Good one! Very interesting. So I’m guessing if Aryans are Indo-Iranians from back in the day, we also can make no reasonably inference about skin colour etc.
Also I’m trying to wrap my head around the PIE term. I’m thinking, hm, there’s a bunch of people already living in India and then along come some more Proto-Indians (Proto-Indo-Europeans) from the Pontic-Caspian steppe?? How can they be termed “proto-Indo” if there’s already people living in India when proto -Indo peeps arrive? “I’m more ancient than you on this land even though you’ve been living here for generations…?!”
Sorry if this is a silly question! I guess it’s like saying there are crocodiles living in Australia and down the track some “proto-crocodiles” arrive…which then form the crocodile population even though there was already a crocodile population..
"Proto-" has a specific meaning in linguistics. It isn't just used in reference to Proto-Indo-European.
In historical linguistics, the prefix “Proto-” refers to a reconstructed ancestral language, not directly attested in writing, but inferred through the comparative method by analyzing patterns across known descendant languages.
Proto-Indo-European refers to the language that preceded Sanskrit, Greek, etc... and the community that spoke that language.
1. There were already Indians in India thousands of years ago who spoke some languages.
2. But these weren’t languages based on Sanskrit/Latin/(Russian?).
3. Then along came some new people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe who spoke a “proto” version of what later became Sanskrit, Latin etc.
4. As they spent time over generations in India, the Sanskrit language emerged from whatever “proto” language they arrived with and became the dominant language (probably because they were a dominating force).
So…would it be correct to call these Pontic-Caspian steppe people simply “speakers of proto-Sanskrit/Latin” ?
I think this would reduce my confusion with the PIE term lol
I think you get it... Sanskrit was the language of the foreigners who made their home in Northern India. Southern Indian still has many languages which are presumably more ancient... for example, the Dravidian language family... Languages like Hindi probably displaced languages closer to Tamil. But I don't know much about Indian languages. I'd suggest looking up the Dravidian language family and contrasting it with the PIE language family. Things will make more sense then.
The confusion is understandable. Historical linguistics is its own thing. My best suggestion would be to watch the videos I included in the post, especially "The Eureka Moment of Linguistics".
I think that will do a better job of explaining than I could.
I'm guessing that some Aryans would have been blonde and light-skinned, but there is no reason to believe that they all were. They had a clan-based political system in which strategic exogamy was probably practiced, meaning that they would have intermarried with locals in different areas, allowing them to grow in influence.
I don't think they could have expanded so much if they weren't making alliances wherever they went.
I'm glad I can reply to both of you, LoWa! Yes, I made that same point to Crow. PIE is essentially a placeholder for 'we have no fucking idea.' Proto-crocodiles describes it well.
My mission is to represent the mother: in religion, anthropology and economics. So I'm going hard here because that's my job.
Graeber disappoints me. He says, "the old Victorian story about goddess-worshipping farmers and Aryan invaders was actually true." Goddess-worshipping farmers, not Goddess societies that were matrilineal, matrilocal and matrifocal where women had invented agriculture and writing and had civilizations more culturally advanced than the Aryan invaders. Instead we picture MALE farmers, duh! Who had some goddess totems that they prayed to. Shame on you, David.
From Loom of Language, it seems that Semitic languages are indigenous. The Aryan languages are ones of conquest, imposed by outsiders, except for wherever it originated from--the big question.
Even before I saw that they came from a Sky Father, I was thinking that Air-yuns as nobles, royalty means sky gods. That's how they saw themselves. And isn't it interesting that God the Father is called Dyeus, just like the Latin Deus used by the Church ...
Oh good! Wikipedia and the NYT say that a man has finally given credence to a woman's theory! Of course, it's his 'revised Kurgan theory' with no mention of the original, and the NYT says he's 'not the first' without mentioning who was. But that's okay, because now he has the authoritative last word, and no woman needs to bother her head about it again!
Anthony starts with a straw man argument. Along with physical traits, that would indicate land of origin, he quotes, "superior to all other peoples, calm and firm in character, constantly striving, intellectually brilliant, with an almost ideal attitude towards the world and life in general." How would anyone know that? So he rejects the term based on a ridiculous projection, then quotes other irrelevant and easily dismissed supremacists. The point is, did the myth-writing religio-invaders use the term for themselves and where are they from?
