Post 6 (Kalyan97):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>http://docs.google.com/View?docID=ajhwbkz2nkfv_620hs8zfc</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That link, hidden away in post 6, is brilliant. Everyone should read the doc at that link. I find it quite intensive reading, but thoroughly worth it. Besides the information, a new and far more useful paradigm is suggested there.
Pasting some excerpts relating to one of the many informative things from there. It's on how many PIE words have been reconstructed (according to their own rules for PIE):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Extremely limited evidence from IEL for historical/cultural studies </b>
Mayuresh Kelkar noted: {quote} âPhilologist and their subset Indo-European linguists look for similarities in language, culture, artifacts etc to trace their ultimate origins. <b>Out of the hundreds of so called "Indo-European" languages ONLY FOUR words can reliably be reconstructed (Melchert 2001). They are horse, yoke, bovine, and most crucially wool (wheel is conspicuously absent from this list).</b> Two of them bovine and yoke are clearly irrelevant. Horse can be eliminated because:
1. There are five different roots for this word in "Indo-European" langauges. So it is not necessary that the PIE speakers (with the usual caveat assuming they ever existed) even knew about the horse or had anything do with its domestication.
2. When it comes to "Indo-Aryan" speakers, horse is not native to their present location in South Asia. But then the supposedly native inhabitants of that land have there own word for horse. Moreover, horse remains have been found in the region.
3. All archaeological evidence indicates that the initial domesticators of this beast were Uralo-Altaic speaking. That only leave ONE word and that is wool. Sheep did not become wooly till much later than the Neolithic period. This could perhaps put a firm date on PIE dispersal. But the sheep were hairy before they become wooly and thus the proto Indo Hittite word *hwln could have meant fleece which later on came to mean wool. Why debate about horses and wheels when these items cannnot even be linked with the supposed IE expansions? {unquote} http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaAr...gy/message/4351 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Melchert, Craig (2001), âCritical Response to the Last Four Papersâ in Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language Family, Robert Drews (ed.), Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Number 38.
âBasing Grand Conclusions On Extremely Limited Evidence.â
âOf the lexical items discussed by Professor Darden, only horse, yoke, bovine, and most crucially wool (wheel is conspicuously absent from this list) clearly meet both criteria (for the validity of reconstructed PIE vocabulary). The word for harness pole is somewhat less secure due to uncertainties about its morphology. Hittite hissa matches Sanskrit isa- (the few Hittite spelling with e have no probative value), but their relationship to Avestan aesa and Greek oi** is anything but clear. The status of the verb to harness must be regarded as quite uncertain (a *ye/ o-present would be a trivial innovation in both Indic and Anatolian).
The limitations on Professor Dardenâs approach lie in the available data. The number of usable vocabulary items from the âsecondary products revolutionâ will be limited in the first place. When we then add the two strict but necessary linguistic requirements cited above, we are inevitable going to restrict the usable data set to a very few items. We are then likely to be left in the uncomfortable situation of basing grand conclusions on extremely limited evidence (Melchert 2001, p. 235, first two parentheses added).â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Melchert provides a devastating blow, surveying the results of cumulative investigations of IEL. Only four semantics have been reliably reconstructed as relatable to indo-european: horse, yoke, bovine, and wool. Unfortunately, the âhorseâ word has five different roots and the region of âSouth Asiaâ where horse remains have been found have their own unique words for this beast; sheep became woolly only later than the Neolithic period and the indo-european word identified becomes a late innovation. The word for yoke has morphology uncertainties. This is the sum and substance of the grand-standing contributions made by IEL so far to history and cultural studies. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Post 12 (Bodhi):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I had onced chanced upon one of her (HP Blavatsky) articles she had published in 1879, which I had posted in AIT thread - Antiquity of Veda. ( http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...indpost&p=57629 )<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->From that post I can't find anything racist about her... Maybe the Oleander paper ( http://www.tobiashubinette.se/asianists.pdf ) just meant to tag her with 'occult' while reserving the 'racialist and nazist' terms to describe Savitri Devi?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Annie Besant did lead it later, much later, along with C.W. Leadbeater, until it was declared as all over by her wonderful protegee Sri Jiddu Krishnamurthy.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The first and, for the most part, the only place I came across the Theosophical Society was in the tv series 'Young Indiana Jones'. It had a very good episode on this, depicting not just Annie Besant but also a young Krishnamurthy - who was shown as very endearing and wise.
