Originally Posted by Valdemar II
Indo-European language is relative newcomers to west and central Europe, it first came from the Russians steppes after agriculture had spread over Europe.
Not true. The Kurgan hypothesis though once enjoying a near-unanimous acceptance among linguists and anthropologists is no longer so well regarded. A more likely origin of the Indo-European languages lies in or around Anatolia. There are several problems with the Kurgan hypothesis:
1. Unsupported by Archaeological Evidence
The material culture (pottery, weaponry, etc.) of neolithic, chalcolithic, and Bronze Age Europe, particularly the more developed areas such as the Aegean region and Italy, possibly proto-Celtic, is unrelated to that of the steppe cultures and seems to bear more relation to the material cultures of the East (Anatolia/Asia Minor, Syria, etc.). If the European continent was either peopled by, or dominated by Kurgan peoples, evidence of their Steppe culture should show up in the archaelogical record, and later styles of pottery, implements, etc. Instead the European archaeological culture is distinct from the Kurgan steppe culture and in some cases, particularly in the Aegean region and along the Mediterranean appears derived from or at least influenced by Near Eastern cultures.
2. Unsupported by Genetics
It has been shown again by many anthropologists, historians, and other scholars that ancestry/genes/race tend to correspond strongly with language and ethnicity. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza studied such correlations in
Genes, People, and Languages among other works. Even in cases where a conquering people imposes their language on the natives, they usually intermix with the local population. For example, many Latin Americans are racially mestizo (roughly 50-50 Spaniard and Amerindian). In the case of Europe however, steppe peoples have left no genetic trace far beyond their homeland in the Ukraine, Southern Russia, parts of Hungary and Romania, and Central Asia. By contrast, the neolithic migration from the Near East left a tremendous imprint. Some parts of Europe seem to be entirely populated by neolithic-chalcolithic/early Bronze Age agriculturalists from the Near East. Other areas as far as France appear to be more of a mix between the farmers and native post Ice-Age population. For the Kurgans to spread their language they would either have to completely populate (settle empty lands or else exterminate and/or expell the locals) or dominate (conquer local tribes, assimilating them) lands. Even if they had the capabilities to do so (agriculture, large population, ability to build permanent settlements, etc.) they left little or no such evidence on the European genotypes. Some might argue that the Kurgans can somehow spread their language without spreading their genes, as there were some historical cases where this happened, but how they would even begin to do this is puzzling considering that they probably did not have enough of a technological advantage to subdue the more advanced agriculturalists who settled much of mainland Europe by the time the Kurgans supposedly spread Indo-European languages. (Even assuming that the Kurgans had horses first, before their neighbors, horses alone would not guarantee a military advantage against densely populated societies with fortified villages and towns and probably superior metallurgy.)
3. Unsupported by Linguistics
Many linguists will retort that such arguments about archaeology, anthropology, and genetics are irrelevant. Personally I consider this snobbish dismisal of multi-disciplinary approaches a bit unfair if not insulting. (I wonder how Cavalli-Sforza and other anthropologists who take a multi-disciplinary approach combining biological anthropology or physical anthropology and genetics with linguistics, with archeology, and with ethnology.) But even granting that evidence from archeology, genetics, and historical experience is irrelevant, the linguistic evidence is not so good for the Kurgan hypothesis.
a. Culture, Society, and Technology
Recent reconstructions of the theoretical Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language reveal a language of a farming people, one who had a fairly advanced agriculture and probably irrigation. The PIE language was a language of agriculturalists (kind of like the peoples of the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia, who later peopled Europe in neolithic/chalcolithic times) but the Kurgans had not yet attained a culture beyond the pastoralist stage.
b. Early Divergences
If, as the Kurganists insist, the PIE language was first spoken in the steppes of Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Central Asia, then the aforementioned steppe lands are the place of origin of Indo-European languages, where such tounges were spoken the longest. As such, we should expect to find more linguistic diversity there, or at least the earliest branching in the region between Kazakhstan and the Ukraine. Instead much of the oldest divergence or branching off of Indo-European languages seems to have occured near the Aegean Sea.
