>While Misra's PIE may not be entirely identical with Vedic, it
differs from it only minimally, being as nearly Sanskrit-like as
makes no difference.<
I disagree. And more importantly, Hock does too. :-)
In his refutation of Misra, Hock makes a clear distinction between
the claim that Sanskrit is PIE and the claim that a relative of it is
PIE. The reason that it makes a difference is that it is
linguistically essentially impossible for Sanskrit to be PIE whereas
for a relation or parent of Sanskrit to be PIE is merely highly
improbable unless you wish to revoke the Law of Palatals and other
linguistic laws that have been accepted for over a century!
See Hock's paper at: Out of India? The linguistic evidence. In: J.
Bronkhorst & M. Deshpande, Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia.
Evidence, Interpretation andIdeology. Harvard Oriental Series. Opera
Minora, vol. 3. Cambridge 1999,1-18
>what motive is strong enough to make him cling to his idee
fixe? Isn't it something ideological ;)?<
What causes anyone to cling to their idee fixe? Why must it be
ideological? It could be simply ego. As Max Planck observed: most
people are separated from their opinions only by the grave. :-) And
he was referring primarily to the Quantum Mechanics he invented which
is darn sight more objective than linguistics (Heisenberg and Quantum
Measurement notwithstanding.)
Why does Renfrew cling to his idee fixe? Why do the eco-feminists
still embrace Gimbutas when it has been strongly refuted by Krell and
others? (see Krell, Kathrin, S. "Gimbutas' Kurgan-PIE
Homeland hypothesis: a Linguistic Critique." Archaeology and
Language II. Eds Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs. London:
Routledge, 1998 267-289.)
As Kuhn points out in "His Structure of Scientific Revolutions" this
kind of controversy and emotionalism is characteristic of a paradigm
shift which, if Misra is only marginally correct around the edges,
is still a major paradigm shift.
Why do they cling to their idee fixe? Maybe because they're right and
eveyone else is wrong. The history of science is replete with
examples of scholars being ignored, ridiculed or even executed for
decades (or centuries in some cases) and yet eventually they were
proven correct.
I'm not saying that I agree with Misra. I think his work is probably
seriously flawed. At the very least he makes bold claims that he does
not substantiate. Of course to do so would involve re-writing much of
linguistics and since he is no longer with us, he cannot do this.
Editors take a very dim view of textual revisions from beyond the
grave.
> Prof. Misra's idée fixe is too obvious to be an illusion<
I think it's important to make a distinction between an academic idea
and the use that politicians and other extremists (;)) make of that
idea. The example of the Nazis is edifying: the early German
archaeologists were not (all) Nazis but after the Nazis came to
power, they put a great emphasis on German pre-Christian archaeology.
After the Nazis fell, this branch of archaeology was under a cloud
for DECADES so that important research was not done and bright minds
avoided the field. When the pre-Christian revival began
in the 1960's it was very easy to find information on the Irish,
English, French, etc. but almost nothing on the Germans.
The linking of what should be dispassionate academic discussions with
political agendas only hurts academia and discourages the pursuit of
objective knowledge. Misra has made it clear that he is not a
Hindutvavadi; none of his publications make even indirect references
supporting their agendas.
Critiques of his linguistic theories are most welcome but attempts
to discredit them by linking him with ideas that he finds distasteful
are not only untrue but also distract us from the real matters at
hand -- linguistics.
The reason this is so important is that many defenders of mainstream
linguistics try to duck the issue by branding people like Misra as
extremists instead of simply discrediting their theories. But people
like Vishal are not fooled and it makes them regard the entire
discourse as racist when a simple explanation of the facts is all
that is required.
The heat that this topic generated illustrates the problem since
everyone has now "stopped talking about it." I wish that some of my
fellow Indologists would do the same. ;)