Re: Proto Vedic Continuity Theory of Bharatiya (Indian) Languages

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > --- ehlsmith <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> >
> > ,
> > > it may be worth
> > > asking the question of whether Dr. Melkar's claims
> > > about genetics are
> > > any more solid than his claims about linguistics.
> > > For example see
> > >
> > http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/6/994>
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Ned Smith
> >
> >
> > *****GK: Man o man is this ever devastating!
> > Particularly since many of the contributors happen to
> > be Hindus (judging by the names at least). Thanks for
> > this.****
>
>
> The above cited study already ASSUMES what needs to be proven.
>
> "This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants
> that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most
> recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West

Eurasia

> entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the
> subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous
> Dravidic-speaking populations."
>
> How would they know that even before conducting the study?

Dr. Kelkar,

You are quite right to fault them for assuming that the genes could
tell them what language an intrusive element might have spoken.
However, the language issue was not the focus of their study, and
their findings do support the conclusion that an intrusive male
element with West Asian and *European* affinities did enter the
subcontinent, and is disproportionately represented in the higher
castes.

Of course, this by itself does not prove that the intruders spoke
Indo-European, but it is at least compatible with such a hypothesis-
and the point I was making was that you had been claiming that the
genetic evidence argued against AIT. That strikes me as very
misleading on your part.

Their "West

> Eurasian" haplotypes include Pakistan and possibly Afghanistan!

But not just Pakistan and Afghanistan!


The

> letter cited in the link provdis few details about methodology.
> The Bamshad study has been rejected by the scientific community

owing

> to its methodological problems.

And which "scientific community" would that be?

>
> The above study, and there are more like these, cannot be used to
> prove linguistic migrations because they never break down the
> population by language.

But they can be used to refute claims that genetic evidence shows no
intrusion into the subcontinent.

The similarity in genes they cite cuts across

> both so called "Indo-Aryan" and "Dravidian" groups. So one cannot
> claim that one of the language groups is "foreign" and the other is
> native.

So? Sometimes invaders' descendants impose their language on their
subjects, and sometimes they adopt their subjects' language. Why
should India be an exception? Genes alone will not show what language
intruders spoke, but when genetic and linguistic evidence both point
in the same direction then it is time for Fra William's famous razor
to be considered.

Moreover similarity in haplotypes does not indicate the

> *direction* of gene flow nor does it indicate when the flow supposed
> to have occured.


> This is not the only study of its kind. We have reviewd a whole

bunch

> of them in Section 6.2 of proto-vedic continuity.doc.

Then wouldn't it have been much more forthright to have conceded
their existence and try to refute them in your earlier messages,
rather than say that no genetic evidence exists at all to support an
invasion theory? I will repeat, it strikes me as very misleading on
your part. And it can only negatively affect the credibility of any
future claims which you might make.

May I ask if you ever go to genetics fora and post messages that
there is no linguistic evidence to support their allegations of
genetic intrusion into the subcontinent? ;^)

Sincerely,
Ned Smith