Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[tyroneshoes]

The Rig Veda would have to be composed where there animals existed -

Peacock range:



Elephant research:



Rhino range:



Tiger range:

[ManishH]

An example: the unique shared features between all Iranian dialects and Vedic indicate a period of unity - but it's impossible to fix where on earth that period of unity was.

So, how do we know who came first and if the meeting was incidental?
That is, mere adjacency with some influence, versus split off from parent?

The commonalities cannot be just adjacency. The Indian branch carries some older PIE features not found in Iranian and vice-versa too. Eg.

- Vedic has older palatals like 'c' where Iranian has innovated to either 's' or 'θ'

- Vedic has voiced aspirates like 'bharati' (carries). Iranian has the unaspirated sound 'baraiti'. From evidence of other language subfamilies, one can confidently say that Vedic 'bh' is the older form.

- Iranian innovated some consonants by spirantizing them eg t>th, k>x, p>f; whereas Vedic retained older forms

- Vedic shows PIE thorn clusters all simplify to kṣ; but Avestan retains the differentiation š/xš/gš

- Vedic shows unisyllabic dipthong forms (e/o) where Avestan shows older, disyllabic dipthongs ai/au

Some big common phonetic changes that indicate a period of unity:

- Vowel merger e/o/a all merged to 'a' in both branches. The consistency of vowel merger is too striking to have been merely adjacency effect.
- Rhotacism - again striking consistency of forms.

Besides, a lot of common deities.

Of course, in order to determine what are "older features" above, one has to take the evidence from larger IE family. Otherwise, it's not at all apparent which is older if one just takes Indian and Iranian languages.

The Iranian Avesta afaik has reference to a homeland and migration. The Vedas afaik does not. Also, there is clear description of the original homeland:

Meher Yasht 10.13-14 states that the Aryan lands had high mountains (garayo berezanto), and was the central place from which the great Hara Berezaiti mountain ranges (Pahlavi Harburz and Persian Alburz) radiated east and west. The arm extending eastward towards the oceans was probably the Himalayas. The Hara Berezaiti ranges contained two thousand, two hundred and forty four mountains peaks (Zamyad Yasht 19.1 and Greater Bundahishn 9.3). The sun rose over the high summits of the Hara Berezaiti after which it cast its rays over the Aryan lands, indicating that the taller mountains were just to the east of the habitable lower regions, the tallest being the eponymous lofty Mount Hara. The sun sets between the Hara Berezaiti's peaks to the west of Airyana Vaeja.

This is a mixup statement from multiple Avestan sources. Meher Yasht does not talk about Airyana Vaeja. The mention is actually made in Vendidad; and the order of lands mentioned is :

1. Airyanem Vaejo
2. Sukhdho(also Tuirya)
3. Mourum
4. Bakhdhim
5. Nisaim
6. Haroyum
7. Vaekeretem
8. Urvam
9. Khnentem Vehrkano
10. Harahvaitim Harahvaiti
11. Haetumantem
12. Rakham
13. Chakhrem
14. Varenem
15. Hapta Hendu
16. Rangha

If one maps them geographically, it shows this order:


(map on Page 294 of "Indo-Aryan Controversy", Bryant)

From the map, it's clear that an enumeration of "Aryan" regions is being described as perceived by the author of this text. It's not at all the case that #1 on the list is the origin or homeland. The map does not show #1 on the list as it's not even clear what is it's location.

Notable is the fact that Meher Yasht does not mention "Ariianem Vaejo", but mentions "Ariyo Shayanem" as the homeland.

Also worth thinking is that does the Himalaya solution agree with 'evidence' from Sh. Talageri's book that origin of Vedic civilization lies in Gangetic valley. Or does the enumeration of Vendidad agree with these claims made by Talageri that Iranians were evicted from Punjab after battles with Indians ...

The ancestors of the Persians, Parthians, Pakhtoons, and Baluchis were therefore settled in the Punjab “prior to 1500 BC or so” on the evidence of the Rigveda, and the Vedic Aryans were settled to their east, to the east of the Sarasvati River.

If immediately prior to being evicted from India, Iranians were in Punjab, why do they list Hapta Hindu as #15 ?

So one thing is clear : Ariianem Vaeja being at #1 does not clearly indicate that is the homeland of Iranians. Neither is it very clear where Ariianem Vaeja is.

Is'nt there evidence during Post-Mesolithic period for humans raiding honey combs in India?

Please point me to some detailed articles on archaeological evidence for earliest bee-keeping in India.

Also, should not the use of animals/creatures in the language be an indicator? Like use of words for elephant (ibha), peacock (mayura), tiger (vyagra) or rhino (ganda or khanda).

I don't think there is any doubt that Rg is composed in India.

