Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth: Part 2

[A_Gupta]

Ok, can someone who knows recap how the 3rd century BC dates are arrived at for Tamizh Sangam literature? Why not earlier? Why not later? Thanks in advance!

[sudarshan]

Ok, can someone who knows recap how the 3rd century BC dates are arrived at for Tamizh Sangam literature? Why not earlier? Why not later? Thanks in advance!

I too would like to know this. Tamil literature was written down on palm leaves ("oalai suvadi"), and these leaf manuscripts apparently have lives of only 150 to 200 years. So the manuscripts had to be faithfully copied over every few generations by students, and that's how many of them survived to the present day. Many more were lost, often deliberately due to religious bias (many works were of Buddhist leanings - that works both ways - either the Buddhists would have suppressed Hindu-natured works, or vice versa). Or the leaf scrolls simply didn't make it to the present age. If it were not for the efforts of Swaminatha Iyer (Thamizh Thatha - i.e., Tamil Grandpa), modern Tamils would probably have been completely unaware of their literary heritage.

I have no clue how these works were dated. The original manuscripts would be lost to us, so carbon dating, etc. won't work. For all we know, the 3rd century BCE to AD dates were all made up as well. This range of dates has a convenient fudge-factor for missionaries to claim that the Thirukkural was actually derived from Jesus' teachings (this viewpoint is currently being pushed in TN). So they randomly claim that the Thirukkural is 1800 years old, which dates it after Christ (while still keeping it in the "accepted" date range of 300 BCE to 300 AD)! Probably the same thing is going on with Tamil literature, it could be much older than actually claimed.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Direct derivation of a date from a manuscript is possible only in the rarest of cases, where the original manuscript has been preserved (e.g., as with the Dead Sea Scrolls).

The general idea with literature is that if it references, say, the name of a contemporary king, and e.g., you find archaeologically a stone or copper-plate inscription mentioning the name of that king, and you can date that inscription (or you have preserved in (other) literature a dynasty list with the dates of reigns of kings) etc., then you get a start at deriving a date. Or you find coins issued by that king, and somehow can date the coins. And so on.

Or if the work in question refers to some other writer/work, then you know it must come later; and if you know the date of the preceding work, you may be able to start deriving a date.

E.g., with the Rg Veda, we're now trying to derive a date based on its mention of the Saraswati river; and the Saraswati river vanished after some date which presumably can be determined with paleohydrography.

[Gus]

In a word the meeting was fantastic. The quality of papers and research was very high. I was enthused by the positivity and see hope for the nation - especially with the involvement of young people.

Basically the topics covered such a broad area that I think we on BRF are really behind times. We are only 2 cm ahead of Josy Joseph. In terms of the weight of academic proof AIT is dead. I do think BR needs to move on an address more important issues that reversing AIT and proving OIT.

What need work is the massive effort and funding that has gone into convincing the illiterate poor in Tamil Nadu that they are a subjugated race while Aryans came from the North. The fact that it is bullshit is perfectly well known in Tamil Nadu but a curious mixture of politics and Church funding ensures that race is being used to Chritianize Tamil Nadu. This is being augmented by a vicious attack on Hindus by the like of Pollck etc.

I do believe we need to get out of this 4-5 year old mode of arguing against AIT. No amount of proof can reverse the damage done. AIT is dead - we need to talk about what is happening in Tamil Nadu as a result of AIT. This entire series of threads, while being very useful and greatly informative was also filled with vicious trolls. IMOP we need to lock it up and look at the "on the ground" situation which is as important, if not more important than Doklam or Mdi achievemnets

In TN, the 'accepted theory' is the AIT...even among the "educated". It will be an uphill task, because of the politics and the eco system in both academia and media. Need folks who have both the academic knowledge of the issues and the rhetorical capability to destroy arguments in public fora debates.

[shiv]

In TN, the 'accepted theory' is the AIT...even among the "educated". It will be an uphill task, because of the politics and the eco system in both academia and media. Need folks who have both the academic knowledge of the issues and the rhetorical capability to destroy arguments in public fora debates.

That was the whole purpose of the meeting. To build up a body of scholarship to do just that. Judging from the meeting there are many who fit the bill in Tamil Nadu. An unrelated meeting with BRFite Raja Ram after the conference also gave me great hope that there are people working to set things right.

Tamil Nadu governments are busy destroying Hinduism on their own without outside help. In temples where there is a family tradition of priesthood they have put a retirement age - so the temple is left without a priest after X age Then they say that a son cannot continue even if he has had the required Vedic training. So the temple dies.