The major subfamilies of Indo-European languages (extinct ones are in italicized) are
Anatolian, Armenian,
Aryan (Indo-Iranian),
Balto-Slavic (some dispute that Baltic and Slavonic branches belong in the same subfamily),
Celtic,
Germanic,
Hellenic,
Illyrian,
Italic (or "Romance"),
Phrygian,
Thraco-Dacian, and
Tocharian. The only Indo-European languages known to be spoken in the Kurgan area now or in ancient times are Slavic languages (represented by Russian and Ukrainian today, and by Old Slavonic nearly two thousand years ago) and Iranian languages (represented now by Ossetian, and in ancient times by the languages of the Scythians, Sarmatians, and other Indo-Iranian speaking steppe peoples. By contrast the diversity of I-E languages in the Balkans and Asia Minor strongly suggest that the I-E language family originated in one of the two places. The Aegean region (Hellenic), Asia Minor (Anatolian, Armenian), and Balkan mainland (Illyrian, Phrygian, Thraco-Dacian) are the original homelands of the six aforementioned I-E subfamilies.
One possible theory to explain the divergence of I-E languages from the PIE language is the Centum-Satem hypothesis, postulating an early East-West split. The Centum subfamily include the Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, and Germanic languages. The Satem subfamily includes the Armenian, Baltic, Indo-Iranian, and Slavic languages. Illyrian (and Albanian, which is believed to be derived from Illyrian is generally classified with the Satem languages. Tocharian is tentatively classified with the Centum languages (parodoxically considering that its nearest neighbors were Satem languages). The Anatolian subfamily, which includes the Hittite language as well as Lycian, Lydian, and Luwian, is believed to have diverged from the PIE well before the Centum-Satem split. (As ancient Anatolian languages seem to have features that are neither Centum or Satem.) Similarly the Hellenic language, the lone member of its subfamily, is classified as a Centum language but has many Satem features. This suggests an early divergence of the Greek language from other I-E languages. Some have even postulated joining the Hellenic (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages into a Greco-Armenian subfamily. Either way, linguistic evidence suggests an earlier divergence of Anatolian, Greek, and Armenian and a later divergence of the core Centum (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) and core Satem (Balto-Slavic, Aryan) languages. Likewise the Albanian language, native to the Balkans, is difficult to classify into any subfamily.
The fact remains that the divergence of Indo-European languages happened in or around Asia Minor or the Balkans and probably much earlier than the Kurganists believe. While the Centum/Satem hypothesis has its problems, it is useful and may prove partially true. The proto-Indo-European language is probably older than previously expected by several thousand years! (The Greek language, like Hittite, has many "non-Indo-European" features. This suggests either that Greek and Hittite are not Indo-European, or they are older Indo-European languages that did not acquire the features of newer Indo-European languages. Many allegedly "non-Indo-European" toponyms in Greece have a clearly Hellenic origin. Errors such as these are based on hasty reconstructions of the PIE language.)
4. Implausibility of the Proposed Historical Scenario
Even if we are to accept that the Indo-European language was spread by conquest, why should the natives adopt the language of steppe raiders? It is not as if they had a more advanced civilization with which to build a cultural infrastructure on the indigenous people (the way the Romans did). Instead, we would have expected the Kurgans to go the way of the Vikings, adopting the native language. Just as the Viking overlords of Normandy adopted the local French and the Viking overlords of what is now Russia nd the Ukraine adopted the local East Slavic language, there is no reason why the Kurgans would impose their language on the locals. If anything, the reverse should happen. Likewise, if the Kurgans brought I-E languages to Europe, what happened to all the pre-Indo-European languages? The only surviving non-Indo-European isolates in mainland Europe are Basque, Caucasic languages, and possibly Ligurian (which may or may not have been Indo-European). After all, the Mongols did not replace Chinese, Russian, Persian, or the Turkic languages. Not to mention that it is difficult to shoehorn Greek history into the Kurgan hypothesis. The Kurgans are believed to have remained where they were until about 5000 years ago. Greek is the oldest European language (except for Basque). Are we to conclude that Kurgans from the steppe became Myceneans over night? Especially considering that there is no discontinuity in the archeological record of the Aegean suggesting an intermittent colonization by Steppe Peoples.