Proto-Indo-European Culture

[@thatdrummerperson]

"We know they were making something out of something." Lol this is a fascinating history of our ancestors.

[@WhoTookMyMirr]

Bit hard to preserve stuff made from grass, wood, and anything else organic. That's why pottery fragments are the only real evidence we have for a lot of cultures.

[@xanv8051]

@@WhoTookMyMirr i don't know when septic tanks or shitting deep holes began as a practice but if you know what they where pooping you know what they where eating. And we don't know this for pie because it's a theory on grammer not culture, so you can't go to Greece and discover myconean or Minoans societies and if you apply the pie principle they also come from somewhere and my point is speculative archaeology in grammer is flawed and our ancestors are possibly endless or a high enough number to make me sweat and not wanna figure it out. Long-winded i couldnt even breefffddd covid beef

[@WhoTookMyMirr]

@@xanv8051 bruh are you high

[@whatsomeonesaidwastaken9216]

@@xanv8051 what are your views on global warming

[@vgjl1824]

Im spanish (obiously i am celtic) but im non indo-european and indo-european

[@Warjacki]

The Polish word for "door" is "drzwi", which is plural, thus retaining the double-door concept from PIE.

[@ajamal5796]

in urdu we say darwaza for door !

[@jameshender3162]

@@ajamal5796 I was about to say that. It's origin is farsi the word "doorwaza" from my knowledge all or most indo-Iranian and Indo-aryan languages say doorwaza

[@ajamal5796]

@@jameshender3162 Yep! A lot if not more than half of Urdu's vocabulary is derived from Persian.

[@tricky778]

Of course in English we say "outdoors" for the place not in the house, not "outdoor". We recently use "outdoor" as an adjective for things belonging outdoors, eg an outdoor coat which you wear outdoors. I wonder if it's related, although it could be we use a locality morpheme similar to the possessive.

[@intergalacticalcommiteeofp9807]

Same in Lithuanian. Word for 'door', 'durys' is inherently plural with no singular.

[@fummy0076]

On a related note, in Semitic languages like Hebrew, the word for man "Adam" comes from the word for Earth "Adamah" You know, the whole making man from Earth scene in genesis. Also, I heard that they have no word for "Sea" or "Ocean" implying they were landlocked.

[@ShubhamMishrabro]

In hindi adimanav is for earlier humans

[@elgranlugus7267]

Yam is a Semitic word for "Sea"

[@jamienelson3470]

@@elgranlugus7267 I think maybe Fummy007 meant that the P.I.E didn't have a word for "ocean". But I don't know...

[@elgranlugus7267]

@@jamienelson3470 I thought he was speaking of the semithic cultures.

[@jamienelson3470]

@@elgranlugus7267 Yeah, it's kind of unclear. The only reason I assumed he meant P.I.E was because I've actually heard before that P.I.E didn't have a word for ocean or sea.

[@eruno_]

To fart loudly in Lithuanian - persti, To fart softly in Lithuanian - bezdėti

[@БогунВојиновић]

prdnuti is to fart in Serbian

[@DrKumpelek]

+Koit „Wolkun” Wolken In Polish to fart loudly - pierdnąć, to fart softly - bznąć

[@MrElicottero]

+DrKumpelek Prdeti - to fart, in Serbian, but I am not sure if there is differentiation between soft and loud subtypes. :P

[@kogorun]

+Koit “Kôitsu_” Wolken To fart in Russian - "perdet". Original word for woman's genitalia (now considered a swear word) - "pizda". Oh, and there's "bzdet", which is to fart loudly or for a long time.

[@isaweesaw]

+kogorun I think it's fair to say that East European languages have kept more original to PIE much more than western languages. Is it because of geographical proximity to PIE origin or that Slavic/Ugric languages diverged later?

[@kyrakia5507]

Tldr: They had houses but no computers.

[@somefuckstolemynick]

This is actually how we know the house was invented before the computer.

[@Terra_Lopez]

@@somefuckstolemynick Ha ha, I love it! 😊

[@Werrf1]

My favourite deduction is that we know they had silver and gold, but that they didn't smelt it themselves because they had no word for 'lead' - lead is produced by the smelting of silver. it's truly amazing what we can know about a people long gone from the words they left us. That's one of the reasons I love English so much, and dislike attempts to spell it phonetically - the older spellings tell you not just the word, but the history of the word and something of its meaning.

[@isaweesaw]

+Werrf1 Yeah. Derivatives in English are quite interesting indeed. Some like "defence" from "defend" and "fence" give you an idea how English people saw defence - building a fence, to fend off an attack, or maybe "remove"; "remove" means for an object to be taken away or destroyed, but the word split into "re" and "move" actually seems like that object isn't being destroyed, but rather moved elsewhere for the time being. To me that hints at the emphasis of reusing objects or not wasting them in English society. I wonder if anyone else has similar ideas.

[@isaweesaw]

Hunter Eden Well...that definitely blew me away. I just saw the derivation idea as quite logical...is there any link between "fence" and "defence", or do they have two different roots that have merged together over time?

[@MK-ex4pb]

Werrf1 the history won't be forgotten. there's been many spelling reforms before and we haven't lost anything by making it more phonetic

[@robertford9063]

Werrf1 : They didn't smelt it cause they didn't dealt it.... ...(...double entendre...) but fo' realz they probs didn't trade in/deal metals if they we're smelting... and fo realz.... unless for a gag. I reckoned they'd usually try to quiet fart as opposed to loud fart...

[@fernandobanda5734]

Spelling reforms hurt absolutely nothing about etymological history. If you want to go deep, you'll easily find information. If you want to start guessing yourself, odds are you will barely make sense out of anything anyway and even find false etymologies like the "defence" example above.

[@unvergebeneid]

The Sky-Father should've enacted a law requiring all civilizations that are this influential and spread this widely to develop a writing system and keep a written history _before_ they scatter all over the map.

[@beautifulbassist]

its called the Bible >>

[@thomasderp8434]

The bible is not reliable as source

[@dstinnettmusic]

Tower of Babel or something

[@eldromedario3315]

There are enough scriptures but since the "official history" in the west doesn't accept it it's refered to as fiction. Which it is not. Best example indian vedas. They're at least a coiple thousand years older than the known "official written history".

