Warning Bodhi: this post is boring not to mention excessively long, though it is the first part of the response. If I were you, I'd go straight on to the next post myself. I find that one more important.
1/2
Husky, this position is not far from what I had anticipated from you. so I was not off the mark.
You predicted my response to be a <i>denial</i> of IE. I corrected you by saying it was no more than (and can be no more than) <i>agnosticism</i>: as things are at present, we know no evidence for PIE or IE people; and IE itself is only *a* plausible classification scheme. Denial and agnosticism are entirely different, you will allow.
(Of course, I insist on the right to make fun of Oryans and Dravidoids: since the ideas have been imposed on me as "facts" when it turns out that they are actually not, I will derive what enjoyment there is to be had of them.)
They (native scholars of linguistics) see the whole thing always from the prism of either the AIT or OIT, but never independent of this debate.
AIT and OIT both presuppose PIE, IE people, Urheimat - that is, they both take the IE-divergence-from-common-root model (which is the dominant model in IE Studies) as a given.
And the folks enter the linguistics-based debates, and of course because they have no language study to themselves, they find it easy to bash the linguistics/philology altogether, or best they would do it drop some obscure names.
I am not sure if the above is an indirect reference to me (unlikely, since elsewhere you address me directly) or someone else. In any case, the above can have nothing to do with me.
If by "obscure names" you mean my mention of Lincoln and those other two - well, the reason for Lincoln's obscurity was explained by Arvidsson: the main body in IE Studies didn't take kindly to his rebellion against the dominant paradigm - both his agnostic position on it as a consequence of his disillusionment <i>and</i> his exposing the earlier hyper-biased entities that were involved in constructing it.
Why did you assume IE/IR refers to HISTORICAL connection? Forget history, I am asking how should these current languages that are derived from Latin, Greek, pehlavI and saMskR^ita be referred as? I only hope (against my belief, and in order not to "attempt to speak for you") that you are not going to say that there is no organic connection between them. I was referring of PRESENT, not HISTORY, while the authors you sited speak of past, that too I think in reference to the migration theories or against it.
1) I have always had the suspicion that L,G,A,S have some connection (I think I had stated this far earlier somewhere on IF. Not going to repeat it.) I do not intend to speculate on the nature of it: since I have not studied any of them, it can be no more than speculation on my part.
2) Organic connection implies historical connection.
Besides, you speak of IE (and IR). There is only one accepted IE model and that is inextricable from a historical context: PIE necessitates a history.
3) Why did you assume IE/IR refers to HISTORICAL connection?
Again, exactly as I said above: because the divergence-from-common-root model is the dominant one of IE Studies; in fact it is the only one that is generally acknowledged. This automatically presupposes a historical connection. And the terms IE and IR are *from* IE Studies and inherit these assumptions. That is, using these phrases invariably means you are stuck with their existing meanings and assumptions.
If it were the case that you solely wish to reconsider Latin, Greek, Avestan and Samskritam together in a separate context of their own, you cannot use the term "Indo-European". It is already taken and has a definite meaning. Using it means you auto-inherit Old Germanic, Norsk, Slavic, Celtic, and the rest. While one might initially think that the L,G,A,S languages can be conveniently referred to with the word "Indo-European", it still does not mean you will be allowed to redefine what "IE" entails. I didn't make these rules. It's just the way things are.
("IndoEuropean" is also misleading in the L,G,A,S case: Ancient Greece and Rome did not know of any "Europe" in the sense we do today, and it is certainly not anything they considered themselves a part of. While 'IndoIranianGrecoRoman' might be a more applicable term for the more limited consideration you seem to propose, I don't envy anyone trying to pronounce it.)
Hmmm. Put it another way. Imagine a tree diagram - named "IE" - depicting the IE language model: all the IE languages are located in their respective branches or leaf nodes in the tree, including the branch labelled IR.
Now, when you say IR or IE, you are not merely talking about some flexible, reusable term "Indo-Iranian" or "IndoEuropean", one that you can use as you see fit and that can then turn out to have a different meaning to you as you discover more.