[RajeshA]

ramana garu,

thanks a lot for bringing it back!

[ManishH]

On the topic of Indo-Iranian unity and RajeshA's earlier poser on substratum, there is a paper by A. Lubotsky "The Indo-Iranian substratum". It identifies some vocabulary that is of non-IE origin and ascribed by him to a common substrate before the split into Indian and Iranian branches.

His criteria for identifying substrate words ...

an etymon is likely to be a loanword if it is characterized by some of the following features: 1) limited geographical distribution; 2) phonological or morphonological irregularity; 3) unusual phonology; 4) unusual word formation; 5) specific semantics, i.e. a word belongs to a semantic category which is particularly liable to borrowing.

I'm only comfortable with 2)-4) which have some phonetic basis; rest of the criteria look a bit subjective. But anyway, his conclusions ...

Starting with the assumption that loanwords reflect changes in environment and way of life,
we get the following picture about the new country of the Indo-Iranians. The landscape must
have been quite similar to that of their original homeland, as there are no new terms for plants or landscape. The new animals like camel, donkey, and tortoise show that the new land was situated more to the south. There was irrigation (canals and dug wells) and elaborate architecture (permanent houses with walls of brick and gravel). Agriculture still did not play an important role in the life of Indo-Iranians: presumably, they did not change their life-style and only use the products (`bread'!) of the farmers, hardly tilling the land themselves. The paucity of terms for military technology (only *gadā- f. `club') can be seen as an indication of Aryan military supremacy. It seems further obvious to me that the Soma cult was borrowed by the Indo-Iranians
.
This picture, which is drawn on exclusively linguistic arguments, is a strong confirmation
of the traditional theory that the Indo-Iranians come from the north. Most probably, the Indo-
Iranians moved from the Eurasian steppes in the third millennium BCE (Pit-Grave culture, 3500-2500 BCE) in eastern direction, first to the region of the lower Volga (Potapovo, etc., 2500-1900BCE) and then to Central Asia (Andronovo culture, from 2200 BCE onwards).

[tyroneshoes]

Please point me to some detailed articles on archaeological evidence for earliest bee-keeping in India.

These are my old notes, not sure I remember the context for me writing it down

"Collecting honey from these huge nests in gigantic trees
requires great skill and daring, but post-mesolithic rock paintings
show that it was an established, traditional pursuit in India"

CRANE, E (1999) The World History of Beekeeping and Honey
Hunting. Routledge, London, U.K.

[RajeshA]

ManishH ji,

one thing I notice about all the substratum talk is that linguists analyze transfer of loanwords, place names, or grammatical patterns from the substratum, but there seems to a total sidelining of how the substratum languages acts on the pronunciation of the superstratum language.

Loanwords can come from adstratum languages also or an incomplete superstratum overwrite. That part may be interesting in itself but not to the point I wished to make earlier.

My claim was that the substratum language ultimately decides the pronunciation of the substratum language, and also constitutes the major reason for the branching of languages (at least in Eurasia).

Even in the case of French where Romance languages were accepted by the Gauls, it is a case of French having developed because of the substratum language (Gaulish) having a phonetic effect on the acquired superstratum language (Romance). Perhaps that is why French sounds different to Latin or Italian.

In the case of India (OIT-view), as the Superstratum language (proto-Vedic Sanskrit) was adopted by the various people in Eurasia, the individual substratum languages changed the pronunciation of the proto-Vedic Sanskrit words in ways which can be determined only through the knowledge of these substratum languages.

[tyroneshoes]

I will read your post more carefully over the weekend on Iran/Vedic

If immediately prior to being evicted from India, Iranians were in Punjab, why do they list Hapta Hindu as #15 ?

So one thing is clear : Ariianem Vaeja being at #1 does not clearly indicate that is the homeland of Iranians. Neither is it very clear where Ariianem Vaeja is.

#1 does not indicate homeland and #15 does indicate later lands travelled
For all we know, Rangha (Mesopotamia), Hapta Hindu (Punjab),.... that is the order.

Seriously, if there is such brilliant documentation by Iranians for migration, then where is such documentation for Vedics who supposedly moved from the Steppes?



PS: Not sure how to get image resize to work on this board. I tried all BBcode

[member_22872]

Manish ji,

Regarding the Horse article you asked for, it is a news article which Stephen Knapp mentioned in his website. The original news article doesn't exist anymore:
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/some_of_th ... f_2002.htm

Added later:
There are more horse cave paintings here, not sure if previously posted, yes not much information regarding the time of the cave paintings etc, but interesting anyway:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/india ... /index.php
more here:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/india/index.php

[tyroneshoes]

Does anyone know the origin of the Tamil word - "Kudurai" for horse?

