Once again, somebody published before me
anal...@hotmail.com
This made sense to me. He then goes on to the issue of Avestan, which
causes all kinds of problems in trying to establish chronology and
interrelationships, and brings up a point that bothered me back when I
studied the language: "it has been remarked, 'The Avestan speech is
very closely related to Sanskrit,' so astonishingly close, in fact,
that 'we are able to transpose any word from one language into the
other by the application of special phonetic laws.' Avestan's
extensive case system and verbal conjugation system is not just
similar to that of Vedic Sanskrit, it is almost identical to it. That
is extremely odd." He gives an example of an Avestan sentence rendered
mechanically into Sanskrit: təm becomes tam, yazatəm becomes yajatam,
and so on. This "astounding closeness" is what makes people
reconstruct a separate branch descending from a Proto-Indo-Iranian
language. Beckwith has a different solution, one that I found
immediately convincing: "Avestan looks less like an Iranian language
than like a phonologically Iranized Indic language. The many
inexplicable problems of Avestan... can be accounted for as an
artifact of Iranians having adopted an oral religious text... from an
Old Indic dialect. As required of Indic religious practitioners, they
memorized it exactly, but... it underwent specifically Iranian sound
shifts in the mouths of the Iranian-speaking oral reciters." This
allows us to get rid of the separate Indo-Iranian branch entirely and
makes the overall picture more plausible.
end quote.
The confusion of beasts of burden who repeat without comprehension
"Avestan is almost identical to Vedic" can now be set straight. What
is almost identical (after making the required sound changes) , is
some of the corpus memorized from not the Rig Vedic period, but more
likely the Yajur Vedic period in India and carried over to Iran.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
What is a fact is that Christopher Beckwith is a very odd duck. He has
no training in linguistics, yet he has taken to making pronouncements
on linguistic matters that make no sense. Rather like Colin Renfrew.
You might consult the reviews of some of his recent publications.
And as for the great similarity of Avestan and Vedic, you might go to
google books (or archive.org?) and find A. V. Williams Jackson's *An
Avesta Grammar in Comparison with Sanskrit* (1893). (In those days,
all philologists studied Sanskrit, so this was the best way for them
to learn Old Iranian.)
And as for your subject header, everyone in the world who has ever
publshed has published "before" you; it is vacuous for you to suggest
that you ever did or ever will publish anything.
anal...@hotmail.com
http://www.indiana.edu/~ceus/faculty/beckwith.shtml
Seems to be quite well qualified.
setting aside fallacies such as ad hominem and poisoning the well -
what exactly are the peer-review criticisms of his linguistic works?
He certainly cannot be accused of a political bias for questioning the
standard model - in fact he seems to have questioned the antiquity
attached to the Veda, Avesta etc. even by the standard model, let
alone Indian/Iranian revisionist views on the matter.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
No, they are not confused, nor do they fail to comprehend. Beckwith is
not refuting the similarity of Avestan and Vedic, but offering an
alternative explanation for it.
If languagehat is right and this eliminates Indo-Iranian, this can
only be because I-I rests entirely on features found in Avestan and in
none of the other Iranian languages. I don't know whether this is
actually the case -- it seems surprising.
In any case I'm not sure why an unburdened beast like yourself would
be so delighted with the uncoupling of Indic and Iranian. Beckwith's
theory does give a little boost to Indian cultural supremacy (if such
were needed), but as you can see from languagehat's account, it hardly
offers any comfort to your wider ambitions.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Not in linguistics.
> setting aside fallacies such as ad hominem and poisoning the well -
> what exactly are the peer-review criticisms of his linguistic works?
As I said, read the reviews.
I believe I recall an especially detailed one by Roy Andrew Miller in
JAOS some years ago.
> He certainly cannot be accused of a political bias for questioning the
> standard model - in fact he seems to have questioned the antiquity
> attached to the Veda, Avesta etc. even by the standard model, let
> alone Indian/Iranian revisionist views on the matter.-
It wouldn't occur to a linguist to "accuse[ him] of a political bias."
That's your sort of specialty.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
'Course not. For the relationship between Avestan and Old Persian
(which is considerably more recent than Old Avestan, perhaps
contemporary-ish with Younger Avestan), see e.g. the first chapter in
the Handbuch der Orientalistik volume "Iranistik," and also the many
grammatical articles in Encyclopedia Iranica. A long section of the
article "Iran" covers the Iranian language family, and there either
are or aren't to be other articles on the major languages (Oktor
Skjaervo sent them to me several years ago -- they're numbered to
continue that treatment). See also Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum,
ed. Rudiger Schmitt; it's mostly in German with a few chapters in
English.
anal...@hotmail.com
And do you think that "Hindutva fanatics and kooks" are denying the
comparative material among IE languages?
It is the standard model used to explain it that is under question.
I of course published before Beckwith - but only on usenet. Yet
another instance of Pete's maxim "If it is too similar, it is probably
due to borrowing".
> If languagehat is right and this eliminates Indo-Iranian, this can
> only be because I-I rests entirely on features found in Avestan and in
> none of the other Iranian languages. I don't know whether this is
> actually the case -- it seems surprising.
