linguistics (was: Tamil words in English)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

At 05:37 21.02.98 EST, you wrote:
>Hello again everyone,
>
>The rhetoric:  AIT was a clever strategy that served two purposes at the same
>time: 1. To establish that Sanskrit originated outside Indian subcontinent, an
>idea that seemed to take away authorship of Vedas and Sanskrit, and 2. To
>divide the so called Aryans and Dravidians.

There is no attempt to take away the authorship of the Vedas and Sanskrit!
All Western Indologists recognize the Vedic literature as a specifically
Indian creation. What they say, however, is that themes and ideas that we
find in the Vedic literature sometimes are older than the Vedas, and are
shared by other IE peoples. This, of course, may be felt to be provocative
by some Indians who are used to regard the Vedas not as a "historical"
product, but as a phenomenon originating beyond space and time.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse
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