The Battle of the
Two “Peer-Reviewed” Genetics-Based IE-Origins Theories “Steppes” vs. “Anatolia-Iran”
Leaves South Asia Out of All Calculations
Shrikant G.
Talageri
There have been three prominent
papers in the last few years, all three “peer-reviewed”, all
three by large groups of “scientists
from around the world”, but espousing two opposite theories
of Indo-European origins (a rather painful situation for
devotees of “peer-reviewed” papers who believe that anything “peer-reviewed”
represents the Word of God), “Steppes” vs. “Anatolia-Iran”:
1. In 2018, we had the paper by Reich
et al, titled “The
Genomic formation of South and Central Asia”, posted in the preprint server
for biology, bioRxiv.
2. In 2023, we had the paper by Heggarty et
al, titled "Language
trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of
Indo-European languages", in the journal Science.
3. Now, in 2025, we have the
paper by Lazaridis et al, “The Genetic Origin of the
Indo-Europeans” in the journal Nature.
The first paper claimed to finally
and conclusively establish, on the basis of Genetic Science,
that the Indo-European family of languages originated in
the Steppes.
The second paper claimed to finally
and conclusively establish, on the basis of Genetic Science,
that the Indo-European family of languages did not originate
in the Steppes, but in a more southern area, roughly Anatolia-Iran.
The third paper again
claims to finally and conclusively establish, on the basis of Genetic
Science, that the Indo-European family of languages originated
in the Steppes.
In short, there is a
full-fledged, if unstated, battle going on between “peer-reviewed” Genetic
Scientists, claiming conclusive genetic evidence
for the origin and spread of the Indo-European family of
languages (historically spread out over the vast area from Ireland in
the west to Sri Lanka and Assam in the east; and in later and present times,
the primary and official languages spoken throughout Australia, North
America and South America, and known in most of the rest of the world) in two
different places: in the Steppe areas around Russia, and in
the Anatolia-Iran area.
It is not clear whether the
winners in this debate are expected to be the side which garners more
“peer-reviews” and academic support for its papers, or the side which describes
more complicated genetic data about the migratory movements of DNA, Genes,
Haplogroups and Clades, from the “Indo-European Homeland”
claimed by it. What is certain is that all these papers are
united in confidently claiming that the migratory movements of DNA,
Genes, Haplogroups and Clades
described by them actually pertain to the migratory movements of the Indo-European
languages.
Before going further into this
matter, let me clarify the most fundamental aspects of this whole debate for
people who pretend to be dumb, or who actually are dumb, and choose to
deliberately or inherently misunderstand what I am saying:
1. I do not dispute whatever
these Genetic Scientists have to say about the movements of particular DNA,
Genes, Haplogroups and Clades from anywhere to anywhere
else. That is the field of Genetic Studies, and it is these
scientists who will ultimately decide (after their internal and mutual
differences are resolved) which DNA, Genes, Haplogroups
and Clades migrated from which original area to which other areas.
2. I do not dispute even that DNA,
Genes, Haplogroups and Clades, from whichever places of
origin these Genetic scientists ultimately conclude, may have made their
way into India at different points of time in the past, and are today part and
parcel of the Genetic make-up of all or most Indians (very much, of course,
including myself). In fact, in my book in 2019, I had unambiguously declared: “I am a Chitrapur Saraswat
brahmin: hypothetically it may turn out from a DNA analysis that my DNA
components (and those of my caste brethren) have 10% Maori ancestry, 10% Eskimo
ancestry, 10% Hottentot ancestry, 10% Arab ancestry, 40% Steppe ancestry, and
only 20% "ANI-ASI" ancestry.”
3. What I strongly dispute is the
automatic conclusion that certain particular DNA, Genes, Haplogroups
and Clades represent certain particular languages (as if they
have particular languages embedded within them as a genetic component).
To continue what I wrote in my book in 2019 cited above:
“The question is of language:
was my Konkani language or its earliest "Indo-Aryan" form brought
into India by my Maori, Eskimo, Hottentot, Steppe or Arab immigrant ancestors,
or was it adopted from some sections of the "ANI-ASI" groups native
to India? "Genetic evidence" does not answer this question.
The question is not even whether my "ANI-ASI"
ancestors themselves were natives of India from the time of the Big Bang, or
from the point of time that Tony Joseph's God said "Let there be
Light". They may have come from anywhere on earth at any point of time in
the remote past.
