Indo-European Studies

E x p l o r i n g C e l t i c O r i g i n s is the fruit of collaborative work by
researchers in archaeology, historical linguistics, and archaeogenetics
over the past ten years. T his team works towards the goal of a better
understanding of the background in the Bronze Age and Beaker P eriod
of the people who emerge as Celts and speakers of Celtic languages
documented in the I ron Age and later times. L ed by S ir Barry Cunliffe
and John Koch, the contributors present multidisciplinary chapters
in a lively user-friendly style, aimed at accessibility for workers in
the other fields, as well as general readers. T he collection stands as
a pause to reflect on ways forward at the moment of intellectual
history when the genome-wide sequencing of ancient DNA (a.k.a.
‘the archaeogenetic revolution’) has suddenly changed everything in
the study of later European prehistory. How do we deal with what
appears to be an irreversible breach in the barrier between science
and the humanities? Exploring Celtic O rigins includes colour maps
and illustrations and annotated Further R eading for all chapters.

This table began as a comparison of Etruscan words to other Indo-European words, and it is clear that the linkage to Etruscan illuminates some new patterns in Indo-European word relationships. We added for further comparison words from the Baltic group (Latvian), Kartvelian (Georgian) and Uralic (Finnish) and Basque, a "language isolate" that looks as much Indo-European as othes in the Indo-European group. For those who advocate Hurrian connections Hurrian words that are available have been added to the table.  *PIE specialists have been speculating on the idea that the three language families, Baltic, Uralic and Kartvelian may be related to Indo-European, perhaps as a super family.
  The Indo-European family of languages is believed to have originated north of the Black Sea (Pontic Region). Some scholars have indicated a Caucasus origin. Although we can't rule out borrowing among [unrelated] languages it appears from the interesting shifts that the languages in our "Indo-European Table may be one family. I found šāl-a, šali, šala (Hurrian)
ასული, asuli, daughter(Georgian); თვით, t’vit’, self (Georgian), sevi, self (Latvian), vete, (Albanian); ხუთი, khut’i, five (Georgian), пяць, piać (Belarussian), pieci (Latvian), pesë (Albanian), pente (Greek) and pajncha (Sanskrit) interesting. (The interesting relationships continue through the table. The table is alphabetically arranged via the right-hand column, Etruscan words.

This article proposes a new formal reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) nouns containing the suffix *–oi–. I argue that both primary and non-primary derivatives in this class had stress alternating between the derivational suffix and the following inflectional ending (e.g., ACC.SG *[-óy-ṃ] vs. GEN *[-y-ós]) rather than the "amphikinetic" alternation between root and inflectional ending (ACC.SG *[´-oy-ṃ] vs. GEN *[-y-ós]) that is traditionally assumed for all primary nominals with suffixal *[o]-vocalism under the widely accepted “Erlangen Model” (Schindler 1975a,b, Rix 1992) of Indo-European morphophonology. Support for this alternative reconstruction comes from Hittite, which confirms that the suffixal stress seen in the Greek reflex of this noun class was inherited from PIE rather than root stress as in Vedic Sanskrit. More broadly, I contend that an adequate account of the prosodic behavior of PIE *–oi-stems requires (i) abandoning the traditional connection between suffixal *[o]-grade and "amphikinetic" word stress; and (ii) adopting a framework (such as the one articulated by Kiparsky 2010) in which the suffix's capacity to attract stress in both primary and non-primary derivation can be modeled in a unified way.

This interdisciplinary study allowed me to establish, on the basis of linguistic, genetic, archaeological, historical and religious data, that linguistic concordances between Gaulish and Slavic were linked with Neolithic migrations from NorthWestern India and Pakistan to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the North of the Black Sea, Danubic and Balkan Europe, Gaul and Iberia, where Neolithic farmers contributed to the formation of the megalithic civilisation which developed in Gaul from 5.000 BC and brought an archaic language stemming from a Trans-Eurasian original language. This explains the linguistic concordances I established between Gaulish and Dravidian languages-250 common words from the 500 words I studied (and 160 with Burushaski), as well as with Altaic, Uralic, Kartvelian, Anatolian and Middle-Eastern languages. This also explains similarities I have found in the organisation of the Society and religion, which lead certain researchers to suggest, on the basis of the spread of the very ancient haplogroup H2 P-96 from India to Western Europe, that first Europeans and proto-Dravidians had an ancient common origin, as macrohaplogroups F and K, from which stem all European haplogroups, and haplogroup H could appear in India.

