Out-of-India - From Theory to Truth

[svinayak]

Find an author who is Indian and says the same message.
We need books on the scientefic explanation and other books on the religious explanation.

I have met David Frawley but I would still prefer Indian author

[member_20317]

If somebody oppresses you, you don't go to his institutions to seek justice, because then you change him from your opponent to your master, and that has an effect on generations and generations of oppressed people. Then they really become colonized.

Now this equally applies to the AIT. We don’t have to convince AIT Nazis on the wrongness of AIT or the truthfulness of OIT. Probably they already know that. The time is to set our agenda. I say OIT is right. Why? Because I say so and believe say. When all of Indians believe that, that is end of AIT.

O teri, hear hear, hear one hear all, the authority has spoken and anybody going against imminent scholar fanne khan will be an AIT nazi. That would serve you better. And since I am seconding him on this motion of his attyant imminent atti ghor scholarship because, off course you dumb a_ses (Khurs), I have pear reviewed his imminently imminent scholarship, you better beware. Any case what you say is already false. hence proved.

Anyhow on a more serious note, fanne ji that is what I also proposed. If we wait for these guys we will be holding ourselves back. There are close to a billion Hindus that will understand their place in this game. And I am rather hopeful that even from the minorities we will be able to garner something like a 2-3 crores people.

It is these people who need to be told of the alternative rather the mainstream narrative and the veneer of avidya place on it by some. Taking the fight into Acadmia is what these guys want us to do because in their they are the defendents and the are the judge, so you know what kind of judgement you will get.

[fanne]

ravi_g,
Belief and reality (starting from Brahm Satya Jagat Mithya) is what you make of it. Here in this case, I (and only for me), believe that OIT is true and AIT wrong. I don't need the certificate of this truth from anyone. You are free to believe what you want (which looks like you also believe in what I believe in). I am not taking credit or leadership of your belief (hence don’t be alarmed).
Now this applies not only in this case, but elsewhere in life. You see that psychological aspect in every thread here (which some OLD BRites have really nailed and called piskology). So you don’t have to second my opinion, it was only for me and me alone.
Now AIT Nazi do not exist because of the fundamentalism of their false belief in AIT but indeed, there is a Nazi root to AIT. Some esteemed professor from a well known school and some others from era long gone would have been Nazi in belief if not membership.
Thanks,
fanne
Ps - Sorry I did not know that my proclamation would flip you so badly. Thanks for being Wemer in putting meaning to my word that I did not intend (that all those appose my view are AIT Nazis).

[Nilesh Oak]

It is these people who need to be told of the alternative rather the mainstream narrative and the veneer of avidya place on it by some. Taking the fight into Acadmia is what these guys want us to do because in their they are the defendents and the are the judge, so you know what kind of judgement you will get.

To the point. Agreed. Aye, Aye.

Those who insist on peer reviewed journals, slow down the pace of good research, but can also stuff it down the pile, not allow it to publish. And as you said, yes, they want to be the judge. They want you to play their game, on their terms.

Not unlike Indian politicians who ask Anna Hazare and co. to stand for election and get elected and then pass 'more legislations'.

On the subject of 'peer reviewed articles......

In olden times people used to write letters (hence many journal names such as "Letters in Physics' and so on). When these gentlemen (e.g. Faraday, Maxwell, Franklin, Newton, Kepler, etc.) wrote something that did not come out good, they threw it in 'waste paper basket'. In our times, this stuff from 'waste paper basket', instead of going to shredder, goes to 'peer reviewed journals'.

This is what Popper has to say, on the game of Academia, peer reviewed journals and what Kuhn called Normal science,

Big Science may destroy great science, and the publication explosion may kill ideas. Ideas, which are only too rare, may become submerged in the flood.
- Karl Popper

[Nilesh Oak]

And No. When Popper used word 'Science', he was not referring to Linguistics, psychology, sociology and historicism (last one belongs to all time great Hegel).

[member_22872]

fanne ji, Ravi ji:
I could be wrong and please correct me if I am wrong. You are correct about personally not caring what AIT nazis think. That certainly is the way to go when it concerns ones own belief or what one personally feels what truth is.

Now AIT/OIT concerns collective truth, if you are wrong you hold a nation's history captive and can rob future generations of truth, history and culture. It is also about our collective self esteem which could define national pride, a collective zeal to safeguard a nation which springs from knowing how great our nation's history is and how much we accomplished in the past.

Above will have a silent death if one doesn't take charge of it through softly or through intellectual struggle. Because of this struggle, one can't ignore what is being propagated as truth. Complacency can breed ignorance among us if not opposed. So what I mean to say is we can't just be satisfied if our personal understanding about falsity of AIT is proved...if you ask me, it does little to spread a false theory and our past from getting hijacked.

[shiv]

Find an author who is Indian and says the same message.
We need books on the scientefic explanation and other books on the religious explanation.

I have met David Frawley but I would still prefer Indian author

I have met Frawley too Acharyaji and I disagree with that view after meeting hm 2 months ago. For 15 years I have read about Frawley on BRF but ignored him for the very reason you mention. But after I met him, I realise I am wrong. Frawley who should be called by his name Vamadeva Shastri is a real Acharya/Shastri. I certainly don't qualify. His geography of birth has to be annulled by any Indian with any desire to know or past. He has kept alive what had died among Indians.

[shiv]

The very valid point made by Anand K on an earlier page needs to be kept in mind. It s not enough merely to debunk AIT and be satisfied in our belief of OIT. If is necesary to relook all the assumptions made by AIT Nazis based on fact and explain how those known facts fit in with the new situation of a Sanskrit that is 1500 to 2000 years older than AIT were willing to admit.

We know it dates from at least 3000 BC. But our knowing upsets the edifice built up by western AIT scholarship. Mocking their predicament is one thing. I believe that a more advanced and civilized thing would be to explain what changes by changing the date of Sanskrit. It should not be difficult to give a new and credible explanation if it is the truth that Sanskrit is much older. I am confident that Sanskrit is older and I am confident that it should not be difficult to explain all the facts that AIT Nazis had taken into their explanations.

Some pisko of western scholarship is necessary. Western scholarship is burdened by the worldview that is normal in the west and that is to consider that anyone beyond 1000 BC or so was an uncivilized "savage". They simply cannot get out of this because too many of the western scholar's pitris and rishis wrote and published bullshit that always set them and their "technical advancement" ahead of ancient people who were referred to as half animal in their behavior. Western scholarship has still not grown out of this for the same reason that we still have Indian AIT Nazis. The deeply entrenched belief in the savagery of ancient people is so widespread in the west that even the scholars can't change it. If a western scholar suddenly becomes a heretic and tries to say that civilization existed in 3000 BC his own colleagues and compatriots will shown him entire libraries with 200 years of books that say that he is wrong. They have spent 200 years convincing themselves that only their biased views are right and a search for truth has never bothered scholars of certain disciplines. IMO that includes those mentioned by Nilesh Oak above

When Popper used word 'Science', he was not referring to Linguistics, psychology, sociology and historicism (last one belongs to all time great Hegel).

I would add one or two more to that list - and include physical anthropology itself to that.

The point is that we don't need to convince this bunch, but if we consider ourselves as practitioners of good science it should not be difficult at all to explain a lot of known facts that have been recorded in the past taking into consideration the new dates for Rig Veda (and therefore Sanskrit). While others are doing what I consider yeoman service in other directions, I will try and spend some effort to reconcile the new (and IMO accurate) dates of Sanskrit (3000 BC and earlier) with currently accepted and recorded facts.

[Arjun]

I would add one or two more to that list - and include physical anthropology itself to that.

If you are referring to 'savage' vs 'civilized' - that would, I think, fall in the domain of Cultural Anthropology. Any field where cultural judgements are involved is where you will find Western Science repeatedly screwing up.

[ManishH]

I asked you a simple question - pick any phonetic reconstruction of a Hittite cuneiform syllabogram from Melchert's book and show me how it is fake.