Post 14 (Kalyan97):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I would like the members of this forum thread to enlighten us on how IEL will help us in bhaashya (study of languages).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->For me, IEL is useless (and most particularly so in the study of Indian languages). So I'm out, I'm afraid.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>http://docs.google.com/View?docID=ajhwbkz2nkfv_620hs8zfc</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That link, hidden away in post 6, is brilliant. Everyone should read the doc at that link. I find it quite intensive reading, but thoroughly worth it. Besides the information, a new and far more useful paradigm is suggested there.
Pasting some excerpts relating to one of the many informative things from there. It's on how many PIE words have been reconstructed (according to their own rules for PIE):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Extremely limited evidence from IEL for historical/cultural studies </b>
Mayuresh Kelkar noted: {quote} âPhilologist and their subset Indo-European linguists look for similarities in language, culture, artifacts etc to trace their ultimate origins. <b>Out of the hundreds of so called "Indo-European" languages ONLY FOUR words can reliably be reconstructed (Melchert 2001). They are horse, yoke, bovine, and most crucially wool (wheel is conspicuously absent from this list).</b> Two of them bovine and yoke are clearly irrelevant. Horse can be eliminated because:
1. There are five different roots for this word in "Indo-European" langauges. So it is not necessary that the PIE speakers (with the usual caveat assuming they ever existed) even knew about the horse or had anything do with its domestication.
2. When it comes to "Indo-Aryan" speakers, horse is not native to their present location in South Asia. But then the supposedly native inhabitants of that land have there own word for horse. Moreover, horse remains have been found in the region.
3. All archaeological evidence indicates that the initial domesticators of this beast were Uralo-Altaic speaking. That only leave ONE word and that is wool. Sheep did not become wooly till much later than the Neolithic period. This could perhaps put a firm date on PIE dispersal. But the sheep were hairy before they become wooly and thus the proto Indo Hittite word *hwln could have meant fleece which later on came to mean wool. Why debate about horses and wheels when these items cannnot even be linked with the supposed IE expansions? {unquote} http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaAr...gy/message/4351 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Melchert, Craig (2001), âCritical Response to the Last Four Papersâ in Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language Family, Robert Drews (ed.), Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Number 38.
âBasing Grand Conclusions On Extremely Limited Evidence.â
âOf the lexical items discussed by Professor Darden, only horse, yoke, bovine, and most crucially wool (wheel is conspicuously absent from this list) clearly meet both criteria (for the validity of reconstructed PIE vocabulary). The word for harness pole is somewhat less secure due to uncertainties about its morphology. Hittite hissa matches Sanskrit isa- (the few Hittite spelling with e have no probative value), but their relationship to Avestan aesa and Greek oi** is anything but clear. The status of the verb to harness must be regarded as quite uncertain (a *ye/ o-present would be a trivial innovation in both Indic and Anatolian).
The limitations on Professor Dardenâs approach lie in the available data. The number of usable vocabulary items from the âsecondary products revolutionâ will be limited in the first place. When we then add the two strict but necessary linguistic requirements cited above, we are inevitable going to restrict the usable data set to a very few items. We are then likely to be left in the uncomfortable situation of basing grand conclusions on extremely limited evidence (Melchert 2001, p. 235, first two parentheses added).â
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Melchert provides a devastating blow, surveying the results of cumulative investigations of IEL. Only four semantics have been reliably reconstructed as relatable to indo-european: horse, yoke, bovine, and wool. Unfortunately, the âhorseâ word has five different roots and the region of âSouth Asiaâ where horse remains have been found have their own unique words for this beast; sheep became woolly only later than the Neolithic period and the indo-european word identified becomes a late innovation. The word for yoke has morphology uncertainties. This is the sum and substance of the grand-standing contributions made by IEL so far to history and cultural studies. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Post 12 (Bodhi):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I had onced chanced upon one of her (HP Blavatsky) articles she had published in 1879, which I had posted in AIT thread - Antiquity of Veda. ( http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...indpost&p=57629 )<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->From that post I can't find anything racist about her... Maybe the Oleander paper ( http://www.tobiashubinette.se/asianists.pdf ) just meant to tag her with 'occult' while reserving the 'racialist and nazist' terms to describe Savitri Devi?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Annie Besant did lead it later, much later, along with C.W. Leadbeater, until it was declared as all over by her wonderful protegee Sri Jiddu Krishnamurthy.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The first and, for the most part, the only place I came across the Theosophical Society was in the tv series 'Young Indiana Jones'. It had a very good episode on this, depicting not just Annie Besant but also a young Krishnamurthy - who was shown as very endearing and wise.
Post 14 (Kalyan97):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I would like the members of this forum thread to enlighten us on how IEL will help us in bhaashya (study of languages).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->For me, IEL is useless (and most particularly so in the study of Indian languages). So I'm out, I'm afraid.