About Proto-Germanic

[PopGenist82]

PopGenetist82:

“You did change the position of Samoyedic in the Tree, did you not ? This idea has not exactly taken off.”

I demonstrated that (1) lexical level is prone to several distorting processes, which diminish its value for taxonomic purposes (https://journal.fi/fuf/article/view/85674/44638); (2) that the assumed Proto-Finno-Ugric sound changes seem implausible (https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/19684); (3) that Samoyedic shares sound changes with Ugric branches Hungarian, Mansi, and Khanty (most recently https://www.academia.edu/103067313/An_ol...metal_name).

Recent view of Grünthal et al. 2022 is based on the absence of earlier than Late Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwords in Samoyedic, and I agree that it seems highly improbable that all 14 words could have been later disappeared from Samoyedic. However, this cannot disprove the evidence in other levels of language, like the shared sound changes – we have to take into account all the evidence, not only part of it. These pieces of evidence are both nonsimultaneous and concern different levels of language. Therefore, I present in my forthcoming article a new, more precise model to account for all the valid relevant evidence: there will be several stages of disintegration between uniform Late Proto-Uralic and its daughter branches.

PopGenetist82:

“I'm content with the discussion to date, if we can call it that.”

Do you mean that you will not tell us on which question in Lang’s model you disagree and why? OK, it is your choice, then.

PopGenetist82:

“Anyhow, I suspect you came here to be told how amazing you are by Angles, instead he got a serving of me. So ill leave you all to it.”

You should never try to assess other people based on your own inner motivations; it usually goes all wrong. But I hope you will continue discussing here; although it would be nice if you gave more supporting arguments and evidence for your claims and accusations.

I don't have to describe linguistic methodology, because Im not a theoretical linguists. But I understand the principles, and have read widely the different persepctives on language families. I also have an excellent grasp of contact linguistics, perhaps better than most linguists.

When it comes to unfurling how people - which are ultimately the speakers of the languages you study - that is the role of anthropologist. Those in that pursuit are not re-inventing the wheel, merely attempting to acurately contextualise the how when and why.

Finally, to answer the same question for the fifth time - there was no Bronze Age Nordic migration to the East Baltic, but there was one from the Baltic to Scandinavia c. 2800 BC.
I'm sure Lang will accept that, I dont see why you should't either. (Otherwise I have no issues with the rest of his discussions)

[Rodoorn]

I advocate a population approach - the glottogenesis of proto-Germanic must be where the proto-Germanic tribes coalesced.
The dominance of R1b-U106 and I1, now attested beyond dispute in Iron Age and Roman era Germanic and Nordic people, places the Germanic homeland centred on Jutland (but being more expansive than that) within the cultural context of the NBA.

The Baltic zone & central -eastern Sweden are a periphery. Lang’s thesis about Bronze Age Germanic colonists in the east Baltic is in serious need of update, as they’re clearly “Balto-Slavs”.

Bit short of time so short story. With regard to R1b U106 the oldest sample is PLN001, just after 2900 BC from the upper Elbe in Bohemia.  That sample is pure Steppe like. From the same Elbe the Single Grave people went also short after 2900 BC to the North Sea area, see Egfjørd (2021). See also the works of Iain mc Donald.

For I1 are better experts around here, Jonik, an JmcB, but the short story there is that  I-M253 emerged in NBA. Isn't it Jonik and JmcB?

The data points can be observed easily. I1 moved into into Scandinavia from the continent, as there is an I1 individual from German TRB. This is consistent with genome-wide models which show a 'southwestern' shift from early Swedish battle Axe to the Flint Dagger horizon. 

