lpetrich

hinduwoman:
Here The AIT theory is a matter of scholarly debate only and no one is using it for anything else. But in the world of politics it is a different matter. Here are my objections to it:

They are saying Hinduism came from outside and was imposed by force on local inhabitants. That is why the anti-AIT is on a sons-of-the-soil campaign.

LP:
However, if you check those links that copernicus had posted, it's clear that the more serious sort of scholar proposes a *partial* version of AIT, in which invading Aryans contributed only *some* parts of Hinduism. Parpola in particular extrapolates various mythical motifs back to the Harappans in his efforts to decipher the Harappan script; he considers it pre-Aryan, meaning that he supports a partial AIT and not the full-scale version that you dislike. And that partial version, IMO, is the most supportable version; I agree that full AIT is dead wrong.

HW:
How would these people like it if the first taste of Christianity any Hindus get is Christopher Malowe's writings?

LP:
Who's Christopher Malowe?

phaedrus

LP

That was a joke -- Linear B and the Greek alphabet are separate inventions; as are the Harappan script and later Indian scripts.

Dude dont you get it, the way you explained why the greeks re-acquired writing is an indication that such explanation would be possible for Sanskrit and Indus script.

I'm not a lazy bum; I've searched for online translations of the Vedas with NO success. All I've found is various summaries and a few sample hymns, like a hymn that honors fire as a god and Carl Sagan's favorite Veda quote, Rig Veda 10:139, which wonders if the Gods themselves know how the Universe was created.

Well then all you can do is keep quoting secondary sources. Atleast there you can shift the blame to the original individual in case the arguement goes the other way. A simple question, how can you even be sure that a translation is "accurate"?? All translations are interpretations and that is where hermeneutics come into the picture. And to think that people make arguements based on someone else's translations without checking out the veracity of the translation/translator.

I wonder what his criteria are for deciding that an invasion has happened.

However, most other archeologists who have examined this problem have concluded that an invasion has happened.

Read his book "Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization" and i wonder why other archealogists would have more information about the civilization compared to someone who is actually working on the site

And please dont make generic statements like "others have concluded that there is an INVASION" provide quotes and links (obviously i am asking for the latest ones not ones made by muller )

One has to compare it with archeological evidence, like whether any horse remains have been found. If there are, then the people who had lived there would have had a word for it.

As Colin Renfrew very rightly pointed out, linguistic evidence in isolation doesnt do anyone any good. His approach about archaeology, linguistics and genetics sounds jsut about right, with the last category gaining importance. People could have seen the horse in other lands and could have had words for it or we havent really understood the language correctly and maybe there is word for it and we dont know.

They had already known how to build chariots when they were in the mountains; chariots could be useful in the valleys between mountains, even if not in mountain passes.

Can you substantiate them knowing how to build chariots while they were in the mountains?? So they carried the iron required to build the chariots all along with them?

When you give me a URL for a complete online translation of the Rig Veda (the most useful one I think).

I dont know why i should give you anything??? You make references to vedas and the words in it, so you substantiate it with your research.

Those scriptures are good as examples of the appropriate languages; language structure is a separate concern.

Err ...can you elaborate on this point?? What is an appropriate language and how are the scriptures classifed in this category. And how does one discover the language strucutre without literary works such as the scriptures???

DMB

Phaedrus:

Why don't you read the Cavalli-Sforza book I quoted? C-S is a geneticist who has an acquaintance with linguistics. Renfrew is the other way round. Renfrew's hypothesis of an IE origin in Turkey doesn't explain the horse element.

DMB

Hinduwoman:
I am interested. Do you think the caste system is defensible? Surely Hinduism as a religion could survive very well without it, just as it largely has without sati.

The caste system is perceived by many non-Indians and some Indians as morally equivalent to apartheid and therefore quite appropriately discussed in the context of anti-racism. The essence of racism is discriminating against people on the basis of birth. (That is also why the term "gender apartheid" was invented to describe the sort of discrimination that is practised against women in fundamentalist islamic societies).

Being against the caste system doesn't imply being against Hinduism as a whole. The caste system may have ancient origins, but that doesn't make it automatically worth preserving. After all, many religions in the past are thought to have practised human sacrifice. We wouldn't now want to preserve that practice.

copernicus

Hinduwoman, I share DMB's curiosity about your views on the caste system. How do you consider it to be distinct from racism?

Phaedrus, I don't understand your point. Linear B was a script used to write in a Greek dialect. It was not the precursor to the Greek alphabet. Similarly, devanagari script descends from Egyptian hieroglyphic script. Harappan script does not. What is it that you think LP said to you?

