Talk:Out of India theory/Archive 5

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)

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

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Dravidians immigrating to Punjab in Mid-Vedic time - a speculation of Witzel 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: See Airyanem Vaejah. Paul B 08:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Do Iranians mention an external homeland in their texts? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: WIN, let me introduce you to , 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Urheimat section: Gandhara comment