[tied] Re: Indo-European /a/

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> mkelkar2003 wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Pavel Adamek" <a.da_mek0@...>

wrote:

> >
> >>>Please refer to the following article by Nicholas Kazanas
> >>>
> >>>"Sanskrit and Proto Indo European,"
> >>>
> >>><http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/SPIE.pdf>
> >>>
> >>Do not waste time reading it.
> >>Even a laic can see that the author talks about something
> >>he does not understand.
> >>
> >> P.A.
> >
> >
> > I qualify as a laic but still do not see your point.
>
> There's quite a lot of nonsense already in the first paragraph, duly
> developed into more nonsense in the rest of the essay and

culminating in

> the pseudophilosophical musings that fill the concluding paragraphs. A
> full rebuttal of Kazanas would be a daunting task -- not because his
> views are difficult to reject, but because he present them chaotically,
> without the kind of expository discipline expected in academic
> linguistics, and because a layman would first need a grasp of the
> standard theory to understand why Kazanas is plainly wrong most of the
> time (especially when he draws on Misra's eccentric opinions about PIE).
>
> To prove his fundamental incompetence one could list obvious blunders
> (insisting, e.g. that Gk. eleutHeros and leikHo: have something to do
> with each other) or his embarrassingly naive comments on phonetic
> matters, which show that he's out of his depth in the field of general
> phonetics and has neither done any required reading nor even

bothered to

> master the correct terminology. But the whole thing is like trying to
> explain to a person who knows next to nothing about history and
> archaeology why von Däniken is a quack. Kazanas himself has only a very
> limited understanding of the theories he proposes to "scrap", which
> makes him devote a lot of effort to the futile job of erecting straw

men

> and then pulling them down.
>
> I did take pains to explain the central fallacy of Misra's (and
> Kazanas's) opinions about the PIE vowel system in the discussion on the
> IndianCivilization list. You were there at the time, so I see no reason
> to go through it once again just because you've forgotten it all. The
> relevant postings can be found in the archives. Whatever one's view
> about pre-PIE phonology, it was demonstrated already in the 1870s that
> Sanskrit developed from an earlier stage with *e, *o and *a as separate
> vowels. Neither Misra's incomprehensible refusal to accept the
> well-known proof nor Kazanas's ignorance can change that.

The five vowels are a hypothetical creation not attested in any
language. If five could change to 3 the other way round is possible
as DEMONSTRATED by Misra with the help of the Gypsy language. I object
to your use of the word "proof." The simple truth is: linguistics uses
the arbitrary and capricious method of "scholarly consensus," to test
hypotheses. What you call as "proofs" are not independently
verifiable. They are just *opinions* held by the majority with well
known Eurocentric biases.

M. Kelkar

> Finally, nothing in the PIE linguistic reconstruction depends on
> absolute chronologies or on the location of the IE homeland. If the
> latter were in Australia or in South Africa, 5000 BC or 400000 BC, the
> comparative method would yield the same results. How to correlate
> reconstructed languages with ethnic groups, archaeological cultures

etc.

> is a question for interdisciplinary research.
>
> Piotr