Aryan Invasion/migration Theories & Debates -2

[acharya]

#1
The Aryan Invasion Theory is part of a bigger net of inter-connected and inter-dependent theories.

Scholars have not universally accepted the theory of a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) as the sole possibility. This theory says that all Indo-European languages originally sprung from a shared root language. A *hypothetical* language, nowhere recorded, no literature ever found written in it.
Going from that theory, they thought that there might long ago have been a single group of people who spoke that alleged Proto-Indo-European language. These hypothetical people were named the Aryans - also known as the Indo-Europeans (especially after WWII).
From there, they reasoned that that group of people (Aryans/Indo-Europeans) lived together at some point in time in some geographic place dubbed the Aryan homeland (or Urheimat in German).

So what we have is 3+ theories, each one depending entirely on the previous one being true:
(a) Theory 1 - All languages identified as Indo-European (IE) had a common ancestor language once upon a time: the entirely theoretical language PIE/Proto-Indo-European.
(b) Theory 2 - (*Only if* theory 1 is true, then) there *could* have been some single population that spoke it long ago: called the Indo-Europeans/Aryans.
© Theories 3 to n - (*Only if* theory 2 is true, then) there might have been a region somewhere between Europe and Asia where these Aryans lived once upon a time. They might then have shared single religion, and a shared culture. They might have invented somethings and even created civilisations. (And more such dramatic speculations.)

From the above theories follows the Aryan Invasion Theory, which *ENTIRELY* depends on there being Aryans in the first place (and on them having lived in an unconfirmed “somewhere”).

BUT (pasting from elsewhere):
Here’s some researchers working in Indo-European studies showing how there’s serious doubt about (a) the very existence of any PIE and - even more doubt on - (b) the existence of any ‘Indo-Europeans’ (Aryans) who spoke it:

(1) Summary of Trubetskoy quotes below: Trubetskoy says that ‘IE’ languages need not have derived from a common ancestor at all. But that in fact, it is equally likely that different languages converged and that’s why they ended up having similarities. In other words: he says there’s no need for any PIE. If there’s no need for PIE, this also means there’s no need for the derived assumption that there existed a people who spoke it…

FROM: Trubetzkoy, N. S. (2001), Studies in General Linguistics and Language Structure, Anatoly Liberman (Ed.), translated by Marvin Taylor and Anatoly Liberman, Durham and London: Duke University Press.

- “It is usually supposed that, at one time, there was a single Indo-European language, the so-called Indo-European protolanguage, from which all historically attested Indo-European languages are presumed to descend. This supposition is contradicted by the fact that, no matter how far we peer back into history, we always find a multitude of Indo-European-speaking peoples. The idea of an Indo-European protolanguage is not absurd, but it is not necessary, and we can do very well without it (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 87).”

- “There is therefore, no compelling reason for the assumption of a homogeneous Indo-European protolanguage from which the individual branches of Indo-European descended. It is equally plausible that the ancestors of the branches of Indo-European were originally dissimilar but that over time, through continuous contact, mutual influence, and loan traffic, they moved significantly closer to each other, without becoming identical (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 88).”

- “This possibility must always be kept in sight when the Indo-European problem is addressed [and every statement about the problem should be formulated so as to be valid for either assumption: divergence or convergence.] Since only the hypothesis of a single protolanguage has been considered until now, the discussion has landed on the wrong track. Its primary, that is, linguistic, nature has been forgotten. Prehistoric archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology have been brought in without any justification. Attempts are made to describe the home, race, and culture of a supposed Indo-European proto-people that may never have existed. The Indo-European problem is formulated [by modern German (and not only German) scholars] in something like the following way: “Which type of prehistoric pottery must be ascribed to the Indo-European people?” But scholarship is unable to answer questions of this kind, so they are moot. Their logic is circular because the assumption of an Indo-European protopeople with definite cultural and racial characteristics is untenable. We are chasing a romantic illusion instead of keeping to the one positive fact at out disposal—that “Indo-Europeans” a purely LINGUISTIC concept (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 90, emphasis in the original).”

#2 (cont.)

