Post 267:
Celtic and Germanic are both ethnicities <i>and</i> language groups. And today they also indirectly refer to the former religious systems of those people.
Semitic in biblical terms <i>is</i> a racial construct. But then, the bible also put forward Hamitic as the sub-saharan African 'race'. It's from the biblical view, and the later koranic one that built on it, that Arabia's muslims started claiming descent from Shem. Prior to Christianity and Islam, the heathen Arabians never traced their ancestry to Shem who had only been a Judaic character until then.
Therefore, outside the biblical racial view and those who've accepted it, these terms don't apply as such. People started using 'semitic religions' as a way to indicate the religions that were offshoots of Judaism. I haven't come across any official sanction for the terminology as yet.
In any case, any decent (factual) reference book will tell you that Indo-Aryan was only ever created to indicate a linguistic family (the N Indian one). Nothing else. However, as you apparently find it flattering, you can imagine yourself an Indo-Aryan. How's that working out for ya, by the way?
Seems you want to recreate Indian perceptions of self based on the (mis-)understanding you absorbed from recent western views of India. Hence you speak of:
- not Indian ethnicity, but 'Indo-Aryan' ethnicity and probably 'Dravidian' too
- not Hinduism (or actually, Sanatana Dharma) that is Indian, but Hinduism as if it is 'Indo-Aryan'
- and you are/were confused about some basic fundamentals
You also blindly believe S Indian languages are separate from N Indian ones, only because for the last 2 centuries or so the west has created the IE framework construct that groups N Indian (Indo-Aryan) as separate from 'Dravidian'. Until then, no one knew this. The idea only took root when they created it.
I am neither impressed nor convinced by the IE framework; but when discussing aspects within it, at least I stick to their rules (like 'there is no Indo-Aryan ethnic group'). You, having accepted it so wholeheartedly, might at least do the same.
You've also internalised every construct and myth they have fed you, until you can imagine no world outside of it (even when you try to rebel against it as with your partial rejection of the AIT, you come no further than your own 'Indo-Aryan and Dravidian' one). To the point that you give no credit or credence to (or have no knowledge of) the understanding of India and Hinduism that was prevalent amongst Indians prior to the misinformation campaign.
This is your loss. You have imbibed all western indological (re-)constructs of what constitutes the fundamentals of India's Hindu civilisation. You're like their unknowing little helper, well-schooled in their massive miseducation programme and unwittingly furthering the miseducation.
Celtic and Germanic are both ethnicities <i>and</i> language groups. And today they also indirectly refer to the former religious systems of those people.
Semitic in biblical terms <i>is</i> a racial construct. But then, the bible also put forward Hamitic as the sub-saharan African 'race'. It's from the biblical view, and the later koranic one that built on it, that Arabia's muslims started claiming descent from Shem. Prior to Christianity and Islam, the heathen Arabians never traced their ancestry to Shem who had only been a Judaic character until then.
Therefore, outside the biblical racial view and those who've accepted it, these terms don't apply as such. People started using 'semitic religions' as a way to indicate the religions that were offshoots of Judaism. I haven't come across any official sanction for the terminology as yet.
In any case, any decent (factual) reference book will tell you that Indo-Aryan was only ever created to indicate a linguistic family (the N Indian one). Nothing else. However, as you apparently find it flattering, you can imagine yourself an Indo-Aryan. How's that working out for ya, by the way?
Seems you want to recreate Indian perceptions of self based on the (mis-)understanding you absorbed from recent western views of India. Hence you speak of:
- not Indian ethnicity, but 'Indo-Aryan' ethnicity and probably 'Dravidian' too
- not Hinduism (or actually, Sanatana Dharma) that is Indian, but Hinduism as if it is 'Indo-Aryan'
- and you are/were confused about some basic fundamentals
You also blindly believe S Indian languages are separate from N Indian ones, only because for the last 2 centuries or so the west has created the IE framework construct that groups N Indian (Indo-Aryan) as separate from 'Dravidian'. Until then, no one knew this. The idea only took root when they created it.
I am neither impressed nor convinced by the IE framework; but when discussing aspects within it, at least I stick to their rules (like 'there is no Indo-Aryan ethnic group'). You, having accepted it so wholeheartedly, might at least do the same.
You've also internalised every construct and myth they have fed you, until you can imagine no world outside of it (even when you try to rebel against it as with your partial rejection of the AIT, you come no further than your own 'Indo-Aryan and Dravidian' one). To the point that you give no credit or credence to (or have no knowledge of) the understanding of India and Hinduism that was prevalent amongst Indians prior to the misinformation campaign.
This is your loss. You have imbibed all western indological (re-)constructs of what constitutes the fundamentals of India's Hindu civilisation. You're like their unknowing little helper, well-schooled in their massive miseducation programme and unwittingly furthering the miseducation.