[INDOLOGY] INDUS CIVILISATION.

George Thompson gthomgt at gmail.com
Mon Jan 30 23:06:31 UTC 2017


On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 5:42 PM, George Thompson <gthomgt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> This paper that Andrew has passed on to us has many flaws, and these flaws
> are not just a  matter of personal animosity.  The paper certainly should
> have included reference to Asko Parpola's book, and all of his previous
> works on this topic. It should have included reference to other competent
> philologists and linguists as well.   Witzel is mentioned only in
> association with Farmer and Sprout, but he has done much significant work
> elsewhere on substrate languages in early Vedic [especially our oldest text
> the RV, where we find many foreign, non-Indo-European words [see Kuiper's
> famous list of some 380 foreign words in the RV ].  Because of these sorts
> of studies, done by philologists and linguists, we have reasonably good
> confidence to assert that Dravidian has a good chance of being the language
> of IVC as Asko argues, because there is good evidence that it was there,
> well before the RV].   There is also a reasonably good chance  that a Munda
> language was there as well, a language possibly spoken in IVC, because we
> have good evidence that these two language families were present in the
> area occupied by the IVC at the dates when it flourished.    By the time
> the Vedic clans arrived in this area the IVC  was  long dead.  But some IVC
> words and ideas may have survived, though rarely, in the Rgveda.
>
> Among specialists in the RV , RV 10.106 is generally considered to be the
> most difficult hymn in the RV [see , for example Geldner, Renou, and most
> recently Jamison & Brereton).  Kuiper has even suggested that this hymn was
> composed by a bilingual Rgvedic poet; if he was bilingual, we need to find
> out what his second language was].  Philologists with expertise in the
> languages that are known or are likely to have been present in the IVC area
> during its flourishing period need to examine  these foreign words in the
> RV.
>
> Another factor not much discussed here is that IVC  was a huge territory,
> and therefore it is likely that it was a multilingual culture.  It is
> possible therefore that the IVC sign system was a non-linguistic
> sign-system, as suggested  by Farmer, Sprout, & Witzel, a long time ago,
> that was meant to communicate to many linguistic communities through visual
> rather than verbal signs .
>
> Yes, this was a superficial article.  But it's comparison of Farmer to
> Trump is not entirely wrong.   Those two do share so many character traits
> that it is conceivable that they may be born twins, culturally speaking.
>
> For those who wonder about Bryan Wells who claims to be an epigrapher: is
> he really an epigrapher? It may well  be that he doesn't actually claim to
> be one, and that this poorly informed  journalist didn't know what the term
> actually means.  Bryan Wells, as far as I know, has fruitfully studied the
> IVC signs for a long time, but I have never seen any evidence that he has
> significant knowledge of any of the languages that may have been or were in
> play in IVC at the relevant time-period.
>
> List members who are seriously interested in this question should read
> Parpola, Kuiper, Witzel, et al.  The computer models discussed in this
> article need to be linked to relevant languages.
>
> My two-cents.
>
> George Thompson
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Dermot Killingley via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> I read the piece quickly, and found it interesting how Trump has made
>> himself the absolute
>> standard of mendacity. But I don't think anyone who, however mistakenly,
>> has evidence to
>> support their statements, should be compared to him.
>>
>> Dermot
>>
>> On 27 Jan 2017 at 8:07, Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY wrote:
>>
>> I hesitate to pass this popular-science treatment of the question along,
>> since it is tinged with
>> some personal animosity, but this just appeared two days ago:
>>
>> http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14371450/indus-valley-civi
>> lization-ancient-seals-symbols
>> -language-algorithms-ai
>> <http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14371450/indus-valley-civilization-ancient-seals-symbols-language-algorithms-ai>
>>
>> 2017-01-27 6:37 GMT-05:00 Asko Parpola via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info>:
>>     In my book "The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus
>> Civilization",
>>     New York: Oxford University Press, 2015,
>>     I present manifold evidence for the Dravidian affinity of the
>> Harappan language.
>>
>>     With best regards,
>>
>>     Asko Parpola
>>     Professor Emeritus of Indology,
>>     University of Helsinki, Finland
>>
>>
>>     On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:31 AM, Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY
>>     <indology at list.indology.info > wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>     There is no consensus about which language or languages the
>>     Harappan (Indus Valley Civilization) people spoke.
>>     The script is considered by most to be logo-syllabic, not
>>     heiroglyphic.
>>     Farmer, Witzel, Sproat consider it to be a sign system rather than a
>>     script associated with any particular language.
>>     Best,
>>     Dean
>>     Dr. Dean Michael Anderson
>>     East West Cultural Institute
>>     Austin, Texas, USA
>>     Pondicherry, India
>>
>>     From: alakendu das via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>>     To: indology at list.indology.info Sent: Friday, January 27, 2017
>>     11:44 AM Subject: [INDOLOGY] INDUS CIVILISATION.
>>     To All, While going through some books on Indus valley civilisation
>>     , I failed to find out one answer. Though the Harappana & Mohenjo
>>     daro script has been inferred as more of a Hieroglyphic type, what
>>     dialect/language did they speak ? Would love to be enlightened on
>>     this point. ALAKEND DAS.
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     INDOLOGY mailing list INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>     indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>>     committee) http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your
>>     list options or unsubscribe)
>>
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     INDOLOGY mailing list
>>     INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>     indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>>     http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list
>> options or
>>     unsubscribe)
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     INDOLOGY mailing list
>>     INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>     indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>>     http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list
>> options or unsubscribe)
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dermot Killingley
>> 9, Rectory Drive,
>> Gosforth,
>> Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 1XT
>> Phone (0191) 285 8053
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
>> unsubscribe)
>>
>
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20170130/ce04411c/attachment.htm>


More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list