In considering glottogenesis using a 'population approach', there are two phases : 

A) the formation phase : the embryonic brewing, mixing and assimilating of tribes which would eventually coalsece into a future coherent group

This can be illustrated :
In the case of Germanic, the formative phase took at least 800 years, begning with an early wave from the East Baltic, then the wave from northwestern Europe
This unique history explains the position of Germanic within the IE tree. As a comparison, I have also illustrated the distinctive formation of the East Baltic cairns, for jaska's & JMcB's benefit.
Lastly, to sooth the evidence for Saami-Germanic loans, I have illustrated in purple the routes of contact between the northern periphery of Germania (central-east Sweden) and their contacts with trade partners further to the northeast.

[image] [/image]

B) the expansion phase: successful and widespread languages must have had a mechanism to enact their expansion., usually entailing at least some migration
There's nothing new here, we know the historic migrations of Germanic groups, although the quesiton of LBA exodus from Scandinavia needs to be further assessed. Unlike Poland & the Scandinavian regions, Germany remains under-sampled for the post-BB period.

Thanks, illustrative nice. Some quick remarks. I associate I1- and the sample you mention is the Ostorf one I presume?- with Ertebölle. TRB on  the North German Plain is in fact Ertebölle people, just little admixed with EEF,  that spread about 3400 BC all over the place (unto almost the Rhine in NE Dutch). I guess that some lines survived the IE influx and made furore in NBA. Are they responsible for the TRB component in Germanic like I thought it was what Kroonen supposed? And mark that the Schönfeld culture along the Elbe is for most part a TRB offshoot....

Ertebölle in red:



But you have forgotten the Single Grave people and culture! As mentioned the oldest R1bU106 just after 2900 BC buried besides the upper Elbe was really in pole position. He was autosomal pure Steppe. Just after 2900 BC (mostly placed 2850 BC) there was a very decisive IE influx from- what is later on called Single Grave Culture (SGC). Via the Elbe -Egfjørd (2021) places the departure point in Elbe-Saale (Halle area)- they ended up in the line Northern Netherlands - Jutland (western part Denmark, the Isles stayed TRB). I guess no Germanic without the IE  of these SGC people!! They were absolutely the game changer from genetic as in linguistic/ cultural perspective.

In fact the Bell Beakers were an offshoot of these SGC people (admixed with some TRB heirs). From the Ore mountains to the North Sea this became one big amalgam and mixture. As can be seen already by the title of this book of archeologist Lanting who spend a life time researching the BB:

Lanting (2013) Eight grave finds from the Veluwe Bell Beaker Group as a starting point for chronological reflections on the relationships between Saalisch-Bohemian Schnurkeramik, Single Grave Culture, Bell Beaker East Group and Dutch-West German Bell Beaker groups.

From this melting pot the front running  BA culture Unetice Middle Elbe Saale emerged. As VandKilde shows the rich kingly graves of this culture have resemblance with the hoards in Southern Sweden. In LN/EBA especially in SW Scania the villages were build cc of the Unetice culture. The spread of R1b U106 is very well connected to this. It is presumable that in this circuit of North Central Europe that also tips Southern Scandinavia, 'Ur Germanic' c.q. Pre-Germanic (*1900 BC>) was may be used a lingua Franca?

[PopGenist82]

@ Rodoorn

Yes that’s it ! Ostoorf
U106 is in there, I didn’t forget it

[Anglesqueville]

The last sentence of popgenist82's post #30 is quite comical. I don't really see how the welcome given by an amateur like me could change the life of a professional like Jaska. As for my point of view, it is entirely based on the awareness I have of being precisely an amateur, for which the presence of an authentic professional is, not felt, but objectively judged as a privilege. I add, including when the opinions of this professional undermine theories in which the amateur places, or had placed, a lot of hope. It's simply called intellectual rigour.
About the essentials (very quickly because I'm running out of time this morning):
1) Nobody (not even Lang himself) says that the Estonian and Latvian coasts were homogeneously populated by people speaking pre- or proto-Germanic when the first speakers of pre-Balto-Finnic appeared, undoubtedly at the same time as the first Tarand graves. The presence in the stone cist graves of individuals undoubtedly heirs of the groups identified as Baltic_BA is neither surprising nor disturbing for Lang's theses. Furthermore, I have already stated what my position is with regard to these theses.
2) I had in the old forum concentrated all the theses that I proposed to a core that I named "MT" ("minimal thesis"):

Minimal Thesis (MT)
In the second part of the first millennium B.C. was spoken in Mälaren a language for which our reconstructed proto-Germanic is a good proxy.

