The Malgudi story makes for a nice example.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Philology is not a science in the strictest sense of the definition.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is what I meant. Yet they present it as if it were an exact science - one whose conclusions should be universally accepted without question. But it's not an exact science (as the constantly changing PIE shows for instance) and it doesn't behave as one either (non-falsifiable).
The Koerner paper revealed that despite the facade of infallibility, it is a field that is prone to political and other ideological abuse. And it's what Lincoln and Arvidsson discussed in their books - Lincoln especially. He realised that a lot of what he'd for a long time blindly accepted as an absolute, turned out to have been dictated/determined by the subjectivity of highly-regarded people.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Trade-based influence is not a convincing answer. Above can only come from organic relationships of languages (imo).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Don't know the extent of linguistic influence that can be wielded by trade, but did not mean to stress it as the only means of language transfer. So I repeat a para from my earlier post 123 wherein I did briefly allude to other means, even if I did not define any (it's hard to give one-word example scenarios):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It could merely be trade or other relations.
[...]
Another possibility could be that it's due to some population movements from regions that were geographically closer to each other in the past [...].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->See, they first propose PIE and then say that by supposed implication all IE branches derived from it - what's more, derived <i>directly</i> from it: that it radiated out into <i>all</i> the major IE branches. That is, that S, A, G, Italic, Slavonic, Celtic, Germanic all were direct children of PIE. How impossibly convenient! And of course they state that it implies that there's a one-to-one correspondence between the language groups and the peoples who spoke them. Nice. As if it wasn't hard to believe already. Yet it is well-known how very possible it is for populations to discard their own languages and to adopt others - one need but think of how many of the SW Europeans might have still spoken a Basque dialect or W Europeans spoken Gaulish were it not for Rome; or take even the case of the largely Basque ancestry of the UK. The language a population speaks today is not always connected with their 'genes', therefore. Certainly not in a considerable number of European cases (though curiously, they only ever seem to recall a potential linguistic-genetic disparity when arguing about the Indian situation).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhasha-Vigyan is one field related to Indology, where we are still far behind the western Indologists.
My opinion is that we should not neglecting this gold-mine field that has potential to turn tables on AIT. We should learn those languages, and our own, very well, and develop altogether new methods, completely fair and just, rewrite altogether new frameworks of philology.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> "We should learn those languages, and our own, very well" - This certainly, without limitations.
Concerning the rest of your statement (quoted), I agree with what you propose, but there is a great hurdle out there. AIT is a crucial piece of IE. There's no IE without Samskritam, and no Samskritam-IE link without AIT (or AMT, or whatnot). Shake the AIT and you shake the IE tree at its very foundations. They will never give up on IE - it is their claim to fame. They're not the descendents of the Romans, of the Greeks, let alone the Parthians or Persians and the like. (Don't know if you know, there's a number even claiming the original PIE Oryans created Mesopotamian civilisation before they settled in NW Europa - very funny.) IE gives them greatness by association. They are vying with the long-dead in whose shadow they'd forever remain were it not for IE. So this is a question of their identity: it's become nigh synonymous with the identity of 'white' people (minus the Basques, Finno-Ugrics and a few other unfortunates who are excluded).
Philology is not just any science to them. It has become their life's blood, if you will. As much as they like to accuse Indians of being obsessed with fighting the AIT (in order to put us on the defensive), the IE dream is in fact their greatest obsession. It underlies who they consider themselves to be: they've written a spectacular history for themselves, however filled with illusions and delusions it may be. Take it away at this point and their self-confidence will crumble (not that they need to feel that way at all, but they've invested a good deal in it).
Do you suppose they will allow anyone to create - let alone listen to - new linguistic theories that propose some other linkage structure than PIE? That they would allow PIE and 'IE population groups' not to be tied together crucially (that is, anything that disputes the 'IE languages are a family <i>and</i> so are the population groups that speak them')? That they would let you break the lately-forged link that posthumously ties Romans and Greeks with the rest of Europe (not in terms of mere Greco-Roman influence, but on an equal footing with them, by means of an alleged common ancestry)?