Meanwhile a group of private individuals have gone and funded a "Harvard Tamil Chair". Rajiv Malhotra asked a man who was involved in this why they did not follow the model of China an even Pakistan who insist that if they pay the money the person appointed in the chair will be a scholar of their choice. The lame answer was that "Oh Tamil Nadu is so corrupt that Harvard "must be better". This is such a classic example of white skin worship and "Grass greener on the other side". They see their own arena as so dirty that they think white man will do good for them

A lot of people asked "Why not set up a Tamil chair in some Indian university?" Pay for it and appoint someone at 1/10 the cost of Harvard chair.

[shiv]

Ok, can someone who knows recap how the 3rd century BC dates are arrived at for Tamizh Sangam literature? Why not earlier? Why not later? Thanks in advance!

This is a good question.

When you listen to the depth to which Vedanta and Vedic tradition is enmeshed in Tamil culture and literature - you know there is a deep link. But when "scholars" theorize that Vedas themsleves appeared only by 1000 BC - then they have to give themselves some time for it to spread to Tamil Nadu - so 300 BC is a compromise AIT date like everything else.

I mentioned the date to ask how Vedic culture and terminology and Tamil too so much from each other just 700 years after the last Veda. The time span seems highly unlikely but an opinion such as this is not proof.

[Murugan]

Looks like the third conference went very well. Just trying to understand the closed door nature format of the conference. Is the goal to minimize too-many-chefs-in-kitchen effect so the Indic research moves forward constructively? That would make sense. Too many paid experts ready to throw a wrench in good work done enthusiasts with little monetary rewards. Definitely feel Sastryji's pain. For all these efforts to succeed and grow, taking the debate and research in easy to understand format (books, magazine, print and digital, movies, documentaries) to the masses is the way to go. Just my non-Aryan 2 paisa...

A Twit from TamizhCulturalPortal
‏@TamizhPortal
Dec 24
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"SI series has done the brutal hard work of unearthing new, talented scholars thru double-blinded review, resulting in top-quality submissions. Platform for genuine practitioners of #dharma & art traditions. Disrupt Hinduphobic western #Indology hegemony, promote Swadeshi views."

[shiv]

Looks like the third conference went very well. Just trying to understand the closed door nature format of the conference. Is the goal to minimize too-many-chefs-in-kitchen effect so the Indic research moves forward constructively? That would make sense. Too many paid experts ready to throw a wrench in good work done enthusiasts with little monetary rewards. Definitely feel Sastryji's pain. For all these efforts to succeed and grow, taking the debate and research in easy to understand format (books, magazine, print and digital, movies, documentaries) to the masses is the way to go. Just my non-Aryan 2 paisa...

"Closed door nature" is media spin. It was a specialist conference from the word go for people to do research, have papers validated for presentation to an audience for the purpose of building up a body of scholars. Everybody was free to register but registrants had to pay. BRFite Prem Kumar registered for Rs 500

Rajiv Malhotra pointed out that they had tried to invite people with a different viewpoint as well to present their side

[Amber G.]

Some may find it useful:

IIT Kanpur has a good digital library (work in progress for many years) for many of the source material of ancient texts ..They have newly added Upanishads section, I have seen things of my interest like Srimad Bhagavad Gita, other Gita versions, Valmiki Ramayan as well as Tulsi's version. It is a VERY good resource.

Generally - the texts are in Sanskrit (or originial) but and can be also be viewed in many scripts..(all major Indian scripts like Tamil, telgu, Gujarati etc). English translations, Sankara's commentary of the Sutras is there for some, coming soon for rest..

It was done to create a repository of Indian philosophical texts on the Internet, and to make these freely available to whoever is interested. There are tools and process there where putting up such texts on web is made simpler and can be presented in order to enhance the study of these texts.

Upnishads are at: https://www.upanishads.iitk.ac.in/

Gita supersite is at:
: https://www.gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in/

[shiv]

^^
Regarding Vedas per se - which have caused a lot of upheaval in history and on these threads I would like to point out a couple of facts that have come to light while I was searching for information.

Basically the Vedas are old and much has been lost in the mists of time. There are earlier interpretations of the Vedas from some really ancient scholars. I have read perhaps 3-4 names but I can remember only 2 of them and those names are relevant to our understanding.

In terms of "meaning" of the Vedas they have been built up on clever sound combinations forming words where they have a "superficial" trivial meaning or a deep meaning. If you read cow as meaning 4 legged-4 tits animal you get one meaning but interpreted in another sense the deeper meaning of the Vedas - which expounds the exploration of the Universe within oneself becomes apparent.

How do I know this?

Among existing texts - there is one by an ancient scholar called Yaska who clearly differentiates between the esoteric and superficial meanings of the Vedas. Much much later - about 700 years ago - one Sayana also did his work on the Vedas. Unfortunately Sayana has pretty much forgotten or ignored the deep meanings and has left us with a text that was picked up by Max Muller, Jones etc to make their nonsensical translations of cows releasing waters.