I don't see how any consideration about U106 or I1 could be toxic with regard to this "minimal thesis". This thesis says nothing about the genesis of Proto-Germanic. As for this genesis, it is perhaps still necessary to recall the obvious: if we take as a starting point the first vocalic mutations which signal (in theory) the departure of the branch from core-IE, this genesis took place over at least a millennium. To speak of the PGmc as if it were what Folcwalding several times called a "brand new language" would be nonsense. The PGmc is, in the course of this genesis, at most a final phase, or by misuse of language a last dialect, in fact, nothing more than an "accent". It turns out that this “accent” benefited from a triumphant fashion, which allowed it to spread in a space that was well prepared for it. (There is indeed no doubt in my mind that throughout Scandinavia, Denmark and coastal Finland, northern Germany, coastal Poland, and even perhaps North Estonia, was (were) spoken by the end of the first millennium B.C. (a) language(s) belonging to the late pre-Germanic phase(s)). I don't see how the origin of U106 and I1 could interfere with all this. U106 and I1 could ultimately come from Tanzania, that wouldn't change anything. As for saying that I1 comes from continental Europe because... Ostorf (!) (and U106 also because... PNL001), that's pretty comical.

[Jaska]

PopGenetist82:

“I don't have to describe linguistic methodology, because Im not a theoretical linguists. But I understand the principles, and have read widely the different persepctives on language families. I also have an excellent grasp of contact linguistics, perhaps better than most linguists.
When it comes to unfurling how people - which are ultimately the speakers of the languages you study - that is the role of anthropologist. Those in that pursuit are not re-inventing the wheel, merely attempting to acurately contextualise the how when and why.”

Indeed, anthropologists and sociolinguists concern themselves with questions “how” and “why”. But this can be done only after historical linguists have answered the questions “when” and “where”. Other way round it does not work.

I wanted you to tell us about methodology concerning your population approach, just like I wrote - not about linguistic methodology. 

PopGenetist82:

“Finally, to answer the same question for the fifth time - there was no Bronze Age Nordic migration to the East Baltic, but there was one from the Baltic to Scandinavia c. 2800 BC.
I'm sure Lang will accept that, I dont see why you should't either. (Otherwise I have no issues with the rest of his discussions)”

Naturally, an answer is insufficient without evidence. So, what is your evidence? Here are arguments supporting movement from Scandinavia to the East Baltic Region in the Bronze Age:

- Scandinavian grave types (Stone Cist graves and ship-shaped graves) and other cultural traits from the Nordic Bronze Age culture.

- “When comparing Estonian CWC and EstBA using autosomal outgroup f3 and Patterson’s D statistics, the latter is more similar to other Baltic BA populations, to Baltic IA and
Middle Age (MA) populations, and also to populations similar to WHGs and Scandinavian hunter-gatherers (SHGs), but not to Estonian CCC. The increase in WHG or SHG ancestry could be connected to western influences seen in material culture and facilitated by a decline in local population after the CCC-CWC period.” (Saag et al. 2019: 2)

[PopGenist82]

Naturally, an answer is insufficient without evidence. So, what is your evidence? Here are arguments supporting movement from Scandinavia to the East Baltic Region in the Bronze Age:

- Scandinavian grave types (Stone Cist graves and ship-shaped graves) and other cultural traits from the Nordic Bronze Age culture.

