[INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at the IHRC

Thu Jun 11 17:44:15 UTC 2015

Dear Hans,

I agree with everything that you have said in this post [including the
"Best wishes and peace to all"!].

But I would add two more points.

The first is that, given its size, IVC may well have been bilingual or
multilingual.

The second is that Vedic is very unlikely to have been one of these
languages.  The picture of IVC that we get from the archaeological remains
of IVC is incompatible with the picture of Vedic culture that we see in
Vedic texts.  IVC is urban, and even urbane, whereas early Vedic is
nomadic.  IVC is rich in fish-signs, whereas fish are never mentioned in
the Rigveda.  Vedic is horse-centric, whereas horses are absent in IVC.
There is also the problem of a large historical gulf between the two
cultures.

Again, best wishes and peacce to all.

George

On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Hock, Hans Henrich <hhhock at illinois.edu>
wrote:

>  So far, serious attempts at decipherment (esp. Parpola) favor a
> Dravidian interpretation. However, no decipherment — whether serious or
> amateur — has so far succeeded in giving readings that are generally
> accepted and/or that go beyond interpretations of some of the signs, but
> not of all (or most) of the putative texts. A good survey up to about 1995
> is Possehl’s *Indus Age: The writing system* (1996). What further raises
> questions is the claim by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel that the Indus symbols
> do not meet the definition of any known writing systems (*The collapse of
> the Indus Script thesis: The myth of a literate Harappan Civilization*,
> Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 2004) and the discussion this
> provocative and provocatively stated thesis has engendered.
>
>  My 2¢ worth: Until materials with a larger number of symbols can be
> found, against which any of the proposed decipherments can be tested, all
> attempts at decipherment will run into the problem of not being verifiable
> by showing that they make it possible to read texts that were not used as
> the original basis for the decipherment.
>
>  Best wishes and peace to all,
>
>  Hans Henrich
>
>
>  On 11 Jun 2015, at 06:37, Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:
>
>  On what do most experts base their opinion that IVC people did not speak
> an IE or IA language? Thanks.
>
>  Howard
>
>   On Jun 11, 2015, at 1:14 PM, Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu> wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu>
> Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 3:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at
> the IHRC
> To: Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
>
>
> Prof. Paturi, Kind sir, 1. I only wished to point out that the IVC was a
> distinct civilization from the speakers of Old Indo- Aryan. I did not mean
> better, just technologically more advanced, and distinct. This are facts
> that need not contain any additional value judgment. 2. I know that IVC
> seals have not been deciphered, but simply wished to point out that in all
> probability, in the opinion of most experts, they did not speak an
> Indo-European or Indo-Aryan language. The only people who believe otherwise
> are the true racists and chauvinists, the Hindutva morons who sadly are in
> a position of great power in your country today.
>
>  So I would recommend that, in a spirit of intellectual integrity and
> calm, you try to discern the intent of someone's comments, before you start
> using heated language, and calling people racists and chauvinists.
>
>  Good day,J
>
>  On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 12:45 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>   Apart from Prof. Howard Resnick's analysis, the following from  Prof.
>> Jesse Knutston also deserves attention:
>>
>> when in fact the IVC was a highly developed civilization, of greater
>> antiquity than the Veda, which did not speak an Indo-Aryan or
>> Indo-European
>> language. To attribute the IVC cultural achievements to the speakers of
>> Vedic is extremely racist and chauvinistic.
>>
>> 1. 'IVC was a highly developed Civilization' has the following
>> assumptions : a. civilizations are superior to non-civilizational cultures.
>> b. IVC has that superiority of being a civilizational culture. This is
>> confirmed by the expression 'IVC cultural acievements'
>>
>> 2. 'which did not speak an Indo-Aryan or Indo-European language' has this
>> assumption: The language spoken by the IVC people is clearly, undisputedly
>> known through the decipherment of the seals and other such 'written'
>> evidences.
>>
>> Assumption under 1. is racist, evolutionist and has urban chauvinism.
>>
>> Assumtion under 2. is in contradiction with the fact that the language of
>> the IVC speakers is still under dispute and not yet clearly established.
>> --
>>   Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
>> Hyderabad-500044
>>
>>  _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>> http://listinfo.indology.info
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__listinfo.indology.info_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=yKOAMu7Fm_W5kv9CXfjbmb6aWTY6BVQCYZ5TKkB486Q&m=aSFCPO2fix2uFfAactyr_Sz58BMfGyPazY04c1cAzos&s=O-QVl-aPvC1THmnr9cDlb6FEk9LSZZX7vij33bTvUaI&e=>
>> (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)
>>
>
>
>
>  --
>  Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
> Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
> Languages and Literatures
> University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
>  452A Spalding
>
>
>
>  --
>  Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
> Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
> Languages and Literatures
> University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
>  452A Spalding
>   _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20150611/10b0f574/attachment.htm>