In the case of Hittite phonology I am merely ignorant because the phonology of Hittite has been cooked up from many sources over the course of more than a century. And if I have to be more honest with myself (which I am) than what some linguists have shown themselves to be I will have to work hard to do what you ask and not trap myself as easily as many linguists seem to do with their fakeology.

Fair enough. You need time to study the subject, do so. But what surprises me is your insistence on calling the conclusions 'fake' when you confess that you are ignorant about the reconstruction of Hittite phonology.

I would be surprised if such sound files don't exist. I think it is odd that phonology is discussed in text only with no audible examples. Don't you?

The sound is fairly clear if you keep a figure like this in front of you when reading any book on phonology or historical linguistics ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_of_articulation

The pre-req for any detailed study of the phonology is an introductory textbook on phonology. Like this one by Hayes (http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/) or de Lacy.

[A_Gupta]

Among humans, trade is older than language.
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... -than.html

[A_Gupta]

I asked you a simple question - pick any phonetic reconstruction of a Hittite cuneiform syllabogram from Melchert's book and show me how it is fake.

If you cannot demonstrate your allegation of 'fakeness' with a simple example, I'm quite sure that you don't want to get into specifics because that's where you are scared to find the truth. You'd rather talk in rhetoric, just like the last time, when you were unwilling to lookup simple words in Sanskrit dictionary.

Reconstruct for us English phonology from English writing in the Roman script. Assume that all you have is the equivalent of the Hittite in cuneiform - i.e., some written texts - and say, a couple of contemporary languages of English, French and Spanish have a surviving descendants. Assume English is separated from you by the same time period as Hittite is separated from us. For this purpose of this exercise, English, like Hittite has no surviving descendant.

If you can do that, I will concede that phonetics is a science.

[Murugan]

Is not it ironic that people who have very limited numbers of letters in alphabet, who do not have any systematic organizations of sound in their alphabets, and can't pronounce alphabets of other culture/civilization/people properly, authorize studies of phonology?

Is not this plain and outright wrong? satya vachan ke saTya vachan?

[member_20317]

Fanne bhai not at all. I am in perfect sync with you. How come I know that and you don’t. There are only two de-facto camps left. The fact that a man ergo a bunch of men live for their own goals implies that it is us vs. them. I am in Pandav camp, in Ram’s Vaanar Sena and in absolutely in the OIT camp. The other side are a mish mash of many things. So long as the fight has not started I will exercise restraint but once the fight does start I will not hold back. Ergo the same rules of engagement I offer to the whole mish-mash. AIT-Nazi is one more manifestation of that mish-mash, of that Rakta-Beej. Your characterization of the opposition of AIT Nazi is entirely apt. That is how they walk that is how they talk….

I believe what got you defensive is my first para. But that is because you are trying to understand an Eastern street banter of the kind usually spoken amongst friends with a western sensibility. It is good that you carry an understanding of both East and West but that is what an overhang of western sensibilities has done to us. What I wrote is how friends react typically in any Indian locality only the language changes the sensibility does not.

In fact you are veering towards the other side. Your ability to identify the opponent is what gives me confidence in your ability to decide for me too. I would rather have my people decide my destiny than some foreigner.

I would suggest you reconsider your reaction to my reaction and forge an entirely new line of thought based on good old bazaru bhaasah.

[Murugan]

By the way

...More recently, Lass (1998) writes that phonology refers broadly to the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language, while in more narrow terms, "phonology proper is concerned with the function, behaviour and organization of sounds as linguistic items".[1] According to Clark et al. (2007) it means the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.[4]
[edit]Development of phonology

The history of phonology may be traced back to the Ashtadhyayi, the Sanskrit grammar composed by Pāṇini in the 4th century BC. In particular the Shiva Sutras, an auxiliary text to the Ashtadhyayi, introduces what can be considered a list of the phonemes of the Sanskrit language, with a notational system for them that is used throughout the main text, which deals with matters of morphology, syntax and semantics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology

***

No need to read start with Lass or Hayes or Lacy, start with Shiv Sutra to really and practically understand phonology, the desi and only original way...

नृत्तावसाने नटराजराजो ननाद ढक्कां नवपञ्चवारम्।
उद्धर्त्तुकामो सनकादिसिद्धादिनेतद्विमर्शे शिवसूत्रजालम्॥

At the end of His Cosmic Dance,
Shiva, the Lord of Dance,
with a view to bless the sages Sanaka and so on,
played on His Damaru fourteen times,
from which emerged the following fourteen Sutras,
popularly known as Shiva Sutras or Maheshwara Sutras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Sutras

१. अ इ उ ण् |
२. ऋ ऌ क् |
३. ए ओ ङ् |
४. ऐ औ च् |
५. ह य व र ट् |
६. ल ण् |
७. ञ म ङ ण न म् |
८. झ भ ञ् |
९. घ ढ ध ष् |
१०. ज ब ग ड द श् |
११. ख फ छ ठ थ च ट त व् |
१२. क प य् |
१३. श ष स र् |
१४. ह ल् |

(how many of above can a western phonologist can pronounce properly?)

Each verse consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes (i.e. open syllables consisting either of initial vowels or of consonants followed by the basic vowel "a") followed by a single 'dummy letter' or anubandha, conventionally rendered by capital letters in Roman transliteration.

This allows Pāṇini to refer to groups of phonemes with pratyāhāras, which consist of a phoneme-letter and an anubandha (and often the vowel a to aid pronunciation) and signify all of the intervening phonemes Pratyāhāras are thus single syllables, but they can be declined (see Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77 below).

Hence aL refers to all phonemes (because it consists of the first phoneme a and the last anubandha L);

aC refers to vowels (i.e., all of the phonemes before the anubandha C: a i u ṛ ḷ e o ai au);

haL to consonants, and so on. Note that some pratyāhāras are ambiguous.

The anubandha Ṇ occurs twice in the list, which means that you can assign two different meanings to pratyāhāra aṆ (including or excluding ṛ, etc.); in fact, both of these meanings are used in the Aṣṭādhyāyī. On the other hand, the pratyāhāra haL is always used in the meaning "all consonants"---Pāṇini never uses pratyāhāras to refer to sets consisting of a single phoneme.

From these 14 verses, a total of 281 pratyāhāras can be formed: 14*3 + 13*2 + 12*2 + 11*2 + 10*4 + 9*1 + 8*5 + 7*2 + 6*3 * 5*5 + 4*8 + 3*2 + 2*3 +1*1, minus 14 (as Pāṇini does not use single element pratyāhāras) minus 10 (as there are 10 duplicate sets due to h appearing twice); the second multiplier in each term represents the number of phonemes in each. But Pāṇini uses only 41 (with a 42nd introduced by later grammarians, raṆ=r l) pratyāhāras in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.

The Shiva Sutras put phonemes with a similar manner of articulation together (so sibilants in 13 śa ṣa sa R, nasals in 7 ñ m ṅ ṇ n M).

Economy (Sanskrit: lāghava) is a major principle of their organization, and it is debated whether Pāṇini deliberately encoded phonological patterns in them (as they were treated in traditional phonetic texts called Prātiśakyas) or simply grouped together phonemes which he needed to refer to in the Aṣṭādhyāyī and which only secondarily reflect phonological patterns (as argued by Paul Kiparsky and Wiebke Petersen, for example).

Pāṇini does not use the Shiva Sutras to refer to homorganic stops (stop consonants produced at the same place of articulation), but rather the anubandha U: to refer to the palatals c ch j jh he uses cU.
As an example, consider Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77: iKo yaṆ aCi:
iK means i u ṛ ḷ,
iKo is iK in the genitive case, so it means ' in place of i u ṛ ḷ;
yaṆ means the semivowels y v r l and is in the nominative, so iKo yaṆ means: y v r l replace i u ṛ ḷ.
aC means all vowels, as noted above
aCi is in the locative case, so it means before any vowel.

