Talk:Out of India theory

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BIASED PRESENTATION OF MATERIAL ON HINDUISM AND INDIA ON WIKIPEDIA

Discussion moved to the Hinduism notice board.Bakaman 23:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for Consensus

The goal is to present NPOV scholarly theory proposed by serious scholars. Only statements made by referenced authors to be included (without editors’ bias). Clearly mention ongoing debate (provide reference/links to other theories). Source of data will conform with WP:V policy. Clearly make statement that this is a minority point of view that is not accepted by “mainstream linguistic scholars”.

No religious propaganda by OIT supporters and no claim of OIT being a Hindu propaganda by AMT supporter. This is a scholarly discussion, for religious/fundamentalist discussions go somewhere else. All bias to be removed (both for and against), if mentioned scholars did not say it, it does not count. No irrelevant details. All pro/con discussion referred to Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies) page.

Wikipedia policies (NPOV, NOR, V) are not negotiable. All supporting data to be properly referenced to each specialist. Scholarly criticism of published article to be included in original form with references. No personal attacks allowed by anyone.

A well referenced criticism section as proposed by Maunus. WP policies still apply, no propaganda of any kind. Since articles being mentioned have been reviewed by mainstream scholars, good source for criticism is easily available. Ideally link criticism to claim.

For all controversial material, all editors to try to get consensus via talk page before making changes.

De-POVization

I have started dePOVizating the article bit by bit but it is extremely tedious work. As it is now each section presents an argument in favour of the OIT, but in a very obfuscating manner making the argument look like some kind of semifact. Further more when it mentions counterarguments it does it in a way that is clearly intended to put the counter arguments in a bad light as nonsensical or unreasonable. Further more each section ends with a little coda that present the argument as the only reasonable one. Not acceptable and certainly POV.

I am trying to make it obvious in each section what is the argument, who proposes what and what counter arguments are presented by the mainstream side. Sometimes I cannot refer to a particular source but the counter argument is so obvious that I include it in my own wording - it is better that it is a little balanced and then it can be sourced later. I also remove excessive sourcing of arguments - the article is way too long and spends way too much space explaining and providing sources to things that it doesn't really explain anyway. Sometimes less is more - this is one of those times. Maunus 12:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort you are putting in this. As I mentioned earlier, I am new to WP and my strength is research not writing. Most of the edits that you and Paul have done are definitely an improvement. I will take this as learning.Sbhushan 15:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

And I appreciate the amount of research you have done and the effort you have put into building this new layout of the page. But most of all I appreciate your responsivee opeen minded attitude.Thanks. Maunus 15:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Question re: "unlikely"

It has been mentioned that PIE homeland in India is very unlikely scenario. So far I have not heard an argument (except substrata) that makes it unlikely. I would like to understand this issue, so I can research to find counter arguments. To clarify the question, OIT accepts that Sanskrit is a daughter language, but there is no link between this and PIE homeland (please see history section). The East to West spreading can be answered by Nicolas model (I know she prefers AMT, but the logic of spread can still be used). I would appreciate if you can provide me top three reasons.Sbhushan 15:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought research was a strength of yours? You can read this up in any introduction to Indo-European studies, beginning with the EIEC, and spanning all of JIES. The case against a migration out of India is overwhelming, essentially reducing "counter arguments" to agnostic arguments like "can we really be certain about anything", "can we absolutely rule out it was not so", which of course we cannot. India as a marginal territory of IE distribution, with only a small variety of IE languages, and numerous non-IE languages just is orders of magnitude less likely than a central area with great diversity of languages. Your problem is that you know in advance what you want to prove, which isn't methodically sound. India may be considerably more likely a PIE Urheimat than Polynesia or Bolivia, but it still is considerably less likely a candidate than regions central to IE variety. I suggest you just look at Kurgan hypothesis and the references there. The Kurgan scenario is completely sound wrt the whole picture, and doesn't need to take recourse to agnosticism or wild "revolutionary" re-dating sprees like OIT. In a nutshell, OIT is unlikely because there are immensely more likely candidates. dab (ᛏ) 15:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

1. it requires more and longer migrations for the PIE branches to all have left India.

2. it requires a more complex chronology in respect to the development of isoglosses and archeological and other features (such as the reinvention of the chariot etc.)(Witzels "autochtonous aryans" adress this well)

3. it requires a number of complex internal explanations of the innovations in Indic (which also must have happened in a quitee short time namely the time after the last non Indic group left and the writing of the Veda) instead of one simple explanation (substrate influence).

Using Nichols model like that is like when Talageri says that "the common homeland of Greek and IA could be India": it is possible - but a number of explanations needs to be done in order to account for it that we don't need to do if we suppose it to bee somewhere else. E.g. in the Kurgan people we have a people who fit the most accepted time frame, who can be seen archeologically to expand their territory over time, who have the basic cultural patterns that fit with a PIE people and who inhabited an area closer to the epicentre of linguistic diversity (a territory which also makes for faster and easier expansion). That is the reason I believe the Kurgan hypothesis over the other ones. (I do find OIT more probable than Paleolithic Continuity or Anatolian though)Maunus 16:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, as always your concise comment are much appreciated. Substrata is a key argument, I will try to understand this issue more. Also if IVC gets deciphered, it will solve this issue. Thanks.Sbhushan 02:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding changes in the document, Thomason and Kaufman (1988) also outlined a typology of change typically caused by the cultural pressure of a language on another—the more overpowering the influence, the more the language will transform. The kind of transformation seen in India is complete imposition of new language and culture (few nomads changing more advanced urban population). This has impact on the Substrata and place name change discussion. The exception statement in place name does not match Witzel's comments that all over Europe the place names were retained. So India is exception, more surprising as India had urbanized indigenous population. Can we change the words?Sbhushan 02:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Thomason and Kaufman outlined many kinds of scenario for language change and they discuss specfically Dravidian substrate in Indic in the pages I have referred to. Not only overpowering influence can cause language shift - and they specifically state that the kind of influences seen in Indic can only stem from large Dravidian speaking populationsanging those wordings would be misrepresenting their conclusions. As for the hydrology I suppose we ought to change it a bit - the exception part is probably my POV (sorry).Maunus 08:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I am prepared to agree that if indeed not a single non-Indo-Aryan river name can be found in all of NW India, that is really surprising, and imo the strongest claim for an early (3rd millennium) Indo-Iranian presence in India. It would be sensational enough if it would transpire that Indo-Iranian existed in 2600 BC in an area stretching from IVC to BMAC to Arkaim even without cuckoo-cloud claims about PIE, the Rigveda or the 6th millennium. dab (ᛏ) 11:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, it is hard to keep bias out, that is OK, we will keep each other honest. "large Dravidian speaking" population changing based on immigration of few nomads, who are technologically far inferior to existing "Dravidian". What did these nomads have to offer? Is this likely? I see lot more changes in the Substrata section. This is completely mis-representing Bryants conclusion.Sbhushan 02:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

an analogy

regarding diversity: If we had no historical information predating the 18th century AD, and we wanted to explain the presence of the horse in both the Americas and Eurasia, which would be the more likely equine Urheimat? In the Americas, we have wild horses (mustangs) and llamas. In Eurasia, we have donkeys, onagers, and a wide variety of different horse breeds. If we wanted to insist that the horse originated in the Americas, we would need to claim an extremely early "emigration". After this, the horse stayed extremely conservative in America, not evolving or diversifying, while the "migrants" in Eurasia diversified into all sorts of subspecies and species. In fact, we would have to postulate several waves of emigration, the Hipparion emigrates first, and evolves into the zebra, onager, donkey etc., and later the finished horse emigrates as well, diversifying into anything between the Caspian pony and the Frisian, while in America, the Urheimat of the Hipparion, only the mustang survives, no trace of anything else. Could we prove this wasn't what happened? No, but it would strike us as extremely, extremely unlikely, and very compelling supporting arguments would have to be presented to make it plausible. We have the same situation here (although of course this is an analogy, and can only be taken so far). In India, we have Indo-Aryan (the mustang) and Dravidian (the llama). In Eurasia, we do not only have a colourful collection of all sorts of IE branches (the various horse breeds), but also remotely related Anatolian (the Przewalski horse) and possible more remote relatives like the Tyrrhenian languages of which we cannot quite say if they are IE or not (the onager, donkey, zebra...). I am not sure if you can appreciate the analogy, but it illustrates why neutral observers will find it very difficult to favour OIT unless really overwhelming supporting arguments are shown (as which fabrications involving archaeoastronomy and the Sarasvati river certainly do not qualify). dab (ᛏ) 11:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

A very well formulateed analogy indeed. Maunus 11:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the whole problem with the PIE homeland question. It is all based on one anology supported by another anology. I would rather not spend time debating this issue, but let me ask a question. Hock (1999a) notes that “the ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis is not easily refuted. Bryant (2001) tries to see if India can be excluded as a possible PIE homeland and fails. Nicolas model answers diversity issue. There are few more models I could quote. Why do you think you know better than these scholars? If you do then there is lot of money to be made with publication royalties. Why waste your time publishing on Wikipedia? It doesn’t pay you any royalty, trust me there is no fame, and you also have to put up with lot of abuse from some people.

For the "unlikely scenario" answer, the next question is how likely is this scenario? Few nomads come as immigrants to an advanced, thickly populated area (estimated about a million people) spread over 1.5 million KM. There is no invasion and no mass migration (no archeological data). The existing larger, more advanced population has a complete change in language and culture, with no knowledge to previous culture is maintained. All traces of existing culture disapear. Intruder don’t mention this exceptional feet of subjugating superior people without any war, no parallel in known history (they would be Heroes in their books, these same people praise every martial accomplishment in RV). People who used to live in urban center discard their houses and start living in huts. Any knowledge of the existing culture is not mentioned in the first document produced by immigrants (eventhough Witzel says that 'material cultural' was already absorbed by intruders - intruders were almost bilingual), but it surfaces in the documents produced 1,000 years later. They are able to change place names and river names without creating any confusion. Existing population accept the change, because some small number of culturally/technologically inferior immigrants had nostalgic thoughts about a homeland that they don't mention in their documents. Places for pilgrim are always mentioned in all religious documents. Very minimum impact on language of intruders who were immigrants (it is almost pure). The same immigrants trekked over thousands of KM, must have had lots of adventure/hardships in their journey, must have met other cultures, but there is no mention of anything in the their documents. After all this journey they were able to preserve their language closet to the original PIE (No reconstruction of PIE would be possible if Sanskrit was not preserved, also there would be no Indology). Their religious mythology is the most preserved compared to other branches of the family (RV alone has all 14 of IE deities names, next is Greek with 9). They record their presence in the same region as far as they can remember and these people have exceptional method of oral transmission of knowledge seen by oral preservation of RV.

And you think that language spread from East is more unlikely than the above mentioned scenario!!! If you do, then I have the Golden Gate Bridge in a prime location that I could be forced to sell at a small premium. I would be taking a loss on the transaction.Sbhushan 03:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sbushan: Hock and Bryant are not in favour of OIT - they say exactly the same as dab, OIT is possible (i.e. it can't be rejected) but unlikely( less probable than other theories). dab's analogy was intended to illustrate why the spread of isoglosses do constitute an argument against OIT.Maunus 08:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, I have never said they are they are in favour of OIT, they have said it is difficult to reject OIT. Nicolas model addresses the isoglosses issue (she puts locus in Bacteria, which is not too far from the locus proposed by OIT). But it is possible for PIE homeland to be located far from Central location. Hock himself said Isoglosses can be maintained in OIT hypothesis, he rejects it for complexity issue. Hock's complexity issue would also reject Kurgan (please see earlier comments regarding multiple migrations in opposite direction). Bryant's conclusion is that we might never solve PIE homeland puzzle.

Dab's position is NOT same as these scholars. His view is that OIT is so unlikely, that it should not even be mentioned. He states speculations and theories as established facts. Also IVC and accomplishments of IVC are a fact (all scholars agree on that), which he calls speculation. I am not sure what kind of tabloid he is reading re: his alien IA's. His arbitary edits in the document with unsourced biased opinion is wrecking everyone's hard work. I am trying very hard to work with him to address his concerns, but he just keeps editing out well ref. material and replacing with his POV statements. I have not complained against any valid criticism added to the OIT position.Sbhushan 12:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I grant you that dab often writes in an aggressive and dismissive tone, but given the acres of nonsense and the wild accusations that get thrown around about people's motivations that's not too surprising. Only yeaterday I was accused on my talk page by one editor of hating "white people" and by another of being a white supremacist! However it is palpably untrue to say that he thinks it should not be mentioned. He created the OIT page (Out of India theory). Almost simultaneously I created another one (Out of India Theory). Which came first I don't remember. The two are now merged into this one, having been greatly expanded by your efforts and those of other editors. See here [1]. Paul B 12:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Paul, I have no problem with valid criticism, but please see Dab's arbitrary edits in the document. Everyone can see the effort I am making to engage Dab in dialogue to resolve this in amicable manner. It is also obvious how much success I am having. Everything related to PIE is controversial, the best thing would be to work together to create a proper encyclopedic balanced article. If the ref is not clear in the article please put tag and if the author doesn’t address it in few days time. Then remove the text. If disagreement is regarding wording, suggest something on talk page and let us make it better. I am surprised by the entrenched positions here. If we continue this, we are not going to be able to get much done. I can’t address previous history, but at this point in time, Dab is the only editor making arbitary controversial edits without talking first.Sbhushan 12:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, all theories that place PIE outside India, fail to address the "unlikely" issue of IA overlap with IVC. Mainstream scholars don't even make any effort to address this difficulty. A complete theory has to address all issue. Every single theory proposed has been rejected by other scholars. Regarding Kurgan, please see Bryant (2001). Infact there is no consensus amongst Indologist after 200 years of research. They are unsure about everything, except that it could not have been in India (only based on "unlikely"). So we can't say that anything related to PIE is a fact.Sbhushan 12:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is saying that anything is a fact - except that it is a fact that fewer scholars are convinced by OIT than by Kurgan hypothesis or even the Anatolian one which is a favourite of archeologists. If you read past dab's agressive rhetorics he is not saying anything that is out of line with what you mention. And yes every single proposal have been rejected by some scholars - some rejections and some proposals are just better founded and better argued than others (you can still find people who argue that the world is flat also - or that cigarettes aren't harmful etc. they usuallyhave an agenda though and not very convincing arguments). But the scientifically sound way to state the problem of a PIE urheimat is by saying that "we don't know where it is but judging from the evidence at hand kurgan is among the least problematic hypotheses and OIT is not" Itis a schlars job to be unsure about everything untill evidence makes something look probable. I am certainly unsure - and I admit that India is a possibility, so does the rest of the scholarly community. Why then are you guys so sure it must be India? (my feeling is that you are so sure because you would like it to be true, whereas we couldn't care less where in the world the PIE homeland were)Maunus 12:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, for the purpose of WP - OIT page, to make it proper encyclopedic balanced article, we agreed to present OIT arguments and present criticism of those arguments by mainstream. Dab agreed to this and now he is trying to tell OIT what their arguments should be. He is not doing any favor to OIT as he claims. He is introducing his POV in the article. We have to find a solution to address this issue or we will spend rest of our lives on this one page.Sbhushan 13:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, re: why I am so sure, this is to clarify my position and not for general debate/discussion. All agree PIE was one entity a long time back. Because of India's far East position, either IA come to India or PIE left India before IA was formed. So first question is could IA have come to India. Please look at earlier discussion re: why that is unlikely. In addition to that discussion, all ref to Saraswati, which is now a archeological fact (Bryant 2001). 80% of settlements around Saraswati are dated to 4th millennium. How could people who came in 1500 BC (even if you take 1900 BC) provide most praise to a river (in present form) which was effectively gone from the area for about 2000 years. Why not praise Sindu which is the main river at that time. There is lot more I could add, but please see all arguments presented in article regarding RV dating. So this makes in very unlikely that IA came to India. So now I look at the scenario that PIE left India before IA was formed. So I look at argument against this scenario (e.g unlikely, complex migration, substrata etc). Then I find that all these arguments have been countered by other linguistic themselves and are not facts but just a theory. So on what basis should we give more weight to theory than facts?

