r/IndoEuropean • u/UnderstandingThin40 • 21d ago

Indo-European migrations New preprint claims that the Rigveda and Mittani/Hurrian song (hymn to Nikkal) have the same cadence and are from the same musical foundation

What do you guys think?

Paper: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202506.1669/v2

Not an expert but this seems like a stretch?

Also the author doesn’t seem to know that the Mitanni come from the steppe and not India, making him seem less credible.

The paper also in general doesn’t come off as professional.

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u/UnderstandingThin40 21d ago

The indo aryan pantheon is from the steppe, one branch went into India and became the Vedic language. Another went to Syria and became the Mitanni branch. Both branches will have overlapping words

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u/PuzzleheadedMetal141 18d ago

  1. There is zero linguistic evidence that the Vedic pantheon originated in the steppe. On the other hand there are multiple indo aryan river names cited in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Hydronyms are the last names to change in a language which points to an indigenous naming of rivers.

  2. Archaeologically the Mittani have elephant and peacock motifs (only found in India at this time) in their pottery which strongly suggests that they had a strong cultural influence from NW India. You can’t paint pots with elephants if you’ve never seen them before.

  3. Linguistically look into the chronological gap in the rigveda and what you find is that the Mittani retain the “Old” Rigvedic form vs the “New” Rig Veda - suggesting that they were in India during the time period of the formation of the Rig Veda.

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u/UnderstandingThin40 17d ago

  1. Your point 1 is laughably wrong, if you genuinely believe that then you don’t understand the basic of linguistics lol.

  2. Thinking having a peacock seal and elephant motifs means people from India migrated their and conquered the land is not even close meaning they had strong cultural influence lol. I guess that means England was ruled by people from the Middle East because they had lion motifs in the 12th century.

  3. Incorrect again, the Mitanni and rigvedic words spawn from the same root. That means ofc the Mitanni words will be closer to old rigvedic words compared to newer ones. It’s like you don’t understand the basics of the linguistics. 

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u/Free_Mail3745 2d ago

Mittani word is not closer to old rigvedic but post vedic word , Tusharatha is name not found in any rigvedic sankrit or avestan ,but in post vedic The title ratha term in name actually consider middle Vedic or post vedic where many aristocrat of indo Aryans used this term until the classical sankrit era , Their is no single person king in whole Rigveda with any title with ratha