Hence this rule replaces a vowel with its corresponding semivowel when followed by any vowel, and that is why dadhi together with atra makes dadhyatra. To apply this rule correctly we must be aware of some of the other rules of the grammar, such as:

1.1.49 ṣaṣṭhii sthaneyogaH that shows that the genitive case in a sutra shows what is to be replaced

1.1.50 sthane 'ntaratamaH that shows that the substitute of i is the semivowel that most closely resembles i, namely 'y'

1.1.71 aadir antyena sahetaa that shows that i with the K at the end stands for i u ṛ ḷ because the Shiva sutras read i u ṛ ḷ K.

Also, rules can be debarred by other rules.

Rule 6.1.101 akas savarNe dīrghaH teaches that when the two vowels are alike a long vowel is substituted for both, so dadhi and indraH make dadhīndraH not *dadhyindraH. The akas savarṇe dīrghaH rule takes precedence over the iKo yaṆ aCi rule because the akas is more specific.

Roman representation of above 14

IAST Devanāgarī
1. a i u ṇ
2. ṛ ḷ k
3. e o ṅ
4. ai au c
5. ha ya va ra ṭ
6. la ṇ
7. ña ma ṅa ṇa na ṃ
8. jha bha ñ
9. gha ḍha dha ṣ
10. ja ba ga ḍa da ś
11. kha pha cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta v
12. ka pa y
13. śa ṣa sa ṛ
14. ha ḹ

[member_20317]

ManishH ji you want us to see the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Place ... lation.svg

While we acknowledge it, we also suggest you to see the following (1:15 to 1:50 only) :



And we would like to understand why you claim yours is bigger than mine.

[Murugan]

Panini's Razor

http://www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/paris.pdf

Paninian Linguistics

http://www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/encycl.pdf

[ManishH]

No. The sūkta uses the analogy of croaking frogs to compare them to chanting priests.

Of course, the sūkta at some level is used as an analogy. I referred to that later.

So basically what are you disagreeing with then ?

But during the whole sūkta, not once does the analogy deviate from the theater of frogs in monsoon. Everything in the sūkta is directly related to this "opera" of the frogs.

So who said the analogy deviates ?

You say frogs don't modulate their voices diversely! Now that is really a big claim!

The frog pitch modulation does change but nothing like a vedic chanter. The frog's pitch changes by the order of hours (http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content ... 43-149.pdf).

All animals and birds have variations in their speech, some more than others. Whales sing songs with a huge diversity. One frog's croaking style is being compared to that of the Cow's bellowing, while another frog's croaking style is being compared to a Goat's bleating!

Or are you implying that it is the Brahmins the whole time who are bellowing like the cows and bleating like the goats!!! That would be very self-critical even for the critically-minded Brahmins! No?

Yes, I think it is in self-deprecatory mood.

RV_07.103.05.1 yadeṣāmanyo anyasya vācaṃ śāktasyeva vadati śikṣamāṇaḥ |
RV_07.103.05.2 sarvaṃ tadeṣāṃ samṛdheva parva yat suvāco vadathanādhyapsu ||

RV_07.103.05.1 When one of these repeats the other's language, as he who learns the lesson of the teacher,
RV_07.103.05.2 Your every limb seems to be growing larger as ye converse with eloquence on the waters.

Or would you say the Brahmins are sitting here in a puddle of water, conversing?

You will end up with absurd results if you go by Griffith's translation instead of analyzing the original vedic. There are three critical terms that work by analogy and carry two meanings simultaneously ...

1. parva : limbs for frogs, but a celebration for brahmins. So "samṛdhāiva parva" means increasing celebration.

2. apsu : in the waters for frogs, but in 'knowledge' for brahmins. Esp. see mantra 3 : (tṛṣyāvataḥ prāvṛṣyāgatāyām) thirst for rain is like thirst for knowledge; and mantra 4 : (apām | pra-sarge | yat | amandiṣātām) delighting in the flow of waters (knowledge)

3. 'suvāco vadathana' : mating call for frogs, but 'eloquent chanting/discourse' for brahmins. Otherwise, who has the taste to call frogs' calls 'suvācaḥ' (eloquent) ?

The clincher is really the last mantra in the sūkta (#10) ...
RV_07.103.10.1{04} gomāyuradādajamāyuradāt pṛśniradād dharito no vasūni<BR>
RV_07.103.10.2{04} gavāṃ maṇḍūkā dadataḥ śatāni sahasrasāve pra tiranta āyuḥ<BR>

The cow-sounding one, the goat-sounding one, the spotty one and the green one have given us treasure
Cattle in hundreds have the 'frogs' given us, and extended our lives a thousand fold

Now two 'frogs' cannot give treasure, nor numerous cattle, nor extend lives. This has to be referring to two brahmin chanters and the effect of their chanting.

There is in fact no room for misunderstanding in what is being implied!

But it requires you to read the original vedic; instead of relying on Griffith's translations.

[ManishH]

By the way

...More recently, Lass (1998) writes that phonology refers broadly to the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language, while in more narrow terms, "phonology proper is concerned with the function, behaviour and organization of sounds as linguistic items".[1] According to Clark et al. (2007) it means the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.[4]
[edit]Development of phonology

The history of phonology may be traced back to the Ashtadhyayi, the Sanskrit grammar composed by Pāṇini in the 4th century BC. In particular the Shiva Sutras, an auxiliary text to the Ashtadhyayi, introduces what can be considered a list of the phonemes of the Sanskrit language, with a notational system for them that is used throughout the main text, which deals with matters of morphology, syntax and semantics.

Murugan: the bolded statement is wrong. The history of phonology can be traced even further back to prātiśākhya-s. The ṛg-prātiśākhya is way older than aṣṭadhyāyi or śiva-sūtra. Also, the former has great coverage of synchronic sound change (different ways people articulate the same phoneme and reasons for the errors).

And while these are pioneering treatises on phonetics, their chief limitation in the field of historical linguistics is that Pāṇini did not use his invention of notation to cover diachronic sound change; rather used it to describe sandhi (euphony) of morphemes. Which is fine, because Pāṇini's aim was to standardize Sanskrit grammar and articulation, not to explain or study changes in the phonology with passing time.

[Murugan]

ManishHji

You are right.

The point is that Panini ultimately brought a structure to it which is comprehensible to Dal and Rice Eating Simple guys. May be there was no need of phonology during his and later times.

Though It is good to know about the antiquity as quoted by you.

Thanks

[hanumadu]

Apologies if this is posted earlier....

S Kalyanaraman's book on Indus script

If a significant number of rebus homonyms used in the Indus Valley hieroglyphs are present in Sanskrit, does it not mean that either Sanskrit has a lot of words borrowed from the language of the IVC or it is the language spoken by the IVC. What it also means is that Sanskrit is part of the Indian sprachbund.



The above slide of a fish + crocodile (as read from right to left) represents the word iron smith.

Just like fish (ayo) has a homonym in Sanskrit (ayas), there might be many others in the Indus Valley Script.

[Arjun]

The reconstruction of PIE is based on the 'comparative method' - a fraudulent technique that came into vogue in the mid 19th Century and popularized by (who else) German comparative linguists. Looks like AMT-Nazis have not been able to whitewash the wiki (Comparative Method) from containing a long list of failings of this method, reproduced below:

The limitations of the comparative method were recognized by the very linguists who developed it,[53] but it is still seen as a valuable tool. In the case of Indo-European, the method seemed to at least partially validate the centuries-old search for an Ursprache, the original language of the Garden of Eden, from which all others not assigned by God in the confusion resulting from construction of the Tower of Babel descended. These others were presumed ordered in a family tree, becoming the Tree model of the neogrammarians.

