Pagel et al, 2013, “Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia” PNAS.

Criticism/review byP. Priyadarshi

Current Language Family Territories

Pagel et al found that there is a common core vocabulary the “ultra-conserved” words in the Eurasiatic languages. These languages are

1. Indo-European 2. Uralic 3. Altaic 4. Dravidian 5. Kartvelian (Georgian; South

Caucasian) 6. Chukchee-Kamchatkan (Easternmost

part of Siberia) 7. Inuit-Yupic (Westernmost corner of

Alaska)

The work was bad in design, because it excluded the following languages from purview

All of the Southeast Asian language families.

Austro-Asiatic of India and Southeast Asia

Sino-Tibetan language family. Basque of South Europe Afro-Asiatic (Semitic)As if these people were not Eurasian.

Clearly the work had been designed for supporting a particular “Eurasiatic Hypothesis” of some linguists

and can be said to have been prejudiced in design.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000. Indo-European and its closest relatives: The Eurasiatic language family, vol. 1: Grammar (Stanford UP).

A more honest approach would have been the study of Proto-Eurasian, the first language of the Eurasian people, after they had established themselves in India and expanded in this country about 60,000 to 50,000 BP, and its relationship with the modern languages of the non-African regions.

The junked Eurocentric Indo-Uralic hypothesis (Vilhelm Thomsen 1869) was resurrected by these workers.

Even the conclusions were manipulated in such a way as to give support to the Indo-Uralic theory, which implies that the Indo-European and the Uralic both originated at one place, namely Russian Ural region.

Contrary to facts established by hard evidence of DNA, this study tries to propose the origin of Post-Glacial Eurasian humanity from the steppe, just north of Central Asia (Fig 4A, Pagel)

The work ignored the fact that at the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000-15,000 BP), most of the northern regions had been depleted of humanity.

During glacial time man lived in India, Southeast Asia and Africa only, except a few refugia

In Europe only a few refugia sheltered humans. These were located in Spain and Balkans (Southeast Europe) and northern part of the Caucasus region. No one lived in the steppe, which was then a cold desert/ tundra climate region.

The Uralic linguistic region of today was under ice-sheet then. Hence the Uralic people must

have been in the down south.

The most likely linguistic distribution during Glacial Maximum (Nuñez 1987, Julku 1995, Niskanen 2002; also in our view). Not shown in this picture --PIE in North India, PD in South India.

The Blue area and the extreme right purple and red areas were also covered under the glacial ice at LGM.

Out of these, Uralic, Chukchee-Kamchatkan and Inuit-Yupic have been found to be related and have been classed as Uralo-Siberian Language Family.

(Michael Fortesque, 1998)

Uralic Language expansion The Uralic speakers

entered the northern regions, as soon as the ice melted, and before anyone else could arrive there just after the glacial peak at 21,000 BP (Niskanen:144). And they are there till today.

However the southern Uralic territories have been replaced by other languages arriving later.

These findings lead us to the conclusion that

--before the onset of the LGM, say before 23,000 BP the Uralic language was spread widely over north Europe (Niskanen:145).

--When Glacial Peak started Uralic populations shrank to the refugia located south.

However we know that the first north/ east Europeans had reached there from India between 40,000 BP and 30,000 BP. Clearly they spoke a forerunner of Uralic.

The real history of the Uralic speakers

The Uralics preferred to chase the receding margin of the ice-sheets after LGM.

They were used to living in tundra/coldest climates during LGM.

After the glacial period too, they adopted/ migrated to similar cold regions to the north.

Thus it suited their hunter/fisher mode of living.

They are there since 15,000 BP. (Niskanen’s article and the references thereof).

Only after sorting out the European language history, we can now approach the Altaic and Indo-European issues.

THE STUDY FINDS URALIC AND IE BEING THE CLOSEST.

HOWEVER GENERALLY THE LINGUISTIC STUDIES BEFORE THIS HAVE SUPPORTED URALIC AND ALTAIC AS THE CLOSEST TO EACH OTHER.

In fact, Uralic and Altaic have been found to be actually two branches of a larger language family.

S i n o r, D. 1988, The Problem of the Ural-Altaic Relationship, The Uralic Languages, Description, History and Foreign Influences. Handbook of Uralic Studies I, Leiden—New York, 706—741.

Bomhard, Allan R. (2008). Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary, 2 volumes. 