> In any case I'm not sure why an unburdened beast like yourself would
> be so delighted with the uncoupling of Indic and Iranian. Beckwith's
> theory does give a little boost to Indian cultural supremacy (if such
> were needed), but as you can see from languagehat's account, it hardly
> offers any comfort to your wider ambitions.
>
> Ross Clark
>
I am afraid it is the old old story of cockroaches in a restaurant, if
one shows up in the dining area, how many do you think are in the
kitchen? Since P-I-Ir has been accepted unquestioningly and in fact
the "Vedic Sanskrit" and Avestan relationship is often cited as the
strongest example of a genetic relationship in the IE group - I don't
see how the standard model can stand if this work passes scrutiny.
This would then make a second item of evidence for IE language
movement out of India and render irrelevant the Sanskrit vs. Avestan
controversy to explain the IE data in the Mitanni material.
And why were so many so-called giants in the field caught so flat-
footed?
"Childish parlor games" with sounds and morphology - ignoring broader
semantic issues and also treating linguistic history independently
from culture, mytholgy, religion, material life and trading
relationships. The parlor games have moved beyond compiling word-
lists and comparing them by eye-balling to Ringe's computerized
attacks using advanced math - but the whole method has no sound basis
as yet and can come crashing down quite easily.
> What
>
>
>
> > is almost identical (after making the required sound changes) , is
> > some of the corpus memorized from not the Rig Vedic period, but more
> > likely the Yajur Vedic period in India and carried over to Iran.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
martin hudson
wrote:
Well, if I take you and AB as representatives of the class, yes, you
have done your best to dismiss it in any way possible, trivialize it,
or if that fails pretend it was all the result of wandering Hindu
sages teaching the "grunting tribes" the rudiments of culture.
> It is the standard model used to explain it that is under question.
> I of course published before Beckwith - but only on usenet. Yet
> another instance of Pete's maxim "If it is too similar, it is probably
> due to borrowing".
>
> > If languagehat is right and this eliminates Indo-Iranian, this can
> > only be because I-I rests entirely on features found in Avestan and in
> > none of the other Iranian languages. I don't know whether this is
> > actually the case -- it seems surprising.
> > In any case I'm not sure why an unburdened beast like yourself would
> > be so delighted with the uncoupling of Indic and Iranian. Beckwith's
> > theory does give a little boost to Indian cultural supremacy (if such
> > were needed), but as you can see from languagehat's account, it hardly
> > offers any comfort to your wider ambitions.
>
> > Ross Clark
>
> I am afraid it is the old old story of cockroaches in a restaurant, if
> one shows up in the dining area, how many do you think are in the
> kitchen? Since P-I-Ir has been accepted unquestioningly and in fact
> the "Vedic Sanskrit" and Avestan relationship is often cited as the
> strongest example of a genetic relationship in the IE group - I don't
> see how the standard model can stand if this work passes scrutiny.
Well, that would be yet another indication of how little you see.
>
> This would then make a second item of evidence for IE language
> movement out of India
Really?
and render irrelevant the Sanskrit vs. Avestan
> controversy to explain the IE data in the Mitanni material.
>
> And why were so many so-called giants in the field caught so flat-
> footed?
When you can establish that this has happened, it may be time to ask
why?
> "Childish parlor games" with sounds and morphology - ignoring broader
> semantic issues and also treating linguistic history independently
> from culture, mytholgy, religion, material life and trading
> relationships. The parlor games have moved beyond compiling word-
> lists and comparing them by eye-balling to Ringe's computerized
> attacks using advanced math - but the whole method has no sound basis
> as yet and can come crashing down quite easily.
As you've been wishing and hoping and dreaming for -- what, three
years now?
Ross Clark
Harlan Messinger
Unquestioningly? You mean, it's entirely the product of one person's
say-so, and every other linguist has just accepted it without ever
looking into the languages concerned or into that person's arguments on
their own? Be very, very careful before you use the word
"unquestioningly". What it seems to mean when *you* use it is "once all
their questions have all been satisfied, it annoys me that they don't
keep questioning it anyway, because I hate that they feel that their
questions have been satisfied and I wish they would keep questioning it
anyway even though they see no reason to."
anal...@hotmail.com
Your criterion for lack of qualification appears to be non-adherence
to the standard model - I recall how my citation of Toby Griffen's
proposal that the Grimm's Law changes took place in the reverse
direction was received.
> > setting aside fallacies such as ad hominem and poisoning the well -
> > what exactly are the peer-review criticisms of his linguistic works?
>
> As I said, read the reviews.
>
> I believe I recall an especially detailed one by Roy Andrew Miller in
> JAOS some years ago.
>
> > He certainly cannot be accused of a political bias for questioning the
> > standard model - in fact he seems to have questioned the antiquity
> > attached to the Veda, Avesta etc. even by the standard model, let
> > alone Indian/Iranian revisionist views on the matter.-
>
> It wouldn't occur to a linguist to "accuse[ him] of a political bias."
> That's your sort of specialty.- Hide quoted text -
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
If anything the present state of affairs must be exciting for young
academicians
Marcantonio - Uralic
Marcantonio - IE
http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/fr/handle/10393/9059?show=full
Romance
and now Beckwith - Avestan
The genetic/contact distinction is going to be blurred considerably
and historical linguistics will cease concerning itself with mechanics
and become a real humanities discipline.