[@AgglomeratiProduzioni]

bekahh The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, two Semitic languages. Not by Indo-Europeans.

[@Crick1952]

0:58 I'm now imagining a linguists and archeologists knifing each other about if the origin of PIE. I am amused.

[@Smeiksmeiksmeik]

It's all fun and games ... fire nation ...

[@badlaamaurukehu]

Meh, Latin and Greek rectifies many of these pie lies if you just read a few books with a computare in your head.

[@finnthefrog4354]

@@badlaamaurukehu in what way?

[@pabslondon]

Not really.. The kurgan hypothesis has petty much been proven

[@driveasandwich6734]

@@pabslondon What's that?

[@morgankitchen4444]

6:24 continuing the trend, in Irish "sky god" is "día spéir"

[@lecoureurdesbois86]

Interestingly the word "God" or other words related to it, like "divine" and such, all look alike in our languages

[@danielcowan87]

"Dia na spéire" probably looks better, because of the genitive

[@k.k.9378]

Necroing because I can't just not tell you the actual Irish cognate to 'pater' is /ahəɾʲ/.

[@carj3181]

When you were talking about the concept of a "sky father" you mentioned the Sanskrit, the Greek and the Latin. But the Nordic pagans also had a simmer concept. They would sometimes refer to Odin as Alföðr (all father), Aldaföðr (father of all),Herjaföðr (father of men) and many many others, I just thought that was interesting :)

[@aneesh2115]

Cause they were ie

[@pabslondon]

Yes but he singled out those three languages as the names literally mean 'Sky Father' in all three

[@TheInstitution]

Odin, arguably was not the the primary God in Norse myth., it was Tyr stemming from *Tīwaz and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European deity *Dyeus.

[@GhostSamaritan]

Deus from Greek

[@TheInstitution]

@@GhostSamaritan Deus is not from Greek, it's from Latin which is an offspring of the PIE.

[@shawntco]

The give-take and the Sky Father segments are really fascinating to me. :o

[@3seven5seven1nine9]

Especially how it's so clear now that Piter could become Paternal and Piter >Pater >Vater >Father , it blows my mind

[@user-vr4ng7hv1y]

Paternel in French. Same thing with Mother, actually.

[@Dommi1405]

And all I could think of was Gyros Pita...

[@alexwang982]

ed mortiz vater>vader>darthvader>sith>starwars>startrek>spock>rpsls>hand>emoji>ideography>writing>language>p.i.e>words in P.i.e>piter>pater>vater>vader or father

[@josuelopez3308]

youssarian91 In christian theology the different minor politheistic religions (most religions) are believed to be compilations of the history and culture of ethnic groups. Those gods might have been real people who became legends, other deities are clearly attemps of rationalization of the world, like water, fire, etc. But many of these religions have one god who resembles YWHV. So basically in christianity all humans knew the true god but lost the knowledge and added their own tribalism and legends. The fact that the protoindoeuropeans had that image of a fatherly god is very interesting.

[@Counterstream]

I remember when I learned about concept of Proto Indo-Europeans one day while randomly researching the origins of languages on Wikipedia. It utterly blew my mind. I don’t understand why it’s not taught more in school.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Because linguistics are not particularly useful and history-wise we don't really know anything.

[@brhterindo-european4028]

Because it would be labeled as “racism” if they would teach all of these in schools

[@Counterstream]

@Wind Rose ok but how is it not fascinating that so many of the various languages interspersed throughout the world, often times even belonging to different racial groups, all originated from one language? I don’t understand the mind of people like you who don’t like to learn fascinating things just to learn fascinating things and not for an immediate utilitarian reason.

[@Counterstream]

@Wind Rose how is that shit though? It’s not. It’s an invaluable part of the human story. I truly don’t understand the way your mind thinks.

[@pushkardeshpandemedfreak]

@@Counterstream Bro try to do some research about Hinduism and Sanskrit you will be fascinated about the intriguing similarities between the languages and Gods of the Indo Europeans as Sanskrit is probably the closest to the original proto Indo-European language..

[@WillyTheComposerOfficial]

I gotta say, those PIE people knew how to describe humans. The only two aspects of life that every single human has had in common are our earthliness and our mortality.

[@keltic07]

+130166wsjr yeah but we're not literally from the Earth, but that is what they believed.

[@WillyTheComposerOfficial]

+keltic07 Well every molecule of the human body is made of matter that has been on the planet for billions of years. So in a way, humans are one with the earth, no different from a rock or a tree. As a living part of the earth, we are bound to it for long term survival. (Well at least for now).

[@keltic07]

I guess that's true. But we're also part of the sun too I guess too, since that's where we take our energy too.

[@AndrewVasirov]

+keltic07 The Sun is made of Hydrogen. The water has Hydrogen. We have water. Therefore, we are wannabe suns.

[@keltic07]

Lol we shine bright like stars in the sky

[@corvo_queso]

By the way, the Spanish word for "Computer" is "Computadora" but that's only in Latin America, the Spain Spanish for "Computer" is "Ordenador".

[@MrFrancesco31]

and in french it's "ordinateur"

[@HavanaSyndrome69]

+Corvo “Cheese Puffington” Conors Everyone I know says computadora. Ordenador sounds oldfashiony to me.

[@corvo_queso]

So computadora is like a newish way of saying it?

[@MrFrancesco31]

Corvo Conors not quite, it is like saying "computating electric machine" instead of "computer"

[@corvo_queso]

So it's like a less technical way of saying it? Kind of.

[@nakenmil]

Hey, I study anthropology, so this was a fun view. I have a few thoughts: That they viewed a wife as part of her husband's family doesn't necessarily mean that the she would move to her husbands family (a practice called "virilocality"), it could be that it was expected of them to move somewhere for themselves ("neolocality"). However, if we assume virilocality, that kind of explains the practice of bride price, imagine that you have a daughter who helps around the house and field, but one day she's off to the her husband's family. That can seriously impact your own family's labour power, so financial recompense for loss of her labour power (and conversely, their gain of it) is a fair move in their eyes. Even more complexly, imagine that you have a son of your own that you want to get a wife. After all, the procreative power of women is the base on which survival of family is based on. So when you marry off your daughter, you gain the financial means of helping your son get married in turn. All in all, wealth circulates around as marriages occur, and no clan or community is left bereft of women and to die a slow death by attrition as no one gets any babies. It's not very gender-equal, true, but PIE-speaking people probably had it rough in other matters as well.