(2) Bruce Lincoln also makes it clear there’s no valid reason to accept belief in any imaginary people - the Indo-Europeans/ ‘Aryans’ - even *if* we assumed the hypothetical PIE existed. He also illustrates how other scholars in the field have stated that even if there were a PIE, there need not have been a single ethnic group that uniquely spoke it, how there are other hypotheses (than the one supposing Aryans) that are equally admissable.

FROM: Lincoln, Bruce (1999), Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

- “In specific, reconstructing a “protolanguage” is an exercise that invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, a community of such people, then a place for that community, a time in history, distinguishing characteristics, and a set of contrastive relations with other protocommunities where other protolanguages were spoken. FOR ALL THIS, NEED IT BE SAID, THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY WARRANT (Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)”

- “we recognize that the existence of a language family does not necessarily imply the existence of a protolanguage. Still less the existence of a protopeople, protomyths, protoideology, or protohomeland (Lincoln 1999, p. 216).”

(Protopeople in the above quote refers to the “Indo-Europeans/Aryans” of the topic)

- “Other authors have challenged the Stammbaum model on other grounds, observing that even if the historically attested Indo-European languages did descend from a single proto-language, the existence of this ancestral language by no means implies the existence of a single, ethnically homogeneous people who spoke it. Thus Franco Crevatin suggested that Swahili—an artificial lingua franca, spoken across vast portions of Africa as an instrument to facilitate long distance trade—may be a better analogue than Latin for theorizing Proto-Indo-European. […] In Crevatin’s view there was a Proto-Indo-European language and there were people who spoke it for certain finite purposes, but no community of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Similar is Stefan Zimmer’s position, intended as a rebuke of racist theories, hypothesizing a protolanguage spoken not be an ethnically pristine Urvolk but by a shifting, nomadic colluvies gentium, a “filthy confluence of peoples,” (Lincoln 1999, pp. 212-213).”

(3) And finally, here Stefan Arvidsson gives us a lowdown on all the ‘evidence’ there is in support of that hypothetical people, the Indo-Europeans/Aryans: All the proof for any Indo-European/Aryan people is …. air. That’s it. There’s nothing. There’s only stuff that some obsessed western scholars have imagined might be the remains of their imaginary Aryans, but at the end of the day, what they’re doing is just construing things the way they like.

FROM: Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

- “For over two hundred years, a series of historians, linguists, folklorists, and archaeologists have tried to re-create a lost culture. Using ancient texts, medieval records, philological observations, and archaeological remains they have described a world, a religion, and a people older than the Sumerians, with whom all
history is said to have begun. Those who maintained this culture have been called “Indo-Europeans” and “Proto-Indo-Europeans,” “Aryans,” and “Ancient Aryans,” “Japhetites,” and “wiros,” among many other terms. THESE PEOPLE HAVE NOT LEFT BEHIND ANY TEXTS, NO OBJECTS CAN DEFINITELY BE TIED TO THEM, NOR DO WE KNOW ANY “INDO-EUROPEAN” BY NAME. IN SPITE OF THAT, scholars have STUBBORNLY tried to reach back to the ancient “Indo-Europeans,” with the help of bold historical, linguistic, and archaeological reconstructions, in the hopes of finding the foundation of their own culture and religion there. (Arvidsson 2006, p. xi, emphasis added).”

There can be no talk of Aryans (or aryan invasions or whatnot) unless [Neville Ramdeholl or whoever else] can prove that there were Aryans in the first place.
And even if they ever managed to prove (a) the hypothetical PIE existed,
they’d still have to prove that (b) a single ethnic group, specifically the Indo-Europeans/Aryans, existed who spoke it.
Because, REMEMBER: Theory 2 (”once upon a time there were Aryans”) *does not* automatically follow from Theory 1 (”PIE existed”), as seen in (2).

