Where is the Indo-European Homeland?

[@seustaceRotterdam]

I always read that it came from the Steppes, but your theory seems to make sense to me. What about the non- Indo-European languages, can we even dig deeper and find one common ancestor or did several languages emerge in parallel?

[@redplanet7163]

This is something we will probably never know. Going back that far with languages it becomes largely speculation.

[@h.m.6228]

7:41 one nitpicky comment: there is no "Sentum" group of IE languages. The typology was hinted by how the numeral one hundred (100) is pronounced in various IE languages and the models were: Latin 'centum' /kentum/ and Avestan 'satem'. The latter has cognates in Old Church Slavonic 'suto' (which gave Romanian 'suta'), Sanskrit 'sata' etc. The differentiation between centum and satem languages is a very early one (around 3rd millenium BC). As for the French having 'cent' /sant/, we should consider that the centum/satem classification applies to the proto-languages out of which the modern European languages derive. Similarly to French, Italian also pronounces 'cento' in a satem-like manner, even though it is derived from Latin (an Italic, centum language) with elements from a Germanic adstratum (also, a centum type). The apparent "satemization" in daughter-languages does not change the character of the mother-language. Apart from that, a new great clip, with good information.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. Yes, I debated to even inclide the S va C bit.

[@johndavis6119]

Great breakdown Ben. Well done.

[@meo7387]

Absolutely made-up and non-credible.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@GeraldM_inNC]

I heard that the botanical evidence is conclusive. Scholars looked for words for trees and plants that are shared by every I-E language, and it turned out that some of those shared words grow in one and only one place.

[@LRJS1794]

Where’s that?

[@jocr1971]

@GeraldM_inNC i've always thought it a strange hypothesis that a chariot riding people came from steppe lands where trees are scarce. i think they likely came from the borders of steppe and forest. the sedentary portion of the population lived in homes, hunted, foraged, and fished...while the husbandmen were partially nomadic on the steppe. some invasion or disaster struck and the sedentary were decimated while the nomadic portion migrated away.

[@zipperpillow]

@@jocr1971 Duh. All rivers and all river valleys support linear forests. All rivers grow trees. If you are travelling across the open steppe, and you come upon a river, you will come upon a forest on both sides of that river, that follow that river it whole length.

[@lordcommandernox9197]

In Portuguese, we say "lã" which is pronounced very similarly to Welsh.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Nice.

[@ForageGardener]

Portuguese/Galician has a very similar accent to their gallic ancestors. Gallicians to me sound like an Irishman speaking Spanish. Portuguese sounds a lot like an welshman speaking Latin 😂

[@wellesmorgado4797]

@@ForageGardener They say portuguese is latin spoken by celts, while spanish is latin spoken by basques. 😂😂😂

[@peterkratoska4524]

The forest terms, and woodland animals and lack of ocean or marine terms help to locate the original homeland but there are the common cognates for the wheel and axle and wagon categories - which we know appeared at a certain time from the archaeology and more importantly the level of technical development needed to make wheels and axles. This seems to be around the end of the chalcolithic (copper) age ~ 3500 bc. The anatolian and hittite separation must be before the wheel as hittite does not have the wheel cognates.

[@maciejmaciej116]

Well done Comrieg, diolh, greetings from Poland. Thank you for this channel. Very unteresting knowledge to compare many hipothesis and theories.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@OrpheoTreshula]

I love your work. I also have respect for the traditional theories, but I've been leaning towards Afghanistan or Northern Iran for some time, for largely but not exclusively other reasons. I can't express my joy at seeing you have a similar hypothesis.

[@JoeBidet-yb5er]

I believe central asia

[@boxerfencer]

We dont know if Iberian was Indo-European. We do know they used words for numbers that are quite close to modern day Basque, because they left carvings. And so its quite a safe guess, if a guess at all, to assume Iberian wasn't Indo-European, as Basque isnt. Having said that, if Iberian is proto-Basque, Iberian isnt dead. It continues as modern French and Spanish Basque.

[@Nastya_07]

If Iberian was indeed related to Basque it would likely just be a sister language, the actual ancestor of Basque was Aquitanian

[@boxerfencer]

@@Nastya_07 Not my field but I've heard Aquitanian or Aquitaine used as a synonym for Basque, and only on the French side. So I always assumed it was used by the French to delegitimize by obfuscating the old origins of Basque under an obscure term, especially considering the colonialist quality of Parisian French culture, the attempt to erase Provincial from being the language of influence, and that the basque language spoken in France doesn't match what can be accounted for genetically, nor does it match the total area in which it historically was spoken. Interestingly but not surprising, I've never heard Basque referred to by its in-group name, "Euskara", in French speaking circles.

[@boxerfencer]

@@Nastya_07 I've heard spanish academics say modern Basque may be a modern development of a dialect of Iberian. I've never heard them point to outside of Spain for the origin of Basque. Of course, today's boarder with France is artificial, as the boarder traditionally was farther north than what it is today. Maybe someday it'll unite, and become whole again, but that's a side rant.

[@Nastya_07]

@@boxerfencer By Aquitanian I meant the language that was spoken by the Aquitani, but was also spoken by the Vascones in Navarre

[@boxerfencer]

@@Nastya_07 got it

[@MikePhilbin1966]

Amazing work, as always, Ben.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. 🚀

[@psychedelicfoundry]

Yeah, I have a pretty good grasp on this subject. I don't think you really understand the steppe hypothesis in its totality with today's genetic research. Sredny Stog or even earlier Dnieper-Donets culture is like the true origin. Migrants from Sredny Stog are the likely vectors for hittites along with the cernavoda cultures, among others migrating into the balkans. There was another round of climate change that caused the later catacombs culture to migrate south to Greece and Armenia around 2000 BC. This is a pattern you see both from the steppe and from scandinavia later on. The population builds up until the climate gets bad, and then large numbers of people migrate south to better climates to survive due to limited resources. Once you see the genetic research along with historical linguistics, it's really almost impossible for it to be anything else but the steppe hypothesis in its modern form. Do you speak Korean? Do you live in a culture where everyone else speaks Korean? Surely, there have been multilingual people forever. That's not same as you being Korean, though. Anyway, my backround is in biology, and while I agree, something like what you have mentioned happened, these were not the indo europeans migrating north. These people had little genetic impact on any of the following people that spoke indo-european languages. It would be really weird for dozens of entirely separate ethnographic populations to adopt foreign languages from this population as opposed to the population that genetics showed is shared between nearly all modern speakers of Indo-European languages.

[@Charity4Chokora]

He thinks the French are not horrible people. I have met a lot of French people. Not a single one hasn't been the worst person I have met and couldn't stop bragging about how the French are superior to all other countries. The nastiest most worthless and lazy culture. He doesn't understand what makes an action a person takes or not right or wrong. Asking for a even more expensive studio because he is selfish and self-centered. You can never get an honest answer from a greedy selfish person. They will only answer you with what they think is going to benefit themselves. First sign of a liar.

[@ceohadenough894]

pin that comment!

[@Charity4Chokora]

@@psychedelicfoundry You deserve a Studio, what have you been doing with your life, RESEARCH AND THINKING! Oh because you are not greedy, you don't have a place to teach. The pig that squeals the loudest gets the food. The birds that toss other bird eggs out leaves the loudest pig to squeal.

[@wookie2222]

What I don't get with the Steppe Hypothesis is, why Indo-European seems to have thrived everywhere else but there? I mean, when we compare it to Scandinavia: Yes, Germanic 'started' its way from somewhere around Denmark or Skane back then, speakers migrated southwards to Germany and from there to the Netherlands, Belgium, England and as far as Spain and North Africa, but some of them also never left home and started moving north towards northern Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and even Greenland and Vinland. In the steppe, on the other hand, we don't seem to have much PIE left - Yes, one could argue that groups from there migrated to the west and formed Germanic, Celtic and Italian language families as a result, but then, Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indian split apart about 1.800 BCE and Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic seemingly weren't around back then but only around 1.200 BCE. It's a bit confusing how a migrating group of people from todays Ukraine would migrate all the way to India and Iran, leave their linguistic footprint there and all over Asia Minor only to - centuries later - also migrate westwards to much closer areas in Italy, Gaul and Scandinavia and then vanish from their homeland.

[@BenLlywelyn]

I have met wonderful French people. Though most of the good ones were actually Breton. 😉

[@antoniotorcoli5740]

I think the last article by Lazaridis and alii ( the genetic origin of the Indoeuropeans, 2024 ) is pretty accurate from a genetic point of view. They have refuted the theory of the Southern arc, previously supported by the same authors in a 2022 paper.

[@ArcaneUniverse-24]

Wow! The way you explain this mystery is mind-blowing! 🔍✨ Keep up the great work!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Cheers, thank you.

