Indo-Germanic

[Dominique Thillaud]

>Lars Martin Fosse wrote:
>In spite of the history of the word, "Indo-Germanic" has today, in my
>opinion, been "sanitized". Very few people today would use the word with its
>old ideological connotations. However, I can't see that it is a good term.
>Personally I prefer Indo-European. But I do not feel uneasy if a modern
>scholar uses "Indo-Germanic". I believe the frequency of Fascists among
>Indologists these days is fairly insignificant.

	Sorry, I can't agree. The word "Indo-Germanic" is not sanitized:

1) only scholars make a difference between germanic and german, Iceland is
just a poor 'alibi'.
2) I understand some german peoples are tired to hear their past, but
history is history and can't be changed just by good will. Wait one century
and Hitler will be the same historical product as Napoleon or Gengis Khan,
**not yet**.
3) the beast is still alive, and not just in Europa, and you know it.
4) one of the best french sanscritist, Jean Haudry, is member of the staff
of the 'Front National', specially for ideology.
5) I know 'romantische Deutschland' hated greek and latin words (and Europa
is a greek one), as Tamil hate hindi ones, as greek fascismus hated slavic
and turkish ones. The three have made a 'katharevousa' by an 'ethnic
epuration' of their languages to 'sanitize' it. That fails in Greece and I
like that.
6) Indo-European is a word not marked by nazionalism. The two terms are the
names of the two **subcontinents** where the so-named languages were early
spoken (with a bridge: Anatolia-Iran-Afghanistan). Here -European is not
just for Germany and Indo- is not just for the state named "Bharat" but
contains itself and Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (apologies if
I've forget one). They are non-Indo-European languages in Bharat, yes, but
they are too in Europa.

	Yes, german scholars are free, yes they can use freely the word
"Indo-Germanic", but they must know that is an insult for some other people
in Europa.
	Regards,
Dominique

Dominique THILLAUD (<-o)
Universite' de Nice-Sophia-Antipolis, France
write correctly: french
read easily but write hardly: english, italian, modern greek
read hardly (dictionnary needed): spanish, german, ancient greek, sanskrit