Any attempt to do so will be seen as emasculation. Alternative propositions will not even be considered. <i>It is not about truth for them</i>, it has long ceased to be. It is an emotional, highly subjective issue and they respond accordingly. More than two centuries of carefully crafting this new history and teaching this to its population will go out the window, and with it all the inculcated self-assurance. They started this in early colonial times when they educated their next generations to become leaders, rulers, masters of the world. You need a mindset to go with such ambitions, you need a belief in invincibility, in superiority. You need to train children in this. They can't drop this, it's become too much a part of who they see themselves as. (Besides, though colonial attitudes are gone, the winning mindset cannot be dispensed with.)
Mess with IE, you're messing with them. To call it a touchy issue for them, is to understate the case.
Indians are allowed to become linguists, may play the big game and join in - but <i>only as long as you agree with their fixed propositions</i>, fixed as soundly as if it were a mountain rooted in the soil: (1) PIE exists; (2) It includes all those languages designated as IE at the present time; (3) The languages are intimately tied with the peoples who spoke them ('they gave rise to them') and what's more, most of the people who speak them today - in Europe at least - are descendants of the original speakers; (4) It's already indicated in number 3, but not only do they have a common ancestral language, they are related by blood: they have common ancestry in the Oryans.
Any Indians who go against this - propose any alternative - will find him-/herself ignored, ridiculed, accused of Hindoootvaaa, Hindoo nationalism, Hindoo fundamentalism whatever. They'll make sure you're never heard, never given respectable publication or citation. You can infer some of this even from Talageri's case. What he wrote was insightful; his work was original, well-researched and contained well-reasoned arguments. (Whether all of it was equally plausible or not, I don't know.) Witzel offered to take him up, but on condition that Talageri not become all 'Hindoo nationalist' on him. Talageri refused, would be a Hindu nationalist to the end. And of course his work is ignored by all except 'those Hindoo nationalist fundamentalists'.
You can certainly play, as long as you do so by their rules and make your moves in accordance to their instructions. Romila Thapar may play. She'll be published, she can co-author with Witzel and others. She'll get some Chair, be invited for talks, may be referenced. She's a good native: no questions, full support, wants to be part of the clique (give her some white gloves). She's a model Indian and they'll say 'look, even an educated Indian agrees that the AIT took place - because of course IE is an <i>undeniability</i>'.
But it's not just Indians that are side-lined when they go against the established mode, though. Even western archaeologists (Lichtenstein and Schaffer) have realised there is a brick wall they never anticipated. They thought they were working in some <i>scientific</i> field. Tough luck for them that they picked 'South Asian' archaeology as their thing, and that their discoveries didn't line up with linguistic 'conclusions' (predictions/expectations).
You can question everything except the fundamental 'truths' of the IE theory. See how aggressive the esteemed indologicals get otherwise (Indologicals lose it, as the IER Group excerpts pasted on IF show). You may also not call into doubt the motivations that fueled the bricklaying of the revered IE foundations. Because then, you are effectively casting doubt on IE theory itself by questioning the reliability of its origins and of the influential personages in its composition.
Doesn't matter how great your credentials in IE studies are, make such a misstep and you're out (Arvidsson on Lincoln, post 113 - Unmasking AIT thread):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The debate around Dumezil, Pearson, Haudry, Indo-European scholarship, and Fascism made Lincoln add his support to those who felt that the Indo-European scene had to be cleaned up. In several articles, Lincoln argued that it could actually be proved that Dumezil's sympathies for French and Italian Fascism had influenced his scientific research of the 1930s. As a consequence of this, <b>Lincoln became more or less persona non grata</b> among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Philology is not a science. Who knows what it might have been. But it's too late to be free of ideological taints. Philology + IE is their white elephant - even if it were a pink unicorn for all they care.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Philology is not a science in the strictest sense of the definition.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is what I meant. Yet they present it as if it were an exact science - one whose conclusions should be universally accepted without question. But it's not an exact science (as the constantly changing PIE shows for instance) and it doesn't behave as one either (non-falsifiable).