[@ekesandras1481]

what speaks against the Anatolian theory is that would mean that PIE had geographically been close to the Semitic languages, yet those languages didn't leave significant marks in European languages. But there is plenty of Finno-Ugric adstratum (especially in Germanic and Slavic languages), which speaks for a much more Northern Urheimat. The spread of the neolithic revolution (crop seeds like wheat, etc. and all the common farm animals like cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chicken, ...) and the linguistic Indo-Europeanization of Europe were two seperate events. First Middle Eastern agriculture spread into Europe and maybe a millenium later the Indo-European languages appeared.

[@jeffbreezee]

I like your theory. It makes sense to me because after studying the Steppe hypothesis for a long time, it left me with a lot of questions.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@peterotvos9844]

I'm just a layman, but your theory on the indoeuropization of Greece does not sound right to me. Hittite can't be an ancestor for Greek, first because of the relatively big distance between the two, second because traces of Hittite and Greek appear almost simultaneously.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Influenced by. Not ancestor.

[@Abcdefg_h62dzz]

​@@BenLlywelyn Also, the Greeks (by the time called Achaeans or something like that) forgot their own civilization in just a few generations after the bronze age collapse. By the time of the classical period, they had already forgotten the hitties. So we have no way to prove your theory.

[@EduardMicu]

Thats a great perspective Ben!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@bretrohde7300]

Good stuff! One of my pet topics, or at least I like to play with these theories from time to time. I am inclined towards the Anatolian or Armenian hypotheses, not merely because they are novel and interesting in their own right (poor reasons for sure), but particularly because of the laryngeals found in the Anatolian branches. Something about this, and the (well-formulated) idea that these three or four laryngeals became expressed, each in their specific way, in the phonetics of classically-constructed PIE, makes the theory very tempting. I eagerly await the results of further research. Thanks again, Ben!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Yes indeed, it is an evolving topic and a deep well of gems to pull out to look at. Thank you for watching.

[@Nastya_07]

The Anatolian hypothesis makes no sense linguistically and Anatolian can easily be traced to the Steppe

[@ygorcoelhos]

I don't understand your point. Why would Anatolian preserving laryngeals mean that PIE was spoken originally in Anatolia? There is no rule, in the modern and ancient but attested examples, dictating that the most phonologically conservative dialect will be the one spoken in the homeland of the language - quite on the contrary, in fact.

[@bretrohde7300]

Well heck, that sort of was my point - it appears, according to the most recent scholarship, that certain features of our classically reconstructed PIE are derived from original laryngeals and/or glottals. But you make a fair point: the “most conservative” specimens are not necessarily the homeland’s, and, you may be right in saying that the converse is more likely. Certainly food for thought! I guess it just seemed intuitive that examples which preserved the most aboriginal features would be located at the point of origin.

[@stevenleslie8557]

In the movie the Highlander, the Kurgan, an ancient immortal, hails from southern Russia near the Caspian Sea.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Indeed.

[@stevejohnson3357]

The Atlas Pro channel did an interesting video on unexpected fragments of rain forest and it talks about the forest on the southern edge of the Caspian. There could be an interesting collaboration on how environment shape the societies that live in them.

[@Charity4Chokora]

This guy is a hateful person who thinks he deserves a new studio like a lazy French racist. He doesn't understand Assembly Theory. Go look up Michael Levin for the base of Assembly Theory.

[@acaydia2982]

Your theory makes the most sense to me thus far.

[@Charity4Chokora]

Because you are trash like this hateful trash

[@BenLlywelyn]

Be nice to your fellow man when none have fouled you.

[@fivantvcs9055]

Very interesting ! Bravo! I like very much the video. I think your theory of North Caspian homeland is very probable.

[@Marcelocostache]

Love this Channel keep it up

[@BenLlywelyn]

Will do.

Melhor explicação de sempre. Best ever on this matter. Parabéns. Video on repeat.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Obrigado.

[@HibikiKano]

Pretty interesting theory. Many linguistic theories tend to forget climate change also that many forget that people don't need to move on mass for a language to shift. But I'd add that (while still just one of many theories) the black sea might have been filling up around that time, so it could have slowly moved from a smaller sea to the size we see today right when the Indo-europeans moved. That would also explain why there is such an early split, the part that moved south and the part that moved north from a combined land near the former coast. Hope we find out more with time.

[@BenLlywelyn]

It would be frightening if the Black Sea emotied out, giving Russia and Ukraine a longer border.

[@roxi5108]

Loved it, you're very skilled at presenting your ideas! I didn't like so much the white noise audio over some bits of the video, it was making your voice less intelligible. Great work!

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you, Roxi.

[@gergelybakos2159]

Fascinating topic, and a great attempt at a new synthesis. As to an interested non specialist it sounds very sound to me.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you very much.

[@ProjectMirai64]

Nice video

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@ForageGardener]

The armenian hypothesis is a desirable hypothesis. At least a step in the chain possibily. The fact georgian languages are between is not controversial. Mountains protect langauges in days of foot travel. All that needed to happen is the PIE armenian types moved north. And they may have even traversed though modern iran around the caspian for all we know

[@BenLlywelyn]

They may have. We don't know. But I bet they wished they had lunchboxes.

[@ForageGardener]

@BenLlywelyn haha I only base thus on the language/trade routes aspect not much the ethnic/genetic aspects. I reckon because the area is so central both to the are where the indo European languages initially spread. And it's spread could be traced on historic trade and migration routes both east and west. And that region, the Caucasus as well as the northern Iraq and Syria region are a place where many languages have been created, and preserved over time. Idk what peoples it could have initially come from but that general region is probably the first place it initially spread from. That region is a crossroads between many peoples and it's had languages like Aramaic arise among a multiplicity of ethnicities.

[@eloisahowell2671]

this is excellent! merci

[@BenLlywelyn]

Merci beaucoup.

[@TheTimeshadows]

Ben, I very much enjoy your channel. However, I must confess that after watching this, I was confused. I had to stop it and re-start it more than once because of distractions. Is it possible to provide the timestamp where your conclusion is located? Thank you, and Shalom

[@BenLlywelyn]

Here is the timestamp for my theory 11:44 My Theory

[@TheTimeshadows]

Thanks, @BenLlywelyn .

[@qpdb840]

Also I read this in school that all horses are related to the eastern caspian horse found only in Iran

[@BenLlywelyn]

Interesting!

[@sergioromanomunoz8155]

This is actually a convincing hypothesis, and one to really think about, especially for the forest-related cognates. The thing is, is this one supported by both genetic and archeological evidence? Especially interesting to me is if the Botai really already domesticated horses. But it would explain a lot, althought it is way older than the Yamnaya hypothesis.

[@BenLlywelyn]

The Keltimenar were Indo-European and there is some archaeological evidence. As for genetics, dna does not determine language - I do not speak Swedish.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@sergioromanomunoz8155 The horse that was domeaticated is the european horse that lived around the Black Sea, the tarpan. Also the wheel and the cart was invented in south east Europe not in Asia. At same time with the thracians wheel cart, there were even better constructed carts and wheels in the Middle East, thogh those have no role in indoeuropean coulture. The wheel, the cart, the horse and the cows, all come from the thracians in Scithia Minor which is in Thracia, thracian, not the big Scithia of Ukraine. The real old Scithia is Scithia Minor which is thracian, but people confuse Scithia Minor with the big eastern Scithia. As you move east from the thracians, the history is more recent and less developed. There were not even ancient cities in Ukraine. To top all that, the Yamnaya DNA, hallogroup R1b origin is not sure. It could be native european from thracians in Scithia Minor, or more eastern(iranian) or even middle eastern. And last nail in the coffin, the historian that came with the kurgan theory is Maria Gimbutas and she later found out they all start in Dacia, Romania and Bulgaria but she couldnt dig deeper because she didnt knew our ancient history. Kurgan theory leads to thracians and getae dacians .

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@BenLlywelyn DNA tracing shows who is who and how coultures spread. Il explain you on short the DNA of ancient Europe: At first in Europe there were only 3 races of people( 3 haplogroups), one that came from Africa through Spain (haplogroup E), one that came from Middle East (haplogroup J) and one that is the only known native european, that was born with this mutation due to the Flood of the Black Sea, haplogroup I2. There wew no Yamnaya(R1b) , no anatolian farmers(G2). The majority of Europe population was 90% haplogroup I2 plus tiny percents of E and J. These I2 people build all the ancient megalithic structures of Europe, like Stonehenge. They had small agriculture but were mostly hunter gatherers. Later the first to come were the anatolian farmers with haplogroup G and after that, quite recently, the yamnaya steppe cow herders came ( and they replaced most of the anatolian farmers but not the oldest europeans with the haplogroup I2). Haplogroup I2, the oldest european haplogroup is majority by far in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria. And the blonde swedes are haplogroup I1( their father ancestor was a romanian with haplogroup I2a- they are also native europeans but much more recent than I2a ).