How do I know this?

What I have written above has been written in English in the 1800s by Vidyarthi - will provide link later available on archive.org. Later Aurobindo too has done the same things and his works are all available, clear and accessible, though voluminous. He also speaks of Sayana's errors compared with Yaska. There was also a Kapali sastry who worked on this and there are now available - in many volumes - English works by RL Kashyap in which he takes the Vedas line by line, explains the superficial and deep meanings, and compares line by line the deep meanings compared with Griffith translations that all of us, indologists and cunning linguists use.

You can buy the entire set for about Rs 10,000 here. Well worth a buy for posterity
http://vedah.com/publications/

These works (I accessed only parts) allowed me to compare claims made about the Rig Veda by contemporary authors versus what the Veda actually says.

Incidentally I had earlier posted a video by RL Kashyap speaking of the deep and superficial meanings of the Vedas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik9-GJ6a594

[disha]

I think it is time to invent a proto-proto-IE

We can simply start with "proto Indian"

What is proto Indian and when was it spoken?

Proto "Indo-European" suggests a language that was destined to go both to India and Europe - an idea that suits European history and claims on Sanskrit. Our people were speaking proto-Indian. Later that proto Indian went out as proto-European. There was never ever any "Proto-Indo European"

I spent lot of time thinking whether to call it proto-Indian or proto-proto-IE.

The moment one says proto-Indian, derivation will be: proto-Indo-european -> Proto-Indian -> Indian and thus AIT.

Calling it Proto-Proto-IE, at least the AIT/PIE cunning linguists will be tied into validating where the Proto-PIE originated. If the proto-PIE originated from India, then how come PIE was brought outside of India. If the proto-PIE originated outside, where is the physical proof of that. Of course the cunning linguists will go back to levant to prove that proto-PIE originated there. Actually that is what they are trying.

Either way, cunning linguists have nailed our hides to a board of lies and the only way out of this is to play their own game and beat them.

[disha]

^^ It is said that vedas are sounds and was revealed. That to me is actually literally taken.

To me., Without attempting to understand the vedas and by sometimes living it the sounds are random. The literary meanings may or may not make sense, the words may by some random chance may end up attributed to a meaning or meanings.

Vedas are revealed to the souls who immerse themselves in it and not to persons searching for its literal meaning or historical allusions.

[shiv]

^^ It is said that vedas are sounds and was revealed. That to me is actually literally taken.

To me., Without attempting to understand the vedas and by sometimes living it the sounds are random. The literary meanings may or may not make sense, the words may by some random chance may end up attributed to a meaning or meanings.

Vedas are revealed to the souls who immerse themselves in it and not to persons searching for its literal meaning or historical allusions.

This is perfectly right - but this explanation lays open the entire question of the Vedas open to attack from the likes of Doniger and Pollock. Some strong will people like you will not give a damn,but colonized Indians (80% of educated Indians) will "start realizing" that Vedas are gibberish and there is no such thing as "revealed" and that we need to move on.

This is what is happening now and this can onlybe countered by telling the truth. Revealed or invented by humans, Vedas have a meaning and significance that do not correspond to the horse shit that exists as "Vedas" on the internet as Griffiths translations. Any half literate Hindu can be converted to think that vedas are gibberish and all Vedantic philosophy was cooked up by later authors - some of who came into contact with Greeks, Christians and even Spinoza and those later Vedanta authors simply attributed meaning to the Vedas which are actually nonsense verses chanted by a primitive people simply to claim antiquity.

We need to be careful because we may be good people but others are absolute bhenchods and we need to think like bhenchods

[Murugan]

Proto is a costly european goggles brand:

Proto Indo European - Early Indo European
Proto Nagari - Early Nagari !!
Prota Brahmi - Early Brahmi !!
Proto History (of India), i.e., Early History of India (history according to european goggles starts with the first evidence of understandable deciphered script/writing). Until ye argumentative yindoos are not able to decipher ISVC script you have history till 500 BCE. Everything before this is ProtoHistory for ye. You say ISVC is deciphered, they say no, need more research, ye yindoos again do research with european lens and produce paper, they say this is not satisfactory, ye accept and do research again...

There is Proto- Shiva = Early Shiva (how absurd this can be !)

This goggles are given to us which we sometimes wear with choice or sometimes unknowingly wear and see the colours manufacturers of the glass have provided. We dont see original colour and then we argue, we do research and again argue - this was the purpose of the product, to keep us busy in ...... !!! Then we compare languages and study CL. They win, we argue.