Also, is there an non-Sanskrit word for Lion in Tamil (I cannot think of one).
Unless (Puli) was used for both Tiger and Lion.

[member_22872]

^^^ puli is more a tiger or a leopard, in Telugu simhamu is lion, something analogous could be in tamil, try google translate

[Agnimitra]

The Brits are at it again. Recent docu posted on youtube Apr 5, 2012. Central Asian AMT with all the usual "evidence". At around 8:00 he comes up with his "trump card", some evidence of a "vast fortified" city in Turkmenistan.

[shiv]

The Brits are at it again. Recent docu posted on youtube Apr 5, 2012. Central Asian AMT with all the usual "evidence". At around 8:00 he comes up with his "trump card", some evidence of a "vast fortified" city in Ozbekistan.

To me there is a Paki/Hamitic type of racism here that seems to perpetuate itself in some circles without the people necessarily being racists themselves (unlike Pakis)

Let me explain that sentence. Pakis for examle say "Hey OK we know there were earlier. older religions, but this new one came and replaced them all. It is the newest and the best." What we have here is not a denial of date, but an assertion of "mine is newer and bigger and that makes me bigger than you" . Another example is the way they say "We have terrorism. You have terrorism. so we both have terrorism" as if that terrorism magically appears out of the border. The statement seeks to place the origin somewhere in between the two and then claim that you are greater for some other conjured up reasons.

This whole business of "Aryan invasion" and even the hyphenated name "Indo-European" is a psychological trick to place the origins of Indian knowledge and languages in some neutral point from which it can be said - you have AIDS and so have I, but let's just compromise and say that AIDS came from somewhere in between the two of us. Neither you nor me. The odd thing about this is that when there is something praiseworthy of western origin - there was never any hesitation in placing its origins firmly in the west. No compromise-shompromise business. No one created entire "scholarly" fields for study like philology or ethnology simply to prove a point that was psychologically more acceptable to a race who were desperate to claim their own superiority.

You see the old Hamitic racist theory is an exact parallel. If all humans are equal how can black people be equal in a world where white man is winning wars and dominating? Simple Noah had 3 sons. He cursed one son and that son's descendants are black people. A second son's descendants became semites (Ayrabs and Joos) . The third son gave rise to modern European Christians who dominate. Once you buy this story it upsets your cosy applecart to find a language like Sanskrit and the contained knowledge among less than human humans - people who are slightly closer to monkeys than your own European race which was accepted "scientific knowledge" 100 years ago when your teacher's teacher was getting his college degree.

So you start conjuring up "scholarly" tricks to explain this anomaly - like explaining why the earth is the center of the universe and all stars spin round the earth (as someone serendipitously pointed out earlier in this thread). So you say that "All this greatness started somewhere in between India and Europe and we go to the extent of cooking up a completely non existent, hypothetical hybrid language to prove a point. But having proven that point by intellectual confabulation. we still say we are superior, because we are so much more advanced that the steppe dwelling originators of the language. But we are also happier to know that the starting point of these languages was in some steppe, so we don't have to owe anything to the monkey-related-blacks which is such a difficult thing to accept given our fundamental superiority."

Is this International Pakiness or is this international Pakiness?

[member_22872]

Below is the page to his program where apparently some people have asked him some questions. I guess this is part of 'Story of India'.
http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/ask/ ... _2.html#q3

I should say, one should thank linguists, they are doing great service in keeping alive AIT/AMT through their 'scholarship'. Even Indian scholars are throwing in aryan now and then agreeing with their past masters. AIT/AMT supporters ask for 'proof' when someone supports OIT, but a rhetorical question, why is that they don't feel the need to ask linguists the 'proof' when linguistic theories are so cooked up to support AIT/AMT, but a conjecture is sufficient? what happened to their scholarship?

[Agnimitra]

Below is the page to his program where apparently some people have asked him some questions. I guess this is part of 'Story of India'.
http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/ask/ ... _2.html#q3

ManishH ji had earlier pointed out that one of the 'myths' of the AIT/AMT is that the Vedas were being composed while the migration/invasion was taking place. He said that for the last 60 years all experts, even the most stubborn proponents of AMT/AIT, concede that the Vedas were composed long after any hypothetical migration into the subcontinent. Then I would like to ask how a BBC reporter in 2012 gets away with coolly palming off the same old 'myth' of the Vedas describing the migration/invasion?

[shiv]

What is good is mine. What is bad is not mine. What seems good but can't be claimed by me has to have origins in a place or among a people over whom I am now demonstrably greater, showing that they were not good enough to keep their greatness, unlike me.