He writes, "Sanskrit-speaking chiefs and poets in the Rig Veda bore names foreign to the Sanskrit language, indicating that even the original Aryans were not genetically "pure." The Rig Veda served as a ritual canon, not a racial manifesto. If one performed the correct sacrifices and prayers in the traditional language, they were considered Aryan, regardless of racial purity." Bullshit. As LoWa has pointed out, the Vedas are all about colorism and preventing children of mixed blood between castes. Why is he using the term 'genetically pure' rather than saying they were foreign invaders who became a priestly caste of rulers? They were the ones insisting on genetic purity among themselves.
For LoWa, here's my comment showing that the Set Pharaohs had red hair: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/year-of-the-goddess/comment/115898854. This was to validate Merlin's research that red-headed men were sacrificed annually at the tomb of Osiris, which may have been in Canaan since that's where Set entombed his body in a tree.
He writes, "It is highly doubtful that they were blonde or blue-eyed, and they had no connection with the racial fantasies propagated by modern bigots. The conflation of race with language and the assignment of superiority to certain language-and-race groups were critical missteps that led to these distortions." So he ridicules the 'Goddess writers' for saying these were warlike invaders, and then conflates superiority and racial fantasies with the idea that we can't discern race from language. How can a linguist say that? That's their whole job, figuring out anthropology from language clues.
And then there's a linguist who says you can't know anything from a skull type, even one in a tomb inscribed with that language.
I would highly recommend reading David Anthony's book. I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet because it gets very granular (as is appropriate for such an authoritative work).
We actually know quite a lot about the Proto-Indo-Europeans, I don't know why you would say "PIE is a placeholder for "we have no fucking idea"". Given that we're talking about prehistory, it's truly impressive how much linguists have been able to reconstruct. The "Eureka Moment of Linguistics" was probably the greatest archaeological discovery of all time.
As you may have guessed, the words Deus and Zeus come from the PIE word Dyeus.
You might want to look at comparative mythology - some people have reconstructed a PIE mythology... I haven't looked into that yet.
The PIE had female deities, for the way - one called Earth Mother and another called Sky Daughter.
As for women inventing agriculture and writing, I have no idea what you're talking about. No one knows who invented agriculture, and the Goddess-worshipping cultures of Old Europe didn't have writing. And I'm not sure what you mean about their "civilizations" being more "advanced". To me, civilization means a way of life characterized by the growth of cities, so I don't think that the Neolithic farmers of Old Europe were civilized. Furthermore, they certainly weren't more technologically advanced than the PIE... so what you seem to be doing is making sweeping judgements about entire cultures based on extremely fragmentary evidence.
I really would encourage you to read Merlin Stone more critically. I don't know about her in particular, but I know that the Goddess movement in general was somewhat overzealous in their attempts to create an alternative history of the world. They were driven by a desire to create a feminist Mythos, and played fast and loose with the facts in their haste to prove their theory.
A good example of this would be The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, a book that I loved in my early twenties. Turns out that it is full of errors.
When I raise objections, you tell me to read Anthony's 'authoritative work.' Those words are very contradictory, Crow, for an anarchist, who shouldn't be giving their own authority over to anyone. Yet when I cite from Merlin Stone's book, you tell me to read her more critically. That's like saying, "Go find out for yourself where you're wrong. I can't be bothered."
Anthony's positions are perfectly aligned with the social system we have. Are you happy with that? Do you see no need for alternatives? If you define civilization as the growth of cities and urban centralization, I'm looking for the antidote to civilization.
But I will go back to LoWa's original point. The phrase 'proto-Indo-Europeans' is a nonsense term. It's asking who came before the indigenous people of the world's most populous continent, with only Russia and China left out.
What I'm trying to find is who, through ruthless violence, destroyed the matrilineal, matrilocal, matrifocal Goddess societies that enabled humanity to survive for its first 9500 years. I'd like your help in answering that question because I think it's key to unraveling the religio-economic story that keeps us stuck. We think it's the way things have always been and always will be. It blocks us from even imagining the matrifocal anarchist economic system in my book.
From the linguistic root of Dyeus, the usurpers of Greek mythology created Zeus and the usurpers of the Goddess created Deus for the Catholic Empire. And once again, I think you should speak from your own perspective: "I have no idea what you're talking about" rather than "No one has any idea who invented agriculture and the Goddess cultures ... didn't have writing."