And yes - the crown-jewel will be safely extracted and placed where it
belongs - but enough healthy things are happening in the field as a
whole to occupy practitioners who are not too hung up on holding on to
the prize by fair means or foul.
Peter T. Daniels
> If anything the present state of affairs must be exciting for young
> academicians
>
> Marcantonio - Uralic
> Marcantonio - IE
>
> http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/fr/handle/10393/9059?show=full
>
> Romance
>
> and now Beckwith - Avestan
>
> The genetic/contact distinction is going to be blurred considerably
> and historical linguistics will cease concerning itself with mechanics
> and become a real humanities discipline.
>
> And yes - the crown-jewel will be safely extracted and placed where it
> belongs - but enough healthy things are happening in the field as a
> whole to occupy practitioners who are not too hung up on holding on to
> the prize by fair means or foul.-
It's amazing how the only authorities you appeal to are the ones who
step outside their own fields and are proven not to be in command of
the materials they presume to discuss.
Neither Beckwith nor Marcantonio is an Indo-Europeanist, and Griffen's
expertise is in Celtic, not Germanic.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Heh. I well remember, in years gone by, how Yuri Kuchinsky (a kook
with an agenda of his own) would from time to time offer me reports on
what was going on in linguistics -- as he saw it, peering through the
wrong end of a long and dusty telescope. Somehow it always seemed to
Yuri as if the latest research was about to bring everything I
believed in crashing to the ground. So the pattern is familiar.
>
> Marcantonio - Uralic
> Marcantonio - IE
>
> http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/fr/handle/10393/9059?show=full
>
> Romance
>
> and now Beckwith - Avestan
Don't forget Sullivan's earth-shattering decipherment of Harappan.
> The genetic/contact distinction is going to be blurred considerably
...to better reflect the blurring in your mind?
> and historical linguistics will cease concerning itself with mechanics
No, this ain't gonna happen. It's even less likely than that you will
overcome your strange aversion to "mechanics".
> and become a real humanities discipline.
Only you imagine it has not been.
> And yes - the crown-jewel will be safely extracted and placed where it
> belongs -
I take this as code for "Sanskrit will be recognized as a divinely-
instituted and perfect language from which all others are derived"?
No, not gonna happen either.
but enough healthy things are happening in the field as a
> whole to occupy practitioners who are not too hung up on holding on to
> the prize by fair means or foul.
Healthy things have been happening all along, forever unbeknownst to
you. And us practitioners have never had any trouble keeping occupied.
Ross Clark
Harlan Messinger
> Your criterion for lack of qualification appears to be non-adherence
> to the standard model - I recall how my citation of Toby Griffen's
> proposal that the Grimm's Law changes took place in the reverse
> direction was received.
As far as I've been able to discern, Peter's criterion is whether the
person is a linguistics specialist. It's interesting how it turns out
that all these people with views you like are people who aren't
linguists. So it might occur to you that the reason they go off in all
directions is because they don't entirely know what they are talking about.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
My criterion is whether the people are knowledgeable about what
they're talking about.
To be sure, Beckwith isn't a linguist, but neither is Asko Parpola ...
but Parpola has mastered the field he is concerned with. Beckwith is a
historian of Inner Asia.
Griffen and, apparently, Marcantonio are linguists.
Martin Edwards
On the other hand usages which are linguistically incorrect become
widely accepted. For example, "disinterested" now means the same as
"uninterested" to most people, so what do you say for "disinterested"?
Yusuf B Gursey
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
you mean "etymologically incorrct". that goes under "semantic shift".
it does not have anything to do with what Peter is talking about.
anal...@hotmail.com
Actually this cockroach is so huge that it shuts the restaurant down.
It means
(1) a i u (Sanskrit) > a e i o u (rest of IE) (Avestan has all 5 short
vowels, per Wiki)
(2) monophthongs (Veda) > diphthongs (Avestan) (bye-bye "Oinos" etc.)
(3) Voiced aspirates > Loss therof
(4) Retroflexes > Loss thereof (this is attested anyway in two cases -
Romany is known to have emigrated from India and lost most retroflexes
and the Brits don't seem to have heard them for centuries during the
Raj - judging from anglicized Indian place names)
(5) Anomalous forms such as "priyamazda", "aika" etc. in Mitanni are
explained as Avestanisms (younger than Vedic forms "priyamedha",
"eka" ) - establishing written attestation of younger forms than the
Veda to 1600 b.c. or so. Confirmed also by Tvesharatha (retroflex
"sh") > Tushratta in Mitanni.
A monster cockroach that the establishment better deal with.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
I'm afraid it's in your "establishment" -- your private mental theatre
-- so you'll have to do the dealing. As far as the imagined
consequences of Beckwith's conjecture for IE in general -- I'm sorry
to have to report that you still have no idea what you're talking
about.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
scrutiny.
In other words, Avestan is pretty much "PIE" and it is descended from
Sanskrit.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Well, no, it is not descended from Sanskrit. That is, you fail to
understand what Beckwith is suggesting right from the start.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
OK you want to play Petey now. What is he suggesting?