[@senorsiro3748]

Also, bride-price implies that having children is viewed positively and there isn’t too much scarcity in their locale. People will pay money (or in other goods) for something that will result in more family members under their roof. This is in contrast to a Dowry, in which the underlying idea is “Sorry about the fact that you’ll have more mouths to feed in a while as a result of my daughter. Have some money or livestock.”

[@hedgehog3180]

It's also important to remember in societies like this that the things which might have made society unequal probably didn't really impact the every day life of people. Like for the woman in this situation she probably did still live mostly the same life as the man, ancient societies being patriarchal doesn't mean they all looked like 1950s America and evidently the family model of that period is not one that is sustainable given that it lasted less than a generation. Oppression as a thing only really starts to exist when you have major overarching societal structures such as the state and markets which can enforce uniform standards on an entire society. Before then these things don't really factor into the life of most people. It's not that these societies weren't unequal but rather that they were not so uniform as to make that inequality the same sort of issue it would be today. It's difficult to conceptualize for modern day people but probably the clearest example of how this worked is that few people ever traveled more than 40 km from their home, if your entire life is gonna be spent on a farm either way then it really doesn't matter to you whether you'd be accepted into a university because of your gender. You and your spouse are gonna end up living almost the exact same life with the major difference between you two being that one is extremely likely to die during child birth.

[@dwaynepeters4520]

​@@senorsiro3748 Bride price is common in hoe farming cultures, dowry in plough farming cultures. Women commonly use the hoe, but usually don't plough because it takes a lot of upper body strength to drive a plough (even with the help of a draft animal). So in hoe farming cultures, a woman's agricultural labor is valuable; in a plough farming culture, she doesn't work outside the house, so she's another mouth to feed.

[@Fuk99999]

@@hedgehog3180 I take issue with this entire deliberation because it’s quite obvious how “unequal” their society likely was when you look at their descendant groups. Hinduism is not particularly kind to women. Ancient Greeks literally named their daughters after household objects or akin to them. Romans really weren’t much better. And then you have the Germanics up north whom….well….we have the words of Odin in the form of the havamal and ancient stories as told by the likes of Snorri to get a vivid picture of how they viewed women. Sure you have goddesses in their pantheons as well, but seldom are they the most benevolent figures

[@zandaroos553]

@@hedgehog3180 Given Greco-Roman, Vedic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic and Persian cultures were all rigidly patriarchal with an implied concept of the ownership of women to an extant in all but Persian (mainly due to the Zoroastrian religion in the latters case), as well as clear male based clannage systems, it can be inferred PIE was a hardline patriarchal society. You’re right that it wouldn’t look like the Anglo-American nuclear family structure (which is more a product of the rise of a mass middle class, suburbanization and homeownership combined with a massive restructuring of society as the nation shifted from an industrial to a consumer society - than related to a significant change in gender norms which was happening but wouldn’t effect family structures en masse for another 20-30 years.) But PIE would likely have family structure similar to what most patriarchal human societies had for millennia, the multi-generational home lead by a family patriarch.

[@烏梨師斂]

This is so fascinating. Languages basically tell the history of mankind. I actually found some Thai words that were borrowed from Sanskrit, which was related to Latin, and then English! Thats why I know some Thai words that sound the same in English! For example Tewi"godess" in Thai, Devi "sanskrit for god" , then latin, then english Devine!!!!

[@Xidnaf]

Oh wow that is so cool!!!!

[@redwaldcuthberting7195]

Devine isn't English. The original cognate would be Tiw in English going back to Tiwaz in the Germanic line.

[@烏梨師斂]

Daniel Goodman I mean its borrowed from Latin....

[@Namburiadityasairam2605]

AsiA I. Tf are you high?

[@tonton1626]

Redwald Cuthberting , divine comes from latin "divus"="god" or "sky" , cognate to sanskrit "deva"="god" or "sky".

[@wires-sl7gs]

2:33 am I the only one that spotted what he actually used for a horse?

[@Xidnaf]

you are not :)

[@mantictac]

You are brony no?

[@Xidnaf]

ManticTac yep

[@QuarioQuario54321]

+Xidnaf Is that supposedly your OC?

[@wires-sl7gs]

Jay See Why so Hostile?

[@BharathKumarIyer]

I'm from South India, and I feel like a lot of what you describe as Proto-Indo-European language and culture, is still very much alive today in large parts of the sub-continent. And the language and it's sounds/pronunciations are part of most languages in India to this day. India is a living record of these peoples' mentalities.

[@indrajitgupta3280]

That was puzzling. Most north Indian languages are descended from Indo-Aryan, that evolved into Prakrit, in two main dialects, Sauraseni Prakrit, from which the western set of north Indian languages was derived, and Magadhi Prakrit, from which the eastern set of north Indian languages was derived. Prakrit is descended from Indo-Aryan, or Vedic Sanskrit, that is different from Panini's codification of that older language into a tightly structured form, that got named 'the polished tongue', or Sanskrit. So, yes, PIE language descendants are widely spoken in northern India today. As for the culture, there are common features, and you will, being an Iyer, understand that marriage and gotra are very closely inter-related. Some of the cultural bits that we hear about in the video are codified in India using very similar concepts.

[@freesoul8188]

What do you mean by mentality?

[@demonic_myst4503]

prety acurate to be fair europe went through phases of shift in culture and eventurkly chose to throw away tradition for inovation which creates a big disconect between europians and none europian culyures and the iranians had their culture butchered by the arabs in the 7th century like much of middle east

[@demonic_myst4503]

also one oposite tho the dowry is reversed in india , the give and take for proto indo europians seems sugest the wifes family get paid not the grooms in proto indo europian culture as in buying the wife

[@haragopal1]

@@demonic_myst4503 dowry is not Indian concept in the first place.... After British came law is made that property is transferred through men only... Before British there's no dowry in India

[@JohnDRuddyMannyMan]

Really interesting :) loving ms paint artwork :D

[@therealdave06]

You're about five years late, John Granted I'm seven years late but that's besides the point

[@shamanthjilla]

You mention the difference+similarity between Give and Take.One more interesting example is 'Ahura' in Zoroastrian means GOD where as 'Asura' in Sanskrit means Demon.

