As a former philologist (but not a historical linguist) I think for me the primary argument for a shallow (Steppe) as opposed to deep (Anatolian) dating of PIE is vibes-based. I agree with the other counterarguments raised in the article about sound shifts etc., but the main thing for me is that when one reads Homer, the Rig Veda, and the Twelve Tables side by side, one gets the distinct hard-to-articulate impression that these texts were produced by closely related cultures. I could point to discrete things like how patriarchal they were (even by ancient standards), the importance attached to herding and poetry, etc. But the vibe is more than that, and it's really hard to convey unless you've done work in the original languages. So, this comment is probably pretty unhelpful.
Bluestein|1 year ago
That, in itself is a very interesting fact, fascinating.-
linearrust|1 year ago
With more DNA data, we wouldn't necessarily need linguistic characteristics to chart language ancestory, we could also look at the DNA evidence.
> one reads Homer, the Rig Veda, and the Twelve Tables side by side, one gets the distinct hard-to-articulate impression that these texts were produced by closely related cultures.
We know that the romans borrowed heavily from the greeks. That rome and greeks were closely related is well known. Everything from law to literature to religion. Not sure about the Rig Veda.
> I could point to discrete things like how patriarchal they were (even by ancient standards), the importance attached to herding and poetry, etc.
That describes a lot of cultures.
interiorchurch|1 year ago
DNA evidence tends to favor the Steppe hypothesis.
> We know that the romans borrowed heavily from the greeks. That rome and greeks were closely related is well known. Everything from law to literature to religion. Not sure about the Rig Veda.
There are in fact some instances where Archaic Rome is closer to Vedic India than it is to Greece - the horse sacrifice, regulations around high priests and kings, etc. You can dismiss the similarities between Greece and Rome as due to borrowing, but you can't do the same with Rome and India.
> That describes a lot of cultures.
I specifically said those discrete elements weren't sufficient to convey the "vibe", so yeah.