Talk:Proto-Indo-European mythology

Anybody want to start a Neolithic Mythology page from non-PIE elements?
It looks like we have a professional reconstruction of the PIE religion and an extensive amount of myths left over; that didn’t make the cut. Is there anyway we can start a new page regarding Neolithic European Mythology; by region? :) Simonater2 (talk) 04:09, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but quite difficult. We reconstruct PIE myth when three (ideally) or more (even more ideally) branches share a corresponding form and function, the more detailed the correspondence the better. But we have to assume that there were lots of cases where some mythological figure or motif was lost in all but one of the branches, but since there is no trace of it in other branches, we still can't reconstruct it as PIE.

So it becomes pretty much impossible to suss out what features of any particular branch are truly non-IE/native neolithic material, and which are actually PIE in origin, but not well enough attested in enough branches to be solidly reconstructible.

But the same issue applies in the vocabulary in general. Some have tried recently for example to reconstruct the pre-Greek language from the large portion of ancient Greek vocabulary (about half!) that can't be traced back to PIE with certainty. These attempts remain controversial, but they have become more subtle and systematic than some of the earlier hamfisted attempts at this sort of thing.

I hope this is somewhat understandable. Best wishes. Johundhar (talk) 21:39, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

See for example the intro to Beekes's Greek Etymological DictionaryJohundhar (talk) 22:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Johundhar@Simonater2 I might not be understanding it, but isn't what you're proposing original research? Original research is great but on Wikipedia it is not allowed directly. You should do the research and then post it and use it as a source in a wikipedia article. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 00:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But, they cannot just post it somewhere themselves. That falls under self-published sources. Such research would have to be published in an independent, reliable source, and, for this subject, that would mean in a peer-reviewed academic journal or a book published by an academic or major publisher. Donald Albury 01:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Other propositions
We have 5 sections in this article titled "Other_propositions". Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 21:39, 28 February 2023 (UTC)


 * What do you suggest these sections be called? I think "Other Propositions" is fine, because they are other propositions concerning the subject that the section is under. JungleEntity (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Deity infoboxes
It's been a point of minor edit warring on whether infoboxes should be included for Indo European deities. I firmly stand in the pro infobox category as they make it easier for people to get immediate info on such deities. We should come to a consensus here about them rather than just adding and removing them constantly on articles.

. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 08:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Priesthood
Much is made of Mallory & Adams (1997), but what we say in the priesthood section bears little resemblance to the cited entry about priesthood. There is no mention of the trifunctional ideology discussed in the source (although there is mention of the proposed duality, so someone has clearly read the source), but there are bold statements that are not in the source, such as The king as the high priest would have been the central figure in establishing favourable relations with the other world. or mention of shamans. I have not removed these statements yet, because they are not totally implausible, but at this point it feels like the section has been written from a certain POV and that the source is merely cited to lend credence to it. I think it needs re-writing, or else better sourcing. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

"Proto-Indo-European" as a classification.
I'm not going to argue about anthropologists and I understand the conclusion they came to with this. But I feel the article fails to mention that the Greek and Roman Pantheons are directly related to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian pantheons, which are not part of this theory of a main Sky deity. There is a mix up here, or it's actually a Proto-Indo-Euro-Semitic religion. To me this seems like most likely a linguistic connection and not relevant to religions in South Asia, in the Indian part, "Dyus Pitr" is a minor character, which makes it seem like it's just a cognate. On the other side of the coin however the Sky father is the main God in Abrahamic faiths but has no relation to Proto-Indo-European and is Afro-Semitic. 2800:A4:1F95:B800:E811:3879:543F:1C4F (talk) 02:15, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Indo-Europeans in their presumed early homelands (Pontic-Caspian steppe) and early migration routes were not in direct contact with Semitic-language speakers (much less Egypt), and such syncretism could have started only after they reached the Mediterranean area or northern tier of the mid-east. See Interpretatio graeca and Interpretatio romana... AnonMoos (talk) 08:50, 29 November 2023 (UTC)