Bomhard (2008) was most near the truth of all linguists who found that the Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European were sisters on equal footing implying a simultaneous trifercation of the three. This fits well with the genetic model with split of the three in India, from a common ancestor of the three, before the LGM, much before 23,000 BP.

Green areas are Uralic, other colours are Altaic

The Altaic languages are distributed to the south and to the east of the Uralic speaking areas.

Thus if Uralic represents the Upper Palaeolithic language of Europe, Altaic represents the Upper Palaeolithic language of Central Asia reaching up to Japan in the East.

It may be noted that Japanese and Korean are too often quite logically included in Altaic, although Pagel et al have not done so.

Thus we find that Uralic, Altaic, Chukchee-Kamchatkan and Inuit-Yupic should be considered from the same layer of linguistic substratum, the same super-family and should be considered to have evolved from a common ancestor.

Uralic, Altaic, Chukchee-Kamchatkan, Inuit-Yupic speaking areas are those which were inhabited between 40,000 and 25,000 BP, from waves entering Central Asia from India.

In India, archaic PIE, and archaic PD

However the distribution clearly suggests a later super-imposition of the IE on to European and Central Asian territories (brown lines and arrows added by me)

This view is consistent with the post-teleglacial Y-chromosome related human migrations out of India

R1A1A MIGRATION (UNDERHILL 2010)

J2B MIGRATION (J2 PROJECT)

Before the IE migration, the IE area of today outside Indo-Iran must have been occupied by Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic languages, Proto-Basque being in the South Europe, since before the Last Glacial Max.

This picture is obtained from the DNA migration maps (after Oppenheimer’s maps)

The Route map from India to Central Asia, Tibet and Europe as made by Oppenheimer, Bradshaw Foundation picture

The Route map from India to Central Asia, Tibet and Europe as made by Stephen Oppenheimer, Bradshaw Foundation picture

These migrations gave this linguistic distribution

Kartvelian migration is consistent with the human DNA migration from India to West Asia and beyond about 50,000 BP

Human migration and Language distribution 50,000-45,000 BP

OPPENHEIMER’S MAP OF DNA MIGRATION

DRAWING SHOWING HUMAN POPULATION ON THE BASIS OF DNA MAP

Thus Kartvelian split (PK below) is older than the Altaic-Uralic split from the trunk, yet it is later than the Proto-Dravidian split from the trunk. DNA studies too suggest that the ASI split, and became separate the earliest.

The study found that the Proto-Dravidian was the first to have split from the Eurasian trunk

Why results indicate that the Proto-Dravidian was the first to split from the Eurasiatic trunk

The South Asians spread over north and South India

Later offshoots came out from ANI

This can be understood from the fact that soon after the arrival to India, the Eurasians got distributed in the north and south of the country. Reich et al’s ANI-ASI concept helps us understand how it had happened.

DRAWING REICH ET AL

Hence the Proto-Dravidian seems today to have split the first from the main trunk.

The first migration out of India was to SE Asia in the Austronesian, Papuan and Australian territoriesTHE FIRST EURASIANS A FEW THOUSAND YEARS FOLLOWING EXIT OUT FROM AFRICA: ANI-ASI

COASTAL MIGRATION

These populations split off from the main trunk quite early, and must show much less commonality with the rest.

Pagel’s study did not consider the South-East Asian, Australian and Sino-Tibetan languages, which too should have been considered.

Pagel et al calculated that the Eurasiatic language existed at 15,000 BP, from which the seven important language families of Eurasia originated after 15,000 BP.

These language families cover most of Europe and Asia, except the white areas in the map below:

Current distribution of language families as per Pagel 2013 (Fig. 4)

What was the linguistic substratum on which the IE migration took place?

We must note that that substratum too must have originated from the same Eurasiatic ancestral trunk as the IE, because of the known singularity of origin of all the Asians

Indo-European migration which seems to have taken place over an originally Uralic-Altaic territory

The North Indian Language at 30,000 BP was ancestor of Proto-Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic

30,000 BP 15,000-8,000 BP

This supported by DNA evidence of human migration 40,000-30,000 BP

Human migration about 40,000 to 30,000 BP

DRAWING BY STEPHEN OPPENHEIMER.

THIS COULD GIVE RISE TO A LINGUISTIC DISTRIBUTION LIKE THIS:

Possibly, before the IE expansion, the Uralic and Altaic languages occupied most of Eurasia

Thanks

I hope I have been able to explain the evolution of the Eurasiatic language tree.