Rajaram unrepentent!

[Robert Zydenbos]

Am 26 Sep 2000, um 8:18 schrieb Swaminathan Madhuresan:


<color><param>7F00,0000,0000</param>>  Dear Dr. Farmer,


<color><param>7F00,0000,0000</param>>  Learnt from your web URL about the computer-enhanced version of

> "horse" in the Indus seal by Sri Rajaram. It is interesting that he

> is determined to show the world that the Indus folks used "horses".

>

>  At the same time, why is he denying with authority about the >

> Dravidian language family altogether?


</color>Presumably because it does not suit his view of India and the

world, which is a brand of religious fundamentalism (cf. also what

S. Farmer mentioned yesterday: the "spiritualization and

mythologizing of national history"). He believes that Indian identity

depends on the question of Aryan origins, and that the Vedas are

"the wellspring" of Indian cultural identity (and that nobody in India's

past has ever questioned this). If we start from such premises, it is

not entirely illogical to think, for instance, that if Dravidian speakers

are Indians, then the Dravidian languages must be nothing more

than at best a sub-family of Indo-European. But the premises are of

course faulty. You see, for all this contempt of linguistics, we have

serious reason to assume that Rajaram has not much of a foggy

clue what linguistics (or perhaps the humanities in general) are

about. We have at least one publication in which he demonstrates

that he does not know the meaning of the word "Indo-European":

see


http://www.angelfire.com/in/zydenbos/laermendepolemik.html


with more links.


<color><param>7F00,0000,0000</param>> N. S. Rajaram writes, "empirical data provides no support for the

> existence of Dravidian languages independent of Sanskrit." [...]


</color>Has he mentioned what his criterion is for "empirical data"? My

hunch is that he has not.


RZ
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