Phaedrus, I originally said that I wouldn't debate the content of the scriptures, because I simply don't know it. LP tried to explain to you that one gets linguistic data from sources such as scripture. I could discuss Panini's grammar with you, because I have studied it. (I never commented on your references to it, LP. Yes, those rules are very Panini-like.) But what linguists really do is examine the structure of the language. The scriptures represent data, which we call corpora. Much of what we know about early IE culture comes from the words that we find in Sanskrit dictionaries that are based on corpora. Those words are compared with words in other IE languages that likely have the same historical origin. That is how we know that iron and horses were known to the ancestors of Aryan tribes. If Harappan were an Indo-European language, you would expect to find evidence of horses and iron weapons in the archeological remains. The fact that you don't makes it unlikely that Harappans were the ancestors of Aryans.

Finally, Phaedrus, I want to acknowledge your requirement of me that I give you a detailed critique of the Elst article. I'm sorry, but I don't share your view that I have an obligation to do that. First of all, Elst himself admits to not being a specialist in the area. His primary argument is that, based on his limited knowledge of the literature, one *could* hypothesize that ancient Indo-Europeans departed the 'Urheimat' for a secondary 'Urheimat', where they transferred Indian nomenclature to, say, flora and fauna that existed on the eastern European steppes. Then that language group broke up into all the daughter languages, including Avestan (Old Iranian). That hypothesis is not even half-baked. Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit are obviously closer to each other than they are to Celtic. It would require a lot more evidence than the vague speculations you find in Elst's article. Before you send linguists off to disprove Elst's hazy speculations, you should produce detailed critiques of the modern peer-reviewed linguistic literature that posits a homeland much further to the west. If you would like some reading assignments, I can give them to you. But somehow I doubt that you have any more interest in critiquing the standard literature on Indo-European origins than I have in critiquing Elst's amateur speculations. Believe me, if there were any credibility at all to his ideas, you would find at least one champion for a northern India homeland among the contentious lot that makes up modern Indo-Europeanists. I repeat: no serious scholar even considers northern India, not even scholars like Colin Renfrew, who argues from the viewpoint of an archeologist.

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]

phaedrus

DMB

Why don't you read the Cavalli-Sforza book I quoted? C-S is a geneticist who has an acquaintance with linguistics. Renfrew is the other way round. Renfrew's hypothesis of an IE origin in Turkey doesn't explain the horse element.

Err..What is with people? I used Renfrew as support for the view that linguistic evidence is not enough, if you read the link that is what the whole interview with "edge" is all about.

Edited to add..

Anyhow regarding your post on cavalli (spl??), i dont know man. Why should i read anything by a man who thinks that

Sigh talk about lack of research and western view on indian history. How did he come to this conclusion???????????

[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: phaedrus ]

phaedrus

copernicus

In the first place, i dont why you people keep answering posts directed at others. Maybe a mutual admiration society? It would be great if you address posts at yourself in specifics rather than responding to only posts which you are comfortable responding to.

So let me just respond to the points i think we both were discussing.

Phaedrus, I originally said that I wouldn't debate the content of the scriptures, because I simply don't know it. LP tried to explain to you that one gets linguistic data from sources such as scripture. I could discuss Panini's grammar with you, because I have studied it...(snip)...But what linguists really do is examine the structure of the language. The scriptures represent data, which we call corpora. Much of what we know about early IE culture comes from the words that we find in Sanskrit dictionaries that are based on corpora. Those words are compared with words in other IE languages that likely have the same historical origin.

That clarifies your position on scriptures and linguistics alrite . Now few queries…..But again you use the word "likely"?? Can linguistic evidence in isolation can be used to prove any hypothesis incontrovertibly???

And how would you respond to the following reservations of Rissanen


That is how we know that iron and horses were known to the ancestors of Aryan tribes. If Harappan were an Indo-European language, you would expect to find evidence of horses and iron weapons in the archeological remains. The fact that you don't makes it unlikely that Harappans were the ancestors of Aryans.

This means you are basing your knowledge about the scriptures on a dictionary? That means you are relying on someone else's interpretation of the language (granted this is an interpretation accepted by the majority of the academic linguists). Could you tell me whether these dictionaries are constantly updated based on new interpretation or they have been the same since years?.

Any reasons have been put forward for India having so many language families: Nahali, Andamanese, Burushaski, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic (Munda and Mon-Khmer), Sino-Tibetan (Himalayan, Tibetic and Burmese) and IE (Iranian, Kafir, Dardic, Indo-Aryan, and possibly proto-Bangani) ??