[Murugan]

Need of INDIAN GRAND NARRATIVE

[Murugan]

Languages, Scripts and Migration:

Sikhs have migrated in large number to Canada, there are Gurumukhi script signboards but state language is not Punjabi.
Gujjus migrated to Mumbai - Script was used on Rly Stns but language is local or hindi/english but state language did not change though once they were 35% of population in Mumbai and 30% of gujju population used to speak Marathi. They steal speak better Marathi. Their gujarati is typical to Mumbai.
Parsis migrated to India - Persian script used but language is gujarati
Gujjus migrated to British East Africa - language african. Gujrati script was used there for some years.
Biharis migrated to Mauritius - is bihari/bhojpuri spoken or understood in Mauritius.
Ditto for Fiji
Mughals invaded India tried to impose Persian language but it turned out to be locally developed urdu. Script remains.
Sultans invaded India tried to impose Arabic language but failed.
British ruled India for a long time but after 70 years they were made to leave only 10% of population can understand english and speak Hinglish/Tinglish/Ginglish and inglis. British did not migrate/did not invade but usurped. Roman script is widely used for writing Indian names - Murugan, Shiv, Prem etc.

Languages brought by invaders/migrants (be they emperors/long lasting powerful dynasties) do not become mainstream. Forget about literature.

Added later: Only Genocide and ruthless destruction of local populace can replace languages (viz., americas/australia/NZ)

[Murugan]

The (in)famous technique of west in scholarly field for India:

List & Dismiss
Perhaps...Probably...And therefore...
divide et impera
Selective playing up and playing down

Constructing Indian Grand Narrative is need of the hour

[JE Menon]

>>We need to be careful because we may be good people but others are absolute bhenchods and we need to think like bhenchods

This is something that Indians, scholars and otherwise, need to imbibe deep into their being - as deep as the Vedas/Upanishads.

There is no such thing in the West as scholarship for scholarship's sake, nor truth for truth's sake. It is always, truth for my faith's sake, or scholarship for my civilization's sake. We have made the mistake of not recognising this reality, and have paid - and are paying - the price for it. Truth, if not suitable, will be twisted to make it suitable.

This does not mean, however, that we should forget about truth for it's own sake and scholarship for the sake of knowledge alone.

[A_Gupta]

There is no such thing in the West as scholarship for scholarship's sake, nor truth for truth's sake. It is always, truth for my faith's sake, or scholarship for my civilization's sake. We have made the mistake of not recognising this reality, and have paid - and are paying - the price for it. Truth, if not suitable, will be twisted to make it suitable.

This does not mean, however, that we should forget about truth for it's own sake and scholarship for the sake of knowledge alone.

Only very few pursue scholarship for scholarship's sake and truth for truth's sake. Most seek to keep their paymasters happy.

There is some story I vaguely remember, that X asks the Buddha or some Buddhist Arhat about what is the truth. The Buddha in reply shows X a giant wheel with spokes. Innumerable people are clinging onto the spokes of the wheel and shouting "I have the truth, what the others say is false". So X asks - how do I decide among all these claims? The Buddha says, wait, and starts the wheel spinning, faster and faster, and the voices and their words start blurring into each other and the only sound that emerges is "Truth". X asks the Buddha - is that the truth? The Buddha says, that is the closest we have been able to come.

Our problem is that for past several hundred years, the Indian voices have not participated in the Wheel of Truth. But this story illustrates the nature of science and truth. None of us, individually, can claim with a straight face to be free of bias, totally objective, without a preferred narrative. But collectively by bashing the conflicting claims together, we collectively arrive at something that is closer to the truth than anyone of us can individually achieve. The problem is that Indians have not been actively participating in this with the vigor and force that is needed, and the "Truth" that coming off that wheel does not have anyone with an Indian accent, let alone language.

[shiv]

Languages brought by invaders/migrants (be they emperors/long lasting powerful dynasties) do not become mainstream. Forget about literature.

Added later: Only Genocide and ruthless destruction of local populace can replace languages (viz., americas/australia/NZ)

OK I must point out here that Murugan with his interest in numismatics has incontrovertible physical evidence to make the statement he has made above.

The explanation is simple. Ever since coins became currency it has been necessary to have some script in some language on coins. And since coins are used by even the poorest of the poor and of course the illiterate, and no one can hope to get back all coins and remint them, no invader can willy nilly change the script and language on coins even if the official language of a royal court changes. So language survives in scripts at a very deeply democratic level beyond ruling class changes

[shiv]

https://twitter.com/va_shiva/status/946331330677223424

While I respect the spirit of the donors, I can ONLY support this IF Chair is assigned to Tamil scholars resident in Tamil Nadu, who rotate annually & control it GIVEN @Harvard's history of corruption, poor standards, & racist tradition of destroying indigenous cultures!