[@CassandraPantaristi]

+shamanthjilla Sanskrit is one of those languages where one word can mean 1000 different things. I looked up Asura and it means a whole lot more than just demon. :D

[@CassandraPantaristi]

+shamanthjilla Sanskrit is one of those languages where one word can mean 1000 different things. I looked up Asura and it means a whole lot more than just demon. :D

[@kogularam01]

Do you mean Persian?

[@CassandraPantaristi]

kogularam Pathmanandavel No in Persian (and Avestan) ahura means the opposite, a good spirit or a benevolent god, or just lord. But I think asura and ahura come from the same source, just developed differently and got the opposite meanings.

[@kogularam01]

+Moonspell Bloodlines No no he said Zoroastrian, Zoroastrian is not a language but a person who belongs to the Zoroastrian religion (Zorastrianism)

[@TPRJones]

I've never really found history interesting until now. Looking at history through language is fascinating. Thank you.

[@stopfidgetting]

I showed this video to my cousin and he had a problem with your map at the beginning. He said it shouldn't include all of India because that's Dravidian.

[@stopfidgetting]

for the record, I laughed.

[@Xidnaf]

+Caudex that is a good point. i'm often not as good about double checking the accuracy of the illustrations as i am for the script. still kind of working on that.

[@Crick1952]

To be fair, Hindi is still widely spoken and taught in the South (though it certainly isn't native to there)

[@aaditsingh3632]

+Crick1952 That because Hindi has strengthened its importance in India as an unofficial lingua franca.

[@KorKhan89]

+Crick1952 Although in my personal experience in Southern India (over a brief time, admittedly), English was the language most often used as a lingua franca between different linguistic groups. I only really saw Hindi signs on government buildings, railway stations and other "official" places, whereas most shops had signs just in the local language (Kannada/Tamil/Malayalam, etc.) and English.

[@zacharywallace6164]

Even in modern Scottish Gaelic, there is only one word for give and take.

[@tricky778]

What is it?

[@pearspeedruns]

Just left us hanging

[@ellasedits_]

3 years later and he’s still leaving us hanging

[@therat1117]

@@ellasedits_ It's 'thoir' ('her' in English phonetics). It's also wrong because there are also the verbs 'tabhair' ('taver') means only 'give' and 'gabh' (kav) only 'take', although there are subtleties to when 'gabh' vs. 'thoir' is used.

[@ellasedits_]

@@therat1117 thank you my man, you’re a real one

[@wildanfatihg]

In Indonesia (or at least in the culture I'm in, we have a lot of cultures here) when a marriage occurs the two families are joined into one big family, there are no "husband's family" and "wife's family" anymore. It's probably also the reason why most of us don't have family names, since that would be quite hard to implement with the whole "big family" thing.

[@NemooSK]

A bit late to the party, but in Slovak, both words for door "dvere" and "vráta" are in plural as well. Super interesting stuff.

[@nerysghemor5781]

Xidnaf, I thought you might like to know that the video game Far Cry: Primal is intended to deal with the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and has located them in Slovakia. I was really floored when I heard the language in this trailer, as I was NOT expecting it at AL...they've actually hired a linguist to project PIE further back to something more primitive (they also wanted to make it simple for their voice actors ;-) ). It's not Nostratic exactly but it was not hard for me to tell immediately what they had done, within two sentences. Looks like this thing is set for release early next year, and when it comes out, the special edition is going to have a phrasebook of this "PIE ancestor" conlang (which they call "Wenja"). Hopefully a ton of this material will hit the Internet. You might appreciate a listen to this...seems they've done interesting work here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJDTfqenqttql6M (Key points of interest: listen for the pronouns...AND see if you can identify the way they express the concept of "beast.") (Warning: The parts of the trailer where they are NOT speaking are very violent and not for everyone.)

[@Alias_Anybody]

They dumbed the language of the protagonist's tribe down though, because it "sounded too sophisticated". It's like with coconut horses, primitive sounding cavemen are so ingrained in our culture that many people apparently don't like it if their language reminds them of Latin.

[@Alias_Anybody]

@@samuelnathan312 The third tribe (antagonists) who are more advanced actually got the full IE treatment. But not our protagonists.

[@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus]

Nice profile picture! For Cardassia! :D

[@toddkobell162]

I find myself rewatching Xidnaf videos like once a week and I never get bored

[@TheAgamemnon911]

Wow, that was incredibly interesting. It's like archeology, but less dirty.

[@Luis0n7i]

One of the most interesting videos I've seen in some time. Congrats, man! You just earned a subscriber :D

[@TheInstitution]

To fart loudly in Albanian: pjerdh. PS: Now that i'm thinking of, door in Alb. is 'derë', plural 'dyer' and *dy is Alb. for the number two. Maybe a little far fetched because the languages evolve but still, it got me thinking.

[@cessatiolux6250]

Should have said Anatolia instead of Turkey.

[@Name-ib7wu]

Legit.

[@libbybollinger5901]

Global Catastrophe But pretty much everyone knows where Turkey is, while still a lot of people don’t know Anatolia.

[@TheYuccaPlant]

He said modern day turkey. And why shouldn’t he change russia too then?

[@suluayran121]

And why Russia instead of Pontic Steppe?

[@ibrahimyilmaz4861]

He should have said Pontic steppe instead of Russia.

[@malingmann]

The Jupiter one blew my mind!

[@connor42071]

I just found your videos today and they have just amazed me. I've always been interested in linguistics, but never knew really where to start. You really do deserve more recognition then you get now. I mean, you don't even have a thousand subscribers. That's just insulting for content of this quality. So I can't wait for the next video; keep up the good work.

