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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Joshua Jonathan (talk | contribs) at 10:56, 15 September 2021 (Undid revision 1044446810 by 75.188.105.87 (talk)not WP:FORUM). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Notes

focus on part two 76. Mandavilli, Sujay Rao Part One http://www.scribd.com/doc/27103044/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One Part Two http://www.scribd.com/doc/27105677/Sujay-Npap-Part-Two Part One http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324506 Part Two http://ssrn.com/abstract=1541822 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sujayrao2009 (talk • contribs) 4 may 2010 (UTC)

Romani and other associated groups

Should the Romani, Dom, Lom, Domba, and other similar groups also be listed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.61.12.207 (talk) 19:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cite someone who actually uses the term "indo-aryan"

This article is very bad. The main source is an article by Davis Reich (2006). This article doesn't even mention the term Indo-Aryan, so you cannot cite it for statements about the word Indo-Aryan. (On the other hand it uses the term info-european)

Furthermore Indo-aryan is a linguistic term and David Reich who is a geneticist, so even if he used the term he would still be bad source. The article needs a complete rewrite based on sources that actually use the term "indo-aryan" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.23.239.68 (talk) 19:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point. "Indo-Aryan peoples" seems to refer to the historical Indo-Aryans, while present-day South Asian Indo-European language speakers are not "Indo-Aryans." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
By that logic the Dravidian peoples are not "Dravidians" either since moderns received gene flow from Indo-Aryan speakers and others. Same can be said that modern Germanic peoples are not ancient Germans, since they mixed with the Celtics, Slavs and Finno-Ugrians in the past. The Germanic peoples article also have a similar Germanic languages article, mostly dealing with modern languages. Ditto for Iranian peoples and Iranian languages. Languages seem to guide the ethnic identifier of the people groups. I don't understand why this particular article have to be a special case. Agreed that the article can be expanded and properly sourced. Pinging @Austronesier, Anupam, and Kautilya3:. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have voiced my position on this in umpty similar discussions: indivdual ethnic groups often are defined by the distinct language which they speak – that's the concept of an ethnolinguistic group. However, a commonplace fallacy is then to employ the linguistic affiliation of the language of this ethnic group as a tool to assign the latter to a bigger grouping. E.g., the Germans are a "Germanic people" by that reasoning because they speak a Germanic language, even though culturally, they more closely align with their neighbors to the west (e.g. French) and the east (Czechs/Poles) than with Icelanders. Many "FOO peoples" (FOO being an established language family or subgroup) here in WP are spurious and have become a dumping ground (or WP:COATRACK) for all kinds of material once the topic has been vaguely defined. Cushitic peoples is a prime example. And what makes me fly through the roof is when such a spurious collection of diverse ethnic groups is called an "ethnolinguistic group"; that's abysmal terminological revisionism.
My suggestion is: per default, there is no such thing as "FOO peoples" only because they speak languages of the FOO family. Unless modern reliable sources cover "FOO peoples" as a coherent topic (and NB not just as a convenient tool for categorizing without deeper implications). It's a completely different thing when shortly after the diversification of a parent language their speakers still formed a recognizable cultural entity: that's the historical Indo-Aryans which Joshua Jonathan referred to and which of course are a well-defined topic. But after three millenia of cultural convergence and language shifts in South Asia, ethnicities cannot naively be lumped together just based on a language family.
Some concepts of wider groupings are genuine, such as the Iroquois, who spoke related languages and also were culturally/politically aligned; some are at the borderline between genuine ethnic proximity and ideology, such as the Slavs (ask Czechs and Croats, and then Russians and Serbs, and you will see that such concepts aren't necessarily mutual). Sometimes such concepts are adopted by marginalized ethnicities as a tool for self-empowerment (e.g. modern Celts, or Uralic-speaking peoples in Russia). But in every case, it is not WP editors who decide the "FOO peoples must exist because there's FOO languages"; only reliable sources from modern scholarship can do the job. And even in the presence of such sources, there is the question of NPOV and due weight. We had endless discussions about this in Talk:Germanic peoples or in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Romance peoples. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pinging me here User:Fylindfotberserk. I agree with your comment. Individuals who speak Indo-Aryan languages can be said to be a part of an Indo-Aryan ethnic group. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 15:32, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This debate illustrates precisely why I have templated it as WP:OR. Unless there are some decent sources coming within the next month or so, which frame the topic as described here, I intend to nominate it for WP:TNT. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the significance of the concept "Indo-Aryan peoples" in scholarly sources:
against
The results for "Indo-Aryan peoples" lie in the magnitude of those for Romance peoples (479 results), a page which was redirected to Romance languages after an AfD.
And then there's
  • Indo-Aryans (5.660 results) Wow. That's WP:N. But then, if you browse through the results, you will find that most sources that discuss ancient Indo-Aryans. This might hold for the above results too. Let's filter -ancient:
  • Indo-Aryans - ancient (974 results) Still a lot. And the majority of them seem to cover modern "Indo-Aryans". I see a lot of medical papers there which use "Indo-Aryans" as a shorthand for "Indo-Aryan speaking ethnic groups" for bookkeeping purposes, but without deeper implications. And I see a source which lists "Dalits, Indo-Aryans and Tibeto-Burmans" (oops, honi soit qui mal y pense). That's my input.
Proposal The primary topic of this page is the historical Indo-Aryans. The lede should reflect this, and maybe Joshua Jonathan can volunteer for a text proposal. In a second paragraph we could say:
  • In a wider sense, speakers of modern Indo-Aryan languages are also (occasionally) referred to as "Indo-Aryan peoples".
The list of modern Indo-Aryan speaking ethnic groups could remain here, or split out into a page List of Indo-Aryan speaking peoples. –Austronesier (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree: The term Indo Aryan is definitely still used for the modern Indo Aryan language speaking populations of South Asia[1], this is a whole mess, we could mention the historical Indo Aryans in a section given to them in this article. I would rather restore to status quo and recommend you guys to create an RFC for a huge and significant change like this which will surely create a lot of controversy Xerxes931 (talk) 12:14, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you confusing this page with Indo-Aryan languages? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • But we do say that "Indo-Aryan" can be used as a term for present-day speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. But for a topic, there should be more to it. Where are the sources which attribute exclusively shared common characteristics to these contemporary ethnic groups beyond shared linguistic affiliation? –Austronesier (talk) 13:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Where does this EB-article on Indo-Aryan languages speak of IA-speaking peoples as "Indo-Aryan peoples"? It rather illustrates Austronesier's point: conflating lanuage and ethnic identity. I speak Dutch, but it does not mean I belong to a "Germanic people." My father is Gronings (Dutch Saxonian), my mother partly Frysian; the language-border run between their childhood homes, which were only two kilometers apart. Believe me, Frysians and Groningers strongly cling to their ethnolinguistic identity, which is not Germanic. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:00, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment But "Indo-Aryan" is described as a linguistic group than actual ethic or racial group. Witzel too says that half of the clans in Vedas have no Indo-Aryan etymology but they are still presented together with Indo-Aryans in forming Vedic culture.[2] So even if we were to limit the article to historical context, still, the article would look like fork of many other articles. Majority of scholarly sources only talk about linguistic relevance and as such I don't have issue with redirecting this article to Indo-Aryan languages. Dhawangupta (talk) 12:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Map of Indo-European migrations according to the Kurgan hypothesis