The archaeologists followed suit, attempting to find archaeological evidence of a culture or cultures that could be presumed to have spoken a proto-language, such as Vere Gordon Childe's The Aryans: a study of Indo-European origins, 1926. Childe was a philologist turned archaeologist. These views culminated in the Siedlungsarchaologie, or "settlement-archaeology", of Gustaf Kossinna, becoming known as "Kossinna's Law." He asserted that cultures represent ethnic groups, including their languages. It was rejected as a law in the post-World-War-II era. The fall of Kossinna's Law removed the temporal and spatial framework previously applied to many proto-languages. Fox concludes:[54]

"The Comparative Method as such is not, in fact, historical; it provides evidence of linguistic relationships to which we may give a historical interpretation. ...[Our increased knowledge about the historical processes involved] has probably made historical linguists less prone to equate the idealizations required by the method with historical reality. ...Provided we keep [the interpretation of the results and the method itself] apart, the Comparative Method can continue to be used in the reconstruction of earlier stages of languages."

Proto-languages can be verified in many historical instances, such as Latin. Although no longer a law, settlement-archaeology is known to be essentially valid for some cultures that straddle history and prehistory, such as the Celtic Iron Age (mainly Celtic) and Mycenaean civilization (mainly Greek). None of these models can be or have been completely rejected, and yet none alone are sufficient.

Problems with the neogrammarian hypothesis

The foundation of the comparative method, and of comparative linguistics in general, is the Neogrammarians' fundamental assumption that "sound laws have no exceptions." When it was initially proposed, critics of the Neogrammarians proposed an alternate position, summarized by the maxim "each word has its own history".[55] Several types of change do in fact alter words in non-regular ways. Unless identified, they may hide or distort laws and cause false perceptions of relationship.

Borrowing

All languages borrow words from other languages in various contexts. They are likely to have followed the laws of the languages from which they were borrowed rather than the laws of the borrowing language.

Areal diffusion

Borrowing on a larger scale occurs in areal diffusion, when features are adopted by contiguous languages over a geographical area. The borrowing may be phonological, morphological or lexical. A false proto-language over the area may be reconstructed for them or may be taken to be a third language serving as a source of diffused features.[56]

Several areal features and other influences may converge to form a sprachbund, a wider region sharing features that appear to be related but are diffusional. For instance, the East Asian Sprachbund suggested several false classifications of such languages as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese before it was recognized.

Random mutations

Sporadic changes, such as irregular inflections, compounding, and abbreviation, do not follow any laws. For example, the Spanish words palabra ('word'), peligro ('danger') and milagro ('miracle') should have been parabla, periglo, miraglo by regular sound changes from the Latin parabŏla, perĩcǔlum and mĩrãcǔlum, but the r and l changed places by sporadic metathesis.[57]

Analogy

Analogy is the sporadic change of a feature to be like another feature in the same or a different language. It may affect a single word or be generalized to an entire class of features, such as a verb paradigm. For example, the Russian word for nine, by regular sound changes from Proto-Slavic, should have been /nʲevʲatʲ/, but is in fact /dʲevʲatʲ/. It is believed that the initial nʲ- changed to dʲ- under influence of the word for "ten" in Russian, /dʲesʲatʲ/.[58]

Gradual application

Students of contemporary language changes, such as William Labov, note that even a systematic sound change is at first applied in an unsystematic fashion, with the percentage of its occurrence in a person's speech dependent on various social factors.[59] The sound change gradually spreads, a process known as lexical diffusion. While not invalidating the Neogrammarians' axiom that "sound laws have no exceptions", their gradual application shows that they do not always apply to all lexical items at the same time. Hock notes,[60] "While it probably is true in the long run every word has its own history, it is not justified to conclude as some linguists have, that therefore the Neogrammarian position on the nature of linguistic change is falsified."

Problems with the Tree Model

The comparative method is used to construct a Tree model (German Stammbaum) of language evolution,[61] in which daughter languages are seen as branching from the proto-language, gradually growing more distant from it through accumulated phonological, morpho-syntactic, and lexical changes.

An example of the Tree Model, used to represent the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken throughout the southern and western United States and Mexico.[62] Families are in bold, individual languages in italics. Not all branches and languages are shown.

The presumption of a well-defined node

The tree model features nodes that are presumed to be distinct proto-languages existing independently in distinct regions during distinct historical times. The reconstruction of unattested proto-languages lends itself to that illusion: they cannot be verified and the linguist is free to select whatever definite times and places for them seem best. Right from the outset of Indo-European studies, however, Thomas Young said:[64]

"It is not, however, very easy to say what the definition should be that should constitute a separate language, but it seems most natural to call those languages distinct, of which the one cannot be understood by common persons in the habit of speaking the other ....Still, however, it may remain doubtfull whether the Danes and the Swedes could not, in general, understand each other tolerably well ... nor is it possible to say if the twenty ways of pronouncing the sounds, belonging to the Chinese characters, ought or ought not to be considered as so many languages or dialects .... But, ... the languages so nearly allied must stand next to each other in a systematic order ...."

The assumption of uniformity in a proto-language, implicit in the comparative method, is problematic. Even in small language communities there are always dialect differences, whether based on area, gender, class, or other factors. The Pirahã language of Brazil is spoken by only several hundred people, but it has at least two different dialects, one spoken by men and one by women.[65] Campbell points out:[66]

"It is not so much that the comparative method 'assumes' no variation; rather, it is just that there is nothing built into the comparative method which would allow it to address variation directly....This assumption of uniformity is a reasonable idealization; it does no more damage to the understanding of the language than, say, modern reference grammars do which concentrate on a language's general structure, typically leaving out consideration of regional or social variation."

Different dialects, as they evolve into separate languages, remain in contact with one another and influence each other. Even after they are considered distinct, languages near to one another continue to influence each other, often sharing grammatical, phonological, and lexical innovations. A change in one language of a family may spread to neighboring languages; and multiple waves of change are communicated like waves across language and dialect boundaries, each with its own randomly delimited range.[67] If a language is divided into an inventory of features, each with its own time and range (isoglosses), they do not all coincide. History and prehistory may not offer a time and place for a distinct coincidence, as may be the case for proto-Italic, in which case the proto-language is only a concept. However, Hock[68] observes:

"The discovery in the late nineteenth century that isoglosses can cut across well-established linguistic boundaries at first created considerable attention and controversy. And it became fashionable to oppose a wave theory to a tree theory... Today, however, it is quite evident that the phenomena referred to by these two terms are complementary aspects of linguistic change..."

The Wave Model has been proposed as an alternative model of language change.[63] Each wave, an isogloss, is a circle in the Venn diagram, but the circles are not to be seen as simultaneous or extending over the same areas. The language must be found most certainly at the intersection of the greatest number of circles. It tapers off to intermediate times and locations. Some isoglosses may not even be found in languages of the same family. The tree model presumes that all the circles coincide in time and space.

Subjectivity of the reconstruction

The reconstruction of unknown proto-languages is inherently subjective. In the Proto-Algonquian example above, the choice of *m as the parent phoneme is only likely, not certain. It is conceivable that a Proto-Algonquian language with *b in those positions split into two branches, one which preserved *b and one which changed it to *m instead; and while the first branch only developed into Arapaho, the second spread out wider and developed into all the other Algonquian tribes. It is also possible that the nearest common ancestor of the Algonquian languages used some other sound instead, such as *p, which eventually mutated to *b in one branch and to *m in the other. Since reconstruction involves many of these choices, some linguists prefer to view the reconstructed features as abstract representations of sound correspondences, rather than as objects with a historical time and place.

