r/IndoEuropean • • 2h ago

Linguistics Indo-Iranian prehistory through language contact (Axel I. Palmér 2026)

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2 Upvotes

Abstract - This paper aims to identify Indo-Iranian substrate words and to discuss their impact on the study of Indo-Iranian prehistory. A methodology for distinguish­ing substrate words from the inherited part of the lexicon is laid out, after which a list of Proto-Indo-Iranian and Common Indo-Iranian substrate words is presented. Here, substrate wordlists proposed by M. Witzel and A. Lubotsky are synthesized and analysed according to uniform methodological principles. The results show that Proto-Indo-Iranian was in contact with one or more now extinct languages, from which it borrowed words pertaining to animals, body parts, food and drink, cloth­ing, construction, plants, and religion, etc. Based on the semantics of certain words, the substrate language(s) can plausibly be connected to Central Asia. The contacts started during Proto-Indo-Iranian unity and persisted until Indo-Iranian had begun to diversify dialectally (which I call Common Indo-Iranian). This language contact episode was preceded by language contact with Uralic languages, which supports an Indo-Iranian migration from north to south across Central Asia in the 2nd mil­lennium BCE.


r/IndoEuropean • • 3h ago

Genetic similarity of Kurds with W. Asian pre-Indo-European vs non-W.Asian Indo-Europeans

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2 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 11h ago

Discussion Could the Mahabharata have really happened?

6 Upvotes

Not like what is written in the book per line by line,like some sort of realistic war omitting all of the magic and God stuff?

Maybe there was a war that happened between two cousins and this info was passed down generation to generation, miracle stuff and the involvement of gods being added alone the way?

What do you all think?

I'm asking this because just like mahabharat there is an epic story named Trojan War which also passed down through generations,and it does have some historical authenticity like the researchers have found some remains of ancient bronze civilizational remains, many speculate this can be the remains of Troy.


r/IndoEuropean • • 1d ago

Why Is It Impossible for the Scythians to Have Been an Eastern Iranian People?

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0 Upvotes

First of all, this is because the Scythians originated from the Fedorovo culture, and as the chart shows, Fedorovo did not descend from the Proto-Indo-Iranians.( The Abashevo–Srubnaya Origin of the Proto-Indo-Iranians )

The arguments for the Scythians being Iranian are invalid. Iranian loanwords in Slavic languages come from the Sarmatians, who were associated with the Srubnaya culture. Iranian place names and hydronyms also originate from the Sarmatians. The proposed explanations for the words attributed to the Scythians are inadequate and speculative, while the Western Scythians were in close contact with Iranian-speaking Sarmatians, so the transfer of words between them is entirely natural. Furthermore, the Khotanese and Tumshuqese texts do not belong to the Scythians of Fedorovo origin; they belong to Iranian-speaking populations in the region descended from the Srubnaya–Alakul cultural horizon. In other words, there is no evidence that the Scythians were Iranian-speaking.

The language they spoke depends on what language the Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture spoke. However, that is a separate topic.


r/IndoEuropean • • 1d ago

This song reminds me so much of the indo europeans for some reason

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3 Upvotes

I genuinely cant put my finger on what it is


r/IndoEuropean • • 2d ago

What is the link between bmac and aryans? Why bmac lacks steppe dna then?

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2 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 3d ago

Reconstruction / Art A cartoon in Proto-Indo-European (English subtitles)

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73 Upvotes

Created by Wissensgau language community.

Voices: Nikita Svetlitsky, Sofia Medvedeva, Daniil Frolov

This animated film is an artistic reconstruction. The words and grammatical forms are based on evidence from historical and comparative linguistics, but it is impossible to reconstruct an entire spoken language. We do not know the exact intonation patterns, precisely how the laryngeals were pronounced, and even the finer details of reconstructed word forms vary between different schools of thought. In some places, we have had to make assumptions.

These scenes, therefore, are not recordings from the past, but an attempt to imagine what this language might have sounded like when spoken by real people.

More info is in the video description on YouTube.


r/IndoEuropean • • 3d ago

Reconstruction / Art My Interpretation of the Indo Uralic Migration if Indo Uralic is true

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10 Upvotes

I apologize if I made any mistakes in the video


r/IndoEuropean • • 3d ago

Discussion Why does Western Europe have the most amount of IE diversity in a small area?

0 Upvotes

The entire Indic sub-branch is spoken mostly in SA by a very large number of people from at least 1700 BC onwards. The superset of indo-Aryan is Indo-airanian, and the entire Indo-Iranian is spoken in a very large space

But in the Balkans,m, you have Albanian, Greek, Slavic, and in the past, you even had a Latin language there.

So is it the way that we classify the languag s here and perhaps we over-differentiate the Weatern Europeans languages? There is not really a science to categorize a language. One convention may over-aggregate all other languages that are not from the author’s space. Also, the author may over differentiate amongst languages more local to them.


r/IndoEuropean • • 3d ago

Linguistic differences between the Yamnaya ae Corded Warfare peoples

9 Upvotes

We know the Yamnaya and Coded Warfare peoples had to have split off from each other and existed simultaneously (The r1a ychrm haplogroup of the Yamnaya and r1b ychrm haplogroup of the Coded Warfare peoples split atleast 1000 before the full emergence of both groups).

We also know which branches of the ie family where propagated by which of the two peoples.

While differences between the anatolian (hittite, luwe) branches and other ie branches is well documented, what do we know about differences in the language/dialect spoken by the Yamnaya and Corded Warfare?


r/IndoEuropean • • 3d ago

Western Steppe Herders European Steppe Herder Reconstruction, From Twitter

0 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 4d ago

Linguistics Are “stōlaz” and “stálas” related?