So I find that IA coming to India is not as simple as mainstream makes it to be (infact they don't even make an effort to address this issue) and PIE going out of India is not as difficult as mainstream makes it out to be. My position for OIT is not feelings, but logical thought process and that is why I am not afraid of criticism. I could also quote Witzels statement where he doesn't care if PIE homeland was in Africa, as long as it was not in India (that I find unscholarly). But for sake of article, please see my earlier comment, let us make it proper article, our discussion are not going to solve this issue.Sbhushan 13:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, re: lack of linguistic scholars who support OIT, problem is that India doesn't have these studies. A lone Indian SS Misra is busy with PVC scenario (a lost battle in imho). Guess where most European scholars prefer PIE homeland. Look at how theoris are modified to fit facts, Invasion → Migration → complex trickling to expalin lack of archeological evidence. Also, no archeological trace of migration from Central Asia to India. So were these horses and Chariot airlifted (or StarTrek - transporter tech) to land in India (I couldn't resist poking at Dab's alien theory). So again mainstream theory might be supported by more scholars, but have serious logical flaws.Sbhushan 13:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

A well formulated analogy indeed.Bakaman _Bakatalk 03:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

If BMAC & Arkaim were not already connected with IVC then why after 1700 BC period they declined ? Why their growth dates are in accordance with peak IVC period ? And, their decline is with IVC ? It shows that both were economically dependent with IVC. Otherwise why they should also decline with IVC ? So, if those central asian areas were economically connected & dependent on IVC then how some nomads will impose thier language ( & not culture & material - as per Witzel ). What was something that made ancient Indians to adopt foreign nomadic language without leaving any smell of that transformtion ? Western people are adopting Indian words like Yoga and spiritual words as it's totally new even for their culture. They are adopting those words becuase they don't have such words in their culture and original words represents them properly. So, why ancient Indians will adopt naming of Yoga ( which is found in IVC terracota Yoga postures ) or mathematical terms ( as IVC had planned towns ) from central asian nomads whose immigration is not attested archelogically or in ANY Indian language texts. So, central asian nomads had to device that terms for that unknown science and then ancient Indians had to forget their nomenclature and adopt foreign given terms. First solve just these puzzling questions which are not present for Bolivia or Polynesian PIE case and otherwise have some logical sense in equating Indian subcontinent PIE case with totally unknown Bolivia or Polynesian PIE. WIN 07:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab's edits

Indo Iranian and Avesta

Dab, in the section you inserted "Talageri (chapter 6) (...)the east." instead of "Talageri states (...)that the Saptasindhu or Hapta-HAndu was a homeland of the Iranians." Talageris statement from Chapter 6 is

2. The Rigveda and the Avesta, as we saw, are united in testifying to the fact that the Punjab (Saptasindhu or Hapta-HAndu) was not a homeland of the Vedic Aryans, but was a homeland of the Iranians.

Please verify [[2]].

While what you quoted is also statement from chapter 6, it is not accurate representation of Talageri's position. So I am changing it back. You should not misrepresent authors position.Sbhushan 01:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Philology

Dab, your edit "The date at which it was composed, in the mainstream view the mid to late 2nd millennium BC (Late Harappan), is a firm terminus ante quem for the presence of the Vedic Aryans in India.[16]" is implying that mainstream date is a fact WP:NPOV. I am suggesting this should be worded as

The date at which it was composed is a firm terminus ante quem for the presence of the Vedic Aryans in India. In the mainstream view it was composed the mid to late 2nd millennium BC (Late Harappan) and OIT proponent propose a pre-Harappan date.

This will be more balanced wording. This change I have not made, as at some point you have suggested few different dates Renfrew (very early), Propola (2 waves), Witzel (1900) and standard date of 1500-1200. So pick one, I am OK with any. OIT is proposing date of composition pre-Harappan, please see details in the Saraswati and Item not in RV. You have right to disagree, but this is OIT position.Sbhushan 01:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, second edit "Note that the OIT is not (......)Early Harappan date.[citation needed]". I don't know what you mean by that. Date of RV is critical component of OIT, Bryant also acknowledges this. So I don't know where are you getting this idea from. Please provide ref. Again this change I have not made yet. I will wait to see if you have any ref to support this.Sbhushan 01:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

so what's Elst's date for the RV? Elst has a 5th millennium emigration from India. If OIT takes place in the 5th millennium, how is it relevant if the RV dates to the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th millennium? It will be irrelevant to OIT either way. Now a 2nd millennium date is accepted as practically certain for the early RV. It is really just painfully obvious. You can stretch things and argue for a surprisingly early date, in the late or mid 3rd millennium (Mature Harappan). That is a shaky argument, but with a lot of hand-waving, you can at least build a shaky case. A 4th millennium date for the RV, however, is simply completely beyond any rational debate, and firmly within the realm of "magic space Aryans". It will do this article no good, as I have argued many times, to conflate raving nonsense by people who don't know the first thing about ancient literature, the Bronze Age or philology, with reasonable if far-fetched pro-OIT arguments. You can cite Knapp, Frawley, Tilak and their like, arguing for a Rigveda composed by paleolithic cyborg Aryans on the North pole, but please do not mix this up with a rational debate on OIT. I am only interested in the latter. Do take Aryan mysticism to some other article, thankyou. dab (ᛏ) 09:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, you forgot to provide a ref to published docuement for your opinion. I will only address your comment if they have a link for published work. For OIT dating of pre-IVC please read all the referenced material provided in the article. Also read Bryant (2001) re: your "practically certain" comment, please also see story behind mainstream date for RV in that book. Bryant thinks that dating of RV is very important for OIT case. On what basis do think you know better than Bryant?Sbhushan 01:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

edit in place name section

Dab, your edits are showing your ignorance about the subject matter. Please read Bryant (2001, chapter 9 page 157 - 1 million mile = 1.7 million Kilometer), Asko Parpola - Study of the Indus Script[3], S.R. Rao (1991:1), Kazanas (2000:12). If you want to contribute to the article, please read published material from good sources. Every word that I have written in the docuemt in properly referenced. If you doubt something, please put and I will address your questions. I am trying to work with you to resolve the issues in a reasonable manner, but there is only so much that I can do alone. Making arbitary deletes are not helping the matters. Your edit are not WP:NPOV. All of your edits are controversial in nature, please get consensus before making the edits.Sbhushan 01:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, I have removed the text and every word that I have quoted is well referenced. If you have doubts about any section, please check the ref. If you can't find them, please leave a tag and I will address it. Thanks.Sbhushan 01:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Sbhushan, I am growing tired of you accusing me because you cannot cite your sources properly (sidenote, I am removing WIN's parrotting as white noise). Let us not even address the blatant bias you are trying to sell us as "edited for npov", it would be enough if we didn't have to double-check each of your references because you are unable to cite even OIT proponents accurately and reliably. Alleging that "Aryan civilization" was "spread over 1.5 million km" doesn't show ignorance, it shows complete and utter cluelessness on any topic common knowledge whatsoever. I assume your sources are talking of square kilometers. A square kilometer is not the same as a kilometer. It is fair enough to omit the 'square' by mistake, but to then come arguing with me instead of just silently correcting your mistake is simply hilarious. If Aryans were spread over "1.5 million km", they were settling far beyond the moon (probably in svargaloka or what?) I wouldn't be surprised if WIN or you thought there were ancient Aryan colonies on the moon, but I have serious doubts Kazanas would go so far. dab (ᛏ) 11:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, I should have caught the "square" error as we are talking about area. It is honest mistake. But how does this justify all the edits you have done unilaterally. Where I disagree with your statement, I am trying to have a discussion with you on talk page and have put tag without deleting your irrelevant biased statements. I am not getting any response back at all regarding the statements I have identified, but you can write a large paragraph insinuating all kind of negative things for a small mistake. Please do look at WP policies. Sbhushan 15:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Place Names and Hydronomy

I have left some tags in the article. The first 2 show disagreement with Witzel's statement. The last one is interesting since you are saying that IA renamed a river Saraswati that had disappeared about 2000 years before entry of IA because of religious feelings. Think of the logic of this statement.Sbhushan 01:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

how about you read a statement before you think of its "logic". Why should we consider the logic of your strawmen instead of that of the actual arguments? I am afraid that if you do not wisen up and begin editing honestly, you will have no joy here. dab (ᛏ) 11:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, can you please provide academic references for the statements. The Saraswati river was in its prime in 4th to 3rd millinium time period (Bryant 2001, p. 167), long before IA came to India as per mainstream (1900 to 1500 BC). Sbhushan 14:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, are you planning to add ref for the cites or should those statement be removed. You also removed one tag without providing any ref. Please do not remove tags.Sbhushan 15:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, you removed the statement "OIT proponents argue that this suggest that Indo-Europeans are indigenous to India." Can you please clarify your reason for removal of this. This is OIT argument based on preservation of River names. You have right to disagree and provide counter argument based on published documents. Please do not forget to provide proper ref.Sbhushan 15:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Dab, are you OK with adding the above statement back?Sbhushan 15:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dravidian substratum influences in Rigvedic Sanskrit

This section is POV and does not present OIT argument at all. OIT is saying that the Substrata argument is inconclusive.

• 1: This statement, made by Bryant, has been removed from the section. Why? As you all have mentioned quite some time Bryant is not a supporter of OIT, so his view can be taken as objective neutral statement.

• 2. By adding all kind of arguments you are already displaying the inconclusive nature of the discussion.

• 3. Witzel's comments are stated as evidence, those are his speculation. Please note that He is using the same 1991 Kuiper’s list that has been rejected by P. Thieme and Rahul Peter Das in (1994). Witzel also agrees that these are not Dravidian words, but might be Proto-Munda or Language X.

• 4. Witzel also states that Dravidian came to scene after IA were already settled in IVC area for some time. He is implying that IVC was not Dravidian.

• 5. Bryant wrote in 1996 and 2001 and was aware of Thomason & Kaufman 1988, but choose to disregard their input regarding this issue.

So we need to take it back to the discussion we had earlier, since already the inconclusive nature of the substrata is clear. Also, if PIE left India about 1000 years before RV, how is small amount of substrata that could have been introduced by trading or other contact with other language be relevent to OIT discussion? Bryant and Witzel discuss the nature of substrata words and these are mostly loan words (plant names, etc) that could have been introduced by trading or small contact.Sbhushan 02:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not POV and it does present the OIT argument in the frst secton it says that Hock, Bryant and other linguists find the evidence for any contaact induced changes in INdic languages to be inconclusive. The quote by Bryant is also still there but it is in a note because it is not particularly interesting (it only says what is alread said in the text - that evidence is inconclusive). We can change the statement about evidence for proto munda into saying that witzel argues that there may havee been early influence from munda.

I don't know why you meention that Bryant disregarded Thomason and Kaufman - it can only be because he is not a very strong linguist. Any way his argumeent is simply wrong the evidence it not inconclusive it is in fact very much in favour of contact induced change, but some scholars (such as Hock) have a reflex of arguing against proposals of contact change (this is my POV of course). Also substrate influence cannot come through trading - loanwords may come through trading and eeveryone agrees that there are practically no dravidian loans in early indic. Substrate influence of the kind found in early indic comes from shift.Maunus 09:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, let us try address one thing at a time, Do you believe that Substrata has been conclusively proven? Relate this to discussion about Place names also. You are saying that Vedic had extensive substrata from existing languages (absorbed number of syntactical and morphological features, plant names, etc.) but at same time changed place name and river name (something which they should have adopted). Again the argument is not coherent or logical. Bryant spends 31 pages of his book discussing this issue and list all kind of scholars who have had input for this discussion spread over 150 years. Sbhushan 14:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as proof - but I do believe that it has been shown to be probable beyond reasonable doubt that early Indic was influenced by Dravidian and or Munda. As for the placenames your way of weighing the logics is faulty. Thomason and Kaufman finds evidence that looks like the result of a process of language shift - that is that a large groups of Dravidians switched to Indic but retained their Dravidian accent, they did not bring (m)any loans from dravidian into Indic - in this context it doesn't seem weird at all that the Dravidian speakers also started using Indic placenames, or that the Indic placeenamees which were incorporateed into the religion that thee dravidians also adopted pushed out earlier placenames in the long run.

If Bryant spends 31 pages discussing it theen it is all the more a sign that he is not well informed if he leaves out about the only linguists who have researched language contact phenomena systematically - it tells me that he is severely out of touch with linguistics. But it is true that not all scholars believe that contact with Dravidian is shown to be probable the section as it is now says so, and it says that there are alternative explanations such as the phenomena being the results of internal developments such as Hock states. Maunus 19:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, OIT argument is that ‘evidence’ of a linguistic substratum in Indo-Aryan is inconclusive based on a paper by Edwin F. Bryant, Linguistic Substrata and the Indigenous Aryan Debate (1996) and Bryant (2001), where he is studying the claims by linguistic related to this topic. Also that this should not have any impact on homeland discussion as PIE left India at least 1,000 years before Vedic. During that 1,000 years Vedic could have been in contact with other language source. Would you have any concern with starting the section with this argument? We can provide claims and counter claims by each linguist. As counter argument, you can quote Thomason and Kaufman. So OIT provides argument and mainstream provides counter argument. Would this structure be accpetable?Sbhushan 19:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It would. When Hock says that the phenomena might be the result of internal development, that is the same as saying that the evidence for external influence is inconclusive - it just explans why said authors find it inconclusive: because there are other ways of explaning those changes in indic than contact wth dravidian namely. It is a good idea mentioning the OIT idea of chornology even if it looks counterntuitive - it makes one more mgration necessary - a migration of a huge group of dravidians moving into contact with indic after the other pie branches left india (to explain why they don't have influence from dravidian). Bascally with every step towards arguing for OIT there comes more questions to be answered, such as where were the dravidians before and why didn't they leave any traces of migrations, why don't the Vedas mention a horde of dravdians moving into indic territory?Maunus 10:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, Does "it would" mean that the OIT argument can be added to the top of the section. Sbhushan 14:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes is does. Please add the arguments and I'll look at the wording afterwards.Maunus 22:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, Hock states "Swedish and Norwegian, have developed the feature completely independent of any substratum" (Bryant 2001 p81). Also, Hamp (1996) "series of sound changes from purely inherited Indo-European material that arrive “by perfectly orderly Lautgesetze” to the distinctive feature of retroflexion (721; see also Vine 1987)." (Bryant's words)In other words, retroflexion can be explained purely as the result of spontaneous linguistic sound processes inherent in Indo-Aryan itself: it need not be seen as the result of a linguistic imposition from a foreign language. (Bryant 2001, p 81-82). Bryant also mentions that the exchange could be adstratum, substratum or superstratum. Witzel is arguing that the Dravidian came in the area already populated by IA. And the borrowing might be from IA to Dravidian. How can we even conclusively say who was influencing whom, if we don’t even know which language as in IVC (candidates are Dravidian, Munda, Language X as per mainstream or IA as per OIT). So this whole discussion is getting more complex and it might be too early to draw any conclusions. Again from point of view of OIT page, we can identify the ongoing debate and provide ref for readers to do more research.Sbhushan 14:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand Hocks argument but I don't find it to be convincing - the fact that it can be explained by internal development doesn't mean that this is the most likely conclusion. The same argument is used by linguistis all over the place to argue against all kinds of contact influence phenomena. The borrowing cannot be the other way round - proto dravidian and proto munda are both reconstructed with retroflexes - proto indic is not. But all of this is beside the point. Maunus 22:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Retroflex can be found in Russian and Polish which are IE languages. See Russian Phonology and Polish phonology. WIN 05:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Cotton was or was not mentioned in Rigveda

