Re: [tied] Re: Why India?

----- Original Message -----

From: Dean_Anderson

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 12:38 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Why India?

> Why should this theory be required to show a higher standard of evidence than any other theory? In order to be considered, it is not necessary for it to be a better theory, simply an equally plausible explanation. It really does seem to be true that the concern about Hindutva propaganda has caused Western scholars to be excessively sceptical about Indian claims. No linguist that I know of takes Renfrew's claims at all seriously, but he is still respectfully mentioned in almost every survey of IE origins.

 

Precisely. It is respectfully mentioned, and then they add that it fails on linguistic grounds. I don't take it seriously either. Neither Renfrew's original "Fertile Crescent" hypothesis nor the OIT accounts for the historical distribution of the IE branches or matches the scenario of the spread with the observable genetic and areal relationships within IE. Renfrew at least attempted to explain the mechanism by which they spread; he also had an interesting answer to the question why the IE languages spread so widely, and why Europe became IEised so thoroughly. The OIT doesn't address such issues at all and doesn't even seem to recognise the need to address them.

> All of the evidence, with the exception of linguistics, seems to point to the likelihood of an indigenous origin of Vedic civilization in India. If that is the
case, then perhaps linguistics should be re-examined.

>> Any discussion of India as a possible homeland turns into discussing the relative merits of "Out of India" versus "Into India" (a.k.a. AMT), as if the Indian question were central to the understanding of the general problem of the spread of Indo-European. Well, it isn't.

> Of course it is. If the Vedic civilization is native to India and Vedic is an Indo-European language and it can be shown archaeologically to have cultural continuity back to neolithic Mehrgarh, then this completely changes both the dates (and the possible origin) of the IE languages.

 

If. It hasn't been shown that the IVC, let alone Mehrgarh, was IE-speaking.

 

> To postulate that you have a civilization that is archaeologically demonstrably overwhelmingly Vedic and that they kept all of their practices but suddenly and completely changed their language without any convincing archaeological evidence is special pleading indeed.

 

The "cultural continuity" was not all that continuous in archaeological terms. The collapse of the IVC is a discontinuity, isn't it? The Harappans' way of changed quite drastically as a result. The usual theory is that the Indo-Aryans appeared during the post-collapse period, combining the local traditions with their own inherited ones, and that their language came to be used as lingua franca. A civilisation can change its language completely while retaining much of its material and spiritual culture. This is what happened e.g. in Mesopotamia, when Akkadian replaced Sumerian.

 

> ... No one denies the relevance of Leakey's work on human origins just because he was focused "only on Africa." Why should language be different?

 

The "Out of Africa" theory of human origins is very strongly supported by pelaeontological and molecular genetic evidence. There is no serious alternative to it at present. The further migrations of humans have been, or are being, traced in broad outline. Minor refinements will surely be found necessary, but so far the theory has stood the test of time. Such strong support and such a "what happened next" scenario are missing in the case of the OIT. It would surely be great if you could show that the Indus Valley script is Old Indo-Aryan, or Proto-Indo-Iranian, or PIE. But attempts to read it as Vedic have failed pathetically. As regards the dispersal of IE, the theory says essentially this: "so they left India and went each their way".

 

> Besides, it is widely accepted that the bulk of the work in lingistics has focused on Europe. Why is that?

 

Europe as a homeland? Because nearly all of the branches of IE (Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, not to mention extinct ones like Thracian, Illyrian, Venetic or Lusitanian) are found in Europe, occupying almost all of it; so either the initial dispersal started somewhere in Europe, or the IEs were inexplicably attracted by the setting sun, as if there hadn't been other places to go. In Anatolia, Caucasus and the Middle East the IEs arrived in relatively recent times (after 2000 BC). Central Asia and India host only one branch, Indo-Iranian, plus one or two archaic isolates (Tocharian, perhaps the Bangani substrate).

 

> Perhaps more to the point (or at least less controversial), there has been great progress since the nineteenth century which at that time did not widely accept the theory of evolution but sought the origins of mankind in the Middle Eastern Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark, knew nothing of the existence of the IVC and considered the Saraswati
river to be mythical.

 

It is still kinda mythical, isn't it? ;) But please note that it was the 19th-century linguists who did away with the Tower of Babel theory of language origins, who demonstrated that Hebrew was not the original language of humanity, and who accepted the theory of evolution earlier than some biologists did. Scheicher's IE family tree would not have been drawn if he had not been inspired by Darwin's _Origin_ (published just a decade earlier).

> My greatest concern in this issue is the unwillingness for linguists to consider *even for a moment* that the OIT *might* be true. He wasn't asking you to defend the OIT, just to engage in some brainstorming. Given Dr. Donne's fondness for going out on a limb (sorry Mike!), I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate for a moment in considering what it would mean to find PIE inscriptions in Mexico. :) Even if he didn't believe it likely. This is an internet chat room not a refereed journal. Let down your hair! Think dangerous thoughts!

 

Brilliant. So how about that Mexico thing? :) Well, I have thought about the OIT and I have found it indefensible linguistically. But do carry on by all means.

 

Piotr

 

 

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