Rasmus Bjørn
@OsoDanes
Followers
1,238
Following
393
Media
424
Statuses
2,313
The prehistoric loanword guy @MPI_GEA Protects early borrowings from accusations of 'chance similarity' and generally struggles with a difficult methodology.
Jyderup (DK) / Jena (DE)
Joined November 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
JIN IS COMING
• 315563 Tweets
Columbus
• 286932 Tweets
HAPPY IS COMING
• 220605 Tweets
Indigenous
• 217098 Tweets
Nobel
• 204834 Tweets
Bill Clinton
• 130761 Tweets
Khaled
• 111470 Tweets
Thanksgiving
• 83877 Tweets
Bret
• 44463 Tweets
Hakan
• 38178 Tweets
Leire
• 36309 Tweets
Kerem
• 33747 Tweets
#BizimÇocuklar
• 26666 Tweets
Amaia
• 23732 Tweets
Geraldo
• 22589 Tweets
GALA TU PATRONA
• 21655 Tweets
#BBUK
• 21356 Tweets
National Grid
• 19006 Tweets
Belgique
• 18263 Tweets
İzlanda
• 13810 Tweets
#BELFRA
• 13392 Tweets
Kenan
• 12094 Tweets
Saliba
• 11159 Tweets
Arda Güler
• 10541 Tweets
Zeki
• 10105 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
7️⃣🤩My fav hypothesis:
#seven
is
#neolithic
and
#bronzeage
#wanderwort
#provemewrong
#yesImadeatshirt
6
5
34
🚨NEW ARTICLE ALERT🚨
Did Proto-Indo-European borrow words from Proto-Semitic?
Short answer: No
Long answer:
Medium length answer: thread 🧵👇
10
57
329
Congratulations on the publication of the most stupendous database! But such a pity that Indo-European archaeolinguistic efforts will have to suffer from another confused and half-baked map making the rounds. This Indo-Iranic spread means nothing and explains nothing, while in...
New hybrid hypothesis for the origin and spread of the Indo-European
#languages
. New study in
@ScienceMagazine
by an intl. research team of linguists and geneticists led by
@MPI_EVA_Leipzig
. See: &
5
159
421
8
14
175
Shots fired -- Elamo-Dravidian and Indus Valley
💥🇮🇳❤️🔥
@bahatanadi1
(interdisciplinary collaboration, yes, please!)
Novel 4,400-year-old ancestral component in a tribe speaking a Dravidian language
8
22
120
11
18
136
Late Indo-European innovations
@ThorsoRasmus
@KroonenGuus
@2lander
Is this a fair representation of a working hypothesis? Or do you have suggestions? I could be persuaded to cram Gr.+Alb. closer to the Caucasus still.
18
17
137
Life goal achieved:
Walking across a strip of Eurasian steppe alongside David Anthony discussing the horse domestication process 🐎
#archaeolinguistics
#triangulation
#eurasiaconnected
View from a kurgan on the Pannonian Plain
14
4
79
... The project designers pay no attention to anything other than regurgitated Swadesh lists and glottochronology. While I vehemently applaud the exploration of new methods, ignoring more than half of the central ling. data is a huge disservice to the sciences.
2
1
71
*shameless self-promotion*
A lot of sleep lost to this baby!
#bronzeage
#Eurasia
#indoeuropean
#uralic
#turkic
#chinese
#triangulation
#loanwords
Primary take-aways🧵
3
14
72
OK, it’s time to get riled up about the Chinese word for horse, Iranic expansions, and Bronze Age interactions. 1/14
3
17
70
Great discoveries ahead!
🪙
The more we learn about the economies and techniques of the Bronze Age forest-steppe interface, the more we can contextualize the rich linguistic record.
Here the rate of tin in bronze alloys across Seima-Turbino sites
@Miljanicious
📲 F. Fricke
4
6
63
8
0
66
Dissenting views of
#IndoEuropean
at the
#UCPH
these last two days.