The Druid referenced by Julius Caesar in his Gallic War Commentaries went by the name of Diviciacus. This name was more of a title, a job description if you wish than a true personal name. Indeed, Diviciacus was the Latinized form of Deiuiciacos which meant “theologian;” theology being deiuiciacto in Old Gallic. Sadly, Caesar gives us little mention of what school of theology Diviciacus did profess to.

There have been numerous attempts to find relatives of Proto-Indo-European, not the least of which is the Indo-Uralic Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are alleged to descend from a common ancestor. However, attempts to prove this hypothesis have run into numerous difficulties. One difficulty concerns the inability to reconstruct the ancestral morphological system in detail, and another concerns the rather small shared vocabulary. This latter problem is further complicated by the fact that many scholars think in terms of borrowing rather than inheritance. Moreover, the lack of agreement in vocabulary affects the ability to establish viable sound correspondences and rules of combinability. This paper will attempt to show that these and other difficulties are caused, at least in large part, by the question of the origins of the Indo-European parent language. Evidence will be presented to demonstrate that Proto-Indo-European is the result of the imposition of a Eurasiatic language-to use Greenberg's term-on a population speaking one or more primordial Northwest Caucasian languages.

Luvian is the language of Anatolian hieroglyphic inscriptions and a close relative of Hittite. This book explores the Luvian ethnic history through sociolinguistic methods, with an emphasis on the interpretation of contacts between Luvian and its linguistic neighbors, such as Hittite, Hurrian, and Greek. It is concluded that Luvian was originally spoken in the central part of Anatolia. Subsequent Luvian migrations were connected with the expansion of the Hittite state, where Hittite was the socially dominant language, but the Luvian speakers were more numerous. The unstable balance between the Hittite and the Luvian speakers continued to shift in favor of the second group, to the point that the Hittite elites were fully bilingual in Luvian.

The following is an exploration into the structure of the Monist theology and cosmological philosophy of the ancient Celtic Druids, focusing especially on the four lines attributed to the Four Masters. Again, for this endeavor, is the need to gather the Celtic material and compare it to the related Indo-European data. Whilst the focus on the foundational mythological theme of the four primordial master poet teachers found in the many Indo-European traditions comparable to those of the Celts. Much of the material gathered here consists mainly of French documents and letters which I had collected over the decades and which needed a translation. The main sources for this study consist of Celtic scholars which I was in contact with. These were the distinguished linguist Joseph Monard, and Serj Pinault, artist and contributing author of Ialon-Clairière, the Celtic and druidical studies bulletin based in Britany, France.

The Gundestrup Cauldron has remained enigmatic since the day it was discovered in a Danish peat bog near Borremosebog in May of 1891. Many have wondered and pondered over the mysterious imagery and have tried to give it an interpretation. Some have proposed a Scythian or Vedic Indian origin to it, while others have recognized the clear connection to Celtic mythological themes and motifs. The following article is but a brief and detailed interpretative iconographical analysis of what is in truth a star chart such as those formerly conceived and maintained by the Celtic Druids of the La Tène cultural period. Our understanding of zodiacal stellar symbolism is but a "cultural construct." For instance, when one looks at the vastness of the night sky, all one sees is an infinity of pin point specks of light. Connecting the bright dots into a recognizable pattern is truly an

А review of "А.Б.Копелиович. Происхождение и развитие индоевропейского рода в синтагматическом аспекте. Владимир, 1995" (Avgust B.Kopeliovich. Origin and Evolution of the Indo-European Gender In a Syntagmatic Aspect. Vladimir, 1995) published in 'Izvestija AN. Serija Literatury i Yazyka', 1997, Vol. 4, p. 67-69.