- “When comparing Estonian CWC and EstBA using autosomal outgroup f3 and Patterson’s D statistics, the latter is more similar to other Baltic BA populations, to Baltic IA and
Middle Age (MA) populations, and also to populations similar to WHGs and Scandinavian hunter-gatherers (SHGs), but not to Estonian CCC. The increase in WHG or SHG ancestry could be connected to western influences seen in material culture and facilitated by a decline in local population after the CCC-CWC period.” (Saag et al. 2019: 2)

The first is not proof of anything,. Stone cists are found in Dalmatia as well. Are they from Sweden ? 
The second point I'm afraid doesnt support any of your contentions either. I already explained the proof before and it's understandible to anyone with a basic grasp of genetics.

Indeed, anthropologists and sociolinguists concern themselves with questions “how” and “why”. But this can be done only after historical linguists have answered the questions “when” and “where”. Other way round it does not work.

The migration aDNA has outlined is consistent with when and where. If you do not accept that, then I guess you propose that Fino-Uralic blew in with the wind rather than human beings.
Moreover, you're over confident in your 'linguistic dating', its only as robust as the archaeological foundations it is built. Given that some members of this forum are still of the view that the Baltic bronze age was Germanic, and Fatyanovo Baltic, an open reappraisal of the view points must be undertaken

[Rodoorn]

PopGenetist82:

You should never try to assess other people based on your own inner motivations; it usually goes all wrong. But I hope you will continue discussing here; although it would be nice if you gave more supporting arguments and evidence for your claims and accusations.

@Jaska I absolutely  agree with your comment. Nevertheless I empathize with popgenetist82 in this respect. Imo the role of a 'super moderator' is more restricted than of a member. Sometimes I get the impression it's either lick (in your case) or kick (like in the case of popgenetist), a more neutral ("super moderator like") tone would be appreciated. Just a side remark, let's stay on topic, it's very interesting now!!!!

[Jaska]

PopGenetist82:

“The first is not proof of anything,. Stone cists are found in Dalmatia as well. Are they from Sweden?”

Stone cist is a general expression, and there can be different kinds of this type of general grave structure. Are the Dalmatian stone cists similar to the Swedish stone cists? Can you present any archaeological study which claims that they are?

PopGenetist82:

“The second point I'm afraid doesnt support any of your contentions either. I already explained the proof before and it's understandible to anyone with a basic grasp of genetics.”

It is much stronger evidence than the zero evidence you have provided.
You did not explain the proof – you wrote this:

“I really would have thought that every enthusiast studying the region would be aware that the BA East Baltic groups, according to present state of evidence, were not Scandinavians.  it has been discussed in forums and detailed in publications for several years now. This is easily demonstrable by the fact that the individuals from Bronze Age Latvia have ancestry from gained from Narva culture or other such HG-rich groups. They do not derive from Sweden or Scandinavia.”

This is just a strawman: you are talking about SOME people in the Bronze Age East Baltic Region and erroneously think that this could disprove the presence of OTHER people there and then. It cannot, and you know this. So, stop beating your own strawman and please present some evidence supporting your claim that there was no movement from Scandinavia.

PopGenetist82:

“The migration aDNA has outlined is consistent with when and where, it is only inconsistent with yours & Parpolas model, which is unsupportable unless you wish to propose that Fino-Uralic blew in with the wind rather than human beings.”

There is no point for you throwing such vague claims, if you cannot support them with arguments and evidence. Please tell us what do you think that I and Parpola have presented and how and why it is wrong. Then we could probably also see, are you or are you not trying to read language from DNA.

PopGenetist82:

“Moreover, you're over confident in your 'linguistic dating', its only as robust as the archaeological foundations it is built. Given that some members of this forum are still of the view that the Baltic bronze age was Germanic, and Fatyanovo Baltic, an open reappraisal of the view points must be undertaken”

No, I am not overconfident. Please try to explain why do you think so? Empty claims are fruitless.