[@Xidnaf]

^_^ I'm glad you like my videos! And yeah, I'm not that popular NOW, but I haven't been at this for long and it takes time for this kind of thing to spread. And it is spreading: at the beginning of this year I had only 181 subscribers, now I'm getting close to 1000! So yeah, I think I'm getting exactly as much recognition as I deserve :)

[@anonymousbloke1]

The only reason he doesn't have 1000 yet is because people are not that interested in linguistics... Maybe there are people interested in one particular language but they still don't give a f**k to linguistics. (Sorry for my french)

[@anonymousbloke1]

***** Oui, excuse mon francais...

[@avim2686]

I don't quite know what to picture for the Proto-Indo-Europeans. This is a new word for me within the last week or so. I am really starting to get into linguistics now. I would definitely like to see a vid that breaks down languages or Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. I see a lot about Europe which is interesting but it makes me wonder about the rest of the world.

[@ilghiz]

3:20 Russian uses “perd” in the meaning “fart”. The root “pezd” (“pizd” to be precise) is a curse word that means “cunt” and has lots of derivatives meaning “lie”, “deceive”, “liar”, “beat/fight”, “cool”, “disaster”.

[@Discovios]

+ilghiz porthi in Greek

[@ilghiz]

+Discovios, πορθι? ))

[@Discovios]

not a theta but a delta pronounced like th as in english THAT.

[@ittriittri3113]

+ilghiz Мы говорим "бздить" и "пердеть". We say bzdet' and perdet'. ПИздеть происходит, скорее всего, от другого слова Peezdet' derives from another root, I think...

[@seiban8455]

There is one reason I watch your videos. Exactly one reason. It's the amazing artistic talent you show in each of your videos. I think it's time for you to reveal your secret. Maybe publish a few art tutorials. Let the world bask in the glory of your MS paint stick figures. In all seriousness, I love your channel.

[@artemmetra9857]

>Did the original PIE come from Anatolia or Russia Thankfully now we know it is Russia. Ancient-DNA analysis breakthroughs have eliminated a century of debate

[@alonecoder600]

We don't know it's Russia from any DNA information, that's pop-science. Anatolia shows the oldest traces of Indoeuropean languages, namely Hittites, Mitanni-Aryans, and the oldest Greek epics. That's even if you don't count nearby Armenians.

[@AKumar-co7oe]

@@alonecoder600 The Yamnaya culture DNA from Russia is considered the DNA of the Indo Europeans and is found in all Indo-European groups. Now whether they were culturally Indo-European at that time is up for debate.

[@speedwagon1824]

Not necessarily, because language origin and genetic origin don't necessarily correlate

[@himssendol6512]

It is impressive how well and easily you explained things here. 👍🏻 I hope someday you’ll make more videos.

[@daca8395]

If a woman becomes a family member to husbands family, thay get extra pair of hands, while wifes family looses them, so you would compensate for that in goods.

[@Liggliluff]

Plus it could just be a nice gesture to offer them gifts. It doesn't have to be seen as a purchase.

[@daca8395]

@@Liggliluff there is one more thing: we are used to viewing status of women thrue mediteranian and middle eastern pagan tradition, where women were usually subjugated to men (not counting Egypt, where the dynamic of power was a bit different), and especially after abrachamic religions became dominant. However, there are many examples of women havibg more equal footing with men in northen Europe and north and central Asia. This does not mean these societies weren't patriarchal, but women had better position then in mediteranian region, especially compared to Greece and Rome (with exception of Sparta)

[@supercellex4D]

They probably had marriage and wedding rituals then, and that's referring to wedding gifts Sky father (which is related to the weather, just like yahweh btw), marriage system, quasi-panentheism... Is Christianity just a syncretic pidgin of indo-european religions?

[@The1853]

Probably one of the most interesting videos about linguistics that I have seen!

[@liimlsan3]

Another cool inference we have is that they were landlocked, since it has a word for "water," "well" and "river..." but not for "ocean" or "sea." Not even the Caspian.

[@Whatever94-i4u]

But they had, and it was *móri (hence Latin mare, Russian мо́ре and German Meer)

[@lecoureurdesbois86]

@@CrustyMuffin33 Latin "mare" became "mer" in French for example, it would be the English equivalent of "sea", so I don't know if it's any related to "mire"

[@Liggliluff]

Maybe they didn't have the concept of an ocean or sea, and just saw it as infinite water, or water to the edge of the world.

[@nadarith1044]

@@Whatever94-i4u Pretty sure thats a general word for a body of water and was also used for lakes

[@indrajitgupta3280]

@@nadarith1044 In Indo-Aryan it was 'samudra', but could very well have referred to a large body of water, infinite water.

[@connormelvin7786]

I was waiting so long but When I got news that you made this video I was so excited.

[@ritishdey6425]

in our culture is still thought that the wife joins the husbands family

[@Alias_Anybody]

Were are you from?

[@anindyassdey]

@@Alias_Anybody He is from India. Bengal to be more accurate. He is a descendant of the Indo-Europeans probably.

[@Alex-kh8zj]

@@Alias_Anybody wife takes husband name

[@chad_bro_chill]

​@@Alex-kh8zj There's a pretty good explanation for that (for the naming of children, anyway). When a mother has a child, it's pretty obviously hers. Can't really fake that. The father, though? Without a paternity test, his parentage can only be assumed, his name being the only "proof" that the child is his. Fathers are going to be a lot more likely to stick around if they literally have someone named after them.

[@Alex-kh8zj]

@@chad_bro_chill idk care about the reasoning, it still clearly enforces the idea that the wife joins the husbands family.

[@a.kaushal8447]

In the scenario with the couple at 4:50 , we have words for all of those in Hindi. Just putting it out there.

[@jackanderson8278]

Your videos are consistently incredibly fascinating and well-made. Please keep making them.

[@Amaling]

Mutual gift-giving absolutely checks out in Iranian culture btw. My parents literally used to tell me to not give too impressive gifts because then the receiver would have a burden of needing to spend a lot on a return gift

[@DavidHWatson]

Hey Xidnaf good work as always! I didn't realize that so much was known about PIE culture from the words themselves. Have you heard about how some people are trying to resurrect PIE and make it a current spoken language? I've actually heard the same thing with Sanskrit. I don't know why some people want to make dead languages living again!

[@171_indranildutta6]

sanskrit is not dead she is alive in the hearts and mind of 500M+ people

[@LyraBestPony]

Nice video, it's nice to see you simplify some fundamental linguistic ideas for the laymen out there. It's like minute-linguistics! Keeps it up!