There is a type of intellectual blindness, (cognitive blindness actually) that arises out of the rabid reductionism that scientific researchers resort to in their absurd quest for a single root in a situation that may have multiple roots. I must credit Deepak Chopra for pointing it out with reference to medical research.

Imagine two drugs being tested for the treatment of say high blood pressure. "Research" shows that drug A works in 80% of people and drug B works in only 50% of people. Drug A is declared as a "better drug" and accepted as a reliable drug to be used.

What is ignored or forgotten here is that Drug A is not going to work on 20% of the people. If Drug B happens to be used on them , it is possible that 50% of those non responders to Drug A will benefit. So a combination where one or the other drugs are tried may end up benefiting 90% of people rather than 80% by rejecting drug B.

The desperate scramble and unseemly eagerness to find the commonality between "Indo-European" tongues seem to me to be ignoring the factors that cause the difference to arise. Somehow it seems to me that a lot of these linguistic callisthenics like velar becoming palatal or verb more than noun, poet better than others are roundabout explanations that seek to do away with the single most obvious factor that gives rise to differences - and that is the admixture of another pre existing language. You see if Indo-European languages have a common origin, but are all different today, the differences are very likely because of pre-existing languages and not merely because some tongue tied of half deaf moron said gh instead of kh or coughed when he should have said his name. What is the exact reason for trying to reach the absurd reductionist goal of finding one common ancestral language when the real origins were likely the mixture of several common ancestral languages. The differences are as significant as the similarities.

It should be easy to make a long list of words and sounds of all so called "Indo-European" languages that have appeared from other languages and have no common origin. That seems to get less attention than the backward somersaults and the obscure jargon used by linguists to stick to the inane single point origin quest in an opaque manner that ensures that all knowledge stays within a hallowed circle of people with their pre-existing theories and no one is admitted into that hallowed circle unless he learns things the way they already believe is right, via texts already declared as right in a speciality that has its roots in racism as much as science. The funny thing is that even difficult to understand concepts in other sciences have been explained for the lay person by great scientists who use elegant non technical language to teach people about complex phenomena. But linguistics seems to display a dogged determination NOT to try and be transparent but stick to jargon and mumbo jumbo at which level only the experts can lecture others and disallow doubts and questions by resorting to mumbo jumbo accepted by the club of linguists any time anyone makes waves.

[Agnimitra]

Somehow it seems to me that a lot of these linguistic callisthenics like velar becoming palatal or verb more than noun, poet better than others are roundabout explanations that seek to do away with the single most obvious factor that gives rise to differences - and that is the admixture of another pre existing language.

Quite true.

ManishH ji, from a "linguistics" perspective, how would one classify pure Urdu verse taken from its highest bards? Indian, or Perso-Arabic families? Take the following verse from Mirza Ghalib -

naqsh faryaadi hai har shokhi ye tahreer ka
kaaghazi hai pairahan har paikar e tasveer ka

In this whole verse, only the word "ka" and "hai" is Hindi/Indian. All other words are Persian/Arabic. For a fusion language like Urdu, let's assume only its highest Persified verse survived after centuries or millenia. Then when linguists of the future discovered it, would they say that they were going to find the common root of Urdu, Arabic and Persian? Or would they be able to say - this is a fusion language with an Indic substrate, overlaid with a heavily Arabized Persian mixture after the intermediate Persians had themselves been thoroughly Arabized. And Arabic being from a totally different language family. Can linguistics rewind and lay bare this layering of civilization process? Or does it just go along with whatever narrative someone comes up with, along with conveniently found "archaeological" evidence, etc?

In the video above, the BBC guy:
1. Repeats what you yourself called a 'myth' of the AIT/AMT - that the RigVeda is a recorded running commentary of the movement into India.
2. He ignores the far more explicit references to warfare forcing a movement OUT of India in the same RigVeda, and
3. He cites a Zoroastrian settlement in Turkmenistan as evidence suggesting a halfway point in the movements into Iran and then India. Is Zoroastrianism considered a post-Vedic religion or not? - a sort of revolt against the Vedic order...

[Pranav]

Meher Yasht does not talk about Airyana Vaeja. The mention is actually made in Vendidad; and the order of lands mentioned is :

1. Airyanem Vaejo
2. Sukhdho(also Tuirya)
3. Mourum
4. Bakhdhim
5. Nisaim
6. Haroyum
7. Vaekeretem
8. Urvam
9. Khnentem Vehrkano
10. Harahvaitim Harahvaiti
11. Haetumantem
12. Rakham
13. Chakhrem
14. Varenem
15. Hapta Hendu
16. Rangha

If one maps them geographically, it shows this order:


(map on Page 294 of "Indo-Aryan Controversy", Bryant)

From the map, it's clear that an enumeration of "Aryan" regions is being described as perceived by the author of this text. It's not at all the case that #1 on the list is the origin or homeland. The map does not show #1 on the list as it's not even clear what is it's location.