At any rate, I don't care much for his larger conclusions which are
more or less establishmentarian (I thought I saw in Google books the
inevitable horse-riding conquerors bearing IE languages hither and
thither). His value lies in using the total semantic picture to
deduce the direction of language movement and not mechanistic minutiae.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
You can no longer deny being stupid. No one (except Schlegel) since
1788 ("Sprung from some common source," that is) has imagined that
"Sanskrit = PIE," and you have been told this repeatedly.
anal...@hotmail.com
Insult, irrelevancies - but strictly avoiding items of evidence
adduced, if the proposed origin of Avestan pans out. In other words,
vintage Petey.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Provide some evidence (and not a random paragraph followed by the word
"quote") that anyone since the early 19th century has suggested that
Sanskrit = PIE.
Harlan Messinger
The queen would be king, if the proposition that she has balls pans out.
anal...@hotmail.com
I see that your confusion has arisen from lack of English
comprehension, triiggred by an overwhelming urge to express bile after
cursory reading.
What I wrote was
I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
scrutiny.
end quote.
Let me rephrase without sentences that may tax your mind.
(1) some linguistic changes must have happened to support the claim
that Skt = "PIE"
(2) The establishment says that none of those changes could have
happened.
(3) If Skt > Avestan is true, all these changes would turn out to have
been atttested
Martin Edwards
The use of the word "Sanskrit" is itself confusing here. Vedic is not
Sanskrit, Sanskrit is descended from it.
Martin Edwards
Sorry, bud, you are wrong and he is right, and I type as one who has
tangled with him in the past.
Martin Edwards
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Its all the same, essentially. But of you are asking which time-
epoch, it can be analyzed properly, looking at the meanings of texts
instead of sad, mind-numbing phonetic and morphological crap. There
are conflicting claims - the establishment says the parallel religious
texts of the Veda and Avesta must have started during the "Proto Indo
Iranian" period, Iranian revisionists claim that some Upanisadic (post
Rig Vedic) thought has been influenced by Zarathushtra, Indian
revisionists claim the Avesta is late Rig Vedic, some say Yajur Vedic
etc.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Aug 28, 8:44 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 28, 8:38 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > On Aug 28, 8:25 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 28, 7:20 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
>
> > > > > I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
>
> > > > You can no longer deny being stupid. No one (except Schlegel) since
> > > > 1788 ("Sprung from some common source," that is) has imagined that
> > > > "Sanskrit = PIE," and you have been told this repeatedly.
>
> > > Insult, irrelevancies - but strictly avoiding items of evidence
> > > adduced, if the proposed origin of Avestan pans out. In other words,
> > > vintage Petey.
>
> > Provide some evidence (and not a random paragraph followed by the word
> > "quote") that anyone since the early 19th century has suggested that
> > Sanskrit = PIE.
>
> I see that your confusion has arisen from lack of English
> comprehension, triiggred by an overwhelming urge to express bile after
> cursory reading.
Yes. You really must work on your English comprehension, and curb your
instint to emit bile.
> What I wrote was
>
> I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
> that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
> etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
> scrutiny.
>
> end quote.
>
> Let me rephrase without sentences that may tax your mind.
>
> (1) some linguistic changes must have happened to support the claim
> that Skt = "PIE"
And this is why you appear so abysmally stupid.
There is no such claim.
> (2) The establishment says that none of those changes could have
> happened.
>
> (3) If Skt > Avestan is true, all these changes would turn out to have
> been atttested-
As Martin has noted several times now, your continual use of "Skt" to
mean 'Vedic' exhibits further confusion on your part.
Sanskrit is many, many centuries more recent than Old Avestan, so it
cannot possibly be its ancestor. Vedic, on the other hand, is so
similar to Old Avestan that their common ancestor (Proto-Indo-Iranian)
is very, very similar to _both_ of them, so someone with as little
linguistic training as Beckwith or you could easily fail to recognize
that the slight but entirely regular differences point to a very
recent common ancestor rather than the rather haphazard effects
normally seen with substratal or adstratal languages.
(Younger Avestan apparently does seem to be a direct descendant of Old
Avestan, unlike Sanskrit from Vedic.)
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Its all the same, essentially. But of you are asking which time-
> epoch, it can be analyzed properly, looking at the meanings of texts
> instead of sad, mind-numbing phonetic and morphological crap. There
> are conflicting claims - the establishment says the parallel religious
> texts of the Veda and Avesta must have started during the "Proto Indo
> Iranian" period, Iranian revisionists claim that some Upanisadic (post
> Rig Vedic) thought has been influenced by Zarathushtra, Indian
> revisionists claim the Avesta is late Rig Vedic, some say Yajur Vedic
> etc.-
Language change has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the
content of what is spoken or recorded in the language.
Whatever mutual influence the theologies may have had on each other is
utterly irrelevant to linguistic history.
anal...@hotmail.com
> On Aug 28, 9:13 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 28, 8:44 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Aug 28, 8:38 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > On Aug 28, 8:25 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > On Aug 28, 7:20 am, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > > > > wrote:
>
> > > > > > I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
>
> > > > > You can no longer deny being stupid. No one (except Schlegel) since
> > > > > 1788 ("Sprung from some common source," that is) has imagined that
> > > > > "Sanskrit = PIE," and you have been told this repeatedly.
