Talk:Indo-European studies

2006 Comment

while the article makes clear that the IE theory is only a theory, it doesn't mention any objections and controversies or alternate explanations to questions answered by the IE theory. I know by my personnal reading that there are many philologists who dismiss the theory altogether, or disagree with large parts of it (for example, that Greeks don't belong in the family). Sadly, I am not a linguist nor a historian to expand this field myself. I write the present notice so that someone more aware should consider adding the controversies as well. Pictureuploader 16:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Er, what? There is no credible philologist who can doubt the general notion that Indo-European language family originated from the same language. Obviously there are many disagreements about details, but "dismissing the theory altogether" is something akin to, for example, dismissing the theory of evolution in biology. Someone who does this is not a philologist.

As for Greek, I am aware of scholarly discussion over certain issues, e.g. the nature of the substrate language believed to be native to Greece before the Proto-Hellenic Indo-European speakers arrived. But there is no doubt of the status of modern and ancient Greek as Indo-European languages: the etymologies and connections with other Indo-European languages are very well-established. It was the comparison of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit that gave rise to the field itself. --Saforrest 20:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Second the motion. I suppose that in any field of study there are people who, for whatever reason, challenge extraordinarily solidly-grounded conventional wisdom: the Flat Earth people, the perpetual motion people, the holocaust deniers, the folks who are sure that Britons (or is it Anglo-Saxons?) are the "real" Jews, and of course the platoons of Atlantis freaks and so on. But as Saforrest says, there's no denying the massive, interlocking, internally-consistent, sometimes obvious sometimes amazing, interconnections of the Indo-European languages that can only be explained by the usual hypothesis. (And you know, it's not just a matter of finding "similarities": our science requires us to reject many similar-looking elements as necessarily unrelated, for a trivial example the "obvious" comparison of English he, she, it com-es with German er sie es komm-t, actually matches only in the root of the verb (though there are those who would equate she and sie; in error, I believe). That is, these elements (apart from come = komm-) cannot be connected historically.)

I myself know, if only by rumor, that there are people out there, now, who insist that since if you know Latin you can't read Greek, they can't be "related" (really, it's true), and even more strangely, young German university students who think that "sound laws" were some sort of idealistic nonsense cooked up by the Nazis (really, it's true). Others, ignorant of how languages work, seem to think that the patterns of similarity and difference can be equally well explained as borrowing. (Actually, no less a scholar than Kretschmer suggested such a thing in his History of Greek -- plainly the wrong man for the job!). But ... but ... "many philologists who dismiss the theory"? Name one, Pictureuploader. Better yet, name many. (And for heaven's sake get a new reading list.) Alsihler 23:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Books

I was wondering, do anyone here know the best books to buy to get a general overview of Indo-European scholarship and studies, particularly its religion, and as well as of the current discussions in the field. I've looked around for a number of books, but I'm not sure what the best ones to get are. Any help is accepted. Thanks in advance. Satanael 13:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

the EIEC gives a good overview of the field, a bit heavy on archaeology, and it's reasonably recent too. Oswald Szemerenyi's Introduction is rather advanced for its title, but certainly recommendable. dab (ᛏ) 14:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

J. P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Zyxwv99 (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Criticism"