The Koerner paper revealed that despite the facade of infallibility, it is a field that is prone to political and other ideological abuse. And it's what Lincoln and Arvidsson discussed in their books - Lincoln especially. He realised that a lot of what he'd for a long time blindly accepted as an absolute, turned out to have been dictated/determined by the subjectivity of highly-regarded people.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Trade-based influence is not a convincing answer. Above can only come from organic relationships of languages (imo).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Don't know the extent of linguistic influence that can be wielded by trade, but did not mean to stress it as the only means of language transfer. So I repeat a para from my earlier post 123 wherein I did briefly allude to other means, even if I did not define any (it's hard to give one-word example scenarios):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It could merely be trade or other relations.
[...]
Another possibility could be that it's due to some population movements from regions that were geographically closer to each other in the past [...].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->See, they first propose PIE and then say that by supposed implication all IE branches derived from it - what's more, derived <i>directly</i> from it: that it radiated out into <i>all</i> the major IE branches. That is, that S, A, G, Italic, Slavonic, Celtic, Germanic all were direct children of PIE. How impossibly convenient! And of course they state that it implies that there's a one-to-one correspondence between the language groups and the peoples who spoke them. Nice. As if it wasn't hard to believe already. Yet it is well-known how very possible it is for populations to discard their own languages and to adopt others - one need but think of how many of the SW Europeans might have still spoken a Basque dialect or W Europeans spoken Gaulish were it not for Rome; or take even the case of the largely Basque ancestry of the UK. The language a population speaks today is not always connected with their 'genes', therefore. Certainly not in a considerable number of European cases (though curiously, they only ever seem to recall a potential linguistic-genetic disparity when arguing about the Indian situation).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhasha-Vigyan is one field related to Indology, where we are still far behind the western Indologists.
My opinion is that we should not neglecting this gold-mine field that has potential to turn tables on AIT. We should learn those languages, and our own, very well, and develop altogether new methods, completely fair and just, rewrite altogether new frameworks of philology.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> "We should learn those languages, and our own, very well" - This certainly, without limitations.
Concerning the rest of your statement (quoted), I agree with what you propose, but there is a great hurdle out there. AIT is a crucial piece of IE. There's no IE without Samskritam, and no Samskritam-IE link without AIT (or AMT, or whatnot). Shake the AIT and you shake the IE tree at its very foundations. They will never give up on IE - it is their claim to fame. They're not the descendents of the Romans, of the Greeks, let alone the Parthians or Persians and the like. (Don't know if you know, there's a number even claiming the original PIE Oryans created Mesopotamian civilisation before they settled in NW Europa - very funny.) IE gives them greatness by association. They are vying with the long-dead in whose shadow they'd forever remain were it not for IE. So this is a question of their identity: it's become nigh synonymous with the identity of 'white' people (minus the Basques, Finno-Ugrics and a few other unfortunates who are excluded).
Philology is not just any science to them. It has become their life's blood, if you will. As much as they like to accuse Indians of being obsessed with fighting the AIT (in order to put us on the defensive), the IE dream is in fact their greatest obsession. It underlies who they consider themselves to be: they've written a spectacular history for themselves, however filled with illusions and delusions it may be. Take it away at this point and their self-confidence will crumble (not that they need to feel that way at all, but they've invested a good deal in it).
Do you suppose they will allow anyone to create - let alone listen to - new linguistic theories that propose some other linkage structure than PIE? That they would allow PIE and 'IE population groups' not to be tied together crucially (that is, anything that disputes the 'IE languages are a family <i>and</i> so are the population groups that speak them')? That they would let you break the lately-forged link that posthumously ties Romans and Greeks with the rest of Europe (not in terms of mere Greco-Roman influence, but on an equal footing with them, by means of an alleged common ancestry)?