The existence of proto-languages and the validity of the comparative method is verifiable in cases where the reconstruction can be matched to a known language, which may only be known as a shadow in the loanwords of another language. For example Finnic languages such as Finnish have borrowed many words from an early stage of Germanic, and the shape of the loans matches the forms that have been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic. Finnish kuningas 'king' and kaunis 'beautiful' match the Germanic reconstructions *kuningaz and *skauniz (>German König 'king', schön 'beautiful').[69]

Additional models

As alternatives to the tree model, the wave model dates to the 19th century, glottochronology and mass lexical comparison to the 20th. Most historical linguists consider the latter two methods flawed and unreliable.[70]

Hybridization in reclaimed languages

A limitation of the tree model involves language mixing in general and mixed and hybrid languages in particular. Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes that "revival linguistics changes the field of historical linguistics by, for instance, weakening the family tree model."[71] According to Zuckermann (2009:63),[72] "Israeli", his term for Modern Hebrew, which he regards as a Semito-European hybrid, "demonstrates that the reality of linguistic genesis is far more complex than a simple family tree system allows. 'Revived' languages are unlikely to have a single parent."

[RajeshA]

No. The sūkta uses the analogy of croaking frogs to compare them to chanting priests.

Of course, the sūkta at some level is used as an analogy. I referred to that later.

So basically what are you disagreeing with then ?

But during the whole sūkta, not once does the analogy deviate from the theater of frogs in monsoon. Everything in the sūkta is directly related to this "opera" of the frogs.

So who said the analogy deviates ?

ManishH ji,

I think where you are having some difficulty understanding both the sūkta and my explanation is that you are not being consistent on the poetic mappings. The sūkta is simple, consistent and meaningful. For your convenience here a diagram.

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                             Visual Imagery thus created (B)
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                A refers to                     |
|    Visual Imagery in Poem's Content (A) -------------------------->  FROGS     |
|                                                                                |
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

              |         |         |         |         |         |   
              |         |         |         |         |         |   
              |         |         |         |         |         |      B
              |         |         |         |         |         |   refers to
              |         |         |         |         |         |   
              |         |         |         |         |         |   
              ↓         ↓         ↓         ↓         ↓         ↓

                                B R A H M I N S

Here is the whole hymn RV_7.103

1. They who lay quiet for a year, the Brahmans who fulfil their vows,
   The Frogs have lifted up their voice, the voice Parjanya hath inspired.
2. What time on these, as on a dry skin lying in the pool's bed, the floods of heaven descended,
   The music of the Frogs comes forth in concert like the cows lowing with their calves beside them.
3. When at the coming of the Rains the water has poured upon them as they yearned and thirsted,
   One seeks another as he talks and greets him with cries of pleasure as a son his father.
4. Each of these twain receives the other kindly, while they are revelling in the flow of waters,
   When the Frog moistened by the rain springs forward, and Green and Spotty both combine their voices.
5. When one of these repeats the other's language, as he who learns the lesson of the teacher,
   Your every limb seems to be growing larger as ye converse with eloquence on the waters.
6. One is Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat the other, one Frog is Green and one of them is Spotty.
   They bear one common name, and yet they vary, and, talking, modulate the voice diversely.
7. As Brahmans, sitting round the brimful vessel, talk at the Soma-rite of Atiratra,
   So, Frogs, ye gather round the pool to honour this day of all the year, the first of Rain-time.
8. These Brahmans with the Soma juice, performing their year-long rite, have lifted up their voices;
   And these Adhvaryus, sweating with their kettles, come forth and show themselves, and none are hidden.
9. They keep the twelve month's God-appointed order, and never do the men neglect the season.
   Soon as the Rain-time in the year returneth, these who were heated kettles gain their freedom.
10. Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat have granted riches, and Green and Spotty have vouchsafed us treasure.
    The Frogs who give us cows in hundreds lengthen our lives in this most fertilizing season.

Examples of Visual Imagery A

• the floods of heaven descend -> monsoon rains pour down
• the cows lowing with their calves beside them -> The sounds of the Frogs sounds like music in a concert
• a son greets his father with cries of pleasure -> One (Frog) seeks another and makes sounds as if he were talking and greeting the other
• Green and Spotty both combine their voices -> Two Frogs croak in sync
• When one of these repeats the other's language, as he who learns the lesson of the teacher -> One Frog repeats the croak of the other
• Your every limb seems to be growing larger as ye converse with eloquence on the waters. -> Frogs puff up as they sit around a pool of water and croak away, the croaking sounding like an eloquent conversation
• Onc is Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat the other, one Frog is Green and one of them is Spotty -> The green Frog named Green croaks which sound similar to the bellows of a Cow, while the the other, a spotty Frog named Spotty croaks which sound like the bleats of a Goat.
• They bear one common name, and yet they vary, and, talking, modulate the voice diversely -> The Frogs speak the same word, let's call the word "Croak", but they vary the pitch and melody, thus producing variation making it sound like speech.
• As Brahmans, sitting round the brimful vessel, talk at the Soma-rite of Atiratra, So, Frogs, ye gather round the pool to honour this day of all the year, the first of Rain-time -> Frogs gather around a pool and with their punctuality and song (of croaks) herald the start of monsoon. One may read a measure of euphoria and rapture here.
• These Brahmans with the Soma juice, performing their year-long rite, have lifted up their voices -> The Frogs in rapture, do this yearly monsoon ritual, and croak loudly
• And these Adhvaryus, sweating with their kettles, come forth and show themselves, and none are hidden. -> All Frogs come out in the open when the monsoon rains fall down, and no Frog stays inside.
• They keep the twelve month's God-appointed order, and never do the men neglect the season. -> The Frogs are punctual every year, come out at rain-time. This behavior functions like clockwork.
• Soon as the Rain-time in the year returneth, these who were heated kettles gain their freedom. -> Frogs who felt like kettles under steam pressure due to the heat of summer get their respite.
• Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat have granted riches, and Green and Spotty have vouchsafed us treasure. -> The two frogs, Green Frogs (whose croak was like the bellowing of the Cow) and the Spotty Frog (whose croak was like the bleating of a goat), as representatives of frogs, and frogs as representatives of living beings, have formally heralded the start of monsoon season. These monsoons would ensure rich crops and all would benefit from them.
• The Frogs who give us cows in hundreds lengthen our lives in this most fertilizing season. -> The Frogs, who have heralded the start of monsoons symbolically in the name of all living beings, have symbolically initiated a process which would bring everybody prosperity, as monsoons are the most fertilizing season.

1. parva : limbs for frogs, but a celebration for brahmins. So "samṛdhāiva parva" means increasing celebration.

2. apsu : in the waters for frogs, but in 'knowledge' for brahmins. Esp. see mantra 3 : (tṛṣyāvataḥ prāvṛṣyāgatāyām) thirst for rain is like thirst for knowledge; and mantra 4 : (apām | pra-sarge | yat | amandiṣātām) delighting in the flow of waters (knowledge)

3. 'suvāco vadathana' : mating call for frogs, but 'eloquent chanting/discourse' for brahmins. Otherwise, who has the taste to call frogs' calls 'suvācaḥ' (eloquent) ?

These are examples of Visual Imagery B. Visual Imagery B are the lessons that the Brahmins are supposed to take from the Poem.

The clincher is really the last mantra in the sūkta (#10) ...
RV_07.103.10.1{04} gomāyuradādajamāyuradāt pṛśniradād dharito no vasūni<BR>
RV_07.103.10.2{04} gavāṃ maṇḍūkā dadataḥ śatāni sahasrasāve pra tiranta āyuḥ<BR>

The cow-sounding one, the goat-sounding one, the spotty one and the green one have given us treasure
Cattle in hundreds have the 'frogs' given us, and extended our lives a thousand fold

Now two 'frogs' cannot give treasure, nor numerous cattle, nor extend lives. This has to be referring to two brahmin chanters and the effect of their chanting.

You are getting confused between what belongs to Visual Imagery A and what to Visual Imagery B.

The "cow-sounding one" and the "goat sounding one" refers to Visual Imagery A, which refers to the Frogs! It is a different thing that in Visual Imagery B, the two Frogs may refer to two Brahmins, who chant the appropriate hymns.

Where you are making a mistake is in thinking that the "cow-sounding" and "goat-sounding" refers directly to Brahmins. In fact you say,

Yes, I think it is in self-deprecatory mood.