Further: the question is not even whether the Hindu or Vedic
religion is fully "native" or is imported in parts. Right from
ancient times, there has been import and export of religious ideas everywhere
all over the world in all directions. In our Chitrapur Saraswat math at Shirali
(Karnataka) there is a traditional ritual called "divṭige salām":
the first word is borrowed from Kannada and the second from Muslims.
When a Maharashtrian Hindu eats sabudana khichdi as a
"fasting" food item when he is on a religious "fast", all
the ingredients of that sabudana khichdi are of native American
origin brought to India by the Portuguese: sago, potatoes, chillies and
groundnuts. I have even pointed out in my books that the Soma ritual, a ritual
central to the "Indo-Iranian" religion of the Rigveda and the Avesta,
was imported from Central Asia, and even the even more central
fire-worship (yajna) rituals were borrowed by the Vedic Aryans (Pūru) from
their proto-Iranian (Anu) neighbours to their west.
The only question of relevance to our debate is: Was the
Indo-European family of languages, with its twelve known historical branches,
originally native to India (again not from the time of the Big Bang): i.e. did
it historically develop in India and then spread out all over the world from
India through migrations, or was one of these twelve branches brought in
"2000-1000 BCE" by "Multiple waves of Steppe pastoralist
migrants from central Asia into south Asia" as claimed by Tony Joseph and
his band of super-scientists?”
And even today, that and
that alone, is the relevant question. And it is significant that the
three above papers, though united in their clear declarations about the genetic
evidence for migrations from the Steppe areas into Europe (which fits in
with the archaeological and linguistic evidence for the same), have three
totally different takes (although all three are united in assuming or
accepting such a migration) in respect of the question of the genetic evidence
for the alleged immigration into South Asia of “Indo-Aryans”
in "2000-1000
BCE" by "Multiple waves of Steppe pastoralist migrants from central
Asia into south Asia":
1 Of these, the first paper by Reich et
al confidently claims, as is made clear in the very title of their
paper, “The Genomic
formation of South and Central Asia”, that their genetic data proves
the movement of Indo-European (Indo-Aryan) languages
into India after 2000 BCE. I have dealt with
this fraudulent (if academically/politically powerful) paper in my fourth book
in 2018: “Genetics and the Aryan Debate―"Early Indians", Tony
Joseph's Latest Assault” (TALAGERI 2019), and, since obviously I do not
expect the reader to search out and read this book in full, I am providing here
the URL of chapter 7 of the book, which deals with the Reich paper and exposes
its fraudulent nature:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/04/chapter-7-does-genetic-evidence-prove.html
2. The second of the two above
papers, by Heggarty et al, on the other hand, is much
more frank in this respect. I have dealt with this paper in my review article
below:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-new-paper-by-heggarty-et-al-on.html
However, let me repeat here what
this paper has to say about the evidence for the so-called Indo-Aryan
immigration into India after 2000 BCE: in spite of completely
stonewalling the Indian Homeland or OIT case, the
scholars writing the paper are unable, after all their investigations,
to find any evidence for the route that Indo-Aryan and even Iranian
took in their alleged migration from the alleged south-of-the-Caucasus
Homeland to their eastern historical habitats. They vaguely and
hopefully suggest an extremely hypothetical
possibility not suggested by their investigations, but in a refreshing burst of
honesty almost immediately accept that the suggested scenario does not
reconcile with their linguistic findings:
"Our results do not
directly identify by which route Indo-Iranic spread eastward, so it
remains possible that this branch spread through the steppe and Central
Asia, looping north around the Caspian Sea (Fig. 1D). Recent interpretations of
aDNA argue for this (49, 52), but some aspects of their scenario are not
easy to reconcile with our linguistic findings."”
This is in sharp contrast to the
cocky over-confidence and certainty shown by the writers of the Reich et al
paper.
3. Now we come to the third,
and latest paper, by Laziridis et al.
[I must point out that this paper in its
“peer-reviewed” form as published on 5th February 2025 has not yet
become available to me, but its pre-“peer-reviewed” form
is available, and I am going by it:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589597v1
This was uploaded on 24 April
2024. If there is any striking difference between this pre-“peer-reviewed”
form and the “peer-reviewed” form published three days ago on 5th
February 2025, this can be brought to my notice].
