[tied] Re: Genetic Studies and Aryan Migrations

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "koenraad_elst" <koenraad.elst@...>
wrote:

>
> >> > > > 1) If there are neither "Caucasoid" nor "Central
> > > > > Asian" genes in the Indian pool studied, and if one
> > > > > concludes thence that there is no
> > > > > "genetic" proof of invasion or infiltration from the
> > > > > north, then one ought also, in the absence of further
> > > > > arguments, hold that there is no "genetic" proof of
> > > > > the reverse movement. Which leaves us with two
> > > > > "unpenetrated" solitudes. And yet the linguistic facts
> > > > > suggest a very close relationship between Indic and
> > > > > Iranic and between Indic and other Indo-European
> > > > > languages.
> > > > > 2) So if the above holds, then we must conclude that
> > > > > genetics is completely irrelevant to the issue of AIT
> > > > > vs. OIT.
> > > > > But is the above (and the quote below) really true?
> > > > > >
> >
> > On the basis of that you claim that there has never
> > > been a movement of people into said area from the outside (AIT)
> > > nor in the reverse direction (OIT).
> >
> > The claim of no large population movement is based on genetic
> > evidence not linguistic.
> >
>
> Any genetic findings that claim an absence of migration between India
> and Central Asia, are very obviously wrong. In the past millennium,
> millions have migrated between those two areas in both directions:
> into India, the Turko-Afghan conquests, the immigratiosn of Iranians
> fleeing from Mongol terror and later as simple job-seekers; out of
> India, hundreds of thousands of slaves. We know from Persian
> testimonies that Indian women were in great demand for the harems, so
> they must have left considerable progeny in what is Samarkand,
> Bukhara etc. Conversely, as the ruling class, Turko-Afghan Muslims in
> India must likewise have left a large (mixed) progeny. Before this,
> there were the Shaka and Huna invasions.
>
> With the as yet limited accuracy of "historical and comparative
> genetics", clearly a considerable amount of migration can pass under
> the reach of the genetic radar. And the numbers needed to effect a
> linguistic change, whether among pre-IE Europeans or among pre-IE
> Indians, to IE languages, need not be that high in a scenario of
> elite dominance. So, any scenario of wholesale language shift
> triggered by limited demographic migration remains possible. It is
> simply not true that such a scenario is precluded by the genetic
> findings so far.
>
>
> > > > Unproven hypothesis like AIT/AMT should not be taken as a fact,
> as
> > > > they are meaningless from a historic point of view. And most
> > > > importantly **the reverse of an unproven hypothesis or the so
> > called
> > > > "OIT" is equally meaningless** from a historic point of view.
> > > > Therefore this is not about AIT/OIT.
> > > >
>
> I hope it is clear to the uninitiated here that M. Kelkar does not
> merely oppose the hypothesis of a non-Indian homeland for the Indo-
> Aryan or IE languages (AIT), but the very concept of an IE language
> family. To him, it is an:
>
>
> > untestable and unproven
> > assumption made by Indo-Eureopean linguists.<
>
>
> Well, back to basics! Anyone here in a mood to prove the IE family?

Existence of a language family does not necessitate the existence of a
proto langauge.

""It is usually supposed that, at one time, there was a single
Indo-European language, the so-called Indo-European protolanguage,
from which all historically attested Indo-European languages are
presumed to descend. This supposition is contradicted by the fact
that, no matter how far we peer back into history, we always find a
multitude of Indo-European-speaking peoples. The idea of an
Indo-European protolanguage is not absurd, but it is not necessary,
and we can do very well without it (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 87)."

"Thus a language family can be the product of divergence, convergence
or a combination of the two (with emphasis on either). There are
virtually no criteria that would indicate unambiguously to which of
the two modes of development a family owes its existence. When we are
dealing with languages so closely related that almost all the elements
of vocabulary and morphology of each are present in all or most of the
other members (allowing for sound correspondences), it is more natural
to assume convergence than divergence (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 89)."

""The only scientifically admissible question is, How and where
(Trubetskoy does not say when) did the Indo-European linguistic
structure arise? And this question should and can be answered by
purely linguistic methods. The answer depends on what we mean by the
INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUSITIC STRUCTURE (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 91, emphasis
in the original, parenthesis added).""

""In specific, reconstructing a "protolanguage" is an exercise that
invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, a community of
such people, then a place for that community, a time in history,
distinguishing characteristics, and a set of contrastive relations
with other protocommunities where other protolanguages were spoken.
FOR ALL THIS, NEED IT BE SAID, THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY WARRANT
(Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)"


It is at best an impossible task to locate a proto language in time
and space based on *four* reconstructed words (Melchert, 2001) three
of them irrelevant to the problem. If such proto language must be
reconstructed, then IEL H. H. Hock has already said that it could very
well have been spoken in South Asia (Elst, circa 2000).

"For now, I (Elst) must confess that after reading Prof. Hock's
presentation, the linguistic problem which I have always considered
the most damaging to an Indocentric hypothesis, doesn't look all that
threatening anymore. I do not believe that the isoglosses discussed by
him necessitate the near-identity of the geographical distribution of
the PIE dialects with the geographical distribution of their
present-day daughter languages, which near-identity would indeed be
hard to reconcile with an out-of-India hypothesis."


M. kelkar

> To sum up the tests that it *has* passed, the predictions that it
> *has* fulfilled, as a good theory should? On another list, where I
> was thrown off for "writing drivel", I once tried to explain to
> members Kelkar and Kalyanaraman how the discovery of Hittite realized
> some of de Saussure's predictions, how some vulgar slang terms on
> lavatory walls in Pompeii filled in the gaps in the predicted
> ancestor-tongue of the Romance languages, etc., but to no avail.
> Anyone here more persuasive?
>
> > There are many other
> > models out there to explain the real or perceived similarities
> among
> > languages; Dixon's (1997) punctuality equilibrium model for one.
> >
>
> Wasn't that Stephen Jay Gould's model of biological evolution?
> Anyway, Mr. Kelkar, I'm sure many here would like to be impressed by
> some instances of how in that model, say, the numerals come to be so
> similar from Ireland to Bengal without having a common origin.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Koenraad Elst
>