Re: Asian Migration to Scandinavia

From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 61039
Date: 2008-10-23

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...>
wrote:

> Also please see Charpentier Atharvan 1930.pdf pp. 234-235 and Frye
> Atharvan 1948.pdf p. 231. Many other scholars have linked atar
> and atharvan. So if the matter was decided on popular vote they
> would win.


You here pretend to ignore that the linguistic hypothesis put
forward by Lubotsky and Pinault is a recent one that tries to re-
assess the question in a new perspective based on the inferred
influence of some BMAC substrate language(s) on common Indo-Iranian
and common Tocharian, whereas the scholars cited in the above two
pdf's wrote in the first half of the twentieth century.

On the other hand, it is funny to see that you don't even bother to
read carefully the materials you post at the Files section. On this
occasion, for instance, all what is said in the two pdf's about the
etymological link od Avestan a:tar 'deified fire' and Vedic
atharvan 'a kind of priest' is the following:

1) from the file "Frye Atharvan 1948.pdf" (p. 231) we learn that
S. Wikander considered "obvious" an etymological relation of the two
terms, and that (many) Sanskrit scholars of his time (1930s and
1940s) accepted this explanation propounded by the Iranists,
although, notes Frye, Vedic atharvan does not mean 'fire-priest'
_per se_ (this is a later meaning of the word!).

2) from the file "Charpentier Atharvan 1930.pdf" (pp. 234-35) we
learn that, according to Charpentier, E. Benveniste seemed to reject
the notion of an etymological link od Avestan a:tar and Vedic
atharvan, and that Charpentier himself "formerly was of the same
opinion, as were before him very prominent authorities like
Bartholomae, Justi, and Zubaty," although he later (but still in the
1920s!) he felt "less sure of the correctness of such an opinion."

So, are you really sure that, if the matter were to be decided on
popular vote NOW, supporters of the a:tar-atharvan link would
win?

Regards,
Francesco