lpetrich

I've reviewed it, and of the two participants, I agree with ChristianSkeptic (it was real) as opposed to HindooHeathen (it was a myth). This is ultimately derived from a Kiosk article by Amit Misra(?) which seems to have disappeared. I regret not having written a rebuttal earlier, because IMO the Aryan-invasion hypothesis is strongly supported by the available evidence.

One big bit of evidence is linguistic; the Indo-Aryan languages are most closely related to the Iranian ones, the relationship being especially clear in the oldest ones recorded at length, Sanskrit and Old Persian. These are in turn related to many of the languages of Europe and nearby in a big "Indo-European" family; here again, the relationship is clearer in the older languages.

However, the Indo-Aryan languages are not recognizably related to the Dravidian ones, which are another recognizably-related group; this implies that the common ancestor of Indo-European and Dravidian must have beeen spoken several thousand years ago, enough to seriously obscure their relationship.

The relationship I have in mind is genetic, that of being passed on from parent to child, from teacher to pupil. It may seem difficult to identify such relationships, because vocabulary can often be borrowed almost indiscriminately, much to the consternation of certain linguistic purists like the French Academy and other opponents of "franglais". But there is a basic sort of vocabulary that does not get borrowed very easily, and grammar also does not get borrowed very easily; especially word morphology and grammatical irregularities.

For instance, English has an abundance of Old French borrowings, yet its verb conjugations much more closely resembles those of other Germanic languages rather than the Romance ones. For example, English has "strong" verbs where different tenses are made with vowel shifts (give-gave-given) and "weak" verbs where some tenses are made with the -ed suffix. And looking at Old English, we find an absence of those Old French borrowings, for which we can thank William the Conqueror and his successors, but we find close similarities in those verb conjugations. And the other Germanic languages have similar sorts of verb conjugations.

The next question is how the Indo-Aryan languages got into India. A language used for trade or for highbrow discourse usually does not replace the language used for everyday purposes; Latin has been the language of learned discourse in Europe for several centuries, yet the various vernacular languages have survived, and one of them (English) has essentially taken its position.

So who might have used it for everyday purposes? Some immigrants, of course. And why did their language come out on top? Conquest is a good answer; there are many languages that have been spread by conquest, where the conquerors' language eventually became adopted by the conquered population. Examples:

Latin in the Roman Empire became the Romance languages
Turkic spread from Central Asia to places as far as Anatolia 1000 years ago
Arabic became the language of most of the Middle East and north Africa

So it is very conceivable that something similar had happened in India.

And if ChristianSkeptic is reading this, I invite him to use my comments in that debate, provided that he attributes them to me.

ChristianSkeptic

lpetrich:...if ChristianSkeptic is reading this, I invite him to use my comments in that debate, provided that he attributes them to me

ChristianSkeptic: Your points are well taken and if, and that's a definite maybe, they are incorporated into future posts the source will be properly attributed.

Have you and I dialogued on this board before(i.e. thought experiment)?

[ July 16, 2001: Message edited by: ChristianSkeptic ]

lpetrich

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChristianSkeptic:
ChristianSkeptic: Your points are well taken and if, and that's a definite maybe, they are incorporated into future posts the source will be properly attributed.

LP:
Thanx. And a good discussion of the Indo-European question can be found in J.P. Mallory's _In Search of the Indo-Europeans_; it is a good, accessible discussion of a variety of historical, archeological, and linguistic evidence.

CS:
Have you and I dialogued on this board before(i.e. thought experiment)?

LP:
As far as I can remember, no.

Sastan

I haven't examined the issue indepth, but from what I understand, the main issue revolves around *how* the foreign groups entered the sub-continent.

The traditional view held that 'White Aryans' invaded and forcibly took over, making themselves the masters and organising caste so the dark-skinned Dravidians were in lower castes.

The anti-AiT proponents claim that the evidence for a violent invasion is virtually non-existence, that Max Muller and his contemporaries had motives to belittle the native Indians and their heritage.

I don't think anyone can credibly deny that there were incoming settlements though.

Ihatecheese

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lpetrich:
[QB]I've reviewed it, and of the two participants, I agree with ChristianSkeptic (it was real) as opposed to HindooHeathen (it was a myth). This is ultimately derived from a Kiosk article by Amit Misra(?) which seems to have disappeared. I regret not having written a rebuttal earlier, because IMO the Aryan-invasion hypothesis is strongly supported by the available evidence.
[/b]

While I lean towards the idea of Aryan Caucasoid movement into India the evidence is not overwhelming. Apart from the shaky linguistic evidence what other evidence supports the theory?. There is a distinct lack of it in some key areas which leaves the theory very open to rebuttal. The theory fits for me because it is in tune with other historical data even if that data is not locally Indian.

phaedrus

Umm..well i can repeat what i have read... but will just give the links i provided in the other thread. Maybe that should provide a basis for a extended discussion ..

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India

Aryan Invasion

Other chaps who have made some research...

The Vedic corpus provides no evidence for the so-called Aryan invasion of India

And people who are really intersted in the topic, maybe they should read this book...
Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate by Koenraad elst.

And ofcourse for more discussions on the topic land up at...
Indology

That should help

hinduwoman

you can go over to www.voi.org and take a look at various books there. In particular Koenraad's Elst's book "Update on Aryan invasion" is very scholarly.

Boshko

Well if not an invasion then there certainly was a damn big migratation (and with nomadic people like the ancient iranians migrations and invasions were pretty much the same thing).
-people in NW India look a good bit like Iranians/Afghans.
-a lot of the hindu religion (I believe) has roots in nomadic religion. For example the fixation with cows can probably be traced back to the imporatance to cows in herding cultures, also the less of a fixation with the afterlife/salvation is also fairly common in nomad religions (as opposed to, say Buddhism).
-I don't see why an Aryan invasion is inherently racist, after all the first thing they did was annihilate the quite advanced Meheno-Daro (sp!!) civilization.

phaedrus

Umm

1. Looking alike is not a good enough reason to postualte a theory, that way since civilization landed up in europe much later the remaining world, the original inhabitants of the continent could be viewed to be dumb and had to learn from the ancient civilisations.

2. For your information Buddhism is an offshoot of hinduism and which of the major religions do not have their roots in the nomads? Before agriculture set in, all of them were nomads

3. Reading all the links and points made in this thread and in the formal debates may help you give more insight into the issue and the spellings. Asking you to do that, coz you will find answers to those questions urself

Edited to add Wonder why all the proponents are keeping quiet?

[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: phaedrus ]

hinduwoman

Recent research proves that there is not much voilence involved in destruction of Mohenjodaro. Environmental degradfation and draughts are mostly responsible.

Most probably some of the migrants did impose rule by force, but considering the way the cultures have meshed together peaceful ways are morelikely solytions.