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

Sat Jun 20 01:36:36 UTC 2015

To judge from the blurb of the book, this is one of those facile attempts to attack an entire field without offering any theory worth its salt that could take the place of theory informing the field. And again, like many such attempts it erases all kinds of “pesky details”, including the fact that August Wilhelm Pott, who made major contributions to the development of Indo-European comparative phonology, also wrote a detailed rebuttal to Gobineau’s racist mythology of Aryan superiority. (Poliakov didn’t get that right either.)

The people who sinned most in turning Indo-European linguistics into a foil for racist claims of Aryan superiority were not linguists but cultural-studies intellectuals, including Gobineau and Chamberlain, and it is these people that Hitler considered his intellectual ancestors. It is interesting to note that Uriel Weinreich, in his (deservedly) angry Hitler’s professors, cites Eduard Hermann as complaining that German Indo-Europeanists failed to take advantage of the great opportunities that Nazism (supposedly) provided them.

‘nuff said.

Hans Henrich Hock

On 18 Jun 2015, at 02:57, Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle at UCLOUVAIN.BE<mailto:christophe.vielle at UCLOUVAIN.BE>> wrote:

On this mythological topic, probably much more (methodologically) relevant is the book by Jean-Paul DEMOULE, Mais où sont passés les Indo-Européens ? Le mythe d’origine de l’Occident, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 2014, 739 pp.

Le 18 juin 2015 à 09:21, Philipp Maas <philipp.a.maas at gmail.com<mailto:philipp.a.maas at gmail.com>> a écrit :

Those interested in the topiv of the IE-Homeland may find the Article “The Indo-European Homeland fromLinguistic and Archaeological Perspectives<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.annualreviews.org_doi_pdf_10.1146_annurev-2Dlinguist-2D030514-2D124812&d=AwMF-g&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=yKOAMu7Fm_W5kv9CXfjbmb6aWTY6BVQCYZ5TKkB486Q&m=iTIx93E3EzP5IeLTl1yzIClcUsGerLTrUOW0Qb3OUqM&s=zYS0SLOtxjZyry5-m9ZirGfsFd4Zr1atsm1FTochGwo&e=>“ by David W. Anthony and Don Ringe relevant.

Abstract: “Archaeological evidence and linguistic evidence converge in support of an origin of Indo-European languages on the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 4,000 years BCE. The evidence is so strong that arguments in support of other hypotheses should be reexamined".

With kind regards,

Philipp Maas

2015-06-18 4:42 GMT+02:00 Veeranarayana Pandurangi <veerankp at gmail.com<mailto:veerankp at gmail.com>>:

Thanks recognizing it and links for new paper.
We are open for it

On Jun 17, 2015 4:14 AM, "Luis Gonzalez-Reimann" <reimann at berkeley.edu<mailto:reimann at berkeley.edu>> wrote:
Dear all,

As part of this thread, the clear differences between the IVC and the culture of the Rg Veda have been briefly mentioned. Veeranarayana Pandurangi brought up another issue, the genetic evidence regarding the entrance of peoples into India during the Rgvedic period. He attached an article (Metspalu et al.) which, he said, "disproves the influx of people into India."

In a new article called "Population Genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia (Allentoft et al.)," published in Nature only five day ago, the authors conclude that their "analyses support that migrations during the Early Bronze Age is a probable scenario for the spread of Indo-European languages." This goes in the opposite direction of the article by Metspalu et al., and gives strong genetic support to the notion of an influx into the Sub Continent between 3000-1000 BCE.  The authors of the new article used a very large data set for their study.

Here is the abstract.

The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.

And this is the link to the article:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7555/pdf/nature14507.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.nature.com_nature_journal_v522_n7555_pdf_nature14507.pdf&d=AwMF-g&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=yKOAMu7Fm_W5kv9CXfjbmb6aWTY6BVQCYZ5TKkB486Q&m=iTIx93E3EzP5IeLTl1yzIClcUsGerLTrUOW0Qb3OUqM&s=wFMVPgPXTzp48rR9FW-r8qZvQFz0qlKa1Ex1Oi9taJg&e=>

Luis Gonzalez-Reimann

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--
Dr. Philipp A. Maas
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Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
Universität Wien
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Christophe Vielle<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.uclouvain.be_christophe.vielle&d=AwMF-g&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=yKOAMu7Fm_W5kv9CXfjbmb6aWTY6BVQCYZ5TKkB486Q&m=iTIx93E3EzP5IeLTl1yzIClcUsGerLTrUOW0Qb3OUqM&s=CzXq4NgHRMHC37q-Ycjwv7iS4ST9DIrE0QD0K5nZuwI&e=>
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