#3 (cont. again - but no longer pasting from elsewhere)

Note the word “Japhetites” in the quote in (3). It was the term Europeans ORIGINALLY used for what were later called Aryan/Indo-European. It is BIBLICAL.
Japheth was one of the 3 sons of Noah. Europeans believed they were descended from Japheth; European christians still believe it.
And so, when the whole field of investigating Indian, Iranian and European languages started, the language group was originally called - not Indo-European, not Aryan - but Japhetic. And at that early time, Dravidians were considered Hamitic (the secularised term ‘Dravidian’ was invented later). According to biblical mythology, Hamites were the cursed descendents of Noah’s son Ham. They’re all the brown peoples of the world. In the bible they’re cursed to be slaves to the descendents of Noah’s other two sons, Japheth and Shem (whose descendents were called Semites).
So just believing in Japethites and Hamites (or as they are called today: the Aryans and Dravidians) means you‘ve accepted christian mythology.

So we can forget the “Aryans/Indo-European” as Indo-European studies calls them.

David Frawley appears to be referring to those of India’s Hindus in the Vedic period who lived in the north/northwest of India, when he uses the (unfortunate) term “Aryan/Indo-European”. Perhaps he’s just thinking of his audience: being consistent, sticking to terminology readers might already have learnt.
Hindus of the Vedic times existed, so did Persia’s Zoroastrians. Their literatures are there for all to see.
It’s the hypothetical “Indo-Europeans” who are nowhere attested.

On the matter of the “Indus Valley Civilisation” (IVC). (The IVC was named at a time when the larger geographical extent of the civilisation was not yet discovered. Saraswati-Sindhu civlisation is more appropriate, as the archaeological sites involved span the region indicated by this name.)
Archaeology has shown how the Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation people of long ago are connected to today’s people in East Punjab and Gujarat: (Entire quoted section pasted between —)

http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/agarwal.html
— [1] Archaeologists like Jim Shaffer and D. A. Lichtenstein [1999] completely reject the notion of transfer of IA languages into South Asia as a result of migrations and invasions, and speak in terms of cultural shifts and diffusion of cultural traits. They do however, acknowledge a population shift from the IVC area to East Punjab and Gujarat [1999:256]:
“That the archaeological record and significant oral and literature traditions of South Asia are now converging has significant implications for regional cultural history. A few scholars have proposed that there is nothing in the “literature” firmly placing the Indo-Aryans, the generally perceived founders of the modern South Asian cultural traditions(s), outside of South Asia, and now the archaeological record is confirming this…. Within the context of cultural continuity described here, an archaeologically significant indigenously significant discontinuity was a regional population shift from the Indus valley, in the west, to locations east and southeast, a phenomenon also recorded in ancient oral traditions. As data accumulate to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretative paradigms must take place. We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations, which date back to the eighteenth century, that continue to be imposed in South Asian culture history. These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and antisemitism. Surely, as South Asia studies approaches the twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data objectively rather than perpetuate interpretations without regard to the data archaeologists have worked so hard to reveal.”
—
(Physical anthropology has also confirmed the same. See Kenneth Kennedy. And Brian Hemphill.)

#4 (cont. final)
Repeat (Lincoln, Theorizing Myth): “the existence of a language family does not necessarily imply the existence of a protolanguage. Still less the existence of a protopeople, protomyths, protoideology, or protohomeland”

Of course, Neville and others who insist on believing in the Aryans without any proof are free to do so. After all, the Japhetic-Hamitic (”Aryan-Dravidian”) invention is but more christian mythology. And like christianism, it’s a matter of “faith” not facts.

[By the way, geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer has a lot of interesting things to say on the largely Basque (=non-Indo-European) gene pool of Britain. (As opposed to the “Indo-European” Celtic or Germanic/Anglo-Saxon.) Maybe Nevill may find it interesting…
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article...ils.php?id=7817
“Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands”]

For the rest of us, here’s Bruce Lincoln’s Theorizing Myth again (he’s a scholar in Indo-European mythology - a field which he has now discounted for not having any concrete basis).
“Of the available hypotheses, the Stammbaum model is the most popular, but by no means the only one. It ought not to be accepted as long as others exists, and we ought not discard these others unless there is compelling reason to do so. In the absence of such compelling reason, we can REMAIN AGNOSTIC, recognizing the existence of multiple hypotheses and maintaining a particularly skeptical posture toward those with histories of subtexts of racism.”