Notable is the fact that Meher Yasht does not mention "Ariianem Vaejo", but mentions "Ariyo Shayanem" as the homeland.

Also worth thinking is that does the Himalaya solution agree with 'evidence' from Sh. Talageri's book that origin of Vedic civilization lies in Gangetic valley. Or does the enumeration of Vendidad agree with these claims made by Talageri that Iranians were evicted from Punjab after battles with Indians ...

Given that the language of the Avesta is basically Vedic Sanskrit, and given the descriptions of Aryana Vaejo, it seems that Zarthustra came from an community of Vedic peoples that had migrated from the Indo-Gangetic valleys to some mountainous area. It could have been Kashmir or some remote place in the Pamirs. Post migration, they continued speaking the language of their Indian homeland

From there Zarthustra ended up in Balkh, where he became Guru of some local kings. Possibly these kings too were migrants from the Indo-Gangetic valleys.

So the wars described in the Rig Veda may have been conflicts between an early wave of Indic migrants and the current powers in the Indian core areas.

[shiv]

Latvian Sanskrit similarities
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi51.htm

The Sanskrit language is a dead language attested only in written works
several thousands of years old. Latvian still exists.

[ramana]

so what explains the African word for Lion= simba which sounds like Sanskrit word Simha?

Just coincidence or African origins!

[Yagnasri]

In which African language sir? Is Simba a common word in many of their languages? Sounds interesting. I heard that elephents all around the world understand one word " Mahut". I do not know what it means and how it is possible. Since elephents are common in both Asia and africa there seems to be a link there also.

[ramana]

cross post
quote="JwalaMukhi"

The mention of word "gau" "cow" and its usage jogs my memory about an article by shri. subhash kak about that. Here is the link ensoi.
http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/i ... 699.0;wap2

A Thousand Cows Standing One Above the Other
Subhash Kak

The first two paras say it all

When it comes to accounts of ancient history, there is no chapter as fascinating as the one on India. When Europe began looking at India's enormous literature in the early nineteenth century, it came across material that was very old. Much older than the epoch of 4004 BC when, according to the biblical account, the world had been created. Scholars considered these early dates to be scarcely credible and it was decided that Indian history will be reconstructed based solely on philological research. That is like saying that only English linguistic scholars should be allowed to interpret physics books!

There was another problem. It was discovered that Indian and European languages belong to the same family. So Indians and Europeans must have, at some remote time in the past, lived in the same homeland. India was poor and ruled by the English. Surely, the original European blood of the ancient Indians was weakened by admixture with the dark races. So the Europeans surmised that the literature, being the oldest of any Indo-European people, must belong to the earliest European phase. In their extreme form, these ideas led to the racism of Hitler. A more subtle telling of the same ideas was forced into the textbooks.

[shiv]

Folks, you tell me who is bullshitting.

Here I have two sources telling me that the Sanskrit word for "sleep" is "swapna" which goes back to the root 'swa' meaning self - in which you enter a self created world as opposed to "jagran" - which is in this physical world. I am guessing that this has the root "jag". This is typical of Sanskrit.
1.http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/chhand/ch_2d.html
From the Chandogyopanishad

Here is a linguistic interpretation of the word svapna, describing what sleep actually means. The etymological meaning of the term svapiti - 'one sleeps', is that 'one goes', or 'reaches' sva, i.e., the self. One word sva connotes one's own being or essential nature. What is made out, thus, is that one gets absorbed into oneself in sleep. You become yourself in sleep; that is why there is no consciousness of anything external, then.

2. From Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapna-marga

Swapna in Hindu philosophy, a state of consciousness when a person (or being) is dreaming in sleep. At this state, he, she or it cannot perceive the external universe with the senses. It enjoys another universe that could have everything that the physical universe contains and more. This universe is created by the being by withdrawing from the physical universe and 'emanating' (Sanskrit: nirmana) in this self-created universe. This universe disappears on waking up to Jagra or slipping on to susupti.

But now you look at the PIE in the sky folks. Here is what they say:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/soporific

The word "Soporific"

Word History: Today's good word goes way back to a root *swep- in Proto-Indo-European, the ancient language from which most of the European and Indian languages developed. It is not uncommon for the combination of [we] or [ew] to dissolve into [o]. With a suffix, swep-no- became somnis "sleep" in Latin when the [p] picked up the nasality of the following [n] and became [m]. In Greek, it was the [s] that changed into [h], resulting in hypnos "sleep". English snatched both of them for its words somnolent and hypnotism. By the time this root reached English, the [w] had become [l], giving us sleep. In Russian it became son "sleep, dream" and in Sanskrit, swapa "sleep".

