[INDOLOGY] INDUS CIVILISATION.

Wed Feb 1 21:05:42 UTC 2017

Dear All, (I see that my message (below)  has not gone through on Jan. 31, thus here repeated:

———————

Leaving aside long standing personal grudges, however unfounded  (George Thompson against Steve Framer, Bryan Wells against me). — For your amusement: Wells has recently invited me to his planned online Indus ”conference,”  to be held in March...) —
I  rather wish to point out some incorrect  and incomplete statements in this thread:

* “Munda" spoken in the Indus Civilization.

I have never written that. Rather, I was speaking of "Para-Munda”:  as the substrate words in the Ṛgveda (and many more in later Vedic) have some characteristics of the Munda languages, such as the extensive use of prefixes;  but these words hardly show infixes, another characteristic of Munda languages. Thus only “Para-Munda”.
 (See my 1999 paper: www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf>)_<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf_>

Perhaps I should have used another name. But I expect(ed) that scholars, such as on this list (LOL), could or should actually *read* what was  written.

* Kuiper’s list  (1991, Aryans in the RV) :

has some 380 words that he regarded as non Indo-Aryan, thus as a local substrate in early Indo-Aryan, i.e.  in that of the Ṛgveda (RV).
This list of substrate words  constitutes 2-4% of the RV words, depending on evaluation, which is rather surprising for a hieratic text.
In this list he did not yet  deal with the “bilingual” poet’s hymn RV 10.106 (as detailed in one of his very last papers).

See my summary of Kuiper’s  list (with English meanings, and RV 10.105, added) at www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/kuiper.pdf<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/kuiper.pdf>

* Looking at that list it is clear that the vast majority in *not* based on any Dravidian language. (The extensive use of prefixes — such as ka- ki- kər-,  or tila :: jar-tila,  alone would preclude that).

* Burrow, who had early on championed a Dravidian substrate in the Ṛgveda, later on retracted almost all of his 25 or so Dravidian etymologies for RV words.

I took a look at them in my 1999 paper (www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf>)_<http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Substrates_MT1999.pdf_> and found that only a handful Dravidian words appear in the LATE Ṛgveda.

That means: in the greater Panjab area that overlaps with the northern part of the Indus Civilization. Unfortunately we do not have  similar early data for Sindh.  And, the Sindhi language has not yet been investigated for this purpose. (All bibliographic details  are found in the 1999 paper).

* It is thus unreasonable to think of early Dravidian as the common language of the Indus area (pace Parpola et al.), and as the underlying language of the so-called "Indus script”. Rather, we have to explain how and why a few Dravidian loan words appeared in the late RV.

*  Finally, as Andrew Ollett  has unfortunately started this discussion based on a useless pop article, here some more websites of the same ilk, with similar assertions — many of them, such as some ‘conclusions' based on computational linguistics refuted by Richard Sproat for long—  and with the usual  (often nationalistic) misrepresentations. Have fun!

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14371450/indus-valley-civilization-ancient-seals-symbols-language-algorithms-ai
https://www.scribd.com/document/337697009/Wells-collaborative-website

https://in.news.yahoo.com/jallikattu-hindu-dravidian-indus-valley-030055585.html

M. Witzel

On Jan 30, 2017, at 10:10 PM, Steve Farmer via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:

George Thomson wrote, on the amateurish pop science article on the so-called “Indus script” posted on the List:

Yes, this was a superficial article.  But it's comparison of Farmer to Trump is not entirely wrong.   Those two do share so many character traits that it is conceivable that they may be born twins, culturally speaking.

When I pointed out the egregious ad hominem nature of this remark, he responded:

Dear Steve,

You think too much that I am interested in you.  This is not about you, it is about Vedic.

Well, when you compare me to Donald Trump, plus all the other nasty ad hominem comments you’ve directed at me over the last 12 years on this List or others, it’s pretty reasonable to say that it has a SOMETHING to do with your personal animosity towards me. We last saw each other I think nearly 15 years briefly at a conference at Harvard. It is really time to stop all these public attacks on me.

Anyway, those attcks have nothing to do with my scholarship, let alone anything “Vedic.”