[Murugan]

Shiv,

Yes. That is correct. The 'original' (native to the land) scripts and language cannot be replaced by invaders and migratory races, even if they rule for 600+ years, i.e., sultans/mughals. Many sanskrit literature sprang even during this hard period. If the so called Aryans could migrate to India because of our 'Atithi Devo Bhava' policy, the language (allegedly PIE/Sanskrit) brought by them cannot become mainstream in light of above. Unless the natives were dumb and used sign languages to communicate. (Invasion and genocide of local populace could have made it possible but they did not invade, how can Aryans loot, destroy and kill. They were good civilized guys. They even taught us how to sh*t.) However, sophisticated ISVC like civilization cannot come up with sign language and dumb people.

PS: The oldest coins of India are 2600 years old, so far, as certified by western archaeologists and numismatists and accepted by well behaved Indians. The earliest ones are known as Punch Marked silver/copper coins (it is a coin striking techniqe) and cast copper coins. Punch Marked coins did not have any script but symbols incuse on them. However, inscribed coins became mainstream 2500/2200 years ago.

Coins are proof of various things etched hard in metal - they tell us about society, economy, iconography, symbols, metallurgy, scripts/languages and their development, beliefs, religiosity, politics, devices, clothes and costumes, weapons, genealogy, dynasties etc of their times, and precise time associated with all of the above if the coins are etched with date. Numismatics and Astronomy are two disciplines which can be cultivated as hobby and one can learn many things associated with them.

[A_Gupta]

This is going to be relevant at some point - borrowings versus descent in language evolution:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 1794.short

[A_Gupta]

Need help interpreting this (note this is a 2014 paper, and already could be out-of-date, so fast are the developments in the field of aDNA)
http://biology-web.nmsu.edu/~houde/1-s2 ... X-main.pdf
Human paleogenetics of Europe
The known knowns and the known unknowns
Guido Brandt, Anna Szecs-enyi-Nagy, Christina Roth, Kurt Werner Alt, Wolfgang Haak

While the presence of haplogroup I in Neolithic contexts could be interpreted as a signal of hunter-gatherer introgression in farming communities, and therefore represents a Paleolithic legacy, the precise way in which modern-day European Y-chromosome diversity was formed remains elusive. To date, the only other Y-haplogroups observed in early farming sites are haplogroup F in Germany and Hungary (Haak et al., 2010; Szecsenyi-Nagy et al., 2014), and E1b in one individual in Spain ( Lacan et al., 2011b). The presence of haplogroup F is very surprising, as it is very rare in modern-day European populations and therefore not well studied. It has been reported at a low frequency in Southeast Europe and the Near East (Underhill and Kivisild, 2007), whereas subgroups of F have been primarily found in India (Kivisild et al., 2003).

PS: PS: per Wiki, Y-DNA haplogroups in populations of South Asia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_hap ... South_Asia
if one sorts the first table by the F haplogroup, the highest frequency of the F haplogroup in the populations of the Indian subcontinent are the Koya (26.8%), the Sinhalese (20.7%), unspecified South Indian tribals (18.1%), Himachal Brahmins (15.8%) and so on. The Koya speak a Dravidian language, the Sinhalese speak an Indo-European language, the South Indian tribals speak Dravidian languages, the Himachal Brahmins speak an Indo-European language.

[shiv]

Need help interpreting this (note this is a 2014 paper, and already could be out-of-date, so fast are the developments in the field of aDNA)
http://biology-web.nmsu.edu/~houde/1-s2 ... X-main.pdf
Human paleogenetics of Europe

One statement in the paper made me have a melt-down and I lost interest in this dense and badly written paper. It actually has nothing to do with your question, but it shows the level to which nonsense-"scholarship" has descended in western science.

The authors support glottochronology - a discredited technique. But that is not what got my goat. It was the suggestion that PIE started spreading from some place or other. The problem is of course - there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that "PIE" - which is itself a nonexistent "reconstructed" language was spoken in that area.
So you have two nonsense constructs
1. That a language called PIE existed - that is to say that the language was predestined to go to rest of Europe and India existed in that region
2. And such a language was spoken in X place 8000 years ago - with no proof whatsoever of any language

Now this nonsense-construct is taken as fact and genes of corpses from this area are now assumed to come from people who spoke such a language and are to be compared with genes from other areas - taking forward the assumption that those people were the ancestors of someone else speaking a particular language.

As Murugan said this proto-shoto stuff is a colonial imposition on us. But I find a curious mental block among Indians to using the same "logic" of assumed proto languages.