And as I mentioned to LP, what if the decoded harappan script has words for horses and iron??

Finally, Phaedrus, I want to acknowledge your requirement of me that I give you a detailed critique of the Elst article. I'm sorry, but I don't share your view that I have an obligation to do that. First of all, Elst himself admits to not being a specialist in the area.

Let me say something first. I am not really bothered about the homeland issue, the issue in focus here is whether “linguistic evidence” has a final say ?? Not a detailed critique, atleast the one you provided below will atleast provide with information that you are not merely beating around the bush, but do have the wherewithal for dismissing the article. Elst did admit and he keeps that tone alive throughout the article and never ever asserts rather he suggests (you claimed earlier that he was doing the former).

His primary argument is that, based on his limited knowledge of the literature, one *could* hypothesize that ancient Indo-Europeans departed the 'Urheimat' for a secondary 'Urheimat', where they transferred Indian nomenclature to, say, flora and fauna that existed on the eastern European steppes. Then that language group broke up into all the daughter languages, including Avestan (Old Iranian). That hypothesis is not even half-baked. Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit are obviously closer to each other than they are to Celtic. It would require a lot more evidence than the vague speculations you find in Elst's article.

Just one question, cant a parent language be closer to one of the daughter languages more? As far as the distinction between speculations and valid theories go, where would you draw the line? Based on credentials is it? ;-) For all you know maybe he just wrote the whole article to show how linguistic evidence could be twisted as the writer wants.

. Before you send linguists off to disprove Elst's hazy speculations, you should produce detailed critiques of the modern peer-reviewed linguistic literature that posits a homeland much further to the west. If you would like some reading assignments, I can give them to you.

Err..why would I want linguists to talk about the article, I wanted “you” who had dismissed the article to give me reasons instead of falling back on generic statements. I am sure you are aware of how a discussion is supposed to progress; you dismissed a point of view without really saying why. That invokes a suspicsion in me that you might not even know what your talking about, and I ask you to please provide reasons as to why you don’t like the article. Reading assignments in linguistics?? I would indulge in that if I claim to be an expert and I am sure I have better ways to spend my time and energy rather than dabbling in such a field. I will just stop at the macro level and question the importance of linguistic evidence in isolation.

But somehow I doubt that you have any more interest in critiquing the standard literature on Indo-European origins than I have in critiquing Elst's amateur speculations. Believe me, if there were any credibility at all to his ideas, you would find at least one champion for a northern India homeland among the contentious lot that makes up modern Indo-Europeanists. I repeat: no serious scholar even considers northern India, not even scholars like Colin Renfrew, who argues from the viewpoint of an archeologist.

Now this reasoning is even better, since not a single scholar takes the idea seriously it “must be” wrong.

[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: phaedrus ]

lpetrich

copernicus:
(I never commented on your references to it, LP. Yes, those rules are very Panini-like.)

LP:
Thanx. I've programmed computers for 2 decades, and algorithm construction is something that I am very familiar with.

copernicus:
But what linguists really do is examine the structure of the language. The scriptures represent data, which we call corpora. Much of what we know about early IE culture comes from the words that we find in Sanskrit dictionaries that are based on corpora. Those words are compared with words in other IE languages that likely have the same historical origin. That is how we know that iron and horses were known to the ancestors of Aryan tribes.

LP:
This comparison has some interesting results. Words for Horses and wheeled vehicles are shared Indo-European items; early Indo-European speakers also had some interesting rituals involving horses, some with sexual overtones (October Equus and Asvamedha). However, there is only one shared word for metal, *ayes-, which is rather generalized; there are a multitude of words for iron, some of them known borrowings, as there are for writing. Thus, iron would not have been known to the early IE speakers except for the occasional meteorite. And it started appearing in the Middle East and nearby only around 1000 BCE or so (I forget any more precise dates).

Dictionaries do have their limitations; for example, having a word for "horse" does not tell us whether horses were common or rare at where and when the speakers lived. But working that out is another use of such corpora.

copernicus:
If Harappan were an Indo-European language, you would expect to find evidence of horses and iron weapons in the archeological remains. The fact that you don't makes it unlikely that Harappans were the ancestors of Aryans.

LP:
There are other such indications, such as how familiar with irrigation the writers of the Vedas had been; the Harappans did irrigation in a big way, while the Vedas show little familiarity with it.

lpetrich

Phaedrus:
And how would you respond to the following reservations of Rissanen

The "philologist's dilemma" -

The "God's truth fallacy"-

The "mystery of vanishing reliability" -

LP:
So what about them? They indicate that one has to be careful. For example, the Vedas would represent what its society's priests had been most familiar with. And such techniques may not capture sematic subtleties very well.

copernicus:
That is how we know that iron and horses were known to the ancestors of Aryan tribes. If Harappan were an Indo-European language, you would expect to find evidence of horses and iron weapons in the archeological remains. The fact that you don't makes it unlikely that Harappans were the ancestors of Aryans.

