161–170 of 188 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably more like 1000–1500. There is an extensive academic literature on the topic.
I have been reading a LOT on the topic. The date ranges usually from 1700-1200, mostly skewing towards 1700-1500. Mostly they date it based on stylistic reasons and things mentioned in them, that seem to correlate with those timeframes.
Any recommendations for an overview of the field?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a Hindu Nationalist website and a claim. They forcefully fit Indus Script into Sanskrit, to try to outflank the Aryan Invasion Theory. It is not making anywhere but only in Brahmin circles.
Like I said, I am not sold on the idea because it seems like curve fitting to me. However in the spirit of scientific inquiry, we should allow them to share their ideas. Purely based on the content of the website, I fail to see anywhere on the website allusions to Hindu Nationalism. The website contains a paper from acadamia.edu showing their analysis. Lastly the claim about "Brahmin circles" also seems malicious bec…
As a non-linguist, non-Sankrit speaker I can't evaluate those claims, but considering that this script declines as the Indus Valley Civilization fades away, along with the arrival of Indo-European speakers who would be more likely to speak the ancestor language of Sanskrit, I'd be highly skeptical of these claims.
If the script is a full writing system, and I were forced to guess what a future decipherment might find, it wouldn't surprise me to see that the language is related to the Dravidian languages.
Hopefully more examples of the writing will be found so that we may one day know for sure.
I haven't read the papers in detail, but can someone explain how genetics can be used to trace spread of languages? For context, you don't need population movements for a language to spread (it is similar to religion). See this article for a logical explanation: https://medium.com/incerto/a-few-things-we-dont-quite-get-ab...
Well, you can't. In this case I believe they're already pretty confident about who the PIE speaking people are (the "Yanmaya") and this study is about tracking down where they originally lived. And they have shown that they mostly replaced the previous European population rather than transferring the languages to them. David Reich is aggressive about these genetics results though. IIRC I read a NYT story once where h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> events in early 10th century France Were there such events? > How much effort do Not a lot. Since they don’t need to because of writing. As far as we can tell non-literate societies put in massively more effort into preserving oral traditions. Of course it’s debatable but there is some evidence that oral knowledge can be preserved for thousands of years.
> Were there such events? [That is, events in early 10th century France that eventually led to English becoming a sort of pidgin French, full of words like "eventually" and "sort" that didn't exist in Beowulf] There certainly were; quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_Normandy (28 August 0932 – 20 November 0996): > Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end o…
That’s rather indirect. But you do have a point.
However we do know quite a bit about those events? So any English speaker who cares can learn about them.
> How much effort do they typically devote
Well unlike illiterate societies they don’t need to because of books.
> massively less historical knowledge despite that effort.
Well obviously, we can’t really compare them with more literate societies. Then again we’re just very lucky that there was no complete societal collapse in the Greco-Roman world since the 500-600s BC. or so. Some highly literate civilizations like Carthaginians or the Etruscans were effectively entirely erased because nobody bothered to copy their texts).
The problem with oral traditions is that they can preserve knowledge of events that might have happened > 500 years ago (e.g. Homer describes cities, weapons and other aspects of pre Bronze age collapse Mycenaean civilization but it’s all intermixed with contemporary(Greek dark age) stuff and it’s very hard to separate fact from fiction (even ignoring the supernatural bits).
They had agriculture as well as wheels for transportation and pottery. All predating middle eastern civilizations.
They also burned down their own cities every 50-100 years.
This culture was in constant threat from the nomads of the steppe and they learned to live in large groups as protection. This hypothesis is discussed at the end of a recent publication [2: p219-220].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni%E2%80%93Trypillia_cul...
[2] https://pure.tudelft.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/144861667/enig...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been reading a LOT on the topic. The date ranges usually from 1700-1200, mostly skewing towards 1700-1500. Mostly they date it based on stylistic reasons and things mentioned in them, that seem to correlate with those timeframes.
1700–1500 BCE, for the original composition? Any recommendations for an overview of the field?
A bit more classical but thorough is a History of India by Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund.
And the best one to go into detail is “The Rigveda : a guide” by Joel P Brereton & Stephanie W Jameson.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1700–1500 BCE, for the original composition? Any recommendations for an overview of the field?
There is a good book by Romila Thapar, “Early History of India” , for the general overview of early history. You probably want her latest edition, they changed a lot over the years. A bit more classical but thorough is a History of India by Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund. And the best one to go into detail is “The Rigveda : a guide” by Joel P Brereton & Stephanie W Jameson.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Were there such events? [That is, events in early 10th century France that eventually led to English becoming a sort of pidgin French, full of words like "eventually" and "sort" that didn't exist in Beowulf] There certainly were; quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_Normandy (28 August 0932 – 20 November 0996): > Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end o…
> There certainly were That’s rather indirect. But you do have a point. However we do know quite a bit about those events? So any English speaker who cares can learn about them. > How much effort do they typically devote Well unlike illiterate societies they don’t need to because of books. > massively less historical knowledge despite that effort. Well obviously, we can’t really compare them with more literate societ…
What I was trying to get at is that, by the time the Rig Veda was composed, the diaspora from the steppes was over a thousand years into the past. You wouldn't expect the composers of the Rig Veda to necessarily know anything about it to be able to mention it. Instead, you'd expect them to know even less about the migrations of their nation from the steppes than modern English-speakers know about Jarl Rikard. So the fact that the Rig Veda doesn't mention any long migrations is (almost) no evidence that the migrations didn't happen, nor that they were in any sense gradual. Especially since, unlike Homer, it barely mentions historical events at all—it's almost entirely supernatural bits.
has anyone else encountered the Hindu nationalist perspective when discussing this? I've struggled to suggest this is a scientific reality when talking to some otherwise smart people about this and I suspect this is in part to their vulnerability to Hindu nationalist talking points which I assume tend to big up local ancestry instead of an ancestry that connects a lot of different peoples and religions together. Just…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This blind hate against Sanskrit is really sad. Sanskrit is a language that goes beyond Hinduism. Almost all important Buddhist Sutras and influential works like Mulamadhyamakkarika or Jaina works like Tattvartha Sutra are in Sanskrit. Lastly Sanskrit is also the language of many secular works like Siddhanta Shiromani, Sushruta Samhita, Kama Sutra or Abhigyanashakuntalam.
This has nothing to do with the fascist movement trying to force indus into their conception of sanskrit.