groups about 6,000 years ago. One group went to Central Europe, and became the corded ware culture.
the first CW sites date to 2900 BCE in north-central europe. these ppl have r1a1a. they are ancestral to the reflux movement back into the forest-steppe and the volga (which led to a succession of cultures culminating in the sintashta and andronovo-horizon of 2000 BCE or so).
1. How do we know that some IE migrated from Central Europe to the east, and when did we know this?
becase ‘european neolithic’ ancestry is distinctive. not really found on the steppe/yamna zone until after CW. the sintashta ~1800 BC look very similar to the CW (some subtle changes, and a few admixed individuals with east asian, siberian, and more iranian ancestry in the mix by then tho).
then there is the cultural succession that russian archaeologists have worked out. sintashta clearly descends from a set of societies that kept moving further east…
2. Does this mean that my Punjabi and Marathi friends were correct when they stated that NI are “from Switzerland/Sweden?”
that is false. CW core zone is basically like poland? the ones who went west became something different. the nordic societies are distant cousins of indo-iranians, not ancestors.
4. Why wouldn’t this eastward expansion not leave a linguistic legacy eastwards in the form of Baltic-Slavic in Kazakhstan?
indo-iranian and slavic are probaby somehow related either through common ancestry or contact. but iranian used to be dominant much further north and west than today. so that’s the reason slavs were not far east. in fact, a lot of the present slavic range in the east is recent expansion (last 1000 years)
There are a couple points between the lines. One is that ‘whiteness’ was ‘picked up’ in Europe by ‘steppe’ people and carried back to the east to SA. I already provided the general framework and I will repeat couple relevant things. This ‘whiteness’ is coming from Vincha people, in particular I2 women, because the male I2 was subjected to the genocide and decimated. It’s been done by Yamnaya people who came from Russian steppes and they are today’s West Europeans (Americans, Australians). They were R1b people and they were NOT Aryans although it was some kind of returning back (reflux) to their homeland. It means that the original future West Europeans were not white(!). They lived in steppes as nomads and could NOT develop sophisticated language neither culture nor technology. They learnt technology in urban Vincha before they conducted this genocide. They could not have strong cultural influence and could not form IE cultural groups.
Their language was not this which is named ‘Indo-European’ (what is ‘Indo’ in Russian steppes?). The ‘Indo-European’ language is actually Vincha’s (proto)Serbian language which was later carried to SA. Nordic I1, which also originated in Vincha, also contributed to the ‘whiteness’ of future WestEU. It is interesting and insufficiently explored the relationship between R1a and R1b. R1a were less aggressive, in friendly relationship with I2 people learnt them to fight R1b. In few 000 of years R1a and I2 created Slavic people, I2 is more present on the west (Serbs – 40%) while R1a was more on the east. R1a adopted the language of higher cultural I2. Very Asian looking R1a in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are probably those, very east R1a, who did not have much or any contacts with Vincha people. It means that it was not ‘reflux’ of Yamnaya R1b people who came to SA as Aryans. It should be explained this strong distinction and animosity between R1a and R1b which lasts since Yamnaya up to today.
New year lies by @Milan Todorovic and their busting:
1. Haplogroup Y-DNAs I and R1a does not exist in PIE as Hittites — with zero steppe lineage — have J2 haplogroup and derive descent from Iran_N/CHG ancestry.
2. Yamnaya (R1b haplogroup) is not PIE as Hittites have J2 haplogroup and 0 steppe ancestry.
3. Mycenaeans were Greek speakers and have been present in Greece at least from the 17th century BC.
4. Also, Vincans — primarily having Anatolian descent — have the following Ydna haplogroups:
G2a2a1, G2a2a1a, G2a2a1a2a, G2a2a1a, G2a2b2a1a, H2
5. Speculation for PIE: According to Reich, only Armenia and Iran qualify for PIE as both primarily descend from Iran_N/CHG ancestry. AMT believers go with Armenia as they don’t believe Harappa to be IE speakers; while OIT believers go with Iran as PIE because Harappa also has Iran_N/CHG ancestry.
A couple of posters on Quora who’d make for interesting podcasts:
1. https://www(dot)quora(dot)com/profile/Dima-Vorobiev – Formerly worked in Soviet intelligence, writes up a lot on Russia and Russian affairs
2. https://www(dot)quora(dot)com/profile/Emmanuel-Francis-Nwaolisa-Ogomegbunam – A Nigerian history student, writes on African history and politics
3. https://www(dot)quora(dot)com/profile/Susanna-Viljanen – A Finnish researcher, writes on many different topics, but special point of interest in on how intelligent people are treated by society. She was among the first female officers in the army and that affected her views.
4. https://www(dot)quora(dot)com/profile/Spencer-Alexander-McDaniel – History student from Indiana, has a ton of interesting takes on past events, he’s also on twitter.
Razib – Did the battle axe males carry the Z93 variant of the R1a haplotype? Some reading on wikipedia suggests they carried the Z283 variant – is this difference relevant in your view?
the difference i think highlights the split btwn indo-iranians and everyone else. there are some stray z93 in parts of europe. perhaps Scythians? i believe the sbruna individual is z93.
z93/z283 split must be defined after the split between western and eastern CW societies
What I struggle with is why there isn’t any r1b in central and south asians. If yamnaya contributes 75% ancestry to corded ware and sintashta comes from eastern corded ware then there should be lots of r1b in central and south asia no?
I’m obv missing something. Maybe it’s something like there is genetic contribution from reflux eastward migration but the male lineage is separate?
You probably have a much better understanding.
https://twitter.com/NirajRai3/status/1345267690940768257?s=20
Good to see our last statement reaching a lot of people. I would like to clarify a few things:
1. Our upcoming work doesn’t contradict much from what we have already published (Narasimhan, Patterson et al. 2019, Shinde et al. 2019).
2. It is also in agreement with ancient Indo-Aryan textual data & South Asian archaeological data.
https://tinyurl.com/yapeq6qp
Happy 2021 everyone!
Based on the events of the past couple of years, it seems clear that what animates Hindu nationalists and their sympathizers is that Islam (and perhaps Muslims too) must be banished from India. Because it’s foreign, and we must not have foreign things in India (this schizophrenic attitude is held by lots of people who either live abroad or depend on goods and remittances from abroad).
So accepting a theory whereby even some portion of Hindus and Hinduism came from outside the pitrabhumi/punyabhumi seems to be unacceptable.
On the evidence of Niraj Rai’s tweet, I see 2021 as being worse than 2020, 2022 being worse than 2021, and so on. Covid or no Covid.
Because it’s foreign, and we must not have foreign things in India
And yet Parsis are seen as a model minority by the right.
You know well where the disdain for Islam stems from and it’s nowhere close to being as simple as “we must not have foreign things in India”, cut your crap lmao.
Eh, Parsis voluntarily migrated to India eons ago, adopting Indian clothing and language while retaining their separate religious rites. Hardly that foreign!
And I’m perfectly aware of why one would be resentful and upset about Muslim rule of India in medieval times. The question is why that generates such anger in present day Hindus towards present day Indian Muslims. Hindu ascendancy in India has never been higher since the days of Muhammad bin Qasim, and the power and influence of Muslims never been lower since those days, but the anger and outrage over the same set of beheadings, forced conversions and temple demolitions that happened 100s of years ago seems to drive more and more people up the wall.
It’s quite similar to how BLM activists in the US seem to get more and more outraged about black peoples’ conditions and civil rights even though there is progressively less and less to get outraged about.
Numinous Saab, if you say that Hindutvavadis are acting based on unwarranted/false historical comparison and insufficient appreciation of their current clout, aren’t you undermining your own earlier comment which said instead that their motivation was the foreignness of Muslims (which is exactly what IsThisReal questioned)?
And it is not clear to me why you think Hindutvavadis consider Parsis less foreign than Muslims.
Hindutvavaadis aren’t exactly models of consistency. If you live in India, you know how much craze exists today for indigenous stuff: food, medicine, etc. (though I think most of it is lip service.) Hence my tongue-in-cheek comment (which was itself not intended to pass a theorom prover’s consistency check!)
Medieval Muslims tried to impose their will in India rather than finding their niche and assimilating into local society. Or at least the ones we keep talking about did (the rulers and warlords). The average Muslim peasant in UP and Bihar was probably not very distinguishable from his Hindu neighbors until the late colonial era.
Parsis weren’t like that, so they raise no ire. Plus everyone knows why they are in India (they were escaping from Muslim domination in their own homeland), so they are allies.
On the other hand, if AIT/AMT is true, then the old Vedic people seem to resemble medieval Muslims more than assimilating Parsis. At least in the minds of our nationalists. Though plausible models exist for some steppe immigrants bringing in the IE language while creating the Vedic religion in situ, such theories haven’t percolated into the Hindu-nat-verse, who seem to be stuck with the theories of Mortimer Wheeler and such.
It’s a means of forging a unified polity in a land where everyone has been deeply divided by caste for thousands of years, said division being reinforced by feudalism etc. Urbanised upper castes may think caste is becoming less and less relevant, those lower down the pecking order would most likely not. Muslims are a group who can be ‘othered’ without any consequence to internal Hindu relations and there are plenty of real and imagined grievances that can be used against them. A key one being that they were ‘invaders’ despite predominantly being local converts. That grievance obviously gets undercut if Hindu society itself was formed by a people who ‘invaded’ the sub-continent.
No one bothers Parsis either in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as they aren’t a threat and don’t get involved in religious activities.
> A key one being that they were ‘invaders’ despite predominantly being local converts.
No, if Muslims admitted that they are local converts, half the problem would be solved.
I once asked my college classmate – Dude, why don’t you guys just admit that you were local converts as opposed to descendants of people from West Asia. (Dude is from Latur with a lastname pretty common amongst both Hindus and Muslims). He didn’t talk to me for a month till I apologized.
No one bothers Parsis either in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as they aren’t a threat and don’t get involved in religious activities.
How many Parsis are there in Pak today though? Found some online data saying that there were 1.6k in 2012. And Pak still hasn’t released the data on religion from the 2017 census.
> Hindu ascendancy in India has never been higher since the days of Muhammad bin Qasim, and the power and influence of Muslims never been lower since those days, but the anger and outrage over the same set of beheadings, forced conversions and temple demolitions that happened 100s of years ago seems to drive more and more people up the wall.
