
Phylogenetic analyses uncover ancient roots of Indo-European folktales (2016) - apollinaire
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150645
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danans
Interesting paper in that it claims to have found a common theme of the "Smith
and the Devil" story using statistical techniques keyed on particular features
of folk tales.

It should also be pointed out that there are many transparently shared story-
lines among the IE languages that have previously been discovered just by
traditional comparative literature methods.

The most well known of these is the "hero vs the dragon/serpent", which is
observed in works as geographically and time separated from each other as
Beowulf vs Wyrm in Anglo Saxon legends and Indra vs Vrtra in the Vedas.

Finding vertically transmitted ancient storylines is interesting and even more
compelling than the long known vertically transmitted language components like
grammar and lexicon.

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thelightthat
Do you have any links you can share? Thanks

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danans
Check out "How to Kill a Dragon" by Calvert Watkins (1995)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Kill_a_Dragon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Kill_a_Dragon)

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amanaplanacanal
Anyone interested in this topic might enjoy this website discussing proto-
indo-European religion:
[http://www.piereligion.org/](http://www.piereligion.org/)

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gumby
I had some Indian children’s stories that seemed obviously to have been
European stories translated into Marathi (e.g. wicked stepmother forces
daughter to separate mixed sand and rice). But maybe that is not what
happened.

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JoeAltmaier
That story is strange - its pretty easy to separate mixed sand and rice. Toss
it in a sieve for instance. Or just toss it - they are different densities and
will naturally separate.

Or heat the sand! The rice pops and will trivially be separable.

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gumby
It’s a children’s story and I think most kids are used to seemingly pointless
tasks

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JoeAltmaier
Yeah but folks have been popping rice in hot sand for millennia. Its
apparently the oldest recipe known! So children should have seen it done
daily. Hm.