You're speaking as if you're the authority. You can revoke my credentials as a housewife, which are the only ones I claim, but I don't give you the authority to decide what 'fragmentary clues' I apply and what answers I find unsatisfactory. That's not me being a feminist and being 'driven by a desire to create a feminist Mythos.' That is insulting to women you haven't even read. That's me using my sovereign right to think for myself. You're telling me that I'm being irrational and uncritical in my reading of Stone, 'playing fast and loose.' I don't accept that characterization of me as someone who doesn't apply research and logic. When you say things or cite sources I disagree with, I talk about the ideas. I don't demean your ability to think.
It's contradictory, to me, that your adopted home of Cheran has made the mythology that conquered it into its mandatory religion, when it was the grandmothers who stood up to the drug cartels and government. If anyone should have a feminist Mythos, it's Cheran.
I think that we should agree to disagree about archaeology. I appreciate a lot of what you do, and I think that these exchanges have become increasingly hostile. I'm not trying to fight with you.
There are many things on which we have common ground...
I like you tremendously, Crow. I have no hostility towards you. You're smart, original, intellectually curious. You're committed and live with a level of integrity few have. You've been extremely generous to me, including me in your fine circle and even inviting me to your wedding! It's that depth of goodwill between us that causes me to challenge your ideas and those of your sources. If anyone can work through these arguments, which I define as a productive disagreement, it should be us. First, like the person you're arguing with. Check!
I'm glad you feel that way... I thought maybe things were getting a little too heated. Speaking of my wedding, you missed out on an awesome party! Apparently I'm the first gringo in history to have a 3-day Purépecha wedding! I think I'll write something about it soon...
You mean The Horse, The Wheel, and Language? It's a superb work of scholarship. Proof that not all archaeologists have their heads up their asses, lol.
I'm so glad you wrote this, Crow. Very illuminating! I'll have more to say tomorrow when I can delve a little more deeply.
Thanks! I was thinking of (and LoWa) when I wrote it.
Great post!
Dyeus, Zeus, theos, Deus, Dios...
Good one! Very interesting. So I’m guessing if Aryans are Indo-Iranians from back in the day, we also can make no reasonably inference about skin colour etc.
Also I’m trying to wrap my head around the PIE term. I’m thinking, hm, there’s a bunch of people already living in India and then along come some more Proto-Indians (Proto-Indo-Europeans) from the Pontic-Caspian steppe?? How can they be termed “proto-Indo” if there’s already people living in India when proto -Indo peeps arrive? “I’m more ancient than you on this land even though you’ve been living here for generations…?!”
Sorry if this is a silly question! I guess it’s like saying there are crocodiles living in Australia and down the track some “proto-crocodiles” arrive…which then form the crocodile population even though there was already a crocodile population..
"Proto-" has a specific meaning in linguistics. It isn't just used in reference to Proto-Indo-European.
In historical linguistics, the prefix “Proto-” refers to a reconstructed ancestral language, not directly attested in writing, but inferred through the comparative method by analyzing patterns across known descendant languages.
Proto-Indo-European refers to the language that preceded Sanskrit, Greek, etc... and the community that spoke that language.
Does that make sense?
Ok so just to clarify again:
1. There were already Indians in India thousands of years ago who spoke some languages.
2. But these weren’t languages based on Sanskrit/Latin/(Russian?).
3. Then along came some new people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe who spoke a “proto” version of what later became Sanskrit, Latin etc.
4. As they spent time over generations in India, the Sanskrit language emerged from whatever “proto” language they arrived with and became the dominant language (probably because they were a dominating force).
So…would it be correct to call these Pontic-Caspian steppe people simply “speakers of proto-Sanskrit/Latin” ?
I think this would reduce my confusion with the PIE term lol
I think you get it... Sanskrit was the language of the foreigners who made their home in Northern India. Southern Indian still has many languages which are presumably more ancient... for example, the Dravidian language family... Languages like Hindi probably displaced languages closer to Tamil. But I don't know much about Indian languages. I'd suggest looking up the Dravidian language family and contrasting it with the PIE language family. Things will make more sense then.
The confusion is understandable. Historical linguistics is its own thing. My best suggestion would be to watch the videos I included in the post, especially "The Eureka Moment of Linguistics".
I think that will do a better job of explaining than I could.
I'm guessing that some Aryans would have been blonde and light-skinned, but there is no reason to believe that they all were. They had a clan-based political system in which strategic exogamy was probably practiced, meaning that they would have intermarried with locals in different areas, allowing them to grow in influence.
