--- On Mon, 8/17/09, Francesco Brighenti <frabrig@... it> wrote:
> As most of you realize I have no expertise in historical
> linguistics but much curiosity! Since early Indo-Europeans had
> no astronomy expertise, but Harappans did, a Harappan adstrate
> should exist in Aryan: math, astronomical and architectural
> terms.
Not if the Indo-Aryans migrated to the Greater Panjab region *after* the collapse of the Indus civilization, as is the general belief of the scholarly community.
Regards,
Francesco
****GK: How does the presumed settlement area of incoming pastoral Indics (on the basis of the earliest Rig Veda books) correspond to present day political boundaries? I ask because it seems to me (perhaps wrongly) that this initial settlement (and we know from many other cases how archaeologically elusive the presence of nomads can be) was largely in an area which is not politically "Indian" today. If so the protestations of contemporary Indians against AIT might be paradoxically understandable, in that their areas were joined to expanding "Aryan" territory less by genetic than by linguistic and religious osmosis. Are Pakistani scholars as adamantly anti-AIT as some Indians?****
***R A very interesting point given that opposition to AIT is rooted in a post-colonial sense of inferiority that assuages shame by inventing new myths.
I'm surprised that the Irish, who were colonized for 800 years (900 if your're a Catholic in Belfast) never came
up with an "Out of Ireland" myth for IE. James Joyce certainly could have come up with an entertaining version.