New Message (aryan invasion)

[Luis Gonzalez-Reimann]

At 06:33 PM 12/15/96 GMT, Girish Beeharry wrote:
>
>Luis Gonzalez-Reimann wrote:
>
>>>Can anyone on the list give details on what is thought
>>>about the 'origins' of Sanskrit please? Apart from the 'Indo-European
language'
>>>connection, are there any other avenues being explored?

>>Well, this is like asking for explanations about the origins of human beings
>>without taking the theory of evolution into account.  Yes, there are other
>>avenues, such as Biblical Creationism, but...

>Sarcasm is, of course, quite unnecessary. The paNDitas I talked to think that
>IE is a pure construction. I want to know the situation amongst western 
>scholars.
>Besides, I don't see what the origin of a system has to with its evolution. 
>Have you heard of chaos? :-)


No sarcasm was intended.  But I do think that asking "western" linguists for
an explanation of the origin of Sanskrit that ignores the Indo-European
language theory is somewhat like asking a "western" biologist to account for
the human species without using the theory of evolution.
My familiarity with chaos theory is irrelevant.

>It is not because a model is very popular that it is de facto true!

On this we can agree.

I'm signing off until January.
Best wishes,

Luis Gonzalez-Reimann
University of California, Berkeley