>
> > > > Insult, irrelevancies - but strictly avoiding items of evidence
> > > > adduced, if the proposed origin of Avestan pans out. In other words,
> > > > vintage Petey.
>
> > > Provide some evidence (and not a random paragraph followed by the word
> > > "quote") that anyone since the early 19th century has suggested that
> > > Sanskrit = PIE.
>
> > I see that your confusion has arisen from lack of English
> > comprehension, triiggred by an overwhelming urge to express bile after
> > cursory reading.
>
> Yes. You really must work on your English comprehension, and curb your
> instint to emit bile.
>
Ah, the mirror putdown - Petey is going down awfully fast.
You have made uncountable disclaimers "I am not an IE-ist" and yet
have never failed to inject yourself into any thread concerning IE and
each time everybody wishes that you should have stuck by your
disclaimer.
Some introspection on your part in this regard might be helpful.
> > What I wrote was
>
> > I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
> > that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
> > etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
> > scrutiny.
>
> > end quote.
>
> > Let me rephrase without sentences that may tax your mind.
>
> > (1) some linguistic changes must have happened to support the claim
> > that Skt = "PIE"
>
> And this is why you appear so abysmally stupid.
>
> There is no such claim.
>
You are still not comprehending simple English.
First of all many such claims have been made and second of all the
sentence above refers to what must necessarily have happened to
support any hypothetical claim to this effect past present and future.
Actually you probably did understand and are trying to be dishonest,
hoping to reduce the debate to your characteristic style of faeces-
hurling and ignoring points such as
"Beckwith correct" implies "a i u" > "a e i o u" in IE.
> > (2) The establishment says that none of those changes could have
> > happened.
>
> > (3) If Skt > Avestan is true, all these changes would turn out to have
> > been atttested-
>
> As Martin has noted several times now, your continual use of "Skt" to
> mean 'Vedic' exhibits further confusion on your part.
>
No, only serious dishonesty on your part, considering how recently you
particpated (to the usual disastrous effect) in a discussion about
"Vedic" versus "Classical" Sanskrit.
> Sanskrit is many, many centuries more recent than Old Avestan,
May be narrowly true since the name "Sanskrit" never occurs in the
Veda and IIRC, is only attested for the first time in the Ramayana.
But the upper register of the language that came to be named
"Sanskrit" is much, much older than the Veda (and the Veda is part of
the Corpus of that language) and the Avesta.
so it
> cannot possibly be its ancestor. Vedic, on the other hand, is so
> similar to Old Avestan that their common ancestor (Proto-Indo-Iranian)
> is very, very similar to _both_ of them, so someone with as little
> linguistic training as Beckwith or you could easily fail to recognize
> that the slight but entirely regular differences point to a very
> recent common ancestor rather than the rather haphazard effects
> normally seen with substratal or adstratal languages.
>
Putdowns and handwaving.
What are odds that you can actually take examples of parallel texts
and show that "genetic descent" from "PIIr" alone (establishment) can
explain them and not "Iranization of an 'Indic language (Beckwith)?
The bet that you cannot is very safe to take, since apart from insults
and regurgitations of general establishment linguistic doctrine you
have nothing to contribute to debates concerning IE.
Peter T. Daniels
I am not commenting on any specifics of Indo-European, but on general
principles of language change that are familiar to anyone who's had
even a first-year introductory course in linguistics.
> Some introspection on your part in this regard might be helpful.
> > > What I wrote was
>
> > > I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
> > > that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
> > > etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
> > > scrutiny.
>
> > > end quote.
>
> > > Let me rephrase without sentences that may tax your mind.
>
> > > (1) some linguistic changes must have happened to support the claim
> > > that Skt = "PIE"
>
> > And this is why you appear so abysmally stupid.
>
> > There is no such claim.
>
> You are still not comprehending simple English.
>
> First of all many such claims have been made and second of all the
No, no such claims have been made (since early in the 19th century).
You have never provided a single example of anyone making such a
claim.
> sentence above refers to what must necessarily have happened to
> support any hypothetical claim to this effect past present and future.
There is no such claim, hypothetical or actual, from the past 200
years, present, or future.
> Actually you probably did understand and are trying to be dishonest,
> hoping to reduce the debate to your characteristic style of faeces-
> hurling and ignoring points such as
>
> "Beckwith correct" implies "a i u" > "a e i o u" in IE.
But since Beckwith is incorrect, whatever you intend by that is
irrelevant.
> > > (2) The establishment says that none of those changes could have
> > > happened.
>
> > > (3) If Skt > Avestan is true, all these changes would turn out to have
> > > been atttested-
>
> > As Martin has noted several times now, your continual use of "Skt" to
> > mean 'Vedic' exhibits further confusion on your part.
>
> No, only serious dishonesty on your part, considering how recently you
> particpated (to the usual disastrous effect) in a discussion about
> "Vedic" versus "Classical" Sanskrit.
>
> > Sanskrit is many, many centuries more recent than Old Avestan,
>
> May be narrowly true since the name "Sanskrit" never occurs in the
> Veda and IIRC, is only attested for the first time in the Ramayana.
