From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 66178
Date: 2010-06-02
> Dear listfolk,Arnaud's review of Talageri's book, some long extracts from which are reproduced (and hysterically commented on -- but not at all "rebutted" as you wrongly claim!) in the reply by Talageri you have uploaded in the Files section, is one of the best critical writings of his I have ever read.
>
> I have uploaded in the files section Shrikant Talageri's rebuttal
> (TalageriReplyToJoker.doc) of Arnaud Fournet's slapdash criticism
> of his book "The Rigveda and the Avesta, the Final Evidence", in
> which he had dissected the Rg-Veda and the Avesta for conclusive
> evidence for an Indian origin of Indo-Iranian and even Indo-
> European.
> So far, Fournet, expelled from this list for uncivilized conduct,...Since this did not prevent you from asking him to write a review of Talageri's book last year, why are you now contemptuously calling Arnaud an "uncivilized" one, just because you don't like what he wrote in that review? I am in strong disagreement with Arnaud as regards some other ideas and enterprises of his -- last but not least, his would-be 'decipherment' of the so-called Indus script --, but I subscribe to most of the linguistic points he raises in his review of Talageri's book.
> ...has been the only one to try and take on the evidence presentedI am, as you know, not a professor, and not even a "leading" critic of the Out-of-India theory (although I am, indeed, strongly critic of it).
> by Talageri. Profs. Michael Witzel and Francesco Brighenti, leading
> critics of the Out-of-India Theory...
> ...who might be deemed capable of writing their own critiques,Yes, because Arnaud's review hits the mark!
> have taken umbrage behind Fournet's polemical review when
> challenged for a refutation.
> So, Fournet's demolition of Talageri's OIT must be formidableOne of the most illuminating points documented in Arnaud's review is that Talageri, just like most of other OIT proponents, denies the very existence of a Proto-Indo-Iranian language (or dialectal continuum), a branch of the IE language family from which the Indo-Aryan and Iranian sub-branches respectively stemmed after a certain stage of linguistic development. Note how Talageri, in his hysterical reply to Arnaud's review of his book, carefully avoids to admit this. (List members should kindly read the file uploaded by Koenraad in its entirety to realize that.) What else is needed to show that Talageri culturally belongs to an age prior to the development of comparative linguistics and the birth of the comparative method?
> indeed, and Talageri's attempt to prove him wrong must be well
> worth our read.