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. 2016 Apr 19;8(4):1132-49.
doi: 10.1093/gbe/evw046.

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

Ranajit Das  1 , Paul Wexler  2 , Mehdi Pirooznia  3 , Eran Elhaik  4
Affiliations

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

Ranajit Das et al. Genome Biol Evol. .

Abstract

The Yiddish language is over 1,000 years old and incorporates German, Slavic, and Hebrew elements. The prevalent view claims Yiddish has a German origin, whereas the opposing view posits a Slavic origin with strong Iranian and weak Turkic substrata. One of the major difficulties in deciding between these hypotheses is the unknown geographical origin of Yiddish speaking Ashkenazic Jews (AJs). An analysis of 393 Ashkenazic, Iranian, and mountain Jews and over 600 non-Jewish genomes demonstrated that Greeks, Romans, Iranians, and Turks exhibit the highest genetic similarity with AJs. The Geographic Population Structure analysis localized most AJs along major primeval trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages with names that may be derived from "Ashkenaz." Iranian and mountain Jews were localized along trade routes on the Turkey's eastern border. Loss of maternal haplogroups was evident in non-Yiddish speaking AJs. Our results suggest that AJs originated from a Slavo-Iranian confederation, which the Jews call "Ashkenazic" (i.e., "Scythian"), though these Jews probably spoke Persian and/or Ossete. This is compatible with linguistic evidence suggesting that Yiddish is a Slavic language created by Irano-Turko-Slavic Jewish merchants along the Silk Roads as a cryptic trade language, spoken only by its originators to gain an advantage in trade. Later, in the 9th century, Yiddish underwent relexification by adopting a new vocabulary that consists of a minority of German and Hebrew and a majority of newly coined Germanoid and Hebroid elements that replaced most of the original Eastern Slavic and Sorbian vocabularies, while keeping the original grammars intact.

Keywords: Ashkenaz; Ashkenazic Jews; Rhineland Hypothesis; Yiddish; archaeogenetics; geographic population structure (GPS).

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Figures

F<sc>ig</sc>. 1.—
Fig. 1.—
An illustrated timeline for the events comprised by the Rhineland (blue arrows) and the Irano-Turko-Slavic (orange arrows) hypotheses. The stages of Yiddish evolution according to each hypothesis are shown through landmark events for which the identity of the proto-Ashkenazic Jewish populations and their spoken languages are noted per region.
F<sc>ig</sc>. 2.—
Fig. 2.—
Depicting the distributions of nine admixture components. (A) Admixture proportions of all populations included in this study. For brevity, subpopulations were collapsed and only half of all AJs are presented (see supplementary fig. S3, Supplementary Material online, for the full distribution). The x-axis represents individuals. Each individual is represented by a vertical stacked column of color-coded admixture proportions that reflects genetic contributions from nine putative ancestral populations. (B) The geographical distribution of admixture proportions in Eurasia.
F<sc>ig</sc>. 3.—
Fig. 3.—
GPS predicted coordinates for individuals of Afro-Eurasian populations and subpopulations. Individual labels and colors match their known region/state/country of origin using the following legend: AB (Abkhazian), ARM (Armenian), BDN (Bedouin), BU (Bulgarian), DA (Dane), EG (Egyptian), FIN (Finnish), GK (Greek), GO (Georgian), GR (German), ID/TSI (Italy: Sardinian/Tuscan), IR (Iranian), KR (Kurds), LE (Lebanese), Palestinian (PAL), PT (Pamiri from Tajikistan), R-A/B/C/I/K/MO/N/NO/T (Russia: Altaian/Balkar/Chechen/Ingush/Kumyk/Mordovian/Nogai/North Ossetian/Tatar and RM for Moscow Russians), RO (Romanian), TR (Turkmen), TUR (Turk), UK (United Kingdom), UR (Ukranian). Pie charts reflect the admixture proportions and geographical locations of the reference populations. Note: occasionally all individuals of certain populations (e.g., Altaians) were predicted in the same spot and thus appear as a single individual.
F<sc>ig</sc>. 4.—
Fig. 4.—
A map depicting the predicted location of Jewish (triangles) AJs (orange), claimants of priestly lineages (orange and black), Mountain Jews (pink), and Iranian Jews (yellow) alongside the ancient pre-Scythian individual (blue diamond). An inset shows the sample distribution in northern Turkey, the locations of the four villages that may derive their names from “Ashkenaz,” and adjacent cities. Large (13–23%), medium (4–10%), and small (1–4%) circles reflect the percentage of AJs’ parents born in each region. The paternal and maternal haplogroups of the AJs are shown at the top of the figure.
F<sc>ig</sc>. 5.—
Fig. 5.—
Comparing AJs with “native” individuals from six populations. (A) Admixture proportions of AJs and all simulated individuals included in this analysis. For brevity, only half of all AJs are presented. The x-axis represents individuals. Each individual is represented by a vertical stacked column of color-coded admixture proportions that reflects genetic contributions from nine putative ancestral populations. (B) The genetic distances (d) between the simulated individuals and their nearest modern-day populations. (C) The geographical coordinates from which the admixture signatures (A) were derived. (D) GPS predictions for the admixture signatures of the simulated individuals of the six populations. Pie charts denote the proportion of individuals correctly predicted in the countries of origins, coded by the colors of the six countries (C) or white for other countries. The geographical origins of Yiddish speakers previously obtained are shown for comparison. An inset magnifies northeastern Turkey. (E) The d within Yiddish speakers and between them to the simulated individuals. (F) The proportion of simulated individuals that are geographically closest to Ashkenazic Jewish subgroups.
F<sc>ig</sc>. 6.—
Fig. 6.—
Undirected graph illustrating the genetic distances (d) between all non-Jewish individuals included in this study. An inset shows the distances between AJs (Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers) and populations with whom they share small d. For coherency, edges are shown between genetically similar individuals (d <0.75). Some Iranians, Sardinians, Tajiks, Altai, and East Asians clustered separately and are not shown.
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