While this might be true in some individual
instances, I can't see how the Indo-Europeans in general could be credited with
exceptional warlikeness and military genius -- and such a gift, by the way, is
not a historical constant. There was a time when the Romans beat up other
peoples (IE and non-IE alike), and there was a time when the beating up was
returned with a vengeance. The speakers of IE were from very early times on
members of different cultures with different ways of life and different
traditions. A heroic ideology was often an important part of such traditions,
but the same can be said of many non-IE cultures. The Assyrians were formidable
warriors and they conquered a large part of western Asia, but where's their
language now? The Huns overran all of eastern Europe and controlled it for a
time, but did not manage to impose their language there. The Normans conquered
England, but Anglo-Norman French did not replace English and soon became
extinct.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 9:49
AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Why India?
The spread of IE languages may have nothing whatever to
do with the
language. It might just be that its speakers were better
at beating people
up. Why did the Latin speaking Romans conquer Italy
rather than the
Etruscan speaking Etruscans, who had been there
longer? I don't think the
answer lies in the language they
spoke!