Frankly it pisses me off to read this. A nonsense-word "Swep" in the cooked up language "PIE" has been invented with no root or meaning. And that nonsense word has been judged to have been mispronounced to end up with European words for sleep. Man something tells me that this is the height of bullshitting. I feel Sanskrit the word origin is very clear . Swapna is synonymous for sleep and dream.

But don't take my word for it. I am no linguist. You decide which sounds like more bullshitting.

[member_22872]

^^ Shiv garu, your explanation makes sense, looks like they are building a bridge to nowhere, but why the need to build the bridge goes to explain their intentions. They see a pattern, a closeness in languages, word sound patterns that have similarities, then the William Jones guy already said that aryans brought in Sanskrit along with vedas. There is a discrepency in their scheme. To explain antiquity of Sanskrit which predates Eurpean languages means they needed a mother language which predates Sanskrit. so PIE is conjured up, in which cooked up words form a bridge, a bridge which seems like it's antiquity predates Sanskrit. So nw they will fit archaelogical, genetic and anyother proof to locate PIE as further and close to Europe as possible.

[RajeshA]

shiv ji,

Kazanas also writes that Sanskrit has a good etymology base. Sanskrit has roots, whereas other languages have mostly stems. That qualifies Sanskrit as PIE itself or very close to it, with origins in India itself.

[shiv]

shiv ji,

Kazanas also writes that Sanskrit has a good etymology base. Sanskrit has roots, whereas other languages have mostly stems. That qualifies Sanskrit as PIE itself or very close to it, with origins in India itself.

But the Ka in Kazanas is palatal and lazy people will make it "ha". The "Ha" in Hawa comes from the root "Ha" = "laugh out loud" in proto-Bullziddian. Za becomes ja to make Haya. Haya has been corrupted to "Hawa" Kazanas thereby becomes "Hawa" In fact garam hawa (hot air). Therefore he must be wrong and laughed at.

[Karan Dixit]

If I were rich I would fund a study in 'Who invented propaganda?'. So far all the evidences I have point to UK. The rise of propaganda started with rise of UK. They started with very simple techniques such as repeating lies over and over till it was accepted as truth by an average Joe. Of course they moved on to more sophisticated technique of PIE as they became good at propaganda.

I used to spend lots of time and effort trying to counter these propaganda but at the end of the day, the best counter response I have ever come across comes from a black man. "Never believe what a white man tells you about you." I think the black man was talking about the white men who make their living off spreading lies. Britain unfortunately for us darkies has lots of these so called scholars. They go on to influence like minded white men in US and once it is accepted by the white elites in US, it becomes the truth.

Think of propaganda as a tool where the input is lie and the output is truth.

[shiv]

When you think about ancient languages, you have to look for words that ancient people are likely to have used for communication. For example it is likely that they would have used words for "sleep". "eat", "go", "come", "dead", "pain", laugh/happy/smile. I believe it is unlikely that ancient people would have used words for "automobile", "trampoline", "bungee jumping", "synchronised swimming", "gerrymandering". The would have words for mother, father, mouth, eyes, nose, bone etc.

You need to look at Sanskrit roots of such words and find their etymology/root and then see if bullshitting has been resorted to by coining a nonsense word in hypothetical cooked up language PIE (Proto-Indo-European) . As far as I can tell PIE is now being accepted in lay sources as a language that actually existed. How long will it be before "experts" starts believing what their ilk cooked up earlier as truth?

The Aryan invasion was made truth by cooking it up. That is what is being done now with PIE.

[JwalaMukhi]

When aryan invasion myth became too foolish to continue they deftly moved to AMT aka aryan migration theory, where supposedly TFTA aryans came to India on "stapled tourist visas" to impregnate the SDREs natives and gifted them with all that is wonderful.

It is fundamentally, a problem of the brainwashed racists white skin supermacists who are having trouble to reconcile the fact that at any given measure how can a white skinned person be not greater than a colored skinned person.

How can sophistication come darkies unless gifted by colorless people? It is an internal battle that the BS they propagated is coming to haunt them and they are fighting tooth and nail through dubious academic excerises to run the show.

Even lending to Icelandic fisherman tons of money is on the basis that how can colorless people be stupid, one would rather take risk on colorless than anyone else. But that is battle for colorless people to resolve it among themselves. However some of the colored people are coopted to do their bidding.

[brihaspati]

ManishH ji,
the paper you refer to will be forwarded to me by a linguist-anthropologist colleague of mine. I was actually working with them over numbers and their roots. But I was not interested so far in PIE, as my interests lay in Hungarian, Basque, Welsh and proto-gaelic to see how "adaptation" would proceed. This is outside my main professional commitments - and hence has to be done on the sides.

