Re: Meaning of Aryan: now, "white people"?

From: mkelkar2003
Message: 53319
Date: 2008-02-15

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> At 12:46:01 AM on Friday, February 15, 2008, mkelkar2003
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> Why do you waste our time (and yours) with these repeated
> >> attempts to find *linguistic* support for your
> >> ideological axioms when you clearly don't believe that
> >> linguistic evidence is worth a damn? If it's worthless,
> >> it's just as worthless when (you think that) it says what
> >> you want to hear as when it doesn't.
>
> > Acutally, I am not saying linguistic evidence is
> > worthless, [...]
>
> You don't have to say it in so many words: it's quite
> obvious that this is what you really believe. You use your
> ill-understood snippets only as weapons of debate, not out
> of any interest in linguistics, and you value them only
> insofar as they serve your intellectual cause.
>
> Brian

What bothers me is comparative linguists reach above and beyond what
their craft allows them to do. Hypothetical reconstructions are
treated as facts. Linguists especially comarative IEL treat
the "Indo-Aryan" invasion of South Asia as a fact. How is it a fact
if there is no agreement on when and where this happened?

M. Kelkar