The article Cotton#History says there are several references to cotton in Rigveda ; where as details at Items_not_in_the_Rigveda this article says no mention of cotton in Rigveda.This difference needs to be explained in both the articles. Mahitgar 10:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

no explanation is necessary, the statement on the Cotton article was simply mistaken, and I have removed it as unreferenced. dab (ᛏ) 11:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Linguistics

I would like to add some details regarding Proto-Bangani, that shows presence of Kentum language in India, thus supporting India homeland scenario. The text (Elst section 2.2 [4]) I would like to add is:

OIT proponent argue that the discovery of a small and extinct kentum language inside India (Proto‑Bangani, with koto as its word for "hundred"), surviving as a sizable substratum in the Himalayan language Bangani, tends to support the hypothesis that the older kentum form was originally present in India as well. This discovery was made by the German linguist Claus Peter Zoller (1987, 1988, 1989, 1993). The attempt by George van Driem and Suhnu R. Sharma (1996) to discredit Zoller has been overruled by the findings made on the spot by Anvita Abbi (1998). She has almost entirely confirmed Zoller's list of kentum substratum words in Bangani. This issue is still being debated, please see the details at Bangani

Please let me know if you have any objections or suggestions for improvement. Does this fit in Linguistics top section or Comparative linguistics? Sbhushan 15:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

another one of your hacks. Sbhushan, you pretended to be interested in evolving this article, but now you have shown that you have no interest but to heap up rhetorics in favour of OIT no matter how far-fetched or shaky. This is not good faith editing. If you were editing in good faith, you would bother to look up argument and counter-argument yourself, not present some broken representation and leave it to us to restore the actual argument. As such, unless you begin editing in good faith, I am not prepared to let you disfigure this article any further. If you can get Maunus to fix your points and introduce them, that's fine, but I am not prepare to clean up after you any more. To anybody prepared to fix this: the Bangani-Centum claim is completely discredited. Those (fringy few) who do claim centum elements wouldn't dream of postulating that it has anything to do with OIT, but rather suggest Indo-Greek remnants. This is a non-issue that isn't even relevant to this topic. dab (ᛏ) 17:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bangani or Garhwali is spoken in Garhwal region of that Himalaya where Greek invasion never reached. WIN 06:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

please see Bangani, to check who has been discredited. The statement clearly states that the claim is being debated and provides ref for readers to check for themselves. So do you have ref for your POV.Sbhushan 17:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Please also see Hock's statement on same page Bangani, I am quoting Hock from his statement

A related question is the nature of the western centum influence. Words like _gOsti_ seem to rule out Greek influence (and thus the possibility that we are dealing with linguistic echoes of Alexander's army); _lOktO_ would eliminate Germanic and Celtic; and _kOtrO_ would eliminate Greek and Latin. That is, no known western centum language could be the source for all of the relevant words. At the same time, the fact that *a and *o exhibit the same outcome (O, no doubt via *a, see below) suggests possible affiliation with the Balto-Slavo-Germanic group (or possibly with Antalolian?).

Again Dab do you have any reference for your POV.Sbhushan 17:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You are twisting the arguments Sbushan, I tend to agree with dabs statement above - I don't have the time to dig up the counter arguments for all of your twisted arguments anymore - you are definitely trying to give this article the spin you like best and you don't care if it represents the consensus of the scholarly community. I also have about stretched my assumptions of good faith as long as I can go. Either you start working to improve the article so it reflects thee actual scholarly consensus instead of making it reflect good on the theory or I give up trying to work on this article. How can we keep finding references for obscure arguments that nobody has argued against because they are obviously non sequiturs? The standard view point is that thee theory is not probable and this is what th article should say - it is not supposed to say that mainstearm scholarship are a bunch of morons that got it all backwards.Maunus 17:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, Witzel, Hock or Bryant all say that this issue is controversial and debate is not settled yet. The link provided is based on Witzel's Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan (Rgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic) EJVS VOL. 5 (1999), ISSUE 1 page 47. I saw the claim in Elst article about a month back, but could not find anything against it so I did not bring it up. Now based on Witzel article I found a website that is keeping up with the debate, if anyone is aware of any other argument against this please provide. The words are exact copy from Elst article. Also please note that I am not adding the text in the section, but trying to get a consensus.Sbhushan 17:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The link provided is on University of Michigan-Dearborn, MI USA website and it also has Kevin Tuite collection of responses in addition to comments by HH Hock related to this controversy.Sbhushan 18:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

These are Bryants words (2001 page 142)

At the time of writing, there is still no consensus on proto-Bangani, which Zoller has claimed to be an Indo-European language in India itself that contains very archaic Proto-Indo-European features that would significantly demarcate it from Indo-Aryan.

Sbhushan 18:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, Proto Bangani is not an obscure argument; mainstream scholars have been talking about this since 1987; also mainstream scholars are creating more confusion;

• Hock argues against OIT as it “border on the improbable and certainly would violate basic principles of simplicity” (Bryant 2001 p145-146), then he says this for Bangani [5], which would be very supportive of OIT.

• Witzel is most vocal against OIT, then he says “The intriguing question of Bangani has not been entirely resolved.” (page 47 [6]

• Bryant says he supports AMT, but the arguments in his book are supportive of OIT.

Before I came to this discussion, everyone was complaining how “crackpots arguments” are being presented for OIT. Now I provide scholarly material, with ref to mainstream scholars opinion and then again everyone is complaining. Mainstream scholars themselves have provided most evidence in favour of OIT, but still call it marginal.Sbhushan 20:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, would this wording be OK

OIT proponent argue that the discovery of a small and extinct kentum language inside India (Proto‑Bangani, with koto as its word for "hundred"), surviving as a sizable substratum in the Himalayan language Bangani, tends to support the hypothesis that the older kentum form was originally present in India as well. This discovery was made by the German linguist Claus Peter Zoller (1987, 1988, 1989, 1993). This was challenged by George van Driem and Suhnu R. Sharma (1996). Anvita Abbi (1998) supported Zoller's claim. This issue is still being debated, please see the details at Bangani

Sbhushan 17:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I will not add this text to the section right now. It is time to take a step back and for all to cool down.Sbhushan 20:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The Bangani debate has been stale for eight years now. Zoller stuck by his claim, nobody believed him, that's where it's at. I am interested in the case, and I invite you to contribute to Bangani, but this has really zilch to do with "OIT". The notable discovery of Zoller's would be a linguistic remnant of Indo-Greek or Kushan influence, persisting for almost 2,000 years, this has nothing to do with "original presence" at all. For this reason, I would have no motivation to downplay the credibility of Bangani-centum, even if I was out to deconstruct "OIT": I would happily embrace Bangani-centum (if there was any real evidence) without the slightest implication that this has anything to do with even a BCE presence of centum elements, not to mention 3,000 BCE. dab (𒁳) 11:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, few points regarding relevance to OIT discussion:

• Hock specifically excludes Indo-Greek influence and few more, he states "suggests possible affiliation with the Balto-Slavo-Germanic group (or possibly with Antalolian?). Bangani"
• if (a big one) this language is related to the above mentioned groups, you can appreciate the support it provides to OIT scenario. But the discussion is not conclusive yet and that is the mainstream argument.
• Zoller’s claim was substantiated by a second independent field study by Anvita Abbi (1998), this field work was reviewed by Hock and his comments are on the website (same website)
• lot of data is presented against Driem and Sharma challenge. There are statements of their host to show that they never even went in the area and also how they invented some of the evidence
• Witzel, Bryant, Hock agree that there is no scholarly consensus regarding this claim, but agree on the importance of this evidence.
• I am trying to contact Zoller himself to see if more recent work is available regarding this issue. Will provide update on response.Sbhushan 14:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Abbi's article mentioned something about V2 PIE language. What is V2 language?Sbhushan 17:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I heard back from Dr. Zoller. The last article was published by him on this topic In search of excellence in the Himalayas. In: Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, 22, 1999: 251-310. Atleast 2 more articles are going to be published soon (might be by some other authors). The other relevent material is

in favor

Zoller, Claus Peter. 1988. Bericht Uber bsondere Archaismen im Bangani, einer Western Pahari-Sprache. Munchener S'tudien zur Sprachwissenschaft. 49 Pp 173-200.

Zoller, Claus Peter, 1989. Bericht Uber grammatische Archaismen im Bangani Muchener ,S'tudien , zur ,Sprachwissenschaft.. 50. Pp 159-218.

Zoller, Claus Peter. 1993. A Note on Bangani . Indian Linguistics. Col. 54, Nos 1-4. Pp 112-14.

Patyal, Hukum Chand 1995. Archaic Words in Some Western Pahari Dialects A Historical Perspective. Indian Linguistics. Vol. 56, Nos. 1 -4. Pp 129-34.

Abbi, Anvita 1997. Redundancies and Restructuring in Bangani Syntax: A Case of Language Contact in Western Himalaya Paper read in the 7hird Himalayan language Conterence, Santa Barbara. USA .

Against

Beekes, Robert S P. 1990. Indo European, Linguistics.

Driem, George van and Suhnu R. Sharma. 1996 In Search of Indo-Europeans in Himalayas Indogermanische Forschungen 10 l. Pp 107.-46.

So this issue is not stale, but is still inconclusive. If proven this would provide strong support to OIT scenario. Please see Hock's comment earlier regarding this being one of the older child of PIE.Sbhushan 17:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Brahui language in Baluchistan which is thought to be remnant of formal widespread Dravidian languages in North India. But now its presence has now been explained by a late immigration that took place within this millennium (Elfenbein 1987). Even this point in Linguistics section should find some mention. This is confirmed by Witzel in his Feb. 2000 paper `The Languages of Harappa' Page 1. WIN 06:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

comparision to PCT

Dab, OIT is not same as "Proto Vedic Continuity" theory (PVC) or PCT. PVC is related to PCT. OIT is not comparable to PCT. OIT is not supported by, but being discussed by Hock or Bryant. Same can not be said for PCT or PVC. So to compare OIT to marginal PCT is your POV and I strongly disagree with it. For all controversial additions, please talk first before adding text. I have been very patient and have tried to discuss things with you before making any changes, but I am finding that you are not reciprocating. Please, please, please be reasonable.Sbhushan 17:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If OIT and PVC is not the same thing why does the latter redirect to the former?Maunus 17:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I had identified the same issue earlier, when we started changing the article. The redirect should be changed. OIT is not PVC.Sbhushan 17:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I never even mentioned "PVC". The redirect is here for historical reasons, I don't think I've seen any quotable source even addressing "PVC", and I have no opinion whether it is worth discussing. PCT otoh is simply the Eurocentric version of OIT: assuming a pre-6000 BC Urheimat in Europe, and later expansion to India, just like OIT (Elst's) assumes pre-6000 BC PIE at the Indus and later expansion to Europe. The scenarios are mirror-images of one another, and the arguments of why it is "impossible" that IE should be intrusive to either Europe or India are very similar. dab (𒁳) 11:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, both PVC and PCT reject linguistic evidence, OIT doesn't. OIT doesn't claim that Sanskrit is PIE. It accepts PIE was before Sanskrit, but places PIE in India (please see history section). Antolian hypothesis is more comparable to PCT as it is proposing 9000 BC date. PCT and PVC take the dates to before last ice age (15,000BC??). OIT proposed date is closer to scholarly consensus regarding PIE date. The disagreement is re: where the homeland is. The redirect should be changed.Sbhushan 14:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, please don't add back controversial comments, where clearly there is strong disagreement.Sbhushan 14:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, I strongly agree with Sbhushan here. It's enough to say that it is not mainstream...you don't need to brand it Indocentric in comparison with the idea of a Nordic Urheimat, especially since this opinion is your POV and thus does not belong in this article. It is especially bad to mention this in the lead. At best, you could find a source and say that Portions of the linguistic community compare this theory as the Indocentric version of the Eurocentric PCT. I can't help but feel you are POV pushing. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 04:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

what "Nordic urheimat"? I didn't compare it to Nazi ideas, is that what you understood? I really don't see which part of the statement is problematic. I agree it doesn't need to be in the intro, but you seem to reject it outright. Why? The PCT is at least as "respectable", it was proposed by Italian archaeologist, not by a motley crew of teachers and spiritual leaders. PCT contains the exact same arguments regarding "recent arrival is impossible". What do you dispute about this? Did you even look at the PCT article? Your "Nordic" comment does not seem to indicate that. Do you dispute the PCT is Eurocentric? Or that the OIT is Indocentric? The almost total failure of this article to address any of the "out of" part of "out of India" is symptomatic for the proponent's total lack of interest in anything beyond the Hindukush. I can understand that "OIT" ideas can make sense if you look only at Indian evidence, and ignore the other branches (that's 11 12ths of the available evidence), but that is precisely what I mean by "Indocentric". dab (𒁳)

Dab, it would make it very easy, if you could supply full citations for the PCT comment. If you can supply citations, I won't have any problem with the harshest words.Sbhushan 16:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Dravidians immigrating to Punjab in Mid-Vedic time - a speculation of Witzel

Witzel speculates about Dravidians immigrating to Punjab via Baluchistan from outside ancient India in Notes 17 of main article. No where in Dravidian history , scripts or legends such a immigration from central asia via baluchistan to punjab is noted or remembered. Even Aryans or Dravidians or their supposed central asian homeland have no traces of such `powerful' brothers & sisters. Infact Dravidian legends says that they immigrated from more southernly land of current India which was once a unified land mass. And, what happended to their more darker shade and Indus Dravidian scenario ? That's why I tell that Indo-Europeanists are good in fabricating some stories ( like AIT - based on their favourable interpretation ). This is like some joke for them to cook some stories whenever some contradictive scenario appears. If Rig-Vedic people are told to adopt some Dravidian influences then how they could replace language `X' of IVC people ? Sometimes Dravidians are nomadic aboriginal type people , then after IVC findings they become highly civilized and now they all together immigrate to India via baluchistan and meet Rig-Vedic Aryans in Punjab during Mid Rig-Vedic time !!! It seems that all Indo-Europeanists ( upto Witzel ) are good `cook' ! That means all allegories of Witzel telling IVC as Dravidian were wrong. So, why he should be considered `scholar' ?

Read Talageri's book which is more cohesive with all datas available. I am now sure that after 10-15 years Witzel will again jump to new `conclusion' and his `scholarly' work during those years will be `wasted' ! WIN 08:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Once again. This is the page for discussion of what to include in the page. Your opinions and personal taste in scholarship is of no relevance.Maunus 09:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Then, is there any scientific data to support his speculation of Dravidian Immigration in ancient India ? If yes, then present to me. WIN 09:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That is not the topic of this article. Discontinue your ramblings.Maunus 09:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not ? This is mentioned in main article's Dravidian substratum ... section. Retroflex is not limited to Dravidian languages and is found in IE Russian and Polish languages also. If Sanskrit's Retroflex is due to Dravidian influences then explain for Ruusian & Polish.Witzel is involving those points which requires proof of other scientific fields. And, without which IT IS just ramblings. WIN 10:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Witzel s not the only one who supposes dravidian influence in Indic. This has been suggested since EMenau and the foremost scholars of contact linguistics agree. Even the linguists who believe that other explanations are preferrable acknowledge that it is a possibility. And you were rambling about dravidian migrations which are of no consequence to either argument. The retroflexes of Swedish, norwegian american english are not at all comparable to what is found in indic their development is well understood - the developments in Indic aren't. The retroflexes in polish and russian are only phonetically retroflex and only found in sibilants as a consequene of palatalizations - also not comparable. Indic languages are the only IE languages that have a full series of phonemically contrasted retroflexes - and the only language group to be in contact with several languages that have retroflex series reonstructed all the way back to the proto level - a fair basis for assuming a contact origin. You should either sit down and learn something about linguistics or stop acting as if you know anything about it.Maunus 10:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I am again asking to you that do you have any scientific data for Immigration of Dravidians in Indian subcontinent? First give evidence for this. WIN 11:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

How does 250,000,000 Dravidian speakers living in the indian subcontinent strike you as evidence? However: It is irrelevant!!! Maunus 11:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

`Inventing' language X for IVC defies any logical understanding. So, highly civilized & advanced IVC people adopted IA and Dravidian and all 3 forgot that adoption alongwith any immigration. It seems that it was very easy for coming aryans & dravidians to impose their language on IVC people.