the Jat 'are now described as members of the Indo-Aryan people widely distributed in north-western India'...

Likewise, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1983, references the:

Sindhi, an Indo-Aryan people living in Sind Province, Pakistan.

Since we have reliable sources that use the term for modern-day ethnic groups who speak Indo-Aryan languages, there is no reason to redefine the scope of this article. If we did that, then related articles such as Iranic peoples would have to be rewritten. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 14:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The lead now mentions both, the second sentence being "The term is also used for contemporary ethnolinguistic groups speaking modern Indo-Aryan languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European language family." Regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:10, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see how the oppose-!votes state anything that is contrary to my proposal and Joshua Jonathan's implementation. They seem to oppose the strictly narrow definition by Kautilya3, which is not realized in the current version. We could definitely say more about modern Indo-Aryans rather than just that they speak Indo-Aryan languages, if there are reliable sources that present such material. Are there entries "Indo-Aryans" or "Indo-Aryan peoples" in People of India and EB, and what to they state? A cataloging device alone does not a topic make. –Austronesier (talk) 16:16, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you User:Joshua Jonathan and User:Austronesier. I think that the lede looks much better now as both historical and contemporary definitions are discussed. Keep up the good work you're doing. I might suggest that the lede of this article, when compared to other Indo-European ethnolinguistic groups, such as the Iranic people or the Slavic people, all of whom descend from the Indo-European migrations, is very short. It is certainly worthy of expansion. If others here aren't up to it, I can try to help. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 17:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Anupam: Sounds good, maybe you can work "bottom-up", i.e. expand it in the "History"-section first (summarized from the main article Indo-European migrations), and then condense it to the lede. It's a rather short article, so we don't have follow MOS:INTRO slavishly, but the more substance we have in the main sections, the better we can defend a consensus version of the lede against drive-by changes. –Austronesier (talk) 18:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how he can. The term "Aryan" changed meaning in 700 BC. It stopped being an ethnic term. There were no "Aryans" afterwards, until the British came and reinvented them. So, yeah, maybe the Encyclopedia Britannica continues to propagate colonialist fraud, but nobody else does. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Kautilya3: Since Anupam mentioned Indo-European migrations, I thought he meant to expand it backwards on the time axis. That's feasible. But not in the opposite direction. –Austronesier (talk) 11:35, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Xerxes931. It would be unwise to treat the subject as more of a historical phenomenon than the current one. The article has remained this way for more than a decade and the scope shouldn't be changed overnight. As such, I also agree that article should be reverted to this version and we should start an RfC before we get to change the scope of the article. Sanjoydey33 (talk) 18:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If the page is reverted to the status quo ante, we must address Kautilya3's OR-issue first and provide reliable sources first which cover contemporary Indo-Aryans not just as a definition, but as as a topic. This is the homework to be done prior to an RfC (WP:RFCBEFORE). –Austronesier (talk) 19:13, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The scope hasn't changed; there's no need to revert. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:27, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Austronesier: Anupam's citations make it clear that this is a topic, being applied to the people of the northern Indian subcontinent. Now, the current lead is clearly misleading as described by both Foxhound03 and Xerxes931. Where we can find "reliable sources that refer to the Indo-Aryan speakers of Central Asia as Indic"? Did all of the "indo-aryan" people moved from Central Asia to South Asia? The current lead really makes no sense and does not rely on facts. Read this source for the problems associated with this term as a whole. I am absolutely in support of restoring this stable version and conduct RfC is needed. But unilateral edits go against the spirit of WP:CON. Sanjoydey33 (talk) 12:55, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Sanjoydey33: No, Anupam's sources have aptly documented that the term "Indo-Aryan peoples" is used to mean "modern ethnic groups speaking Indo-Aryan languages", which is we why include this defintion in the lead. But it's nothing more than that. Show me a modern scholarly source (yours is a century old) that treats them as a full topic beyond a handy defintion for practical indexing purposes (as e.g. in some medical papers from Anupam's survey). Present me source that mentions just one single non-linguistic defining feature shared by all ethnic groups speaking Indo-Aryan languages to the exclusion of all ethnic groups speaking other languages. And then we have topic. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Xerxes931. It would be unwise to undermine the contemporary population under this ethnolinguistic group. The classification of these languages as Indo-Aryan is not controversial at all and does not require us to use words such as "were" in the first sentence of the lede. A change like this could be done to any other articles and this can have a bad effect, especially when considering Turkic people, for example, it wouldn't make sense and would confuse everybody by talking about North/East Eurasians in the past tense in the lede from Siberia whilst mentioning the modern day people from Turkey and Central Asia right at the bottom. This isn't at all helpful. Won't work there, doesn't work here. Foxhound03 (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Could you provide sources which explicitly define the present-day IA-language speakers as "Indo-Aryan people": "Indo-Aryan people are...", akin to the definition at Turkic peoples? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:10, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Indo-Aryan peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of people that speak diverse Indo-Aryan languages and currently live predominantly in the South Asian region." [3], also simply using the dictionary, "a member of one of the peoples of the Indian subcontinent speaking an Indo-European language" Merriam-Webster, Indo-Aryan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxhound03 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Twitter? Serious? Who's Dragunov? A dictionary definition is also sub-standard. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there's a dictionary definition. We already acknowledge the usage. But where's the source that presents a longer story which we can tell here? Otherwise, we have a dictionary definition without content, which is the classic case for a redirect to a main topic. –Austronesier (talk) 11:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know how I managed to copy and paste the wrong link but here is the actual: [4] Foxhound03 (talk) 12:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks but this is not a scholarly source. It starts with the wrong usage of "ethnolinguistic group"; that's a red flag and reeks of WP:CITOGENESIS, since WP (and maybe Reddit) is the main place where this nonsense terminology is rampant. And hey, there's JJ's map in there LOL. An ethnolinguistic group is an ethnic group (NB: singular) that is defined by a common language (NB: singular; language, not language family). Indo-Aryan speaking peoples comprise dozens of ethnolinguistic groups.
And the article cites Reich: "Everybody is mixed in India without exception", which clearly does not come in support of the simplistic concept of speakers of modern Indo-Aryan languages being the descendants of the ancient Indo-Aryans. –Austronesier (talk) 16:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - at second thought, while the term "Indo-Aryan people" arguably is being used for both the historical Indo-Aryan people and the present-day Indo-Aryan speaking ethnolinguistic groups, there already are two articles on the historical Indo-Aryans, namely Aryan and List of Rigvedic tribes. Yet, Aryan directs back to Indo-Aryan people, under the label "Indo-Aryan speakers" (which might be an appropriate name for this article, "Indo-Aryan people"). List of Rigvedic tribes overlaps with the section "List of historical Indo-Aryan peoples," but is probably not exactly the same. I'm fraid we're stuck in a circle here... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Could we consider moving the article for contemporary Indo-Aryan speakers into a page simply titled "Indic peoples"? Foxhound03 (talk) 09:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why "Indic peoples"? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Harder to find reliable sources that refer to the Indo-Aryan speakers of Central Asia as Indic, can be an easier way to differentiate them to a degree. Foxhound03 (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another Comment: There is a heavy oppose here by multiple users, furthermore the solution suggested which would mention that it refers to the current inhabitants of the Subcontinent(who speak the according language) by Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! was also removed for whatever reason. I am genuinly asking you guys to restore to the initial version per WP:Status quo and open an RFC.--Xerxes931 (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly was removed? The lead now says