Instead, by using either of these phrases, you are immediately importing that *entire* diagram into your research, regardless of whether this was your intention or not. The diagram itself is the smallest unit. There is no way to reuse either term and give it a new meaning in a new context of your understanding/your research. You did not invent those words, and you have no say on their meanings. IE Studies does.
4) I was referring of PRESENT, not HISTORY, while the authors you sited speak of past, that too I think in reference to the migration theories or against it.
I've only read the excerpts of the writings of those indologists mentioned (Trubetzkoy, Lincoln, Arvidsson) as posted on or linked to from IF. You can read those excerpts for yourself at
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ajhwbk..._620hs8zfc
Just keep searching the page for <b>all</b> occurrences of Trubetzkoy, then for all of Lincoln, then Arvidsson.
The first two talk about the IE language model itself (and PIE, too, in the case of Trubetzkoy at least and even Lincoln to some extent). They consider the migration theories to be in consequence of the chosen models, and that these models are themselves based on earlier assumptions (PIE/nature of relationship between the languages).
But you did not explain why Indics should not use words of their own for this domain, when discussing the subject amongst themselves. Basically, you <b>insist</b> not to translate the foreign words in this domain, in fact you actually <b>insist</b> not to move the medium of this research from being English.
Re-read. See also a little further below.
You are mistaken. I did not "insist" on anything nor did I advocate people to bar translations.
You can only justifiably accuse me of disinterest and at worst for wanting initial translating efforts/resources directed elsewhere - to topics that interest <i>me</i> more (well, what can anyone expect when I was left to opinionate).
And you also presume that native research only means natives joining mlechCha indologuists in doing what they have been doing.
Absolutely the opposite of what you have attributed to me. Here is what I wrote before:
"Sure, native scholarship, fine. But native scholarship hopefully does not *merely* consist of transplanting - through translating - the current dominant (and non-native) discourse/view on it."
Direct translation of IE and its terms would mean no more than translating the mainstream indologists' position by bringing over their concepts, their view - instead of taking the occasion of a new language medium as an opportunity to start completely fresh.
IMO, as I already wrote you once before, a real indigenous-mounted research into the study of the history of Indian languages would start with:
A1) Presupposing nothing
2) Reviewing all the data from a clean slate with no prior assumptions.
3) Further investigation of new data. Again, no assumptions. Working hypotheses should always be considered modifiable to suit the data, rather than squeezing the data to suit the hypotheses (latter is what IE Studies does at present).
B) Or if they are too lazy and indifferent or even incapable to do all the above, then I guess they could sit around without any opinions either way, waiting for absolute evidence for the claims currently made. That is, exercising the agnostic position that Lincoln suggested. Not what I'd advocate our side do, but since I intend to do no more than B myself (indifferent, lazy, won't be surprised to find I am incapable too were I to bother attempting it), there's little sense in me telling others to put all their effort in.
presume that native research only means joining mlechCha indologuists in doing what they have been doing.
You specifically mentioned IE and IR. If indigenous research were to start off presupposing IE, then I do not see how this is so widely different from the trodden path of indology that you refer to. You spoke of Indic researchers having/needing "words of their own for this domain", but in such a limited case it would be little more than "words of their own for ideas of others". Which is necessary too, but what about this native research also reviewing things to see if it allows other views on the matter to be developed - i.e. the possibility of ideas of our own instead of merely words of our own?
And this is what I referred to, instead of your misreading that I "insisted" we not transplant IE into Indic languages.
(other symptoms of which being: judging the commitment of scholars to Hindu causes on the benchmark of where they stand on AIT/OIT debate - e.g. Dr. K Elst flogging on DLs by hyperactive but hollow "Hindu scholars".)
I have nothing to do with this. Am I expected to respond?
Last time I re-read pages on Elst's site, he was still sympathetic to the possibility of OIT or at least neutral on AIT/OIT. (Though I think he finds Trubetzkoy's maintaining that the divergence model is not a given and Lincoln's "agnostic position" untenable. Elst appears to consider PIE/IE and IE people to be indisputable facts, from what I understand.)