As said by Witzel in that paper, Rig-Veda is source for this speculation then why Indo-Europeanists failed to detect Dravidian immigration alongwith Aryans ? And, instead Dravidians were pictured always so different inspite `understanding' Rig-Veda for last 150 years by those linguists. WIN 12:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

try to at least understand a hypothesis before "criticising" it. And go 'discussing' on a discussion forum, not here. dab (𒁳) 14:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The point being made by Win is that mainstream is creating lots of complexity to explain the evidence. Now we have potential Language X of IVC, proposed migration of Dravidian after IA in Punjab as per Witzel (he states all arguments based on Dravidian should be thrown out), Munda also thrown in the mix. RV has retroflex based on Dravidian, but loan words based on Munda and maybe Language X. IVC must have been the New York of 3 millinimum, when you go to New York, you get absorbed and you can't change New York. So when we talk about unlikely Isoglosses, this unlikely impact is also relevent to OIT discussion. What is the mainstream position regarding language of IVC?Sbhushan 15:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not too fond of Witzel's idea. But the crucial point is this, it is a hypothesis, forwarded as speculative, not as some mystical "knowledge" about what the IVC must have been like. Candidates for the language of the Mature IVC are Dravidian, Indo-Iranian and Munda (or, some lost phylum). In Witzel's scenario, Munda is preferred, this is all. "Middle Rigvedic" times are not in the 3rd millennium, Witzel proposes that these movements occurred around 1500-1300 BCE. And the IVC at the time was not looking "like New York", I can assure you. It looked more like Rome in 800 CE. THe reason I am sceptical of Witzel's idea is that Munda is just a far western outlier of Austro-Asiatic, and an Indian Urheimat for Austro-Asiatic is just as far-fetched as an Indian Urheimat for Indo-European. It seems also unlikely, I agree, that the IVC should have left next to no linguistic trace, and I think that Dravidian fits the expected pattern of the remnants of IVC perfectly. Parpola thinks so too, and of course Witzel is aware that this is the favoured scenario, and he doesn't try to misrepresent the case as "OIT proponents" seem to be dependent on doing. dab (𒁳) 16:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we can agree that the situation is not conclusive (that is also scholarly opinion) and re. rest we can agree to disagree. Reading Witzel's articles is a torture. All the statements are speculation of one person or other, so nothing should be quoted as facts. For the Dravidian OIT article, the inconculsive argument is clear and I don't think we can add more to it.Sbhushan 16:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

we can agree that nothing is known about the language of the IVC, no need to "agree to disagree" here. It should be made very clear that "Indo-Iranian IVC" is a required, but not sufficient condition for OIT. That is, "I-Ir IVC" is a weaker claim than "OIT". It is important to note this prominently, since much confusion seems to stem from the idea that the two are equivalent. "I-Ir IVC" is not compatible with the Kurgan hypothesis, but it is perfectly compatible with e.g. the Anatolian hypothesis. If an I-Ir IVC should be made to appear likely in the future, mainstream scholars would probably flock to the Anatolian hypothesis in droves. dab (𒁳) 17:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, the "agree to disagree" comment was an attempt to end this fruitless discussion. We are not here to solve this. We are just documenting OIT position and mainstream argument against them. Mainstream dates that you mentioned are also speculation and those dates are exactly what OIT is challenging. Both sides are proposing certain dates based on some analysis that they prefer. It is too early to state one position as being fact. That is something which we can agree on while disagreeing on the proposed dates. I don't want to get back to unlikely scenario discussion as I have already identified unlikely in PIE outside India.Sbhushan 18:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

this is strong. It was you who continually tried to "solve" things by misrepresenting motley collections of "Aryan IVC" as factual. I do not have, and never did have a problem with Elst and Kazanas advancing positions that fly in the face of mainstream scholarship. Really, it's fine. You are perfectly free to discuss any subject you like on Wikipedia, just as long as you don't misrepresent communis opinio. You, however, have been doing nothing but this, consistently, consciously, and ad nauseam. You are quite obviously not here for encyclopedic discussion of the topic, but simply for unenlightening brute and boring single-topic pov pushing. dab (𒁳) 14:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, hold a minute. You are asked to give proper ref. of all your POV pushing words to counter writers like Bryant etc. but you are constantly failing to do so. So, you don't have any right to write bad for other who writes with proper quotes. So, find some AM supporter's proper ref. and quote them against that respective quote. WIN 04:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Archaeo-Astronomy

I've been on wikibreak, will be back fully in some weeks. Just asking why the Archaeo-Astronomy section was mercilessly deleted? I'll get to work on this page in some weeks, looks like it is in a bit of revert warring. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 23:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back. Would appreciate a fresh look at the changed page. Do you thing OIT is being mis-represnted in any way?Sbhushan 03:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

nobleeagle, I appreciate requests for citation of specific claims, but to remove the general mainstream characterization of the Rigveda, which is detailed and referenced on Rigveda and absolutely uncontroversia does not appear as a very fair move. Also, the removal of the fact that no IE branch has "memories of an Urheimat" is similar to the removal of a statement that the moon is not made of cheese because no academic opinion saying "the moon is not made of cheese" was cited. dab (𒁳) 13:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, Regarding Ghandhara comments, the references are from Mandala 8 and from DasRajan fight when certain group of Aryans were exiled to that area and created Gandhara. They did not come from there. Scholarly consensus is that book 8 is from later period if not one of the last. So you can not reverse the accepted chronology. You had also removed an ealier comment which showed that RV people had strong roots in the area. Parpola's speculation can not be quoted as mainstream fact. Regarding details on Rigveda, it seems that needs to be cleaned up to. Most of the information on that is dated. Some of the details are going back to period when mainstream was talking about invasion. "Nomad" is a comment left from that period. The Ten King fight is a very major fight and the reason that Witzel now has to push back date of RV. Rigvedic people were well settled in the area for as long as they can remember, fighting with each other for territory and engaged in agriculture. Please don't quote invasion related old history, you are setting up straw-man.Sbhushan 14:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

what are you even talking about? the Dasharajna battle is in mandala 7, and all we know about it is from four or five verses. Don't try to tell me about "scholarly consensus", not after your history of misrepresentation of authors' positions. Ask Nobleeagle to check your facts for you before we even address them here, since you quite obviously have no idea what you are talking about. dab (𒁳) 14:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Please read before commenting, it says Mandala 8 and DasRajan. It does not say that DasRajan is in Manadala 8. You are the one misrepresenting positions, only error you ever found in my words was a missing "square" from Kilometer. Now I have had about enough of your unilateral and arbitary edits. I am chaning the PCT back and if this time you change it again without discussing it, I will be forced to conclude that you don't have any intention to talk.

I have indeed come to the conclusion that you are only here to cherry pick and push the article text as far as you can to create a dishonest illusion of academic support, and unless you act in a way to dispel that impression, I am indeed not terribly interested in further debate with you. If this was a respectable hypothesis, it wouldn't need all these propaganda tricks, you could just state it like it is, pros and cons, and be done. dab (𒁳) 16:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, in regards to your comments above about the moon not being made out of cheese. I think you know that that analogy is out of place in the context you placed it in. I'm not sure whether my facts are wrong but I've definitely read that the Iranians mentioned an origin outside of the region in which they settled. Indeed, one of the points in favour of the OIT is that some have deduced that the Avesta mentions a Western homeland. Do none of the other IE branches (lets leave out the Iranians here) have memory that they were not always settled in their respective homelands but had arrived from other places? Maybe no IE branch can specify a specific place. I mean, it may not mention a specific location of their Urheimat but it may at least mention that they immigrated from somewhere far. Btw, what of the archaeo-astronomy section. I think astronomical references from the RigVeda can be used to help dating it, and the dating of the RigVeda is essential to the AMT argument. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 04:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The "moon is not made of cheese" bit is exactly what it feels like contributing to this article from the mainstream point of view. How can we be expected to find counter arguments to arguments that are so so obviously flawed that nobody from the mainstream camp has wasted their time arguing against them? But on the other hand if we don't find those arguments it looks like the moon is obviously made of cheese and the people who think otherwise have no case at all. The similarities between OIT and PCT and the nordic centered model are so obvious that it should of course be mentioned. Nationalist movements always advance chose to theories that gives their country a special place - and just like eurocentric models are used by european nationalists of course indian nationalists support OIT. You are being disingenious if you try to deny that, that is like denying that there exist such a thing as indian nationalism. Of course the OIT does have support outside of Hindu and indian nationalist groups, but those groups do support it for mostly religious and nationalist reasons, of course they do. But that alone doesn't discredit the theory, a theory can be right no matter whom is the advocate of it - that depends only on arguments. The indocentricness of the OIT should be mentioned as comparable to the eurocentricness of the PCT in the artcle - simply because it is.Maunus 09:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Then, why Bishop Caldwell's Dravidian race theory was not considered as religious & nationalist at that time ?

PCT don't have any scientific data to their support ( check it on WP article ) and OIT finds AMT flaws and OIT support from range of scientific or scriptual supports. That's why PCT can not be equated with OIT to degrade it. WIN 10:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong - PCT has an equal amount of pseudoarguments in its favor as OIT (and like OIT a few actual arguments)- the reason it doesn't look like it is that that WP article on PCT is much less biased and reflect the most widely accepted viewpoint in a way I fear this article never will.Maunus 11:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

PCT is at least as respectable as OIT. The only difference being that the latter has hosts of uninformed young nationalists touting it on the internet, while the former is proposed by a couple of fringy but distinguished Italian archaeologists. Until we agree that the number of internet users that take pride in pushing the theory out of nationalist pride is completely irrelevant, there can be no progress. We are now getting Armenian nationalsts pushing the Armenian hypothesis, see Talk:Armenia recently, the only difference is that there are 7 million Armenians as opposed to 700 million Indo-Aryans, so that the incidence of nationalist propaganda on Indo-Aryan related articles is expected to be about 100 times higher. Which is what we indeed observe. dab (𒁳) 11:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's more than just nationalism. There is also the religious motivation, which is not present in Christian and Muslim countries, in which religious identity is not tied to a model of national continuity in the face of repeated intrusion from alien cultures. If your religious traditions are a product of a definite historical moment of "conversion" from outside then an objection to alien intrusion seems far less relevant. When you add to that the fact that India's experience under British domination is recent - and coincides with the rise and decline of "Aryan" theory in the west - then I think it's more powerful than just a matter of numbers. I suspect that if, say, Scandanavia, had resisted conversion to Christianity then the situation would be similar regarding the Penka/Kossinna theory of Nordic origins. Scandanavia was still "pagan" when most of Europe had converted. It's possible to imagine that it would have resisted conversion and fended off a series of crusade-like attempts to force it into the Christian fold. If so a national identity would be forged around resistance to intrusion and an immemorial religious identity which cannot have come about from any "invasion". We would have Scandanavians insulted by the "Christian fundamentalists" whose insisance that their religion came from Central Asia was part of a project to denigrate their traditions. Paul B 12:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

we finally need a good discussion of this, at Nationalism and archaeology, please contribute, Paul. However, I have my doubts about your interpretation. Of course nationalism and religion are closely interlocked, this is why almost all great nationalist conflicts are fought out along religions lines (hell, even the Iraqi civil war is fought between creed divisions, and the idea of nationalism itself emerged during the Reformation). Natively, Hindu culture is emphatically ahistoric. Ancient Indian sources are simply not interested in dates and events. There is no historiography in India prior to the Middle Ages, which makes it so extremely difficult to date anything with any precision. This insistence on antiquity is a product of colonialism, it appears that Indians got the idea that insisting on hoary time depths of their history is somehow a matter of nationalist pride from the British, what with British Israelism and related nonsense of the period. This is paired with the previous complete innocence of the culture of dealing with any sense of historical depth, so that the resulting claims are often not just tall but positively fantastic. To most of these "OIT proponents", it is completely irrelevant whether they can claim a "history" of five, ten, or seventy millennia, just as long as they can insist that their culture is older than anything else, and remained nailed to the spot during all this time. This is what should not be discussed in this article, but over at nationalism and archaeology and related articles. This article is for what little academic merit there is, admittedly, to the OIT. There are indeed corresponding mythologies surrounding European Christianization, virulent in Wicca concepts of "The Burning Times" and claims of "pagan continuity" (Dafo, Neo-Druidism). This is precisely the same mechanism, it's just that there we have a minor group of confused conspiracy theorists that have not developed the sheer cricital mass to have a significant effect. Another example is of course "Creation Science", here more religious than ethnic I grant you, which has indeed gathered enough momentum to have an effect at least in the USA. All this has nothing to do with ancient history, of course, but rather with sociology and human group behaviour. dab (𒁳) 13:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Speaking as someone who knows more about archaeoastronomy and the history of astronomy than about Indian culture, I can only comment that the attempt to date vaguely defined astronomical events on the basis of astronomical calculations is extremely treacherous. In a recent example a colleague tried to date a medieval European diagram that gave the positions of all the visible planets within 30° (a zodiacal sign). His dating turned out to be in error because he missed an equally good match some 500 years later.

Some lessons can be learned from this case for the Indian attempts at precise dating. When you add to this the fact that no discussions of this problem have appeared in peer reviewed journals in archaeoastronomy or the history of astronomy -- where they could be subjected to appropriate technical evaluation -- one must suspect the validity of these archaeoastronomical claims. They were rightfully deleted here. --SteveMcCluskey 16:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Is the map intended to illustrate the theory or mock it?

There are so many problems with the map that I wonder whether it is supposed to mock the theory or illustrate it. First of all, the Middle East is shown to be I-E by 2000 BC. Are the Semitic languages supposed to have arrived to Arabia and the Middle East after this date? Secondly, north-eastern Europe (Finland and northern Russia) was traditionally Fenno-Ugric. The map appears to have been made without any deeper linguistic, historic and geographic insight.--Berig 13:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It was created to illustrate Elst's assertions. Elst states (without explaining his reasons) that as "more people migrated from India to become the West-Asian Indo-Aryans... [They] pushed as far west as Palestine, making their mark for a few centuries (18th-12th century BC) in different parts of West Asia before disappearing through assimilation".[7] He may just be referring to the Philistines, in which case the inclusion of Arabia is rather OTT, but he's rather vague. But he seems to have the view that ancient Summerians were IE too[8]. Much of this stuff is like reading the finer works of Alfred Rosenberg. Paul B 14:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! :).--Berig 14:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

but is Arabia actually included in "Indo-European territory"? "West Asian Indo-Aryans" are the Mitanni ruling class, and possibly some Scythian tribes, that's it. If this is really Elst's map, I must say, the more details transpire about his "emerging scenario" the more inconsequential it looks. It is symptomatic of OIT proposals that they discuss Sarasvati and Krttakas ad nauseam, but only have a very vague notion, and less interest, of anything that is actually "outside India" (viz., the very topic they are supposedly addressing). I could come up with a more convincing "OIT" map off the top of my head. That would be OR, of course. But maybe I should publish an arguable scenario for OIT somewhere? It sure would enhance my popularity among our Indian editors here. I predict that if I was to publish a coherent OIT scenario somewhere, I will be mentioned as "eminent scholar" on this page within the month :) dab (𒁳) 14:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, i am sure that if you publish your research, you would make a much better scholar, atleast when compared to the likes of Michael Witzel. By the way, (i am just eager to know) how would you deal with IVC in your OIT scenario. would it be an isolated language which no longer exists?

