Tamil words in English

[Jacob Baltuch]

Re: this discussion, on a more serious note maybe, has
there been any impartial examination of the "Out of India"
scholarship by Western scholars? The anecdotal evidence
seems to be that its overall level is pretty amateurish,
but surely there must be all kinds. Isn't there anything
useful that can be gotten out of it? I seem to recall
someone was writing a dissertation on that topic (Edwin
Bryant?) but it was more than a year ago and I have heard
nothing since. Is that dissertation now completed?

To be fair it should be recognized that many important
questions on the expansion of IE languages still remain.
For example, regarding the IE expansion into Europe there
are two main theories, that of a Neolithic expansion
(Renfrew) and that of a Bronze Age expansion (Gimbutas,
Mallory, etc.) Also the proposals for the center of
dispersal are even more varied: Anatolia, the Balkans,
the southern Ukraine, Central Asia and more.

One thing which is intriguing to me was that the picture for
India has not changed even while new proposals have appeared
for Europe. Can anyone briefly explain why a theory like
Renfrew came up with for Europe is simply not tenable (not
even Renfrew proposes it) in the case of India, whereas it
is, if not correct, at least not considered outright lunatic
for Europe?