This paper goes by the name “The
Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans”, and religiously starts its narration
by repeating the kalmā ṭayyabāh of the AIT: “Between 3300-1500 BCE, people of
the Yamnaya archaeological complex and their descendants, in subsequent waves
of migration, spread over large parts of Eurasia, contributing to the ancestry
of people of Europe, Central and South Asia, Siberia, and the Caucasus.
The spread of Indo-European language and culture transformed all these regions”,
But it does not provide any further data,
clarifications or elaborations of the so-called immigration of the IEs into
South Asia.
It should be kept in mind that the Steppe areas, spread out
roughly from Ukraine in the west to Kazakhstan in the east, have had a
millenniums-long history of movements and cross-movements of groups of people
of all linguistic and “racial” types moving across it from every corner of it
to every other corner, and we are therefore not in the least bit concerned here
with the ethnic or genetic identities of these different groups of people, or
with disputing these movements. We are only concerned with the
chronologies of the alleged movements of groups of people southwards into South
Asia.
The URL of this latest paper has been given above, and it
will be seen from any study or analysis of the paper that while it is
overflowing with all kinds of detailed and technically complicated and detailed
genetic data of every kind, none of it pertains to any movements of groups
of people into South Asia in the relevant periods and areas: the closest
the paper comes to the geography of India is the following: “The Yamnaya
archaeological complex appeared around 3300BCE across the steppes north of the
Black and Caspian Seas, and by 3000BCE reached its maximal extent from Hungary
in the west to Kazakhstan in the east.” This appears as the very
first line of the paper.
The words India, Indo-Aryan, Sanskrit,
Vedic and BMAC do not appear even once in the entire paper.
The phrase South Asia appears only once in the kalmā
ṭayyabāh of the AIT quoted earlier, which forms the first few lines of
the introduction. In fact, the paper introduces a new obfuscatory tactic into
the discussion: IA is usually a short-form for Indo-Aryan:
in this paper, IA is a short-form for Indo-Anatolian! The
word Iranian in this paper more often than not refers to a name given to
a genetic marker rather than to the Iranian branch
of IE languages. The word Indo-Iranian is found only twice
in general references which give no chronological or geographical clues of any
kind (not even when, in the first of the two references, it talks about a “long migratory route”):
“the Corded Ware culture itself
can also be tentatively linked via both autosomal ancestry and R-M417
Y-chromosomes with Indo-Iranian speakers via a long migratory route that
included Fatyanovo 20 and Sintashta 4,22 intermediaries.”
“Early Indo-European languages, Anatolian, Tocharian and
Indo-Iranian”
In short, while paper
1 pushes a false and fraudulent genetic narration (in terms
of both chronology and geography) of the alleged movement of “Indo-Aryans”
after 2000 BCE into India, paper 2 concedes that such
a narration cannot really be provided, and paper 3 maintains a deafening
silence on the matter! But, in spite of the deafening silence, it is clear that
since it postulates the “maximal
extent [of spread
of the assumed Yamnaya IE movement] from Hungary in the west
to Kazakhstan in the east” to a date “3000BCE”, the assumed (but
determinedly unelaborated) chronology of the further alleged Indo-Aryan
movement into India as per this paper would also be around or after
2000 BCE.
There is no sense in analyzing or discussing the genetic
data in this paper since it cleverly evades the main point: the
exact chronology, time-table and itinerary of this
alleged migration into South Asia is completely avoided in this paper.
The only thing we can do, since,
as pointed out above, this paper also (without expressly saying so) supports
the post-2000BCE date, is to again note how this date
completely invalidates the AIT case and conclusively proves the OIT
case. This is from two points of fact and data:
I. The Chronology and Linguistic state
of the Rigveda.
II. The representative IE nature
of the Rigvedic language and culture as compared to other IE languages and
cultures.
I. The Chronology
and Linguistic State of the Rigveda
All this is a reiteration of what
I have been saying in all my books and articles, but (since memories are short)
it bears repeated reiteration and emphasis. But rather than copying out whole
articles, I will just cite those articles, which give the unshakable evidence
placing the Rigveda geographically located spread out over the area from
westernmost UP and Haryana in the east to Afghanistan in the west, in
the period of the New Rigveda, at least from around 2500 BCE onwards; and before that even
farther east, originally restricted to westernmost UP and
Haryana, during the period of the Old Rigveda, from well
before 3000 BCE, with very specific data about the
historically recorded westward expansion of the Vedic Aryans from Haryana to
Afghanistan:
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-finality-of-mitanni-evidence.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/01/chapter-4-internal-chronology-of-rigveda.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-version-of-chronological-gulf.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-logic-of-rigvedic-geography_6.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-identity-of-enemies-of-sudas-in.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-dasarajna-battle-or-battle-of-ten.html
https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-varsagira-battle-in-rigveda.html
It is frankly impossible for
anyone to be able to disprove all this massive and incontrovertible data which
takes the beginnings of Rigvedic composition beyond 3000 BCE
in an area originally restricted to westernmost UP and Haryana.