political ideologies of individual scholars is not "criticism" of the field by any stretch. We can well discuss ideological currents that affected the field in the past, in the "history" section. This has nothing to do with "criticism", but simply amounts to generally acknowledged events in the field's (rather remote) history. dab (𒁳) 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only individual scholar that was discussed in some detail was Dumezil, who is essential for the post-war history of the field. Some aspects of IES have been ideologically abused in politics, and deserve a mention. The history section of this article should also mention the history of the field during the Nazi period, but strangely the article has nothing about this. You cannot compare this article to the Physics article, which is a completely different topic. When a supporter of "Deutsche Physik" is criticized, he is criticized without taking into account the field of physics. This is different here, where some of Dumezils critics argue that his beliefs also influenced his studies. I'm writing a shorter note about this in the history section, what do you think about it?. --RF 17:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree. Aspects of the field have been abused in politics. This is, as such, not a criticism of the field, but a criticism of people who abuse linguistic scholarship for political purposes. The case is perfectly comparable to nuclear physics being abused to kill people. But in the physics case, actual results are abused for such ends, while in the field of linguistics, it isn't so much results as obstruse speculations loosely based on results that have a political impact. dab (𒁳) 19:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we agree that the debate about IES and fascism (e.g. Dumézil, Indo-Europeanists and the Nazi regime, Haudry, Pearson) deserves a mention. If you want, we can ask User:Paul Barlow, who has been using the same source, if he could write a better write-up. --RF 19:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm. And I have to say that the idea of Indo-European Linguistics (and related studies) as a sort of "bourgeois" hobby pursued by scholars who prevailingly "identify" (present tense) with Proto-Indo-Europeans is either grossly inaccurate or grossly anachronistic. There was a marked tendency, which perhaps reached into the early 20th century, to characterize the speakers of PIE or even the early dialects as brave, noble, upstanding, blond, long-headed, clever, manly, and so on. But such ravings were in any case confined to Introductions and Forwards. When actually worrying about the likely makeup of the optative mood, or whatever, there was little appeal to that sort of thing, at least once one got past Grimm's speculations that things like strong verbs were an expression of the Teutonic Vigor of Intellect and Love of Freedom (or was that the first consonant shift? It's so hard to keep nonsense straight). And where the Soviets get off talking about pseudo-scholarship I don't know. Alsihler 20:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The real criticism of IE should be that no one knows when to stop reconstructing. Some aspects of IE and some vocabulary seem extremely solid (Father/pater et cetera). These are clear and obvious, with lots of examples of similar words in different languages and few and simple sound changes. But, there are other derivations out there that are based on very little evidence, that assume sound changes of bizarre complexity and specificity, and are thus highly implausible. And, of course, there are also derivations in the middle which are probably mostly right, but who really can tell? The problem is that the field has not attempted to develop a good way to tell the solid from the silly. So, there is good reason for criticism on technical grounds. Gpkh 23:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a methodical issue specific to Indo-European linguistics, but an issue found throughout the social sciences, including, for example, history: Given that hypotheses can rarely if ever be verified to the level of 5 σ confidence, we must be content with much lower probabilities, some higher, some relatively low (for example, the steppe hypothesis may only have a probability of as low as 60%, yet still higher than all of its contenders, even summed, which would still make it the best hypothesis among several alternatives). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced statement removed

I'm removing the statement that Indo-European studies is due to be closed in Hamburg as the claim has been tagged as needing a source for many months. If anyone can find a source, feel free to re-add it. —An gr 18:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Date of PIE

In the introduction it is stated that the date of PIE is early Bronze Age. However most recent studies suggest that it is much earlier. Adresia 18:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To the best of my knowledge, the one thing all Indo-Eurpeanists agree on is that PIE is not a Bronze-Age language. Bronze Age means the use of true bronze, made by deliberately alloying copper with tin, as opposed to Neolithic, which can include the regular use of heavy tools such as axes, adzes, and axe-adzes, made of natural bronze, i.e., smelted from copper ore naturally rich in silicon, arsenic, or rarely, tin. Bronze-Age languages generally have separate words for copper, tin, and bronze. PIE had only a word that meant "useful metal" (plus a word that may have meant "gold."

Unfortunately, there seems to be a widespread problem among Wikipedia editors to use "common sense" to "figure out" that any use of copper or natural bronze must mean "Bronze Age." Logically that might actually make sense, but it is not generally accepted scholarly terminology, at least not among scholars in English-speaking countries.

And by the way, whether PIE is much earlier or just a century or two earlier is an open question. Zyxwv99 (talk) 17:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move proposal

It has been suggested on Template talk:Indo-European studies that this page be moved to Indo-European linguistics because it deals exclusively with this aspect of IE, while other topics like society and religion have their own pages. For more details, see Template talk:Indo-European studies. Suggestions and comments are welcome. Thank you --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

