European languages before Indo-European

[TaylorS]

Ack, and I've been so busy with a new job I completely forgot about that fictional isolate that I said I was going to do! GAHHHH!

[WeepingElf]

I can't remember if I have already mentioned it, but archaeologist Jean Manco in her book Ancestral Journeys argues that Italo-Celtic speakers had already dispersed as far as Iberia by the time that the Bell Beaker style developed (a dispersion marked by the spread of Yamnaya-type anthropomorphic stelae across southern Europe) and that the distinctive beakers were ultimately derived from Yamnaya pottery styles but with some "native" Iberian influence. She says that Lusitanian may be a relic of this initial dispersion, most of which was submerged by later Celtic migration.

This is unlikely for chronological reasons. The presence of wheeled vehicle terminology in Late PIE sets a terminus post quem of about 4000 BC, and a Proto-Italo-Celtic in the Iberian peninsula at 3000 BC is accordingly very unlikely.

I don't know who this Jean Manco is, but apparently she is yet another non-linguist who, blissfully ignoring the PIE facts, rides Colin Renfrew's fashionable Anatolian hypothesis train. I haven't yet heard of an Indo-Europeanist who is into the Anatolian hypothesis and is not a crackpot.

[Matrix]

Not only do most Anatolianists ignore linguistics, they actually believe that the entire field of comparative linguistics is bunk:

"On the other hand, most archaeologists have agreed with Renfrew. They see comparative linguistics as unreliable and based on incomplete premises in reconstructing historical situations. They argue that there is not one piece of archaeological material that can unequivocally be called Indo-European."

More: show

Littman, Robert J.
2007 Linguistics and the Teaching of Classical History and Culture
The Classical World 100(2):143-150

[WeepingElf]

Not only do most Anatolianists ignore linguistics, they actually believe that the entire field of comparative linguistics is bunk:

"On the other hand, most archaeologists have agreed with Renfrew. They see comparative linguistics as unreliable and based on incomplete premises in reconstructing historical situations. They argue that there is not one piece of archaeological material that can unequivocally be called Indo-European."

More: show

Littman, Robert J.
2007 Linguistics and the Teaching of Classical History and Culture
The Classical World 100(2):143-150

Oh dear. We have a term in German for that kind of scholars: Fachidioten (singular Fachidiot). But not all archaeologists are like that. Many, if not most, clearly realize that archaeological objects, unless bearing inscriptions, say nothing about the languages of the people who made or used them, and make no statement at all about those languages. The notion that archaeological cultures closely correspond to language families has pretty much fallen out of favour, as counterexamples are not hard to find.

[M Mira]

Many, if not most, clearly realize that archaeological objects, unless bearing inscriptions, say nothing about the languages of the people who made or used them, and make no statement at all about those languages.

And even with 100% undisputably locally made and inscribed artifacts, they still need to be taken with a pinch of salt as any sort of proof of the language of their makers. Case in point: unearthed Japanese Kofun-era objects all bear Chinese inscriptions without any trace of Japanese save the funny-looking names.

[TaylorS]

I can't remember if I have already mentioned it, but archaeologist Jean Manco in her book Ancestral Journeys argues that Italo-Celtic speakers had already dispersed as far as Iberia by the time that the Bell Beaker style developed (a dispersion marked by the spread of Yamnaya-type anthropomorphic stelae across southern Europe) and that the distinctive beakers were ultimately derived from Yamnaya pottery styles but with some "native" Iberian influence. She says that Lusitanian may be a relic of this initial dispersion, most of which was submerged by later Celtic migration.

This is unlikely for chronological reasons. The presence of wheeled vehicle terminology in Late PIE sets a terminus post quem of about 4000 BC, and a Proto-Italo-Celtic in the Iberian peninsula at 3000 BC is accordingly very unlikely.

I don't know who this Jean Manco is, but apparently she is yet another non-linguist who, blissfully ignoring the PIE facts, rides Colin Renfrew's fashionable Anatolian hypothesis train. I haven't yet heard of an Indo-Europeanist who is into the Anatolian hypothesis and is not a crackpot.

Oh, no, she's an otherwise orthodox "Kurganist", actually, hence her talking about the Yamnaya-type stelae, she has the Italo-Celtic speakers coming out of the Yamnaya-derived Vucadol culture around 3000 BC and has the start of the Bell Beaker at 2700 BC.