But I will devote some time to PIE. I was talking with them about the guttural/pharyngeal centre of gravity hypothesis with them, and they say that it sounds plausible - especially based on Basque and Hungarian. More work needs to be done. I will keep posting from time to time on this. I am reluctant to be drawn into official tussles with the AIT lobby as I am already embroiled in quite a few humanities wars and since I come from so-called exact sciences background that complicates things at the war level quite a bit. This is a complete wastage of time since it also becomes too tempting to start the polemical battles I am adept at. Linguists in general hide their basic political ideological affiliations quite well, but it is not that difficult to provoke them into coming out into the open with their affiliations and political agenda.

I have convinced people of getting into automatic rule based parsing of semantics and sound-proximity analysis within words - to check for consistency and validity of hypothesized rules. We are getting a postgrad of mine to code this up. We will test out the k-[pharyngeal]-ch and r-l transmigrations and the k-s-r connections.

I suggest people experiment on their own phonetically with my earlier suggested theory that a prior predominance of pharyngeal/glottal usage in a language will adapt "ch" in from the front to the back of the oral cavity. The "centre of gravity" concept will imply that a k type sound from the external-word will be relatively stationary. The same tendency will pull r into l. This would lead chakra to khakra/kakra to k-(a/e)-k-l-a. This is a very rough scheme, and needs finer tuning. I am inclined to look at evolution of Sanskrit as a near PIE mother from a complex linguistic back and forth exchange between two groups of languages in the GV and coastal south India [or even SE Asia-subcontinent interface]- perhaps even between modern humans and non-modern humans - both of which had the capacity for language.

I have also theorized earlier that the "Praakrit" group existed in parallel and earlier than the "Sanskrit" and that the proto-praakrit languages were the representative milieu from which Sanskrit was formally codified by ancient linguists looking to standardize language after they had developed mathematical concepts, and saw application of mathematical structuring everywhere from astronomy to philosophy and all items of human experience.

[member_20317]

But Bji, that much would leave you with very little time for BRF. That is a huge brief almost intimidating. Chalo, best of luck.

[shiv]

Speaking of phonetic experiments let me ask people to imagine that you are trying to talk to someone whose language you do not know.

What sign would you use to indicate your mouth? What sound would be associated with that? What sign does a mother make to get her baby to open his mouth? What sound? Alternatively, how would a doctor ask a patient to open his mouth if he did not know the language?

Either way the sign is most likely to be an open mouth and the sound associated with that likely to be "aah". Not "Oh". Not "ooh". Not "ee". Not "mmm" or "brrr"

It is from that fundamental sign that I believe the Sanskrit word for mouth "aas" is derived. Incidentally the Latin word is "os".

Now what's the the PIE word that is in between A and O? "Aewwwo" I guess. That PIE for mouth "Aewwwo"

[svinayak]

^^ Shiv garu, your explanation makes sense, looks like they are building a bridge to nowhere, but why the need to build the bridge goes to explain their intentions. They see a pattern, a closeness in languages, word sound patterns that have similarities, then the William Jones guy already said that aryans brought in Sanskrit along with vedas. There is a discrepency in their scheme. To explain antiquity of Sanskrit which predates Eurpean languages means they needed a mother language which predates Sanskrit. so PIE is conjured up, in which cooked up words form a bridge, a bridge which seems like it's antiquity predates Sanskrit. So nw they will fit archaelogical, genetic and anyother proof to locate PIE as further and close to Europe as possible.

You have explained clearly.
They need the antiquity and also history of their roots. Both are missing and hence in 1868 itself they discovered that they have a problem.

Also they need to connect it to Christian history of Europe. Hence AIT is a means to explain the European history and remove the reference to Hebrew as the origin of their languages.

The Sanskrit language is a dead language attested only in written works
several thousands of years old. Latvian still exists.

They need to keep making this statement to wish it was true and let the rest of world know that their language as antiquity and root history.

[ramana]

Acharya,

AIT is another Nazi scheme to deJudafy Christianity. Hitler tried his best but failed. Now the Anglo-Saxons are doing it subtly.Something is rotten in the Germanic peoples. They have the shame factor that pervades the believers who abandoned their past culture to get Abrahmized and submit to Roman Imperial order.

Bji, Since your are a mathematician among other things, what is the PIE number scheme? What were numbers called in PIE?

[A_Gupta]

India was invaded by Indo-European language speakers, the incursions began with trade, and increased over a period of a couple of hundred years..their dominance was absolute for a period of around a hundred years. Even after that, their language remained the language of the elite, and tha language of knowledge, spoken in some form or other all over the country. In fact this post is written in that language.