Then stop using it to refer to Vedic.
> But the upper register of the language that came to be named
> "Sanskrit" is much, much older than the Veda (and the Veda is part of
> the Corpus of that language) and the Avesta.
That is simply your religious dogma. It has no basis in fact.
> so it
>
> > cannot possibly be its ancestor. Vedic, on the other hand, is so
> > similar to Old Avestan that their common ancestor (Proto-Indo-Iranian)
> > is very, very similar to _both_ of them, so someone with as little
> > linguistic training as Beckwith or you could easily fail to recognize
> > that the slight but entirely regular differences point to a very
> > recent common ancestor rather than the rather haphazard effects
> > normally seen with substratal or adstratal languages.
>
> Putdowns and handwaving.
You wish.
You do not offer an iota of refutation, or even evidence that it is
incorrect.
> What are odds that you can actually take examples of parallel texts
> and show that "genetic descent" from "PIIr" alone (establishment) can
> explain them and not "Iranization of an 'Indic language (Beckwith)?
I personally? That's not my job. Any professional Iranist in the world
can do it -- again, it's the basics of first-year study of Avestan or
of Iranian linguistics.
Have you read Williams Jackson's book yet, which I gave you the
reference for? Do I have to find it in google books again and post the
link?
> The bet that you cannot is very safe to take, since apart from insults
> and regurgitations of general establishment linguistic doctrine you
> have nothing to contribute to debates concerning IE.-
This isn't a debate concerning IE in particular. It is elementary
historical linguistics vs. religious dogmatism.
anal...@hotmail.com
What makes you think Beckwith didn't consider them?
Unless you can point to definite linguistic principles Beckwith has
overlooked/violated with evidence, you have nothing.
That his conclusion goes against establishment consensus over a
century is not argument or evidence.
>
>
>
> > Some introspection on your part in this regard might be helpful.
> > > > What I wrote was
>
> > > > I think its clear enough. Every change needed to make Sanskrit = PIE
> > > > that the establishment has said could not have happened (3 > 5 vowels
> > > > etc.) will have been shown to have happened if this one stands
> > > > scrutiny.
>
> > > > end quote.
>
> > > > Let me rephrase without sentences that may tax your mind.
>
> > > > (1) some linguistic changes must have happened to support the claim
> > > > that Skt = "PIE"
>
> > > And this is why you appear so abysmally stupid.
>
> > > There is no such claim.
>
> > You are still not comprehending simple English.
>
> > First of all many such claims have been made and second of all the
>
> No, no such claims have been made (since early in the 19th century).
>
> You have never provided a single example of anyone making such a
> claim.
>
> > sentence above refers to what must necessarily have happened to
> > support any hypothetical claim to this effect past present and future.
>
> There is no such claim, hypothetical or actual, from the past 200
> years, present, or future.
I am sure you know what 'hypothetical' means, I don't know why you
would make a patently false statement like the one above. Ringe's
(totally garbage) paper on IE subgrouping contains this very
hypthetical and proceeds to "refute" it (and if it would make you
happy, he does say "Vedic" Sanskrit in his hypothetical) .
Any number of Indian Swamis who have become aware of IE comparative
linguistics make this claim or something close to it. It is also said
that an honest-to-goodness 20th century Indian IE linguist, Satya
Swarup Misra (he has died recently) came with a PIE that for all
practical purposes was Sanskrit.
(please don't start the "Vedic/Classical" crap all over again).
>
> > Actually you probably did understand and are trying to be dishonest,
> > hoping to reduce the debate to your characteristic style of faeces-
> > hurling and ignoring points such as
>
> > "Beckwith correct" implies "a i u" > "a e i o u" in IE.
>
> But since Beckwith is incorrect, whatever you intend by that is
> irrelevant.
>
The first honest (although totally lacking in intellectual curiosity)
debating point.
You cannot have any reason to assert Beckwith is incorrect except that
the IE establishment says otherwise (you can thow in your knowledge of
general linguistics also if you like).
Right or wrong, Beckwith himself seems surprised that the
establishemnt overlooked how anomalous Avestan is compared to other
Iranian languages and his claim, based on linguistic arguments (right
or wrong) cannot be handwaved away.
>
>
>
>
> > > > (2) The establishment says that none of those changes could have
> > > > happened.
>
> > > > (3) If Skt > Avestan is true, all these changes would turn out to have
> > > > been atttested-
>
> > > As Martin has noted several times now, your continual use of "Skt" to
> > > mean 'Vedic' exhibits further confusion on your part.
>
> > No, only serious dishonesty on your part, considering how recently you
> > particpated (to the usual disastrous effect) in a discussion about
> > "Vedic" versus "Classical" Sanskrit.
>
> > > Sanskrit is many, many centuries more recent than Old Avestan,
>
> > May be narrowly true since the name "Sanskrit" never occurs in the
> > Veda and IIRC, is only attested for the first time in the Ramayana.
>
> Then stop using it to refer to Vedic.
>
The very existence of the term "Vedic Sanskrit" refutes your nitpick.
> > But the upper register of the language that came to be named
> > "Sanskrit" is much, much older than the Veda (and the Veda is part of
> > the Corpus of that language) and the Avesta.