Because our history books lied to us. We were taught that Sher Shah Suri built the Grand Trunk Road. Like how? He barely ruled India for 10 years. We can’t build a Delhi-Mumbai highway in 5 years and he built one from Patna to Peshawar, with all the caravan sarais along the way? (Nobody told us about the Uttar-Path, Dakshin-Path that even Megasthenes(?) mentioned).
Not to mention the countless temples that were razed. My father mentioned to me about Sikandar Butsikhan (I believe he knew that because he studied in a Marathi school that was founded by Lokmanya Tilak), my teachers didn’t tell me. If this is the case in Maharashtra, imagine what would have been in places like Delhi, UP – where the rulers considered themselves as successor of the Nawabs.
Add to that electoral politics – a movie made on Savarkar wasn’t released for ~10 years because of Congress government in Maharashtra/Centre while we were peddled Tipu Sultan propaganda on official on DD National (only TV channel available then). The likes of Digvijay Singh launching books like – 26/11 RSS ki saazish.
Then there are the Pakistanis with their – we ruled over you for 1000 years – dude, your lastname is Gujjar. You didn’t rule shit.
At least in the case of Pakistan, we knew what happened but in the case of Bangladesh – nothing, nothing at all!! It is only in the last 3 years that I have come to understand the history of East Bengal. The Pakistani Islamists are in your face, the Bangladeshi ones just escape scrutiny. I watch some Bangladeshi news like Somoy TV, Jamuna TV, Ekattor TV and the comments section of YouTube would put Pakistanis to shame.
When you look at Indian history in terms of ”Hindu and Muslim”, then why are you surprised that Pakistanis will use the whole 1000 year Islamic rule in India and rub it in. When any common Muslim says ‘we’ when referring to the past, they are talking about their co-religionists, not their ancestors. Ancestor worship is just forbidden in orthodox Islam. It’s something Indian Hindus just cannot wrap their minds around since their identity and religion is rooted to ancestry and caste. Visit any mosque and they talk about “we ruled Spain” or “we ruled India” no matter where in the Muslim world you go, regardless of ethnic makeup. That’s not a reference to some great deeds of one’s own ancestors or tribe, but that of the Muslim nation. And while this pan Islamism does not always translate into lived experience of most Muslims, because most Muslims aren’t ‘good Muslims’, it certainly is always alive in the mosques.
@S Qureishi
I think your retort makes much sense This idea of Umma esp in the context being topdogs has it’s flip sides. While it can gives a sense of community, it acts against nationalism esp territory based nationalism and any other extra-Umma loyalties That is why there is Islamist separtist movement in far away places like thailand or Philippines or even in the Caribbeans . Even in western countries where Muslims have immigrated in large numbers , their loyalty had to be bought with good job prospects or lax police or turning a blind eye to thousand other cultural practices which go against native cultures . When there is a crunch in economic or other factors people will be sick of buying loyalties , which is expected as a matter of course in any nation state
@S Qureishi
> Visit any mosque and they talk about “we ruled Spain” or “we ruled India” no matter where in the Muslim world you go, regardless of ethnic makeup.
So doesn’t this validate the Hindutva concern that Muslims don’t want to be equal citizens but want special rights OR once the Muslim population attains a critical mass they will demand another separate homeland in India.
The arguments Muslims politicians give is also – duplicitous – to say the least. For e.g.: Owaisi says that most Muslims didn’t vote for partition, only the elites did. But most elites stayed put in UP. They didn’t go to Pakistan. So – chit bhi meri, pat bhi meri. And not to mention the Congress and other Muslim political parties in India like SP, RJD etc. There have been request (which have been met) that only Muslim police officers, judges in Muslim areas (Exactly what happened before partition).
It is good that the Hindu populace is letting go of Indian secularism. It is a lose-lose provision for an Indian Hindu. If you live in a Muslim dominant area, nobody is going to listen to you. (e.g.: Mukhtar Ansari – Mau – (this happened close to home)- https://www.brownpundits.com/2021/01/02/open-thread-01-02-2021-brown-pundits/#comment-79758). Not the police, not the judiciary and not the politicians.
If something broke the Indian consensus on secularism, I think it the pan-Islamism that grew in India 1980s onwards.
The Muslim elite Owaisi is talking about certainly left India in masse for Pakistan, but not all of them left though. However I don’t know much about Indian internal politics. I am just telling you about the Muslim identity, which extends to Indian Muslims as well and its something many Hindu Indians don’t understand.
There is literally no reason for Indian Muslims to say their ancestors were ‘local’. The upper class Muslims might actually have significant foreign ancestry, whether that’s from 1000 years ago or 3500 years ago. The lower or middle class Muslims may not have any significant foreign ancestry, but their Hindu ancestors were not exactly top dogs either, just lower caste Hindus who had shit lives even under upper caste Hindu rule. Associating with powerful Muslim ruling dynasties and adopting Muslim history gives them a lot of pride, and India’s casteist milieu, much more power than they would otherwise have.
@VijayVan
All loyalty is bought, especially in a modern nation state that is not based on ethnic or linguistic lines.
@S Qureishi
> I am just telling you about the Muslim identity, which extends to Indian Muslims as well and its something many Hindu Indians don’t understand.
> Associating with powerful Muslim ruling dynasties and adopting Muslim history gives them a lot of pride, and India’s casteist milieu, much more power than they would otherwise have.
So what is the common ground then? Who is a citizen of the Indian state?
There is no common law, special privileges for minorities (minority institutions – both Christian and Muslim), state control of Hindu religious institutions. No wonder the Hindu populace is fed up. Unless there is a massive upheaval like a devastating war or economic meltdown, the India right – Modi et. al. will keep on rising.
The Indian state has been fairly benign till now (barring Kashmir), it will only get more authoritarian here onwards (like CAA, NRC, UCC etc. etc.)
Why does ancestry matter when it comes to being citizen of India? Is India an ethnic state? I don’t see why ancestry would matter in multi ethnic states.
I don’t have an opinion whether there should be a uniform civil code or not in India or whether it should be secular or a Hindu Rasthra. The reality is that Muslims already have a legal/civic code in the form or Shariah, while the Hindus/Dharmics have borrowed it from the British. So Hindus can’t exactly blame Muslims for importing their laws from Persia while they have themselves imported their laws from much further: Britian.
This is something for Indians to resolve between themselves. I don’t think Hindus themselves can agree on one thing as to what they want India to be, ”otherizing” the Muslims just gives a common ground to all Hindus who would not agree with each other otherwise. And I don’t think it’s going to be that easy to dominate 200 million Muslims.
It is a combination of many factors,but the most important one is that people want to feel special by reminiscing the Past.
Now,the past may or may not have been good,but it was certainly not all flowers and rainbows.No times are all flowers and rainbows and every age has its own challenges.
Since proving the AMT can lead to many repercussions in India:
1.It may increase the frictions between North and South India.
2.It will surely increase the tensions between upper and lower castes.
3.It will shut up those crackpots who like to imagine that their ancestors are the origin of all races and religions in the world.
4.It will also pose the question that if Islam and Christianity are foreign,then Vedic Religion is too.
I was a staunch OIT believer earlier but after a time I be became somewhat agnostic.
Then after the Rakhigarhi DNA results,I decided to read more books and then I realized that I was indeed wrong!
I now honor all of my ancestors for what they are be they AASI,Gedrosian Farmers or Steppe Pastoralists.
I also realize that this theory,if proved,can pose some really tough questions to Indians.
But such tests are indispensable for the growth and maturity of all civilizations.
Also,I have full faith that in the end the Upanishadic Doctrine of “All is Brahman” will emerge victorious.
Thanks. 🙂
I do not find this believable. AIT/OIT is an intellectual exercise for a small subset of people. After all, Savarkar formulated “Hindutva” while fully accepting “Aryan Invasion”. We are talking about events of 3000+ years ago. Even in Razib’s view, IEs came to india, got Indianized significantly and then composed RigVeda. At best, AIT provides one (among many) argument to the evangelicals for converting lower castes. I don’t think its a big deal either way politically (except for an active subset on twitter/internet). If science can eventually produce a consistent story across multiple dimensions, that would satisfy most. (and the ones it doesn’t are not influenced/affected by it that much. They will look for other arguments, and/or keep arguing even after science is truly settled.)
\Based on the events of the past couple of years, it seems clear that what animates Hindu nationalists and their sympathizers is that Islam (and perhaps Muslims too) must be banished from India\
This is recency bias. What animates Hindnats is the chorus of pro-TucoMongol rule and rulers by various liberals and academia , who are asymmetrical with respect to treatment of Hindus in newly created Muslim countries i.e. ethnic cleansing and the basic live and let live w.r.t to Mulsims attitude in india. This is esp true in north and northwest India. The enemy of HindNats is not muslims , it is western liberals and their Jalras in India. Jalra is a percussion instrument , hand cymbals used as accompaniment in south Indian music.
So this is an entirely internet- and social media-created angst? Pardon me for being ignorant of it then.
The opinions I write here are based on talking and listening to older Indians of conservative (and often Hindu nationalist) dispositions, including my Dad. Both in the 90s and the 2010s (I spent the ’00s in the States, so missed the discourse in India during that period.)
If it is internet- and social media-created angst , it can’t be converted into electoral payoffs . There are many factors in electoral paoffs , and the distrust of liberals symbolized by Nehruvian vision is an important one
@Numinous
“On the evidence of Niraj Rai’s tweet, I see 2021 as being worse than 2020, 2022 being worse than 2021, and so on. Covid or no Covid.”
Since Niraj Rai has just blocked me on Twitter because I used to counter most of his tweets, I kindly ask you or anyone else to forward his future Aryan-migration-related tweets to BP so that I can read them! Thanx.
Sorry, I don’t have a Twitter account. I was just referring to Rai’s tweet linked by Razib.
@Milan Todorovic
“Their language was not this which is named ‘Indo-European’ (what is ‘Indo’ in Russian steppes?).”
Since languages belonging to this phylum were historically spoken from the European sub-continent to the Indian sub-continent, the phylum itself was christened “Indo-European” based on geolinguistics. Is that so difficult to understand for you?
Ciao Francesco! It is difficult. I was accustomed to ‘Indo-Germanishe’ for almost 100 of years and I still cannot adapt to this unexpected change. (btw, I may have some linguo-questions if you don’t mind and don’t block me but not right now).