<please correct me if i am wrong> Whatever i could gather about PCT is that it is a fringe linguistic theory which argues that PIE existed and got separated during the paleolithics. It is in no way concerned with the Urheimat, nor is it Euro-centric in any way. Why is there a reference to PCT in this article. PCT can sure be compared with proto-vedic continuity.nids(♂) 18:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Saraswati river's identification is accepted by most archaeologists, for instance Kenoyer, Raymond and Bridget Allchin, G. L. Possehl or D. P. Agrawal. WIN 09:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

yes? even if that is the case, what does this have to do with OIT? It is also accepted that the Helmand was called "Sarasvati". All that gives us are two rivers with the same name, proving that name transfer must have been possible one way or the other. dab (𒁳) 09:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

For Saraswati and afghan Harahvaiti or modern Helmund, read http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/ReplytoWitzelJIES.pdf page 12 to 16.

Changing of indic `S' to iranian `H' is well known one but reverse is not found to occur. If you know the reverse then quote here. WIN 07:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Do Iranians mention an external homeland in their texts?

Can anyone answer that in a straightforward way instead of talking about the inner funadementals of Indian and Armenian nationalism? Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 05:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes they do. with an odd discription of their homeland as having 10 winter months and 2 summer months. (sorry i dont have the source).nids(♂) 08:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

See Airyanem Vaejah. Paul B 08:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

that's not looking at an "Iranian" homeland, but at best at an "Avestan" homeland. Avestan vs. Old Persian already shows the fundamental division between E and W Iranian. There is no memory of a Proto-Iranian homeland, let alone a Proto-Indo-Iranian one, and Airyanem Vaejah is little more than a term in extremely obscure texts that offers itself to whatever interpretation you like. The Avestan homeland has been located to anywhere between Azerbaijan and Balochistan, and Iranian peoples were indeed scattered over all that area long before our earliest texts. See also Avestan_language#Classification. dab (𒁳) 11:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Urheimat section: Gandhara comment

Dab, I am sure you have the right reference, but it might have slipped your mind to quote the page #. I checked the Asko Parpola (2005) document Study of the Ancient Indus Script and Gandhara is only quoted in References on page 65. There is no linking it with the statement in Urheimat section. Were you referencing different document? If same document, can you please add the page #. I am on Wikibreak and am not frequently checking.Sbhushan 16:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

fully cited on Indo-Iranians. I am not into duplicating discussions onto pages where they are completely offtopic, and am in favour of removing the entire pointless section. The "Memories of an Urheimat" started out as rhetoric BS, we have added the reasons why it is rhetoric BS, and it now stands as a dicussion of completely irrelevant non-sequiturs. Like most of this article, I might add. If you did honest research before adding idly inconsequential non-arguments, this article could be short and to the point: OIT was suggested by Schlegel, and recently by a few authors. It never gained mainstream acceptance, for such and such reasons, period, next article. What you are doing (not to mention WIN) are continuous dishonest attempts at spinning misrepresenting the situation. It is a plain fact that the Armenian hypothesis has far better academic credentials than OIT, and is still justly classified as a widely rejected proposal. dab (𒁳) 11:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, to raise your knowledge about Armenian hypothesis or other Urheimat hypothesis , refer paper by Prof. B.B.Lal who is Director General (Retd.), Archaeological Survey of India named `The Homeland of Indo-European Languages and Culture: Some Thoughts' http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/bbl001.html. Read The Caucasus Region point for Armenian hypothesis. WIN 09:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the article is more directed at your level, WIN, but you should read it; Lal humbly suggests NW India is a more likely candidate than Sogdiana, and he is "well aware" that the suggestion is widely discredited, precisely the fact you have been trying to edit out of Wikipedia for months. I am not defending the Armenian hypothesis. I am merely stating the fact that it has better academic support than OIT. dab (𒁳) 09:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

WIN, let me introduce you to Ararat arev (talk · contribs), you should discuss the question of Indo-European origins with him, I'm sure you will be great friends. If you reach a conclusion, I will listen to it. dab (𒁳) 10:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, you are hiding words in that paper. Prof. B.B.Lal searches for homeland from Anatolia, Armenia, Kurgan , Sogdiana. And, gives clear picture that why that hypothesis is not possible or in accordance with overall picture. But , then he takes NW South Asia and after checking states that it is much better than Sogdiana.

Don't mis-guide by writing in English but not `able' to `read and `understand it. Since you can not refute Prof. B.B.Lal's points , you are writing about my LEVEL. But, that way you are showing your LEVEL. WIN 10:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not wish to refute Lal, his article is fine. He insists on dating the Rigveda by the "Sarasvati" argument, that's basically it. We do discuss the "Sarasvati argument" for what it is worth, and we can well add Lal as a supporter, no problem. His article is perfecly fine as defending a minority position. dab (𒁳) 11:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab, I noticed that you have changed the referenced article name and publication date. Could you also please add the page number in the citation. Indo-Iranians page doesn't have anything about Gandhara. If you have changed the words from original publication, could you please post the original words on the talk page to help the verification. Thanks..Sbhushan 18:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hapta Hend and Airyanem Vaejah

I had made an edit that discarded mention of Hapta Hend being an Iranian Urheimat along with Airyanem Vaejah in the Vendidad because the Vendidad neither states nor implies that Hapta Hend is at all the homeland of Aryans or the Iranians. According to the Vendidad English translation at www.avesta.org, it is 15th land created, cursed by Ahriman to have abnormal issues in women and excessive heat. Airyanem Vaejah is made first, considered the best, and beset by terrible winters for 10 months per year. While the Airyanem Vaejah, on account of its name (the Aryan connection), has been asserted to represent the homeland or land of the Aryans, this relationship is not seen in the Vendidad regarding Hapta Hend.

A user called WIN undid my edit, with the following explanation,

09:36, 12 December 2006 WIN (Talk | contribs) (Hapta Hendu is Ahura Mazda created land alongwith Airyanam Vaejo .That means Zorastrians were once living in Hapta Hendu like other Vendidad mentioned lands. Refer Talageri's book's Ch.6 I-Ir Urht.)

The first sentence is true, though all sixteen lands mentioned can be described so. Also, "along with" should not be understood as meaning "at the same time", as the creation is ordered in the Vendidad.

While it may just need explanation, the second sentence seems odd. The Vendidad does not say that the lands mentioned necessarily contain Zoroastrians, it just mentions that they are "good lands" along with their Ahrimanic counter-creation. Some are even noted for their lack of belief or following of wrong beliefs. Of course, living in the lands doesn't mean that it must be an Urheimat, so the statement doesn't really support reinstating Hapta Hend as an Iranian Urheimat.

I did refer to Chapter 6 in Talageri's book. While I definitely have some disagreements with the chapter, mostly for running off of dubious references to other writers and for its disgracefully POV approach, I would not object to using its ideas, as they do represent the view of some OIT proponents. However, I cannot stand by if an assertion is included as fact on this page, while disagreeing with the actual text of the Vendidad.

However, WIN has more experience than me, and his logic regarding the mention of Hapta Hend as an Urheimat may be sound, despite my failure to recognize it as sound. So I propose a compromise, following the same logic; that mention as an Ahura Mazda-created land in the Vendidad means that it is inhabited by Zoroastrians and is also the Iranian Urheimat. My compromise shall be to include and mention each of the 16 good lands created in sequence with Airyanem Vaejah in the same way that Hapta Hend was included.

In doing this, I will follow WIN's logic and approach while being fair to each of the 16 good lands under the same criteria.The Behnam 06:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right.By "along with " I did not mean `all at a time'.Due to space constrain there , I had to squeeze explanation.

For your ref. I am giving below notes of Gnoli.

" The crucial geographical list of sixteen Iranian lands, in the first chapter of the VendidAd, is fully identified: “From the second to the sixteenth country, we have quite a compact and consistent picture. The order goes roughly from north to south and then towards the east: Sogdiana (Gava), Margiana (Mourv), Bactria (BAx?I, Nisaya between Margiana and Bactria, Areia (HarOiva), KAbulistAn (VaEkArAta), the GaznI region (UrvA), XnAnta, Arachosia (HaraxvaitI), Drangiana (HaEtumant), a territory between Zamin-dAvar and Qal‘at-i-Gilzay (RaYa), the LUgar valley (Caxra), BunEr (VarAna), PañjAb (Hapta HAndu), RaNhA … between the KAbul and the Kurram, in the region where it seems likely the Vedic river RasA flowed.”

Gnoli notes that India is very much a part of the geographical picture: “With VarAna and RaNhA, as of course with Hapta HAndu, which comes between them in the Vandidad I list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.” "

Now, as per AIT/AMT , Indo-Iranians and Indo-Aryans divided from farther remote area ( say central asia ) and one came to Iran & other to India.Iranians know lands of India as Ahura Mazda created lands.Talageri also says that geography of Avesta starts from Sapta Sindhu and reaches upto BMAC i.e. just north of Afghanistan. And, in that 16 lands , there is not a single current Iran area name mentioned. Geography of those Zorastrians does not cover Iran which was Zorastrians Iranians' central state at the time of Arab Islamic invasion of Iran ! WIN 10:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hapta Hend is definitely mentioned as one of the Ahura Mazda created lands. I am just concerned about jumping to saying that it means it is the Iranian Urheimat along with Airyanem Vaejah. After all, aside from those two, 14 other lands are mentioned, mostly outside of what is called India. The text of the Vendidad only gives Airyanem Vaejah special discussion and praise, the others are mentioned in lesser but roughly equal fashion. In no way does it say associate Hapta Hend with Aryans any more than it does with the other 14 (excluding Airyanem Vaejah, which does regard Aryans, presumably because of its name).

Also, the commentary at www.avesta.org for the relevant section of the Vendidad seems to propose a different identification, including some areas of modern Iran, though these are tentative. While I personally disagree with these identifications, it is important not to portray any set of identifications as something almost everyone agrees upon. I do agree that emphasis should be placed on your identification references, since it doesn't directly contradict the Vendidad, and it is more appropriate to describe OIT by the sources that its proponents respect.

However, the Urheimat remark is most important, and as I haven't seen in your sources a good Vendidad-based explanation of why Hapta Hend is somehow Urheimat along with Airyanem Vaejah without the other 14 being just as Urheimat. As I said, I may follow this approach you have included, and thus mention all 16 in equal light here.

However, I am trying to avoid having to do this, because I think that it would be both ugly and meaningless. But, as of now, if talking about all of them or some of them would be meaningless or otherwise not acceptable, Hapta Hend should not be placed in line with Airyanem Vaejah in the article. Do you see where I am coming from?

Perhaps, if OIT proponents happen to regularly place Hapta Hend on par with Airyanem Vaejah, that may be mentioned just to describe common OIT views. However, the current article places too much factual tone into the assertion, considering that the Vendidad can be seen not to make such statements. So maybe a tone change is needed, or some other type of relocation. I think the whole thing doesn't seem safe include overall.

So that you know what my source is, the following URL is the Vendidad translation I have been using. Fortunately, it is honest, in that it notes that some of the identifications are not written in stone. Also, I am interested in the methods used in Gnoli and/or Talageri's Vendidad place identifications. I find it odd that they would regard any part of Aryan India as having 10 months of winter.

http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd1sbe.htm

Perhaps we should just mention Airyanem Vaejah alone? The association of it with the Iranian Urheimat seems to be much stronger and have much more consensus than those that include others of the 16 lands. And including it alone probably won't detract very greatly from the article; in fact, it may strengthen it. At least for now? The Behnam 18:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Gnoli notes that there are 3 land area of Avestan people viz. VarAna, RaNhA and Sapta Sindhu which are clearly an Indian land area. ( here Indian means before partition of India area ). If Avestan people came from central asia and they splited with IA people in Bactria - Sodgiana area to move towards Iran and IA towards India, then how come they mention VarAna, RaNha and Sapta Sindhu as their god Ahura Mazda created land. Avestan geography moves from Airyanem Vaejah to Sapta Sindhu and then towards NW areas. So, that means Airyanem Vaejah is north of Sapta Sindhu and that area is Kashmir. Now, if you know about current waether of Kashmir then you can understand that out of any Indian area , only Kashmir will be cool in Indian summer ( and Hill stations ). Kashmir valley's weather is always much more cooler than rest of Indian plains. Right now, it's snowfall in Kashmir but it's hard to find snowfall in Indian plains ( except in Himalayas ). Kashmir valley will have temp. above 25 deg. C only during peak summer of months.

Also, Anu people who fought battle with Rig-Vedic people are called as coming from north to Sapta Sindhu area. Anu people were driven away to NW of India in main Rig-Vedic battle of ten kings. They were called as Dasa by Rig-Vedic people which is similar to Daha people of Iran. Historiacally Iranians were called Daha or Dahae. So, it matches with Anu ( or Dasa ) people driven away to NW of India & beyond.

Now, Avestan & Rig-Vedic people had animosity due to religious beliefs and they are called as `mrdhravacah' - Sanskrit word which means "having defective organs of speech" (Rg Veda 1854-57:3.276 n.). That means that they were not able to pronounce Rig-Vedic Sanskrit properly. And, exact pronounciation of Sanskrit words / verses is given upmost importance even today. That means Sanskrit words exact pronunciation was highly stressed since Rig-Vedic time ( now this time can be any as per AMT or OIT , but definitely atleast 3,500 years old ). Read Dasa's full article.

Avestan people's initial Avestan geography is not reaching proper Iran or areas beyond Bactria , Sodgiana. Now, initial Avestan geography includes min. 3 Indian land areas. So, it means they started from Kashmir and came to Sapta Sindhu where they fought battle of ten kings and being defeated driven away to Afghan areas of NW. Opposite meaning for Deva and Asura confirms this animosity. Otherwise Avestan people can not come on tour to 3 Indian areas and return back. WIN 05:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I was hoping you would address my points more directly.

First, realize that I am not talking about the AMT and its "Pontic Steppes", some random part of Central Asia that is supposed to be the Indo-European Urheimat. So you do not need to "refute" AMT to me in every post; while it may be enjoyable, it does not address my Vendidad-related concerns.

Also, you say that the Avestan geography "moves" from Airyanem Vaejah to Hapta Hend, then toward NW areas. Correct me if I am wrong in this, but when you say "moves", I assume you are speaking of the order of mention and direction. Such as, it starts by mentioning this place, and moves towards that place, or a similar sentence. Now, if you are using "moves" to indicate this, the primary source (the Vendidad) displays this clearly. Now, out of sixteen lands, it mentions Airyanem Vaejah first, and Hapta Hend 15th. It cannot possibly move towards "NW areas" after Hapta Hend, considering there is only one area left. This area is Rangha, or as your source spells, RaNha; thus your Indian identification (based upon Gnoli) probably doesn't fall under "NW area" in the larger picture. Still, the plural issue would exist. Also, in this Avestan geographical movement, the variety of directions involved in moving between the lands between Airyanem Vaejah and Hapta Hend may compromise the description of the geography as moving from Airyanem Vaejah to Hapta Hend. If I describe, in this order, New York, Riyadh, Paris, Casablanca, Tokyo, it is odd to say that my description started with New York and moved toward Tokyo, since the direction is hardly straight.

Also, since Sogdiana is moved to first, the same logic of "movement" may be applied to say that Airyanem Vaejah was north of Sogdiana, since you mention that the general direction is from North to South.