[@wookie2222]

@@mihaiilie8808 I-M223 here. ;-) Ben has a point, because we always look at those data from our modern point of view. Group A lived in an area and from a certain point in time, group B started to also live in that area, so B must have had conquered, enslaved or annihilated A, because that's what humans seemingly do - we colonize and conquer. But A could also have sucked in B into their culture by enslaving them, by making friends, by taking in refugees or by hiring mercenaries. In historic times, the Circassians were all around the middle east as Mamluks and some of them formed even ruling classes. They were often born christians from the caucasus and most people in the middle east still are muslim and speak arabic or iranian languages. 2000 years from now, someone may find some circassian DNA in ancient tombs in Egypt and thus claim, that the caucasus must have been the homeland of arabic, because Egyptians started to speak Arabic around the same time, when those Circassians have entered the middle east. DNA tracing also doesn't take into account, how language changes over time and how elements from one language can be borrowed into another. Around 1000 CE, Europe had a population of around 36 million people, which sounds a lot, but only until you compare it to todays 750 million. This ment that even when we already had some more or less clear language barriers in Europe, when German was distinct from Slavic and Romance languages, there were plenty of inaccessible woodlands, swamps or moors where groups of people and their culture would form pockets of resistance for centuries to come. How must it have been 1000 or 2000 or even 3000 years before that, when the population was even more thinly stretched out? All different kind of people would live together in an area, some would be maybe more prestigeous and live on the best land near rivers while others would be the less prestigeous people and live in woodlands or mountains, but to survive, trade would be necessary for all of them. And to trade, you need some form of communication, so languages would change. And in some cases, like Arabic, English or Latin the language of the entering group would evolve into the common language and in other cases, like Norman French, Circassian, Arabic in the Ottoman Empire or German in the Baltics, that language would not make it into the common language of the whole area. In Ancient times, the Greeks could get away with just showing up at some random place that is somehow usable for agriculture or trade and start to live their and build a colony, sometimes even without much contact to whoever was living in the area. They brought with them the knowledge of wine making, which was important to most people and thus taking over into their culture, maybe a deity or two but that often was it. I as a German today use the word 'Wein' to describe the end product, which my ancestors took from the Romans who again took it from the Greek οἶνος, but neither am I nor were the Romans Greeks.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@wookie2222 Vineyard was domesticated in Moldova and proto indoeuropean name for Wine is romanian Vin. Vineyard, Wine and the god of alcohol ( its the oldest God of ancient celts) , the greeks adopted it later. The greeks at first they didnt had wine because they were not indoeuropenized and instead they drank some poisonous plant juice that they bring as an argument that they invented the wine. At first, Europe was populated by 90%+ only haplogroup I2 and this haplogroup is the thracians ( proto celts) haplogroup. These I2 people were speaking directly romanian language and the mutation of this haplogroup and also of the blue eyes, apeared due to the Black Sea Flood, at the last ice age, 12 000 years ago. Vinca is the oldest I2 only, european civilisation. They were farmers too because we have found the oldest ploughs of Europe made from, antlers, 10000 years old( from before the anatolian farmers migration to Europe). Proto germans, celts were mostly haplogroup I2 like in the Unetice coulture. They were speaking romanian language, thats why all the vulgar names of the mountains and rivers in Germany and the whole Europe. Romanian language is vulgar latin, the PIE of the thracians. Thracians are much older than anything greek. Plovdiv, tracian city is the oldest city in europe and its older than anything greek, anything ancient egyptian and even older than Jerusalem. How many europeans know that Plovdiv is the oldest city of the continent, the birthplace of all indoeuropeans ? 😆

[@boxerfencer]

Very interesting

[@bojovic78]

if it's true that Indo-European languages go back to neolithic times, then - the BLACK SEA had a much lower sea level at the time ( perhaps the Caspian too ), so it would be much easier for the IE languages to traverse around the rim of the black sea. The R1b haplogroup seems to have had a relatively long period that it resided south of the Caucasus during the paleolithic. ( could be something to that, but I don't guarantee it ) Albanian seems to be a Satem language that borrowed a lot from Centum-IE in recent times. I doubt it was in the Balkans before Thracian/Dacian Anyway, I think that Indo-European language appeared or at first spread with R1b populations, and the Hyrkanian forest does seem to be the place both linguistically and genetically ( where R1b was at the time when the forest started drying up ). The proto-IE R1b then came into contact with R1a in eastern Europe, and from then on they started spreading SATEM languages, while R1b mostly carried CENTUM languages. ( I'm personally not genetically related to any of those populations, I'm just theorizing that R1b is the original source for IE, and perhaps had something to do with Semitic languages, as the R1b population spent a good chunk of the late Paleolithic and early Neolithic era south of the Caspian sea, and then spread into eastern Europe, then central and western Europe AND EVEN WEST AFRICA )

[@wellesmorgado4797]

Since the semitic languages, which belong to the afroasiatic family (amazigh, coptic, on one side, and arab, hebrew, aramaic, on the other), seem to have originated way south of the levant, contact between them and PIE should have left more older influences between the two groups than actually there is. Perhaps Uralic languages are closer to PIE.

[@bojovic78]

@@wellesmorgado4797 AFAIK the probable candidate for first afroasiatic languages were the Natufians who mostly belonged to haplogroup E1b While E is very widespread in Africa today, that doesn't necessarily mean it developed IN africa. There used to be a haplogroup DE population, and today most haplogroup D people live inJapan ( Ainu aka Jomon natives ), Tibet and the Amdaman islands. The split between D and E seems to have occured at the same time as the Toba Wei explosion. If haplogroup E developed anywhere, my bet is that it happened in the area of Iran/Pakistan and then came westward and into Africa around the time of early Neolithic.

[@mihaiilie8808]

Haplogroup E is african, Moroccan. Proto indoeuropean doesnt comes from the steppe because it has too many words from forest and mountains and its clearely older than steppe Yamnaya as you can see the anatolian farmers were indoeuropeans before yamnaya. PIE are the tracians and they even have the only native european haplogroup, haplogroup I2, which if you track it, younwill see exactly how indoeuropean languages spread. At first in Albania where they mixed with haplogroup E, and after that in anatolia where they mixed with haplogroup G. And later, haplogroup I2 got into the Yamnaya steppe and passed over them into India and Persia. And indoeuropeans dont start in the steppe because PIE is mostly mountains and forests plant names. PIE comes from haplogroup I2, which is linked with all the megalithic structures build ober Europe, long before Yamnaya and anatolian farmers reached europe .

[@bojovic78]

@ Haplogroup E is much older in today's Lebanon/Israel than in Morocco, as I've mentioned the Natufian culture was mostly E1b at a time when there was no E1b in Africa. I'm saying SEMITIC languages originated with E1b not indoeuropean. Haplogroup I1 and I2 were present in Europe tens of thousands of years before there was a proto-IndoEuropean language in Europe.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@bojovic78 haplogroup I2 is only 12 000 years old, since the end of the last ice age that caused the flood of the Black Sea. The flood of the Black Sea caused 2 genetic mutations, haplogroup I2 and the blue eyes. Haplogroup I1 (blonde swedes) father is haplogroup I2. Vinca civilisation was 90% haplogroup I2 with tiny E and J percents. These are the first indoeuropeans. Anatolians with haplogroup G got later into into Europe and Yamnaya R1b even later than G. Indoeuropeans cant come from the steppe because there were no cities, not even a larger village in the steppes of Ukraine, until quite recently. Meanwhile the thracians had the oldest city of Europe that is older than any greek or ancient egyptian city or even older than Jerusalem. Plovdiv(Pulpudeva) is the oldest european city where all indoeuropean cultures start. Proto indoeuropean language has mostly forest and mountains /hills plant names that dont grow in the steppe. PIE is not a steppe language.

[@cinamar221]

Amazing documentary, seems Dacia was pratically where all begans

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. Dacia was at a crossroads of the two Indo-European prongs coming in I think.

[@mihaiilie8808]

​@@BenLlywelynDaco thracian language is not extinct. It is romanian. Romanian language doesnt come from latin. We just say that to look younger and less barbarian. Romanians, serbs and bulgarians are ancient, oldest countries, that claim to be new civilisations. Seebians claim they are the most slavic iet their DNA is 40% haplogroul I2a, thats the oldest european haplogroup. They been there 6000 years before the anatolians got into Europe, iet they claim they are the most recent migrators, slavs😂. Its like these countries try to hide how old they are.

[@EduardMicu]

​@@mihaiilie8808that is not true. Romanian is a modern language, it can't be the mother of latin. There was a common Indo-European language at some point.. but without even knowing the Dacian language, we can't jump to such radical conclusions.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@EduardMicu If you study proto indoeuropean you will see its exactly romanian language. Thats for sure getae dacians language because its soo old, much older than dacians, Roman Empire, etc.

