my dear Glen,
>
> Mahadevan's points against the Dravidian hypothesis in favor of an
Aryan one
> are weak and unscholarly. I admit to so far having only skimmed the
> different opinions presented, but Mahadevan's closing paragraphs are
quite
> irrational:
Come on, did you actually read that article ? Mahadevan IS in favour of
the dravidian hypothesis. I think no serious scholar favours the Aryan
hypothesis.
Although I admire Parpola's scholarship and his ingenious findings, I
agree with Mahadevan that there is something flawed in Parpola's
reconstruction. I am very pessimistic about the future of Indus script
studies. I guess that in the majority of the cases, the seals would not
even have a complete sentence in it. I actually read through Parpola's
corpus of seal inscriptions (before reading the link I gave you), and I
thought the U sign (the 'jar' whatever) should be a common grammatical
device -- most probably, a genitive ending.
I think there are certainly very few verbs in the Indus seals.
Parpola's theories are very elegant, but I find it difficult to
believe. Besides, Parpola (and Mahadevan) rests on the wrong assumption
that Brahui is indigeneous to northern India. Bernard Sergeant explains
well why it is not true.
I think the best thing that researchers can do is studying the
toponymy. Are there recognisable Dravidian toponyms in the Indus valley
? Or burushaski ? (do not forget the etymology for Sind). Actually, it
is your fellow countrymen in Quebec that invented this burushaski
theory explained in Sergeants book. Whenever I get his book from the
library again, I give you precise references. I hope that even in
Winipeg, you have acces to Canadian journals.
Guillaume