[@allisond.46]

Are we just going to ignore the fact that Proto-Indo-European could literally be pronounced “pie”?

[@serbianstallion8321]

Interestingly enough Serbian word "pita" and English "pie" are cognates.

[@saulgoodmanKAZAKH]

Not really. It's an abbreviation

[@thomaswillard6267]

@@saulgoodmanKAZAKH Why not make it an acronym?

[@davidonfim2381]

yes

Id love too see something like that from other proto languages, like Finno-Ugrics.

[@alexanderrossovitch2585]

I would not like to see what revisionist posts.

[@thekkl]

It's possible that the lack of feminine forms meant the wife lived with the husband's family, but it could also mean that masculine forms doubled as gender neutral forms. You know, like a lot of old English words did.

[@jtarcher6079]

im so high, i don't know why i watched this whole thing, but i did, and i'm glad i did, Knowledge is power.

[@ziad8947]

+Jt Archer you do sound high, but I agree with you

[@jtarcher6079]

+You're Bananas thanks! I love learning new things, I guess that's why I watched it all haha

[@ziad8947]

Jt Archer Good for you

[@GreedPainLove]

+Jt Archer nice :D

[@LiamAllenMcGoran]

Is "reciprocal gift-giving" different in any way from trading?

[@prado7391]

in my language there's a word for reciprocal gift giving and trading. The first is escambo and the latter is trocar

[@hedgehog3180]

Reciprocal gift giving is a part of a relationship and is a way to strengthen it, we still do it today when you give your friends birthday gifts or go do something with them or have them help you move, in these situations it is expected and very rude not to return the favor and it's just seen as part of a friendship. In the setting of a clan or family it is both diplomatic and social since usually there's both politics involved in maintaining this relationship but you also act as genuine friends. However when you trade with someone you are not establishing a relationship with them, you are not trading things to establish a relationship, even if doing so can be part of trading, you're doing it to get something you want and while you might get to know each other when trading this isn't your goal. If I'm giving you 10 goats in exchange for 50 coats then I'm not doing this because I want to get on your good side and you're not giving it back as a show of mutual trust and friendship, I'm giving you the 10 goats because I want the 50 coats and you're only trading back the 50 coats because you are interested in the goats. You aren't returning a favor this is literally required for you to get the thing you want, if you didn't do it, it would not be a grave insult but theft.

[@DSMWannabeLinguist]

It's always great coming across other channels who are enthusiastic about languages. Great video! I'd love to know your sources so I could do some further reading. :)

[@Ashe-A-Lotl]

I love your videos on linguistics and culture, as a budding anthropologist, I was super fascinated by the video I saw in my recommendeds list. Also.... /)

[@Xidnaf]

:) Thank you so much! (\

[@Brabour]

There's a strong hypothesis where and when the Indo-Europeans lived, the Step regions of modern Ukraine from a period between 4000-2500 BC. Check out the book "The horse the wheel and the language" for the details.

[@muratatay9602]

6:24 Although Turkish isn't an indo-european language that Sky father thing made me think of the ancient Turkish for god "Kök Tengri" which translates to Sky God, having an idea of a god in the sky must be a really ancient concept, maybe emerging before the two language groups separated, interesting

[@Alias_Anybody]

They could have a common origin - or it could be "analog evolution", because seing the sun/sky as the highest entity isn't very far fetched.

[@wezzuh2482]

According to some hypotheses, the Indo-Europeans and the Turkic peoples both originated on the steppes of Eurasia. Maybe they influenced each other.

[@gabriellima7900]

And chinese Tian

[@Karlsewak-kempetai]

Gokturks were Buddhist once upon a time, which is indo-aryan religion, many deities in Japan were influenced by indo-aryan deities like indra, saraswati etc so it isn't astonishing that türks were influenced by them, Türks resisted islam for nearly 3 centuries before converting to it. Another point search for Türk shahis who were Buddhist dynasty of subcontinent.

[@mrtrollnator123]

​@@Karlsewak-kempetaigöktürks were tengrists, they weren't originally Buddhist they later converted to Buddhism and later on some turks converted to Islam

[@wes6363]

And Óðínn was called, get this.......Alfáðir. It all connects

[@giovanauzumakixd]

exactly! whenever i think of PIE i think of a group like the dothrakis, but they have cows and goats too, since dairy were important to them

[@LemmingFNSR]

Wow! This was so freaking fascinating!!! Loved it. Only just discovered your work via Trey the explainer. Subscribed! Forgive my hearing disability that makes any new voice a challenge to listen to. Thanks for your work, hi from Australia

[@AdityaGupta-nz4me]

4:40 in hindi we actually have words for all those relations. Sisters husband: jijaa Daughters husband: damaad And many more...

[@real_nosferatu]

In Romanian Sister's husband or spouse's brother = cumnat Brother's wife or spouse's sister = cumnata Spouse's father = socru Spouse's mother = soacra Daughter's husband = ginere Son's wife = nora

[@georgeandrews1394]

Well, they may have had horses, but I don't think they had horses of sub-optimal size like the picture you used.

[@Werrf1]

+George Andrews You'd be surprised. Ancient ancestral horses were much, much smaller than the horses we have today. Even medieval horses would have been more like ponies to our eyes.

[@AndrewVasirov]

+Werrf1 Not true. The Medieval horses were as big as today's horses. They were used because they were faster and, when you are riding them, you have the higher ground and so, you can use the horses as your advantage. The ponies are too small to be advantageous. And don't confuse the Equestrian Ponies with the normal horses or the normal ponies.

[@shiningarmor2838]

+Andrew V. Vasirov (Andrea Vulture S.) Equestrian Ponies are roughly the same size as your ponies, standing around 4 feet in height.

[@AndrewVasirov]

Shining Armor But Shining Armor is twice as big as Twilight Sparkle. :D Oh, and you are a Stallion, but your sister is a pony. BUT she is a Mare (Female Horse). Who knows? We shall use the AP (Average Pony) measurements: 1 AP=Height of 99% of the Mares. But still, don't compare the normal Ponies with Equestrian ponies, as long as we never saw, let's say, 1 real human next to a MLP Pony, with the same scale (1:1). Maybe the Equestrian Ponies/Main Species are the same height as the humans. Maybe. :D

[@stoltheds7698]

+Shining Armor if that were true they would have enormous eyes, they could see things like a coin from miles around. Still they seem to need binoculars quite often.