There are different positions on the entire matter:
A) Lincoln arguing for agnosticism on at least the theories that have sprung up as a consequence of PIE, if not PIE itself (though Trubetskoy seemed to argue for not committing to any theory on how the current config of 'IE languages' came to be),
B) Then among those that take PIE and then also IE people as a given:
1) Talageri seems to be for the OIT,
2) Elst looks to be neutral on AIT/OIT but is certainly not closed off to the OIT (what are they faulting him on?) even if he is closed off to A above.
3) and most of the west is for AIT/AMT.
I have always considered it rather a good thing that people have different approaches to this obviously disputed problem (one where none has produced irrefutable evidence of any kind). More and varied approaches means *competition* in arriving at a conclusion: it will require the different sides to prove the strengths and validity of their argument. To the onlooker (me), that just means the promise of a more thorough investigation and more reliable outcome. My interest goes no further than that I want to know *who* committed the murder; am not willing to watch the slow unfolding of how the crime was solved or all the red herrings they chased in between.
Antiquity and Origin of the Term 'Hindu' by Dr. Murlidhar H. Pahoja [...] The reversal of this evidence and suggesting a saurAShTran origin for 'Hindu' without any evidence, falls in the category of 'pleading'.
1. It's been a while since I read it, but the main points I remember taking from the paper were: that there was also an S->H innovation within Bharatam itself (that is, that it was not an innovation unique to Parsa), and that the 'Hindu' pronunciation for Sindhu need not only have happened among our then-neighbours' Parsa. The paper shows that islamis, instead of inventing the term as is often claimed for them, merely continued using an ancient pre-christoislamic term - one which moreover had found ancient use in India. If the term 'Hindu' itself did not become a self-designation for the entire nation until after the Persians started designating our people that way, then this won't be a problem for most either: "So, the Parshyas came up with it". Perhaps Persia initially named the Indian population such after its first encounter with an Indian community, like IIRC "Greeks" is derived from the western Hellenic tribe Romans knew of.
2. Ah yes, pleading. I don't like pleading either and would ideally see it altogether disallowed. But in the inexact sciences they seem to do a lot of special pleading, and generally everyone seems to get away with it.
An example that comes to mind:
Bernard Sergent is of the opinion that the origins of the practise of Sati in India should be found in some shared IndoEuropean roots, merely because another sort of suicide ritual - where the wife and servants and slaves killed themselves after a prominent man had died - occurred in early Scandinavian/Germanic and Celtic communities. The same Bernard Sergent did not see that
the case of early Imperial China doing something rather more similar to the Celtic and Germanic situation than the Sati of India meant there may be no need to resort to IE reasoning behind such things. (Or maybe next they'll find that it "could not have been otherwise" than that the Indo-Europeans introduced this sort of suicide-ritual-after-death-of-head-of-household to China.) Perhaps Sergent merely doesn't know/care about Imperial China altogether due to a myopic view on exclusively "Indo-European things". Who knows.
Whatever be the case, I happen to think that Sergent's suggestion falls under pleading as well. And so do all those people trying to garner sympathy votes for their chosen country to be the Urheimat. Even Indo-Europeans as a people is also pleading since there is still no evidence for them.
It may be that I personally view the matter of pleading in this unforgiving manner because I am not used to any kind of pleading at all in my mini-subfield inside (wannabe) mathematics: something either is so, or it isn't, or it needs further investigation until it is knowable. Guesswork is inadmissable. One certainly isn't allowed to build further uncertainties on it.
But I can be forgiven for thinking that pleading and getting popular votes to elect tangential inferences/theories into Absolute Indubitable Fact was the done thing in (certain) inexact sciences.
This can be called IE/linguistics-fobia.
Others' complaints have no bearing on me though, I don't suffer from either kind of phobia.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> This also includes the first time such a creature addressed a Hindu God like in poetic verses or in prose. And regional Hindu folk traditions, Puranas, Vedas - all mention instances of this.