The Indus Valley Civilisation used thousands of seals with symbols which have not been properly understood so far.Most of these symbols were later used all over India and abroad on pottery,copper plates,rocks ,textiles,furniture , metalwork products etc. But the fundamental principle underlying these symbols escaped the attention of scholars and researchers so far.This led to many strange conclusions about their readings. In this paper we are explaining the basic principle of the symbols and their purpose. We are not surprised to find that vedic
“mangala/mangalatraya/ ashTamangala / agni/ kaala/raja/ laabha/varsha/sabha/siva/subha/srii” are the underlying words employed in most of the inscriptions. These symbols agree with the Rg vedic concept of agni/fire worship and the archeological evidence of presence of vedic fire altars in IVC sites.Worship of agni(sun,fire,king,priest) led to the use of these symbols by other contemporary civilisations also.
The Ashtamangala(asta-mangala>house of king ; cf.Heb.LMLK;Bethlehem/beth-melech;king’s sacrifice;bull’s sacrifice) is a set of Eight Auspicious Signs used in religions like  Hinduism,Jainism, and Buddhism. In the Hindu tradition, the Ashtamangala may be used during certain occasions like pujas,weddings,coronation of kings etc.  They have been depicted in decorative motifs on pottery ,temples,royal palaces, houses and cultural artifacts.This paper explores the Harappan ashTa mangala rationale in vedic literature,rituals and sacrifices,temple architecture etc.

A characteristic aspect of Zoroastrianism is its veneration of light/fire. The elaborate cult of fire is one of the most distinctive and striking aspects of the Zoroastrian faith and goes back to the earliest periods of the ancient Indo-European spiritual beliefs. Fire altars and eternal flames featured on Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid coins, seals, rock inscriptions and images are the most visible icon of Zoroastrianism. The most meticulous tending of fires and eternal flames, their ritual purity and sacred songs, enchantments said before light/fires are at the core of the Zoroastrian religious experience.

The Vedic Association of Prosperity and Plow An association between Prosperity and Plow was integral to the religious conception of agriculture throughout the Vedic period. This association was formalized in two distinct ways. The first formulation was through the dual divinity śúnāsīrau, literally " Prosperity and Plow. " This dual divinity, attested already in the Ṛgveda, was attributed with actions on par with other anthropomorphic deities who play a role in the agricultural process, and was similarly implored for good will and a healthy and abundant crop as well. Originally considered separate and distinct, śúnāsīrau came to be increasingly identified with Indra. The second formulation was quite distinct from the first, operating in an entirely different way. The great Indo-Europeanist Calvert Watkins demonstrated that numerous branches of Indo-European would indicate agricultural produce as a higher taxon through a stylistically elaborated enumerative list functioning as a merism; the seemingly unique Vedic development of this tradition replaced simple agricultural crops as the members of the enumerative list for an extensive range of items, both concrete and abstract, that shifted the higher taxon indicated from agricultural produce to an all-encompassing Prosperity, as a result of the Plow. Watkins surmised that the merism may have originated in an Indo-European ritual context. This is precisely what we see in the Vedic instances of this merism; the most notable instance is in a ritual dialogue prescribed in the Kauśika Sūtra to be performed at the first plowing of the year. The dialogue, which occurs between husband and wife, is quite simple semantically but the Sanskrit is highly ornate in stylistic elaboration, including the use of alliteration, etymological figures, and ring composition.

Despite the geographical and cultural distance between medieval Iranian and Celtic literatures, scholars have long sought to link them. The paradigms employed to do so have varied from comparative Indo-European studies to quests for direct influence. However, these efforts have failed to establish convincing genetic connections. This project looks beyond questions of source and influence to consider a different axis of comparison: a literary attitude towards the past, arising from the post-conquest cultural formations of the early medieval Iranian world and British Isles. Drawing on prophetic narratives that shaped history into compelling arcs of loss and redemption, writers in Persian and Welsh developed a metaphoric field that characterized the native past as a treasure hidden in dangerous otherworlds and secret texts. Recovering and relating this knowledge became validated as a primary goal of literary production, while such efforts were simultaneously critiqued as dangerous investments in buried ideologies. Medieval writers thus provided ancient traditions with potent afterlives, which continue to act on our sociopolitical, academic, and creative imaginations.

We have seen that several vedic seals are standards containing,vedic metrology,vedic geneology and proclamations by vedic kings.In this article we are identifying the Vedic King Divodasa and his relation to Varanasi/Kaasi and the Kumbha Mela of Prayaga.