[@AupriProductions]

3:31 - "I'm the laziest depiction of Earth ever made" 5:26 - "Hold my beer..."

[@S-Nova0]

The Pontic-Caspian steppe homeland hypothesis is by far the most commonly accepted one, so we do have a very good idea of where they lived. Great video otherwise though, keep it up!

[@Tslmy]

3:04 the doors look so wrong to me... lol

[@Recoveredmediaarch]

wow, I'm blown away. This is fantastic!

[@dsbdsb6637]

You forgot to mention the Language & methods developed in Indian subcontinent which played an instrumental role in forming the field i.e. Linguistics.

[@ЮрийИванцив]

Good video! Thanks to the author for his good work! I'd like to recommend Yuri Ivantsiv's practice book Polyglot's Notes: Practical Tips for Learning a Foreign Language. This book has many useful methods for learning a foreign language, how to develop your memory, how to memorize words, learn grammar, quickly learn to speak, read and write. All recommend this excellent book! Good luck to everyone in learning a foreign language!

[@bmi9198]

This is actually a really awesome video, thank you.

[@turi73]

Great vid, bud.I've been studying a bit about ancient Semitic, Indo-European, Ural-Altaic languages.

[@QuikVidGuy]

That's called patrilinearity

[@Burgerzaza]

Its fascinating, to see how much we learn from linguistics. Although as I was listening I couldnt help but draw the conclusion that the Celts and Celtic peoples were initially Indo-European invaders. We can construct a similar knowledge base using archeology and historical/mythological accounts. Compare Gaels, Gauls, Iberians, Germanic, Balt, and Slavs and take the similarities in their ancient cultural and societal practices and you can learn what the prior culture had that they gave to these daughter groups. Funny enough, native Scottish, Irish, and Welsh culture contains a heavy amount of Gailic, and thus its bones are Indo-European and thus something has survived today of these ancient peoples directly. The biggest mystery is of the native peoples of Europe prior to the indo European invasion. Sumer developed a civilization but all the sumerians vanished ethnically. Geniologists and historians are looking for the modern people descended of the Sumerians with little success. The Harappa civilization left a lot behind to be inherited by the Indo-Aryan people that went south instead of west with their brothers. But dozens of Cultures lost forever is native European. Indo-europeans werent colonists of an empty continent, they purged and assimilated the peoples who had already done the same thing to the Neanderthals, who actually had colonized an empty continent. These native Europeans left little behind to suggest any complex civilization. Really, the only real evidence they existed at all is the cave paintings dating far older than the indo-european invasion and other artifacts as well as Carthaginian and Greek accounts of the native peoples of Sicily and Malta(which is actually the only evidence of a complex civilization on the part of the native europeans). We may never know what they were truly like, their cultures and lives because it was absorbed or destroyed by celts or time itself

[@yochanan770]

1)This video is simple and great. It's simply great. 2) Which of our modern languages has changed the least since then?

[@isaweesaw]

+John Eiben As far as I know, Lithuanian is the modern language that is most similar to PIE

[@anastasiamashkova352]

This video is just amazing! Thank you for doing this!!!

[@codescreen]

Thanks for opening my eyes on how closely culture and language are related.

[@MrNaTs24]

Cool thing my French teacher taught me take, almost any French word that starts é. Replace the é with an s and it will be the English word, spelt either very similarly or the exact same. E.g. épouse, étage, école, éponge, etc.

[@kaylaklimas6058]

+NaTs24 I just learned this recently as well, it's really cool. Surprised you didn't mention état though, seems like the best example for English speakers since pretty much everyone has used that word at some point.

[@fernandobanda5734]

That's only true for very old words, when initial s+consonant wasn't allowed. Also, you're much more likely to find similarities to Latin or other romance languages, not English in particular.

[@sinaapotheker1582]

There is no Iranian language Iranian is a group of languages and the one with most speakers is Peraian or Farsi

[@RamRam.720]

I know Hungary, basque and Finnish aren't PIE, bus what's with southern Italy?

[@Lea_Kaderova]

Hungary or better said Hungarians according all genetic research have same genes as every their neighbour nation, so they are common east european mix.

[@gordiemeow]

Hungarian and Finnish are part of the Uralik language family (the second largest family in Europe after Indo-European). Basque may have had relatives at one point, but it is now regarded as a language isolate... Basically it was the only one of its family to survive that we know of. Even though the Indo-Europeans had a great deal of influence in ancient Europe, they certainly weren't the only ones!

[@nicholasbenjamin3826]

It's not a great map. Southern Italy is all the wrong shape, but it's there. Both boot and heel. He's forgotten Sicily, tho. The Eastern brown bit should also be bigger -- a good third of Turkey are Indo-European-speaking Kurds.

[@Farisss92]

Nicholas Benjamin Ancient Turks spoke IE language though!

[@nicholasbenjamin3826]

Fariss92, it can't be an ancient world map because the Hungarians didn't arrive in Europe until the 9th century. Given several factors, including the size of Basque/Finnish/Hungarian territory and the lack of Indo-European languages in Anatolia, it has to be current.

[@ghenulo]

Though, English "house" and Spanish "casa" don't seem to be related to each other. "House" is from the PIE root for "to cover", where "casa" is from the PIE root for "to chain" (in Latin, "casa" referred to a hut rather than a house, so that semantic shift alone makes a relation to English "house" dubious).

[@novideoshereable]

In modern Persian we still say "mard" (mortal) for men and "mardom" for all of humanity. We also still say "mordan" (to die) about death! It's interesting to see these sorts of historical relics of a society we don't even know what it called itself!

[@lockesnode1477]

3:03 Triggered. Door-nobs in the wrong places. Triggered.