I don't think they could have expanded so much if they weren't making alliances wherever they went.
I'm glad I can reply to both of you, LoWa! Yes, I made that same point to Crow. PIE is essentially a placeholder for 'we have no fucking idea.' Proto-crocodiles describes it well.
My mission is to represent the mother: in religion, anthropology and economics. So I'm going hard here because that's my job.
Graeber disappoints me. He says, "the old Victorian story about goddess-worshipping farmers and Aryan invaders was actually true." Goddess-worshipping farmers, not Goddess societies that were matrilineal, matrilocal and matrifocal where women had invented agriculture and writing and had civilizations more culturally advanced than the Aryan invaders. Instead we picture MALE farmers, duh! Who had some goddess totems that they prayed to. Shame on you, David.
From Loom of Language, it seems that Semitic languages are indigenous. The Aryan languages are ones of conquest, imposed by outsiders, except for wherever it originated from--the big question.
Even before I saw that they came from a Sky Father, I was thinking that Air-yuns as nobles, royalty means sky gods. That's how they saw themselves. And isn't it interesting that God the Father is called Dyeus, just like the Latin Deus used by the Church ...
Oh good! Wikipedia and the NYT say that a man has finally given credence to a woman's theory! Of course, it's his 'revised Kurgan theory' with no mention of the original, and the NYT says he's 'not the first' without mentioning who was. But that's okay, because now he has the authoritative last word, and no woman needs to bother her head about it again!
Anthony starts with a straw man argument. Along with physical traits, that would indicate land of origin, he quotes, "superior to all other peoples, calm and firm in character, constantly striving, intellectually brilliant, with an almost ideal attitude towards the world and life in general." How would anyone know that? So he rejects the term based on a ridiculous projection, then quotes other irrelevant and easily dismissed supremacists. The point is, did the myth-writing religio-invaders use the term for themselves and where are they from?
He writes, "Sanskrit-speaking chiefs and poets in the Rig Veda bore names foreign to the Sanskrit language, indicating that even the original Aryans were not genetically "pure." The Rig Veda served as a ritual canon, not a racial manifesto. If one performed the correct sacrifices and prayers in the traditional language, they were considered Aryan, regardless of racial purity." Bullshit. As LoWa has pointed out, the Vedas are all about colorism and preventing children of mixed blood between castes. Why is he using the term 'genetically pure' rather than saying they were foreign invaders who became a priestly caste of rulers? They were the ones insisting on genetic purity among themselves.
For LoWa, here's my comment showing that the Set Pharaohs had red hair: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/year-of-the-goddess/comment/115898854. This was to validate Merlin's research that red-headed men were sacrificed annually at the tomb of Osiris, which may have been in Canaan since that's where Set entombed his body in a tree.
He writes, "It is highly doubtful that they were blonde or blue-eyed, and they had no connection with the racial fantasies propagated by modern bigots. The conflation of race with language and the assignment of superiority to certain language-and-race groups were critical missteps that led to these distortions." So he ridicules the 'Goddess writers' for saying these were warlike invaders, and then conflates superiority and racial fantasies with the idea that we can't discern race from language. How can a linguist say that? That's their whole job, figuring out anthropology from language clues.
And then there's a linguist who says you can't know anything from a skull type, even one in a tomb inscribed with that language.
So what we're looking for are tall, arrogant red-headed men who think they're sky gods. I'm still entertaining the Irish Atlanteans: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/a-royal-flush-and-irish-pharaohs. But I think they picked up their myth-making scribes and weapon-making charioteers here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizzuwatna.
You give me a lot to think about, Crow. I really do appreciate all the good clues, even when I don't agree with their con-clue-sions ;-)
I would highly recommend reading David Anthony's book. I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet because it gets very granular (as is appropriate for such an authoritative work).
We actually know quite a lot about the Proto-Indo-Europeans, I don't know why you would say "PIE is a placeholder for "we have no fucking idea"". Given that we're talking about prehistory, it's truly impressive how much linguists have been able to reconstruct. The "Eureka Moment of Linguistics" was probably the greatest archaeological discovery of all time.
As you may have guessed, the words Deus and Zeus come from the PIE word Dyeus.
You might want to look at comparative mythology - some people have reconstructed a PIE mythology... I haven't looked into that yet.
The PIE had female deities, for the way - one called Earth Mother and another called Sky Daughter.
