From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 41773
Date: 2005-11-05
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
But to my mind, the
> bottom line is this quote from Witzel:
>
>
> > However,
> > linguists and philologists still maintain, and for
> > good reasons,
> > that some IA speaking groups actually entered from
> > the outside, via
> > some of the (north)western corridors of the
> > subcontinent.
>
> And that's all that is required. Without such an
> "invasion", no matter what the subsequent story of who
> or what contributed more or less to linguistic change,
> there would have been no implantation and development
> of Indo-Aryan in India.
Suppose the IIr immigrants grew in numbers not by natural
multiplication but by recruiting locals - possibly farmers, possibly
other pastoralists. This would leave little genetic signature, and
their gaining power as the Indus civilisation collapsed would then be
a transfer from one group of locals to another.
Richard.