Re: Reclaiming the chronology of Bharatam: Narahari Achar

At 11:23:30 AM on Tuesday, June 17, 2008, koenraad_elst wrote:

> Glad to see that some linguists are taking a peep outside
> their libraries and open their eyes to the starry skies.
> However, a little knowledge is a funny thing.

The quotation is 'a little learning'.

> -- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>>At 5:22:35 PM on Monday, June 16, 2008, koenraad_elst wrote:

>>> In reading Hindu AIT opponents, it is best to ignore the
>>> anti-Western tirades, their own adaptation of Edward
>>> Said's anti-"orientalism", and focus on the hard data.

>> Why should anyone trust even the data of someone who commits
>> such obvious lapses in logic? I certainly don't, and my
>> experience in other contexts has been that I'm right not to
>> do so.

> Because he has proven earlier to produce good work once in
> a while. And even if he hadn't, you would only be able to
> judge the quality of his work by reading it.

Bluntly, I have no reason to waste my time on the work of
someone who contradicts himself in the space of a few lines.

> [...]

>>> But the solstice always and by definition falls on ca. 21
>>> December.

>> The definition of the winter solstice has nothing to do
>> with the calendar. The date on which it falls, of course,
>> does; in 1550 (say), the northern hemisphere winter
>> solstice was around 11 December, give or take a day,
>> owing to the accumulated error in the Julian calendar.

> That's in the Gregorian calendar, of course.

Not in 1550 it isn't.

> I cannot always go back to base one when discussing fairly
> advanced stuff such as precessional chronology. I
> understand that this is not linguists' specialism,

I'm a mathematician.

> but I took it for granted that you would at least know
> about the Gregorian calendar.

Apparently I know rather more about it than you do: it
wasn't used anywhere prior to 1582.

Brian