Her big thing is emphasizing the mobility of ancient peoples against the previously fashionable tendency to downplay population movement and migration, she brings together archaeology and genetic evidence, especially evidence from the DNA of ancient human remains). One bombshell is that Y-DNA Haplogrpup R1b is ABSENT in DNA recovered from Neolithic Western European remains (G2a was predominant in the Neolithic), indicating that it was brought to Western Europe by Indo-European peoples and was not there in the Paleolithic as was originally believed. Remains associated with the Bell Beaker culture have R1b, and so are likely Indo-European, according to Manco.

[WeepingElf]

Oh, no, she's an otherwise orthodox "Kurganist", actually, hence her talking about the Yamnaya-type stelae, she has the Italo-Celtic speakers coming out of the Yamnaya-derived Vucadol culture around 3000 BC and has the start of the Bell Beaker at 2700 BC.

I see. I can't say that such a scenario was impossible, though I am somewhat doubtful of it.

Her big thing is emphasizing the mobility of ancient peoples against the previously fashionable tendency to downplay population movement and migration, she brings together archaeology and genetic evidence, especially evidence from the DNA of ancient human remains). One bombshell is that Y-DNA Haplogrpup R1b is ABSENT in DNA recovered from Neolithic Western European remains (G2a was predominant in the Neolithic), indicating that it was brought to Western Europe by Indo-European peoples and was not there in the Paleolithic as was originally believed. Remains associated with the Bell Beaker culture have R1b, and so are likely Indo-European, according to Manco.

This is indeed interesting. Yet, I would be very careful linking genetic markers with language families! Language shifts are way too common to consider them a marginal phenomenon.

[sangi39]

Not only do most Anatolianists ignore linguistics, they actually believe that the entire field of comparative linguistics is bunk:

"On the other hand, most archaeologists have agreed with Renfrew. They see comparative linguistics as unreliable and based on incomplete premises in reconstructing historical situations. They argue that there is not one piece of archaeological material that can unequivocally be called Indo-European."

More: show

Littman, Robert J.
2007 Linguistics and the Teaching of Classical History and Culture
The Classical World 100(2):143-150

Oh dear. We have a term in German for that kind of scholars: Fachidioten (singular Fachidiot). But not all archaeologists are like that. Many, if not most, clearly realize that archaeological objects, unless bearing inscriptions, say nothing about the languages of the people who made or used them, and make no statement at all about those languages. The notion that archaeological cultures closely correspond to language families has pretty much fallen out of favour, as counterexamples are not hard to find.

Although it's still quite prominent in what you might call "popular archaeology", such as archaeology as presented in television programmes and in books aimed at non-professionals. We had to have a lecture (possibly two?) teaching us how there isn't necessarily a link between language, material culture and genetics, with several counterexamples (although I can't quite remember many of them), but most of them were examples of trade, distinct material culture amongst the elite vs. that of the non-elite, liturgical languages vs. the language of daily life, diffusion of technological innovations and so on.

Most of my lecturers tried not to link material culture and language too much, as far as I could tell. Marek Zvelebil was the one giving the lectures, so I assume he tried not to unless he thought it was plausible, and John Collis was a professor there too and he seems pretty big on keeping them separate to an extent given his views on the Celts, i.e. that not all people speaking a Celtic language identified themselves culturally as "Celtic" and that some areas where "Celtic" material turns up might not have been linguistically Celtic.

I assume, though, that it will take a while for things to catch up in popular archaeology, like they do in the sciences or almost any other field, but personally I think it makes archaeology much more interesting. Rather than treating cultures as packaged, monolithic entities like the Normative Concept of Culture (NCC) treats them, you start treating them like groups that exist in the real-world, interacting with other groups as extant groups actually do.

[Richard W]

This is indeed interesting. Yet, I would be very careful linking genetic markers with language families! Language shifts are way too common to consider them a marginal phenomenon.

Allow this crackpot to remark that G2a displacing R1b over such a wide area makes a language shift quite plausible. Now, from what little I've found, it's possible this was a case of just males being displaced, but while children may be taught their mother's tongue I think it is more likely for them to be taught their father's.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how many independent samples this shift in frequency is based on.