Indo-Aryan peoples refers to both the pastoralist Indo-Aryan people migrating from Central Asia into South Asia in the second millennium BCE, introducing the Proto-Indo-Aryan language,[1][2] as to contemporary ethnolinguistic groups speaking modern Indo-Aryan languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European language family.

Both referents can be supported by WP:RS, but Austronesier and Kautilya3 are correct about their objections against using "Indo-Aryan people" as an ethnic marker for present-day people. The historic Indo-Aryan people ceased to exist a long time ago, and I'll bet that the present-day usage is of a very modern origin, and preferred by nationalists. That is, there was no 'shared identity' between these groups before the 19th century. As far as I know, jati is the primary identity-marker for Indian people, not "Indo-Aryan" versus Dravidian. Note also that the historic designation is sourced, and can be sourced by even more, very solid, WP:RS; there's absolutely no way that designation will be removed. If the association with present-day people is so obvious, it should be easy to find WP:RS which explain this categorization, rather than just apply it. Maybe Romila Thapar (1996), The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics? On a related note: Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel, Jaya Menon, Kai Friese and Razib Khan (2019), Which of Us are Aryans? Rethinking the Concept of Our Origins.
NB: Austronesier correctly noted that "Indo-Aryan" (together with Dravidian, Dalit and Tibeto-Burmese) is used in medical research; would be interesting if we can find a source which explains the usage of these labels in this context. And the methodological soundness; it reminds of the biological associations of "Aryan" with "race," an outdated usage as we all know. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous Aryanism

Indigenous Aryanism does have mainstream scholarship and only some support is ideologically driven (just like how some support for the Indo-Aryan migration theory into India is ideologically driven). Can I delete the following statement:

"Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven and has no support in mainstream scholarship." Shakespeare143 (talk) 02:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No you can't, for all the reasons explained before. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:47, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The other 3 editors on the Indo-Aryan Migrations page and I elaborated on how the Out of India Theory (OIT) is supported by mainstream scholarship. Describing the OIT as a conviction would not be accurate. Describing the OIT as a conviction implies to the reader that the OIT is just an unsubstantiated claim; rather, the OIT does have significant evidence in support of it, and often sources criticizing the OIT are themselves the ones that are ideologically biased. The sources that describe the OIT as a "conviction" have been heavily criticized as being biased against the OIT; much of these sources are simply polemics.
Another example of a mainstream scholar who rejects the AIT is Michel Danino.
The Aryan Migration Theory should be described on Wikipedia as a theory that is widely agenda-driven and has proponents that support it often for ideological reasons. Even proponents of the AIT have described how prominent proponents of the AIT are ideologically motivated to be biased against the OIT. Shakespeare143 (talk) 18:24, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're turning the world upside-down. This is an encyclopedia, aiming to present an accurate summary of mainstream scholarship, not a free website to promote fringe views. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:58, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No I am not. I already explained how it is mainstream scholarship and is not a fringe view (as have dozens of other editors). There is an abundance of evidence for the OIT. It is not in the best interests of Wikipedia to represent the opinions found within some sources written by AIT apologists and polemicists as "fact". Wikipedia adheres to a policy of neutral point of view with an impartial tone and also has a policy of no original research.Shakespeare143 (talk) 20:25, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase "AIT" says it all. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:36, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am not being biased if that is what you mean by "The phrase 'AIT' says it all.". For the purposes of discussing the AMT, the AIT and AMT are essentially the same theory, with only slight variations in them according to some scholars. I am not making up the "AIT". It is used today in research journals. The AIT and the AMT are very vague and many scholars say they are the same thing. Each scholar has their own interpretation of a so-called "AIT" and an "AMT", but the fundamentals are the same: Indo-Aryans brought Sanskrit and Vedas etc into India from a migration from the Middle East/Pontic steppe/Central Asia/Anatolia which was the origin of the PIE languages. To clarify, I was referring to the AMT/AIT in my previous comment. Wikipedia is not supposed to be used for the promotion of a controversial viewpoint when there is an opposing viewpoint equally as prominent; having the Wikipedia page show the other viewpoint as "fringe" is antithetical to the quintessential ethos of Wikipedia being NPOV. Shakespeare143 (talk) 16:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
...when there is an opposing viewpoint equally as prominent This is simply not the case. Maybe in public discourse in India, but not in international mainstream scholarship. We have had umpteen threads about this, and umpteen times umpteen sources from the relevant fields (linguisitcs, archaeology, genetics) in international scholarship that put Indigenous Aryanism clearly to the fringe. And it is this ideology-driven fringe which keeps alive the straw term "AIT" (2021 is not 1921; ideologically-driven support for the Migration Theory is obsolete). The very usage of the term is token of not accepting mainstream scholarship.
About WP:NPOV: WP:WEIGHT is an essential part of WP:NPOV. –Austronesier (talk) 08:42, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And the reason why there have been umpteen threads about this is because the OIT really is mainstream scholarship (regardless of straw man arguments Doniger says - and keep in mind Doniger is only a single scholar. And any other scholars who say that are also in the minority), and many Wikipedians agree (they cite sources). You are correct that that there is a subset of scholars that no longer consider there was an Aryan Invasion; however, there is also a subset of scholars who support the AIT, and they are equally as prominent as the AMT scholars. There is ideological support for the OIT, that is definitely true; however, this is equally true for the AIT/AMT scholar proponents. More linguistics scholars support the AMT/AIT, but archaeology does not - in fact, in the relevant fields they mostly do not support it. Genetics reports in my experience support both the OIT and the AMT/AIT. Scholars are scholars are scholars. If it is true that the OIT is primarily an "ideology", then there would not be prominent American scholars who support it. In reality, there are many American scholars that support the OIT; too much emphasis is placed on Doniger (I'm not saying that she isn't a good scholar - she most definitely is knowledgeable and contributes to the field) here at Wikipedia. Doniger (and a few carefully selected other scholars that generally support her viewpoints and quote each other) are not omniscient judges of the debate (rather, they are partisan sources, and partisan sources are unbalanced), and using these few select sources on Wikipedia as the all-knowing judges of this subject is unwarranted. At the end of the day, much of the dialogue concerning this subject is in fact partisan, and treating one camp as superior over the other on Wikipedia would make the relevant articles inherently biased and unscientific in nature, considering that both theories are equally supported. The core principles of science and of Wikipedia's WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT should be supported in the endeavor to accurately summarize and portray the AIT/AMT and the OIT on Wikipedia. Furthermore, there are clear denotational and connotational differences between "fringe" and "an equally supported theory", and the OIT is of the latter rather than of the former. Keep in mind that it is the ideology-driven fringe (that promotes ideology-driven research) that includes Doniger that claims the erroneous and fallacious viewpoint that the OIT is not included in the mainstream view. And yes, I have read work by scholar proponents of both the OIT and of the AIT/AMT to have a balanced perspective. Shakespeare143 (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Shakespeare143:India is a country of 1.3 billion people. And 1 billion of it are Hindus. So it is obvious that large number of scholars in India may promote OIT. Number doesn’t count in science. Evidence matters. It is not some election where you win an argument based on number of people supporting an idea. I too have read work by scholar proponents of both the OIT and of the AIT/AMT to have a balanced perspective. There is no single credible evidence for OIT —Archaeological, genetic, linguistic or textual. Which is why no major university promotes it. It is been seven years since Modi came to power, still in the exams conducted for central civil services, the syllabus chosen is not OIT. Simply because All the evidences are against it. ChandlerMinh (talk) 09:41, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Shakespeare143:And the reason why there have been umpteen threads about this is because the OIT really is mainstream scholarship LOL, no. The reason we have umpteen threads are because there is literally a billion Hindus. Many of them truly wants to believe that everything came from India. ChandlerMinh (talk) 14:29, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Indo-Aryan" is a Wikipedia editor's Invention

