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

Sat Jun 20 16:13:09 UTC 2015

Let me just focus on one issue, that of the Indo-European theory, that is, precisely, the theory that there was a (dialectally diversified) ancestral or proto-language from which the attested related Indo-European languages can be derived by changes that are observed elsewhere as possible, common, or natural in human languages. This is a theory in the scientific sense, in that the reconstructed proto-language and the postulated changes account for the similarities and differences between the related languages in a principled manner and thus explains them, rather than attributing them to accident (and thereby failing to explain why or how the Indo-European languages are markedly different from the members of other language families such as Afro-Asiatic or Uralic). Opinions may be divided over whether reconstructions approximate some kind of prehistoric reality or are merely convenient ways of capturing the similarities; but even Meillet (who, as you cite him adopts the latter stance) would not question the correctness and explanatory power of this theory.

More than that, Robert Hall Jr. once went to the trouble of applying the comparative method of reconstruction to the Romance languages (not just the major literary languages, but also “dialects” such as Sardinian and Sicilian) and demonstrated that the results come close to what we can infer (from graffiti etc.) about the popular spoken language of the (late) Roman empire. Similarly, the comparative method postulated a series of labiovelars for Proto (or “Common”) Greek, and the decipherment of Mycenaean Greek furnished evidence for precisely this series. Further, the brilliant linguist de Saussure postulated for (pre-)Proto-Indo-European a series of coefficients sonantiques, and when Hittite was shown to be an Indo-European language actual reflexes of (some of) these elements were discovered to exist in that language. Evidence of this sort suggests that reconstruction does in fact approximate (and I use the term “approximate” advisedly) a prehistoric reality.

At any rate, a book that starts with the premise that Indo-European and Indo-European is a “myth” raises questions right from the start. And claiming, as you do, that 'the idea/postulate of a single proto-language "mother" and its sub- proto-languages "daughters" and the subsequent idea of one "proto-people" "father" and its sub- proto-peoples "sons", this is, I think, a very mythical idea which pollutes the scientific explanation of the complex Eurasian prehistory’ (bolding added) does not seem to be the 'the best (/ fairest) manner to present’ the theory and methodology of Indo-European linguistics.

What philologists, linguists, archaeologists, and/or prehistorians do with the lexical results of reconstruction, i.e. the method of “linguistic palaeontology”, is another matter. It should therefore be no surprise that this is an area where even linguists may disagree with each other. For instance, in the case of the (in)famous “beech tree” argument, the claim that a word for ‘beech’ could be reconstructed and that this establishes a Central European origin was questioned by other linguists with cogent counter arguments.

One final comment: Whether we accept the “AIT” or the “OIT”, I believe we have to agree that somebody had to move to spread a group of related languages over such a vast territory. The idea that languages can spread without speakers, voiced by some archaeologists, is empirically indefensible (excpet perhaps in the context of modern communication) and thus violates the uniformitarian principle that should inform all areas of scientific inquiry. (I know, archaeologists working in South Asia are bothered by the idea of an AIT and should be similarly bothered by the OIT, since they find no skeletal or other evidence for such movements at the appropriate chronological time frames; but here as elsewhere much thinking on prehistorical matters is still informed by 19th-century ideas of nation and “people”/“Volk”. We know that Turkish is a Central Asian langague by origin, and we know too that Turkic peoples conquered present-day Turkey; but a recent genomic study shows that only 3.4% of the Turkish population can be genetically traced to Central Asia. The genetic/genomic signature of movements thus can be quite faint and would be expected to be even less robust if instead of some 1000 years we are dealing with a time frame of at least 3500 years.)

Cheers,

Hans Henrich Hock

On 20 Jun 2015, at 04:48, Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be<mailto:christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be>> wrote:

Maybe read the book...
To comment on the basis of a "blurb" or to stress on details or anecdotes taken from the historiographical parts is not the best (/ fairest) manner to present this epistemological work, written by a very serious archaeologist (specialist of the Neolithic period, like Renfrew). His main point is precisely the problem of circularity of the arguments (linguistic + archaeological + genetics) which can be used for hypothesis (or "scenarios") as numerous/different as there are specialists imagining/reconstructing the proto-history beyond the (linguistic / archaeological / genetic) facts.
What is  the "entire field" you talk about, what is the "theory informing the field" ? If it is the idea/postulate of a single proto-language "mother" and its sub- proto-languages "daughters" and the subsequent idea of one "proto-people" "father" and its sub- proto-peoples "sons", this is, I think, a very mythical idea which pollutes the scientific explanation of the complex Eurasian prehistory, which one deserves an interdisciplinary approach without such a priori. As I have methodologically argued elsewhere (with the Indo-European and Semitic linguist Guy Jucquois, within a monograph... of the Journal of Indo-European Studies [1997]), referring to Meillet (i-e * forms are not prototypes, viz. items belonging to some mother-tongue, but the sum of the observed correspondances - metatypes one could say), Trubetzkoy (why beyond the observable antique dialectal diversity should it be postulated the simplicity/unity, etc.) and Pisani inter alios, the Indo-European (like other) comparative linguistics does not need of an "ultimate" oversimple explanation for working. To mistake on the nature of its results is detrimental to the whole field of Indo-European comparativism.
The AITheory is the result of  an illusion (and the OITheory an ideological reaction thereagainst - note that an early version of the latter can already be found in André de Paniagua, Les temps héroïques : étude préhistorique d'après les origines indo-européennes, Paris : E. Leroux, 1901: https://archive.org/details/lestempshroques00panigoog<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archive.org_details_lestempshroques00panigoog&d=AwMF-g&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=yKOAMu7Fm_W5kv9CXfjbmb6aWTY6BVQCYZ5TKkB486Q&m=QyJt6mqdH6r01DlyyPcrLUedV-yl5LTVII4JPWCV47g&s=UUiIV35cYf9uzRB3_NIGpmxfzXyjSvt1KCLTxs2E2LI&e=> - nihil novi sub sole).
Best wishes,

Le 20 juin 2015 à 03:36, Hock, Hans Henrich <hhhock at illinois.edu<mailto:hhhock at illinois.edu>> a écrit :

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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