[jal]

while children may be taught their mother's tongue I think it is more likely for them to be taught their father's.

On a linguistic forum, this seems an odd remark. Children aren't "taught" language, they acquire language. This will almost always be the language of their caregiver, which in ancient times would've almost always been the mother.


JAL

[jmcd]

That is perfectly correct, with the small caveat that group care (the extended family) would likely have been more important than it is nowadays. I have not always been so careful in making the distinction between 'teach' and 'acquire'; sometimes I have used 'teach' to mean 'acquire' and, when i think back on it, this appears to have caused confusion.

[jal]

That is perfectly correct, with the small caveat that group care (the extended family) would likely have been more important than it is nowadays

I don't know how many scientific evidence there is for that. Also, I'm not sure whether that would support the original statement that "while children may [acquire] their mother's tongue (...) it is more likely for them to [acquire] their father's." (I've generously replaced "be taught" by "acquire"). I think there are modern day examples of marrying out or in, and the effects on language of the women, men and children have been studied I think (I recall reading something about that some years ago), so that'd be a better starting point than just a hunch or other conjecture.


JAL

[Richard W]

while children may be taught their mother's tongue I think it is more likely for them to be taught their father's.

On a linguistic forum, this seems an odd remark. Children aren't "taught" language, they acquire language. This will almost always be the language of their caregiver, which in ancient times would've almost always been the mother.

I will concede that I have assumed patrilocality; in a matrilocal society I would normally expect the child to learn the mother's language.

In multilingual situations, the caregiver may choose which language to use with the young child. That amounts to teaching the child the rudiments of a language, even if you prefer to think of it as directed acquisition. In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue. From what little I have read in the literature on the subject, this appears to be the usual pattern when parents have different 'mother' tongues and live in the father's home area.

My wife and daughter had to be in her mother's home country without me when my daughter was learning to form sentences. Because of the make up of my wife's family, my daughter had worked out that she should use Central Thai with men, Northern Thai with women, but English with her Northern Thai mother. All the Northern Thai speakers could also speak Central Thai. When they came back home to England, my daughter initially spoke to me in Central Thai! She soon learnt that it was easiest if she spoke to me in English - my Thais is poor.

[linguoboy]

In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue.

Which is an interesting observation and all, but I fail to see how it has much relevance for scenarios more than 5000 years in the past.

[Richard W]

I don't know how many scientific evidence there is for that. Also, I'm not sure whether that would support the original statement that "while children may [acquire] their mother's tongue (...) it is more likely for them to [acquire] their father's." (I've generously replaced "be taught" by "acquire"). I think there are modern day examples of marrying out or in, and the effects on language of the women, men and children have been studied I think (I recall reading something about that some years ago), so that'd be a better starting point than just a hunch or other conjecture.

Here are some quotes from A.P. Sorensen's Multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon. The society is patrilocal, wives normally have a different native language to their husbands, and men prefer to take wives with the same native language as their mothers.

"A woman invariably uses the language of the longhouse - her husband's language - when talking directly with her children."

"If he has little opportunity to learn it[= his mother's language] - if she, for instance, is the only one of her tribe in the longhouse, and her tribe lives at a distance - his mother, nevertheless, will teach him lists of words in her language and how to say various things in it."

This is more evidence that the term mother tongue is misleading in patrilocal societies.

[linguoboy]

This is more evidence that the term mother tongue is misleading in patrilocal societies.

All depends which patrilocal societies you're looking at, I guess. Speaking of the situation in Baja California, Roger C. Owen ("The patrilocal band : a linguistically culturally hybrid social unit") says:

Children were enculturated to some point in life principally within the language and symbol system of the mother and other females, not in that of the father and other males. Since the women themselves might be drawn from perhaps several dialect and language groups, the children of each familiar segment within the band would have undergone slightly different enculturation from the standpoint of symbolic content.

[Richard W]

In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue.

Which is an interesting observation and all, but I fail to see how it has much relevance for scenarios more than 5000 years in the past.

I'm exploring whether a massive change in Y-chromosome lineages is likely to have been associated with a massive change of language.

[linguoboy]

In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue.

Which is an interesting observation and all, but I fail to see how it has much relevance for scenarios more than 5000 years in the past.