[@serkankinden5150]

Sounds possible, but I think a bid different: old language in central asia was more agglutinative and old language in mesopotamia was more fusional. Indoeuropean languages has formed by intermixing of fusional + agglutinative old languages in intermixing area that you have shown. (This is my idea.) If we look at genetics additionally, most of indoeuropean regions are highly intermixed regions of ydna especially I, J (west, southwest) and R1a, R1b (east, northeast) mixtures. Especially I, J were more fusional and R1a, R1b were more agglutinative. (I mention about their origins.) For example, basque language is an isolate language which is agglutinative and basque people are 95% R1b ydna which is originally east eurasian male haplogroup mutated from P, P1, R* ydna in east eurasia. There are just Q, R*, C ydna in isolate americas which are originally east eurasians. (Also, their A-X, B, C-Z, D maternal haplogroups are east eurasian.) Especially, turkic, hunnic, ugric people had same nomadic lifestyle as steppe cultures had. Kurgans, pastoralism, afanasievo/andronovo cultural heritage are highly widespread inside turkic, hunnic, ugric people and when we look at autosomal dna inspections, most of those old steppe cultures have close distance to many turkic, ugric, uralic tribes. In my opinion, this is also indicating that indoeuropeans have some connections with uralic-altaic partly as eurasiatic language macro family theory indicates similarly. Could you comment kindly about if my idea has true sights about that indoeuropean languages may have formed by mixture of agglutinative + fusional languages tousands years before?

[@Lotusisrael]

Pretty well documented and interesting video. You pointed out some relevant things. I think I shall express my own vision on Indo-European origin and distribution. It is mainly based on the information provided by the KZbinr SurviveTheJive (a Conservatory KZbinr) and by the Romanian philologist and journalist Dan Alexe (a ”progresist”), so I want to state this vision it is not politcally motivated, but putting in connection the information that I have. SurviveTheJive shows that there are clear some genetic connection between Afganistan and the people or Corded Wire in Europe, in such a manner that suggests mutations that occurred in Europe, probably during Corded Wire and in that location, found their way to the area of the east Iranian plateau, where Afganistan is location. Now, Dan Alexe shows a clear influence of North Caucasian languages of today and Indo-European, in such a way that one or more North Caucasian language influenced proto-Indo-European, also that the connection between Indo-European and North Caucasian languages, one side, and Afro-Asiatic languages, on the other. We have the south Caucasian languages, the Kartevelian languages that are not, structurally, close related with North Caucasus langauges, the Caucasus region, with its high diversity in language being, most likely, a residual area, a refuge area. There are also some faint connections between Basque, a language isolate in Western Europe of pre-Indo-European origin that, although no enough to show a clear origin, they point out at least some contacts in ancient times, in later prehistory or early Antiquity. Also, there are clues of cultural connections between the Etruscans and the Caucasus people of today, like the custom of breast suckling from an enemy of an enemy family or tribe, that makes the people doing it to be adopted by the rival family/tribe and estinguish the conflict. I conclude that southern Europe had a common pre-Indo-European continuum from Iberia to Anatolia. The Yamnaya were not proto-Indoeuropean, but pre-Indo-European, most likely proto-North Caucasian in language. They influenced something in Europe, through migration, and they gave rise to proto-Indo-European in the area of the Corded Wire culture. The Indo-European started their migration from the area of Corded Wire, pushing the proto-North Caucasians to the south, where North Caucasian languages reside today. Also, the migration of Indo-Europeans into Anatolia pushed a remains of pre-Indo-European Kartevelian peoples in the southern Caucasus area. Your theory in video has one clear weak point: the common tree and forest related terms in Indo-European kind of disproves the presence in the steppes on Central Asia, because that would have make the terms fall into disuse and be lost, since there would be no reason to hold on to them in an area with little or no forests. The Corded Wire area would have been a heavily forest area, even more then the homeland of the Yamnaya. Also, regarding the Centum-Satem classification, Dan Alexe considers it to be false, being a peripheral phonetical evolution that occured separately in many Indo-European branches. And gives like an example the Samnite language in Italy, a language being related with Latin in its earlier forms, when Rome was only a city state. Samnite, although clearly related to Latin, had clearly ”satemized” structures, unlike Latin.

[@BenLlywelyn]

A lot there. Maybe a video on the Corded Ware Culture?

[@Lotusisrael]

@@BenLlywelyn You mean to post a video on Corded Ware or for me to share a link to a video?

[@mihaiilie8808]

​@@Lotusisraelhaha, once you mentioned Dan Alexe (which you should) we realise your a nutter, conspirational theorist, based on ONLY fake history supositions. Nobody serious would read what you write after you have mentioned Dan.

[@ChorltonBrook]

I remember reading that the horse(Equus ferus caballus) is descended from a now extinct forest relative of the grassland Przewalski's horse. This makes me wonder if those forests were the ones mentioned south of the Caspian Sea, though apparently the earliest evidence of domestication is in Ukraine & Kazakhstan.

[@xHASSUNAx]

Interesting video! I also have the same theory! It explains how an iranian genetic imprint happened after the Natufians, around the Ghassulian period about 6000 ya. It helps explain why the Semites have very similar myths with the proto indo euros. Also fun fact! Blonde hair originates from right near where the Botai would live Also i never heard of Iberian before. Always thought it was a pre-indo-euro language. Keep up the good work!

[@Nastya_07]

>Also i never heard of Iberian before. Always thought it was a pre-indo-euro language. -Because it was, the video is obviously wrong, if anything Iberian would be related to Basque, they share some vocabulary (such as numerals, which are almost identical)

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@AnneDowson-vp8lg]

I never heard of Botai before. Do these people have any connection to the tall, blond or red-haired people found accidentally mummified in the Taklamakan desert in the west of China? Or were they the people who spoke Tocharian?

[@Nastya_07]

@@AnneDowson-vp8lg Botai showed closest links to Western Siberian hunter-gatherers (WSHG, known from 3 individuals found in the Tyumen Oblast dated to 5000 BC), with both sharing Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry like the Tarim mummies, but Botai and WSHG also shared a bit of Eastern hunter-gatherer (EHG) ancestry, which was itself a mix of ANE (contributing 70% in EHG) and Western hunter-gatherers (contributing 30%) But also the Tarim mummies analysed for DNA weren't Tocharians, they had no Steppe ancestry (mainly a mix of EHG and CHG) and their appearance is probably due to their Ancient North Eurasian ancestry

[@Hoppi1001]

11:33 Panjabi "oon" is very similar to Turkish "yün" (Old form "yuŋ" attested before year 1000 in an Uygur text). By the way, Turkic speakers were in contact in those areas so we should expect some similar words. But when I study Latin languages I find some some similarites not just as words but also as similar prepositions (as postpositions in Turkish), similar suffixes and similar question words even similar verb conjugations etc.

[@dog79-p5l]

Codru,(deep forrest ) Padure Forrest , Fortateata ( fortification) Are 3 meanings for forrest in Romanian , but there's also a toponim Blaz similar to ( bllaid? )in Welsh blid ( bol , ) because these were made from wood in traditional pottery in Carpathians etc.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Coed (trees) in Welsh.

[@mihaiilie8808]

​@@BenLlywelynCodrul Vlasiei =vallachian forest/woodland.

[@shaan4308]

I like your theory.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you.

[@ionels2]

It's much simpler! Research where the oldest vestiges were found in Europe. What is the oldest civilization in Europe? And where?

[@BenLlywelyn]

Indo-European Languages are from a non-European root.

[@ds-on4sm]

Yes the oldest civilization is in the Balkans and the Balkan people are the oldest Europeans.

[@ds-on4sm]

​@@BenLlywelynHow can they be from a "non- European" root !? They are from a place where European languages are stil spoken and they were European by dna so the place must be Europe.

[@mihaiilie8808]

​@@ds-on4smThey only say its not european because Pakistan and Iran has a lot of R1b, Yamnaya DNA. But the oldest skeleton with R1b was found in north east Italy, Villabruna 1.(it got there from Romania for sure and its amazing thats soo old, much older than anatolian farmers, georgians). Its 14000 years old and this proves that R1b is a thracian, native european haplogroup like haplogroup I2. Just hammer the neomarxists with genetics. It renders useless their whole library 😂.

[@ds-on4sm]

​@@mihaiilie8808Also R1a is native, 12.000 years old on the Balkans. They try to lie that it was brought here by some "Slavs". I don't believe anything anymore before a real proof.

[@popacristian2056]

Multumim. Ne flatati cu 2:15 "Teoria stepei" care se opreste in Romania, adevaratul loc al nasterii limbilor "indo-Europene".

[@ekesandras1481]

stepa se opreste în Ungaria si estul Austriei (Burgenland).

[@Tradaxta]

great stuff, have some food for the algorithm

[@BenLlywelyn]

Tasty.

[@nikemozack7269]

It's interesting how in roumanian you have the same 3 letters as in welsh(lân), only that in welsh they finish the word, whereas, in roumanian they start the word.

[@BenLlywelyn]

In Britain as the language shifted from Brythonic into Welsh under influence of Latin, and Celtic mutations, the Ga' sound was attached to many words beginning with vowels or L due to phonological norms in British speech.

