Re: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> Science24 August 2012:
> Vol. 337 no. 6097 pp. 957-960
> DOI: 10.1126/science.1219669
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6097/957.full
>
> There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European
> language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An
> alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia
> with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic
> vocabulary data from 103 ancient and contemporary
> Indo-European languages, to explicitly model the expansion of the family and test these hypotheses. We found decisive support for an
> Anatolian origin over a steppe origin. Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an
> agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago.
> These results highlight the critical role that
> phylogeographic inference can play in resolving debates about human
> prehistory.
>
> ps: The main result is the phylogeography: First branch, Anatolian; second branch, Tocharo-Armenian; third branch, Indo-Iranian + Greco-Albanian; 4th branch, Balto-Slavic, and last branches, Germanic, Italic and Celtic. I'd like to see you comments..

"Tocharo-Armenian" makes no sense. Tocharian, like Anatolian, has unmetathesized thorn-clusters. Armenian, like Greek, Phrygian, and Indo-Iranian, has the augment. (My hunch is that Thracian also had it, but I am unaware of any remnants of finite verbal forms.) "Greco-Albanian" likewise makes no sense, since Albanian lacks the augment, but according to Hamp it underwent Winter's lengthening, so it belongs with Balto-Slavic (and probably Dacian). But there is no basis for temporally distinguishing the "third, fourth, and last" branches above. After the branching of Anatolian (before the third gender, dual, etc.) and Tocharian (before the metathesis of thorn-clusters), the resulting "Crown Clade Indo-European" divided into "Augmentian" (Greco-Phrygio-Armeno-(Thraco-)Indo-Iranian), "Winterian" (Albano-(Daco-)Balto-Slavic), and Old Western IE (the basis for Krahe's OEH river-name system).

The bogus results of "Tocharo-Armenian" etc. are entirely typical of shotgun statisticians.

DGK