>
> That is simply your religious dogma. It has no basis in fact.
>
> > so it
>
> > > cannot possibly be its ancestor. Vedic, on the other hand, is so
> > > similar to Old Avestan that their common ancestor (Proto-Indo-Iranian)
> > > is very, very similar to _both_ of them, so someone with as little
> > > linguistic training as Beckwith or you could easily fail to recognize
> > > that the slight but entirely regular differences point to a very
> > > recent common ancestor rather than the rather haphazard effects
> > > normally seen with substratal or adstratal languages.
>
> > Putdowns and handwaving.
>
> You wish.
>
> You do not offer an iota of refutation, or even evidence that it is
> incorrect.
>
Aren't you being like Franz now ("I am right till you prove
otherwise")?.
Beckwith has come up with something (a total freebie for Hindutva) and
outright trashing of it on general principles isn't interesting.
Specific reasons in support/refutation would be.
Peter T. Daniels
We'll nwever know, will we, since your only source for your
"information" is an anonymous posting a year and a half ago by someone
who claims to have, at some point, written part of a dissertation on a
topic having nothing to do with Vedic or Avestan.
But, why don't you go ahead and enlighten us as to what "Iranization"
of Vedic means?
anal...@hotmail.com
This is of course depicably false, bilious and stupid since Google
lets you peek at the source - Beckwith's recent book:
> But, why don't you go ahead and enlighten us as to what "Iranization"
> of Vedic means?- Hide quoted text -
>
It would be sad if a linguistic professional doesn't know what it
means - and sadder if it was meant only as a taunt.
I think what happened to Romany in its journey North and West out of
India would offer parallels.
martin hudson
I don't want to play Petey now or any time, whatever you mean by that.
>What is he suggesting?
As far as one can tell from languagehat's brief account, Beckwith is
suggesting that the Avestan texts are modeled on Sanskrit originals by
converting morpheme by morpheme to Iranian cognates. If this is
correct, then the "sound changes" referred to are not actually sound
changes taking place between an earlier and a later stage of one
language, but conversions to cognate forms in a closely related
language. Besides, Avestan is not PIE any more than Sanskrit is.
Avestan is not even Proto-Iranian.
Ross Clark
benl...@ihug.co.nz
The writer is actually one Stephen Dodson, who posts under the name of
his site, "language hat". He is described as a freelance editor who
lives in Massachusetts. If one is to judge by the lengthy discussion
which followed that posting (which ranged over more general issues
rather than focusing on Beckwith's specific claims), in which at least
one genuine linguist took part, the level of discourse there is at
least as serious as it is on sci.lang, and rather more civil.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
My understanding of Beckwith is that Avestan might have been used only
for religious purposes and there is little more to the language than
the basic corpus originally brought over from India. What happened to
Avestan in Iran was simply what happened to the recitation/chanting of
the corpus (plus any additional creaations in Iran) due to the
influence of surrounding Iranian languages which must have beem used
by Avestan speakers in their daily life. My additional gloss would be
that the intricate Skt grammar seems to show some attenuation in
Avestan (and AFAIK) no new grammatical forms were innovated in
Avestan, but however abundant and non-Indic sound changes made the
language more kin to say, Greek.
If all this is correct, then Skt = PIE becomes viable once again. The
claim is more than justified from the case/number/gender/prefix/suffix/
sandhi system and the general observation that most mechanical changes
tend to be from order to less order or structure to less structure.
The Avestan sound changes help bridge over the short vowel and
diphthong issues and loss of retroflexes.
anal...@hotmail.com
I hope you realize that knowing the site-owner's name and other
antecedents and whether real linguists participated is of
underwhelming importance to judge what is posted at the website.
> and rather more civil.
Some here could benefit from this hint.
>
> Ross Clark
>
benl...@ihug.co.nz
It can't hurt.
>
> > and rather more civil.
>
> Some here could benefit from this hint.
>
...says the participant whose very first post used the phrase
"genocidal scientific joke"....
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Aug 28, 5:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 28, 3:19 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Any number of Indian Swamis who have become aware of IE comparative
> > > linguistics make this claim or something close to it. It is also said
> > > that an honest-to-goodness 20th century Indian IE linguist, Satya
> > > Swarup Misra (he has died recently) came with a PIE that for all
> > > practical purposes was Sanskrit.
"Any number of Indian Swamis" who know even less about linguistics
than you do are supposed to convince me? And a rumor of a dead
linguist?
> > > > > "Beckwith correct" implies "a i u" > "a e i o u" in IE.
>
> > > > But since Beckwith is incorrect, whatever you intend by that is
> > > > irrelevant.
>
> > > The first honest (although totally lacking in intellectual curiosity)
> > > debating point.
>
> > > You cannot have any reason to assert Beckwith is incorrect except that
> > > the IE establishment says otherwise (you can thow in your knowledge of
> > > general linguistics also if you like).
>
> > > Right or wrong, Beckwith himself seems surprised that the
> > > establishemnt overlooked how anomalous Avestan is compared to other
> > > Iranian languages and his claim, based on linguistic arguments (right
> > > or wrong) cannot be handwaved away.
> > > Beckwith has come up with something (a total freebie for Hindutva) and
> > > outright trashing of it on general principles isn't interesting.