[@luben3045]

Most of the thinkers and comentators simply ignore "Thracian theory". So called kurgans/tumulos are concentrated mostly on the teritory of central Bolkan peninsula - Bulgaria, Serbia, Sought Romania, Northen Greece and around Black sea...Only in Bulgaria there are more than 40 000 tumulos. This is the area with most densety of such funerals. This densety is a clear mark of the longevity of this tradition. Concerning the linguistics there are proves that the old and modern Bulgarian and the Thracian languages are almost the same. Genetics confirms this similarities.There are many more amasing resemblanses between wellknown to the historians habits and thraditions of the ancient Thracians and modern inhabitants of a large area around the Bolkans. There are not indoeuropean branch of languages or population. There is a Thracians/Bolkan languages, population and culture. These people did the colonisation of Europe, Near East, India, Midle Asia, Nord Africa and far East, West, Nord and South. Thracian theory is the only hyphothesis which answers to all questions with no controversies. Friends, dig deeper and without any national, geopolitical and commersial influence over your thinking.❤

[@ds-on4sm]

Bravo,this is the truth!

[@HasanFaslia-t1v]

Bulgarian is Slavic language. Wtf are you saying

[@shaan4308]

In the Vedas there is a priestly family/tribe called the Bhrigus. They are fire priests. I believe they could be related to the Phrygians who as per Herodotus were earlier called Bryges.

[@ds-on4sm]

Yes, they are. Also the Sindhu ( Sintians from Thrace).

[@danielbriggs991]

I actually agree with you on the north Iran origin! I was thinking about this already a few years ago. There is a bowl from the Samarra culture with fish drawn on it that could easily have been imported from this region, or painted in a style learned from this region. Look into Gordon Whittaker's Euphratic hypothesis! It also jibes with David Reich's lab's results & interpretation. I don't think that the origin of Armenian is as you depicted, though. There are no isoglosses (that I know of) or common innovations between Armenian & Anatolian. So we are still left with the question of whence & when. By the genetic data, it seems that 2500 BCE-2200 BCE is very important for the genetic admixture involved in the creation of the Armenian people. But I don't know how to evaluate whether they came from the southeast, northeast, north, northwest, west, or just from where they are! - - - - - A couple notes: "Iberian" usually refers to the (almost certainly) non-Indo-European language of the region you marked. There was also Celtiberian a little further inland, which was a Celtic language, as well as other scantily attested languages in other parts of Iberia, both Indo-European (Gallaecian, Lusitanian) and of unknown provenance (Tartessian, of the southern part). We usually say "satem" instead of "sentum," after the Indo-Aryan languages.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thank you. Someone who does not think I am crazy is refreshing. A video on the Caucasus sometime perhaps.

[@anuksjyriwicdn9140]

Iberian was most certainly not IE. You might be mistaking it for Celtiberian (which was Celtic as the name says) and Lusitanian, which might have possibly been pre-Celtic IE

[@BenLlywelyn]

I consider Celtiberian a separate branch. Thank you for watching.

[@anuksjyriwicdn9140]

@BenLlywelyn Why so? Every other source, including contemporary authors, that I have seen relate the Celtiberians to the Celts and we even have written Celtiberian samples. I'm genuinely curious about your reasoning

[@Nastya_07]

@@BenLlywelyn Celtiberian is definitely Celtic 1. It's literally on the name 2. We have Celtiberian inscriptions Celtiberian was just the most divergent Celtic language But Celtiberian isn't to be confused with Iberian, a Paleo-European language but you showed it on the map

[@qpdb840]

Hercainian forest is very beautiful I have seen them. They’re mesmerizing I recommend coming here and giving the Xazar region a check

[@shaunathornton8032]

I think many things 1. "Into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul" 2. While I think much of this hypothesis works, the primary issue is that my understanding from archeologists is the East were LESS hierarchal in there building construction while the Stonehenge peoples were MORE hierarchal. Could be outdated/incorrect information though 3. What I find fascinating is that it lends to my head cannon that Noah's 3 sons are actually describing language families that the ancient Israelites were surrounded by.

[@BenLlywelyn]

1. The Welsh saying dod at dy goed (to come to your trees) comes to mind. 2. Stonehenge would be interesting. 3. Torah, fascinating. Will need to look into commentaries on the 3 sons.

[@shaunathornton8032]

@@BenLlywelyn I'm so happy to learn that "to come to your trees" is an actual saying. Pinterest, I hope you're seated, but it turns out Pinterest is not actually the most accurate source of linguistic translations.

[@RaketicBearwood]

Armenian Theory - Just a thought - maybe a route was established over the water instead of over the mountain walls of Kavkasus in the north, or simply along the shoreline, or both.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Along the shoreline is possible.

[@vlagavulvin3847]

Man, seems that we don't use теория степей (using степная теория instead). Thanks for the vid.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Welcome.

[@AnthonyEvelyn]

Your theory makes a lot of sense to be fair. The northern Iranian forest beginning looks very feasible, but it goes so far back as to make it pre historic/immediate post diviluian. Agreed that the movement into northern India must have been from nearby and not a Yamnaya migration but earlier from Iran/Afghanistan.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Thanks.

[@ds-on4sm]

They gave language to Iran called Avestan but are not from there. They entered India from Iran and Afghanistan but came from the Balkans. Their name is Thracians, also the Medes were Thracians ( Maedi tribe)

[@godsonmen7576]

Language is a great gift from the God for every nation

[@BenLlywelyn]

I believe in 1 Creator, but yes, languages are blessings.

[@ro8616]

The Carpathians, the Danube Valley and Delta, along with regions surrounding the Black Sea, stand as the birthplace of the Indo-European language family. Thraco-Getian, far from being extinct, survives in the Romanian language, which preserves and expresses this ancient heritage through its linguistic richness. Contrary to the widely held belief that Romance languages, like those in Italy and Spain, descended purely from Latin, these languages share roots that predate Latin itself, emerging from a common linguistic heritage that helped shape Latin rather than being solely derived from it. Over time, these languages diverged, influenced by interactions with Celts, Franks, and other cultures. For those seeking a deeper understanding of their cultural and linguistic heritage, studying Romanian offers a direct connection to this foundational language, one that remains closer than any other modern language to the original Indo-European tongue. A language always exists that maintains an exceptional closeness to its source-a living testament to our origins that will not fade. Rather than seeking roots in a language that has disappeared, one should recognize the enduring legacy within Romanian, a language that still links us to our ancient heritage.

[@BenLlywelyn]

The Romanian space is not the birthplace of the Indo-European Languages. No scholars of note support this idea. I am sure Romania is a rich and beautiful place, but we must not let romanticism get the best of us.

[@ro8616]

@@BenLlywelynIf anyone is genuinely determined to master Italian, French, or Spanish in under three months, a strong foundation in Romanian would be a powerful asset. Romanian is almost like a “master key” to the Romance languages; with minimal guidance on the specific grammatical structures and idiomatic variations of each language, fluency becomes considerably more accessible. Importantly, this relationship is not reciprocal-Romanian possesses a distinctive depth and structure that renders it the “parent,” understanding its “offspring” languages far better than they could understand it. This, of course, applies specifically to the Romance languages. However, let us consider the broader historical and linguistic context. The region where Romanian developed is one of Europe’s most ancient cultural cradles. This land hosted numerous foundational civilizations-Greeks, Cimmerians, Getae, Pelasgians, and Thracians, to name a few-some of whom originated in or passed through these territories. Intriguingly, there are theories suggesting proto-Italic tribes, including the Etruscans, may have had roots intertwined with Thracian culture. In addition, the Gothic tribes and several Celtic groups once settled here, contributing to a rich tapestry of linguistic influence. Some scholars even propose that certain northern European populations could trace their cultural roots to Thracian ancestors. Romanian’s ties are not limited to Romance languages; it also shares ancient vocabulary with Slavic languages, rooted not in later borrowings but in fundamental, core verbs and terms-indicators of a shared linguistic ancestry that predates more recent linguistic evolution. Even more striking are the parallels with Celtic languages, hinting at Romanian's unique position within the European linguistic landscape. This linguistic connection extends to Sanskrit, where a substantial number of Romanian roots and words bear strong resemblances, suggesting that Romanian may hold a linguistic bridge to some of humanity’s oldest verbal expressions and cognitive structures. This connection offers a tantalizing suggestion that Romanian language may echo deep, foundational threads in the Indo-European language family. Moreover, Romanian has significant shared vocabulary with Albanian, often considered one of Europe’s oldest languages. Such a linguistic kinship opens a valuable pathway for in-depth study. When a language reveals strong affinities with numerous others, it signifies more than mere chance; it points to a profound linguistic heritage. This raises the question: could Romanian represent a linguistic “original” or serve as a pathway toward an early foundational language? Greek languge in Romanian is also notable, though it extends beyond the usual vocabulary borrowed by modern languages from Greek. Thracians and Greeks coexisted for centuries, sharing a common Indo-European root. Historical records show that Greek tribes migrated southward from the northern Danube region into the Balkans, suggesting further shared lineage. Likewise, other ancient peoples such as the Pelasgians, Cimmerians, Bithynians, Trojans, Phrygians, and Lydians may have left subtle yet meaningful linguistic imprints on the language, as they too are believed to have connections with Thracian territories. Furthermore, Germanic languages have had contact with Romanian, as did numerous other tribal languages that once spread across Europe. If we were to conduct a deep linguistic study of Romanian-focusing on its core structure while setting aside more recent Turkic and Uralic influences-what revelations might we uncover? Such an exploration could unveil a linguistic history richer and more interwoven with European civilization than previously imagined. Romanticism alone can lead us astray, as can logic devoid of openness to broader possibilities. Theories fueled by political or academic biases risk obscuring deeper truths. But if we approach Romanian with an open mind-entertaining the possibility that it might retain elements of an original source language-then we open doors to genuine scientific inquiry, perhaps uncovering invaluable knowledge and insights. To dismiss this possibility without investigation would be a lost opportunity for linguistics and for our understanding of the ancient interconnections that continue to shape us.

