I haven’t read the papers in detail, but can someone explain how genetics can be used to trace spread of languages? For context, you don’t need population movements for a language to spread (it is similar to religion). See this article for a logical explanation
Languages don’t spread out of nowhere, they do it through groups of people interacting with each other. And those interactions are also bound to introduce at least some genetic admixture.
Because of that, you can use the presence or absence of genetic admixture in a place as weak evidence for / against the presence of a language there. On itself it is not fail-proof, you’d need further evidence to claim with certainty “no, [language] was not here”, but it helps.
Writings on artifacts and burial practices associated with DNA fragments found at the burial sites.]
No written record.
Fun facts, the most common words of Indo-European Family are surprisingly very similar across Sanskrit (S) <–> English (E) <–> German (G) [3].
And so they are in other Indo-European branches, if you know where to look like. Compare for example English and Spanish:
foot, father vs. pie, padre - /f/ vs. /p/
three, thrush (the bird) vs. tres, tordo - /θ/ vs. /t/
horn, what, hundred vs. cuerno, que, ciento - /h/ vs. /k/ or /θ/~/s/
There’s plenty words like this, where Spanish uses an unvoiced stop while English uses a fricative. Pehausse Frotho-Chermanih speahers Because Proto-Germanic speakers eventually shifted those consonants this way.
There are some complications though. See what I said about English /h/ vs. Spanish /θ/~/s/? That’s in words where Latin was still using /k/, like “centum” /kentũ/. (Those words stick out like a sore thumb if you pick Italian instead, you’ll see /tʃ/ instead.)
My favorite part is that the most foundational swear words in modern Slavic languages are still recognizable from their PIE roots:
So is the most popular Romance foul word: PIE *(s)merdh₂ “stench, stinging [smell]”. Latin inherited it as “merda” (shit) and it’s still up there.
Could you explain in non-specialist language how similarities between these modern languages now has anything to do with their relationship from some earliest common ancestor? How is that explanation better than convergent evolution or overfitting hallucinations?
I almost forgot those are Hacker News comments. Thanks for reminding me.
Those sound changes are systematic, as I showed above with English vs. Spanish.
Double reply addressing HN comments:
Languages don’t spread out of nowhere, they do it through groups of people interacting with each other. And those interactions are also bound to introduce at least some genetic admixture.
Because of that, you can use the presence or absence of genetic admixture in a place as weak evidence for / against the presence of a language there. On itself it is not fail-proof, you’d need further evidence to claim with certainty “no, [language] was not here”, but it helps.
No written record.
And so they are in other Indo-European branches, if you know where to look like. Compare for example English and Spanish:
There’s plenty words like this, where Spanish uses an unvoiced stop while English uses a fricative.
Pehausse Frotho-Chermanih speahersBecause Proto-Germanic speakers eventually shifted those consonants this way.There are some complications though. See what I said about English /h/ vs. Spanish /θ/~/s/? That’s in words where Latin was still using /k/, like “centum” /kentũ/. (Those words stick out like a sore thumb if you pick Italian instead, you’ll see /tʃ/ instead.)
So is the most popular Romance foul word: PIE *(s)merdh₂ “stench, stinging [smell]”. Latin inherited it as “merda” (shit) and it’s still up there.
I almost forgot those are Hacker News comments. Thanks for reminding me.
Those sound changes are systematic, as I showed above with English vs. Spanish.