Truly, this focus on areas on the eastern side of the Iranian plateau is expected; the mainstream view is that the Avestan culture is indeed from eastern Iran. Hence, Sogdia, Balkh, the Harahvaiti and the Haetumant, as well as others. According to the Vendidad page I linked above, even Varkana is described with certainty. Take a look at that page, both the main text and the certain identifications, and you will see that Hapta Hend is the only certain land that is not Iranian, and that the Iranian picture goes as far west as Ray.

So, Hapta Hend is a certain part of India, and the other two you mention based on Gnoli, both are of uncertain identification, and so there is no major conflict between our sources.

Now to address your question, how could they mention three Indian lands (according to Gnoli) as created by their Supreme God? Identifying these lands that they knew about, and called "good", as created by Ahura Mazda doesn't mean that they had to live in India or come from India. If it were to be that by mentioning lands, they must be from the lands, then all sixteen would have to be considered. AGAIN, you do not clarify why Hapta Hend should be held at the same level of Airyanem Vaejah.

I think it is important that only Airyanem Vaejah be mentioned as the Aryan homeland or land based upon the Vendidad. It should be mentioned alone, though you want to push Hapta Hend to its side, and have consistently failed to provide a sound reason that this should be done, considering our primary source, the Vendidad.

Next, the tangents. About the Anu; realize that the description you gave doesn't seem to indicate anything except that a supposedly Iranian people attacked Hapta Hend from elsewhere. Now, even if you assert that these particular Iranian people were living in Kashmir (which I guess has 10 months of severe winter) or somewhere else in the north of India, it doesn't follow that Iranian peoples originated in India. They could be from elsewhere; there is no way to establish that this group. By the way, Dahyu in Iranian language means a tribe or land in generic (this is mentioned in the Dasa article with a source), and hence is a general term.

Another tangent, the word `mrdhravacah'. Perhaps you are right by saying that the Sanskrit speakers thought that the Avestan dialect was improper. That doesn't say anything. They could recognize similarities and differences just as easily as us, this doesn't affect the Urheimat. I feel you may have intended to go along the lines that currently discredit the Dasa article, which claims that Avestan culture was a derivative of Rigvedic culture. However, this is not clear, and even if that was your meaning, it is not justified.

I don't know if you intended these tangents to be relevant or not; they didn't come out so. If you did, please be clear in connecting these topics with the question of Hapta Hend being considered the Iranian Urheimat based upon the Vendidad.

Try to focus in your response on whether or not Hapta Hend should be included with Airyanem Vaejah alone with description as Urheimat. You should argue not only why Hapta Hend is deserving of this, but also why the other lands cannot qualify. I'm trying to make sure we can agree, and I feel I have done well overall in being direct and relevant in my arguments. I do not want to make edits until we have agreement, though more irrelevant exhortations may lead to me making the edits anyway (since this would mean my points were not answered).

Ideally, Airyanem Vaejah will be mentioned alone, though I am willing to compromise and include all 16. And of course, if you persuade me to your view, I will not make any change. Thanks a lot! The Behnam 07:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I am refering Gnoli and Talageri for Vendidad I's list of 16 land areas.I have modified wordings that may be OK with you. It's correct that those 16 land areas names given without any sequence. Dahyu's meaning tribe , province and district suggests that Daha naming tribe who occupied Iran state in ancient times.So, that why it's wholesale meaning of tribe or province.( it's like telling Madrasi - from Madras or Chennai - to all south Indians by north indians or naming whole of India as Hindustan from Sindhu river.) Note that Dahistan name of area east of caspian relates to Daha. And, Daha is Iranic version of Dasa as indic `s' is known to change to iranic `h'. Refer Rig-vedic tribes.

Avesta is younger to Rig-Veda and it's confrimed on linguistic basis. You have to consider overall, taking Rig-Veda and Avesta accounts to get clear idea. Geography moves means place, area or river names appearing from younger to older sections of Avesta or Rig-Veda.

In IVC excavations, vedic fire ritual doing pits are found at Kalibangan & other. IVC was having trade contact with BMAC - central asia from 4200 BC ( Purpola )and Arkaim was burnt & left in 1700 BC when IVC trade contact with central asia totally died. Where as IVC towns were not burnt & left. Arkaim has to be IVC people's trading post as it was planned town with sewage and with thick outer wall, bronze smelting oven & systematically placed fire pits. If Arkem was not IVC trade post then why it was burnt and people left it in 1700 BC. Why there is no other such 2,000 persons living place in that area ? And, if it was central asian inhabitated place then other people were not found living in similar way ( like plenty of IVC towns ) ? One can not ignore all such points in overall picture. WIN 09:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Um, yeah. I never said anything about Arkaim, it has nothing to do with the question of listing Hapta Hend as an Urheimat along with Airyanem Vaejah. Save it for the IVC-related pages, though I am not sure if you have good sources or if these are just your personal questions regarding it. Frankly, I am not interested in speculating about some mysterious civilization. We don't know enough; we don't even understand their script. We just know that they made high quality bricks. And a few other things, but it is aside from the point.

Anyway, you did not address the main issue. The closest you came it was by saying that "It's correct that those 16 land areas names given without any sequence". While this isn't the most clear sentence, I could interpret it as agreeing to have all 16 lands mentioned in the article. Of course, I will use Vendidad as the source; you do not need to worry since I will use the Avestan names. The reason for inclusion will be, simply put, an adherence to the logic of your inclusion of Hapta Hend but while taking the other 14 lands into account, as you have not provided a reason that these lands should get listed as Urheimat under the same criteria. I would like to get this edit done soon, but I will appreciate any further remarks regarding my main issue. Hope to hear from you. The Behnam 20:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I have written wrong about 16 land areas' sequence as I had read that chapter long back.Avestan people's homeland is Airyanem Vaejah and not other land areas of Vendidad. They are just later occupied areas ( should be evident as their mention as Ahura Mazda created lands ). Ref. Talageri's book. Ch. 6 , I-Ir Ur. http://voiceofdharma.org/books/rig/ch6.htm. I believe more in Talageri's book as it quotes many known scholars in I-Ir subject and finds I-Ir Ur from their written books alongwith Rig-Veda. I feel that that considers quiet a bit overall picture. I have changed that sentence in main article and hope that it should be OK with you. WIN 08:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I am glad that you have realized the necessity of the change I proposed. However, I notice that you have changed the article, but have not changed the sentence you said you did, regarding Hapta Hend being placed alongside Airyanem Vaejah as an Iranian Urheimat. Based on our discussion here, it seems we both agree that Airyanem Vaejah alone is the Urheimat, based upon the Vendidad. My guess is that you just forgot to get around to it, so I'm just saying this to remind you, in case you didn't see the message I left you on your talk page. I could make the change myself based upon our discussion here; however, I think it is best that you do, since this would bring closure to our debate. Thanks again! The Behnam 10:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I see you accidentally responded to my post on your own talk page, instead of mine. Back to the subject, even if you feel that Talageri equates Kashmir and Airyanem Vaejah, it still does not make sense to include Hapta Hend as the Urheimat, since they are clearly different locations. You seem to acknowledge this in your last response here, but you did not remove the Hapta Hend reference. If OIT proponents identify Kashmir with Airyanem Vaejah based upon Talageri, you probably should mention this after the sentence identifying Airyanem Vaejah as the Urheimat. Just make sure not to mention it in a way that is more persuasive than encyclopedic(this seems to be an issue in this and related articles; let's avoid it). However, it is important that Hapta Hend not be listed as the Iranian Urheimat, since we both agree that it is not, and the source backs this up. I hope you make the desired change, so that we can settle this without incident. Thanks! The Behnam 10:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think there are two different issues here, which may be getting mixed up. Talageri believes that Kashmir is the Indo-Iranian urheimat, but he also claims that the Indo-European urheimat is in the Eastern Gangetic interior of India. Paul B 12:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to keep discussion of Indo-European Urheimat away from this topic, since my concern is indeed with the Indo-Iranian Urheimat. At this point, I am waiting for WIN to make the change to that sentence as he said he would. Its clear that Talageri believes Airyanem Vaejah to be Kashmir, which makes it incorrect to mention Hapta Hend along with Airyanem Vaejah as the Urheimat. I think WIN should mention Talageri's Kashmir belief after stating that Airyanem Vaejah is considered the Indo-Iranian Urheimat. However, it remains inappropriate for Hapta Hend to be mentioned. The Behnam 20:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

WIN, I have waited a long time for the change you agreed to, and I do not yet see it. I don't know you reason for not acting based upon our discussion, but I will make the change myself if you do not. I hope you make the change soon. Thanks. The Behnam 07:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change, WIN. dab's revert got rid of it, however, so I will restore the change you made, since no reason has been given by dab for reverting that particular change. Thanks again. The Behnam 16:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I will make one slight adjustment to your original wording to reflect that the Kashmir identification is Talageri's argument, rather than some sort of universally accepted fact. The Behnam 16:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Possibly Unfair Revert by dab

dab, I think that the sweeping revert against WIN's edits may have been unfair. While you two may have already discussed those particular edits before, and hence you have changed based upon previous discussion, I think that the approach may be wrong. After all, this page should describe the beliefs of the OIT; it shouldn't be an article refuting the OIT. Still, it shouldn't exhort the OIT either, so try to address WIN's edits by making them neutral if you believe they are being to "pamphlet" in their content. Of course, discuss with WIN if there is disagreement. I have been discussing with WIN on an issue of disagreement(see Hapta Hend and Airyanem Vaejah discussion above) and feel that it there is a good chance at agreement between us. It takes more work, but in the end, may lead to a more stable result. Even if a discussion does not work out, an edit can justified if the other person failed to respond properly in defense of the edit. But please, try to discuss before simply wiping out his contributions, however absurd you may consider them. Neutralization is better than destruction. I think that by wiping out, you aren't solving any problems. Of course, your greater experience here may justify your revert in a way I do not yet see, so I await your reply. The Behnam 10:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I reverted because WIN removed the link to the "substrate" main article, restoring the exported material. I have never "discussed" with WIN, since he never showed any sign of faculty for coherent thought. dab (𒁳) 10:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Please remain civil dab. I do think that dab's way is the best way to spend the bytes in this article. There is no need to take the full discussion here when we can summarize it and link to the main article.Maunus 11:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have had trouble getting coherent responses from him too, but you shouldn't be mean. He hasn't been hostile towards me, and I think he still can learn to be more on-topic in his responses. I think that being polite is very important to having a constructive discussion, so I hope you will at least try, despite your frustration. Thanks. The Behnam 11:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not frustrated, I simply do not accept that I am required to 'discuss' with people who show no sign of understanding the topic, per WP:ENC. I am not incivil or hostile, I simply call it like it is. I have shown all readiness to discuss with people who actually contribute encyclopedic material, but I will not discuss with those who do not. Lal's article dug up by WIN is fine, and I wish we had Lal to discuss with rather than clueless pov pushers. Lal takes the "geological Rigveda" position, which is not considered reasonable in philology, but which can certainly be quoted, no problem. My issue is with trolls and vandals who consistently try go misrepresent the debate, rather than simply reporting positions for what they are worth. dab (𒁳) 11:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Indigenous Aryan Theory

alright, we've heard all arguments now, over and over again. Proponents mostly harp on "Indo-Aryans must have been present since Harappan times". This is the Indigenous Aryan Theory touted by the BJP. Now, this is a required but insufficient part of the OIT claim. "OIT" means

• (a) Indo-Iranians were in India before 3000 BC
• (b) other IE branches migrated out of India at some point.

If you can prove (a), you are only half done. I've asked for contributions to (b) again and again, but all we hear is Sarasvati here and Harappan script there. It is time that (a) be treated separately, at Indigenous Aryan Theory. This can be a sub-article of this one. OIT scenarios should then be argued based on the assumption of a pre-3000 BC Indo-Iranian presence. dab (𒁳) 11:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it may be better to split the articles otherwise: A separate article for linguistic aspects, another one for archaoeological and one for philological aspects. Splitting the article to discuss sub-variants of the theory could be too early. --RF 23:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been keeping away from these controversies so I can concentrate on building GAs and FAs in articles where such achievements are remotely possible. But now I must step in to Dab's proposal of splitting part of the article into the Indigenous Aryan Theory (which would cover everything about the Sarasvati and everything and leave just a paragraph here) and the Out of India theory (which could easily be completely covered here). The Indigenous Aryan Theory (based on Dab's way of presenting it) is half of the Out of India Theory, the OIT encompasses it anyway. But the Indigenous Aryan Theory produces no more than sixty hits on Google (a tiny number), it could be deleted any day for non-notability, what then dab? The Out of India theory at least produces over 1000 hits on Google. [9] So Indigenous Aryan theory is non-notable and as an admin who is entrusted with deleting such articles, I want to confirm with you before nominating it in Afd. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 03:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly object of making something like Indigenous Aryan Theory as separate article. The subject is part of OIT and should be presented under OIT only. Don't try to mis-guide readers. WIN 04:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Again this article is on OIT, a subject at least discussed in academic journals, and supported by people who arent biblical literalists or Marxist activists. Therefore the whole enchilada should be kept here. The new article created (IAT) should be userfied to "dab's views on OIT" (a more appropriate page title). I personally would call IAT "cruft".Bakaman 06:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Your ludicrous claim that most academics are biblical literalists or Marxist activists indicates what a weird fantasy-world, disconnected from the real reasons for these arguments, you occupy. Paul B 10:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Nein mein freund. I dont even believe in OIT, I just think AIT/IAM is bull. Have I not stated time and time again on this page that I am more of a PCT follower? I suppose to be in your universe, one must be a racist to fully understand the context because the "stupid Hindutva chatterbots/Hindu gerontophiliacs" cant understand anything?Bakaman 18:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Part of the problem with this article is the constant confusion between two separate issues:

1. The claim that IE originated in India

2. The claim that IE existed in India earlier than is commonly supposed (either the IVC is said to have been IE speaking, or the RV is said to have been older than is commonly asserted)

There are some truly weird arguments (the "no silver" claim etc) mixed in with more reasonable ones, and there is a tendency to present "OIT proponents" as having a united front. In fact Elst's theory largely contradicts Talageri's theory - a fact thsat is nowhere clear here. The other problem is the fact that the article is completely fixated on proving that IAs were native to India (because of course that's the main motivation for the theory). There is no account of how IE is supposed to have spread elsewhere, and what models of language development are being offered. Once it's out of India no-one seems to care anymore. Paul B 10:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply - PIE did not originate in India (most likely somewhere near Africa), and it's nearly impossible to find proof to the contrary. PII originating in India is a more plausible scenario that should be discussed in the article.Bakaman 18:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

"PIE" means the recoverable source of IE languages. There is some dispute about whether this means a real spoken language or an artificial construction derived from fragments of grammatical and lexical information. But it's most commonly believed that a some aspects of a real language can be reconstructed by liniguistics in a form that fits with archaeological models of migration. Of course all "proto" languages imply yet earlier proto-forms that may or may not be recoverable. There is never any real linguistic proto moment, only phases. BVut history makes those phases meaninful. I guess you believe that "PIE" originated in Africa prior to an Ice-Age migration to India a la Oppenheimer. That's a very idiosyncratic view, especially if you try to meld it with a neolithic/copper age RV. So much evidence has to be ignored that it becomes cvery obviously motivated by faith rather than facts. Paul B 23:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: "Out of India Theory" has also very few google results, once you exclude "wikipedia" in searches. --RF 11:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