Archaeologists Kristian Kristiansen and Rune Iversen with their appreciation of consensus
Heggarty proposing a completely different model, still short of answers to basic ling. problems.
Good times 🤓🍻🗣️💬
5
7
67
A potential Neolithic wonder Wanderwort! 🐄🐄🐄🐄
COW IN INDO-EUROPEAN 🐮
Old English cū
Old Norse kýr
Swedish ko
German Kuh
Tocharian A ko, B keu
Armenian kov
Ancient Greek βοῦς (boũs)
Latin bōs
Umbrian acc. bum
Old Irish bó
Welsh bu
Luwian wawa/iš
Vedic Sanskrit gáuṣ
Hindi gāy
Avestan gāuš
Kurdish ga
Latvian govs
36
49
384
4
6
62
...fact Kuzmina and others have demonstrated the linear development of Indo-Iranic from Sintashta through Andronovo. This is in perfect agreement with inherited words for barley and a central role in horse dissemination, while wheat and donkeys were borrowed from SW or C Asia...
3
1
58
Exciting times to be a historical linguist, indeed!
1
7
57
The PIE word for horse. From an
#archaeolinguistics
pov, this is not a fully domesticated (presumably ridden) horse. After the dom. event (2K BC) it spread to SW Asia w/Arm., and possibly to PTurkic *(h)at w/Old Steppe Iranic *ætswæ.
Ancient Greek 'híppos', Spanish 'yegua', Irish 'each', Romanian 'iapă', and Icelandic 'jór' all mean "horse".
They're very different, yet they ultimately stem from the same Proto-Indo-European word.
They drifted apart due to the sound changes they underwent.
Here's more:
47
162
951
2
7
62
Pieces of the Uralic puzzle coming together nicely. Fits the linguistic evidence of deep roots with Palaeo-Siberian and first encounters with IE in the Afanasievo-Okunevo transition. Excited to explore these dynamics further (Zeng et al., call me 😉) 🗣️🧪7⃣
New huge study on the spread of Uralic and Yeniseian languages using genome-wide data 181 samples.
"Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages"
5
13
68
3
7
54
Historical linguists of the Sahel and the Horn, what are the earliest words for sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet? I wonder if there is a linguistic trail from this interaction sphere
2000 BCE by sea
The Bronze Age handshake between India, Arabia and East Africa in the "lost corridor of mankind" (Sauer 1952). Millets, cowpeas & sorghum arrived while the Zebu bull & the black rat departed for distant shores.
Dorian Q. Fuller & Nicole Boivin
2
8
43
3
4
49
4
7
46
Curious about the ancient spread of domesticated plants in Central Asia? Then let the leading experts in the field (
@robertnspengler
,
@GiedreMotuzaite
,
@Rita_DalMar
,
@basira_mir
, etc.) give you an update (with me as the historical linguistic sore thumb) 🍑🧩🌏🍚💬🔬🦠
5
21
47
Borrowed rice words 🍚🌾💬
#triangulation
#wordhistories
Here Nohara's abstract, and part of the journey of our very own
#rice
word from my dissertation
#EurasiaConnected
My new paper has been out,
Another character for the word “rice plant” in Old Chinese | Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies | Cambridge Core -
0
12
30
1
13
39
#Folketymology
and the modern etymologist - a pet-peeve of mine, and a fundamental principle to grapple with when entering discussions of potential prehistoric loanword relations
'Cockroach' stems from Spanish 'cucaracha'.
When 'cucaracha' was borrowed, it was opaque to English speakers. Trying to rationalise it, they associated it with the familiar words 'cock' and 'roach' and changed its pronunciation.
This is called folk etymology.
More examples:
25
138
793
3
6
38
Absolutely smashing preliminary schedule for the September
#IGFT
in Basel! 💥
- focus on contextualization much appreciated
- leading experts are showing up in full force.
Anyone interested in the dynamics of Bronze Age Eurasia, take note!
#triangulation
#indoeuropean
🐎🐄
2
9
36
Historical linguistics never sleeps! 💬🔬🌍
New runestones discovered!
The oldest datable runestone has been discovered in Svingerud in Ringerike (Norway). 1/9
9
223
908
1
1
34
Eternally grateful to
@bnuyaminim
for going over the Semitic evidence in my recent article on early impulses between SW Asia and Proto-Indo-European
It underscores the need for more collaborative work - hypothesis still stands
🚨NEW ARTICLE ALERT🚨
Did Proto-Indo-European borrow words from Proto-Semitic?
Short answer: No
Long answer:
Medium length answer: thread 🧵👇
10
57
329
6
4
32
2
8
33
Horses into East Asia? Yes, please!
Iranic source of the Old Chinese horse, mid- to late 2nd mil. BC
Plausible that Proto-Turkic *(h)at was borrowed earlier still from Old Steppe Iranic *(h1)ætswæ
Exciting times, indeed!
Exciting times: our
@ERC_Research
SyG Horsepower project gets a webpage on the
@britishmuseum
website! See
for more
1
19
65
1
5
29
This is positively among the weirdest word salads ever concocted 🥗 And yet the "expert linguist" here claims that Elamite, Etruscan, and Thracian are Turkish (sic!) languages 🤯
@OsoDanes
@ogzzby
@orientalismus
@Ricardo_Cd_Oliv
@PIE_Animals
Marcantonio argues that the great majority of the conventionally stated IE sound laws lack statistical significance and that, therefore, most of the conventionally established correspondences are simply similarities, most probably in the given sense of ‘chance resemblances’.
2
0
1
11
2
31
@bahatanadi1
Fascinating stuff. Now, someone, go do that Dravidian comparative grammar and etymological dictionary
3
3
28
Incredibly important article that takes the Indo-European homeland question to the next level. Full of carefully weighted etymological analyses that enable the prehistoric contact research that I undertake. Thanks to the authors!
2
6
28
Attention, everyone. It has come to my attention that cultural history is a strictly internal process. Thanks to the geniousness of this method, I can state for a fact that Danish was spoken in SW Asia 1000 BC - the Danish Bible clearly mentions events from that region…
Look who's here this morning. Vintage Talageri: first an opener that will be deemed offensive, then hard evidence. It focuses on one of the proofs (next to the Vedic astrodata, Saraswati dessiccation) for a high Vedic chronology incompatible w/ the AIT.
4
11
46
7
1
29
Are you also having a hard time weighing linguistic evidence in prehistory?
Help is on the way!
A very welcome update to the methodological toolbox from one our great scholars
@CarlingGerd
🐂🙌🏼📘🐎🐑🪙🌱💬
My new text book "Linguistic Archaeology" will soon be out! The book deals with methods of reconstructing language in prehistory, from the comparative method to typology and phylogenetics.
12
134
618
0
3
27
That's funny... 🐔
Chicken domestication occurred quite recently (no earlier than 3,5 kya) and (perhaps similarly to dog domestication) it might have started with some sort of commensalism
3
28
82
1
3
20
Millet celebrations galore! 🥳Foxtail millet one of many domesticated crops and animals to refract the dispersing Indo-Iranic languages in the second millennium BC.
#YearofMillets
🌱
The
@FAO
declared 2023 as the year to celebrate millets. Pictured are colorful millets from the Gorden Hillman collection
@UCLarchaeology
& carbonized millets I recovered from 13th-century deposits in Barda, Azerbaijan.
#Archaeobtany
#archaeology
#Millets
#argriculture
#Food
5
19
48
2
3
22
Just setting the stage for my upcoming article on linguistic interaction in Bronze & Iron Age Central Asia. Green=fairly certain; Yellow=debated; Red=Who knows?
#uralic
#indoeuropean
#turkic
#Chinese
2
1
22
@ArainGang
Whatever fits the linguistic data. Iranic horse words were borrowed into Europe and China. Why did Iranic and Indic independently borrow eerily similar wheat words, while maintain a shared word for barley?
2
1
23
An attempt to summarise the Indo-European homeland debate as it stands in 2021. We're learning a lot and get to pose new exciting questions. With
@rgoatcabin
This week's video is a fascinating debate by our very own
@OsoDanes
and R. Tegethoff, titled:
"Indo-European - The Homeland Debate Anno 2021"
Please share far and wide, and tune in soon for more fascinating and instructive content!!!
Link:
0
9
16
0
2
21
POV: getting up at 1 AM to learn about Central Asian Bronze Age dynamics with Michael Frachetti and
@Miljanicious
- pastoralism, agriculture, metallurgy 🇯🇵🐄🌱🐏🪙
2
0
21
1000 followers!
Tusind tak 🔟0⃣0⃣!
Here follows borrowed thousands from across the globe (from
@haspelmath
& Tadmor 2009) please add more
Swahili elfu ← Arabic
Tarifiyt ařəf ← Arabic
Selici Romani ezeri ← Hungarian ← Iranic
Lower Sorbian towzynt ← German
...
2
2
22
In this new article, I show that there is some correlation between the archaeological record and the items denoted in the purported shared vocabulary between PIE and languages of the Southwest Asian (including Egyptian and Berber) Neolithic speech communities.
1
2
20
Loanwords are telltale signs of contacts between different speech communities. Why does Proto-Uralic have early Indo-European words? ()
But there are similar immutable similarities with Semitic and wider Afro-Asiatic that have played a lesser role.
*shameless self-promotion*
A lot of sleep lost to this baby!
#bronzeage
#Eurasia
#indoeuropean
#uralic
#turkic
#chinese
#triangulation
#loanwords
Primary take-aways🧵
3
14
72
1
2
19
Very exciting new paper on early horse riding - potential insights to the lead-up to the decisive Sintashta event 2000 BC (Librado et al. 2021). Impressions,
@wtt_taylor
?
1
6
19
The tutorial is on!
#Neolithic
and
#BronzeAge
archaeolinguist interfaces in Eastern Eurasia. We’re off to a flying start with my always brilliant colleague Bingcong Deng on contacts between
#SinoTibetan
and
#Transeurasian
🗣🔬🌏🧬
1
2
20
Fits Sintashta → Andronovo (Iranic), spreading the domesticated horse, starting around 2000 BC (Librado et al. 2021). In China in the mid-2nd mil. BC. 11/14
2
1
19
On Wednesday I got to present my Work in Progress to wonderful colleagues at the archaeology department at
@MPI_SHH
- now off to CPH to see
@mattitiahu
’s talk 🥂before returning to the fam 🥰 thanks to
@rgoatcabin
for capturing my enthusiasm 🤓
1
0
20
Tantalizing, but no obvious transfer event:
🤘Horn PIE *k̂ér-(n-)(h2/u-) ~ PS *ḳar-n- (<? PAA *ḳar-)
🌟Star PIE *h2ster- ~ PS *ʕaθtar- ‘deified morning star’
🦅 Eagle PIE *h3or-(n-) ~ PS *ɣVrVn ‘eagle’ ~ Sumerian erin, (ḫ)u₁₁-rí-in ‘eagle, standard’
4
2
18
Celto-Germanic *markos ‘markos’ and Old Chinese *mˤraʔ ‘horse’ have been sought connected through the magic wand of an unattested Tocharian word. 3/14
2
0
17
Historical linguistics *never* sleeps 💬🪙
iʀ Wōd[i]nas weraʀ
He (is) Óðin’s man
The runic inscriptions on one of the Vindelev bracteates from the 5th century has been a wonderful discovery. One of them will get some attention today.
1/9
19
122
534
1
0
19
Historical linguistics *never* sleeps 👀💬🔬
Another spectacular Runic find, this time from Denmark. The inscription is read as HIRILA, meaning 'little sword', i.e. a diminutive to Gothic hairus, Old Norse hjǫrr, Old English heoru 'sword' < Proto-Germanic *heruz. This seems attractive to me.
4
25
113
1
0
18
My two papers on Neolithic and Bronze Age interactions in Central and East Asia just passed peer review. 2/14
1
0
18
Geneticists go with the Armenian homeland! Now, I'm curious to see the linguistic evidence for the association. Several other famous takeaways we will get to fit into the linguistic chronologies at
#IGAT2022
The central paper develops the joint analysis framework of the entire dataset, and focuses on the ~5000-1000 BCE period and our theory of a West Asian Indo-Anatolian homeland out of which came both Anatolian speakers and steppe Proto-Indo-Europeans
7
47
219
1
0
18
The gradual expansion of the (grammatical) numeral system appears to mirror the increase in complex relations between language groups.
To me one of the most tantalizing insights from historical linguistics (at least in the Eurasian space).
🔢7⃣🔟💯🤯🤝
Great excerpt. Numerals aren't just words for numbers--they are words that give existence to exact number concepts in our minds. It's not clear that we would be capable of conceiving of large exact numbers without them!
5
8
60
0
1
19
Excited to be en route 🚄 to Zürich 🇨🇭to join the inaugural Swiss Workshop on Sociolinguistics, Language Contact, and Historical Linguistics 💬🌏 taking place tomorrow and Friday. Program and zoom link 🧵👇
1
1
19
I concur - numerals can be used as a proxy of societal complexity. It's a grammaticalization process of previous ad hoc quantifiers that become fixed as the need to refer to succinct quantities between different groups rise.
i've thought about this as well.
my theory is that "two-ness" is an innate human concept, but anything above that is invented technology.
it's well-established that not every culture has counting, so it's not a human universal. cultures without…
8
5
88
2
0
18
@archeohistories
Fascinating horses, but where do you get the 5000 BC date from? The modern horse was domesticated only 2000 BC, which I presume the Ahal Teke horses also must conform to
2
1
17
The linguistic foundations for understanding Armenian’s place in the ongoing triangulation of speech communities in prehistory 🇦🇲⛰️🐎💬♻️
1
2
18
@thomas_wier
's Weekly Georgian Etymology is probably my favorite part of Twitter. Start with the uncontroversial attestations, and work your way back through contacts and potential ultimate sources. 💬👌🐑🏔️ Pure gold! (please don't kill Twitter)
Weekly Georgian Etymology: ბატკანი baṭḳani 'lamb', from late Middle Georgian ბატკანი baṭḳani young livestock, from a Nakh-Daghestanian source: Akusha Dargwa bartken deer, Lezgi balḳan horse; perhaps from Scythian *bālti- horse-ride. Reflects the Caucasus' pastoral economy.
3
10
64
1
3
17
Yamnaya used arsenic bronze - after the method was introduced to the Altai region, tin was introduced, and started spreading west, but with diminishing ratios east -> west.
This and many more archaeological gems today live from Berlin
1
5
15
An important 🧩 of the prehistoric puzzle is the shared non-inherited vocabulary for various types of millet. Here the South Asian signal for sawa millet 🌏🌱
#yearofmillet
#triangulation
#historicallinguistics
Crops and linguistic loans, Steven Weber (Vol 39, Current Anthropology, 1998) - Panicum & Enchinochloa millets spread from Punjab & Gujarat in 2600 BCE to Peninsular South (Hallur & Paiyampalli) by 1500 BCE. Known as Śyāmāka (श्यामाक) in the Brahmanas - it is now Hindi
2
8
27
1
2
16
So, I compiled as many and as ancient words for horse in Central Asia, mainly to say that any of those would constitute a better source. 6/14
1
0
16
Well, Schuessler took care of it for me: ‘T(ibeto)-B(urman) and foreign’ words in Old Chinese go *b- > *m- / _R (2007: 66-67). Thanks, Axel! 10/14
3
0
14
First of all, Iranic regularly spirantizes initial obstruents, thus Yazghulami varag ‘horse’ and Shughni vōrǰ ‘horse’. So we’re already beyond a clean *b → *m, but rather *β → *m-. 9/14
1
0
15
There are similarities between any two languages. If there is a demonstrable regular correspondence, we can make inferences on the linguistic material alone. Yet prehistory is generally not too happy to give up linguistic data, so we have to work with what we’ve got.