Firther, as I have repeatedly
pointed out, even during this period beyond 3000 BCE:
a) there is no memory in the
Rigveda of any external (to India) areas or of their own alleged external
origins,
b) no references to non-IE
language speaking people in their area (whether as friends or foes) let
alone as their predecessors in the area invaded and conquered by
themselves, and
c) all the rivers and animals
in their area have purely Indo-European(Indo-Aryan)
names.
This situation is totally incompatible
with any theory which brings the “Indo-Aryan” languages
into India from the north (via Central Asia) and through
the northwest (via Afghanistan), not only after 2000 BCE,
but even after 3000 BCE or 4000 BCE.
Therefore, all these “genetic
studies” and “reports”, which try to do just that, purely on the
basis of arguments based on “genetic data” are clearly wrong, and
either hopelessly misguided and ignorant or deliberately and fraudulently fake.
II. The
representative IE nature of the Rigvedic language and culture as compared to
other IE languages and cultures.
Another point which simply cannot
be overemphasized is that this very late and practically
(archaeologically) invisible so-called immigration/invasion
is also totally incompatible with the representative IE nature of the
Rigvedic language and culture as compared to other IE languages and cultures.
This is a factor which no-one
seems to take into consideration. In most AIT scenarios, the Indo-Aryans
are not only late immigrants into India in terms of other Indian cultures, but
also latecomers in terms of the alleged dates of immigration
of other IE groups into their historical habitats.
This incomprehensible quirk was
shared even by Hindu invasionists like Lokmanya Tilak, who
located the Original Homeland in the Arctic region.
He not only had the “Aryans” invading India from so far
away an area as the Arctic region, but he even has the “Aryans” entering
India last of all, long after all the other Indo-European
groups had already reached their historical habitats:
Tilak
locates the original homeland in the Arctic region from “remote
geological times” till “the destruction of the original Arctic home by
the last Ice Age” in “10000-8000 BC”. The
period from “8000-5000 BC” was “the age of migration from the
original home. The survivors of the Aryan race roamed over the northern
parts of Europe and Asia in search of new lands”.
By 5000 BCE, according to Tilak, the Aryans
were divided into two groups. One group consisted of “the primitive
Aryans in Europe […] as represented by Swiss Lake Dwellers”, and the
other group consisted of the “Asiatic Aryans […] probably settled on
the Jaxartes”, still in Central Asia, on their way towards India!
Thus,
the “Aryan” colonisation of India as per Tilak took place long after
the “Aryan” colonization of Europe, Central Asia and Iran.
Far from being the original Aryan homeland, India,
according to Tilak, was practically the last land to be colonized
by the “Aryans”.
Most AIT
scenarios, especially the three scenarios outlined in these three Genetics
papers, also have the Indo-Aryans leaving the other IE branches
in far-off lands, and travelling for almost two thousand years through
different areas inhabited by different other (non-IE) people and
getting mixed with them or influenced by them, and then finally, after a
sojourn in Central Asia, migrating into the areas of the Harappan
civilization and replacing the original language and culture in those areas
(while of course being influenced by the local people as well), and then
developing total amnesia about all their earlier history, before
(over a period of a few hundred years) composing the Rigveda. The IE
culture that survives in the Rigveda, by the logic of this
narrative, should be a very remarkably diluted and “adulterated”
form of the original IE language and culture
that these Indo-Aryans shared with the other IE groups
in distant times and areas.
