I don't know why I bother arguing with MKelkar, whose ideas are based on
prior belief rather than open examination of evidence, but nonetheless, I
will. Firstly let me state my case in brief: there could in theory be an
argument against the "Aryan Invasion" theory, but MKelkar's incoherent ideas
are not part of such an argument.
>""a single
>Indo-European language, ... 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. " (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 87)."
Perhaps Trubetskoy would like to share with us his evidence for speakers of
languages earlier than 1500BCE?
Everyone on this list knows that archaeology cannot tell us what language
people spoke.
Everyone on this list should know that Trubetskoy's statement is plain
nonsense.
>"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)."
We meet the same intellectual slackness in the "intelligent design"
arguments.
No scientific theory is, or can be, the sole way of explaining something.
But we tend to prefer the theory which explains more, predicts more, and
requires less bizarre fluffiness to make it work.
For example the theory that the sun and all the planets move around the
earth works, if you add enough angels. But it is much more complicated and
less believable than the theory that the sun is the centre of the solar
system.
Yes, we could do without a theory of an I-E proto-language, but at a huge
intellectual cost.
No sane person can deny the existence in some form of an I-E proto-language.
It is certainly right that processes other than simple genetic descent are
also at work among the I-E languages. English, for example, is prime and
obvious instance. But this does not deny the need for genetic descent, if
we want the simplest explanation and most powerful predictor of facts.
>" 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)."
Why do you, MKelkar, apply this statement to PIE? No one who knows what
they are talking about could claim that in I-E languages
"almost all the elements of vocabulary and morphology
of each are present in all or most of the other members"
Aren't you aware that is precisely the differences between I-E language
families that have allowed so much to be proved? In fact it is often the
relics frozen within Latin, or Greek, or Germanic, which have shown us the
common genetic descent.
And you put the two following statements together in your text. Didn't you
manage to put them together in your head - one demands only linguistic
evidence, and the other complains because there is no evidence
>""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."
>
>"" reconstructing a "protolanguage" is an exercise that
>invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, ....
>FOR ALL THIS, ..., THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY WARRANT
>(Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)"
What bizarre logic is this?
On the one hand you want linguistic evidence only;
on the other you say there is no evidence (yet we all know that linguistic
evidence exists and is used)
Even your Mr Trubetskoy, who aparently claims to know who spoke what until
the dawn of time, is excluded from the argument by these statements.
I really should just ignore your comments, MKelkar. They are inchorent and
reveal a profound ignorance. But I'm on holiday and it's Christmas, so I
make you a present of my searchlight, showing how illogical these ideas are.
Peter