Indo-Aryan invasion

[Lars Martin Fosse]

I haven't got time to comment upon this, but I can't contain myself:

>> To be even more specific, would anyone like to talk about the origins of
>> retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous
>> Aryan" view of retroflexion. I'd also like to know how the "out of India"
>> model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian.

Just as part of the general argument, I would like to supply the information
that both East Norwegian and West Swedish have produced retroflexion. So
have some South Italian dialects. All quite independent of Skt.

>I'm not an OoIer or an AITer, but from what I understand the OoI theorists
>simply claim the relationship is due to "Aryans" migrating out of India
>into Iran.  One bit of evidence they use is an Avestan tradition of
>"homeland" somewhere to the east.

The argument I have seen revolves around the idea that the Iranians refer to
airyanam varsha and thereby mean aryavarta in India. They are, apparently,
unaware of the fact that the Iranians called their *own* country by that
name, and that the modern term for Iran is derived through normal
phonological development from airyanam (the Middle Persian term, I believe,
is Eran).

Lars Martin Fosse


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