What do Vedic traditions have to do with Indus symbols, which were long many centuries before Vedic culture appeared on the scene? Nothing, unless you cave in to Hindutva political mythology, which of course you don’t! :)

The 2004 paper on the nonlinguistic nature of Indus symbols written by Michael Witzel, Richard Sproat, and I was a joint collaboration — not my sole production -- and Michael and Richard and I, still very close friends of mine, remain committed to every major claim we jointly made in that paper 13 years ago.

Take a look again at our paper, which you yourself strongly endorsed when it first came out. It certainly does NOT have anything to do with Vedic traditions— except in its discussion of Hindutva attempts to conflate Indus and Vedic traditions that no serious researcher in the world takes seriously:

www.safarmer.com/fsw2.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.safarmer.com_fsw2.pdf&d=CwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=tFXzIbyKS2C0TpVqKsMrj46qwsAermBN5wzaDe51So0&m=-TpwJsJ81r50ZU8tnlK9DQsyT7b1LsB2H0F3F-CY0aM&s=LtgQg3rk2NLb9P7lGFUvYe5cGZ8-Q-uylLtjEQP7cW0&e=>

Note also that  there isn’t a single polemical or ad hominem comment in the entire article — just lots of evidence that ended up embarrassing a lot of people, since in terms just of readership, it is by far the most read and discussed article ever written on the Indus Valley. Hence all the nasty polemics.

I hate to have to respond to you on the Indology List, but when someone compares me absurdly to tthe most dangerous human on the planet, it seems reasonable to respond, though it wastes needless time.

Thanks and over and out -
Steve

On Jan 30, 2017, at 6:03 PM, George Thompson <gthomgt at gmail.com<mailto:gthomgt at gmail.com>> wrote:

Dear Steve,

You think too much that I am interested in you.  This is not about you, it is about Vedic.

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 6:41 PM, Steve Farmer via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
Dear George,

You write about the pop article on the so-called Indus script posted on Indology:

...it's comparison of Farmer to Trump is not entirely wrong.   Those two do share so many character traits that it is conceivable that they may be born twins, culturally speaking.

Could I ask you again — and the moderators too — to stop your repeated ad hominem attacks on me on this and other scholarly Lists. Those attacks have gone on now repeatedly for 12 years — to 2005! — and have nothing to do with Indology or scholarship.

And they certainly don’t have anything to do with the so-called Indus script issue. You in fact endorsed the findings that Michael and Richard and I published on the nonlinguistic nature of Indus symbols in 2004. That paper has now been downloaded over two million times since it was published and Science magazine called attention to it late that year.

More copies are still being downloaded of it 13 years later, which suggests something about its impact. You were even thanked in our acknowledgements of the paper, as you’ll see on page 49 of the paper, at the head of a List of 17 others. :)

http://www.safarmer.com/fsw2.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.safarmer.com_fsw2.pdf&d=CwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=tFXzIbyKS2C0TpVqKsMrj46qwsAermBN5wzaDe51So0&m=-TpwJsJ81r50ZU8tnlK9DQsyT7b1LsB2H0F3F-CY0aM&s=LtgQg3rk2NLb9P7lGFUvYe5cGZ8-Q-uylLtjEQP7cW0&e=>

In any event, could I politely ask you to end your ad hominem attacks on me on the Indology List, on which I’ve certainly never said personal about you? If you want to discuss something substantial about the Indus symbols, I’m happy to talk about it, although nothing new or interesting really has been said about this topic now for many years — and the current research I’m doing is in far different topics?

Peace! Let personal bygones go….. :)

Best wishes,
Steve Farmer

Dear List,

This paper that Andrew has passed on to us has many flaws, and these flaws are not just a  matter of personal animosity.  The paper certainly should have included reference to Asko Parpola's book, and all of his previous works on this topic. It should have included reference to other competent philologists and linguists as well.   Witzel is mentioned only in association with Farmer and Sprout, but he has done much significant work elsewhere on substrate languages in early Vedic [especially our oldest text the RV, where we find many foreign, non-Indo-European words [see Kuiper's famous list of some 380 foreign words in the RV ].  Because of these sorts of studies, done by philologists and linguists, we have reasonably good confidence to assert that Dravidian has a good chance of being the language of IVC as Asko argues, because there is good evidence that it was there, well before the RV].   There is also a reasonably good chance  that a Munda language was there as well, a language possibly spoken in IVC, because we have good evidence that these two language families were present in the area occupied by the IVC at the dates when it flourished.    By the time the Vedic clans arrived in this area the IVC  was  long dead.  But some IVC words and ideas may have survived, though rarely, in the Rgveda.