Can anyone tell me the thought process behind this tweet:
Of course it would be great if further comments about the correctness or falsity of the idea can be given, but to begin with I don’t even understand the mechanism being proposed.
spandrell is an NRx midwit, as that tweet exemplifies. don’t pay attention to him.
@principia, Thanks, aware of his view on India and his obnoxiousness. But precisely because he is a midwit rather than a dimwit, I would like to understand the argument before (very likely) ignoring it. Perhaps, having seen so many subtle forms of obnoxiousness, I have developed some sort of liking for people who are non-subtly obnoxious 🙂
Hare are my tweets posted to counter Niraj Rai’s most bombastic tweets:
https://twitter.com/frabrigh/with_replies
Judge by yourself why he has from now on prevented me from replying to him on Twitter (without never ever providing at least an idea about what his genetic data, allegedly supporting the Hindutva-inspired “Out-of-India Theory”, would consist of!). Rai typically “attacks from under cover”, just spreading rumours on the Web — an unpleasant political tactic which goes against science. He plays this game only on Twitter and in politicized symposia held in India; his Indian and Western collegues may be unaware of that.
on the facts i am probably pretty close to you, but your tweets do come off as aggressive. niraj’s tweets went viral so he’s probably engaging in a lot of false positive blocking.
on the facts i have a hard time finding big gaps btwn me and niraj&chuabey but the interpretation is always very different
Bravo!
I don’t get it, are they trying to “Prove” that Sanskrit is Native to India using Genetics? The only way for Sanskrit to be Native to India is if its the oldest European Language, which it isn’t. Indo-European languages older than Sanskrit(For ex:Anatolian) existed outside India.
Out of India theorists go out of their way to dabble in genetics because they know that they have no case in linguistics. But you can’t “prove” Sanskrit is native to India using genetics. Millions of Indians speak English without having any English DNA..
If we could easily trace native tongue of people using DNA, we would’ve found out exactly which Y-DNA is Dravidian by now. South India is a hodgepodge of various Y-DNA clusters. Which is the original Dravidian ancestry, is it Haplogroup H or L or J or G? Nobody knows, its all guesswork because there is no trace of ancient Dravidians outside India except for Brahui(Who BTW are genetically not related to Dravidians of India).
A limited list of studies that AIT/AMT campers keep away from – archaeology, hydro-geomorphology, archaeo-astronomy, fluviology, animal genetics, metallurgy and traditional Indian literature.
The burden of proof is on OOI theorists to explain how Sanskrit is the “mother” of all European languages, despite it not being the oldest recorded European Language. I arrived at AMT using Occam’s Razor. I don’t want to explain how Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages and from the looks of it, neither does anyone else lol
If you want to
examinedestroy OOI Theory, you can dive into archaeology&literature and find absolutely ZERO evidence of IVC being Vedic. Vedas was written by pastorals who offered Cattle,Milk&Horses to Gods via Fire(Yagna) and rode around in chariots. We do not find any of that stuff in the 5000+ old IVC. Also, Horse was domesticated by Steppe Pastorals some 6000 Years ago, this explains where the Chariots in the Vedas came from.IVC people were urbanized farmers, why would they revert back to being a nomadic pastoral culture? Why does the Vedas not mention anything about the Indus Metropolis? It would be like Romans “forgetting” Ancient Greece’s history, despite ruling Ancient Greece.
As much as i love IVC, the rational part of my brain suggests that IVC people most likely never recovered their language&culture, much like how the great Sumerians vanished into obscurity.
I would call it mythology about mythology.
RV and Avesta was undoubtedly created by sedentary agricultural / pastoralist highly developed (for its time) peoples. There are no specific references to the nomadic lifestyle in the RV (many people have a vague idea of what it is). Nomadism is not just a lifestyle, but also a level of development. A rich vocabulary of ancient Indo-Aryans and Iranians, containing sophisticated philosophical concepts, describing astronomical phenomena and having authentic terms for urban culture is not compatible with nomadic lifestyle (can you imagine authentic gypsy astronomy?).
Is my speech scientific evidence ?No. But this is a problem of probability. Authentic philosophy and astronomy of nomadic gypsies? Maybe in theory, but unlikely (where are the analogues?)
The Steppe nomads did not have rudiments of philosophy and astronomy even in the Middle Ages (despite the fact that they were undoubtedly more developed than the people of the Bronze Age). I repeat : even in the Middle Ages. Scientific knowledge cannot greatly outpace economic development.
One word, Ex – Vincha!
Gobekli Tepe is apparently all built by hunter gatherers (or at least nomads). This was before pottery or agriculture or animal domestication.
So, who knows what people are capable of. We just have our modernity bias to measure everything against our notion of progress.
Vincans — primarily having Anatolian descent — have the following Ydna haplogroups:
G2a2a1, G2a2a1a, G2a2a1a2a, G2a2a1a, G2a2b2a1a, H2
@Enigma
On the contrary, it’s the AMT/AIT camp that is marvellously imprecise. For over 70 years, they have been repeating the same script ad nauseam. Probe a bit further for details and they draw a blank.
Since you are apparently convinced do enlighten us on the land route these people took into the Northwest – was it via Bolan or by hugging the Baluch coast? No published papers exist with even a smidgeon of archaeological evidence.
Which place was populated at first by these migrants? Saurashtra, Punjab or Kashmir? Point me to any papers – even speculation is fine.
The AIT/AMT camp has a very low grasp of archaeological verification that borders on illiteracy. The whole bell beaker incursion into Europe became mainstream only after 40 years of excavations. In India, the entire archaeological establishment is unanimous – there is no field evidence showing any material or cultural intrusion.
Sepoys yelling about Hindu Nationalism and Hindutva is not a substitute for thoughtful and measured acceptance of criticism.
Dude, i’m willing to reject ATM when a more compelling theory emerges. OOI Theory isn’t saying “ATM IS FAKE” over&over. You have to outline the ancient migration patterns and provide evidence that supports Sanskrit leaving India and into Europe.
Every Linguist&Historian worth his/her salt considers OOI as Crackpot and AMT as the plausible one. Are they all on the payroll of the Ummah?
What if Steppe Pastorals brought Sanskrit to India? Why are you so terrified by that proposition? If it wasn’t for Aryans, Europeans would still be speaking non-aryan languages like basque. Aryans left their mark on both Europe&India, who cares where they came from? All Humans come from Africa and everyone’s cool with that but someone suggesting that Aryans came from Steppe? U N A C C E P T A B L E
Don’t call ATM camp “Sepoys” just because your OOI theory isn’t Convincing anyone, including most linguists&historians around the world.
@Enigma
Disclaimer: I have tried to be as objective and factual as possible in answering the doubts of @Enigma.
1.I don’t want to explain how Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages and from the looks of it, neither does anyone else lol
Sanskrit is not the mother of all IE languages; no IE language is actually. On the other hand, along with Greek, Hittite, Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest attested IE language. Now, all the languages derive from PIE, which is unattested. All IE languages developed on their own after separating from each other; that is why the PIE location before moving away matters. If OIT is true, then PIE was spoken in India before separation; otherwise, if AMT is true, then PII (unattested) probably was the earliest IE language spoken in India.
2. If you want to
examinedestroy OOI Theory, you can dive into archaeology&literature and find absolutely ZERO evidence of IVC being Vedic.a. Archaeology in India is against AIT; that is why AMT was formulated.
b. Vedic literature does not mention a foreign homeland.
c. Parts of Iran, Central Asia, and Harappa had a shared culture and spoke a related language according to archaeology.
d. Linguistic proofs against AMT/AIT:
d1. No Dravidian word in Old Rig Veda.
d2. All place/river names in North India have IA toponyms.
3. Vedas was written by pastorals who offered Cattle,Milk&Horses to Gods via Fire(Yagna) and rode around in chariots.We do not find any of that stuff in the 5000+ old IVC.
a. Horse remains have been found in India dating to Harappan times.
b. Dairy, milk, and cattle remains have been found in Harappa.
c. Indian cattle genes starting from ~2200 BC are found across Near East, from Central Asia and Iran to the Caucasus and Mediterranean shores of the southern Levant.
d. Chariots have been found in India before Steppe Pastoralists are hypothesized to be present in India.
4. Also, Horse was domesticated by Steppe Pastorals some 6000 Years ago, this explains where the Chariots in the Vedas came from.
There were no horses in PIE Urheimat. genetics has proven that.
5. IVC people were urbanized farmers, why would they revert back to being a nomadic pastoral culture?
They did not; the post-Harappan period was also urban; India never became pastoral. AMT asserts that Vedas were composed when India was urban; crazy stuff isn’t it. Now, according to OIT, Vedic composition should have started before or around early Harappa.
6. Why does the Vedas not mention anything about the Indus Metropolis? It would be like Romans “forgetting” Ancient Greece’s history, despite ruling Ancient Greece.
a. Vedas are religious texts; any historical information present in them is only incidental. Their purpose is mainly ritualistic. Furthermore, Puranas and Vedas do record some history, e.g., Kings’ list, mythological stories, etc. Some OITers like Talageri, Koenraad Elst have done research on Vedic history if you are interested to know more about the topic.
b. With regards to Greeks, they actually forgot about Mycenaean Greeks, i.e., the earliest attested Greeks; and they remembered those people and that period as a mythical golden age. This is just like India, where Indians too remember the Vedic period as some golden age.
I think caricaturing is counterproductive. Social media arguments tend to pick on ignorant loud voices on the other side to attack the saner arguments. Lets not do that here.
So: No, the argument of serious OIT people is not Sanskrit is the original PIE language, but rather Vedic Sanskrit (which itself is different than classical Sanskrit) is a daughter language of PIE. But they argue that PIE developed in India; or more nuanced version: india and eastern Iran (should be obvious… thats why it is called OIT).
And that genetics cannot unequivocally decide language (and your example of English) is OIT people’s favorite argument too. Lingusitic case, in their opinion, is not conclusive. Textual evidence (Rig Veda) is argued in favor of OIT (cf Talageri).
In fact, as an aside, has anyone seen a good recent counterargument to Talageri’s recent work? (2001 Witzel is too old and ignores recent strong arguments by Talageri).
adopting Indian clothing and language
As if most Indian Muslims still speak in Arabic.