[Rodoorn]

Minimal Thesis (MT)
In the second part of the first millennium B.C. was spoken in Mälaren a language for which our reconstructed proto-Germanic is a good proxy.

With regard to your MT thesis I have these craveats:
- 'our' PGmc is a reconstructed language, is not a living language, so in these form probably nowhere spoken;
- as you already have stated old Norse has had more impact on the reconstruction than the other Germanic, so high risk of 'circle reasoning';
- PGmc was also spoken in other parts of Scandinavia as of North Central Europe, in reality it was most probably not 'one size fits all' there were more 'dialects' some of them haven't reached the level of being written down....(gone with the wind);
- so if it is a good proxy: we will never know!

[PopGenist82]

PopGenetist82:

PopGenetist82:
[quote]
“I really would have thought that every enthusiast studying the region would be aware that the BA East Baltic groups, according to present state of evidence, were not Scandinavians.  it has been discussed in forums and detailed in publications for several years now. This is easily demonstrable by the fact that the individuals from Bronze Age Latvia have ancestry from gained from Narva culture or other such HG-rich groups. They do not derive from Sweden or Scandinavia.”

This is just a strawman: you are talking about SOME people in the Bronze Age East Baltic Region and erroneously think that this could disprove the presence of OTHER people there and then. It cannot, and you know this. So, stop beating your own strawman and please present some evidence supporting your claim that there was no movement from Scandinavia.

The burden of evidence falls on you to prove that there are. At present there is no evidence for this. It shows the opposite - migrations from Latvia to Sweden.

The evidence also evidence shows that these late Bronze Age peoples of the East Baltic came from eastern Poland, Belarus and such regions. 

The evidence also shows that F-U speaking populations are bound by Ancestry from the Kolyma basin and they began arriving west of the Urals after 1600 BC. It also shows that Samoyedic people have no western ancestry, therefore they could not have arrived from west of the Urals

Put together, this data strongly supports the views held by Ante Aiko, Jaha Janhunen, Napolskih, Kuzmin. etc

This is what the evidence shows, it is not my pre-determined position, or anything personal against you.

[Rodoorn]

[/image]

@Popgen, what about this picture in relationship to the one above?
The koiné as suggested by VandKilde:



Your see a big part into your Balto-Slavic area....

Besides that. What is koine?  Brittanica: "Also spelled koiné, originally, a contact variety of the Greek language that was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean region during the Hellenic and Roman empires. The term comes from the Greek koine (“common” or “shared”)."

I know that VandKilde most probably meant it as common or shared (in archeological sense). But I like the idea of the first sentence.

I want to change it in a MT thesis:

The Unetice koiné (2100 BC- 1500 BC)  was a contact variety of the Pre-Germanic language that was spoken throughout North Central Europe and Southern Scandinavia.

[Jaska]

PopGenetist82:

“The burden of evidence falls on you to prove that there are. At present there is no evidence for this. It shows the opposite - migrations from Latvia to Sweden.”

I already showed evidence supporting movement from Scandinavia. Do I have to repeat myself? I am still waiting for your evidence which could disprove - this burden is on you. So, can you prove that the people in the Estonian Stone Cist graves have no ancestry from Scandinavia?

PopGenetist82:

“The evidence also evidence shows that these late Bronze Age peoples of the East Baltic came from eastern Poland, Belarus and such regions.”

So? This concerns SOME people there. This cannot disprove the presence of OTHER people there. How you cannot understand this?

PopGenetist82:

“The evidence also shows that F-U speaking populations are bound by Ancestry from the Kolyma basin and they began arriving west of the Urals after 1600 BC. It also shows that Samoyedic people have no western ancestry, therefore they could not have arrived from west of the Urals”

1. Please give me source for that dating 1600 BC. Siberian ancestry arrived in the Kola Peninsula (BOO) already much earlier than that.
2. There are also other ancestries widespread in the Uralic populations. There is no evidence so far that the Siberian component was involved in already Proto-Uralic dispersal. You cannot just ignore the linguistic results and decide that there is a connection - that is unscientific.
3. Samoyedic people are very diverse – only Nganasans (highly drifted population) apparently do not have visible western ancestry. Selkups and Nenets seem to have European ancestry, see Tambets et al. 2018.