[@Horesmi]

Trust me, i'm an engineer

[@BlueMorningStar]

It's interesting how when atheists insult the Christian God, they refer to him as "Sky Daddy." The insult seems to target the fact that we still tend to imagine God using those ancient PIE religious imaginaries for the divine like association with the sky and a father figure. The insult gets its edge by implying that Christians have a very paganistic and superstitious relationship to the divine, and funnily enough, that disdain for paganism is something western cultures largely inherited from Christianity. The insult uses Christian pagan-phobia against Christians themselves.

[@موسى_7]

To be fair, Christian imagery of God is just copy-pasted from Zeus. Real Christian culture is Semitic, not Indo-European. As a Muslim, I am shocked by the amount of Greek pagan influence in Christian culture, especially the fact they have nude paintings of Adam and Eve. They should respect the literal parents of all humanity! Nude paintings isn't what Jesus would have liked!

[@KirkVII]

This stuff is like the "deep web" of history. Only it's not dark at all and is oh-so-fun.

[@jeeyoengada5365]

I just started having interest in languages (especially Indo-European) but I lack resources, I mostly rely only on the internet. I'm very happy that I discovered your channel.

[@michaelramirez991]

I really enjoy your videos! Keep up the good work! They are very interesting!

[@andrepegoraro6056]

I love the fact that you have subtitles on your videos. And in other languages too, not only english.

[@sink257]

I believe the reason why the word for door is known as such is because it allows people to walk through it from two ways

[@gracehood2004]

Such greatness. Many thought.

[@dracodeanglicus3857]

Many old person. Wow.

[@mrushun]

Thanks for your videos! I'm having a 'History of English' test tomorrow, so they do come in handy ^^ It's really mind blowing when it turns out that English is not as chaotic as it seemed (I'm not a native speaker)

[@okenwaayomikun]

For a moment I thought the thumbnail was a Rasenshuriken.

[@CassandraPantaristi]

I created a group specifically for Proto-Indo-European religion. It's called Swedhónā (from the word swēdhus "custom"), which a friend of mine came up the name. I incorporate Proto-Indo-European polytheism to my Roman polytheism. But, I love both Greco-Roman mythology and reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. I know I am not the only one who wants to practice the Proto-Indo-European religion, as I have been in a Facebook PIE religion group before. But they kicked me out of it because I accidentally didn't give credit to Ceisiwr Serith when I posted a PIE prayer ritual. I tried getting back into the group, but they denied me multiple times and eventually blocked me from it. I'm like fuck it, I'll create my own group. The reason I am a Pagan is because I am all about culture and I want to practice the ancient ways. I take pride in my Indo-European ancestry (which I am also Native American), which I know that it can go back to my distant PIE ancestors, which I would like to honor them. I think it any of you that are interested, I think you may want to too :). If any of you that would like to join, here is the link: facebook.com/groups/swedhona/ Here is also the PDF file of Swedhónā: lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/Sw%C4%93dh%C3%B3n%C4%81.pdf?token=AWwj5ruSHmeFFeCwIl_bGnc6t24Ey4p7zt9xXPNfu7F8OBenaGP0XXIdqNF1qQmVcG5VRLT45kxEqvwD4guRGtjuajp2fIcnmIaAa2k83zqH8lR-aw9CrAJSxIuW3SLbT6m2pfF5PQ92UFwo-uHpmU43

[@jaykhandwala5533]

What about ancient Vedic religion and zorastrianism

[@CassandraPantaristi]

Jay Khandwala Yes, Vedic religion I incorporate that too. Actually Vedic religion is the closest to PIE religion.

[@CassandraPantaristi]

Nordmann Schlangenfeder I am subscribed to ThuleanPerspective, don't know who the other one is.

[@CassandraPantaristi]

Nordmann Schlangenfeder Alright :)

[@VicariousReality7]

Fuck you for dishonoring the gods by making religion

[@thesuomi8550]

_laughs in Finnish_

[@DaniloThePopa]

You should look at Eastern Serbo-croatian or Serbian. We have a word for almost every family relationship.

[@leleledjfocus22]

+DaniloThePopa same in polish tho not for every realtion

[@felinequeen9243]

+DaniloThePopa same as in Chinese? I find that the more a culture puts emphasis on the importance of family, there tends to be more words to distinguish each member of the family and the extended family and their relationship to each other.

[@DaniloThePopa]

Lupis Lupis Polish language is the only one ( I don't speek kashubian and selesian language) that kept nasal sounds ą and ę, so I'm guessing it kept a lot of original slavic language. Feline Queen I don'st speek chinese (yet ;) ) so I'll have to trust your word!

[@dotdot4701]

you are right

[@serglian8558]

Like for a brothers aunts sister?

[@nathanhunt9105]

This is giving me so many worldbuilding ideas that I have forgotten most of them because they just won't stop.

[@ericchisler3578]

I need a tattoo of the Steppe Theorist and the Anatolian Theorist stick figures trying to kill each other. Epic.

[@armara70]

Fascinating

[@jamesmorgan9258]

Amazing video, just one comment: the fact that Proto-Indo-European has a word for "brideprice" doesn't really prove that they were patriarchal (although they probably were). The paying of brideprices doesn't prove a society is patriarchal any more than the paying of dowries proves that a society is matriarchal. Also, often when a brideprice or a dowry is to be paid, it isn't paid in money, or at least not in the way that a modern Westerner would think of it. More often brideprices are paid in the form of some specific commodity with a high symbolic value, the sort of thing that you would sacrifice to a god, or pay to a priest to exorcise your home. The more recent trend of brideprices and dowries being paid in cash is a consequence of modern Capitalism and Urbanization where, for example, not every Swazi family can keep several dozen cows in their home and so instead they simply give cash which can be exchanged for a cow. What the existence of the word "brideprice" does show is that Proto-Indo-Europeans most likely didn't place a very high premium on romantic love, and that marriage likely served much more utilitarian functions.

[@tricky778]

Or just that they knew a besotted male can be milked for all he's worth

[@paddaboi_]

cows for lobola do be expensive tho

[@bjornbuchner7352]

4:14, o my god, they were communist!!!

[@1000eau]

Or more like free-trading capitalists.

[@ImSquiggs]

Fascinating video, I can tell I stumbled on a great channel right now.... I'm about to lose a couple hours at work to a binge, I can feel it, haha

[@ANoteWeaver]

Really enjoyed this. Thank you. Very informative.