[@veronicalogotheti1162]

Yliria was a big area in the balcanes Greece included

[@Hawaiian_Shirt_guy]

Your theory is very interesting. I need to study more. I'd like to see how far back into indo-european sailing cognates go. The reason is this: If you consider that Mycenean Greek expansion that happened at the very dawn if history is just a continuation of the already on-going indo-european expansion, it begs the question if some degree of the late prehistoric expansion was also done by boat - after all, romans believed their ancestors had arrived in Italy by boat, no? Regarding the complete replacement of poplation that took place in northern europe versus the mixing that took place in the south, I'd posit this simply had more to do with pre-indo-eauropean population densities: the north was hunter gatherer and the south was agricultural. You saw the same thing with the colonization of the new world, with replacement in the north (which had lower population densities) and mixing in the developed societies of meso-america. Likely the expansion was a combination of genocide, war, and peaceful diffusion, as we've seen in historic population expansions, rather than one to the exclusion of the others (as has often been pushed for political reasons: Nazis pushed genocide and war dominant expansions, post modernists today push peaceful expansions,.. but likely it was a mix).

[@BenLlywelyn]

Hwylio (to sail). Nofio (to swim) Welsh Naav (boat) Hindi, like navigation.

[@Illustrate_it]

There is no sailing cognates. For example, Baltic Laiva is loan from Finnic.

[@TheMokaKiller]

@@BenLlywelyn In my meagre knowledge of languages I do think that Naav comes from the portuguese Nau (the heavy carracks the portuguese used in the time of the Dicoveries and that were very common in the Indic Sea).

[@TheMokaKiller]

*Discoveries

[@yashagarwal8741]

But a question Indo-Iranians have been in contact with fino urgic very early on which cannot be ignored. plus seeing the forms of words we can say it was borrowed before e and o merged in indo Iranian plus if we check sanskrit grammar it has a bit of agglutnative structure in parts even in vedic sanskrt. plus checking grammars of indo aryan & greek they are close. we cannot even ignore the fact that indo Iranian tends to be closer to what we reconstruct. if we check lyrangials sanskrt in vedic period still had them and in many times we have signs of it left in our aspiration where h² yields unvoiced aspirates. then sanskrit also has two layers of substrate influence. (unknown) 1. both indo aryan and Iranian have (bmac substrate) 2. only aryan had but not mittayani. like the word for a rat induru or unduru, baṭu(meaning son), karpāsa (also the prefix ka-) Dravidian(known) if we check of amenian language it has some of its own interesting sound shifts.

[@stevehanks4339]

Very educational, sláinte from Co Galway

[@BenLlywelyn]

Sásta gur maith leat é.

[@albertusjung4145]

Interesting hypothesis. However, French is not a "Centum" language: classical Latin is a "centum (kentum)" language. Modern-day Scandinavian languages do have a very simplified grammar, but their parent language - old norse - and its parent - protogernanic - were both very much inflected. Gothic , for example, had many grammatical and lexical similarities to Lithuanian, the most conservative living Indo-Germanic tongue.

[@mihaiilie8808]

And the ancestor of lithuanian is getae dacian. 😂 Romanian language is the proto indoeuropean. Maria Gimbutas said this not me. She is lithuanian. And romanian is more like sanscrit than lithuanian but we hide that.

[@Svensk7119]

I believe it is Centum and Satem, Mr. L. Basically, folks, if hundred was pronounced with a hard consonant or an "s". "C" or "s". The western IE tongues (plus Tocharian) use(d) to all* use the hard-consonant-hundred, and the eastern ones were always* "s" begun. [* of course, is theoretical, and oversimplifying].

[@Svensk7119]

And now I note a grammar error of mine own. Okay. Serve me a crow.

[@RM-yf2lu]

So does Ydna play any part in this hypothesis?

[@BenLlywelyn]

No.

[@Nastya_07]

@@BenLlywelyn It does somewhat, the spread of R1a and R1b in Europe is largely because of the Steppe migration

[@mimisor66]

Seems like most recent linguistic theories incline towards the Caucasus as the birthplace of Indo-European. Also backed by genetical studies.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Other language groups were there for as long as we have recorded history.

[@qpdb840]

I want to take note I don’t think the indo Europeans were in Iran first then went into Central Asia then moved back in. I think they moved south into Iran but were a dialect of the same language. Because I’ve got to be in contact with a lot of Greek from my girlfriend and I can recognise a lot of cognates and similar grammar, more than I would find in English, French. So the Iranian and Indic languages were probably in between the two. But great theory nonetheless

[@woodreauxwoodreaux6298]

Plot twist: it was the Sea People the whole time.

[@ricardomobile8479]

The first big problem at least is the indo Iranian branch are more similar to the Balto-Slavic branch then to Tocharian branch 😂😊 some other one is armenian didn't appeared where they are nowadays cause they are a branch more similar to greek one... So probably albanian came first e after armenian and greek and the armenian came to anatolia from the north or sea in the Trebizond region... And not the opposite...

[@morwickchesterham3875]

Your theory is excellent... It makes a lot of sense... A lot more sense that Robert Sephr's theory that the Indo-European homeland was Atlantis, inhabited by red-haired 'Aryans'

[@BenLlywelyn]

Atlantis! ☺️

[@Coginito-gt1qb]

Robert Sephr gives me Neo-N@zi vibes for some reason.

[@AlltNorrOmAleArNorrland]

@@Coginito-gt1qbSephr is just as N @zi as the Pope is Catholic

[@lowersaxon]

@@Coginito-gt1qbWell, his theories are made up to serve peoples fascination with myths, esoteric stuff and occultism.

[@dog79-p5l]

Suta with specific a high in Romanian for 100 , Sut ( kick) pronounced shut in English shut extended to should?

[@BenLlywelyn]

I don't understand.

[@christopherellis2663]

9000 years ago the Black Sea was, like the Caspian Sea, was below sea level.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Fascinating.

[@Hawaiian_Shirt_guy]

12:07 why not, it's happened before. A handful of spaniards (armed with superior technology and unfamiliar diseases) did so to the aztecs and incas. What was the population of turks vs byzantine greeks? They conquered anatolia. Arabs to Egyptians, assyrians, and berbers? A tiny handful of aggressive warriors with superior technology or a culture more geared toward genocidal warfare bringing down civilizations is more the rule than the exception, it seems.

[@heathenhammer2344]

Which also explains why there is so much tree symbolism in indo European myth.

[@3ekaust]

0:57 I have never seen an "iberian" indoeuropean branch ever mentioned. At all. Specially not specifically within the terrirory of what we actually do call iberians, who were most definitely not indoeuropeans. Could you cite any source or provide further information about what you are refering to there?

[@Nastya_07]

I've noticed that before the video was made, but yeah he's wrong If Iberian is related to anything it would be related to Basque, for example their numerals are almost identical

[@ChorltonBrook]

18:08 Sounds similar to the Norman castles in England etc

[@BenLlywelyn]

Conquest around enclaves is as old as human urban societies is.

[@geogeo1261]

If someone accepts the Term Indo-European Origin and denies the existing and known reality, must create a new science and convince anyone in disagreement.

[@BenLlywelyn]

What known reality?

