Re: reply to Mr. Watson

From: wtsdv
Message: 31314
Date: 2004-03-01

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:
>
> Ok. Mr.Watson let us try. How do we explain this anamoly?

It's more important for the argument at hand how _you_
explain this anomaly, which is by rejecting comparative
linguistics out right. Let's see if that's justified.

Actually, I might stop and insert here that I don't
really mind if you believe in O.I.T. or if you argue
for it here. What I object to is your going about it
by dismissing comparative linguistics without having
any understanding of it, and the insinuation that
linguists must have some kind of mental or moral defect
for defending it.

> Some words are lingustically datable to 1500 BCE and yet they
> cleaerly describe a river in PRESENT tense that went dry long
> ago before these words were supposed to be spoken based on
> the scientifc methods of comparitive linguistics which admittedly
> i dont understand.

There clearly is an anomaly, at least as you frame the
question, which is as so:

1) The Rig Veda refers in the present tense to a still
flowing Sarasvati river.

2) It's impossible for the Rig Veda to refer in the
present tense to any event that wasn't actually
contemporary.

3) A particular ancient Indian river has been proved to
have dried up long before 1500 B.C.

4) The Sarasvati river referred to in the Rig Veda is
that same river.

5) Comparative linguistics proves that the Rig Veda was
composed around 1500 B.C.

Obviously these can't all simultaneously be true, and
you've clearly opted to reject 5, thus your arrival
on this list to slap the faces of its proponents, or
at least the only proponents within easy reach, but
the problem is both with some of these premises, and
with the limited number of considerations included
here. The larger question must include consideration
of the systematic correspondences between several
languages, archaeological data which although less
decisive on ethnic movement in the subcontinent itself,
is not as ambiguous elsewhere, and historical data
other than the Rig Veda. Within the wider picture,
and needing to explain a larger set of observations,
number 5, or actually comparative linguistics, since
I imagine the exact date is arguable, is much less
easily dismissed. In fact if you wish to dismiss it
you have to offer something in lieu of it with equal
or greater explanatory power. I don't think anybody
debates 1 or 3, so we're forced to reconsider 2 and 4.
Can you explain why it's impossible for the Veda to
have referred in the present tense to stories passed
on from an earlier time, which is not uncommon in
literature, or why the long dead river in question must
necessarily be identified with the Sarasvati in the Veda?

> I promise to be calm and rational till i hear a loser cry baby
> "argument" as was offered before (nothing personal Mr. Piotr)

No of course not. Why would anyone take offense at
being called a baby or a loser? I'm afraid you've lost
one point for calmness and rationality right from the
start. Actually, there's nothing wrong with Piotr's
argument, and calling it "a loser cry baby "argument""
is no sort of refutation. How old are you anyway? Are
you the Doogie Howser of the chemistry department? (-:

David W.