Re: For MKelkar, Kishore and all those other anti-linguists

From: kishore patnaik
Message: 58630
Date: 2008-05-19

Torsten,
 
The very tone that you are adopting smacks of racial bigotry. 
 
Just as we should not mix up Politics and History ie Politics should not dictate what should be the ancient past - just as the outcome of the world wars has dictated: the realization that racial theory has led to ww's resulted in denial of racial theories, not the academic discussions- linguistics has got no role in deciding the  flow of history.
 
For eg., I have asked a very simple question earlier to this group: with the exsiting linguistic tools, can you conclusively prove that Jaggernaut has come from Jagannath? The answer is a sensible 'no'. i.e if one does not know the actual borrowing, he can go ahead and prove that it is Jagannath which has come from Jaggernaut.
 
 
Same way, what is the guarantee that you have one leg in smack and getting all the borrowings TO sanskrit all wrong?? there is no guarantee. There is no counter check. There is nothing to tally your linguistic conclusions with any other science. Under the circumstances, it is more sensible to dismiss all your conclusions to the waste bin , when most of them are wrought by pre concieved ideas.
 
I am yet to come across a single Linguistic Idea that has not based on subjective thinking and conjectures.
 
The historic models based on linguistic dogmas could never explain the facts in a satisfactory way.
 
 
I know you will each and every one of the words contained in this post, but do the group a favor , instead of condemning in the self righteous tone that you seem to be adopting, please be objective and try to convince with facts not with rhetoric. Remember, I am an anti linguist?
 
Kishore patnaik