New Message

[Peter J. Claus]

Date: December 5, 1996 
 
Indology List
indology at Liverpool.ac.uk
 
Dear Members,
 
Robert J. Zydenbos's use of shop signs as an indicator
of language use (the language situation) in Bangalore
and Raja's reply to it make interesting reading not
only for the discussion context in which they were
intended, but also (perhaps) for some of the other
discussions on this LIST over the past year, and
particularly the recurent one on the Indus
Valley/Indigenous Aryan controversy.
 
It suggests great research project in 'ethno-
archeology' assessing the relationship between language
and culture as found in cryptic material cultural
remains.  A really thorough contemporary study might
give useful leads to archeologists 5,000 years from now
on the English Invasion of India.  Surely they would
otherwise come to the conclusion that there was a swift
and massive movement of people from a small island
thousands of miles away in an armada dwarfing anything
the Spanish had amassed only a century earlier.  And
did they proliferate! [Of course it might be argued the
other way around, that the English, coming from India
(where we can see from the signs a language clearly
emerging), invaded the rest of the world...]
 
Peter J. Claus                        
fax: (510) 704-9636
pclaus at csuhayward.edu