1
1
14
Gamkrelidze-Ivanov and Dolgopolsky famously provided lists to support a SW Asian homeland of Proto-Indo-European. The hypothesis is not favored among IE linguists, although non-experts appear swayed by arguments based on genetics and Bayesian analyses ().
Congratulations on the publication of the most stupendous database! But such a pity that Indo-European archaeolinguistic efforts will have to suffer from another confused and half-baked map making the rounds. This Indo-Iranic spread means nothing and explains nothing, while in...
8
14
175
1
3
15
This is *exactly* what the study of the human past needs, too, and fortunately how researchers aim to organize: Roots of Europe (Copenhagen), the MPI of Human History (Jena), and the Center for the Study of the Human Past (Uppsala)
#triangulation
#interdisciplinary
As Danish research is reduced to writing »bullshit documents« with no real impact, activists Ole Wæver and Maria Toft say they have an answer: A new Nordic research movement with the space for a more playful, experimental research.
@MariaToft
@ole_waever
1
3
7
1
1
16
In my new article in Historische Sprachforschung, I provide the following new perspectives to the debate:
1. IE Stratigraphy - some are PIE with regular developments into all branches, others not
2. Contextualization of Semitic evidence - is it found elsewhere?
...
1
1
14
early contacts, first agropastoral adoptions – likely closely associated with the above
🐄 Cow PIE *gwṓu– ~ Egyptian gw‘bull’ ~ Sumerian gu4 ~ gud ‘bull’ NWC, NEC
🐑 Sheep (see the article for all forms)
🌾 Grain
🍖 Feast
🍯 Honey
🥌 millstone
🔒 Lock
🚜 Field
🤠 To drive cattle
1
1
14
So there is much to be excited about. Stay tuned for the epic journey of the numeral ‘seven’ and going from relative to concrete chronologies in prehistoric Central Asia. 14/14
1
0
15
So, wonderfully learned Twitter, have at it, ravage it, tear it to shreds, and give it a thorough peer review! 13/14
1
1
15
...
3. Archaeolinguistic analysis - how does the chronology of the loanwords fit the chronology of the archaeological record into the Steppe Zone
4. Recognition of the cultural impact of the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe
1
1
14
Early contacts, trade
6⃣ PIE *(s)wek̑s ~ Kartv. *ekws~ Hurrian šeše ~ PS *šidt ~ Eg. śrś.w ~ Berber *sdis ~ NWC *(s)əxwə ~
7⃣ PIE *septm ~ PS *t͡sabʕa-t ~ Eg. śfḫ ~ Berb *sa ~ Kartv. *šwid- ~ Hur. *šindi- ~ U. *ćäjć(ć)imä, Turk. *sjeti, O.Chin. *tshit, Basque zazpi, Etr. semph
.
2
1
14
There are several implications of this and the other conclusions I draw from the analyses. Fortunately, both articles in which this hypothesis appears will be open-access (Evolutionary Human Sciences and British Archaeological Research). 12/14
1
0
14
#SAA2023Portland
is pumping! The Shamanka site at the Baikal may show signs of interactions between local HG groups with immigrant
#BronzeAge
pastoralists (
@BaikalAP
@Angela_Lieverse
), new exciting work on
#CentralAsia
#metallurgy
by
@marianalfcastro
0
5
13
@ait_kisou
Thanks 🙏🏼 he may have missed that I explicitly base this hypothesis on the items *not* transferring directly between PIE and PS, but regardless, the updated Semitic state of affairs is pure gold and will enter the database directly. Keep the comments flowing 💪🏼
0
0
14
@yajnadevam
@ArainGang
Uhm, tea was novel when the word was adopted. That’s kinda the key to cultural spreads. It’s beiNg suggested that farmers spreading with wheat would borrow a word for wheat. Not saying it’s impossible, but something to explain. Cult. bor. is not a blank check.