But the
actual facts show quite the opposite. The language and culture of the Rigveda,
in fact look as if they are hot out of the PIE oven, or still lying in
that oven. In almost every respect that matters, the Rigvedic
language and culture most closely and fully represents the
original PIE language and culture, and
individually shares more original features with the different other
branches than those branches share with each other. And this becomes clear from
the study of almost every aspect of language and culture. We will examine some
of them:
A. General Vocabulary.
B. Mythology.
C. Pastoral culture.
D. Wheel and cart technology.
II.A. General
Vocabulary
Right from the beginning, those
studying the IE vocabulary have noted what I wrote in my very first book: “A
study of the Sanskrit lexicon shows that it contains the largest number of proto-Indo-European
roots and words, in their primary sense as well as in the form of secondary
derivatives. And an overwhelmingly greater number of words, in various Indo-European
languages belonging to different branches, have cognates in Sanskrit roots and
words than in the roots and words of any other branch—often the etymology of
words in different languages can be derived only from a consideration of
Sanskrit roots and words.” (TALAGERI 1993:114).
One of the pioneers of IE studies
(even if somewhat outdated now), Childe, gave a list of 72 cognate PIE
words as follows: Sanskrit 70, Greek 48, Germanic 46, Italic
40, Baltic 39, Celtic 25, Slavic 16, Armenian 15, Tocharian
8 (CHILDE 1926:91-93)
Even in grammatical categories, Vedic
(and Avestan) had "three genders, three numbers and eight cases, the
fullest representation of the Indo- European system" (LOCKWOOD
1972:215): PIE: 3-3-8; Vedic: 3-3-8; Avestan: 3-3-8; Hittite:
2-2-8; Greek: 3-3-5; Italic Latin: 3-2-6; Celtic:
3-3-5; Germanic Gothic: 3-2-4; Old Church Slavic:
3-3-7; Old Armenian: 0-2-7; Albanian Illyrian:
3-2-6; Tocharian: 3-3-4.
Griffith puts it in a nutshell as
follows in the preface to the first edition of his translation of the Rigveda:
"The great interest of the Ṛgveda is, in fact, historical rather than poetical.
As in its original language we see the roots and shoots of the languages of
Greek and Latin, of Kelt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths, and
the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the
religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity."
Now Nicholas Kazanas and Koenraad
Elst have shown in detail that Vedic/Sanskrit is the only language, among all
the IE branch languages, which has organic coherence in the formation of words,
in the form of an enormous number of basic and productive verbal roots or dhātus
(about 700 dhātus, of which more than 200 are very productive roots)
each producing a rich family of lexemes (i.e. distinct verbs, nouns,
adjectives, all derived from the same root) while other languages only have
isolated words without discernible roots (except through Sanskrit dhātus)
or lexemes.
For example, Mallory points out
that the common IE words for the bear come from a PIE root *h2ṛetk-
(PIE *h2ṛtkos, Vedic ṛkṣa-, Avestan
arəšə-, Greek arktos, Latin ursus, Old Irish art,
Armenian ar, Hittite hartagga), and this root "is
otherwise seen only in Skt. rakṣas- 'destruction, damage, night demon'"
(MALLORY-ADAMS 2006:138). It is not found in any other IE language (in all of which the word for the
bear is an isolated word with no discernible root or lexemes) while the Sanskrit
root √ṛkṣ- produces many nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
Kazanas shows that Sanskrit alone
has the roots and lexemes for many very common PIE words such as foot,
name, father, son, daughter, etc., etc.
II.B. Mythology.
The mythology of the Rigveda
represents the most primitive and primeval form of Indo-European mythology:
as Macdonell puts it, for example, the Vedic gods "are nearer to the
physical phenomena which they represent, than the gods of any other
Indo-European mythology" (MACDONELL 1963:15). In fact, in the majority
of cases, the original nature myths, in which the mythological entities and the
mythological events are rooted, can be identified or traced only through the
form in which the myths are represented in the Rigveda. As we saw above,
Griffith notes that “the deities, the myths, and the religious beliefs and
practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European
countries before the introduction of Christianity.”
1. If we take a list of common
deities found in more than one IE mythologies, all the other Indo-European mythologies,
individually, have numerous mythological elements in common with Vedic
mythology, but very few with each other; and even these few (except those borrowed
from each other by neighboring languages in ancient but historical times, such
as the Greek god Apollo, borrowed by the Romans) are usually ones which are
also found in Vedic mythology.
In a list of 19 common deities in
my article "The Full Out-of- India Case in Short": Vedic
(19), Greek (9), Avestan (7), Germanic (7), Roman
(4), Baltic (4), Slavic
(3), Celtic (2), Hittite (1), Albanian (1). Any other
representative list (see also Kazanas) will show a very similar picture.