this is the article on the academic field. Proto-Indo-European religion and Proto-Indo-European society just like Proto-Indo-European language are articles on topics studied in this field. --dab (𒁳) 10:41, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But in practice, the article Indo-European studies is actually just about Indo-European linguistics. —An gr 10:53, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what you mean... it is about Indo-European studies, viz., it sketches the history of the field and lists scholars and journals. Of course Indo-European studies is primarily about comparative linguistics. But especially the "Gimbutanist" JIES of which the field is eponymous has featured a lot of archaeological material. But the main point is that Indo-European studies are significantly philological, which may or may not be equivalent to "linguistic", depending on where (and when) you live. --dab (𒁳) 11:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that in its current state, the article barely mentions any aspect of IE studies other than IE linguistics. —An gr 11:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this article should cover the non-linguistic topics as well, perhaps we should include a short section explicitly stating that the mentioned methods are used to reconstruct society, religion etc. as well. Especially the lead sounds as if "IE studies" were a purely linguistic science. The three words "...and its speakers..." don't make this point any clearer. By the way, this would make it easy to rename the Template:Indo-European studies to Template:Indo-European language since it really just deals with the language. The Template:Indo-European topics includes the more general topics anyway. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try again. This article shouldn't cover any linguistic topic, nor should it cover any archaeological topic, etc. The only topic it should cover is that of covering an academic discipline. If you like, since the discipline in question is linguistic, this makes the article cover a "meta-linguistic" topic. It this article would cover the topic of Indo-European linguistics itself, its scope would be no different than that of Indo-European languages. dab (𒁳) 16:52, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An article covering the topic of Indo-European linguistics itself might have the same scope as Proto-Indo-European language, since the topic of study of IE linguistics is reconstructing PIE, but not the same scope as Indo-European languages, which is an article about a language family of mostly still-living languages. —An gr 17:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly: Okay, don't get bickering, you two.

Secondly: Got your meaning, dab. But it doesn't seem to be too obvious from the article where the difference to Indo-European languages and/or Proto-Indo-European language is, at least you had to talk some time to get it into my head. Could we just put a half-sentence in the lead - saying that IE studies cover non-linguistic (or non-meta-linguistic) things like society as well? To make the scope of this science more obvious right at the beginning? Or to put it like this: It shouldn't be simply a meta-linguistic, but also a meta-sociological (etc.) article. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Criticism of PIE"

There is a valid debate as to the reliability and the status of PIE reconstructions, within the field. I.e. does PIE constructs reflect a "real" language spoken at some point in the past, or are they simply arithmetical symbols expressing etymological correspondences without reflecting any historical stage directly. This discussion can and should be reflected. But it will not do to misrepresent such references into an insinuation that there is a minority or even majority opinion that the entire field is flawed or "obsolete" or that "PIE is a myth" is not acceptable. The comments by Pictureuploader (talk · contribs) at the top of this page is a perfect illustration of the recurring deterioration of the article by uninformed editors trying to represent a "controversy" they heard about.

The nature of PIE reconstructions should be discussed at PIE, based on an informed presentation of the opinion of actual experts, by editors who are familiar with the field. --dab (𒁳) 14:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

dates for the various branches

We should note who first realized the various branches were IE. We talk a bit about Celtic, but what about Albanian, Armenian (at first assumed to be Iranian, I believe), Nuristani, and the reasonably well attested extinct branches? kwami (talk) 07:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please find all my 6 papers

I am introducing new concepts such as base Indo-European, multi-pie hypothesis

The Demise of the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus myths

I am publishing my sixth research paper directly online as it is an extension of my previous papers. Kindly read pages 4 to 18 as it contains a detailed discussion of the term ‘Aryan’. This paper shows why the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus theories are not tenable.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/136268397/The-demise-of-the-Dravidian-Vedic-and-Paramunda-Indus-myths

Methods to reconstruct the languages of the Harappans were presented in the present and previous papers. We hope other scholars take up the exercise of reconstructing the languages of the Indus Valley civilization!

The older papers were written taking the assumptions of the 19th century school of Indology as a base and working backwards. These may appear to be outdated now (at the end of our very long journey). However, the fundamentals are still correct.