Among specialists in the RV , RV 10.106 is generally considered to be the most difficult hymn in the RV [see , for example Geldner, Renou, and most recently Jamison & Brereton).  Kuiper has even suggested that this hymn was composed by a bilingual Rgvedic poet; if he was bilingual, we need to find out what his second language was].  Philologists with expertise in the languages that are known or are likely to have been present in the IVC area during its flourishing period need to examine  these foreign words in the RV.

Another factor not much discussed here is that IVC  was a huge territory, and therefore it is likely that it was a multilingual culture.  It is possible therefore that the IVC sign system was a non-linguistic sign-system, as suggested  by Farmer, Sprout, & Witzel, a long time ago, that was meant to communicate to many linguistic communities through visual rather than verbal signs .

Yes, this was a superficial article.  But it's comparison of Farmer to Trump is not entirely wrong.   Those two do share so many character traits that it is conceivable that they may be born twins, culturally speaking.

For those who wonder about Bryan Wells who claims to be an epigrapher: is he really an epigrapher? It may well  be that he doesn't actually claim to be one, and that this poorly informed  journalist didn't know what the term actually means.  Bryan Wells, as far as I know, has fruitfully studied the IVC signs for a long time, but I have never seen any evidence that he has significant knowledge of any of the languages that may have been or were in play in IVC at the relevant time-period.

List members who are seriously interested in this question should read Parpola, Kuiper, Witzel, et al.  The computer models discussed in this article need to be linked to relevant languages.

My two-cents.

George Thompson

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Dermot Killingley via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
I read the piece quickly, and found it interesting how Trump has made himself the absolute
standard of mendacity. But I don't think anyone who, however mistakenly, has evidence to
support their statements, should be compared to him.

Dermot

On 27 Jan 2017 at 8:07, Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY wrote:

I hesitate to pass this popular-science treatment of the question along, since it is tinged with
some personal animosity, but this just appeared two days ago:

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14371450/indus-valley-civilization-ancient-seals-symbols
-language-algorithms-ai<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.theverge.com_2017_1_25_14371450_indus-2Dvalley-2Dcivilization-2Dancient-2Dseals-2Dsymbols-2Dlanguage-2Dalgorithms-2Dai&d=CwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=tFXzIbyKS2C0TpVqKsMrj46qwsAermBN5wzaDe51So0&m=-TpwJsJ81r50ZU8tnlK9DQsyT7b1LsB2H0F3F-CY0aM&s=TDhzu_TVVyzYtVK2NvSrzdmzzp1IyF-6LYNYvoPz7qY&e=>

2017-01-27 6:37 GMT-05:00 Asko Parpola via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
    In my book "The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization",
    New York: Oxford University Press, 2015,
    I present manifold evidence for the Dravidian affinity of the Harappan language.

    With best regards,

    Asko Parpola
    Professor Emeritus of Indology,
    University of Helsinki, Finland

    On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:31 AM, Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY
    <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info> > wrote:

    There is no consensus about which language or languages the
    Harappan (Indus Valley Civilization) people spoke.
    The script is considered by most to be logo-syllabic, not
    heiroglyphic.
    Farmer, Witzel, Sproat consider it to be a sign system rather than a
    script associated with any particular language.
    Best,
    Dean
    Dr. Dean Michael Anderson
    East West Cultural Institute
    Austin, Texas, USA
    Pondicherry, India

    From: alakendu das via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
    To: indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2017
    11:44 AM Subject: [INDOLOGY] INDUS CIVILISATION.
    To All, While going through some books on Indus valley civilisation
    , I failed to find out one answer. Though the Harappana & Mohenjo
    daro script has been inferred as more of a Hieroglyphic type, what
    dialect/language did they speak ? Would love to be enlightened on
    this point. ALAKEND DAS.
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