[INDOLOGY] Politics of ICHR

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

<Most list members here already knew Latin and Greek before they embarked
on their philological studies, plus modern languages belonging to at least
two IE branches, say German and French, or Russian and English.>
It is forgotten that Comparative linguistics is a modern subject that
gained consensus in the second half of the 19th century. S.C.Vidya Bhushan
very quickly took up Grimm's law and its corollaries. Why see only one side
of the picture and try to create the impression that that is the true side?
The 'out of India' theory is trying to make a place for it -- I named only
a few of the scholars who took to Comparative linguistics - but it has not
yet got a place for it in philological research. Professor Koenraad's idea
that Indians do not learn French, Russian. Italian and German is, to say
the least, wrong. He should personally verify the situation..
DB.

On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 9:40 PM, <koenraad.elst at telenet.be> wrote:

> Dear listfolk,
>
>
> >< On the Indocentric side, that would imply a primary course of
> comparative-historical linguistics, not studied in India at all >
> >
>
> <This is not fully correct.>
>
> From my experience, it is entirely correct as far as Indo-European is
> concerned.
>
> Yes, of course Indians know a lot more about the internal relations
> between Indian languages. But the Indo-European (and Nostratic etc.)
> perspective, I have not yet seen there. Most list members here already knew
> Latin and Greek before they embarked on their philological studies, plus
> modern languages belonging to at least two IE branches, say German and
> French, or Russian and English. That basis for a comparative perspective is
> already missing in India. Further, the international perspective is also
> rare, and typically stops at the Khyber Pass. That is why among the
> numerous Indian scholars who are convinced that there was no Aryan
> invasion, only a handful will also vocalize its logical implication, viz.
> that if IE was not imported, it must have originated in India and then
> spread westwards. That westward part, how IE came to be spoken in Central
> and parts of Western Asia as well as in Europe, simply doesn't interest
> them, it just doesn't figure in their imagination. That is why, while the
> non-AIT is widespread in India, a real OIT dealing with the IE spread from
> India westward, is limited to a handful of people. Indeed, for most Indians
> concerned, it was flattering when Edwin Bryant coined the term
> "Out-of-India" for the opposite of the AIT.
>
> But the Indian professors who doubt my testimony can of course prove me
> wrong -- by presenting some original comparative linguistic research about
> IE produced by Indians. I have looked for it for years and not found it,
> but I am very fallible and my means are limited. So, you are welcome to
> surprise me.
>
> Long ago, people like SK Chatterji did important and original work, even
> if labouring under a paradigm introduced by the British. (Nevertheless he
> insisted on the kinship of Austronesian and IE, a position hard to
> reconcile with the Pontic homeland theory.) But since then, linguistic
> studies have greatly suffered in India (in Europe too, in the name of
> "relevance" and "budget cuts"; my home university has even abolished the
> course of IE as well as the Indology department). As Sheldon Pollock has
> pointed out, Apabhramsa, MIA and other "useless" linguistic expertise has
> virtually disappeared, and knowledge of Sanskrit has also declined.
>
> But long ago, yes, they had it. Shivakumara Rao's "The Aryan Home" is a
> linguistic study of the homeland question that shows knowledge of the state
> of the art all while defending the OIT. It was written in 1957 (and
> recently republished), and though far from flawless, it could have been
> used as a starting-point for further research, and a pro-OIT case could
> have been built decades ago. But that was not to be.
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Koenraad Elst
>
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