Phaedrus:
This means you are basing your knowledge about the scriptures on a dictionary? ...

LP:
A dictionary would not be enough here; one does have to look at the Vedas more directly. And one finds lots of mentions of horses and iron.

Phaedrus:
Any reasons have been put forward for India having so many language families: Nahali, Andamanese, Burushaski, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic (Munda and Mon-Khmer), Sino-Tibetan (Himalayan, Tibetic and Burmese) and IE (Iranian, Kafir, Dardic, Indo-Aryan, and possibly proto-Bangani) ??

LP:
A lot of populations have been on the move over the millennia, and the original speakers of Indo-Aryan were only some of them.

Phaedrus:
And as I mentioned to LP, what if the decoded harappan script has words for horses and iron??

LP:
That would be an interesting surprise; horses and iron are not very common in Harappan remains. Just the same, it would be interesting to see what those words are -- would the word for horse be a borrowing from Sanskrit?

Phaedrus:
Let me say something first. I am not really bothered about the homeland issue, the issue in focus here is whether “linguistic evidence” has a final say ??

LP:
Linguistic evidence is IMO strong because people don't change their languages of everyday use without some good reason, such as dealing with conquerors. There have been lots of languages used for dealing with other groups, for religious ritual, and for learned discourse, but they generally do NOT replace the languages for everyday use. Latin has been used in Europe for centuries as a language of highbrow discourse, but that never led to Latin being used for everyday purposes; in fact, Latin has gone out of style as such a language over the last few centuries with English having become its most successful successor.

Also, what people have words for is an indication of what they are familiar with; thus one can use reconstructed vocabulary to tell us something about the ancestral language's speakers. One problem is that the most reliably reconstructed words are those that tell us the least, such as words for body parts and name and water and fire. But one can go a long way if one is careful.

copernicus

I never said that it could. Note that there is no evidence of any kind that proves the AIT or its antithesis incontrovertibly. All I have said is that the linguistic evidence is quite strong (and lpetrich and I have given specific reasons why), and you have to confront it. Elst hardly qualifies as a refutation, and I have given specific reasons why I think it doesn't. On the other hand, you have never said what it is about Elst's arguments that convinces you. I would be happy to address something a little more focused than the whole article. I don't think that this forum is appropriate for a full-fledged rebuttal, nor do I have the time for it. Lpetrich did ask you for specifics on what impressed you in the article, but you never responded.

I am not basing anything just on dictionaries, by the way. Lpetrich is right that the argument becomes more compelling if you find lots of references to iron weapons and horses in the Hindu literature. It is also difficult to explain why the Hindu literature lacks references the kind of city life that Harappans led. Harappan scholars have made the same point, if you bother to read the web materials I cited.

You keep mentioning this point as if it supported your argument. The fact remains that we don't find words for horses and iron in the Harappan literature because it hasn't been decoded. It would be very interesting if there were such references, but, as you like to point out, it wouldn't prove anything "incontrovertibly".

Sorry, but I think you are splitting hairs all over the place on this one. The Elst article quite clearly tries to defend the Indian 'urheimat' hypothesis, but without presenting any direct proof of anything. Rather, it just tries to cast doubt on a small number of linguistically-based works that the author has come into contact with. Nobody cares whether the Indian hypothesis is still logically conceivable. The preponderance of evidence--archeological and linguistic--fails to support it. It is not a serious contender except among Indian nationalists. They need something a little more substantial to impress scholars who specialize in this area.

Actually, I gave my reasons for rejecting Elst in quite a bit more detail than you gave for accepting him. If you want a clear response, paraphrase some of his points that you find particularly convincing. (Bear in mind that Elst was not comprehensive in his critique of the linguistic literature.) You claim that you have better ways to "spend [your] time and energy". Au contraire, my friend, you couldn't spend it more profitably, since you admit that you are not a linguistic expert. You have a lot more to learn about the subject than I do. I, on the other hand, really don't have the time and energy to provide you with a detailed critique of a self-admitted amateur like Elst.

Not at all. It could be right, but you have to ask why not a single expert gives it any credence. After all, ideas are not validated by the fact that an entire community of scholars reject them. If that were the case, we might as well accept creationism and astrology.

[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]