[@ds-on4sm]

Colin Renfrew deserves real respect. In Bulgaria we can confirm every one of his claims with archaeology, linguistics, history records,etc. I only wish I knew about Renfrew earlier. "Why, beyond reasons of scientific curiosity, do we want to know about the past? And whose past is it anyway? …the past is big business…the past is politically highly charged, ideologically powerful and significant. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, Practice --Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahns This area [east Macedonia], although firmly now part of Greece, has sometimes been a marginal one, and may at times have owed allegiance in different directions through a process of boundary displacement. It was indeed occupied in early classical times by Thracian tribes, barbarians who did not speak the Greek language. No doubt they did indeed speak a Thracian language akin to that in what is now Bulgaria, whose origins were suggested earlier. Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, Penguin books 1990, p. 176 As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rig Veda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking population were intrusive to the area: this comes rather from a historical assumption of the "coming of the Indo-Europeans." .. Nothing implies that the Aryans were strangers there. C. Renfrew, ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 182-88 also quoted in [1] [2] It is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley Civilization. Renfrew 1988:188-190. Archaeology and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 190 also quoted at [3] This hypothesis that early Indo-European languages were spoken in north India with Pakistan and on the Iranian plateau at the sixth millennium BC has the merit of harmonizing symmetrically with the theory for the origin of the Indo-European languages in Europe. It also emphasizes the continuity in the Indus Valley and adjacent areas from the early neolithic through to the floruit of the Indus Valley civilization. C. Renfrew, ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 196 also quoted at [4] Many linguists have commented that these proposed dates of separation are 'too early,' but how . . . do they know this, or judge this? Renfrew (1990) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12 When Wheeler speaks of “the Aryan invasion of the Land of the Seven Rivers, the Punjab,” he has no warranty at all, so far as I can see. If one checks the dozen references in the Rig Veda to the seven rivers, there is nothing in any of them that to me implies an invasion. . . . Despite Wheeler’s comments, it is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley. (1987: 188, 190) Renfrew, C., 1987. Archaeology and Language. London: Jonathan Cape. in Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge 60-61 Certainly the assumption that the Aryas were recent ‘immigrants’ to India, and their enemies were ‘aborigines’, has done much to distort our understanding of the archaeology of India and Pakistan. Colin Renfrew, Archaeology and Language, p. 195"

[@Nastya_07]

Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis had no linguistic evidence to support it in the first place and Renfrew himself realized he was wrong due to the Ancient DNA evidence clearly proving Steppe migrations

[@ds-on4sm]

​@@Nastya_07Colin Renfrew is a real scholar, unlike you and me, how can you judge him ,on what basis? Also I already said that not Anatolia but the Balkans is the homeland of the IE language family and these people exist, just like everyone else that they gave a IE substrate to. Where are these people. If you're not sure about that how can you know that the Steppe theory is true?

[@ds-on4sm]

​@@Nastya_07Steppe migrations yes but the people were not originally from the Steppe!!

[@Nastya_07]

@@ds-on4sm Firstly, Renfrew is an archaeologist, not a linguist (sure, David Anthony also isn't a linguist but he knows about the linguistic evidence) and the only reason he believed in the Anatolian hypothesis is that he believed that the Steppe migrations didn't have much impact, which is not the case now since we have Ancient DNA, and with the Ancient DNA data Renfrew realised he was wrong Anyways, the main genetic components that formed the Western Steppe herders (WSH) were the Eastern hunter-gatherers (EHG) and Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG), then there was a Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) cline which then formed Sredny Stog in Ukraine, admixing with the local Ukrainian Neolithic hunter-gatherers (UNHG, intermediate between WHG and EHG), though the clan that became Yamnaya didn't have much admixture from UNHG (only 20%, the rest came from CLV), so it couldn't have been located that far west (otherwise they would have more UNHG admixture)

[@ds-on4sm]

@@Nastya_07 "Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, FBA, FSA, Hon FSA Scot (born 25 July 1937) is a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites." Why do I even bother to discuss this with you, you say Renfrew is not a linguist, a simple google check says he is much more than that ,while David Anthony is not a linguist at all neither has the education and experience of Renfrew. You are very biased, because you cherry pick what you like and ignore the rest. So who are those mystery people, what language do they speak today?

[@popacristian2056]

I think that genetics tells us who is responsible for the Indo-European languages ​​because it is certainly documented that 50% of the genome of Europeans is that of Neolithic farmers. Hunter-gatherers contributed with 30% and herdsmen from the steppe with 20%.

[@Nastya_07]

Steppe is definitely the one bringing Indo-European languages, especially since it's spread matches the linguistic evidence while WHG and EEF clearly don't match PIE linguistically

[@BenLlywelyn]

Genetics do not tell me what language you speak.

[@Nastya_07]

@@BenLlywelyn We can't really see language directly from the DNA but genetic evidence can help trace the spread of a language if the migrations attested in Ancient DNA match the linguistic results

[@mihaiilie8808]

​@@Nastya_07 PIE is a forest language not a steppe language. The plants after which mountains and rivers are named in PIE, do not live in the steppe. And DNA shows the steppe people became indoeuropeans later, after anatolian. Whole Europe and Anatolia was allready indoeuropean when the steppe became indoeuropean.

[@Hawaiian_Shirt_guy]

9:25 that could work if you have them migrating north through Azerbaijan on the caspian sea coast. Although imo it makes more sense to have the proto indoeuropean homeland either in or along the frontiers of the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture. That would fall in line with the currently out of favor balkan hypothesis, no?

[@BenLlywelyn]

I don't agree with the Balkan Hypothesis.

[@iobacchy]

I don't agree that it is unlikely for people to cross the caucasus into anatolia, because way more hopeless migrations have occured. The migration into the americas for one. We'll never know what drove people to migrate, but it sure was a drive that us modern people have not experienced. And the period of migrations out of asia lasted for thousands of years up until the mongol invasions of genghis khan. As for anatolia, the hittites were migrants there, as well as the phyrigians, and anatolia was called land of the hatti, the hatti being one of the indigenous peoples of anatolia, who spoke a non indo european language, presumably the grandchildren of the anatolian farmers.

[@BenLlywelyn]

If you are hungry you will migrate anywhere.

[@radiozelaza]

oh man, you already mixed up chronology. Fatyanovo and later Sintashta were not contemporaneous with Yamnaya, but were offshoots of the Corded Ware culture. Corded Ware was instigated by some Yamnaya, but Y-DNA haplogroups don't match, so the progenitors of the Corded Ware could have been forest-steppe dwelling Yamnaya cousins. When Sintashta arose, Yamnaya was already gone, replaced with Catacomb culture.

[@BenLlywelyn]

I don't agree that DNA determines what language we speak.

[@radiozelaza]

@@BenLlywelyn I did not mention language once. You should seek medical help

[@Nastya_07]

@@BenLlywelyn Sure, we can't really see language directly from the DNA but genetic evidence can help trace the spread of a language if the migrations attested in Ancient DNA match the linguistic results, which it does in the case of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian

[@Евгений_Грабинский]

Nice map 1:08. 👈 That is whole origin of them.

[@veronicalogotheti1162]

The oldest writings in indoeuropean Also found in the elamites of persia iran

[@RM-yf2lu]

I thought elamite was dravidian

[@Nastya_07]

@@RM-yf2lu Elamo-Dravidian is still hypothetical But yeah Elamite was definitely not an Indo-European language Most scholars consider it an isolate

[@Brisamars-q1c]

You forgot about the European looking mummies found in the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang. They had some ancient DNA pre ice age? I forgot.

[@Nastya_07]

The Tarim mummies tested for DNA didn't have Steppe so were likely not Indo-European, but were instead an earlier Ancient North Eurasian-derived population

[@edstar83]

​@@Nastya_07Cool story bro. Apart from the fact the the 6'4" tall mummies of the Tarim Basin have clear Caucasian facial features and hair. (Brown, blonde and red) the male paternal Haplogroup is R1a.

[@Nastya_07]

@@edstar83 Ancient North Eurasians were mainly West Eurasian and R1a is an ANE haplogroup that has existed for longer than Western Steppe herders

[@BenLlywelyn]

Mummies are scary.

[@afshinsalari-et7qs]

It makes sense

[@veronicalogotheti1162]

From greece they were going Today albanians are huns

[@Nastya_07]

Albanians were definitely Paleo-Balkan The Huns were likely Oghur Turkic-speaking, so not even Indo-European

[@ForageGardener]

I think the language probably started in whats today kurdistan. Derived from semitic dialects mixing withe the mountain languages like hittite. Tranfused into iran and into india and then back across the steppes into europe where it became greek etc. This explain the reasom hittite seperated so early. I would guess PIE basically comes from hittite. Moveas east. And then back west through the steppe

[@BenLlywelyn]

I Knew a Kurdish man once. He said they had been there forever.

[@mihaiilie8808]

Hitite separated early (after albanian) but is still a recent language compared to PIE.

[@Nastya_07]

@@mihaiilie8808 Albanian definitely split after Tocharian and Anatolian and probably forms a group with Greek and Armenian

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@Nastya_07 Albanian is second oldest indoeuropean, oldest than hitites and greeks, older than anatolian farmers and much older than steppe people. We know this because there were no anatolian people ( haplogroup G2) and there were no steppe people ( haplogroup R1b) when albanian formed. First indoeuropeans are the thracians with I2 haplogroup, the only native europeans and when they meet albanians, they mixed with african haplogroup albanians, locals with haplogroup E. Thats how albanian language started. There were no G2 anatolian and no R1b steppe people at that time. Old Europe was 90% haplogroup I2, with a tiny percentage of african people, haplogroup E (in Albania and all the way to Spain) and another tiny percentage of middle eastern haplogroup J.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@Nastya_07 Armenian, georgian, these are anatolian farmers. They are old but albanians are much older than the migration of anatolian farmers. Albanians were like the basques at first, africans with mostly haplogroup E. Basques are now mostly steppe haplogroup, R1b but the language is african, of haplogroup E and much older than haplogroup R1b.