Abstract : this study, which first aim was to demonstrate the correspondences between the Gaulish language and the Slavic languages, between which I found 500 common words, allowed me also to demonstrate, on the basis of genetical, archaeological and religious data, that those correspondences were linked with ancient migrations linked with the diffusion of the Dravidian civilisation of the Indus Valley to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the North of the Black Sea, Danubian and Balkanic Europe, towards Gaul and Iberia, where the Neolithic agriculturalists contributed to the formation of the megalithic civilisation which developed from -5.000. This explains also the linguistic correspondences I established between Gaulish and Dravidian languages – 250 common words from the 500 words I studied, as well as similarities I found in the organisation of the Society and the religion, which lead certain researchers to suggest, on the basis of the diffusion of the very ancient gene H2-P96 from India to Western Europe, that the first Europeans and the proto-Dravidians had a common origin.
Extrait : cette étude, dont l’objectif initial était de démontrer les correspondances entre le gaulois et les langues slaves, entre lesquelles j’ai trouvé 500 mots communs, m’a en outre permis de démontrer, sur la base de données génétiques, archéologiques et religieuses, que ces correspondances étaient liées à des migrations anciennes liées à la diffusion de la civilisation dravidienne de la vallée de l’Indus vers l’Iran, la Mésopotamie, l’Anatolie, le Caucase, le Nord de la Mer Noire, l’Europe danubienne et balkanique, la Gaule et l’Ibérie, où les agriculteurs néolithiques ont contribué à former la civilisation mégalithique qui s’est développée à partir de -5.000. Cela explique aussi les correspondances linguistiques que j’ai établies entre le gaulois et les langues dravidiennes - 250 mots communs sur les 500 mots étudiés, et les similitudes que j’ai constatées dans l’organisation de la société et la religion, qui amènent certains chercheurs à suggérer, sur la base de la diffusion du gène très ancien H2-P96 de l’Inde à l’Europe de l’Ouest, que les premiers Européens et les proto-Dravidiens avaient une origine commune.

Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.

Presentation at “The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration and the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Humans.” University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Demark, August 19-23,  2002. Document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries
In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate.  Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.

This study, which first aim was to demonstrate correspondences between Gaulish and Slavic languages, between which I found 500 common words, allowed me also to establish, on the basis of genetical, archaeological and religious data, that those correspondences were linked with ancient migrations which spread the Dravidian civilisation of the Indus Valley to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the North of the Black Sea, Danuban and Balkan Europe, Gaul and Iberia, where Neolithic farmers contributed to the development of the megalithic civilisation which began in 5.000 BC. This also explains the linguistic correspondences I established between Gaulish and Dravidian languages – 250 common words from the 500 words I studied, as well as similarities I found in the organisation of the Society and the religion, which lead various researchers to suggest, on the basis of the diffusion of the very ancient gene H2-P96 from India to Western Europe, that the first Europeans and the proto-Dravidians had a common origin.

Cette étude, dont l’objectif initial était de démontrer les correspondances entre le gaulois et les langues slaves, entre lesquelles j’ai trouvé 500 mots communs, m’a en outre permis de démontrer, sur la base de données génétiques, archéologiques et religieuses, que ces correspondances étaient liées à des migrations anciennes qui ont diffusé la civilisation dravidienne de la vallée de l’Indus vers l’Iran, la Mésopotamie, l’Anatolie, le Caucase, le Nord de la Mer Noire, l’Europe danubienne et balkanique, la Gaule et l’Ibérie, où les agriculteurs néolithiques ont contribué à former la civilisation mégalithique qui s’est développée à partir de -5.000. Cela explique aussi les correspondances linguistiques que j’ai établies entre le gaulois et les langues dravidiennes - 250 mots communs sur les 500 mots étudiés, et les similitudes que j’ai constatées dans l’organisation de la société et la religion, qui amènent certains chercheurs à suggérer, sur la base de la diffusion du gène très ancien H2-P96 de l’Inde à l’Europe de l’Ouest, que les premiers Européens et les proto-Dravidiens avaient une origine commune.