[member_20317]

The testimony to the invasion you mention is there in both the local languages and the Uropain language that you and I, are writing in.

And they are still trying this time not from the trade routes.

Anyhow bahut hua Linguistics Pinguistics.

Indians have sent a lot more out of India than just the Sanskrit.

There may be some chances that even the calendar that we use actually has more to do with Kerala then with the Church. Just the name/branding is Uropain. The substance could all be Indian.

[A_Gupta]

The point I was trying to make is that linguistics can only handle simple scenarios. The only linguistically relevant literature from the Vedic era is the Rig Veda, the Avesta, maybe, a few tablets of the Mitanni, and that is mostly it.

So, e.g., such theories cannot deal with a lot of back-and-forth movements of people's, and cultures, only very simplistic ideas. So e.g. If (proto) speakers entered India many times over 6000BC to 2000BC, there is no way linguistic theories can deal with this possibility ( let alone in and out of India). Ultimately, archaeology and genetics are the disciplines with a better chance of approximating reality.

[ukumar]

4. Based on the spatial distribution of the indus sites above, the genetic base of the Indian population should
have solidified around 3200BC (since there is no evidence for large scale external intrusion since then).

Do you have any data from ancient human remains to back the above statement. Eg. I'm specifically looking for reports that mentioned the R1a1 gene having been found in human remains in India before early 2nd millenium BC - the date claimed as aryan invasion time.

Nice post BTW.

ManishJi,

There were reports in 2009 that DNA testing was planned for skeleton from farmana but no news after that. It was supposed to be done by Japanese team @http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/indus/Indus_project/index.html. I am also eagerly waiting for such results

My comment was not specific to the R1A1 though. The genetic make up of Indian population is fairly evenly distributed based on mDNA, yDNA and Autosomal DNA. Since there is no evidence of large scale intrusion of external people since early harrapan time, It follows that our ancestor DNA was already in India at that time.

My personal view is that 3200BC was the last window of opportunity to change language, culture and hydronym of the north India without population replacement. Because Harappan civiliation is well established over large area at that time. It is estimated that Harappa had 10% of world population. So one has to start very early on when population is relatively small to make large imapct.

[ukumar]

The Aryans worshipped "clean and pure" things like horse, sun, wind etc until they met and mixed with the impure inferior people, to be called Dravidians who worshipped Shiva (as per evidence of Dravidian settlements in Mohenjo daro) and the degeneracy of the faith can be seen in the way the people still worship idols shaped like the penis of this god mounted in a receptacle modelled after the vagina of his consort.

Shivji, I wouldn't comment on Arya vs Aryan as enough has been said and don't want to derail the thread. But I have to comment on notion that Shiva is non Arya. My yDNA is R1A1, Z93+. Based on current association of R1a1 with Indo-European, I belong to paternal lineage of Indo-Iranians. I am Gujrati Brahmin and my case specializes in Shiva worship. Only Brahmin from my caste can be priest in Shiva Temple. Rigveda does mention Rudra and MahaMrutunjay mantra is part of it. The notion of Shiva not being part of the Vedic religion is circular thinking assuming Vedic people where not in India during Harappa time.

[ukumar]

ukumar ji,
if I remember correctly - there was an article quoted here on the forum about the earlier start of urban/proto-urban settlements in continuity with SSC - in the eastern part and a gradual expansion in number and spread to the west. I am not sure, but it could be Acharya ji who might have posted it.

Brahaspatiji,

Are you referring to the reports about the sunken cities in Gulf Of Cambay? I have read the news reports about it few years back. As far as I know farming in east and south starts after the Indus valley.

I am aware that as per Shrikant Talagari's Rigveda analysis Vedic people were first settled in east. Purana literature also says same. But there is no collaborating archaeological or genetic evidence yet. Archaeological evidence actually shows opposite picture. May be such evidence would show up in future.

[ukumar]

The point I was trying to make is that linguistics can only handle simple scenarios. The only linguistically relevant literature from the Vedic era is the Rig Veda, the Avesta, maybe, a few tablets of the Mitanni, and that is mostly it.

So, e.g., such theories cannot deal with a lot of back-and-forth movements of people's, and cultures, only very simplistic ideas. So e.g. If (proto) speakers entered India many times over 6000BC to 2000BC, there is no way linguistic theories can deal with this possibility ( let alone in and out of India). Ultimately, archaeology and genetics are the disciplines with a better chance of approximating reality.

I completely agree. It is one thing to create a language family tree based on comparative study. But Linguists are going too far when they try to date the language change, decide the migration path based on comparison of to two languages separated by millenniums and 1000s of mile or decide the homeland of the language spoken 6000-7000 years ago. They are being very brave when they do all this with very little ancient material. I am not willing to make that leap of faith.