--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
> wrote:
>
> > 1. the early habitat of Proto-Indo-Iranians was in an area close
> > to the Central Asian steppe-taiga interface, e.g., near the
> > Urals;
> >
> > 2. these Proto-Indo-Iranians called themselves *arya-.
>
> "Indo-Iranian" is a linguistic idea. It does not refer to any
> actual people who can be traced back into history. See Lamberg-
> Karlovsky 2005.pdf and Proto-Indo-European Reality and
> reconstruction.pdf
I've read for the nth timesince 2005 the conclusions of LK's paper
linked to above, and this is, in short, what I think of his
arguments:
1) The BMAC and the cultures of the Andronovo archaeol. horizon may
have shared common ancestors: NO.
2) The BMAC people(s) may have been Indo-Iranian speakers: NO -- the
languages of the BMAC, at least some of them, may have belonged to
the Macro-Caucasian super-phylum as the present-day Burushos of
Northern Pakistan.
3) Absence of Andronovo-type artifacts in Iran and NW South Asia
versus presence of BMAC-type artifacts in the same areas (2nd mill.
BCE): this can be explained if one accepts Mallory's Kulturkugel
model.
4) The Andronovans and/or the BMAC folks may have spoken Dravidian
and/or Altaic and/or Uralic languages: HARDLY SO!!
5) Trubetskoy's and Dixon's "innovative" models based on linguistic
convergence, linguistic areas, and equilibrium versus the "old-
fashioned" comparativist model based on linguistic divergence,
family trees, and migrations: BULLSHIT!
5) "Anti-migrationist" comparison between Henning's attempt to
identify the Guti of ancient Mesopotamia with the Yuezhi of Chinese
chronicles and the ongoing scholarly attempts to identify the
Andronovans with the Indo-Iranians: MORE BULLSHIT!
The truth is that, in spite of his claims, LK largely neglects
linguistic evidence from 2nd mill. BCE Central Asia and the
steppe/taiga belt of Eurasia. He, for instance, doesn't see the
layering and distribution of the oldest Indo-Iranian languages and
their overlap with Uralic, insisting on the idea that "language and
archaeology do not corrlate" insted.
Rehards,
Francesco