We don't need to split "linguistic" vs. "archaeological" etc. "arguments for OIT" because none have been brought forward. The only thing that clutters are attempts cover entire fields, "what is historical linguistics", "what is the geological history of India". Bakaman is the perfect example for a political believer in Ancient Aryans: he just knows nothing ever budged in India before the evil Muslims and racist Colonialists came along. "Aryans" by definition grew out of fertile paleolithic Indian soil like mushrooms. That's the entire "theory" according to Bakaman and friends, and this is justly treated at Indigenous Aryan Theory, because it has nothing whatsoever to do with Indo-European linguistics or scholarship in general. Nobleeagle's concern is just with the title. I don't know how to title it, we used to have Proto-Vedic Continuity Theory which is pretty much the same as "IAT". We moved it to "OIT" because there was at least some scholarly debate on that. Predictably, the tiny core of actual debate was again flooded by Aryan-cruft. If you prefer, Nobleeagle, we can move this entire article to Indigenous Aryan Theory, and make "Out of India" a minor subsection of that. The fact is just that this article doesn't address what it's supposed to address. Whether we solve this by splitting, moving or just cleaning up is all the same to me. I also appreciate your sentiment, Nobleeagle, that spending time on uncontroversial articles is better invested and more satisfying. I have no calling to clean up articles on schools and minor bands. But I do believe my time is well invested in the tiring task of defending Wikipedia against nationalist propaganda, not just Indian, but any sort, because unlike Pokemon-cruft the stuff tends to spill into articles on notable topics. Not because it improves Wikipedia, but because it needs to be done to keep it from worsening. If we had more stringent policies on locking out the clueless and the trolls, much time could be saved, and we would long have arrived at a honest and accurate report of the debate. The term Indigenous Aryan originates with Bryant [10], an author quoted very frequently by "IA" revisionists for his agnosticism. dab (𒁳) 14:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I admit, though that the "Theory" part is my addition. Most hits are for "Indigenous Aryans", "Indigenous Aryan model", "Indigenous Aryan debate", "Indigenous Aryan proponents" etc.; I guess I was influenced by "AIT", "OIT". We can easily move it to Indigenous Aryan debate or even just Indigenous Aryans. dab (𒁳) 14:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that there should be only one article. The reason this article includes so much extra stuff is because more proof is asked and required for OIT. For example: horse bones discovered in IVC in 1974, this was challenged for next 20 years and the person finally gets recognition for that in 1994 and the horse/chariot issue is still being debated. Similar issue regarding Proto-Bangani (almost 20 years), controversy still goes on. But all that is beside the point. Regarding the content of the article, I have 2 statements:

1. Kazanas' arguments were rejected by no less than five mainstream scholars, among them JP Mallory in JIES. I have not seen one word of that rejection/criticism from JIES. Same thing with Talageri’s book. Witzel provided scathing comments (as per Dab) for Talageri’s book. Again, not one word of that criticism in the article yet. I am happy for Dab that he want to write a book about this, but this is not the place for OR. Dab says he wants to make encyclopedic article, but his comments are OR. When he is asked for citation, he just ignores that comment. But writes large notes about how he wants to improve the article and everyone else is trying to ruin it. Why don’t you make some real effort in adding criticism?

2. Regarding Dab’s (b) issue, details regarding outside India can be added. Bryant 2001 has Chapter 7 on “Linguistic Evidence from outside of India”. I have provided all the publication regarding Proto Bangani, both for and against, in the section above on Dec 7th, so far no one has commented on that. So do we want to make this encyclopedic article. OR only thing that you want to say is that mainstream in 1989 (JP Mallory’s book) rejected the theory detailed in articles in late 1990’s and 2000. That would definitely make mainstream scholars look very learned (my attempt at sarcasm if you did not get it).Sbhushan 18:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Its quite simple Sbushan: We shouldn't have to provide criticism of and counter arguments to everything everything you guys write! If you were interestd in having a neutral and nonbiased encyclopedic article you would provide that yourself and write in a way that reflects the topic from the prevalent scientific viewpoint - not in a way that tries to convince readers and fellow editors that the OIT is really the only viable theory and that it has been unfairly rejected by the "establishment" of indofobic scientists. It cannot be and it should not be our responsability to police you guys into respecting the basic principles of WP:NPOV and WP:Undue weight you as editors should do this by your self - or if incapable of detaching yourselves from your personal viewpoints cease to edit these articles.Maunus 18:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Maunus, the reason I did not add criticism is that there is no relevent criticism. Witzel writes a 79 page review of a 59 page article, but does not address any critical arguments. Same thing with other critics. The prevalent scientific view is: Even Mallory (1989), who has been the most prolific scholar in quest of the Indo-Europeans, is moved to quip: “One does not ask ‘where is the Indo-European home-land?’ but rather ‘where do they put it now?’” (143).Sbhushan 18:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

guys, if you really insist that indigenous Aryans be merged here, I hope you are aware that this article would then become the main article on all sorts of mysticist nonsense. My reason behind creating a separate Indigenous Aryans article was to take away the heat of propaganda from this article, and allow us to discuss what (very) little scholarly merit the idea may have. If this is going to be the "Hindutva propaganda" as well as the "PIE out of India" article, it is obvious that it will cease to be an article about Indo-European linguistics, and become fully a sub-topic of Hindutva. You can't have your cake and eat it. You want to pretend "out of India" has scholarly merit? Then discuss the mysticist nonsense somewhere else. You don't want a separate article on Hindutva pseudoscience? Then this article is it. dab (𒁳) 08:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

"mysticist nonsense" belongs in Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies) as pointed out in AfD for indigenous Aryans. We have three article to deal with broader topic; Indo-Aryan migration for mainstream view, Out of India for minority scholarly opinion, and Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies) about historical, ideological and socio-political aspects of this controversy. There is no need for a fourth article like indigenous Aryans. Would this be acceptable compromise.Sbhushan 14:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Zora's reversion

I'd better explain my reversion. WIN added an ungrammatical "linguists" to "Indo-Europeanists", which completely changes the meaning as well. Someone else added a bit re an ancestral homeland in Kashmir. I reverted both edits to a known-good one. Zora 09:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The Kashmir note was the product of a lengthy discussion between WIN and I, as you have now changed it back to the vague and misleading wording I originally objected to. Please see Talk:Out_of_India_theory#Hapta_Hend_and_Airyanem_Vaejah for this discussion, and actually reason your objection to the result. I will restore my edit soon, since you did not provide any reason for throwing away the conclusion of our discussion on that part. Please state whatever objections you have to this sourced material. The Behnam 17:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Sarasvati

You might want to mention that this entire section relies upon the unsupported assumption that the Ghaggar-Hakra river is the Sarasvati. You might want to mention that most mainstream scholars maintain that the Helmand river is the river that is actually being mentioned in the rg veda. Quodfui 19:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

How good do you feel after being in hypnotic trance and wake up to write above ? WIN 05:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

well, the Ghaggar is widely accepted as the Sarasvati of the Brahmanas. The argument is void anyway, the Sarasvati became a sort of mystical unseen river, and I think its confluence with the Ganges(!) at present is supposed to be at Allahabad. The early Rigvedic Sarasvati was probably the Helmand, yes, but it became a rather fuzzy mystical thing even in Rigvedic times. dab (𒁳) 16:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yajurveda mentions Five Punjab rivers merging with Sarawati & Atharvaveda mentions Agriculture on the banks of Saraswati river. Now , Yajurveda & Atharvaveda were composed after Rig-Veda. And, as per Aryan theory they migrated to Indian subcontinent after 1900 BC when Sarawati river dried up totally. First arrange this incidences in proper order and then continue the misguide.

Stop interpreting Rig-Veda and Saraswati in Western way instead of traditional Indian way. Do not try to make previous Western Sanskrit knowing persons as having greater language & cultural understanding than brahmins. Tell me do you know Sanskrit ? WIN 04:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have serious doubts myself that you know the first or last thing about Sanskrit philology. Read my lips: this isn't the Saraswati aritcle. This article should tell us what evidence there is that the Indo-Europeans "left India" towards the steppe in 4500 BC, and then moved to Persia in 3000 BC, and to Arabia(!!) and Anatolia in 2000 BC, while it took them full 2,500 years(!) to cross the Ural river. At least that's what's in the map attributed to Elst. All other authors don't even go as far as giving us any such scenario at all. The proposition is ludicrous and wholly unsupported, and all principles of faith concerning the Saraswati won't fix that. dab (𒁳) 13:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

You are telling like this - since this article is for Christianism don't write about Mother Mary ! WIN 08:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

that's not even English, WIN. Why do you keep bothering? dab (𒁳) 14:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The association of Mother Mary with Christianism is undeniable. Same way your posting that `this isn't Saraswati article' should not be mis-understood to those Westerrn readers who are hardly aware about the depth of Hinduism. I have written this association so that they can understand Indian point , which you are always denigrating like formulators of Aryan Invasion Theory. WIN 05:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Having grown up on Hindu MYTHOLOGY i know first hand where people like WIN get their training from. Rationality and reason haven't reached the Arya Samaj and its various social and political incarnations in the last century, Its sad that these people want the foundation of modern understanding of Indian history and hindu tradition on whatever occurs to them or what they think would benfit their position in India's illiterate masses and the so called 'educated' zealots. Didn't the Brahmin ancestors mess up Indian history by mixing geneologies of Indian kings and tribes in ancient texts with some god or the other just to please these kings or make them appear holy in the eyes of the people they were trying to control, thanks to which we don't have an accurate Indian history. 25, March 2007

keeping this out of the "pseudoscience" category

there have been repeated claims that this article should be merged into the discussion of "indigenous Aryans" type pseudoscience. I argue that it should be kept separate, for what little academic value it has. We will only be able to do this, if we

• discuss academic publications exclusively (no Frawley, no Aurobindo, no Hancock, no archaeoastronomical or ethno-mystical nonsense).
• state up front that the academic notability of this hypothesis is less that that of both the Kurgan and the Anatolian model
• admit up front that the topic is spammed for ideological reasons.

Once we admit that, we can proceed to discuss Schlegel Elst and Kazanas and their critics. It's difficult to keep the ideological spam out of this article, but I believe it can be done. dab (𒁳) 14:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree to scholarly content - But not to Anatolian model - I would prefer to keep this article as bona fide scholarly discussion (see my earlier note [[11]]. The question is what to do with indigenous Aryans and Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies). Also Dab, keep in mind that you are not going to be able to slip in "compatibility with Anatolian Hypothesis" with indigenous Aryans. I have explained reason to you why we need peer reviewed material to say that (see here [[12]]. So sooner you give up that dream and sooner we can have a resoultion to this conflict.Sbhushan 14:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

but it is compatible, with the "mild" scenarios. As I have sourced with insane precision now. You have explained nothing short of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, sorry. Get a mediator to understand what we want, and we're talking. dab (𒁳) 15:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Dab, I have yet to see the source that says it is compatible, the "mild" scenarios argue for 4000 BC Rigveda. We also have issues of loan word in Finno-Ugric and Mittani. Please do check WP:ATT Wikipedia is not the place to publish your opinions, experiences, or arguments. Original research refers to material that is not attributable to a reliable, published source. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, ideas, statements, and neologisms; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position. Material added to articles must be directly and explicitly supported by the cited sources. Also WP:OR says The only way to demonstrate that material is not original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say. This is not to say that I don't value your argument, but they don't belong in the article, till you can cite a reliable source.Sbhushan 16:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Indo-Europeanist "linguist" community

I've watched this article for awhile and particular inclusion by WIN has been bothering me. What is this "Indo-Europeanist linguist community" wording? Based upon reading Indo-European studies, it is a linguistic field, so it is a redundancy that implies that there are non-linguistic Indo-European studies. True? It keeps coming back so I figure I'd put it up for discussion since WIN never did despite requests. The Behnam 06:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Please, WP:DFTT. rudra 07:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if WIN will forever be dismissed as a troll, at least get rid of him. It is best he not waste his time. I just saw a content dispute & figured I'd post it here for discussion. It could be trolling, but it could also be that WIN simply does not realize this fully, though the lack of response to discussion requests may rule out the latter scenario. The Behnam 07:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I have written linguist word to already written `Indo-Europeanist community' because the words IE community was giving false impression to general reader that Kurgan hypothesis is backed by other IE relating sciences like archeology, anthropology etc. Where as this is not true. Kurgan hypothesis is favoured by only linguist community and not other IE relating sciences. So, for clarification purpose `linguist' term was added. I think this clarifies the doubt.

I already had discussion with The Behnam in Jan. 2007. And, he had suggested that --- "the Indo-European linguistics community" is better English than "the Indo-Europeanist linguist community". --- So, we can modify accordingly. WIN 11:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Kazanas article and redirect to OIT

I just noted that Kazanas article is deleted and redirected to OIT. It's utterly full of prejudice or malign practice to portay every IAM theory opposition as not worth a salt. Refer website http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/en_index.html which contains papers published in journals or presented in University. So, it's just not proper to redirect him to OIT. WIN 11:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

All articles related to "Aryan" in Wikipedia have become sole property of a user/administrator called "Dab". If he likes it it will remain or else it will disappear. It is that simple. Did you notice the two articles (IAT,Kazanas) that went through RFC, both have the verdict of "No Consensus", but one was deleted and the other was untouched. It was because, Dab created the RFC for Kazanas article - so he got it no matter what. Wikipedia is more and more tilting towards AIT/AMT with super admins like Dab. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.40.21.204 (talk • contribs)

thanks for the "super admin" award, Mr. troll, I am doing my best to uphold Wikipedia:policy in the face of concerted trolling campaigns. WP is "tilting" towards "AMT" because academia is, and no amount of trolling is going to change that, per WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE. Change academic mainstream, and you'll change Wikipedia. Wide support in academia means wide coverage on WP, general rejection in academia means "fringe/pseudo-scholarship" caveats on Wikipedia. It's how we operate, if you don't like it, consider forking off. dab (𒁳) 11:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You should be nicer.--D-Boy 09:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sanskrit section

The argument regarding conservative nature of Sanskrit was presented by Kazanas in the article "Indigenous Indoaryans and the Rigveda" published by the Journal of Indo-European Studies in 2002. The other references are from Bryant 2001. All this material is from peer reviewed material. Kazanas arguments were criticized by all mainstream scholars as per Dab. Why don't you provide some of that criticism?Sbhushan 17:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Who is Kazanas?

The man claims to be a Sanskritist. So he isn't any of: a (comparative) linguist, a philologist, an archaeologist, an historian. Whatever. In reality, he's a classic blog-style "researcher", with choice elements of a crank modus operandi:

Naturally, start with the fringe theory you want to "prove": it's your one and only filter of "truth". Read a lot, to gather a whole bunch of cherry-picked sound bites and plausible ideas. Focus on relatively dated works, because that's where you're most likely to find suitable material (recent works by contrast being the most likely ones to make the fringiness abundantly clear to all but the invincibly stupid.) Throw in a few references to respected current names ("see also" is a good trick here), to disguise the datedness of your real sources. And don't forget offhand claims here and there about the academic establishment ignoring your carefully culled "facts" (i.e. in up-to-date standard works.) Mix thoroughly, and serve it up hot... to the punters ready, willing and eager to osmote instant expertise from your labor of love.

And that's how Wikipedia will get an unending stream of science students (it really helps to have no background in the relevant subjects) gung-ho on informing the world that Burrow and Lockwood are the Last Word on Sanskrit (and IE linguistics, for good measure.)

(Bonus question: which blogger made such a big deal of Beekes?) rudra 03:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

A specific article presented in peer reviewed litrature by Kazanas is being discussed. The article was presented in JIES. If Mallory can accept it, I fail to see what credentials you have to challenge it. Beekes (who favours AMT) was quoted by Elst in 2005.Sbhushan 14:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

JIES offered a fringe author the possibility to state his case. After three issues, they had to close the debate, since he was obviously impervious to rational criticism. We can well state that Kazanas brouht up the OIT thing in JIES and was torn apart, if only to document that the 1990s "recent evidence" presented by VoI has left no impression whatsoever on academic mainstream. This doesn't qualify Kazanas as an academic or scholar in his own right. He is a painfully obivous sockpuppet proxy of S. Kak et al., and it is no coincidence that he keeps a homepage on voi.org. He's just a member of the gang. He stated their case in JIES and was shot down, end of story. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is about minority view. It says clearly in the lead section that The theory is not favored in Indo-European studies community also makes similar statements in the rest of the article. The content presented in article is based on acceptable source and is verifiable. Since Kazanas arguments were rejected by so many mainstream scholars, a good source of criticism is also available. So what is the issue here?Sbhushan 14:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

history section

Please read Bryant 2001 page numbers provided in the references. For Latham quote, these are the words from Page 31-32.