This is not the case. There is no reason to expect any deprecatory tendency here in this hymn. For a second just consider, why would two Brahmins think of that what they chant as cow-bellowing and goat-chanting. That is not just diminishing for them but for the chants themselves!

There is in fact no room for misunderstanding in what is being implied!

But it requires you to read the original vedic; instead of relying on Griffith's translations.

One may read original vedic, but if the reasoning is flawed, one would end up making such mistakes, as you just did.

The Sanskritists in the West too claim to be the experts, but since the last two centuries, they too have been victims of this weakness - flawed reasoning.

You brought in this sūkta, because you wanted to prove that Goat can refer to a Brahmin as well and need not refer to an asterism.
1) Here there was no reference to Goat, just to Goat-bleating.
2) The Goat-bleating did not refer to Brahmin's chant, but to a Frog's croak.

Anyway, thank you for showing the kind of silly attacks one could expect from Westerns AIT-Nazis and Indian AIT-Sepoys in the future, directed at maligning or rubbishing the Indic use of archaeo-astronomy to date our scriptures!

[RajeshA]

not to explain or study changes in the phonology with passing time.

That is one of the weaknesses of the Tree Model of linguistics - that language changes because phonology changes with passing time. The issue of language change due to substrate phonology during vocabulary acquisition is downgraded as a factor and considered only a subsidiary factor to consider. But the Tree Model is built based solely on phonology change with passing time!

According to this model - Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali and all the various North Indian languages are considered daughters of Sanskrit! Why?

If the field of linguistics cannot even use a proper model to describe to linguistic diversity of the planet, what is need to give it any respect or legitimacy!

[Arjun]

That is one of the weaknesses of the Tree Model of linguistics - that language changes because phonology changes with passing time. The issue of language change due to substrate phonology during vocabulary acquisition is downgraded as a factor and considered only a subsidiary factor to consider. But the Tree Model is built based solely on phonology change with passing time!

According to this model - Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali and all the various North Indian languages are considered daughters of Sanskrit! Why?

If the field of linguistics cannot even use a proper model to describe to linguistic diversity of the planet, what is need to give it any respect or legitimacy!

I suggest ManishH ji explain the fundamental processes / rules that are the basis of his comparative linguistics arguments. Eg, does he depend on glottochronology, mass comparison, lexicostatistics or the comparative method? Does he, like the neo-grammarians, believe that the sound laws have no exceptions ?

Once the basic axioms of the arguments used are analyzed for reasonableness - need to take a collective call on whether these are allowable on this thread. The danger I see is that you can have pages of this thread taken up by arcane gobbledygook (reflected in the earlier pages) that may not exactly meet the definition of a science.

[shiv]

Fair enough. You need time to study the subject, do so. But what surprises me is your insistence on calling the conclusions 'fake' when you confess that you are ignorant about the reconstruction of Hittite phonology.

The conclusions are likely fakes. Let me point out that if I accept them as correct, and had no doubts about them, I would have no motivation to recheck. I am unable to find any linguistic critique of certain things that have become "established fact" in the study of languages. The more I dig into detail, the more I find that linguists in general have liberally applied techniques of confabulation and guesswork which are later presented as facts upon which new theories and entire histories have been built. As I stated earlier in this thread, this has been going on for 150 to 200 years and there is a vast body of work that needs to be checked for bluffing which seems to come naturally in this line of work. That leads to skeptcism but to confirm suspicions of "fakery" a lot of digging (a.k.a. "research") has to be done.

The case of Akkadian cuneiform is particularly interesting to me.

Both the Mitanni (Kikuli) horse training texts and the hittite language seem to have been deciphered using Sanskrit as an important link in the decipherment. Before I comment on this further I will use an example.

Almost any Indian on this forum will read and accurately pronounce the following text in Roman alphabet
1. Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge
2. Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahin
3. Tere Mere Sapne

No one who is unfamiliar with Hindi will ever make a phonetically accurate rendering of these words. (I have told you repeatedly that audible sound files have more value for phonology than all the texts in the world)

Roman alphabet was never designed to be phonetically accurate for Indian languages. There is at least a 50% probability that Akkadian cuneiform letters were never designed to handle Sanskrit or "Indo-Aryan" Any Sanskrit written in Akkadian cuneiform was probably read by knowledge of the context so that the letters of the words were mispronounced to make the words recognizable in the spoken language - like a Hindi speaker saying "Tere Mere sapne" with phonological accuracy while mispronouncing the accepted phonetic values of the Roman letters.

Unless alphabet is phonetically linked with a given language, an accurate phonetic rendering is unlikely.

What does this mean for Akkadian cuneiform? It means that Sanskrit words that have been guessed to have been written in Akkadian cuneiform may not be giving us the exact original phonetic value of the cuneiform letter. Any phonetic value assigned to Akkadian cuneiform because the words were guessed to have been Sanskrit words may be totally inaccurate and if a linguist swears that they are accurate he is lying.

Now here's the rub. Sanskrit is connected with the phonology of Hittite from two different, independent directions.

The Behistun inscriptions had trilingual text, of which one was Old Persian and one was Akkadian Cuneiform. The decipherment of the Old Persian text - which required a knowledge of Sanskrit and some guesswork allowed linguists of the day to assign phonetic values to the cuneiform used in writing old Persian. This in turn enabled the translation of the other two mystery languages in the Behistun inscriptions. One of these languages was Akkadian cuneiform and clearly the assigning of phonetic values to Akkadian cuneiform letter was dependent on the Sanskrit phonology used for old Persian.

In a separate development, Hittite was finally decrypted when bilingual texts were found in Akkadian cuneiform.

In each case the phonology of the cuneiform letters was dependent on the assumption that cuneiform as an alphabet could accurately reflect Sanskrit phonology. This (the phonology) is clearly fake, but it is taken as the truth and you are asking me to disprove it. I will take time, but I think I have a sufficiently large body of like minded allies who can recognize fakeology when they see it.

The overriding importance of phonology here is that changes in phonology have been used for dating. If the phonology is fake, the dating is fakeology and the act of connecting geography and archaeology with fakeological dates is plain nonsense being passed off in the guise of scholarship.

[Lalmohan]

i think that language, especially spoken language has too many possibilities for mutations and variance to be taken too seriously from a 'what is written and what is spoken and what is heard' perspective. old english and modern english sometimes have the same sounds, but are written differently. even indian english and english english or south african english have variability over the same word - in many different ways. even languages like spanish - which are pronounced as they are written - also need the knowledge of how they are spoken, to be able to pronounce what is written. i would be comfortable with analysis based on written language to indicate general direction, but am not convinced on spoken language as being a precise indicator.

[RajeshA]

Online Books

AIT-Nazi Books

These books are good to understand the whole edifice on which the AIT Theory is built! It also constitutes works that would have to be deconstructed by Indians!



Publication Date: April 1, 1991
Author: James Patrick Mallory
In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth [Amazon]

Download Link

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http://www.4shared.com/office/27lG1V2L/In_Search_of_the_Indo-European.html

Publication Date: November 9, 2006
Author: James Patrick Mallory
The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World [Amazon]

Download Links

Code: Select all

http://uploading.com/files/EQ8I6YFH/ProtIndEuWo.zip.htm
http://depositfiles.com/files/qhma93w4a

[Nilesh Oak]

I believe what got you defensive is my first para. But that is because you are trying to understand an Eastern street banter of the kind usually spoken amongst friends with a western sensibility. It is good that you carry an understanding of both East and West but that is what an overhang of western sensibilities has done to us. What I wrote is how friends react typically in any Indian locality only the language changes the sensibility does not.

This also goes by terms such as 'High content' and 'low content' conversations. In high content, lot is assumed, conversation moves fast and rarely there is a need to mention...."Just kidding', 'smile', "ROFL" since it is understood by those who are good in 'High content' conversation.

Those who are used to 'Low content', everything needs to be begin with preamble and frequent 'Just kidding', or 'of course I am joking' is necessary.

