A possible Homeland of the Indo-European Languages

orcid.org/0000-0001-9527-0553

[Summary: To answer this question, Hans J.J.G. Holm combines a comprehensive analysis of wheel finds with his decades of interdisciplinary research into the genesis and spread of the Indo-Europeans.

A linguistic connection between the wheel finds and the Indo-Europeans exists in the names given to the wheel and even the entire carriage terminology that have been identified as proto/pre-Indo-European / identified as Proto-Indo-European, which presupposes the existence of the corresponding technology - which requires the existence of the corresponding technology. Due to their good spatial and temporal determinability, the wheel finds presented here on a uniquely large scope/scale play the central role in estimating the period and region of origin. Thus, the original language should have also been spoken in the archaeologically attested locations and times. - This estimation is supported by glottochronological calculations (projecting the change in designations over time) using Bayesian probability methodology, which can also handle changing substitution rates. - The picture is backed up by the latest findings in population genetics. Only this can reliably prove population movements, which is illustrated in a full-page color graphic. This includes the genetics of horses of horses, which have always been seen in close connection to the Indo-Europeans. Last but not least, potential influences of the environmental conditions are also being investigated. As early as 2011, the author was able to prove the validity of the temperature fluctuations derived from Greenland ice core drillings for the North Atlantic-determined climate of Europe through the astonishing congruence with the tree lines in the Alps and layer analyses in Upper Italian lake bed drillings. - Ultimately, it emerges that functional wheels were not invented at some point, but were developed over centuries.
+ With these comprehensive scientific informations, the book provides a unique and indispensable basis for all further considerations on this exciting topic +]

[Abstract: The role that the cartwheel played in the life of the Indo-Europeans has primarily been studied from the perspective of specialists, often without sufficient consideration of the other fields involved. Therefore, we here present an archaeological list of the oldest wheel finds (before ca. 2000 BCE) with regard to the most accurate dating, location, and construction type that now contains 130 representative finds between the North Sea, Central Asia, and India. We then elaborated the five wheel designations in the Indo-European main families, espe-cially in terms of onomasiological aspects. In order to relate both results to the development of the Indo-European languages, chronological scaffolding is needed, for which we bring in a recent glottochronological calculation of the Indo-European subdivisions. This already leads us to conclusions about the age of some designations, as well as clear parallels to certain construction types. In addition, on this updated basis, two often-discussed questions are addressed. With regard to the separation of the (Indo-European) Anatolians and Tocharians, there are many indications that this had taken place around the Caucasus from the eastern primary branch. Finally, the hypotheses for the “invention” of the wheel are replaced by the far more realistic one of a long-lasting development in a wide communicational area.] Correction: I apologize for the typo in footnote 5, please correct the Name to S(usanne) Kuprella.

[Abstract: Despite dozens of hypotheses, the origin and development of the Indo-European language family are still under debate. A glottochronological approach to this problem using Bayesian computation of language divergence dates (appeared in Science 2012/2013) claimed to have provided evidence for the period of Neolithic expansion, known as the "Anatolian hypothesis". The dates have met with considerable criticism from other disciplines. I decided to investigate the alleged evidence for these dates by replicating and analyzing the approach with an own, updated dataset. This initially resulted in an origin around 4800 B. C., although the structure of the pedigrees varied considerably in several hundred tests. This problem was avoided in previous approaches by rigorous topological forcing. Because verbs are known to be the least susceptible to borrowing, I decided to propose a phylogenetic tree from the best available Indo-European data set with over 1,100 verbal roots, which initially did not include a chronology, as "cladistic constraints". This resulted in a first (west-east) split at a mean date of 4100 BC. During these tests, a further approach (Language, 2015) located a date of origin from between 3950 - 4740 BC. One of the insights of that study was that previous results were significantly disrupted by poorly attested languages, which thus were consistently removed step by step. These dates reflect the most recent state of knowledge in linguistics, archaeology and genetics in favor of the "Steppe Hypothesis". A new archaeological-linguistic comparison of the wheel terminology, a primary argument for the divergence date, shows that different Indo-European denotations coincide in different areas with different types of wheel-axle constructions. Finally, the cultures lying on the possible dispersal routes and times are superimposed as an overlay on the calculated phylogenetic tree, without, however, postulating their Indo-European character in every case.]