The question is why that generates such anger in present day Hindus towards present day Indian Muslims. Hindu ascendancy in India has never been higher since the days of Muhammad bin Qasim, and the power and influence of Muslims never been lower since those days, but the anger and outrage over the same set of beheadings, forced conversions and temple demolitions that happened 100s of years ago seems to drive more and more people up the wall.
You really think this divide exists merely due to events from the past?
Old comment of mine explaining what drives most right-wingers:
1. Fear of what’ll happen as the muslim pop. grows
2. The current state of non-muslims in PAK and BAN (and the history of islam in the subcontinent) and incidents in India
All those debates about the past mainly tend to crop up once in a while, either during some festival or when someone has a controversial take, or when someone simply starts lying.
History just further helps the right validate their cause, their main focus and talking points are still everyday incidents though.
> History just further helps the right validate their cause, their main focus and talking points are still everyday incidents though.
There were riots in Mau during (~2005), Mau has a sizable Muslim minority. Yadavs(!!) started protesting against Mulayam/Akhilesh – Mulayams inaction is what gave him the name – Mulla Mulayam. (SP MLA had a major part in the riots (as did the BJP leaders))
(Mau/Azamgarh were once the a larger Azamgarh district. Many from the Akhilesh Yadavs family have been elected from Azamgarh.)
Thing is, there was little to no mention of these riots in national papers.
NOTE: Akhilesh is a MUCH better leader than Mulayam. He reigned in the likes of Mukhtar Ansari. The Akhilesh Samajwadi still panders to Muslims but is nowhere near as brazen as Mulayam.
https://twitter.com/JoeAgneya/status/936354401035337728
Bitcoin hit a new high $32923. Even though I have been watching it and hearing intelligent people talk about the cming rise of bitcoin for the last 6 months, I have not acted with alacrity ; trying to catch up. In 3 montsh, it has gone up from abt 10K$ to 33K$
I suspect people from Sintashta looked somewhat like Pamiri Tajiks, i.e a population that contains some individuals who appear European but many who would not.
Pamiri tajiks are a population that South Asians would consider “white” but may not be seen as such by modern Europeans.
It is believable that this type of a group could admix somewhere in modern day Afghanistan with IVC like populations to form the Indo-Aryan groups described in Hindu religious texts.
i’ve looked deeply into the genetics of this. my conclusion is sintashta would be on average ‘swarthy whites’ https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/09/12/the-sintashta-were-swarthy/
some were blonde and blue eyed, but not many. some were pretty dark probably.
i’ve looked at the loci in the pre-sintashta people, and saw the same. selection for the ‘nordic phenotype’ seems to postdate the diversification of the original indo-europeans, though the turanian indo-aryans would no doubt be called white by modern indians
I have a really good pashtun friend (I live in Canada where this is possible for a South Indian and Afghan to become close friends).
He has very light pigmentation and blue-green eyes and he certainly looks different in our friend circle of mostly Indians and Sri Lankans.
We would classify him as ‘white’ compared to us but he also doesn’t look ‘European’. There is clearly something distinct about these populations.
It really isn’t far fetched at all that people who looked like this (and still do in pockets of Central Asia) could have intermixed with IVC populations.
Also Kalash and nuristanis have/had religious practices that are clearly related to vedic Hinduism. They also seem to share similar phenotypes to pamiri Tajiks and some pashtuns. It all just can’t be a coincidence.
My only thing is why there is no r1b in any of these populations. Whatever corded ware intermixing there was, the lineage was different. Maybe fatyanovo males only accepted corded ware females and not the other way around?
Maybe the distinctiveness we are noticing (ie swarthy whites or whatever you want to call it) is related to this.
Good logic Moh, pls read my above comment. Re r1b – good conclusion, reflux cannot be Aryans.
“We would classify him as ‘white’ compared to us but he also doesn’t look ‘European”
Have u checked further? He might be a Jaat.
No but we also do have a Jat friend in our group. He looks most different of all. His name is Chrispreet Singh Hemsworth. Amazing physique and incredible masculinity. He was in some of the Marvel movies if you recall. He played Thor.
He was also in a popular Bhangra video recently – Jatt di Thor
I would say ur freind might make Thor look Dravidan, bruh.
My only thing is why there is no r1b in any of these populations. Whatever corded ware intermixing there was, the lineage was different. Maybe fatyanovo males only accepted corded ware females and not the other way around?
corded ware mostly r1a
Corded ware is an archeological complex. But it appears that there are several different paternal lineages that dominate depending on region (r1b to the west, R1a-z283 in central and east, and r1a-z93 in the far east and south near kazakhstan). There has to be some explanation for that no?
The indian archeological complex for example shows cultural continuity but we know there were significant intermixing happening from 2000bce to 1000bce. Maybe corded ware had similar things – we see corded ware pottery everywhere but maybe these different lineages had different relationships with each other.
Conclusion:
I will no longer tolerate equating my glorious fatyonovo ancestors with the common losers over at team z283 or, shudder, r1b! May Lord Parjanya smite those insolent dasas! Let us drink mead (medhu) and prepare the chariots. These eurozone dasas won’t see us coming. Ride forth!
The indian archeological complex for example shows cultural continuity but we know there were significant intermixing happening from 2000bce to 1000bce. Maybe corded ware had similar things – we see corded ware pottery everywhere but maybe these different lineages had different relationships with each other.
we know bell beaker as a practice arose among non-indo-europeans in iberia and spread to indo-europeans in c europe (western corded ware). so material culture has an imperfect correlation with ethnolinguistic groups.
corded ware seems too extensive to be a single culture imo. so there were substituent groups. the yamna are all r1b, so we are not sampling a parallel r1a group somewhere around there?
the corded ware arose in 2900 in east-central europe. bell beakers arrive in british isles and spain 2500 (or later in spain, but before 2000). is this all enough time for the deep ethnolinguistic differences we see among indo-european groups by 500-1000 BC? perhaps there’s a lot of indo-european structure within the original yamnaya-corded ware zone?
“bell beakers arrive in british isles 2500 >>>> Vincha’s I2 were there for 3000 years before that (remember – B.Gates, Chuck Norris, Davy Crocket…)
“(or later in spain, but before 2000). is this all enough time for the deep ethnolinguistic differences we see among indo-european groups by 500-1000 BC? >>>>> definitely not, even if they had TV and internet.
“perhaps there’s a lot of indo-european structure within the original yamnaya-corded ware zone?>>>> I read this as – Vincha was there for 000 years with their language before Yamnaya arrived.
>>>>>> Btw, I am a bit surprised that none reacted on the assertion that Yamnaya people (future West Europeans, Americans, Australians) were not white and they, as someone mentioned above, ‘picked up’ the ‘whiteness’ in ‘Old Europe’ (i.e. Vincha)
According to genetics, Vincans — primarily having Anatolian descent — have the following Ydna haplogroups:
G2a2a1, G2a2a1a, G2a2a1a2a, G2a2a1a, G2a2b2a1a, H2
These haplogroups have nothing to do with PIE or IE or Slavics.
@Razib: “the corded ware arose in 2900 in east-central europe. bell beakers arrive in british isles and spain 2500 (or later in spain, but before 2000). is this all enough time for the deep ethnolinguistic differences we see among indo-european groups by 500-1000 BC? perhaps there’s a lot of indo-european structure within the original yamnaya-corded ware zone?”
Anatolian broke off earlier, plausibly around 4000BC. So the divergence of Hittite is less of a problem.
Rate of language change isn’t static. At best, we can say that it has upper and lower bounds. Icelandic has been nearly static for the last 1000 years, but modern English speakers will have an easier time decoding a text in French than one in Old English. Nobody knows why the rate of change differs so much. Part is probably tied to the internal structure of each language, part to social and cultural circumstances.
Anyway, 1000-1500 years isn’t beyond the realm of plausibility to produce the kind of differences we see between Sanskrit and Greek. As William Jones would say, anyone intimately familiar with both languages can’t help but see the similarities. In most ways the comparison between French and Romanian is similar – mutually unintelligible, highly diverged, relatively little shared vocabulary (at least before 19th C. Romanian reformers borrowed a ton of French words), but still clearly related. The time depth is virtually the same too.
This is a good ‘engineering’ approach which is rarely used in linguistics. Before jumping into specifics, a common-sense logic should be used. For example, how much time is needed for the development of pra-language and how much time is needed for one language to be fully formed? Specifically, how much time was needed for Sanskrit to be formed before in 2000BC it came to SA? Subsequently, one should answer where the specific language could be formed and by whom? The speed of formation and the richness of the language depend if it originated among nomads or in an urban environment, what were technology, cultural and mythology levels of that society, etc?
Re: Greek and Sanskrit. When and where Greeks and Sanskrit speakers met? Similarly, what was the link btw English and Sanskrit? The original Greek language (did not have this name at that time) came from Egypt/Middle East to Europe and it was NOT so-called Indo-European. They adopted the language of indigenous Balkan people, learnt to speak only using their mouths not throats what is typical for MEasterners and voila – their language became IE. Plato wrote about borrowing words from Brigians (i.e. Phrygians) in his Cratylus (I already presented some examples and will present another one or two).
Re – French and Romanians – Romanian language (and Romanian nation) is an artificial language which was implemented 160 years ago by French Jesuits who were present there since 1700. The original language was Dacian-Serbian and they have the same genetics as Serbs. Romanians officially belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church until 1924 and all medieval frescos were written in Serbian. All toponyms were Serbian and during ‘romanisation’ many were changed but still there are about 9000 Serbian words in their language. Because some call Romanian – Esperanto on Serbian base. The Jesuits ’East Latin Project’ was introduced to separate Russians from Serbs by creating an artificial nation in between. These geopolitics is still actual. About 160 000 Romanian soldiers died under Stalingrad. Jesuits took thousands of Romanian youths to Paris to teach them this newly invented language which they later taught back in Romania. Vlad Tepes ‘Dracula’ was a Wallachian Serb.
“When any common Muslim says ‘we’ when referring to the past, they are talking about their co-religionists, not their ancestors.”
Nah, plenty of them actually specifically use the word ancestor. I’ve seen the co-religionists types that you’re talking about, but there are tons and tons that very clearly mean “OUR ancestors ruled over YOUR ancestors”, as if they were all genetically different groups of people. It’s quite common, especially on FB and Twitter. These are the ones that have never heard the words Turko-Mongols/Turko-Persians.
