>[quote] Burrow, says: "Vedic is a language which in most
>respects is more archaic and less altered from original Indo-
>European than any other member of the family"(34);
>Nobody, as far as I know, has even attempted to dispute this
Oh yes they have! The reconstructed PIE was for a long time deliberately
made very close to Vedic - so it was hardly a surprise to find Vedic close
to PIE! Then scholars began to realise PIE could not have been quite so
like Vedic - then some began to suggest that Vedic-Greek-Armenian formed a
highly innovative group which systematised earlier incoherent elements, so
that we should consider Anatolian and German and Celtic and so on not only
equally representative, but actually closer to PIE, since they are less
innovative.
Also remember that Hittite is attested long before the Vedas were (probably)
composed, and that Greek is attested long before Vedic is written down.
Peter