ivanova-@... wrote:
original article:
http://www.egroups.com/group/cybalist/?start=47
> Dear Indoeuropeans,
> I'd like to know very much your opinion of Marija Gimbutas' work,
> especially her book 'The Language of the Goddess'(In Germany: Die
> Sprache der Göttin, bei 2001). Archaeologists seem to frown
> continuously when they hear her name, but I admire her work very much,
> especially her ability to see (and show her readers) similarities in
> European Neolithic arts and their - non-language - meanings (she also
> adds Lithuanian - and other - folklore in places where I can see the
> similarity, very interesting). She opened my eyes to the fact that
> before humans used writing to convey their languages - for what reason
> ever - they had other, rather symbolic - means to express their
> religious beliefs or their adoration of nature and life.
> I find it especially important to note the fact that in the substratum
> 'Old European' regions men and women seem to have lived on in equal
> status, a fact that may have been one of the reasons for its longevity.
> But is it true that Indoeuropeans were male dominated as I have read
> again and again? If yes (judging from archaeological finds - but they
> are very much subject to modern interpretations): does this fact show
> in PIE/early IE languages?
> And I don't mean the fact that there was a male god 'ruling' the IE
> pantheon (because that's probably interpretation again), I'd rather be
> interested in more general proof (e.g.the use of a male pronoun if
> speaking about a mixed group or other 'male' generalizations). Somehow
> I'm not convinced of the 'male dominant' IE community yet.
> Looking forward to your opinions
> Sabine Ivanovas
> Crete
>
Dear Sabine,
I greatly admire Gimbutas's imaginative visions, but I doubt if they reflect the historical reality. I am against making up mythologies to cover up our ignorance. The problem of associating the archaeological cultures of ancient Europe with "Indo-Europeans" or "Old Europeans" cannot be handled using the principle "one folk, one culture, one language, one pantheon" (to parody G. Kosinna). For all I know, the "Old Europeans" may have consisted mostly of ethnic groups speaking IE languages.
As regards sexist elements in PIE, the very division of nouns
and adjectives into feminine and masculine is post-PIE -- something
that even many linguists fail to realise because of the prevalence
in academic teaching of the late-nineteenth-century reconstruction
of PIE as a three-gender language. One of the genders was animate
a.k.a. common, the other inanimate (or neuter). To be sure, there
were morphological devices (suffixes) for deriving nouns referring
specifically to women, and when the feminine did appear, it was
clearly the (morphologically) marked counterpart of the masculine
gender. Still, to take this as evidence of PIE discrimination
against women would probably be unfair.
As for gods, *Die:us is indeed the best-preserved divine name,
which doesn't automatically mean that its bearer was the supreme
god of the PIE pantheon. Personifications of the "earth" term are
also well attested and who knows? Father Sky and Mother Earth
may have been a divine pair rather than a tyrant and his victim.
Of course in their individual histories some of IE-speaking
communities evolved into strongly patriarchal and male-dominated
sociaties, with a cult of warriorship and warrior gods. But the
equation Indo-European = horse-riding + battle-axe-swinging
+ male supremacy + ... looks completely false to me.
Piotr