[shiv]

Let me ask people here to help me do a little exercise. You know how cunning linguists reconstruct proto-languages. They take two existing languages today and take two related words that sound slightly different - and constrcuct a hypothetical word that "must have been used" in the past in a "proto language". Now that word is added to a proto-language dictionary and it is claimed that "This was the proto language spoken" - ignoring or hiding the fact that it is just a hypothetical reconstruction

For example - the logic is like this
Greek word for horse: Equus
Sanskrit word: Ashwa

Therefore Proto-Indo-European word for horse = something that combines the sounds of Equus and Ashwa - i.e. ekhwa or something that sounds like a person vomiting. And sure enough check Google for the PIE word for horse: "h₁éḱwos" Now this bloody "h₁éḱwos " becomes a real word and with dozens of cooked up words you have people writing sentences in PIE believing it actually existed based on the blatant lies of people who have reached the high temples of scholarship in the west

So here is the exercise

Take a series of similar words from Bengali and Gujarati, or Bengali and Hindi and try and "reconstruct" Sanskrit from that and lets see what we get.

I don't know too much Bengali - but for example "Boshon" is sit or please sit. Baith/baitho/baithiye in Hindi. What Sanskrit word do you get from these: The Sanskrit word for "sit" should be "batchon" or "botch" by reconstruction.

The basic point is if language reconstruction is such a frigging accurate science, please reconstruct Sanskrit from its daughter languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali. If you don't get Sanskrit from you reconstruction please shut the f..k up and stop claiming that you are re-creating an ancient language.

[Pulikeshi]

The basic point is if language reconstruction is such a frigging accurate science, please reconstruct Sanskrit from its daughter languages like Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali. If you don't get Sanskrit from you reconstruction please shut the f..k up and stop claiming that you are re-creating an ancient language.

But to get tenure and enjoy the boondoggle only ancient languages that can never be verified can be reconstructed!

More seriously - in your basha: you can bet all our proverbial *h₃erǵʰi- that all talk of *h₁éḱwos is just *kakka

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, (you have seen this before) actually ancient Greek is an example where one could really test this proto-language stuff out. Greek as of 800 BC and later has been known for a long time, and Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek, was deciphered around 1950. There was a dark ages of Greece between 1200 BC and 800 BC ("system collapse"). So proto-Greek was constructed from the Greek of 800 BC and later, and then we get a view of an earlier period **after** the initial predictions were made, and one could ask how well the predictions stand up.
Original paper:
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/%7Egarr ... rgence.pdf
Excerpts on my blog:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... ure-3.html

To quote from the paper:

In this context Morpurgo Davies (1988, 102n4) writes that ‘it would be a useful exercise to collect all the features which we would have attributed to Common Greek before the decipherment of Linear B’.

This is not the place to present in detail the results of the exercise Morpurgo Davies advocates, but I can summarize its findings. I have examined features attributed to Proto‑Greek by Meillet (1913), well before the decipherment of Linear B, excluding those that are not unique to Greek. It turns out that little remains of Meillet’s Proto‑Greek; excluding post‑Mycenaean innovations, few unique changes distinguish Greek phonologically or morphologically from NIE.

What is NIE:

...IE has a set of ten or more familiar subgroups — Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek,etc., - which can in turn perhaps be organized into higher-order subgroups such as ‘Italo‑Celtic’ or the non‑Anatolian subgroup I will call Nuclear IE (NIE).

So my guess is if one takes modern Indian languages said to be descendants of Indo-Aryan, and take out the known "Dravidian" and "Munda" and so on loan words, and tries to reconstruct anything, one will not get a Prakrit or Pali or "Middle Indo-Aryan" or classical or Vedic Sanskrit; one will only get this "NIE". Which is nonsense.

Then, this reconstruction by descent from a common ancestor is challenged - I posted this link a few posts above:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 1794.short

[A_Gupta]

FYI: Paishachi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paishachi

The 13th-century Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub wrote that the early Buddhist schools were separated by choice of sacred language: the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prākrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviravādins used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa.

Pollock is quoted

Linguists have identified this as everything from an eastern Middle-Indic dialect close to Pali to a Munda language of inhabitants of the Vindhya Mountains […] In fact there is little reason to bother to choose […] Paishachi is the joker in the deck of South Asian discourses on language, having an exclusively legendary status, since it is associated with a single lost text, the Bṛhatkathā (The Great Tale), which seems to have existed less as an actual text than as a conceptual category signifying the Volksgeist, the Great Repository of Folk Narratives […] In any event, aside from this legendary work (which "survives" only in one Jain Maharashtri and several Sanskrit embodiments), Paishachi is irrelevant to the actual literary history of South Asia.

[Murugan]

Delhi = Sultanate = 1193-1526 Arabic, Mughals 1530 - 1857 Persian

Bengal = Sultanate = 1203 - 1574 Arabic, Mughals 1574 - 1757 Persian, Angrez 1757 - 1947

Gujarat = Sultanate 1396 - 1584, Mughals = 1584-1757, later numerous princely states

Languages ingrained in socio-politcal stratum cannot be disturbed/uprooted/replaced by external forces be it invasion or migration, howsoever tight-assed the inavaders, migrants and rulers could be.