Funny thing is we’ve already actually had this conversation on here-
https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/10/24/open-thread-10-24-2020-brown-pundits/
Just posting a comment from ESPNCricinfo’s FB page (comment had almost 140 likes)- https://postimg.cc/rKKsjHxp
“these players” refers to Pak’s cricket team
I can add more screenshots if you still don’t think it’s common.
@IsThisReal Please add more screenshots if you can.
Modern genomics is going to be like GangaJal – sab pavitra kar dega – 🙂
@Brownpundits folks (or anyone who can answer), in a given area – say rural eastern UP – is it possible to traces ancestors going back 4-5 generations using DNA samples of people belonging to same caste in the same district/taluka but from different religions. (Apologies if this is a naive question).
The ‘Nat Community’ (नट समाज) (musicians/singers/dancers in weddings) is borderline Hindu/Muslim, however, there is a fair amount of difference between – say a village of predominantly Yadav caste and the surrounding Muslim populace. So, in a district/taluka, would it be possible to find common ancestors of such a caste.
1) There are those whose ancestors actually ruled over your ancestors,
2) then there are those who think their ancestors ruled over your ancestors, but in reality they are wrong about their ancestors
3) and then there are those who know their ancestors got ruled over by everyone else and chose to forget about them because why would anyone care about their ancestors if their ancestors had no achievements?
All three parties above *also* adore other ancient co-religionists as well who had great achievements in the past because those achievements are considered part of Islamic history.
I think this sums it up nicely. I don’t know what is so complicated here to understand.
Don’t bother. The fake ethnic supremacy and/or Indus larps +/- Buddhist oppression stuff is a deep delusion of the NW islamoapologist hinduphobic gang. You can use facts, logic, concrete examples, etc. It won’t change a thing. Trust me, I have done it over and over again. Just isn’t worth it.
Halal haleem Owaisi.
That is all.
“indian civilization was fundamentally transformed by the aryans. i believe the indo-aryan languages do descend from dialects spoken in the volga region 4,000 years ago”
It would be interesting to see all of the changes in the general ivc zone, the aryan change was merely the last one in the twilight of the pre-aryan period which culminated the said period. There might have been layers of influence from the near east as well, since the earliest layers of south Asia’s neolithic has local wild grains, but certain near eastern imports end up becoming more popular by the bronze age. And I am not just talking about grains when referring to imports.
There is literally no reason for Indian Muslims to say their ancestors were ‘local’. The upper class Muslims might actually have significant foreign ancestry, whether that’s from 1000 years ago or 3500 years ago. The lower or middle class Muslims may not have any significant foreign ancestry, but their Hindu ancestors were not exactly top dogs either, just lower caste Hindus who had shit lives even under upper caste Hindu rule. Associating with powerful Muslim ruling dynasties and adopting Muslim history gives them a lot of pride, and India’s casteist milieu, much more power than they would otherwise have.
muslims are almost always representative of their regions. there isn’t a strong caste bias outside of some exceptions. i’m not speculating, i’ve looked at a lot of the genetics.
the vast majority of upper class muslims do not have foreign ancestry. i’ve looked at that too
“1) There are those whose ancestors actually ruled over your ancestors,
2) then there are those who think their ancestors ruled over your ancestors, but in reality they are wrong about their ancestors
3) and then there are those who know their ancestors got ruled over by everyone else and chose to forget about them because why would anyone care about their ancestors if their ancestors had no achievements?”
This paradigm is also just as cringe as his implication of any significant foreign ancestry in even upper caste muslims, an implication you just once again for the umpteenth time disproved. Lol, even funnier is the “3500” years ago thing. whether it is 5% or 30%, that’s still a minority and it is damn old enough to be considered just as “Indian” as anything else. And the 1000 years old stuff didn’t even leave a dent besides some royal families who outmarried with nobility from the Middle East, a tiny tiny sliver of all S Asians Muslims.
He has a very S Asian cultural view on history for being from Canada. Ancestral pride seems to be a very big deal for him, especially his perception of his ancestors being from an upper class. This is suggested strongly in his third assertion. If my ancestors were cleaning shit or ruling lands, why does it matter in terms of honoring them, as long as they weren’t doing truly morally reprehensible (in an era-neutral sense) things.
African Americans do not actively try to “forget” their slave ancestors. They honor them the same. Unless one’s ancestors did truly heinous known acts, maybe some mild shame could be in order. But shame in a low societal position within a ruthless feudal system? Or pride in coming from the upper echelons, when you had nothing to do with it or it was done on the backs of others in an anti-meritocracy? Regardless, once again, taking too much pride in one’s ancestral achievements just shows inadequate belief in one’s own ability to achieve, especially when one lives in a first world society with so much upward mobility potential. It shows the origins of one’s self esteem rely heavily on factors that they themselves had no direct involvement in. It’s a little bit sad.
//Ancestral pride seems to be a very big deal for him, especially his perception of his ancestors being from an upper class. This is suggested strongly in his third assertion. If my ancestors were cleaning shit or ruling lands, why does it matter in terms of honoring them, as long as they weren’t doing truly morally reprehensible (in an era-neutral sense) things.//
LOL! You can try to spin it whatever way you want, but fact is, there is only one group in the subcontinent that is obsessed about ancestry, and it is not the Muslims.
This is what I was referring to when I said Indian Hindus just don’t understand this paradigm.
If you go back far enough, you may find that we all have ape ancestors. Should we revere them too?
I couldn’t care less if I had upper caste, lower cast, mid caste, untouchable caste ancestors. What I and most other ”Muslims” care about first and foremost is Islamic history, Islamic rulers, Islamic personalities. Infact I may be the odd one out amongst my circle of 100-150 friends and family that actually cares about pre-islamic Indian history.
And this is why people destroy a newly discovered temple or statue in Pakistan that was built by their ancestors. Because they don’t give a shit about it.
And this is why people destroy a newly discovered temple or statue in Pakistan that was built by their ancestors. Because they don’t give a shit about it.
this is a misleading way to state it. the history of temple destruction in a proactive senes has a 5,000 year history, and it indicates when people do give a shit. destruction of the temple marks their values, and their turning back on the demonic past
otoh, sometimes temples are repurposed or material reused. these people don’t care. this happened after the extinction of paganism in the roman world, as temples were turned into churches, or marble was recycled.
if muslims didn’t give a shit they would turn temples into mosques, or reuse temple stone for mosques. my understanding is instead there is performative destruction, which is the opposite
Muslims have turned both temple into mosques, as well as destroyed temples and made mosques over them. This isn’t really sanctioned in the religion per say but to do so has not been considered an outrageous act historically speaking.
I should have clarified, I was referring to something like this:
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/constructions-workers-pakistan-destroy-ancient-unislamic-buddha-statue-found-while-digging-1702000-2020-07-18
Here is a newly excavated Buddha statue, which was destroyed right away, without much thought about its historical value. Several such examples in Pakistan of newly excavated Buddha statues being defaced or destroyed. The point I am making is that these actions are borne out of a culture that most certainly shuns pagan ancestor worship, **unless** the ancestors were Muslims. Having high regard for ancestors is common human practice found in every society, including Muslim ones, but when Muslims generally have to choose between Pagan Ancestors from the past vs Great Muslims of the Past, they will chose the Muslim side almost every time.
5. Speculation for PIE: According to Reich, only Armenia and Iran qualify for PIE as both primarily descend from Iran_N/CHG ancestry. AMT believers go with Armenia as they don’t believe Harappa to be IE speakers; while OIT believers go with Iran as PIE because Harappa also has Iran_N/CHG ancestry.
i wouldn’t take david as writ on these sort of things. david is a friend, and he asks me frankly what i think, because he’s open to differing views and unsure on a lot of things. (the first time he did this i was shocked, cuz it’s “the” david reich, but he’s a pretty humble person in a lot of ways)
I inherently trust Reich the most (and you too to be honest) because I know he doesn’t have a dog in the PIE fight. So when he suggests something, it has slightly more credibility to my ears. That’s why I come to this blog as well – an atheist Bangladeshi-American is likely to be more fair in this situation than a Hindu Indian or a European.
I can see that someone like Eurogenes has a lot of technical knowledge but his bias is obvious. And lets not even get started on the list of OIT clowns that embarrass themselves regularly. I like Niraj Rai though – he’s more like Eurogenes to me – biased but scientific.
THE PALEOLITHIC CONTINUITY PARADIGM
FOR THE ORIGINS OF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
An Introduction in progress
Last Updating: December 2016
by Mario Alinei & Francesco Benozzo (‘Ciao Francesco’!)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1.3 The Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm (PCP)
The main points of the PCP on the origins of the Indo-Europeans, as well as on language origin and evolution are the following:
1.3.1. Continuity as the basic working hypothesis on the origins of IE languages
If the demonstration of continuity, as James Mallory has had to admit, is “the archaeologists’ easiest pursuit” (Mallory 1989, 81), then it follows:
(1) that also for the question of European origin, the easiest working hypothesis is the continuity model, and no other alternative;
(2) that consequently the burden of proof now lies on the (Chalcolithic or Neolithic) invasionist’s shoulders, and not on the anti-invasionist’s;
(3) that as long as no alternative theory provides irrefutable counter-evidence, the Paleolithic Continuity can be considered as the winning theory.
++++++++++++++
(C) Independent geneticists working on DNA have recently ascertained that that 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to Paleolithic (e.g. Sykes 2001, 2006).
++++++++++++++++++
(A) there is absolutely no trace of a gigantic warlike invasion, such as to have caused a linguistic substitution on continental scale, as envisaged by the traditional IE theory; and
(B) all Neolithic cultures of Europe either are a direct continuation of Mesolithic ones, or have been created by Mesolithic groups after their Neolithization by intrusive farmers from the Middle East.
So that, again, a language substitution of the imagined scale would be altogether unlikely. There is, instead, every possible evidence for demic and cultural continuity, from Paleolithic to the Metal Ages. Continuity is now universally considered the basic pattern of European prehistory. As already said, even James Mallory, probably the last archaeologist who defends the IE invasion theory, has had to concede: “the archaeologists’ easiest pursuit [is] the demonstration of relative continuity and absence of intrusion” (Mallory 1989, 81).