Hi can someone help start a vote to convert all references an articles from "Indo-Aryan" to Indic? Indic is the long-standing, proper and academically-recognized linguistic and ethnic designation for this group of languages, and always has been.

Main reasons (there are more):

- "Indo-Aryan" causes confusion among both laymen and Academic circles, anthropologists and linguistics specialists, who have always designated this class of languages and ethnicities as Indic, not Indo-Aryan. Having two designations for the same language group is just a bad idea, not to mention "Indo-Aryan" as a language group or ethnicity group has no basis in fact.
- There is no such thing as an Aryan language, nor is Indic exclusively an "Aryan" ethnicity.

In addition to the Indo-Aryan languages articles, someone has also started a series of fictitious articles based on "Indo-Aryan people" which is equally ridiculous and an attempt to introduce baseless, poorly researched, Original Research into Wikipedia.

Looking forward to some cooperation among editors on fixing this major issue.Xoltron (talk) 00:37, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Quote: anthropologists and linguistics specialists, who have always designated this class of languages and ethnicities as Indic, not Indo-Aryan. Talking about linguistics, what are the following scholarly standard reference works then, chopped liver?
  • Masica, Colin (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge University Press.
  • Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.) (2003). The Indo-Aryan languages. London: Routledge.
  • Cardona, George; Luraghi, Silvia (2009). "Indo-Aryan Languages", in Comrie, B. (ed.), The World’s Major Languages. London: Routledge.
  • Munshi, S. (2009). "Indo-Aryan Languages", in Brown, K. & Ogilvie, S. (eds.), Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Oxford: Elsevier.
  • "Indo-Aryan", Ethnologue.
  • "Family: Indo-Aryan", Glottolog.
I could cite hundreds of linguistic works about comparative linguistics, typology, syntax, all of which use "Indo-Aryan" to denote this subbranch of IE. "Indic" is a valid alternative term which has gained some currency[5], but this doesn't render "Indo-Aryan languages" with no basis in fact. To say that specialists [...] have always designated this class of languages [...] as Indic betrays an unfamiliarity with the existing literature that shouldn't be the starting point for a "vote"
Btw, we don't have an article Indo-Aryan people. It's plural Indo-Aryan peoples, and much good work has gone into it (notably by @Joshua Jonathan) to unbullshit earlier versions which indeed were full with OR. –Austronesier (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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