Best example is Bangladesh = Bengali language and Siddham based script could not be replaced though bengal was ruled by various invading forces starting from 1203 AD. Till 1971.
added later: The 3000 years old ancient name Vang/Bang is still used

[Murugan]

If you don't get Sanskrit from you reconstruction please shut the f..k up and stop claiming that you are re-creating an ancient language.

Chaff Separator in Bengali is called Kulo
Butt in Gujarati is called Kulo
Nitamb is sanskrit for Gujarati Kulo

Pollock Urban Dictionary: pollock
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pollock
A slang term for Polish people. Usually meant as an insult.

Guess how the arabs will pronounce this ...

[shiv]

Shiv, (you have seen this before) actually ancient Greek is an example where one could really test this proto-language stuff out. Greek as of 800 BC and later has been known for a long time, and Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek, was deciphered around 1950. There was a dark ages of Greece between 1200 BC and 800 BC ("system collapse"). So proto-Greek was constructed from the Greek of 800 BC and later, and then we get a view of an earlier period **after** the initial predictions were made, and one could ask how well the predictions stand up.
Original paper:
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/%7Egarr ... rgence.pdf
Excerpts on my blog:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/1 ... ure-3.html

Great work Arun. That quote in your blog is classic. But the author has written in in an obscure style - he has to survive in his academic environment.

What hs is saying is as follows:

Cunning linguists cooked up a language that they called "Proto-Greek" and claimed that x, y and z changes occurred in that proto Greek to give rise to modern variants of Greek.

Suddenly some mofos found some ancient evidence of an old Greek called "Mycenean Greek". And Guess what? None of those funny funny cooked up word changes that cunning linguists had created had occurred in Mycenaean Greek.

Of course I have two views on this:
View 1: "Linguists are conniving bhenchods"

or

View 2: From the scientific viewpoint you are allowed to have a theory or hypothesis about "How things might have been". But when one is speculating on "How things might have been" - a modicum of honesty would demand that you post your theory while stating other theories as well and say why your theory is better than other theories. Linguists have never done that.

A case in point is the totally fuked-up-cooked-up language "Proto-Indo European"

By calling a language "proto-indo-European" the assumption is that there was a mother language that preceded "Indian" (Rig Veda Sanskrit) and European languages. OK this is one theory. But can there be any other theories?

Of course there could have been a "proto-Sanskrit" that became Sanskrit and several proto-European branches that went to Europe. This is as "solid" a theory as PIE. The only reason why PIE is cited as a language is because it gives a convenient "central" area - neither India nor Europe from where they can say "OK languages must have come from here. Cooking this up is no skin off anyone's balls" But this need not be the ONLY theory.

India surely had some language before PIE came in 1400 BC as per linguists. Were Harappans (3000 BC) and Bhimbetka (30,000 BC) dwellers before them stupid? With no language? But if PIE became Sanskrit how come Sanskrit that came from Eurasia on Equus caballus has less than 4% substrate of any non IE language. Sanskrit is 96% IE. There is a huge argument that "Indo-European" started as Proto-Indian - Indian and then became Indo European.

But this is politically unacceptable in western linguistics chairs. It is only because Indians are now mental slaves that we accept theories basically imposed as part of the colonial hangover.

[Dipanker]

India surely had some language before PIE came in 1400 BC as per linguists. Were Harappans (3000 BC) and Bhimbetka (30,000 BC) dwellers before them stupid? With no language? But if PIE became Sanskrit how come Sanskrit that came from Eurasia on Equus caballus has less than 4% substrate of any non IE language. Sanskrit is 96% IE. There is a huge argument that "Indo-European" started as Proto-Indian - Indian and then became Indo European.

Could these be:

1. Dravidian family of languages, after all these are found as far north as Balochistan, Nepal, Jharkhand/Bihar, Bengal, Orissa etc.

2. Austro-asiatic languages, spoken by substantial group of people in central, central-east, and east.

3. Sino-Tibetan languages, (spoken by a small fraction in far north and north-east).

[syam]

Could these be:

1. Dravidian family of languages, after all these are found as far north as Balochistan, Nepal, Jharkhand/Bihar, Bengal, Orissa etc.

2. Austro-asiatic languages, spoken by substantial group of people in central, central-east, and east.

3. Sino-Tibetan languages, (spoken by a small fraction in far north and north-east).

Yes. It was Dravidian family of languages. Later Aryans came and corrupted everything.

It's Gautama Buddha who tried to revive Dravidian languages. But fate denied him success. Savvy Aryans are very smart and kept Buddha and his Dravidianism at bay.

Imagine we talking in earlier dravidian languages and discussing their dravidianisms. Gandhi tried to revived it in his later years. He also couldn't do it.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ LOL!