ATU 20C is an international tale with an eschatological theme and a wide distribution throughout the world. Gaelic variants
recorded in Ireland and Scotland during the 19th and 20th
centuries have been observed to contain cosmological themes and formulae, along with the pagan theonyms Crom and Donn. These
are examined in their relation to a medieval Irish cosmological
formula appearing in the Táin and other sources. The pre-
Christian traditions, particularly that of a tripartite cosmological
structure consisting of sky-earth-sea, are discussed within the
contexts of early Celtic belief. Comparisons with Iranian, Indic,
Greek, and Germanic systems indicate the presence of three such
cosmic realms from Indo-European times, suggesting that the
modern Gaelic variants, taken together, may be regarded as a
remarkable instance of long-term oral transmission.

Starting from the so-called “Nordwestblock” for criteria, the present investigation seeks to find out whether this earliest or Old Indo-European layer, datable from c. 3100 BC onwards, is also traceable in the hydronyms, toponyms, and ethnics with a bearing on the peninsulas of the northern Mediterranean, from Iberia in the west to Anatolia in the east. In doing so, as much as 26 Proto-Indo-European roots are selected which are likely to be representative for this earliest Indo-European layer in the Mediterranean, though not necessarily so as these roots are mostly of a common type and of continuous use in the individual languages Indo-European languages subsequently attested in the given regions. In this study, which is inspired by Hans Krahe’s work on Old [Indo-] European river names, the relevant Iberian material is, as far as I know, systematically integrated for the first time.

One of the basic epic plots - a "love triangle" between two warriors, elder and high-status one vs young and marginal one, and a "beauty" - analysed as representing the settled modes of social behavior translated through narration and ritual.

This Excel file is a WORK IN PROGRESS on Indo-European basic lexicon, aligning PIE reconstructions from IEW, LIV and Mallory-Adams with intermediate reconstructions of IE sub-families found in several other sources (mainly Brill / Leiden etymological dictionaries): see dedicated sheet for details on sources.
Reconstructions with a green background have more complete data than those with a white background.
This DRAFT database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to explore external genetic relationships between Indo-European languages and other language families.

Գիրքը հեղինակի՝ հայկական վիպական բանահյուսության վերաբերյալ մի շարք ուսումնասիրությունների ամբողջություն է, որը կարող է որոշակիորեն նոր պատկեր ստեղծել նյութի վերաբերյալ։ Քննվում են էպոսների հնագույն՝ առասպելաբանական շերտերը, նրանց հիման վրա էպոսի ձևավորման և զարգացման խնդիրները։ Ներկայացվում են բազում նոր հնդեվրոպական, հնագույն մերձարևելյան և կովկասյան կապեր, ցույց է տրվում հայկական էպոսների ծագումը միևնույն առասպելաբանական հիմքից, նոր հայացքով է դիտվում ողջ հայ վիպական բանահյուսությունը՝ ազգածին ավանդությունից մինչև խորհրդային «էպոս» և վիպական կերպարների ծագումն ու զարգացումը։ Նախատեսվում է մասնագետների, ուսանողների և ընթերցողների լայն շրջանակների համար։

Deyoces (708- 665), hijo de Fraortes, unificó las “tribus” medas: busas (en Ecbátana), paractenos (en Isfahán capital), estrucates (en Markazi), arizantos (en Kashan, N de Isfahán), budios (en Markazi) y magos; Fraortes estableció Ecbátana como capital, expulsó a los asirios y fijó una legislación; su hijo Fraortes (665- 663) sometió a los persas y murió bajo Asurbanipal; su hijo Ciaxares (663- 549) reinó sobre Medos, Persas, Partos y Sagartios, enfrentó a Lidia que había dado refugio a unos escitas opositores, es el Asuero bíblico?; su hijo Astíages o Istuvegü (549- 539) se tuvo por mal gobernante, encargó a Hárpago dar muerte a su nieto Ciro, hijo de Mandana, pero Hárpago lo entregó a un pastor cuya esposa no cumplió la orden sino que lo cambió por su hijo muerto.

Two tables: 1. Proto-Indo-European consonants and their reflexes in Elamite and other Indo-European languages, 2. Some of the most fundamental Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) words and roots, with their cognates in Elamite and other Indo-European languages.