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The totally absurd thesis of the so called ‘late arrival’ of the Slavs in Europe must be replaced by the scenario of Slavic continuity from Paleolithic, and the demographic growth and geographic expansion of the Slavs can be explained, much more realistically, by the extraordinary success, continuity and stability of the Neolithic cultures of South-Eastern Europe (the only ones in Europe that caused the formation of tells) (Alinei 2000a, 2003b).
+++++++++++++++++++
FULL PAPER:
http://www.continuitas.org/intro.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/india-successfully-cultures-uk-variant-of-coronavirus-strain-icmr/article33481941.ece/amp/
Coronavirus | India becomes first country to culture U.K. variant strain
I fell off following genetics of AIT/OIT to get all the nuances. But one question keeps bothering me that I’m afraid i won’t be able to understand without following a lot more recent pubs. Any response is much appreciated.
Aside: I use “quotes” to take its meaning based on technical usage and not common usage, similar to how quotes are used to write-out acronyms. (I think this is @ugra’s tendency too where “belly” in quotes is expected to be taken as underbelly of an argument rather than someone’s stomach – ESL speakers problems)
QUESTION:
How did someone decide that ancient Indian is AASI? Because I keep seeing people ask where is “Indian” signal in genetics for OIT? But what is “Indian” Signal if IVC were having very low AASI themselves.
1.Given low sample size of IVC aDNA and high variation of Iran-neo and AASI combinations, there is decent (>50%) probability of “pure IVC Iran-neo” people at IVC. Is this false premise?
2. If AASI admixture to “pure IVC Iran-neo” typically happened in conjunction with Steppe (which I think is reasonable inference since Steppe+AASI proportions are on a cline with jati status), why can’t “pure IVC Iran-neo” be original “Indians”. If so, is it even possible to separate out this component from aDNA of Yamnya and other CWC?
3. If possible to separate out that “pure IVC Iran-neo” from aDNA, did anybody try and not found it to be the case? That is , there is no contribution from “pure IVC Iran-neo” to any aDNA from sinhasta etc.
Hope somebody looked into it and have some answers.
My own position (to avoid side-tracks on politics and trolls):
Once ANI-ASI division ended up being three-way split, it was clear that many more questions need answering before one can conclusively say how IE language entered India. Knowing location of PIE would be a great outcome from all aDNA work. Any other inference related to India seems kind of premature without resolving PIE location given such abundance of aDNA from everywhere else and paucity of it from pre-IVC.
Also, I don’t believe the sample size arguments about having millions of base-pairs in one aDNA. That may be the case, but if I ended up being dug out from Canada in 3000 years, I don’t think it would be informative about majority of Canadians in this time period. Even my current neighbors won’t be much help either. So, aDNA in India has sample size issues as I think “types of ancient Indians” > # of available aDNA skeletons from India. (This should also be reasonable inference given the variety of Y and mtDNA lineages)
1.Given low sample size of IVC aDNA and high variation of Iran-neo and AASI combinations, there is decent (>50%) probability of “pure IVC Iran-neo” people at IVC. Is this false premise?
in genomics every individual is sampling a whole genealogy. so the sample size is not low. you’re getting a good representation of whole populations. there perhaps are some very high iran-neo ppl…but it looks like AASI ancestry is there are low levels everywhere. probably (possibly?) the iran-neo ppl moved further east and absorbed a wohle aasi tribe.
3. If possible to separate out that “pure IVC Iran-neo” from aDNA, did anybody try and not found it to be the case? That is , there is no contribution from “pure IVC Iran-neo” to any aDNA from sinhasta etc.
there are west iran farmers and east iran farmers
the west iran farmers have some ‘anatolian’ ancestry. this group is a posibble donor population to yamna, which is donor majority to sintashta
the east iran farmers have no anatolian ancestry, but do have some siberian/ancient north eurasian
Also, I don’t believe the sample size arguments about having millions of base-pairs in one aDNA. That may be the case, but if I ended up being dug out from Canada in 3000 years, I don’t think it would be informative about majority of Canadians in this time period.
this is not a sample size consideration. this is a representativeness consideration.
if there were a bunch of black africans in IVC and you sampled 250 of them from a single tribe you’d hvae a large sample size. but they may not be representative of the IVC
1 million SNPs from a genome is a huge sample size. but it may not be a representative genealogy
The eastern Iranians who moved to India may have done so before farming started in that region, so I think east Iranian farmers/HG would be more appropriate at least for now.
@DaThang
Where do you think Iran_HG moved from?
I think that they came from somewhere in eastern Iran.
I think that they came from somewhere in eastern Iran, IDK about any further geography specific details.
Thanks Razib ? for taking time to answer.
I agree about sample size vs. Representativeness. There is temporal variation and spatial variation among individuals. One aDNA provides temporal variation in that person’s genetics but can’t capture spatial/regional variation. This isn’t a big deal in homogeneous populations (e.g. one Japanese same as other if sampled at random—Ainu notwithstanding). But in population with known variance, it is misleading to be conclusive with one or two aDNA samples.
Four skeleton samples seem too low to get representativeness of all IVC population in 2000 BCE (just to fix a time point) given their cosmopolitan nature (I.e. trade posts) and geographical extent of civilization. It would have been fine if all had 10-15% AASI (as an example) but known variation was 10-70% AASI (from
Narasimhan et al. even if we bin the time interval a bit generously), which made me question representativeness of currently available aDNA for whole of IVC.
This point always gets lost in the simplification that IVC had no steppe or all IVC had AASI in 2000BCE. That’s why I wanted to know this with more clarity. Thanks for the response.
“Language and languages are much more ancient than traditionally thought. Consequently, also the record of their origins, change and development must be mapped onto a much longer chronology, instead of being compressed into a few millennia, as traditionally done, and as the NDT (MT: Anatolian) also obliges to do. While traditional linguistics, by reifying language, had made change into a sort of biological, organic law of language development, the extraordinary tempo of it would fit the short chronologies of the recent invasion or of the earlier Neolithization, the new, much longer chronologies of language origins and language development impose a reversal of this conception: conservation is the law of language and languages, and change is the exception, being caused not by an alleged ‘biological law of language’, but by major external (ethnic or social) factors, i. e. by language contacts and hybridization, in concomitance with the major ecological, socio-economic and cultural events that have shaped each area of the globe” (Alinei 1996).
++++++++++
Vincha (Iron Gates, Danubian civilisation) is the only place that can satisfy the above assertion.
Alinei established that neither kurgan nor Anatolian can do this.
Vincha is the birthplace of the future Sanskrit.
How can somebody lie after giving reference?
The paper [1] (The Paleolithic Conctinuity Paradigm for the origins of Indo-European Languages) linked by the fraudster @Milan Todorovic has no mention of Vinca, and has got nothing to do with it. Furthermore, according to genetics, Vincans — primarily having Anatolian descent — have the following Ydna haplogroups:
G2a2a1, G2a2a1a, G2a2a1a2a, G2a2a1a, G2a2b2a1a, H2
These haplogroups have nothing to do with PIE or IE or Slavics.
With regards to Alinei [1], a sound rebuttal to the hypothesis has been published by Asya Pereltsvaig in the paper (Paleolithic Continuity Theory: Assumptions and Problems). Chief among them are:
1. The author avoids discussing linguistic data
“””
This underscores a larger problem with Alinei’s proposal: he does not engage with any linguistic evidence brought up to support the Steppe theory or even the Anatolian hypothesis. Instead, Alinei attempts to discredit his competitors by calling their key claims “alleged”, “extraordinary” and the like.
“””
2. Contradicts Uniformitarian Principle, which is:
“””
we can constrain our hypotheses about the structure and history of languages of the past only by reference to what we know of contemporary language structures, linguistic behavior and changes in progress, since the recoverable information about any language or speech community of the past is always far more limited than what we can known about languages whose native speakers we can still observe […] Positing for any time in the past any structure or development inconsistent with what is known from modern work on living languages is unacceptable, and positing for prehistory any type of long-term development that we do not observe in documented history is likewise unacceptable… (Ringe)
“””
3. Assumes that language remained same for multiple millenia.
“””
There is not a single documented example of a natural, living human language that has not changed at all in the last 100 years, let alone in the course of millennia, as Alinei presupposes. Therefore, the central claim of the PCT, that of “antiquity and stability of language and languages”, in the words of Ringe et al. “posit[s] for prehistory [a] type of long-term development that we do not observe in documented history” and is therefore unacceptable. While no one can deny that language change happens, Alinei tries to bury it as an insignificant, marginal phenomena, contrary to observed facts.
“””
4. No explanation for sudden diversification of IE languages:
“””
in addition to being factually erroneous, Alinei’s claim that languages remain stable except when contact and hybridization cause change is also internally inconsistent: if Europe was blanketed by a stable and immutable Proto-Indo-European language for millennia, what could cause its sudden change and diversification into daughter languages and ultimately into some 400 modern languages? What possibly could it be in contact with?
“””
Regarding Niraj Rai’s tweet, let me quote from a recent post of Razib:
In other words, most “agreeable” westerners, even when they see Beard’s disingenuity, are happy with just privately disagreeing with her.
What Niraj Rai tweeted was merely the Hindutva analogue of what woke or (often just woke-signalling) academics do regularly and with impunity. Unlike our good agreeable friend Numinous sir, most agreeable westerners mostly don’t see Sparta or portend an evil 2021 when a craven western academic spins results to help further ensconce wokery.
So it is but natural that Hindutva folks will not only tolerate but even feel entitled to put up a similarly dishonest fight to promote their cause.
Classical liberals may largely disagree with woke academic research but at the end of the day simply let them be, so do you seriously expect people following other ideologies to take all this lying down with the superstition that “truth” is going to liberate them and give them a level playing field?
i just finished a substack essay of 6,000 words basically saying this (specific reference to AIT). it’s gonna be paid so not too many ppl will being seeing it, but that’s OK 🙂
I just realized I used “truth” with quotes kind of similarly to how Ugra used “belly”, but probably wasn’t questioned because Violet had given an explanation which, though not conformed to by my usage, expanded the scope of its acceptability. 🙂
Unlike our good agreeable friend Numinous sir, most agreeable westerners mostly don’t see Sparta or portend an evil 2021 when a craven western academic spins results to help further ensconce wokery.