[@dudeldudel666]

only problem i have with this is the italic/celtic branch and protobaltoslavic being genetically both offshoots of the yamnaya people. i am not too big on the archeology of suspected italo-celtic cultures, but the origin of baltoslavic should with linguistic evidence be somewhere around 600BC in eastern ukraine/southwestern russia, by that time celtic languages should have long been established

[@jboss1073]

There is no firm evidence for Proto-Italic, let alone for Proto-Italo-Celtic. It's a fantasy.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Baltoslavic is troublesome. I would say it was closer the the main bulk of Indo-European was more of a dialect then a seperate language for longer than ItaloCeltic which was further removed from the Indo-European centre.

[@pavelt4405]

There are no high barriers between Anatolia, Armenia and Northern Iran. Likely spoken in a continuum. Also Turkic languages were not there. Azeri plain was open to the north of the Caucuses. Some remained south, maybe greek included. Most European ones went north to the step and spilled west and east fast. Iranians latter going east of the caspian.

[@koordrozita7236]

Turkic speakers are late arrivals and most already share the same dna if locals which means many info Europeans were assimilated into Turkic and if anyone have chest hair or bear that means they are not Turkic as Turkic people have no hair on body.

[@atlas567]

Is it known why the Italic and Germanic languages ​​moved further away from the other Indo-European or Japhetic languages, where they became the Kentum languages, while all the others remained Satem?

[@Nastya_07]

Satemization spread areally between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian And at least in the case of Proto-Indo-Iranian, there are some developments that precede satemization

[@atlas567]

@@Nastya_07 I have not yet seen or heard a satisfactory explanation of why the Japhetic languages ​​of the Italic and Germanic branches are the only Kentum languages, because these groups are so different even in terms of sounds from other branches of these languages, it makes such a difference that they are the most pleasant languages ​​to speak. listening, easier to understand, learn and teach, are the languages ​​that are therefore the most musical, most cultural, most scientific and technological, it seems out of context to say these things, but they are real and notorious facts and no one has yet given a concrete answer about, perhaps it is to not hurt the feelings of other speakers of other language groups

[@Nastya_07]

@@atlas567 Italic and Germanic aren't the only centum languages, other centum branches include Celtic, Greek and Tocharian, and centumization occurred independently across these branches Again, satemization occurred due to areal ties between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian Albanian, Armenian and Anatolian are neither centum or satem

[@atlas567]

@@Nastya_07 Celtic languages ​​basically no longer exist, the little that exists is spoken by very few people, so Germanic and Italic only

[@Nastya_07]

@@atlas567 Greek is centum as well

[@veronicalogotheti1162]

Got drunk and fell to the sea Delphins found him Deli

[@BenLlywelyn]

I hope the dolphins were nice.

[@popacristian2056]

I think that the Indo-European languages ​​come from the languages ​​of the first Neolithic farmers who came from Anatolia and spread from the Balkans all over Europe.

[@mihaiilie8808]

Proto indoeuropean its older than farming and the anatolian farmers because it has words that sugest a life in forests more like a hunter gatherer. Its older than the anatolian farmers.

[@Nastya_07]

Absolutely not, first of all linguistic evidence clearly contradicts this and points towards the Steppe in around 4500 BC, matching the Sredny Stog culture

[@popacristian2056]

@@Nastya_07 What are linguistic evidences?

[@Nastya_07]

@@popacristian2056 Mostly vocabulary in PIE about things dated after the Neolithic On non-linguistic evidence against the Anatolian hypothesis: It's been proven that Steppe migrations impacted Europe after the arrival of the farmers, you can start from Haak et al. 2015 Colin Renfrew himself (who first proposed the hypothesis) realized he was wrong due to the Ancient DNA evidence And there's probably more evidence against the Anatolian hypothesis, but I'd say this is the most important

[@yuribliman8999]

Due to my very limited knowledge of linguistics and anthropology, I can't even speculate on this matter. But both the Anatolian theory and the Iranian steppe/forest theory(theories) sound geographically plausible to me.

[@BenLlywelyn]

It does seem we will never know exactly, and that a fusion of theories is likely the closest we can get to the truth

[@yuribliman8999]

@@BenLlywelyn Agree.

[@Nastya_07]

@@BenLlywelyn The Steppe hypothesis is basically proven now

[@ricardomobile8479]

If the older branches are Anatolian and Tocharian maybe it should begin in between😊

[@adxisback]

funny particularity, Romanian ( which by the logic of latin should be Centum ) is actually Satem - probably either due to dacian substrate or later slavic influence

[@BenLlywelyn]

That is something to consider. INDEED.

[@mihaiilie8808]

Romanian is satem because its very old, older than centum.

[@mimisor66]

The word for hundred -sută, is just a borrowing from slavic. I do not think the differences are just that.

[@mihaiilie8808]

@@mimisor66 No its not, its proto indoeuropean exactly. If you know romanian you know proto indoeuropean and the slavs got it from us not the oposite.

[@ForageGardener]

​@mihaiilie8808 Romanian is not older than sentum. Romanian is a dialects of Latin. They pronounce words differently than classic Latin because language changes over time. Same with French and parts of English being sentum now. French should be centum because it's a Latin language, but it's not because the language changed over time. But yes it could be Slavic influence on Romanian Latin which caused it to become sentum

[@kevingriffin1376]

I wonder if both the proto-Germanic and proto-Italic speaking Indo-Europeans integrated with the highly organized Neolithic farmers but the proto-Celts did not. That would explain why Celts tend to live as pastoralists in decentralized communities which made them unable to withstand the pressures of the highly organized Germanic and Italic populations.

[@ForageGardener]

The germanics were not highly organized. 😂 the germanics came and took gaul from the ROMANS. The celts in Europe were all but extinct when the Germans came in

[@BenLlywelyn]

Celts were very organised and agricultural in earlier periods. It is only after Rome swept over Gaul and Britain that they were pushed into more acidic soils which reduced the farming yields and made pastoralism more lucrative.

[@scottfoster3548]

The Indo Euro`s bringing the horse and its culture conquered because of diseases EXACTLY as what happened when Columbus (an Italian) on his second voyage brought a horse with a cow and pig to the new world. Those animals and the accompanying disease are what eliminated the natives and then made their culture dominate though with some inter mixing.. Those horses also made their way to the plains AND those plains Indians did what earlier Indo-Euro horse riders did to dominate. That horse central culture seems to point to where those creatures would be naturally or mostly, that is the Indo-Euro homeland.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Interesting, where do you get your ideas of disease from?

[@scottfoster3548]

@@BenLlywelyn IS not the main reason for the majority of deaths in the new world (and supplementing the population) from the disease brought by the domesticated animals. Not from battles with Spanish and Portugueses explorers. We euros had immunity, and they did not. SIMILARLY, when the Indo-Euro began to spread and dominate (thousands of years earlier) maybe they did not so much from violence but from the disease that the horse riders and herders had that the new people they came upon did not. ALSO were not the Anatolian FARMERS bringing their own form of disease when they spread from domesticated crops.

[@ForageGardener]

Bullshit theres 0 evidence of that. Also Indians had animals before the horse people showed up. It's just horses that were new 😂

[@scottfoster3548]

@@ForageGardener THEY did not have the pig, cow or sheep HEAR. Columbus on his second journey brought them. ONLY the Llama was domesticated in the new world.

[@ekesandras1481]

it is amazing how fast (historically) the Native Americans adopted horse riding, even without seeing Spaniards riding around the Southern Midwest. Often they discovered the horse without contact to Europeans (the mustangs just spread on the Prairie, as soon as the Spaniards lost some of their horses). When the English speaking settlers moved West in the 19th century almost all tribes already had started using horses in one way or the other.

Germany contains all the original Y & Mt haployes of the Indo-Europeans. The Russians lack a couple y-types and everyone west and south of Germany have subsets of the indo-european Y-haplotype profile and have limited Indo Mt-types. The Indo-European heartland currently resides in Germany and it makes Hitler's statements about Germany being the Fatherland bone-chillingly prophetic. Russia is called the motherland and has extra psudo-indo-european mt-types from the far north & east. I wonder how pre-genetic study WW2 people could be so accurate?

[@ds-on4sm]

No. His pseudo- theory about race would make the germans an inferior race when we now know who the Aryans were.

[@Hawaiian_Shirt_guy]

13:24 but isn't it that during historical warming periods, you see dramatic increases in populations in marginal areas expanding south? examples: Mongolian, Turkish, and viking expansion during the medieval warm period.

[@stefanodadamo6809]

THE Question.

[@BenLlywelyn]

Intense.