For Latham (1862), “when philologues make the Veda 3000 years old, and deduce

the Latin and its congeners from Asia, they are wrong to, at least, a thousand miles in space, and as many years in time” (620). Latham's rationale, which survives to the present day, was that “if historical evidence be wanting, the a priori presumptions must be con- sidered…. the presumptions are in favour of the smaller class having been deduced from the larger rather than vice versa” (611). As a natural scientist, he illustrated this thesis by comparing language groups to distinct species of reptiles: Where we have two branches of the same division of speech separated from each other, one of which is the larger in area and the more diversified by varieties, and the other smaller and comparatively homogeneous, the presumption is in favour of the latter being derived from the former, rather than the former from the latter. To deduce the Indo-Europeans of Europe from the Indo-Europeans of Asia, in ethnology, is like deriving the reptiles of Great Brit- ain from those of Ireland in herpetology. (Latham 1851, cxlii; italics in original)

.

Again please check the reference before deleting text. If you have a doubt please leave a fact tag and try to have a discussion instead of edit waring.Sbhushan 13:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Bryant often misstates the case for simplicity (or for other reasons known best to himself). You keep bringing up Bryant's stuff as fact in Wikipedia's voice. Bryant usually gets the gist right, but you cannot treat whatever Bryant came up with as unassailable fact. dab (𒁳) 14:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

And, the same should be true for Witzel , Purpola etc. also. WIN 11:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

"Innocently" asking for {{fact}} tags is just more gaming the system, because providing random references -- Moe(1963), Larry(1975), Shemp(1992), whatever -- would meet such requests. Which, considering that he hasn't read much, and knows even less, is about the best he could do anyway. rudra 02:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If the choice is between Bryant's words and yours, Bryant is acceptable to wikipedia - your view are not. If you can provide any publication that provides verifable content, please provide it.Sbhushan 14:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to cite Bryant, quote him only. Don't try to pass off his references as yours. Manifest ignorance isn't as tiresome here as pretense of knowledge. Given your performance on a set of related pages over the past few months, it's matter of serious doubt that anyone would still be obliged to extend good faith to you. We weren't born yesterday. What that means, in plain English, is that you are in no position to ask for anything. rudra 01:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The history of who tried to push original research on Wikipedia is very clear. All of Indigenous Aryans was OR, you tried to defend all questionable references with more OR. Luckily wikipedia keeps history of all actions. And you are stil trying to defend publication of more original reasearch?????Sbhushan 17:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Huh? I suggest that you take a wiki-break. It's Spring. Step outside, breathe some fresh air. You're in danger of really losing it here. rudra 20:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Parpola's Gandhara claim

Since you claim to have read Parpola's article, why don't you provide the page number where this particular claim is made. This claim was challenged around Dec 2006 (see above "Urheimat section: Gandhara comment"). Dab first provide Parpola 2005 as reference. I checked that and there is no mention of this. Then he suggested [Indo-Iranian], then he changed to Parpola (1999). I have asked for page number since that time, no response yet. I have waited since Dec for correct reference, I can wait couple of more days.Sbhushan 17:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's take this slowly, okay? First, Swat is in Gandhara. Yes, I know, that's shocking, but it's true. Nothing we can do about that, so let's move on. Next, on the basis of what the word urheimat means, "Rigvedic Urheimat" means where the speakers of Proto-Rigvedic, i.e. the immediate precursor, were, when the Rgvedic language evolved. Are you with us, so far? Good. Now, Parpola(1999) identifies the Swat Culture with Proto-Rigvedic. From that, it should be clear to everyone, including my sainted grandmother, that in Parpola's reconstruction, the Rgvedic language emerged in Gandhara. Oh, you mean you were looking for Parpola to have said exactly "Gandhara is the Rigvedic Urheimat". otherwise you're going to slap an {{OR}} tag right smack there? Gee, go ahead. rudra 19:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

your combination of saintly patience and hilarity cracks me up every time :) dab (𒁳) 20:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You guys amaze me. You just confirmed that Parpola has NOT said "Gandhara is the Rigvedic Urheimat" and then you try to sell a whole lot of original research. Take a look at WP:ATT, WP:NOR and WP:ENC. The key statement is Original research includes [...] any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position.

You have also confirmed that since Dec 2006 Dab tried to push his POV and now we have a new defender to follow in Dab's footstep. How do you propose to protect integrity of Wikipedia by publishing original research???Sbhushan 11:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Rudra after all your cliams to subject matter expertise and knowledge, is this Gandhara claim the best you can come up with? As requested last time [[13]], can you demostrate your knowledge by adding good verifiable content on this and the related topic. Original reserach only shows your ignorance of topic.Sbhushan 14:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Sbhushan, the paragraph summarizes exactly the gist of Parpola's suggestion (not "claim"). If you are unable to follow the argument, you can hardly blame that on us. Maybe you should find a topic more fitted to your cognitive faculties instead. We cannot be expected to dumb this down to simple: level just because one reader found it too difficult. Summarizing the content of a paper is not the same as misrepresenting it, which is what the policy you quote at us refers to. You should know all about misrepresentation, as Rudra points out with angelic patience above re your doctored "citations" of Bryant. The crucial difference between Rudra and you? Rudra is aware of the pertaining literature, and wants to reflect the content of that literature in the article, no self: good for Wikipedia. You have your opinion, which you picked up god knows where, probably on the internet, and you are scavenging the literature for anything that sounds as if it would support what you decided you want the article to say: bad for Wikipedia. Unless you wisen up and realize what Wikipedia is about, you will have little joy here. dab (𒁳) 15:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

If you make an accusation, be ready to back it up. The history of you providing multiple citation for this one comment are: parpola 2005, Indo-Iranian, Parpola 1999 and now Rudra confirming that Parpola has not made that statement in any of these documents. This is only one sentence here, I can provide a history of both of you doing same thing on multiple articles. BTW, Gandhara was part of RV geography, so Parpola's comment are actual supporting Out of India argument of no migration/homeland out side of known geography. The current international boundaries were not known to Rigvedic Aryans.Sbhushan 15:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

since I have personally drawn this map, I trust you will believe you tell me nothing new when you say "Gandhara was part of RV geography". Tell you what, maybe Parpola's suggestion "Swat=Proto-RV" is somehow related to or influenced by this well known fact?

another violation of the very policy you just quoted: [14] while the isolated fact "Parpola said Proto-Rigvedic was spoken in Gandhara" would neither contradict nor "support" the OIT, the paper of course derives Swat < Alakul-Fedorovo < Petrovka-Sintashta . You have either not even looked at the article, in which case you are idly wasting our time, or you have looked at it and chose to consciously misrepresent it, in which case you are trolling, or you have looked at it, but not understood a single word, in which case I repeat that you might better invest your energies elsewhere. dab (𒁳) 15:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarify your comments, are you now arguing that Gandhara was not known to Rigvedic Aryan. In "Memories of an Urheimat" OIT arguement is that Rigvedic Aryan's don't retain any memory of migration from region outside of geographic region known to them.Sbhushan 15:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

my comments are perfectly plain. You are once again trying to muddy the issue by non-sequiturs. This is not a debate. dab (𒁳) 15:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for verification of quote

Michael Witzel<ref name=witzel>Published volume (1995) of the papers presented during a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic Approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto on 4th-6th October 1991</ref> has stated that “in Northern India, rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe). This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus civilization, where one would have expected the survival of earlier names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East."

Please see Michael Witzel, Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and politics, in: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. G. Erdosy, Berlin/New York (de Gruyter) 1995. [[15]]. The Hydronomy section starts at page 133. The 3 quotes are from page 133—134, 135 and 139. I have addressed your question, so please insert the text back in the article. Surprisingly, you did not question the quote from Krahe which is dated and incorrect, and is in conflict with Witzel (1995) and Theo Vennemann (1994). How about you remove that now?Sbhushan 23:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The pages you gave me do not contain the Witzel quotes in question. In fact, that chapter is not written by Witzel at all. JFD 02:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Try again, but look at the page numbers at the top of the page rather than the page number of the PDF file. On the PDF file, it's page number 49. If you go to page number 49 of the PDF file, you'll see the section that begins with Hydronomy, and the number 133 at the top, indicating the page number of the original text. The following page is numbered 134 at the top of the page and also says Michael Witzel at the top of that page, which is page number 50 of the PDF file. If you still can't find it, I'll copy and paste it here. Or you can use the search function in Adobe Acrobat and find the quotes that way. ॐ Priyanath talk 03:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

PDF? I'm consulting an actual copy of the book. JFD 03:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm using the link that Sbhushan provided above, which is a digital copy of the book. I believe that also qualifies as an 'actual' copy in this day and age of the electronic encyclopedia (Wikipedia). You might like to click on that link and read it for yourself. That way you can compare the PDF (digital) copy and the 'actual' copy and see what the discrepancy is. Perhaps they are different editions. Considering that the link provided by Sbhushan to the digital copy of the book is on Witzel's own section of the Harvard University website, it surely is reliable. Once you look at the digital version, turn to page 104-106 in your version of the book. I think you might find that the 'digital' version is the same as the 'actual' version, except for the page numbering, which is common in different editions of books. ॐ Priyanath talk 04:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out the correct pages.
I took the opportunity to read the chapter myself.

Two points:

1. It is Talageri, not Witzel, who uses hydronomy in support of the Out of India theory, and it is both misleading and inaccurate to attribute those inferences to Witzel, especially given that the two of them draw such radically different conclusions.

2. Citations must be accurate.

A vague description like "Published volume (1995) of the papers presented during a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic Approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto on 4th-6th October 1991" is, as a citation, useless and unacceptable.
At the very least, a citation ought to contain the title.

Talageri draws not on "Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and politics," as Sbhushan states above, but "Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual parametres," which brings us to my next point: a citation ought to contain the correct title.

Lastly, a word of advice.
I have had the good fortune to receive advance review copies of books from time to time.
These are uncorrected galleys sent to book reviewers ahead of the official publication date so that book reviews can be written in time to appear in newspapers and magazines at the same time that a book comes out.
Advance copies of non-fiction books typically contain a warning that they are not to be cited academically. For one thing, corrections are sometimes made between the printing of an uncorrected galley and the official publication date. For another, changes in layout often render page number references inaccurate.

So I would hesitate before assuming that a digital copy of "2 uncorrected files" (as the PDF says at the top of the very first page) qualifies as an "actual copy".

JFD 13:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The first line in linguistic section states OIT proponents have used the arguments presented by linguistic scholars to show that either the linguistic evidence is inconclusive or supports OIT hypothesis. To give you brief history of why it was presented this way, an objection was raised earlier that Elst, Talageri, Kazanas are not linguistic scholars. They have never claimed to be linguistic scholars; they have provided arguments presented by linguistic scholars to show that the mainstream scholars contradict themselves. Nothing wrong with that approach, Witzel quotes Hock, Parpola etc. all the time. Witzel is most vocal AMT proponent and it is funny how many times he contradicts himself. Witzel reviewed Talageri's book [16] and did not object to him quoting Witzel. Witzel has been quoted by Bryant, Elst, Kazanas etc. Are you saying that these quotes are incorrect and Witzel never said this? Witzel's same paper has been published in number of publications under different names. So page number depends on which document/revision you are looking at. It is a fact that river names are Indo-Aryan and a fact that the area in question was heavily populated. Witzel agrees that the change in river name in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names is especially surprising (page 139 as above). Witzel assumed that river names changed because of his bias; there is no evidence to show that river names changed. Are you OK with putting the quotes back?

If you are intellectually honest, look at discussion above regarding Parpola's Gandhara comment and edit warring that Rudra engaged in. Parpola did not make that statement, but Dab/Rudra are edit warring to keep it in. Would you like to remove that? I can provide you with lots more examples in this page of Dab's original research; would you help to remove those to improve quality of the project?Sbhushan 14:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

So, you finally cast your eyeballs on something other than Bryant? Wonders never cease. If you actually comprehended something, we can only hope that you work out to read Parpola before babbling about "edit warring" and whatnot. rudra 04:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for changes. Do you have any objection to quoting "Indo-Aryan languages are the oldest source of place and river names in northern India - which can be seen as an argument in favor of seeing Indo-Aryan as the oldest documented population of that area." after Talageri's statement. This clearly states the argument. Also, any objection to quoting Witzel's words? It makes it easy to know what part is being cited.Sbhushan 14:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

the river names are certainly a good point, but your conclusion depends on what you consider "documented". I mean, Homo erectus is "documented", as are Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures. The pre-Indo-European population has also left its imprint linguistically, as a substrate. All we can say is that we are mildly surprised that they should not also have left more of an impression on hydronymy. That's a point, but a point weak enough that with your cavalier attitude to preconceived bias you would sweep it away with a shrug if it did not happen to fit your agenda. dab (𒁳) 08:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Gandhara as homeland

This dispute is about an original research in Memories of an Urheimat section. The statement is:

Many memories, and indeed historiographical records, of Iron Age migrations are preserved, and the Rigveda is no exception, presenting evidence, primarily based on hydronomy, of a gradual expansion from Gandhara, identified as the Proto-Rigvedic homeland (Asko Parpola (1999)[69] locates Proto-Rigvedic and Proto-Dardic in the Swat culture) to the Gangetic plain.

18:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

• This statement should be removed for these reasons:

1. It is not verifiable. As per Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l insist on sources", it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Parpola has not identified Gandhara/SWAT as homeland in the reference provided.
2. This is original research- an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source.
3. This analysis, even if acceptable, doesn’t address the OIT argument. OIT argument is that RigVedic Aryans preserve no memories of migration or identify any Urheimat outside of area know to them. Gandhara is an area mentioned in Rigveda. Migration from Gandhara is not a migration from Central Asia.
4. This argument was presented in JIES, where it was subject to “nine highly critical reviews by referees” as per Dab. He should use that review instead of creating his own arguments.
5. Dab has changed reference for this statement about 4 times. Previous discussion here and here. Rudra confirmed earlier that Parpola has not explicitily made this claim in the article. [[17]]
6. RigVeda is pre-iron age.Sbhushan 18:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments

• §9. Remembrance of immigration in Witzel, Michael (May 2001), "Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts" (PDF), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 7 (3): 1–115 discusses precisely this; opening

It has frequently been denied that the RV contains any memory or information about the former homeland(s) of the Indo-Aryans. [...] However, in the RV there are quite a few vague reminiscences of former habitats, that is, of the Bactria-Margiana area, situated to the north of Iran and Afghanistan, and even from further afield. Such a connection can be detected in the retention by the Iranians of IIr./IA river names and in the many references in the RV to mountains and mountain passes.

(page 15 in preprint(?) linked to, citations removed)

Michael Witzel, "Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia," Sino-Platonic Papers, 129 (December, 2003) talks about proto(?)-Rigvedic speakers in Swat

The speakers of the linguistically slightly later, though still pre-Iron Age �gvedic then moved into Arachosia (*Sarasvatī > Avest. Hara aitī), Swat (Suvåstu) and Panjab (Sapta Sindhu), before c.1200/1000 BCE -- depending on the local date of the introduction of iron (Possehl and Gullapalli 1999),

([18] Page 11). Doldrums 13:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to quoting Witzel's exact words and referencing it to Witzel instead of Parpola. A point to note is that in the first quote Witzel makes a genral statment that there are quite a few vague reminiscences of former habitats, but fails to provide any specific section of RV.Sbhushan 12:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)