1
0
13
It made sense with a western source, of course, but why a European word in China? It deserved some proper analysis. 5/14
1
0
12
A new baseline for discussing one of the most contentious issues in historical linguistics: Altaic/Transeurasian, i.e. the origin of the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic. Congratulations
@BarbarianNiche
@jlu_ningchao
and Martine Robbeets 🎇
Several years in the making, it is great to have our
@Nature
Transeurasian paper finally published! A short thread on some implications for Japanese archaeology: (1) Jomon genomes were not limited to Japan or areas with Jomon pottery.
4
36
114
1
0
12
Two seemingly different but simultaneously correct etymologies at once - a borrowing and a native word. This is such a profound insight, very pertinent to my work on prehistoric contacts.
#folketymology
and nativization are incessant forces 💬🤷🏼♂️💡
0
0
12
@avzaagzonunaada
Big question in IE remains when and where the word came from.
@ThorsoRasmus
and
@KroonenGuus
have pointed to signs of a foreign provenance of all goats, whereas sheep have a stronger PIE pedigree. Likely a steppe vs. altitude phenomenon.
1
1
13
8⃣ PIE *(H)ok̑toH ~ Berber *okkuz‘four’ ~ Kartv. *otxo ’four’
🤝PIE *kwrei(h2)- 'to pay, exchange' ~ PS *krj- 'to trade'
1
1
12
This contextualization naturally comes with some implications for Proto-Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic
1
0
11
The spread of millets out of East Asia. I have 27 pages on millet words in my dissertation, but still a bewildering assemblage of non-native Central Asian forms without an obvious East Asian source. Directionality seems to fit Tib.-Burm. in Majiayao from Sin.Tib. in Yangshao
Our paper on ancient cultivation in north-central Asia is now out! Thanks to all of the colleagues who worked on this paper - especially Patrick
@palaeotropics
and the
@MPI_GEA
(MPI-SHH) crew.
2
41
140
0
0
12
An incredibly inspiring group of people to be around as an
#archaeolinguist
with an interest in prehistoric
#CentralAsia
. New pieces to the puzzle, new contacts, and just an overall good time - thanks
@Rita_DalMar
!
💬🔬🌏🧩🍑
What a wonderful week for our Ancient Mobile and Sedentary Interactions in Inner Asia roundtables, thank you all who joined and contributed to the discussions! A special thank to Sören Stark, Barbara Cerasetti,
@GiedreMotuzaite
and Kai Kainuth for their fantastic presentations!
0
6
28
0
1
12
#SAA2023Portland
in full session - Dorian Q. Fuller as always with profound takes on early domestication processes, Frank Winchell on the
#Butana
origins of
#sorghum
, and now our (
@MPI_GEA
) very own
@yoshi_maezumi
on Amazonian indigenous land use
0
0
11
Another important piece ! 🧩
(P)Indo-European ↔️ NW Caucasian in the Bronze Age
Considering the strong propensity for silver words to wander, I'd wager that
@avzaagzonunaada
is on to something.
Proto-Circassian
*/tɘʑɘnɘ/ ‘silver’
Temirgoy тыжьыны, Kabardian дыжьын
Ubykh
/dɜʃᶲɜnɘ́/ ‘silver’
Proto-Abkhaz-Abaza
*/rVd͡z(ɘ)nV́/ ‘silver’
Abkhaz (а)разны́, Abaza рызна́
Possible connection to Indo-European (Armenian arċat, Avestan ᵊrᵊzatəm, Latin argentum, Irish airgead)
1
3
27
1
0
12
(If you nonetheless find this hypothesis intriguing, I invite anyone to explore the following data in the context of a SW Asian homeland – as I proposed to one of the PI’s of the Heggart et al. paper; he was not interested!).
1
1
11
Method: piecing new insights from research together with the established or majority views. Mostly consensus views, but with the prehistoric contact perspective, including folk etymologies and tentatively accepting minor mismatches through lost intermediaries.
1
0
12
‘But what about initial *b -, Old Chinese had *b!?’ you ask. As did I. And the reviewer. 8/14
1
0
12