I don’t understand this sentence but I’m not sure I really care. I despise wokery and in some of my comments try to illustrate how the Hindutva people have adopted the bad practices and principles of the woke. But if you want to adopt the cartoonish vision that Hindutva is the antithesis of wokeness (because one has the label “right” and the other “left”), that’s your choice. (Equally stupid and juvenile is the habit, which I see a lot of people around me in real like exhibit, is assuming that any criticism of a Modi/BJP policy must mean that one is a Rahul Gandhi worshipper. Limited minds!)
As I mentioned in another comment, I stay away from social media, so I don’t even know what peoples’ pet obsessions are there, let alone participate in them. I often get the feeling that people like you don’t bother responding to a specific commenter or comment but rather a category they have observed on social media.
On categories:
1. Judging aggregate or average behavior of Hindutvavadis, Islamists, Wokes, Classical Liberals etc. and even of Hindus, Muslims, men, women etc. *as a group* – generally kosher (whether right or wrong). This I did (rightly or wrongly).
2. Telling someone “You must believe this because you belong to such and such group” – not kosher. Your comment is sort of implying I did that to you, while I didn’t. Not fair. If anything, you came close to it by talking of “people like you”.
3. Bringing in that analogy of people making the “Rahul Gandhi worshipper” assumption – that is nothing like anything I wrote, and is a probabilistic version of #2 above, being just a misplaced analogy that probabilistically triggers unfair subconscious associations. I would say it is actually nastier than #2, because it comes with plausible deniability.
This Open thread is something else. LOL
My 2 cents AIT-OIT stuff importance is exaggerated on Hindu-Muslim relations or Hindutva politics in general in India. Because in the engine of Hindutva (N-India) its mostly accepted that Hindus are native while Muslims are not.
Now that’s out of the way, we can resume our fights.
If only the partition was done right we could’ve settled this AIT/ATT/OIT longtime ago. Partition done right in the sense, the same thing happened with indian Muslims what happened to pakistani hindus( most of then got kicked out and states chose their respective religion as state religion).
AIT doesn’t automatically imply that Hindus are not native either, though many people (colonial era Europeans, Dravidian nationalists, some Muslims?) have interpreted it that way.
Hindu nationalists seem to be desperately seeking something (a polity) akin to what Europeans were seeking after the Thirty Years War. But they either forget or don’t seem to care about all of the progress made in the West since that time, which has pretty much made the Peace of Westphalia moot today. (On the Hindu nationalists’ timelines, we are going to be perpetually 3 centuries behind the West.)
My biggest bugaboo with all of this is that the things these poeple obsess about (temples and mosques, what to eat, what not to eat, what to wear, etc.) is all useless BS. I wish they would spend whatever brain cycles you possess in trying to solve outstanding math and scientific puzzles, building innovative technology (rather than wallowing in the glory of the Ram Setu) and medicine.
\Hindu nationalists seem to be desperately seeking something (a polity) akin to what Europeans were seeking after the Thirty Years War.\
Even in the 20th C , the same dynamic of Thirty Years war has taken place. In early 1920s, Greek and Turks living in Turkey and Greece were exchanged. After WW2, Germans were expelled from czechoslovakia by the liberal regime of masryk . Poles and germans were moved westwards to fit in with new borders. These are better known examples of ethnic homogenization due to international treaties. Lesser known, informal and unrecorded are many more like that of Pakistan doing away with Hindus and Sikhs
Even in US of A, Crown Loyalists were expelled after War of Independence.
History is neurosis
When it had suited the liberals have turned a blind eye to massacres during Cold War .
I think a pure and ancient origin is very much integral to national myth-making, particularly for rising, aspiring nations. The AIT/OIT debate is not just because of Hindu-Muslim thing, this is a core part of building Hindu nationalism. Yes, Savarkar and such accepted outside origin of Aryans, but they still regarded Aryans as a pure and superior culture from a distant land. The Chinese also believe distinct origin of Chinese people, they have a ‘Chinese Eve’ project going on for decades. German nationalists before WW2 tried to build up an ancient origin of German civilization also. Himmler spent lots of state resources in highlighting atone age artefacts found in Germany. Hitler on the other hand had no illusions about ancient Germans, who he regarded as barbarians. Hitler’s racial view was Darwinian, not pure and ancient. He held that nations attain greatness through survival of fittest struggle with other nations, not because they have some ancient heritage.
AIT/OIT debate to Hindus is a little bit like the greatness of civilization-building of Muhammad and companions to Muslims. It is a core part of Islam’s specialness. I think it is a big testament of relative Hindu progress over Muslims that they still have open debates about this very sensitive national myth narratives. However, this openness may be gradually receding. Cultures diffuse from neighbors.
\AIT/OIT debate is not just because of Hindu-Muslim thing,\
Hindu-Muslim thing has nothing do with AIT/OIT.
AIT/OIT is the desire to take one’s racial or ethnic definitions in one’s own hand. The western liberal attitude is ‘we will define what are the races and who are they and it is upto third world like India to solve attendent problems in nice ways’
@Razib Khan
Do we have any remnants of the cattle type that Indo aryans brought with them (whether skeletons or a genetic component of some zebu in colder areas (Himalayas)). Do you have any idea about when they started using the native cows. I am asking because some people think that the notion that cows are sacred was brought to India by them (though taboo surrounding consuming its and other meat is post buddhist) but they didn’t even use the same type of cow. This belief could have developed after the fall of IVC among ASI. I dont know much about the Vedas so what I’m saying could be disproven by something written in it but that thing could also be something that was added from asi/aasi peoples philosophy.
looks like they didn’t bring any cows that lasted. also, i bet they were more focused on sheep and horse in turan. the lit i’ve seen on pastoralism is that these cold climate cattle are not the best for central asia
So u mean to say this debate will go on , till the cows come home 😛
https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/fairy-tale-on-field-the-significance-of-mohammed-siraj/cid/1802439
“‘No normal sport in an abnormal society’ was the slogan coined by the South African Council on Sport in its campaign against apartheid in South Africa. It was both a powerful slogan and a simple truth. India doesn’t formally discriminate against Muslims on the same scale as apartheid South Africa did, but the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the National Register of Citizens and the love jihad laws suggest that institutionalized discrimination is on the near horizon.
When majoritarianism distorts a country’s democratic institutions and forces them to diverge from the basic fairness that sustains the meritocratic structures of sport, the minority sportsman in a national team finds himself representing a nation that treats his co-religionists as second-class citizens. As citizen-spectators, we are then forced to reckon with the tension between glorying in Siraj’s achievements on ‘our’ behalf and reconciling that pride with the increasingly brazen persecution of Muslims in India. To look at the cricket and look away from the rest is one option. To look at the cricket and then hold politics accountable to the same standards of fairness that we expect of sport is the other.”
It was amazing that we reached consensus that ‘some people’ (reflux or Aryans) came from outside to SA and brought their language. I think that for this was crucial goodwill from all sides plus Razib’s concession that they ‘probably’ (95%) brought that language.
It would be astonishing if we make a step further and make agreement that (based on above comments) these people came from Vincha where their language originated. I think that this annex is much easier to be accepted by ‘common sense OIT’ people (considering that their fulmo wing is hopeless) which we can brand as – ‘IT’. I am also ready to make some concessions.
Let’s say, I propose the formulation – “future Swedish/Suisse came to SA from Vincha and brought with them their Vincha language”.
If this formulation is accepted, it would mean that the long running feud and dilemma AMT vs. OIT, came to the final, historical resolution.
After that, instead of ‘AMT/OIT’ we will have simple – ‘IT’.
@Expert
“There are no specific references to the nomadic lifestyle in the RV (many people have a vague idea of what it is).”
No idea? So, for example, what does the term grAma stand for in the RV?
Francesco, could you pls explain if you know the meaning of RG? This is one of our outstanding tasks in our linguistic topics list. Thanks.
For @Milan Todorovic and his moronic Vincan Theory:
RG derives from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ŕ̥kʷs, from *h₁erkʷ- (“to praise”). It is cognate with Old Armenian երգ (erg, “song”), Tocharian A yärk, Tocharian B yarke (“worship, veneration”).
Grāma (ग्राम) derives from PII *grā́mas (“village, town, community”).
@Milan
“Ciao Francesco! It is difficult. I was accustomed to ‘Indo-Germanische’ for almost 100 of years and I still cannot adapt to this unexpected change.”
“Indo-Germanische” is a Germanocentric linguistic term created in the nineteenth century to highlight the alleged racial superiority of the German people within the ambit of the peoples speaking IE languages. It has been rejected by most of German linguists themselves after WWII. “Indo-European”, on the contrary, has no racist overtones, it’s just a linguistic term based on geolinguistics (just like “Afroasiatic”, “Austroasiatic”, etc.).
https://www.opindia.com/2021/01/grooming-love-jihad-bareilly-hindu-girl-molested-threatened-gun-point-convert-to-islam-marry-complaint/
Crazy stuff
the problem with the love jihad stuff is the same problem i have with stories depicting nazi-like behavior of hindus in india. in a nation of 1.3 billion ppl how easy is it to find a crazy story? so the question is the prevalence
True, but anti-love-jihad crusades now have the force of law in our biggest state, so perhaps we should take them more seriously than, say, the occasional cow-related killing (thankfully, no state has passed a law prescribing the death penalty for cow slaughter yet).
I’ve always disliked the term ‘Indo European’.
I also don’t see how Europe should be a continent. It looks like part of Asia to me. The division is clearly artificial – you can tell by the fact that say the Middle East of South Asia aren’t classified as continents.
@Mohan
“I also don’t see how Europe should be a continent. It looks like part of Asia to me.”
Exactly! Indeed, what I have written is that IE languages “were historically spoken from the European sub-continent to the Indian sub-continent.” Europe is a sub-continent of the Eurasian continent, just like the Indian sub-continent is.
this spree of idol breaking in andhra is causing concern. hope sanity prevails.
https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3lE6SFIj40IVhK7ZAbRWclRtaOuQG5gBIlj6ljw8eMW7AqwFJZlAkUQEM
One of Ambedkar’s essays on caste. Short but a good read.
@fulto
“Grāma (ग्राम) derives from PII *grā́mas (“village, town, community”).”
