June 30, 2018

Comparative Similarities Between Indo-European Languages Reflect Ultraconservation

Consider it as a preprint:As I was watching the latest James Bond film Specter a couple of months ago, I spotted the Spanish  for "The Day of The Dead", "Dia de Muertos" flash across the screen. I was overawed once more! How could there be so much semblance between languages given that they are spoken by people separated several thousands miles apart? Here in this case for example, dia stands for day in English and din in Bengali; while muertos (dead) is phonetically and alphabetically related to mrityu (death, in Bangla). Not only do they retain their meanings across languages/dialects/cultures so disparate geographically but also the phonetic pronunciation remain almost intact. I have been, for a long time, amazed at the astounding similarities between English and other European languages with that of Bengali and Hindi. Please note that these similarities existed way before the British conquered India, some 15,000 years ago!(see references below). More recently, "in the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and European languages." Here are only a few examples. More examples can be found here and here.

Phonetic Bengali [(IPA) symbols NOT adhered to]
English/other European terms with same meaning
Hindi or other ANI   Ancestral North Indians (ANI)
Remarks
POORO
PURE
POOREY
Full, 100%
MRITYU
MUERTOS (SPANISH)
MURDA/MURDER

PATH
PATH


ADOR
ADORE


OLI (=LANE)-GOLI
ALLEY


AAGRAASON
AGGRESSION


NAAM
NAME, NOM (


BAWD
BAD


DWOR
DOOR


KUTTA
KUTYA (HUNGARY)
KUTTA
Dog
BHRAATAA
BRAT (RUSSIA, POLAND, UKRAINE, CROATIA)

Brother
BAARF

SNOW IN FARSI, URDU, HINDI
BRITISH SLANG FOR SICK
BOWMI
VOMIT


NAWBOW
NEW, NUEVO



BETTER
BEHTER

BYABOHAAR
BEHAVIOUR



DI-URNAL

AANHIK

PSYCHIATRIC

SAYA-KAYA (BODY-MIND)
ONDOR
INDOOR


BAAG
BURG/BURGH/Borough
BAAG
E.G. KAROLBAAG, HAMBURG
GEET/ GITA
GUITAR

Song, E.G. BHAGWAT GITA
OSTHI
OSTEO

BONE
SHAWTOW
CENTUM

HUNDRED
PAWD
PEDIS


BAKYO
VOX
BAKSH
Voice, Word
DOSHOM
DECEM

TEN

BIRCH
BHURJYA (SANSKRIT)

AAMI
ME

MYSELF, Me
DEEN
DAY, DIEM


NAASAAA
NASION, NOSE


DEVAH
DIO, GOD


SARPA, SERPE
SERPENT


ASTAA
EIGHT, OCTO (LATIN)


NAVA
NINE, NOVE (ITALIAN)


SAAT
SEPTEM, SEVEN, SETTE


DWO
TWO


SARKARA
SUGAR/CANDY


ADAM
ADMI (PERSON) HINDI)

DANT
DENTAL, TOOTH


BANDHAN
BONDAGE


Well, then how are these languages so intricately related? How likely is it that the "cognates" are just coincidences? [Cognates are words which have the same linguistic lineage. When you do a voice search on Google Assistant or Apple's Siri, the server breaks-up your voice command into 'phonemes' and they then try to match the word that appears most likely to be spoken by comparing with its database. Cognates are thus likely to be confused by the computer since they are so phonetically similar. Generally, most cognates have a linguistic half-life of about 2000-4000 years. This means that there is 50% chance that a cognate will be replaced by a non-cognate (not similar sounding) one. But it has been seen that pronouns, numerals and some other words tend to persist much longer, and are less prone to erosion.] The semblance unequivocally points to a common origin; and that these words did not originate multifocally on the planet.

However, the linguistic similarities are noticed between European and North Indian languages only. It has been proved by genetic analysis that most of the ethno-linguistic groups in India (and South Asia in general) originated from two separate ancestral populations: Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). While the ANI ancestry is strongly related genetically to Central Asians, Caucasians and Europeans, the ASI ancestry derived from within the subcontinent. This finding in genome analysis corroborates with the evidences from archaeology and linguistics, that there was a mixture between ANI and people from the said regions. [There happened mixtures between ASI and ANI as well, but endogamous marriages became the order of the day when the caste system came into vogue precluding any further admixtures.]

Clearly, the etymological similarities strongly suggest a single single linguistic superfamily (Proto-Indo-European superfamily) from which civilizations diverged. So it is certain that there were some ancient populace who migrated and somehow some of the words still managed to survive the language erosion. [The term Indo-European was first used by none other than Thomas Young, the British Polymath, famous for his double-slit experiment.......] The most accepted opinion is that the early linguistic ancestors migrated from the Pontic Caspian steppe, somewhere near Ukraine, to populate more southwards. There is another postulate that the early migration took a northward route, towards Europe.

But is there any proof that these ancient people really traveled or migrated? There is, indeed! Not only the similarities in language, there are also other clues that prove that this migration really happened. It is bolstered by archaeological, ecological, genetic and anthropological evidences. Though it is innate human nature to forage and advance just for the sake of adventure, the early migration may have arisen out of necessity. The early hunter gatherers may have moved to a favorable place where farming and agriculture was prevalent, so that they could feed themselves and their cattle and horses. Perhaps a harsher winter in Europe forced these population to leave their original homeland (Urheimat hypothesis or the primary homeland hypothesis).

Consider the Gundestrup Cauldron, adored as a beautiful example of Celtic art, discovered in Denmark in 1891 and was thought to date back to about 100 BC. The horned god, sculpted in the cauldron, looks very much like the seal of Shiva/ Pasupati icon of  early Indus Valley Civilization, which dates back to about 2000 BC. There are other artefacts of proto-Idian-Europen (PIE) religion that suggest the linkage of ancient Indian items to that found in Europe.

Of all the possible theories that explain our common ancestry, the most interesting perhaps is the Genetic theory. There are 46 chromosomes in humans. 22 pairs of autosomes and two sex chromosomes: XX in females and XY in males. In addition to these strands of DNA that these chromosomes contain, there are mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that contains the 'four letters' (ATGC) of the nucleotide alphabetic lexicon. What's interesting about these mtDNA strands is that they are inherited exclusively from the maternal side.

ATTRIBUTIION AND REFERENCING WILL BE PROVIDED LATER. Special Reference to:
https://www.rbth.com/blogs/2014/11/01/sanskrit_and_russian_ancient_kinship_39451

It's this Great Country (Russia) where World cup Football is taking place. My salutation to Messi, who donates to the UNICEF regularly. Did you know that he was very poor, and that he had Growth Hormone deficiency? He came back!

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 The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either (William Jones, Philologist)