Researchers identify present day Turkey as origin of Indo-European languages
Washington Post – HRISTIO BOYTCHEV – Aug 24, 2012
By using novel methods developed for tracing the origins of virus outbreaks, researchers say they have identified present-day Turkey as the homeland of the Indo-European language family.
The international team, led by Quentin Atkinson, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used computational methods analyzing words from more than 100 ancient and contemporary languages, as well as geographical and historical data. By doing so, the scientists say they have pinned down the origin, about 8,000 years ago, of the largest global language to the region of Anatolia. Go to story
I am not a linguist, nor an archeologist, nor historian. But I would like to point out what His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami has said on the subject. The world’s firstmost proponent of the science of Krishna consciousness and teachings of the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavat Purana) and a Sanskrit scholar of eminent stature, Prabhupada did repeat that linguists have concluded that Sankrit is the mother of all languages. He also spoke of the complexity and depth of the Sanskrit language, its superiority to other languages and the great body of literature known as the Vedas and supplementary literature such as the Upanishads, Vedanta Sutras, Mahabharata and the Puranas, and how they are the handbooks for the human race and formed the backbone of the civilization known as Bharata-varsha.
Prabhupada pointed out that archeologists use rocks and bones and other relics to piece together theories and publish them as authoritative research findings, but they do not like to consult the ancient literature, or even investigate it scientifically. Prabhupada explained that ascending knowledge (empirical and speculative) is inferior to descending knowledge, or that which comes down via authorities.
The news article doesn’t go into depth to explain precisely how the research team decided Turkish language was predecessor to all Indo-European languages. It does refer to an abstract published in the magazine Science, and it does say that the determination was based on archeological data, which showed that the languages spread with the expansion of agriculture from Anatolia, some 8,000 to 9,500 years ago. This would be consistent with the Aryan Invasion Theory, which is the current mainstream historians’ point of view.
The Vedic texts, however, describe an ancient human civilization under the reign of Ramachandra over two million years ago that was far and away more advanced than that which dwelled in Anatolia or on the steppes of Russia. The capitol of Rama’s empire was the ancient city Ayodyha, situated in northern India, roughly 500 miles northeast of New Delhi.
Even prior to Ramachandra, however, there were other kings and kingdoms. The Vedas explain that the world used to be under the rule of one emperor, and the greater empire was called Bharata-varsha. That land which is now called India was the seat of the empire, but the empire consisted of many different provincial kingdoms even in far-flung lands. Sometime before the period of Lord Rama’s reign, the great personality named Parashurama chastised the miscreant kings and killed many of them; others were driven out from India and fled to distant lands, where they set up rule. For a time they and their descendants preserved the brahminical culture of the Vedic kingdoms, but eventually it deteriorated.
The Mahabharatagives information that Bhima and Sahadeva conquered the Greek territory (known as Pulinda) and reclaimed it as a tributary province of the Bharata-varsha. The rulers were kshatriya kings, i.e. kings who followed the Vedic principles, but later their descendants gave them up. The province named Abhira was situated on the River Saraswati in Sind and extended to the other side of the Arabian Sea. Like the Pulindas, the Abhiras were under the rule of King Yudhisthira five thousand years ago. They were the descendants of the kshatriyas who had run away from Parashurama and hidden themselves in the Caucasian hilly regions. As for the Turks, they are descendants of the ancient emperor known as Maharaja Yayati, who gave his son Yavana the part of the world known as Turkey to rule over. They were also kshatriyas, but later on gave up brahminical culture. [1]
Over time, Bharata-varsha shrank, and endured invasion and conquest from the descendants of former provincial kings — the Pulinda known as Alexander the Great, the Abhira known as Mohammed Ghori, and also Yavanas.
Modern historians say that the Greeks and the Mohammedans brought more advanced civilization to India; however, while there is no question that aspects of their culture did rub off onto India’s cultural landscape at the time, the Greek, the actual truth is that Persian and Turkish civilizations had percolated down from the original Vedic civilization of Bharata-varsha.
It’s indeed probable that some aspects of the languages spoken in Anatolia and on the steppes of Russia were spread to other regions, just as we understand that the modern English language began with the mixing of Anglo Saxen and Norman peoples. However, the researchers are saying that the language spoken in Anatolia 8,000 years ago is the origin of the Indo-European languages. According to the Vedas, that region would have been a province of Bharata-varsha at that time and was up until 5,000 years ago. In any case, Anatolia was not the seat of human civilization for that period. So although Anatolia’s vernacular language may not have been Sanskrit, almost certainly it was influenced by or derived from Sanskrit. Until now, linguists have shown that most Indo-European and other Asian languages originated from Sanskrit. So this piece of research is a little controversial.
Is there any record of highly developed literature in that language of ancient Turkey? Or was the written language only rudimentary? For those who accept that the beginnings of the human race were crude and elementary and later evolved to advanced civilization, the researchers’ conclusion might be plausible, but the Vedic literature tells us that early human civilization was much more advanced than modern-day civilization, and the elaborately woven Sanskrit texts and the depth of knowledge that comprises them continue to baffle and amaze scholars to this day. How is it that a language and literature so many thousands of years old is so much more complex than modern-day language and literature, if we believe that human civilization now is much more advanced?
1. purport, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 2, Chapter 4, Text 18, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