I'm exploring whether a massive change in Y-chromosome lineages is likely to have been associated with a massive change of language.

I understand that, but just how far do you think generalisations from superdense highly-centralised post-industrial societies are going to be applicable to Neolithic Europe?

[KathTheDragon]

In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue.

This observation only means anything if you check what the situation is for foreign fathers with English wives, and I'll bet you anything it's exactly the same situation - English, not the father's native tongue.

[Richard W]

I understand that, but just how far do you think generalisations from superdense highly-centralised post-industrial societies are going to be applicable to Neolithic Europe?

When the generalisations agree with observations from traditional Amazonian societies, I think they are quite applicable.

The other big R1b takeover, among the Cherokees, is probably not comparable. There was external backup for the massive language shift. The same applies to the takeovers reported in Y-chromosome analysis reveals genetic divergence and new founding native lineages in Athapaskan- and Eskimoan-speaking populations, where we definitely see the massive introgression of European Y-chromosomes.

[Richard W]

This observation only means anything if you check what the situation is for foreign fathers with English wives, and I'll bet you anything it's exactly the same situation - English, not the father's native tongue.

That'd be a matrilocal situation, so not so relevant.

The late Western European spread of R1b, if real, only makes sense if the result of a large population movement (in which case the issue of whose language the child learns first is irrelevant) or élite dominance, in which case native wives are moving into the élite's society.

[TaylorS]

This is indeed interesting. Yet, I would be very careful linking genetic markers with language families! Language shifts are way too common to consider them a marginal phenomenon.

That is very true. But in any case I really suggest getting the book, it's a great read in general despite possible flaws here and there. the ancient DNA data is absolutely fascinating.

[jmcd]

That is perfectly correct, with the small caveat that group care (the extended family) would likely have been more important than it is nowadays

I don't know how many scientific evidence there is for that. Also, I'm not sure whether that would support the original statement that "while children may [acquire] their mother's tongue (...) it is more likely for them to [acquire] their father's." (I've generously replaced "be taught" by "acquire"). I think there are modern day examples of marrying out or in, and the effects on language of the women, men and children have been studied I think (I recall reading something about that some years ago), so that'd be a better starting point than just a hunch or other conjecture.


JAL

I might not have been clear enough but my statement was intended as an agreement with your own.

[jal]

In England, I have noticed that foreign mothers with English husbands tend to talk to their young children in English, not in the mother's native tongue. From what little I have read in the literature on the subject, this appears to be the usual pattern when parents have different 'mother' tongues and live in the father's home area.

The situations I know of is a mixed bag. In general, people who are higher educated know that bilinguality is advantageous to children, so in those cases they consciencely use two languages. Also, in case there's still a lot of contact between the child and the mother's family, they may consciencely decide to "teach" [see my previous post] the child the mother's tongue, so they can communicate with the other half of the family. I would think that the situations you refer to are either cases where a women comes from afar (like Thailand) and there's little contact with the inlaws, or the women comes from a different ethnic background, but her family also speaks English (I'm thinking of former British colonies like India, Jamaica, Ghana etc.).

My wife and daughter had to be in her mother's home country without me when my daughter was learning to form sentences. Because of the make up of my wife's family, my daughter had worked out that she should use Central Thai with men, Northern Thai with women, but English with her Northern Thai mother.

That's very cool. But she had to have prior exposure, if at 2yo she could speak three languages?

All the Northern Thai speakers could also speak Central Thai. When they came back home to England, my daughter initially spoke to me in Central Thai! She soon learnt that it was easiest if she spoke to me in English - my Thais is poor.

She must've been quite shocked finding out the generalization didn't work :).


JAL

[Richard W]

That's very cool. But she had to have prior exposure, if at 2yo she could speak three languages?

There was very little prior exposure to Northern Thai. Her mother was plugged into a network of Thais, so there was exposure to Central Thai that way. I often replied to her mother in Thai in those days, and her mother still mutters to herself in Thai and I'm never sure whether I'm meant to hear. (Central and Northern Thai are supposed to be mutually intelligible.) I'm pretty sure my wife often slipped into Thai with our daughter when young. Indeed, our daughter's first word was interpreted by her mother as a nursery word for food, something like [ma-màm], though I've only been able to find the second element, [màm], in dictionaries, where it means ‘to eat’.