--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> --- Francesco Brighenti <frabrig@...> wrote: (in response to
Kelkar citing Kalyanamaran)
>
> > The scholars whose Indo-European linguistic theories
> > you so > > tenaciously combat no longer entertain the old view
> > that an invasion > > was responsible for the introduction of
Indo-Aryan > > languages in South Asia. The only notable exception
is nowadays > > represented by > > Asko Parpola, who unconvincingly
postulates a series > > of proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasions of
the Indian subcontinent.
>
> ****GK: There's been a lot of back and forth on this > list about
this issue. Is the above comment (about all > scholars save Parpola)
a suggestion that India is now > accepted by them as the (or part of
the) IE homeland?
Of course not. But, really, the invasionist historical paradigm was
demised long ago by most of serious researchers. Modern Indologists
and Indo-Iranian historical linguists tend to speak of transfers of
ideologies, subsistence systems, language, and spiritual culture
from one group to the other as often as movements of people. Such
processes do not necessarily involve large-scale migrations,
although actual physical movement (starting with, e.g., transhumance
tricklings in involving the transference of pastoralist innovations
from one population to another, and the emergence of 'khanate'-like
territorial domains) and intermarriage are not excluded. Various
types of military interaction, such as cattle raids, actual war-like
clashes, battles and even the incidental invasion of smaller or
larger bands, groups or tribes may or may not be part of the
picture. Most of the scholars I consider "serious" long ago replaced
19th-century invasion theories with acculturation models.
Comparative studies in historical times would show that many
variations of transfer and actual takeover were possible. In the
study of early South Asia the stress is now laid on a multiplicity
of ways in which the transference of the parent Indo-European and
Indo-Iranian spiritual cultures (mythology, rituals,
poetics, 'status kit' etc.) and material cultures (chariots, horses,
etc.) took place to other groups.
Kelkar, Kalyanaraman and their ilk refuse to acknowledge all this.
They desperately *need* to cling to a static image of modern
Indologists and Indo-Iranian historical linguists as being still
prisoner of the 19th century invasionist paradigm in order to label
them as "Eurocentric", "White supremacists" and the like, and to
denounce them as the objective allies af all those forces --
Christian missionaries, Communists, Muslims etc. -- who undermine
with their activities the alleged primordial "unity in diversity" of
the "Bharatiya Nation" (a historical paradigm that assumes the
indigenousness of all of the ethnic and language groups presently
living in South Asia).
Hope this helps to clarify my initial statement re: "invasionism".
Kindest regards,
Francesco Brighenti