PopGenetist82:

“Put together, this data strongly supports the views held by Ante Aiko, Jaha Janhunen, Napolskih, Kuzmin. etc. This is what the evidence shows, it is not my pre-determined position, or anything personal against you.”

What views do you mean, and how do those views differ from my view? As I said, you cannot disprove a view until you know what that view really is and which evidence it is based on.

[Anglesqueville]

PopGenetist82:

You should never try to assess other people based on your own inner motivations; it usually goes all wrong. But I hope you will continue discussing here; although it would be nice if you gave more supporting arguments and evidence for your claims and accusations.

@Jaska I absolutely  agree with your comment. Nevertheless I empathize with popgenetist82 in this respect. Imo the role of a 'super moderator' is more restricted than of a member. Sometimes I get the impression it's either lick (in your case) or kick (like in the case of popgenetist), a more neutral ("super moderator like") tone would be appreciated. Just a side remark, let's stay on topic, it's very interesting now!!!!

I find this remark absolutely extravagant. I consider that I was completely in the role of a "super moderator" when I welcomed the presence on a linguistics thread of a recognized professional in the relevant fields. Moreover, I made this remark not as a moderator but in a personal capacity, namely, as I have already said, as an amateur aware of his limits and happy to know that he himself will be moderated if necessary. In this, I don't see anything that should be changed. Obviously, if you consider that I am going beyond the constraints of a position that I accepted without having run for it, you can always confide in the administrators.

[Anglesqueville]

Rodoorn wrote: " The data points can be observed easily. I1 moved into into Scandinavia from the continent, as there is an I1 individual from German TRB. This is consistent with genome-wide models which show a 'southwestern' shift from early Swedish battle Axe to the Flint Dagger horizon. "
Please elaborate, for example by posting these genome-wide models or a link to them. There's nothing of this sort in Allentoft 2022 (in the case you were alluding to this) because precisely the data that leads Allentoft to discern three phases is not genome-wide but "patterns of pairwise IBD-sharing and Y-chromosome haplogroup distributions". Nobody should forget the beginning of the sentence: "Although the overall population genomic signatures suggest genetic stability ...". As for the "patterns of pairwise IBD-sharing", I've already expressed my doubts (that are far from being only mine), noticing that these patterns show me as overwhelmingly Finnish (despite the fact that I've in my genealogy nothing more than a g-g-g-mother Finnish).

[Rodoorn]

PopGenetist82:

You should never try to assess other people based on your own inner motivations; it usually goes all wrong. But I hope you will continue discussing here; although it would be nice if you gave more supporting arguments and evidence for your claims and accusations.

@Jaska I absolutely  agree with your comment. Nevertheless I empathize with popgenetist82 in this respect. Imo the role of a 'super moderator' is more restricted than of a member. Sometimes I get the impression it's either lick (in your case) or kick (like in the case of popgenetist), a more neutral ("super moderator like") tone would be appreciated. Just a side remark, let's stay on topic, it's very interesting now!!!!

I find this remark absolutely extravagant. I consider that I was completely in the role of a "super moderator" when I welcomed the presence on a linguistics thread of a recognized professional in the relevant fields. Moreover, I made this remark not as a moderator but in a personal capacity, namely, as I have already said, as an amateur aware of his limits and happy to know that he himself will be moderated if necessary. In this, I don't see anything that should be changed. Obviously, if you consider that I am going beyond the constraints of a position that I accepted without having run for it, you can always confide in the administrators.

Remember that you are 'the super moderator', which entails imo responsibilities. And you can take in the comments responsively or let them slide. You choose the latter, I'm not surprised. Soit.