2. Not only are Vedic
deities the only ones to have clear cognates in all the other branches, but in
many cases, it is almost impossible to recognize the connections between related
mythological entities and events in two separate Indo- European mythologies
without a comparison of the two with the related Vedic versions. For example,
the Teutonic (Germanic) Vanir are connected with the Greek
Hermes and Pan, but it is impossible to connect the two
except through the Vedic Saramā and Paṇi (see
TALAGERI 2000:477-495 for details). The Teutonic and Greek
versions bear absolutely no similarities with each other, but are both,
individually, clearly recognizable as developments of the original Vedic
Saramā-Paṇi myth.
3. Iranian mythology,
which should share to some extent at least the same character as Vedic mythology
(since it is held, according to the AIT, that it was the undivided Indo-Iranians,
and not the Indo-Aryans alone, who separated from the other Indo-European
groups in South Russia and migrated to Central Asia where they shared a
common culture and religion), on the contrary, has no elements in common with
other Indo-European mythologies (other than with Vedic
mythology itself). The Avestan mythology stands aloof from
all other Indo-European mythologies and is
connected only to Vedic mythology.
II.C. Pastoral
culture
Finally, we come to that animal which is most central to the
Indo-European ethos: much more central than the horse: i.e. the cow.
In spite of all the rhetoric about "Aryans" and their horses,
it is the cow which is central to the identity of the "pastoral
Aryans". The cow/bull/cattle is probably the only
animal (other than the dog, domesticated from prehistoric times) which
has a form of the reconstructed PIE name in every single branch: PIE *gwṓus,
Indo-Aryan Skt. gáuh, Iranian Av. gāuš, Armenian kov,
Greek boûs, Albanian ka,
Anatolian Hier.Luw. wawa-, Tocharian keu, Italic Latin bōs, Celtic Old Irish bō,
Germanic German kuh, Baltic Lithuanian guovs, Slavic OCS govedo
(MALLORY 2006:139-140)
Gamkrelidze, an advocate of the Anatolian
Homeland theory, points out that "the economic function of the cow as a
dairy animal can be reconstructed for a period of great antiquity"
(GAMKRELIDZE 1995:485), and further that "The presence of cows and
bulls among domestic animals goes back to an ancient period well before the
domestication of the wild horse. Evidence of domesticated bulls and cows is
found by the beginning of the Neolithic" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:489).
Significantly, the Vedic-Harappan area is one of
"two centers of domestication" of the cow (i.e. of domestic
cattle), and they are not the subject of any controversy. The wikipedia article
on "Cattle" unambiguously tells us: "Archeozoological
and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs
(Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major
areas of domestication: one in the area that is now Turkey, giving rise to the
taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, resulting in
the indicine line [….] European cattle are largely
descended from the taurine lineage". All
other academic sources regularly point out that "the Indus Valley
Civilization" was one of the two centers of domestication of cattle.
The Sanskrit language contains every single common IE
word associated with cows and cattle, except, significantly, the
"Near Eastern migratory term" taurus borrowed from Semitic
according to Gamkrelidze (which were borrowed by the western IE branches
as they migrated westwards from India).
Mallory (MALLORY
2006:139-140) tells us there are three different words for "cow"
in the IE languages, *gwṓus, *h1eĝh, and *wokéha-. The first,
as we saw, is found in all the twelve branches. As for the other 7 words for
cow, bull, cattle, they are found in Indo-Aryan + different
other branches:
a. *h1eĝh
"cow": Skt. ahī-, Armenian ezn, Celtic (Old Irish) ag.
b. *wokéha-
"cow": Skt. vaśā-, Italic (Latin) vacca.
c. *phekhu-
"livestock": Skt. paśu-, Iranian (Avestan) pasu-,
Italic (Latin) pecū,
Germanic (Old English) feoh, Baltic (Lithuanian) pēkus.
d. *uk(w)sēn
"ox": Skt. ukṣan-, Iranian (Avestan) uxšan,
Tocharian okso, Germanic (English) ox, Celtic (Old Irish) oss.
e. *wṛs-en "bull":
Skt. vṛṣṇí-, Iranian (Avestan) varəšna-.
f. *usr-
"cow/bull": Skt. usra/usrā, Germanic ūro
(from ūrochso).
g. *domhoyos
"young bull": Skt. damya-, Celtic (Old Irish) dam,
Albanian dem, Greek damálēs.