There is a third kind that uses conversation of third kind. It is very low in content, lacks originality, tries to build sarcasm but fails miserably, appears objective and rational. It is anything but...

[ManishH]

The clincher is really the last mantra in the sūkta (#10) ...
RV_07.103.10.1{04} gomāyuradādajamāyuradāt pṛśniradād dharito no vasūni<BR>
RV_07.103.10.2{04} gavāṃ maṇḍūkā dadataḥ śatāni sahasrasāve pra tiranta āyuḥ<BR>

The cow-sounding one, the goat-sounding one, the spotty one and the green one have given us treasure
Cattle in hundreds have the 'frogs' given us, and extended our lives a thousand fold

Now two 'frogs' cannot give treasure, nor numerous cattle, nor extend lives. This has to be referring to two brahmin chanters and the effect of their chanting.

You are getting confused between what belongs to Visual Imagery A and what to Visual Imagery B.

The "cow-sounding one" and the "goat sounding one" refers to Visual Imagery A, which refers to the Frogs! It is a different thing that in Visual Imagery B, the two Frogs may refer to two Brahmins, who chant the appropriate hymns.

Where you are making a mistake is in thinking that the "cow-sounding" and "goat-sounding" refers directly to Brahmins. In fact you say,

Yes, I think it is in self-deprecatory mood.

This is not the case. There is no reason to expect any deprecatory tendency here in this hymn. For a second just consider, why would two Brahmins think of that what they chant as cow-bellowing and goat-chanting. That is not just diminishing for them but for the chants themselves!

You are applying modern sensibilities to an ancient mantra. Calling the chanting brahmins 'Cow-bellow' is in no way diminishing. Both cows and sheep were very valuable animals to vedic society. And comparison to Cow-bellow or Goat-bleat was not deprecatory. Eg. There is another sūkta where "go-māyuḥ" (cow-bellow) is used in conjunction with chanting.

RV 1-164: Mantras 23 to 25 describe the various vedic meters like Gāyatri, Triṣṭup, Jagati etc. These is traditionally taught in ghanapāṭha (gāyatreṇa prati mimīte ...) exercises. If you don't trust me, ask any one who has attended traditional schooling in vedashaala-s.

Mantra's 26 - 29 in the sūkta refer to the teacher who is like a cow come bellowing to the calf (gaur vatsaṃ miṣantaṃ mūrdhānaṃ hiṃṃ akṛṇon mātavā u). The cow (teacher or divine inspiration - vasupatni) bellows (mimāti māyuṃ) and the calf (pupil) also whimpers encompassed by the bellowing cow (ayaṃ sa śiṅkte yena gaurabhīvṛtā mimāti māyuṃ)

However, calling brahmins' chanting as frogs is a bit self-deprecating.

PS: What's with the 'Nazi'/'Sepoy' appellation ? Like anyone who is running short of facts, you are resorting to invective in debate. You have taken the thread to Godwin's Law.

[shiv]

PS: What's with the 'Nazi'/'Sepoy' appellation ? Like anyone who is running short of facts, you are resorting to invective in debate. You have taken the thread to Godwin's Law.

Sir, may I remind you what you wrote about me on the previous page?

I asked you a simple question - pick any phonetic reconstruction of a Hittite cuneiform syllabogram from Melchert's book and show me how it is fake.

If you cannot demonstrate your allegation of 'fakeness' with a simple example, I'm quite sure that you don't want to get into specifics because that's where you are scared to find the truth. You'd rather talk in rhetoric, just like the last time, when you were unwilling to lookup simple words in Sanskrit dictionary.

Making statements that cannot be substantiated and reaching untenable and false conclusions is a special skill employed by the community of linguists in my observation.

[member_23700]

Apologies if this is posted earlier....

S Kalyanaraman's book on Indus script

If a significant number of rebus homonyms used in the Indus Valley hieroglyphs are present in Sanskrit, does it not mean that either Sanskrit has a lot of words borrowed from the language of the IVC or it is the language spoken by the IVC. What it also means is that Sanskrit is part of the Indian sprachbund.



The above slide of a fish + crocodile (as read from right to left) represents the word iron smith.

Just like fish (ayo) has a homonym in Sanskrit (ayas), there might be many others in the Indus Valley Script.

Great work and lifetime effort by Kalyanraman ji on Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization.

However, in the light of decoding IVC script along the lines quoted above, even 'Linguists' would begin to appear respectable.

[RajeshA]

PS: What's with the 'Nazi'/'Sepoy' appellation ? Like anyone who is running short of facts, you are resorting to invective in debate. You have taken the thread to Godwin's Law.

Ow that! Don't be bothered about it!

They like to call all those who question AIT as Hindu fundamentalists. We like to call them AIT-Nazis (if they are Western) and AIT-Sepoys if they are Indians doing the bidding of AIT-Nazis! It is tradition! Similar to tradition they use, only the AIT-Nazi term is quite grounded in history, considering that it was the Nazi-ideal to consider themselves Aryans and as White Supremacists, unable to imagine having their origins in India! All this they did without an iota of proof!

We "Hindu Fundamentalists" on the other hand have a huge library of ancient scriptures without any ever mentioning any Aryan Invasion or Migration!

AIT-Nazism is no invective! It is just a term to describe a historically factual ideology! The continuity within that ideology was never broken! Also the job of the Sepoy is, to all our embarrassment and pain also, a historical fact.

ManishH ji,
all this terminology however should not detract you! I think everybody here can attest to how educative you have been for all of us and how we all appreciate your participation!

Added Later: I wouldn't call this thread bowing to Godwin's Law here. This Thread started out with that premise!

[Dipanker]

You are applying modern sensibilities to an ancient mantra. Calling the chanting brahmins 'Cow-bellow' is in no way diminishing. Both cows and sheep were very valuable animals to vedic society. And comparison to Cow-bellow or Goat-bleat was not deprecatory. Eg. There is another sūkta where "go-māyuḥ" (cow-bellow) is used in conjunction with chanting.

RV 1-164: Mantras 23 to 25 describe the various vedic meters like Gāyatri, Triṣṭup, Jagati etc. These is traditionally taught in ghanapāṭha (gāyatreṇa prati mimīte ...) exercises. If you don't trust me, ask any one who has attended traditional schooling in vedashaala-s.

Mantra's 26 - 29 in the sūkta refer to the teacher who is like a cow come bellowing to the calf (gaur vatsaṃ miṣantaṃ mūrdhānaṃ hiṃṃ akṛṇon mātavā u). The cow (teacher or divine inspiration - vasupatni) bellows (mimāti māyuṃ) and the calf (pupil) also whimpers encompassed by the bellowing cow (ayaṃ sa śiṅkte yena gaurabhīvṛtā mimāti māyuṃ)

However, calling brahmins' chanting as frogs is a bit self-deprecating.

PS: What's with the 'Nazi'/'Sepoy' appellation ? Like anyone who is running short of facts, you are resorting to invective in debate. You have taken the thread to Godwin's Law.

I don't get your logic behind why bellowing like cow is o.k. but chanting as frog is self-deprecating? On what scientific basis you are saying that? I would tend to think exactly opposite is true!

The point here is it is matter of opinion and what you are doing is expressing your opinion, to you bellowing like cow is ok but croaking like frog is not, and we all know opinions are like ...

AIT is also by and large a matter of opinion by bunch of AIT nazis and their followers, a series of hard scientific studies including the most recent genetic studies, proves there never was an AI.

[RajeshA]

hanumadu ji, AntuBarwa ji,

welcome to the discussion!

[member_20317]

Re. shiv Post subject: Re: Out-of-India - From Theory to TruthPosted: 14 Aug 2012 17:16

Shiv ji,

you have support for your proposal of impossibility of deriving sounds from symbols even in the modern day settings, in Chinese. Now please remember even the cuneiform scripts are actually said to be derived from pictograms probably even ideograms. Wiki has a good example here.