No, it does not. It is a reflex of PIE *h2gr-om-/*h2gr-em- ‘to gather’ > PIIr. *(H)grāma- > Ṛgvedic Sanskrit grāma ‘train, troop’ (compare grāmajit ‘winning trains, conquering troops’, grāmaṇī ‘leader of a troop’, saṃgrāma ‘troop, coming together of two armies, battle’). Iranian cognates: Sogdian gr’m’k ‘riches’, Middle Persian grāmag ‘wealth, property’, Parthian gr’mg ‘riches’. IE cognates: Old Church Slavonic gramada ‘heap, pile’, Russian gromada ‘mass, bulk, pile’, Lithuanian grumulas ‘lump’, Latin gremium ‘armful’.
Vedicist Wilhelm Rau while discussing the term grāma says that its denoting the inhabitants, as in “grama has come/grama has gone” is undoubtedly the oldest and the only one attested in the earliest strata of Vedic literature. The coming/going grāma comprised cattle, ox-wagons, carts and chariots.
Rau’s etymological hypothesis affirms that Skt. grāma originally referred to a temporary nomadic settlement (earlier on, ‘a crowd’, ‘a mass’, ‘a heap’ with the idea of gathering together). For Rau grāma in the RV primarily means ‘a wagon train’, ‘a train of herdsmen’, roaming about with cattle, ox-carts, and chariots in quest of fresh pastures and booty. Subsequently it came to denote a temporary camp for such a train, made of bamboo poles and reed mats that could be quickly assembled and taken apart. Grāma denotes ‘village’ for the first time in late Vedic, that is, after 700 BCE, and continues to be used in that sense today.
The derivative grāmya in the Vedic texts refers to domesticated animals, whereas in the later texts on food regulations the term usually refers to animals living in the village, which are forbidden, and not to farm animals, which are permitted. The differing meanings of grāmya in the Vedic and post-Vedic classifications of animals may also reflect the changing meaning of the term grāma. Although it refers to a settled village in later Sanskrit, during the Vedic period it is likely that the term refers to a roving band of pastoral people who moved about with their animals. In this sense, the grāmya animals would clearly refer to these domesticated animals.
‘Old Church Slavonic’ is one way regularly used to supress the Serbian name (serbophobia is widespread globally including this blog). This language is Serbian. OCS was the name for the Serbian language which was used in medieval church service which was frozen in church books and more archaic in comparison with daily spoken Serbian language. For this purpose is also used the term Slavic even in ancient history although it was created fairly recently. It would be similar if we say that Soviets invaded India 4000 years ago. (Btw, ‘gramada’ is good)
The term ‘Indo-European’ is also political when power of balance changed and Anglo-Frenchs asked for a ‘piece of action’ and the replacement of ‘Indo-Germanishe’. The term IE can be used as a classification bookmark for languages in last 3-4000 years (after Aryan’ arrival) but not before. It cannot be used as THE language which Yamnaya people brought to Europe. THIS language should be given a specific name and follow its evolution. But, this kurgan theory is wrong anyway so, so-called IE language brought by them is also non-existent. Even more meaningless is the term ProtoIE. It would be equivalent if we say that we speak Proto-Martian because some people in 1000 years will live on Mars. It should be used Pra-language or Pra-specific language, where ‘specific language’ directly evolved from this pra-language and later got its specific name.
@Francesco Brighenti
The question you asked was its meaning in (Vedic) Sanskrit, and not its meaning in PIE, which is immaterial. The meaning in Vedic Sanskrit is what matters. Its meaning in PIE only shows how the word came about. In historical linguistics, the meaning of the word that is attested is only used to derive inferences, so on this basis:
Source: Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries: Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
1) Grāma (ग्राम):—m. an inhabited place, village, hamlet, [Ṛg-veda i, x; Atharva-veda; Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā] etc.
2) the collective inhabitants of a place, community, race, [Ṛg-veda x, 146, 1; Atharva-veda] etc.
3) any number of men associated together, multitude, troop ([especially] of soldiers), [Ṛg-veda i, iii, x; Atharva-veda iv, 7, 5; Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa vi, xii]
So, the meaning village, place, community is valid, and exists in Rig Veda.
Furthermore, I urge you to consult authoritative sources to derive historical inferences, otherwise, there is a chance to be misled. Now, for PII and PIE social condition (according to Mallory):
“””
The reconstructed lexicon provides a very general picture of the residences and architecture of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Nevertheless, we can at least make an attempt at translating some of the vocabulary into features that might be recoverable from the archaeological record. To begin with, it seems fairly clear that the Proto-Indo-Europeans occupied substantial houses rather than flimsier shelters. For example, among the fourteen terms for dwelling or settlement reconstructed to the largely mobile hunter-Wshers of the Uralic language family, we Wnd terms such as the *śarma ‘smokehole of a tent’, *ude-me ‘sleeping tent’, and even the IE loanword *ket- ‘room’ yields the Uralic *kota ‘tent, hut, house’. In contrast, Proto-Indo-European possesses sufficient terms for house, room, and upright timber constructions to suggest a more solid dwelling structure.
The reconstructed lexicon also indicates some form of nucleated settle-
ment, i.e. a group of houses, rather than the type of dispersed settlement
that one often encounters on the western periphery of Europe during the
Neolithic.
“””
Therefore, If PIE itself had “group of houses” and showed “substantial settlements”, then obviously Vedic Sanskrit will have a word for denoting village, town. Furthermore, according to Mallory the word for brick exists in PII
“”
among Indo-Europeans who employed bricks in construction, as in Proto-Indo-Iranian *išt(y)a- ‘brick’ (>Av ištiia-, Skt ı́s t akā-),
“”
Moreover, you can also consult these reconstructions if you have any doubts, and would like to further study the topic:
1. Etyno Greek: https://etymologeek(dot)com/psu/-/17779065
2. Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/grā́mas https://en.wiktionary(dot)org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/gr%C4%81%CC%81mas
Don’t call ATM camp “Sepoys” just because your OOI theory isn’t Convincing anyone, including most linguists&historians around the world.
ATM??? too much pr0n…
@Razib
Please confirm if there is or no Steppe component in the R1a sample found in Roopkund lake. In twitter, a lot of OITers are saying that. Even Iosif Lazaridis (https://twitter.com/iosif_lazaridis/status/1345071089320341512) has come out and confirmed that there is no Steppe component in the medieval sample. Is it true? How is this possible? If true, why is there no Steppe ancestry in Roopkund’s R1a sample? What does it mean?
i don’t know if this is true or not. but it wouldn’t surprise me. three points
1) there is a 50% chance that 8 generations down the line you will have no DNA segments in a descendent. e.g., if my r1a1a son marries a chinese woman and his children marry chinese, it is possible in the year 2200 i have a direct paternal descent who carries my y chromosome who has no segments of non-Y DNA from me! ~50% probability in fact!!!
2) the chenchus have 26% r1a but don’t have steppe https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC379225/ i assume it’s a similar dynamic as above. a prestigious individual carrying this Y intermarried into the tribe, but his genes were mostly lost
3) a nonindian case. the r1b haplo is present at 20-80% around lake chad. this is clearly eurasian. but the whole genome is only a few percent west eurasian. it’s due to dilution over thousands of years, but selective prestige of r1b clans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6240361/
@Razib
Your explanation makes sense but doesn’t fit in the overall scheme of a supposedly male mediated Steppes introgression into India at 3500 yBP. If no females came over at all from the Steppes, then all that Steppes component should have been bred out of existence in over 75 generations.
Doctors in the OIT camp are claiming that for such a strong Steppes signature to show in modern Indians, the admixture must have been very recent (less than 40 generations or 1200 years ago)
The alternative is that almost all the Indian males in the Indian subcontinent were wiped out at 3500 ybp leaving only Steppes males procreating with local females. That rules out AMT. A very violent Aryan invasion. But there is no archaeological evidence for this.
@Razib
The Roopkund Man (one among many individuals), whose bones were found in the lake in Uttarakhand at 16470 feet has been dated to between 7th and 10th century CE. He has been securely determined to be of South Asian stock by PCA. He is the earliest Indian man unearthed to have R1a.
The Roopkund Man does not have Steppes aDNA
I am unable to provide you with a technical paper now but OIT Twitter camp is suggesting that this is partly driving Niraj’s claims.
Do you agree that the Steppes people were not present in India before the 10th century AD, if this piece of news turns out to be correct. After all the sample size with the Shinde/Reich paper wrt Rakhigarhi woman is exactly similar. Your thoughts on this unverified piece?
Facts (AFAIK, please correct me if I’m wrong):
1. Ancient DNA from Swat ~12th century BC contains steppe DNA.
2. Most modern-day Indians have some steppe DNA.
#1 indicates that there was steppe DNA in our region latest by 1200 BC, though the spread may have been limited at the time.
If one person who lived between the 7th and 10th centuries AD doesn’t have steppe DNA, that doesn’t make the DNA identified in #1 magically vanish. Your Rakhigarhi analogy is bonkers, as inference made from her DNA (even if it be one sample) is deemed useful because we haven’t found anything older yet.
as inference made from her DNA (even if it be one sample) is deemed useful because we haven’t found anything older yet.
Wrong. If the reason was that we hadn’t found anything older yet the best course would have been to suspend judgement and not take a stance. Instead, as Razib argues above, “in genomics every individual is sampling a whole genealogy. so the sample size is not low. you’re getting a good representation of whole populations.” In other words, “one individual” does not mean “sample size of just one”.
What you are saying isn’t contradicting what I’m saying. What I got from Razib’s quote (which you mention above) is that a single person’s DNA can accurately paint the genetic picture of an entire population.
This is a separate question from what mix of populations existed in a given region at a given time. All I implied in my earlier comment was that if we discover ancient DNA with R1a in the general IVC region that’s older than Madame Rakhigarhi, that will imply that there were both IVC (“Iranian farmer”)-descended populations and steppe-descended populations in the area. This would muddy all the existing theories.
I guess the Roopkund guy’s DNA would also depend on the community to which he belonged to ? We don’t know the community of that individual. Not everyone carry the same components.
Having relinquished ‘O’ from their name, ‘IT’ is shifting the battlefield lines on reserve positions – defend that SS (Suisse/Swedish) have nothing to do with Vedas despite they were written in their language. Poor Talageri, he was abandoned far behind enemy lines with his linguistic. There is a dilemma – will IT organise the saving of private Talageri?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbctv18.com/business/lenovo-to-begin-manufacturing-tablets-in-india-7887221.htm/amp
Lenovo to begin manufacturing tablets in India