The tally:
Indo-Aryan: 8
Iranian: 4
Germanic: 4
Celtic: 4
Italic: 3
Greek: 2
Armenian: 2
Albanian: 2
Baltic: 2
Tocharian: 2
Anatolian: 1
Slavic: 1
Ironically, the two branches located in the two contending
battle areas, in the Steppes and in Anatolia, are
the last in the list.
There are other words of pastoral importance found in only some
branches, where again Indo-Aryan
is the common factor, but this much is enough to illustrate the point.
II.D. Wheel and
Cart Technology.
The wheel-related word list (8 common
IE words)
https://armchairprehistory.com/2011/05/25/indo-european-wheel-words/
Indo-Aryan: 8.
Iranian: 8 (only because
Indo-Iranian counted as one)..
Germanic: 7.
Italic: 6.
Greek: 6 (one of them doubtful).
Celtic: 5.
Slavic: 5.
Baltic: 5 (one of them doubtful).
Tocharian: 4 (two of them doubtful).
Anatolian: 3 (one of them doubtful).
Albanian: 2.
Armenian: 2.
Or as per a more “peer-reviewed” paper
(article by Lubotsky):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/indoeuropean-puzzle-revisited/indoeuropean-and-indoiranian-wagon-terminology-and-the-date-of-the-indoiranian-split/ADBF07BCD6447A00E1B5E3EE4E128FA7
“we can reconstruct five words of wheel and wagon termin-
ology for Proto-Indo-European (PIE), viz. the words for
‘wheel’ (2×), ‘axle’, ‘thill’, and the verb ‘to convey in a
vehicle’:
1. – PIE *kʷekʷlo- ‘wheel’ (Skt. cakrá-, YAv. caxra-, ON
hvél, Gr.
κύκλος; Toch. B kokale ‘wagon’);
2. – PIE *HrotHo- ‘wheel’ (Lat. rota, OIr. roth, OHG rad,
Lith. rãtas
‘wheel’, rataĩ pl. ‘chariot’; Skt. rátha- and YAv. raϑa-
‘chariot’);
3. – PIE *h 2 eḱs- ‘axle’ (Skt. ákṣa-, Gr. ἄξων, Lat. axis,
OE eax);
4. – PIE *h 2 eiHs- ‘pole, thill’ (Skt. īṣā́-, YAv. aēša,
Hitt. ḫišša-, Sln.
oję̑ , Lith. íena; Gr. οἴαξ ‘handle’);
5. – PIE *ueǵʰ- ‘to convey in a vehicle’ (Skt. vah-, Av.
vaz-, Gr.
(Pamph.) ϝεχέτω, Lat. uehō, Lith. vežù, OCS vezǫ; OHG wegan
‘to move’).
This list can be extended with at least five more terms:
1. – PIE *iug- ‘yoke’ (Skt. yugá-, YAv. yuua-, Hitt. iūk-,
Gr. ζυγόν,
Lat. iugum, OS juk, OCS igo);
2. – PIE *ieug- ‘to yoke, harness’ (Skt. yuj-, Av. yuj-, Gr.
ζεύγνῡμι,
Lat. iungō, Lith. jùngti);
3. – PIE *dʰur- ‘joint, pivot of the chariot pole and the
yoke’ (Skt.
dhúr- ‘joint of the chariot pole and the yoke, the pole and
the
yoke together’, Hitt. tūrii̯e/a- zi ‘to harness’), possibly
identical
with the word for ‘door’, if it originally meant ‘pivot’;
4. – PIE *h 3 nebʰ- ‘wheel hub’ (Skt. nábhya-, OPr. nabis,
OHG
naba);
5. – PIE *ḱomieh 2 - ‘yoke pin’ (Skt. śámyā-, YAv. simā-,
Arm. samik’
‘pair of yoke sticks’, sametik’ ‘yoke band’ (unless an
Iranian
LW), Eng. hame ‘horse collar’, which has replaced the yoke
with
the pins rather recently).”
As per Lubotsky’s list of 10
common IE words:
Indo-Aryan 10: 5+5
Iranian 7: 4+3
Greek 6: 4+2
Germanic 6: 4+2
Baltic 5: 3+2
Italic 5: 3+2
Hittite 4: 2+2
Slavic 3: 2+1
Celtic 1: 1+0
Tocharian 1: 1+0
Armenian 1: 0+1
Albanian 0: 0+0.
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CHILDE 1926: The Aryans: A study of Indo-European
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