As for women inventing agriculture and writing, I have no idea what you're talking about. No one knows who invented agriculture, and the Goddess-worshipping cultures of Old Europe didn't have writing. And I'm not sure what you mean about their "civilizations" being more "advanced". To me, civilization means a way of life characterized by the growth of cities, so I don't think that the Neolithic farmers of Old Europe were civilized. Furthermore, they certainly weren't more technologically advanced than the PIE... so what you seem to be doing is making sweeping judgements about entire cultures based on extremely fragmentary evidence.
I really would encourage you to read Merlin Stone more critically. I don't know about her in particular, but I know that the Goddess movement in general was somewhat overzealous in their attempts to create an alternative history of the world. They were driven by a desire to create a feminist Mythos, and played fast and loose with the facts in their haste to prove their theory.
A good example of this would be The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, a book that I loved in my early twenties. Turns out that it is full of errors.
When I raise objections, you tell me to read Anthony's 'authoritative work.' Those words are very contradictory, Crow, for an anarchist, who shouldn't be giving their own authority over to anyone. Yet when I cite from Merlin Stone's book, you tell me to read her more critically. That's like saying, "Go find out for yourself where you're wrong. I can't be bothered."
Anthony's positions are perfectly aligned with the social system we have. Are you happy with that? Do you see no need for alternatives? If you define civilization as the growth of cities and urban centralization, I'm looking for the antidote to civilization.
But I will go back to LoWa's original point. The phrase 'proto-Indo-Europeans' is a nonsense term. It's asking who came before the indigenous people of the world's most populous continent, with only Russia and China left out.
What I'm trying to find is who, through ruthless violence, destroyed the matrilineal, matrilocal, matrifocal Goddess societies that enabled humanity to survive for its first 9500 years. I'd like your help in answering that question because I think it's key to unraveling the religio-economic story that keeps us stuck. We think it's the way things have always been and always will be. It blocks us from even imagining the matrifocal anarchist economic system in my book.
From the linguistic root of Dyeus, the usurpers of Greek mythology created Zeus and the usurpers of the Goddess created Deus for the Catholic Empire. And once again, I think you should speak from your own perspective: "I have no idea what you're talking about" rather than "No one has any idea who invented agriculture and the Goddess cultures ... didn't have writing."
You're speaking as if you're the authority. You can revoke my credentials as a housewife, which are the only ones I claim, but I don't give you the authority to decide what 'fragmentary clues' I apply and what answers I find unsatisfactory. That's not me being a feminist and being 'driven by a desire to create a feminist Mythos.' That is insulting to women you haven't even read. That's me using my sovereign right to think for myself. You're telling me that I'm being irrational and uncritical in my reading of Stone, 'playing fast and loose.' I don't accept that characterization of me as someone who doesn't apply research and logic. When you say things or cite sources I disagree with, I talk about the ideas. I don't demean your ability to think.
It's contradictory, to me, that your adopted home of Cheran has made the mythology that conquered it into its mandatory religion, when it was the grandmothers who stood up to the drug cartels and government. If anyone should have a feminist Mythos, it's Cheran.
I think that we should agree to disagree about archaeology. I appreciate a lot of what you do, and I think that these exchanges have become increasingly hostile. I'm not trying to fight with you.
There are many things on which we have common ground...
Can we leave it at that for now?
I like you tremendously, Crow. I have no hostility towards you. You're smart, original, intellectually curious. You're committed and live with a level of integrity few have. You've been extremely generous to me, including me in your fine circle and even inviting me to your wedding! It's that depth of goodwill between us that causes me to challenge your ideas and those of your sources. If anyone can work through these arguments, which I define as a productive disagreement, it should be us. First, like the person you're arguing with. Check!
I'm glad you feel that way... I thought maybe things were getting a little too heated. Speaking of my wedding, you missed out on an awesome party! Apparently I'm the first gringo in history to have a 3-day Purépecha wedding! I think I'll write something about it soon...
Wreck 0'Mended:
SAHARASIA. The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and
Social Violence in the Deserts of the Old World.
By: James DeMeo ... (http://www.saharasia.org)
I just ordered that book from a recommendation on my stack. Thanks for the confirmation!
You mean The Horse, The Wheel, and Language? It's a superb work of scholarship. Proof that not all archaeologists have their heads up their asses, lol.
Oh I meant Saharasia.
Sounds like a similar thesis to Ishmael and The Story of B