Please Refer:

(1) To understand how pictograms and ideograms are used to build up a language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logograph# ... characters

Chinese scholars have traditionally classified the Chinese characters hanzi into six types by etymology.

The first two types are "single-body", meaning that the character was created independently of other characters. "Single-body" pictograms and ideograms make up only a small proportion of Chinese logograms. More productive for the Chinese script were the two "compound" methods, i.e. the character was created from assembling different characters. Despite being called "compounds", these logograms are still single characters, and are written to take up the same amount of space as any other logogram. The final two types are methods in the usage of characters rather than the formation of characters themselves.


Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters1.The first type, and the type most often associated with Chinese writing, are pictograms, which are pictorial representations of the morpheme represented, e.g. 山 for "mountain".
2.The second type are ideograms that attempt to visualize abstract concepts, such as 上 "up" and 下 "down". Also considered ideograms are pictograms with an ideographic indicator; for instance, 刀 is a pictogram meaning "knife", while 刃 is an ideogram meaning "blade".
3.Radical-radical compounds in which each element of the character (called radical) hints at the meaning. For example, 休 "rest" is composed of the characters for "man" (人) and "tree" (木), with the intended idea of someone leaning against a tree, i.e. resting.
4.Radical-phonetic compounds, in which one component (the radical) indicates the general meaning of the character, and the other (the phonetic) hints at the pronunciation. An example is 樑 (Chinese: liáng), where the phonetic 梁 liáng indicates the pronunciation of the character and the radical 木 ("wood") its meaning of "supporting beam". Characters of this type constitute around 90% of Chinese logograms.[3]
5.Changed-annotation characters are characters which were originally the same character but have bifurcated through orthographic and often semantic drift. For instance, 樂 can mean both "music"(pinyin: yuè ) and "pleasure" (pinyin: lè).
6.Improvisational characters (lit. "improvised-borrowed-words") come into use when a native spoken word has no corresponding character, and hence another character with the same or a similar sound (and often a close meaning) is "borrowed"; occasionally, the new meaning can supplant the old meaning. 自 used to be a pictographic word meaning "nose", but was borrowed to mean "self". It is now used almost exclusively to mean "self", while the "nose" meaning survives only in set-phrases and more archaic compounds. Because of their derivational process, the entire set of Japanese kana can be considered to be of this character, hence the name kana (仮名; 仮 is a simplified form of 假 but used in Korea and Japan).

(2) To understand how pictograms and ideograms create their own differences in understanding the and expression, inter se amongst different ‘dialects’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_va ... _languages

The question of whether the various varieties of Chinese should be called dialects or languages in their own right is contentious. There are two principal uses of the word dialect. If varieties are considered dialects of a single language when they are mutually intelligible, and separate languages otherwise, then the principal branches of Chinese, and even some of the subbranches, are distinct languages. If, on the other hand, 'dialect' is used in its other meaning of a variety that is socially subordinate to a standardized or otherwise prestigious variety, perhaps one that shares a common written language and literature with the prestige form, then they are all dialects of a single Chinese language

(3) To understand what Linguists themselves say (by way of standards they set) about how pictograms and ideograms create their own differences in understanding and expression, inter se amongst different ‘dialects’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_la ... inguistics

In common English usage, Chinese is considered a language and its varieties dialects, a classification that agrees with Chinese speakers' self-perception. Most linguists prefer instead to call Chinese a family of languages, because of its divisions' lack of complete mutual intelligibility.

(4) To understand how Pictograms became Cuneiforms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAG.svg

1. shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC
2. shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC
3. shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC
4. is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3
5. represents the late 3rd millennium
6. represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite
7. is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.

Now just imagine how the ‘seams’ would have behaved, especially in the context of expressing a Phonologic Sanskrit in a Cuneiform Akkadian.

One too many cows on top of each other, I am afraid.


Added Later:
Many years back somebody told me how all Chinese can read each other but cannot talk with each other.
I treated it as trivia at that time.

[RajeshA]

You are applying modern sensibilities to an ancient mantra. Calling the chanting brahmins 'Cow-bellow' is in no way diminishing. Both cows and sheep were very valuable animals to vedic society. And comparison to Cow-bellow or Goat-bleat was not deprecatory. Eg. There is another sūkta where "go-māyuḥ" (cow-bellow) is used in conjunction with chanting.

RV 1-164: Mantras 23 to 25 describe the various vedic meters like Gāyatri, Triṣṭup, Jagati etc. These is traditionally taught in ghanapāṭha (gāyatreṇa prati mimīte ...) exercises. If you don't trust me, ask any one who has attended traditional schooling in vedashaala-s.

Mantra's 26 - 29 in the sūkta refer to the teacher who is like a cow come bellowing to the calf (gaur vatsaṃ miṣantaṃ mūrdhānaṃ hiṃṃ akṛṇon mātavā u). The cow (teacher or divine inspiration - vasupatni) bellows (mimāti māyuṃ) and the calf (pupil) also whimpers encompassed by the bellowing cow (ayaṃ sa śiṅkte yena gaurabhīvṛtā mimāti māyuṃ)

However, calling brahmins' chanting as frogs is a bit self-deprecating.

Again perhaps your misunderstandings arise because you consider too short a framework for analysis!

Cow-Bellow => Teacher

In your earlier example, according to your claim, the sounds of Vedic chants would have been compared to Cows-bellowing!
In this example, according to your claim, the Teacher calling out his pupil to provide him knowledge is being compared to Cows bellowing to her calf to provide it nourishment!

The interpretation of first example is really, well ... odd. The interpretation of second example makes perfect sense!

However what you are trying to do is to forget the whole context and mapping of visual imagery and to concentrate solely on an atomic mapping: 'Cow -> Teacher/Brahmin' and then you say both the examples are equivalent!

Basically your attempt is here to prove that because in some context an animal and its activities is understood as an allegory for people, in all contexts, it is impossible to interpret from the context the use of an animal as being a reference to an asterism!

You are trying to cast doubts on the interpretation of asterisms and archaeo-astronomical evidence in scriptures by saying that because in one hymn the interplay between a Cow and its Calf can be compared to that between a Teacher and his Pupil, this allows any mention of animal in any hymn as a disqualifying criteria for it being solely interpretable as an asterism in that hymn, regardless of context!

I think there is a logical flaw in that position!

[Nilesh Oak]

Added Later:
Many years back somebody told me how all Chinese can read each other but cannot talk with each other.
I treated it as trivia at that time.

I second that from my first hand experience. I was fortunate to visit China multiple times, have been to chinese homes (in cities and Villages) and been to remote and interior parts of China.

I always carried 'short chinese sentences written in chinese script' with english translation with my 'Niles Notes' next to it (for food specification- I am vegeterian, non-smoking rooms, travel, etc.)

Everyone could understand what they read, but they read (pronounced) it very different from each other.

This is also the reason, when you start learning Chinese (Mandarin) say in Shanghai, and then go to Beijing, Dalian or Xian and try to practice it on them, many times they are confused and then politely correct your pronounciation.

Xie Xie

[hanumadu]

hanumadu ji, AntuBarwa ji,

welcome to the discussion!

Thanks Rajesh ji. But I am not new to this discussion though . I made a few posts in the earlier pages but mostly lurk. Thank you for your efforts in demolishing AIT.

[Nilesh Oak]

Basically your attempt is here to prove that because in some context an animal and its activities is understood as an allegory for people, in all contexts, it is impossible to interpret from the context the use of an animal as being a reference to an asterism!

You are trying to cast doubts on the interpretation of asterisms and archaeo-astronomical evidence in scriptures by saying that because in one hymn the interplay between a Cow and its Calf can be compared to that between a Teacher and his Pupil, this allows any mention of animal in any hymn as a disqualifying criteria for it being solely interpretable as an asterism in that hymn, regardless of context!

I think there is a logical flaw in that position!

Only a Sith lord speaks in absolutes. May the force be with us all.