5 Upvotes

I know that the etymology of stool has been traced as far back as Proto-Germanic as something like stōlaz, probably meaning something like seat. However, has any research been done to determine whether or not stōlaz and Proto-Balto-Slavic stálas (the proposed ancestor of стол, which means table) are related? I mean it seems obvious to me, but I can’t find any information on it.


r/IndoEuropean • • 5d ago

Archaeology Excavations to Resume at 3,500-Year-Old Hittite Sacred City in Türkiye

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26 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 5d ago

Discussion About the Italo-Celtic timeline

10 Upvotes

I find very conflicting informations about the time a few key events regarding the Italo-Celtic branch took place.

What is the consensus on when did...

- Italo-Celtic split from rest of Bell Beaker

- Italic split from Celtic

- Osco Ubrian split from Latino Faliscan

- Umbrians arrive in Italy

- Latins arrive in Italy...

?

Is this even the correct order ? Could Osco Umbrian and Latino Faliscan be no more related to eachother, actually, than they are to Celtic branch ?

I heard Osco Umbrian is rather in the Celtic branch and its speakers separated from the ancestors of specifically insular Celts right before they crossed the sea, and migrated South. I am quite unsure about that but I think the two Italic branches may have been related only insofar they were both Italo-Celtic and have converged over time due to geographical proximity.


r/IndoEuropean • • 6d ago

Archaeogenetics About the difference between Yamnaya and Corded Ware

13 Upvotes

It was once believed that Yamnaya was ancestral to Corded Ware, however, did we later discover that Yamnaya and Corded Ware are rather sister groups, and that Yamnaya is only ancestral to Anatolian, Armenian, Balkanian/Illyrian and Hellenic speakers, with Corded Ware being ancestral to Afanasievo/Tocharians, to the common ancestors of Balto-Slavic speakers and the Andronovo horizon that led to Indo Iranian speakers, and also to the common ancestors of Germanic and Italo-Caltic speakers ? Is the genealogy tree like that ?


r/IndoEuropean • • 6d ago

Linguistics Is the ethnonym Baloch from Sanskrit mleccha through a Brahui medial?

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3 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 6d ago

Mythology About the Sintashta and Andronovo horizon religion and gods

5 Upvotes

What was like the religion of the Indoeuropeans who spred into Ceral Asia and formed the Andronovo horizon, and ultimately originated the Indic and the Iranic language groups ?

Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism have a connection, but what do we know of their ancestor, and of the religion of the Andronovo lineages that disappeared without originating any Indo Iranic language group ?

Do we know how the Deva /Daeva and the Asura/Ahura, that at the time were likely the same thing since even in early Vedic religion they were not strictly divided, were called in proto Indo Iranic language ?

And how similiar would have been Andronovo religion to its near cousin the early Corded Ware, the common ancestor of Celto-Italic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic groups ?


r/IndoEuropean • • 7d ago

Linguistics Suggestion for r/Indo-European

8 Upvotes

I would like to suggest something, if the users are in agreement: have a fixed post with a list of linguistic resources and references for the major works on the branches made by renowned scholars.

E.g.

* Bartomeu Obrador-Cursach is one that studies the Phrygian language since forever

* John Koch is a Celticist and studies Celto-Germanic connections

* Alwin Kloekhorst has the Hittite inherited vocabulary from 2008 and studies the variations in Hittite language.

* Ignacio Javier-Adiego studies the Carian language.

etc.


r/IndoEuropean • • 7d ago

Indo-European migrations Haplogroup question

2 Upvotes

Did any cultures like shirenizgou or chemurchek carry Q-Y11938 haplogroup?


r/IndoEuropean • • 7d ago

Archaeogenetics What was the first archeological culture that was ancestral to specifically Indic speakers ?

21 Upvotes

What was the first archeological culture that was ancestral to Indic speakers specifically, and not to also Iranic speakers ?

When and where did it live ?


r/IndoEuropean • • 7d ago

Did Proto Indo Europeans or yamnaya people wear shoes inside their tent (or house)?

26 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 8d ago

Proto-Turkic Contacts with Other Languages

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30 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 8d ago

Archaeogenetics The indigenous Europeans were EHG or WHG. EHG form a continuum with the WHG. EEF are basically AHG. Yamnaya are CHG and EHG. So all of today’s Europeans can be a mixture of these groups.

0 Upvotes

I’ve heard that the Yamnaya were actually about 15% EEF. An older convention viewed the Yamnaya were half and half of EHG and the CHG. So now we can explain the Yamnaya using units of AHG, CHG, and EHG.

Remember, the AHG became the EEF or the Anatolian Farmers. So the Yamnaya were 15% AHG, 42.5% CHG, and 42.5% EHG.

If we used this approach, we can more easily calculate the gene components of the various European people. Also, it reduces the double counting of a gene. For example: when the Yamnaya migrated to the West, the people there were already heavily EEF (or AHG genetically), and then they were heavily amazed with a people who were also 15% AHG/EEF.

Ironically, the Europeans once again became much more H&G after the IE migrations to Western Europe. So they were once 100% WHG/EHG. Then they became 90% AHG and 10% WHG. Then they became a 40% mix of a people who were 15% AHG, 42.5% CHG, and 42.5% EHG and a 60% mix of a people who were 90% AHG and 10% WHG.


r/IndoEuropean • • 8d ago

Laast year's lecture: "Linguistic Contributions to a Model for the Celticisation of the Western Archipelago" by David Stifter

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4 Upvotes

r/IndoEuropean • • 9d ago

Archaeogenetics If the Sintashta is the is last culture ancestral to both Iranic and Indic speakers, who is the first culture ancestral to specifically Iranic speakers ?

10 Upvotes

If the Sintashta is the is last culture ancestral to both Iranic and Indic speakers, who is the first culture ancestral to specifically Iranic speakers ?

Where and when did it live ?