Part one

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27103044/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One

Part Two very,very important!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/27105677/Sujay-Npap-Part-Two

(These comprise the complete and comprehensive solution to the Aryan problem)

Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)

Please find my collection of papers on literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

Before mature phase of Indus valley civilization (before 2600 BC)

- There are some potters marks but none qualify as full writing

Indus valley civilization (2600 BC to 1900 BC)

1. The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis (very logical and self explanatory paper)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Script-Final-Version-Final-Final

2. The reintroduction of the lost manuscript hypothesis (the case for this thesis has obviously become much stronger in the recent past)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Reintroducing-Lost-Manuscript-Hypothesis

Post-Harappan India (1600 BC to 600 BC)

1. Literacy in post-Harappan india (obviously literacy in post-Harappan India existed in certain pockets & were limited to very small sections of society- alphabetic scripts were brought from West Asia and the Indus script also continued – this a very logical and self-explanatory paper and anyone can cross-verify the conclusions)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-and-origin-of-Brahmi

Sujay Rao Mandavilli

182.72.239.115 (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Map is wrong. Armenia should be in dark green

Armenian is an Indo-European language spoken in the Republic of Armenia and in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. They should be noted on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.119.138.205 (talk) 02:38, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Potential Reliable Sources

I only wish to document two potential highly reliable sources that have personally provided me with a wealth of information that seems highly credible. The linguistics book on Proto-Indo-European, in particular, takes an impressive belt-and-suspenders approach to documenting disagreements between linguists, ethnographers, and archaeologists about the significance of the work product of linguists with regard to Proto-Indo-European, to ethnography and culture studies of Indo-European culture. The archaeology book apologizes for relying heavily on Soviet-era archaeology and it's old-style "pots are people" ethnography values, but then goes into huge detail in its presentation of the precursive past, emergence, and post-Proto stages of Indo-European culture:

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
The Wheel, the Horse, and Language

I'm not editing the article as I lack the competence but would heartily recommend that Wikipedia's real experts have a look at these books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.39.188 (talk) 03:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight

The "Criticism" section gives undue weight to Marxist positions. 159.205.196.195 (talk) 14:55, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not right-wing by any stretch of the imagination, but it is utterly laughable that we do indeed give undue weight to followers of an ideology that has murdered thousands upon thousands of people and always leads people to support pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical views, as is evidenced by Stefan Arvidsson's bizarre claim that Indo-European mythology is the most sinister, despite the fact it is no more sinister than Semitic mythology or Sino-Tibetan mythology. Marxists seem to hate Europeans for some extremely odd reason and this nonsensical "criticism" seems to be tied more to this rather than the fact that SOME scholars interested in Indo-European studies were racist or fascist (which is utterly terrible but Marxism should be in the same bracket!). These Marxists ignore the fact that a great deal of Indo-European people are not actually European but Asia, such as Hindus and Iranians. They seem to constantly be drawing a relationship to Nazism despite the fact that the Nazis were not exactly a pan-Indo-European movement, as evidence by the fact that a great number of their "racially inferior" victims were Indo-Europeans (Slavs especially). As per usual these "criticisms" of Marxists are not at all noteworthy but the Marxist clique - ideologues following a disturbing and sinister ideology of cult-like behaviour and brutality - on Wikipedia would love readers to think they are. - The Mummy (not signed in). 150.143.58.75 (talk) 07:55, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The first "marxist criticism" says that someone finds indo-european studies to be reactionary, but does not specifiy what they are reactionary towards. The citation itself also does not mention this, only the same information as reported by a third party - it is a citation of a citation. The latter "marxist criticism" is not even by a linguist but by a historian, one that declares the entire field to be pseudoscientific. Both should be removed. Viciouspiggy (talk) 12:18, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the section. It's not relevant whether or not these scholars are Marxist (many respected scholars have been Marxists and socialists); they do not have the expertise to declare an entire field of study pseudoscientific. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:45, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Study centers

This has been recently worked on, but could still go a long way before removing the incompleteness note. Formatting-wise, I'm vaguely considering splitting the table to be one-row-per-university, but still primarily sorted by country (with rowspan= formatting) to better highlight where we do not list current professors; the list does not seem long enough to be in need of sortability.

In complete omissions, Russia seems like the biggest missing locale so far. Are there any other countries missing entirely? I'd wonder about Greece next of all (but maybe their IEists all stick to Ancient Greek or Classics departments). --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence out of place? (super-families...)

This sentence: "The IE languages are sometimes hypothesized to be part of super-families such as Nostratic or Eurasiatic."

... is in the Study Methods section. But why? What does it have to do with Study Methods? In fact, what does it have to do with Indo-European studies, the topic of this article? Omc (talk) 03:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]