[Abstract: In the last decade, several scholars pretended to have finally solved the subgrouping of Indo-European by new lexicostatistical attempts. The public, of course, was not able to perceive the questionable outcomes, of which the different and idiosyncratic positions of Albanian are in particular conspicuous. One reason for this are the inadequate methods, simply copied from bioinformatics (cf. Holm, H. J. 2007b). That defective data contribute a lot to these mistakes, is now here first demonstrated by analyzing the Albanian part of three representative lists frequently employed in these studies: The presumably thirteen percent mistakes there mix inextricably with the overlooked stochastic dispersion. The study includes seventeen new etymologies are proposed, however, thirty percent of the list remain unsolved or questionably. Moreover, the high amount of recent replacements in Albanian is one more compelling argument against the rate assumption in glottochronology.] (Deutsche Zusammenfassung siehe 2009)

[Abstract: Schmidt/Gruhle present with their so-called "growth homogeneity" - here: by central European oak sites - a good indicator for wet-warm versus dry-cold years. This proves at least for the North Atlantic region, among other things, by the relatively good correlation both with the fluctuations of the tree borders in the Alps and with the temperature courses readable from Greenland ice core drillings. In contrast, the claimed good correlation with solar radiation (insolation) turns out to be the result of too short-term considerations or even erroneous interpretation of solar activity.]

[Abstract: Linguists use to assume that languages were closer related, the more features, in particular common innovations, they share. In Holm (2003) has been demonstrated that this assumption is erroneous because these researchers miss the fact that the amount of shared agreements depends stochastically upon three more parameters. Only by help of the maximum likelihood estimator of the hypergeometric distribution we are able to find the amount of features, which must have been present in both languages at the era of their separation. This way we obtain a chain of separation between a family of languages for which the appropriate data is available. When applied to data of the Pokorny IEW, the resulting late separation of Hittite, Albanian and Armenian could well have been caused by their central position and therefore did not appear suspicious. Only when in a further application to Mixe-Zoquean data the same observation occurred that poorly documented languages appeared to separate late, a systematic bias could be suspected. This work reveals the reason for this bias peculiar to lists of natural languages, as opposed to stochastically normal distributed test cases like those presented in Holm 2007a. As more modern and linguistic reliable database the new "Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben", 2nd.ed. (Rix et al. 2001) was the best choice. Indeed the suspicion was confirmed and it is shown how these biased data can be correctly projected to true separation amounts. The result is a partly new chain of separation for the main Indo-European branches, which fits well to the grammatical facts, as well as to the geographical distribution of these branches. In particular it clearly demonstrates that the Anatolian languages did not part as first ones and thereby refutes the „Indo-Hittite hypothesis“.]

[Abstract: Specialization in the fields of linguistics vs. biological informatics leads to growing misunderstandings and false results caused by poor knowledge of the essential conditions of the applied respective methods and material. These are analyzed and the insights used to assess the recent glut of attempts in establishing new phylogenies of Indo-European languages.]

[Abstract: After many years of testing, and facing many competing methods, the Separation Level Recovery method (Holm 2000, passim) has been refined in terms of its stochastic and linguistic data requirements. It has been tested on how stochastic scatter can be distinguished from bad data and how data should be improved.]

[Inhalt: 1. Wann sind Sprachen "verwandt"? 2. Datenbewertung; 3. Beziehungsmaße; 3.1. Synchrone Beziehungsmaße; 3.2. Diachrone Beziehungsmaße; 4. Strukturierung genealogischer Abhängigkeiten.]

[Abstract: With the help of an experiment it is shown that the raw amount of agreements (e. g. cognate numbers) between any two languages can never express their degree of genealogical relationship. It is then demonstrated, how, by taking into account all statistical determining parameters, the original level of any pair and further the correct subgroupings can be recovered].

[Abstract: In former quantitative analyses of genealogical relations between languages the systematic bias caused by substitutions has not adequately been eliminated, which could only lead to false results. Only after registration of the huge and thereby only statistically significant data material of J. Pokorny's "Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch" (Bern: Francke, 1959) in N. Bird's "Distribution of Indo-European root morphemes" (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1982) it became possible, in spite of its known shortcomings, to estimate the amount of lexemes having been present at the era of separation for every pair of sister languages with help of a robust estimator, and consequently to conclude upon the chain of separations.]