[shiv]

India surely had some language before PIE came in 1400 BC as per linguists. Were Harappans (3000 BC) and Bhimbetka (30,000 BC) dwellers before them stupid? With no language? But if PIE became Sanskrit how come Sanskrit that came from Eurasia on Equus caballus has less than 4% substrate of any non IE language. Sanskrit is 96% IE. There is a huge argument that "Indo-European" started as Proto-Indian - Indian and then became Indo European.

Could these be:

1. Dravidian family of languages, after all these are found as far north as Balochistan, Nepal, Jharkhand/Bihar, Bengal, Orissa etc.

2. Austro-asiatic languages, spoken by substantial group of people in central, central-east, and east.

3. Sino-Tibetan languages, (spoken by a small fraction in far north and north-east).

I do not recognize the classification "Indo-European" which is a name merely to try and link Indian language (specifically Sanskrit) with European languages.It is a term that was coined when it became un-PC to say "Indo-Aryan" after WW2, without relooking at old racist theories

I also disagree with the classification "Dravidian" languages - a term born out of racism. I would say "'South Indian Language group"

Genetic studies (by Gyaneshwar Chaubey) reveal that Munda speakers did not extend as far west as the Punjab

There was an earlier language in India - and that was "proto-Indian". I believe that proto Indian was a mix of proto-south indian and proto-Sanskrit. This later developed into the Sanskrit as we know it - which shares about 40%(?) words with south Indian languages, the retroflex phonemes of the latter. These developments took place between 45,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago.

Why 45,000 years? Early out of Africa migration to India came via the coast 65,000 years ago. Later migrations came overland via the middle east 45000 years ago. Since this branch also went to Europe I cannot rule out the possibility that this group may have carried the beginnings of some European languages and Sanskrit - this could be the real "Proto-Indo European"

There is a curious unexplained fact here that no one seems to have taken into account
1. Indian genes are a very thorough mix of ASI and ANI (acc to Reich et al 2009), or similarly a very thorough mix of k5 and k6 (acc to Metspalu et al)
2. Both groups place this mix as being older than 12,500 years
3. The ANI/ASI components are unique to India
4. The Northwest Indian "k5" component is older in India than in the middle east
5. The thorough mixing of ASI/ANI (and k5/k6) mimics the thorough mixing of Sanskrit words and South Indian language words that constitute a huge common lexicon which is a curious suggestive fact
6. The fact that Sanskrit has virtually no substrate indicates that the language is most likely local in origin and not "Indo-European"
7. There is likely evidence of two links of India with Europe. One is out of India

• a. The later 45,000 ybp migration out of Africa that may have been the "real proto-Indo-European" leading to the early proto European languages that resemble Indian. One branch went to Europe and the other to India.
  b. A later post glacial migration out of North West India to Russia and Eastern Europe all the way to Poland (R1Aia1 - M17)

In summary:

1. Both early proto-south Indian and proto-Sanskrit came with out of Africa migrants >40,000 years ago
2. proto-Sanskrit branch also went to Europe and established itself in some European languages - possibly Latin
3. After development and refinement of indian languages in India there was a early holocene migration of Sanskrit-like language speakers into Eurasia, Russia, East Europe explaining the deep links of those languages with sanskrit. Before this or along with this there was a massive mixing of people within India speaking proto- Sanskrit and proto-south indian. The autosomal component of the mixture reflects in ASI/ANI while the mitochondrial DNA (of women) was mostly local. Local women bred with both proto South Indian language speakers and proto-Sanskrit speakers
4. There may have been a separate language influence on Greek by "proto-Iranians" - the Zoroastrains
5. Unrelated, but coming up next: Avestan is a fake, cooked up language.

[srinebula]

https://twitter.com/IndianDiplomacy/sta ... 4479859713

Saga of timelessness
Belonging to Deccan Peninsula, Gonds are the largest Adivasi Community in India who trace their origins to pre-Aryan era

This twitter handle is

Official Account of #India's Public Diplomacy, Ministry of External Affairs

They are clearly tweeting from AIT context.

[JE Menon]

Keep an eye on this guy folks. He will move forward

https://snu-kr.academia.edu/TravisLSmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMo6Vb8wd4

[RoyG]

Keep an eye on this guy folks. He will move forward

https://snu-kr.academia.edu/TravisLSmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMo6Vb8wd4

Read his paper below to get a sense of who he is. how you read the text will determine whether you are an insider or outsider.

https://www.academia.edu/21441804/Textu ... E1%B9%87as

[venug]

^^^ From the video posted by JEM ji, historical date of BG he gives is 1AD. Probably this is the date born out of the notion (wrong) that BG is influenced by Buddhism.