Any attempt to do so will be seen as emasculation. Alternative propositions will not even be considered. <i>It is not about truth for them</i>, it has long ceased to be. It is an emotional, highly subjective issue and they respond accordingly. More than two centuries of carefully crafting this new history and teaching this to its population will go out the window, and with it all the inculcated self-assurance. They started this in early colonial times when they educated their next generations to become leaders, rulers, masters of the world. You need a mindset to go with such ambitions, you need a belief in invincibility, in superiority. You need to train children in this. They can't drop this, it's become too much a part of who they see themselves as. (Besides, though colonial attitudes are gone, the winning mindset cannot be dispensed with.)
Mess with IE, you're messing with them. To call it a touchy issue for them, is to understate the case.
Indians are allowed to become linguists, may play the big game and join in - but <i>only as long as you agree with their fixed propositions</i>, fixed as soundly as if it were a mountain rooted in the soil: (1) PIE exists; (2) It includes all those languages designated as IE at the present time; (3) The languages are intimately tied with the peoples who spoke them ('they gave rise to them') and what's more, most of the people who speak them today - in Europe at least - are descendants of the original speakers; (4) It's already indicated in number 3, but not only do they have a common ancestral language, they are related by blood: they have common ancestry in the Oryans.
Any Indians who go against this - propose any alternative - will find him-/herself ignored, ridiculed, accused of Hindoootvaaa, Hindoo nationalism, Hindoo fundamentalism whatever. They'll make sure you're never heard, never given respectable publication or citation. You can infer some of this even from Talageri's case. What he wrote was insightful; his work was original, well-researched and contained well-reasoned arguments. (Whether all of it was equally plausible or not, I don't know.) Witzel offered to take him up, but on condition that Talageri not become all 'Hindoo nationalist' on him. Talageri refused, would be a Hindu nationalist to the end. And of course his work is ignored by all except 'those Hindoo nationalist fundamentalists'.
You can certainly play, as long as you do so by their rules and make your moves in accordance to their instructions. Romila Thapar may play. She'll be published, she can co-author with Witzel and others. She'll get some Chair, be invited for talks, may be referenced. She's a good native: no questions, full support, wants to be part of the clique (give her some white gloves). She's a model Indian and they'll say 'look, even an educated Indian agrees that the AIT took place - because of course IE is an <i>undeniability</i>'.
But it's not just Indians that are side-lined when they go against the established mode, though. Even western archaeologists (Lichtenstein and Schaffer) have realised there is a brick wall they never anticipated. They thought they were working in some <i>scientific</i> field. Tough luck for them that they picked 'South Asian' archaeology as their thing, and that their discoveries didn't line up with linguistic 'conclusions' (predictions/expectations).
You can question everything except the fundamental 'truths' of the IE theory. See how aggressive the esteemed indologicals get otherwise (Indologicals lose it, as the IER Group excerpts pasted on IF show). You may also not call into doubt the motivations that fueled the bricklaying of the revered IE foundations. Because then, you are effectively casting doubt on IE theory itself by questioning the reliability of its origins and of the influential personages in its composition.
Doesn't matter how great your credentials in IE studies are, make such a misstep and you're out (Arvidsson on Lincoln, post 113 - Unmasking AIT thread):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The debate around Dumezil, Pearson, Haudry, Indo-European scholarship, and Fascism made Lincoln add his support to those who felt that the Indo-European scene had to be cleaned up. In several articles, Lincoln argued that it could actually be proved that Dumezil's sympathies for French and Italian Fascism had influenced his scientific research of the 1930s. As a consequence of this, <b>Lincoln became more or less persona non grata</b> among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Philology is not a science. Who knows what it might have been. But it's too late to be free of ideological taints. Philology + IE is their white elephant - even if it were a pink unicorn for all they care.