New Message (aryan invasion)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

At 20:18 11.12.96 GMT, you wrote:
>I'd like to respond to the recent suggestions made by Peter Claus, Luis
>Gonzalez-Reimann, and Lars Martin Fosse, comparing the "aryan invasion"
>with (1) "the English Invasion of India" [Peter], (2) "the spread of
>Spanish in Latin America" [Luis], and (3) "the Indo-European expansion in
>Europe" [Lars Martin].

Let me as an addition to what I wrote myself, and what George Thompson
wrote, add some biographical information. 

I recommend the book called "In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Language,
Archaeology and Myth" by J. P. Mallory, Thames and Hudson, London 1992.
Mallory is himself an archaeologist, but has a good grasp of the linguistic
aspects of the problem. His meticulous presentation of the historical and
archaeological facts should have a sobering effect. For those who want to
delve somewhat deeper into the matter, an introduction to Indo-European (or
comparative) linguistics should be consulted. Those of you who read German
might enjoy reading Oswald Szemerenyi, "Einfuerung in die vergleichende
Sprachwissenschaft", Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1989.
There is also a book by Beekes, in English and published one or two years
ago, but unfortunately I do not have the bibliographical details. Those of
you who are not familiar with comparative linguistics should remember that
this is a branch of scholarship that has been active for more than 150
years. Indo-European languages and the sound-laws that shaped them are
generelly speaking extremely well know, even if scholars may disagree about
a number of details. Defending an "out-of-India" theory would be very rough
going for the scholar who has a good grasp of comparative linguistics. The
best background for defending such a theory seems to be ignorance.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse