us and them

Dear Glen,

I very much appreciate your comments as given below, along with my new
replies. Thanks!

Mark DeFillo

>Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:46:42
> From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
>Subject: Us and them
>
>
>Mark Defillo:
> >In a related matter, I have heard that some scholars in India think that
> >the Aryan-Dravidian linguistic divide is over-rated.
>
>Right... Seriously, you can't be suggesting that the Indo-Aryan
>languages of Indo-European origin are somehow closely related to
>Dravidian or that this is a hotly debated topic by the mainstream.
>It is not. I surely must be misunderstanding your statement above.

I was not suggesting that it is correct, only presenting a viewpoint that
exists among a sizable part of India's academia. Actually, I think that
their viewpoint results from seeing the result considerable cross-borrowing
between the language groups, and the long history as essentially one
culture.

>Although there is certainly much influence and borrowing between
>these two groups of languages, it is clear that two main groups
>(Indo-European and Dravidian) do indeed exist in India. This is
>not bias. This view is based on linguistic, archaeological and
>historical facts. Saying that this is overrated is nothing short
>of absurd.

The difference is real, I agree. But its significance might well be
over-rated. It is certainly over-used and abused in certain arenas, but that
should not affect objective scholarship, of course.

> >Should we expect people whose first language is European to >understand
>the
> >linguistics in India better than those whose languages are Sanskritic or
> >Dravidic? That seems rather arrogant to me...
>
>It seems just as arrogant to presume that some outsiders _can't_
>understand linguistics in India equal or better than those whose
>languages are Sanskritic or Dravidian. I wouldn't discount those
>of a non-IE tongue like a Korean to provide us with new ideas on
>IE linguistics either. Would you? One has to understand that a
>fresh, external perspective is sometimes needed in order to deal
>with the origins of certain languages without political or
>cultural bias.

That is also arrogance, too, I agree. Yet, India has a millennia-old
unbroken tradition of scholarship that we of the western part of the
IndoEuropean world lack, being that "Western" scholarship largely dates from
the Renaissance, and only recently achieved any semblance of freedom of
thought, which is again suppressed under "political correctness". In India,
on the other hand, there has been, for a very long time, a plethora of
philosophies and traditions, or in other words, a society with freedom of
thought allowing for extreme differences of opinion. To me, that history
counts for something, and the academia of India deserves a better hearing
than it gets from "western" academia, though its freedom means that there
may be many more ideas and theories available to be considered and either
accepted or rejected, and that there is less of a single "mainstream" at
all, unless you will give that name to the particularly western-influenced
factions.

>For instance, in India, there are of course some who
>understandably will want to see Indo-Aryans with glorious pasts
>that just aren't there in reality, such as to make India the true homeland
>of the Indo-European language, which is pure junk and
>has no basis in reality. The view that IE came from Anatolia is
>just as ridiculous but if there is a political motivation to
>believe in these pseudo-theories that continue to lack persuasive proof,
>then we have ourselves a religious following willing to
>pay out big bucks on the next book that entertains their
>irrational assumptions.

The Aryan Invasion of India Theory is one such pseudo-theory with political
(and religious) motivation that lacks persuasive proof. It was invented by
Indologists who were also Christian missionaries, believing firmly in the
Middle Eastern origin of all people and culture, on the basis of their
scripture.

>While I believe Gimbutas' work has many merits, I feel she is
>also partly biased, sometimes treading over the line of feminism
>into almost androphobic territory, painting IndoEuropeans and
>their patriarchism as the seeds of violence and destruction in
>Europe.
>
>Every linguist has his or her bias. I have my biases no doubt.
>As much as we are human, however, bias is not science. We should
>always be perceptive of the potential biases of all linguists,
>her/his theories, as well as of ourselves, weighing everything
>based on facts and not on impressions, political correctness, or
>personal beliefs.

The trouble is, this is not done enough.

>Yet, this is not licence to dismiss mainstream views out of hand, which are
>often produced by many decades of trial and error by
>specialists. Again, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages have quite
>seperate origins despite mutual exchange.
>
>I guess what I'm proposing here is some moderation and balance
>in our thoughts... kinda like Buddha... yeah, Buddha. That's it.
>Man, that dude is total cool :P

In this, we agree. I do not propose either blindly accepting or rejecting
any theories. I oppose simply ignoring them, even if they are far outside
the "mainstream". It is far too easy to fall into "scientific" dogmatism
that way. In many cases, ideas outside the mainstream are based on either
faulty evidence or faulty logic, but there are also cases where there is
validity. We all lose if those cases are not found and given due coverage,
simply because it is different from the current mainstream consensus.

Thanks again!

~Mark


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