Indo-European Language May Be 10,000 Years Old

[cosmocreator]

http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-0...enome-project/

The Language Genome Project
By Kathy A. Svitil
DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 11 | November 2003 | Anthropology


Celtic tongues were spoken widely across Europe before the Romans imposed Latin on their conquered masses 2,000 years ago, but nobody knows how the various Celtic languages spread so far and wide. Peter Forster, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge, has used the tools of molecular biology to find an answer and has revised the timescale of Indo-European languages along the way.

[OnionPeeler]

Interesting. The method is not described in the article nor why it is superior to other differential studies. How, exactly, does one apply phylogenetic methods to language study??

[cosmocreator]

If it is true, it also means that the langauge was created by a different European people than we currently thought. I've read elsewhere, in a group that no longer exists, that the original IE were Alpinid.





<----And maybe they didn't look too different than this (without the suit, of coarse).

[Awar]

Yes, I've read the same as Cosmo, but I think that the first IE's were of Kurganid stock, or maybe even Mediterranean.

I think that UP's spoke various languages, probably hundreds of totally different languages, because they were secluded groups from one-another.

Perhaps Indo-European languages started to spread to the east by military conquest and migration, and to the west in a similar fashion as today's english, by cultural conquest, trade etc.

I think that the language of UP's was most similar to Ugrian.

[Vojvoda]

There's some interesting info here:
http://www.geocities.com/dienekesp2/...ean/index.html

[OnionPeeler]

It appears, from the little info there is in the story, that they're using mathematics developed for 'phylogenetic' analysis on language. This suggests to me that they have assigned numeric value to differences in IE languages. I can't imagine that the values assigned are anything but highly arbitrary. Linguists are accustomed to guessing how many years are required to account for a given difference. But plugging them into an equation still requires the same guess-work.

[cosmocreator]

Yes, I've read the same as Cosmo, but I think that the first IE's were of Kurganid stock, or maybe even Mediterranean.

I have my doubts. The Alpinid scenario would explain why there are Alpinid looking individuals from Ireland to India.

[Awar]

I have my doubts. The Alpinid scenario would explain why there are Alpinid looking individuals from Ireland to India.

Is there such a thing as 'alpinization' of the population?
Perhaps there is a certain mixture that causes all these people to look alpine, but not have anything genetic in common, or perhaps these are all previously rufous Cro-Magnons who became Alpinid because of a change of lifestyle. ( from big-game hunting to farming, fishing etc? ).