> > > Specific reasons in support/refutation would be.-
>
> > We'll nwever know, will we, since your only source for your
> > "information" is an anonymous posting a year and a half ago by someone
> > who claims to have, at some point, written part of a dissertation on a
> > topic having nothing to do with Vedic or Avestan.
>
> This is of course depicably false, bilious and stupid since Google
> lets you peek at the source - Beckwith's recent book:
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=5jG1eHe3y4EC&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=b...
How convenient for you that IF he bothered to give any examples of
what he's blabbering about, they're on the page that is "not part of
this preview."
> > But, why don't you go ahead and enlighten us as to what "Iranization"
> > of Vedic means?- Hide quoted text -
>
> It would be sad if a linguistic professional doesn't know what it
> means - and sadder if it was meant only as a taunt.
According to your response to Martin Hudson in this thread, you think
that "Iranian languages" influenced a Vedic text to turn into Avestan.
What are these "Iranian languages"?
> I think what happened to Romany in its journey North and West out of
> India would offer parallels.
And what, praytell, do you "think happened to Romany in its journey
North and West out of India"?
There's nothing about Romany to suggest it's not Indic.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Evidently the only important thing to you is whether they agree with
your religious dogma.
> > and rather more civil.
>
> Some here could benefit from this hint.
It's about time you started realizing that.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> If all this is correct, then Skt = PIE becomes viable once again.
Wait a minute ... after all your railing against the (nonexistent)
claim that "Skt = PIE," suddenly you're _pleased_ that it "becomes
viable again"???
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Could you specify exactly what sound changes you have in mind? Then we
could better consider whether they have the consequences you are
claiming.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
wrote:
I'll overlook the impoliteness of asking a question that has been
"asked and answered".
Loss of voiced and unvoiced aspirate stops and replacement with
unaspirated stop and fricative variants respectively
voiced sibilants absent from Skt
monophthongs to diphthongs arya > airya etc.
loss of retroflexes
5 short-vowels
anal...@hotmail.com
> On Aug 28, 5:53 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 28, 5:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > On Aug 28, 3:19 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > > Any number of Indian Swamis who have become aware of IE comparative
> > > > linguistics make this claim or something close to it. It is also said
> > > > that an honest-to-goodness 20th century Indian IE linguist, Satya
> > > > Swarup Misra (he has died recently) came with a PIE that for all
> > > > practical purposes was Sanskrit.
>
> "Any number of Indian Swamis" who know even less about linguistics
> than you do are supposed to convince me? And a rumor of a dead
> linguist?
>
>
I hope to put an end to this surreal sub-discussion:
(1) I think it is fair to say that the progress of establishment IE
historical linguistics is co-terminous with a progressive de-
Sanskritzation of "PIE"
(2) This is only consensus theory, that can and will be overturned
with a re-analysis of currently available data.
(3) Within the allowance of sloppiness allowed by usenet, I sometimes
say "Skt = PIE" as equivalent to PIE >! Skt (! = not) , since even
establishment PIE grammar is largely Skt grammar (or a subset of it)
and the comparative phonological and lexical data that put Skt lower
down the cladistic tree aren't that hard to challenge.
>
>
>
> > > We'll nwever know, will we, since your only source for your
> > > "information" is an anonymous posting a year and a half ago by someone
> > > who claims to have, at some point, written part of a dissertation on a
> > > topic having nothing to do with Vedic or Avestan.
>
> > This is of course depicably false, bilious and stupid since Google
> > lets you peek at the source - Beckwith's recent book:
>
> >http://books.google.com/books?id=5jG1eHe3y4EC&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=b...
>
> How convenient for you that IF he bothered to give any examples of
> what he's blabbering about, they're on the page that is "not part of
> this preview."
>
This is once again vintage Petey using his incompetence in using the
web and/or dishonesty (or general cluelessness, see below) as faeces
to be hurled at the "enemy".
From a similar experience Ross had, I am wiling to accept that Google
books seems to show different pages to diffrerent searchers, but I was
able to see all the gory details in the book that language hat gives a
synopsis of.
<incorrigible, childish taunts deleted>.
Peter T. Daniels
If it had ever been answered, he wouldn't have had to ask.
> Loss of voiced and unvoiced aspirate stops and replacement with
> unaspirated stop and fricative variants respectively
>
> voiced sibilants absent from Skt
>
> monophthongs to diphthongs arya > airya etc.
>
> loss of retroflexes
>
> 5 short-vowels-
Not one of those is a sound change. That's a list of consequences, the
sound changes leading to which would be unimaginably complex.
And a PS to Ross -- could you trim some of the older crap when you
post?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Aug 29, 12:16 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 28, 5:53 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 28, 5:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 28, 3:19 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > Any number of Indian Swamis who have become aware of IE comparative
> > > > > linguistics make this claim or something close to it. It is also said
> > > > > that an honest-to-goodness 20th century Indian IE linguist, Satya
> > > > > Swarup Misra (he has died recently) came with a PIE that for all
> > > > > practical purposes was Sanskrit.
>
> > "Any number of Indian Swamis" who know even less about linguistics
> > than you do are supposed to convince me? And a rumor of a dead
> > linguist?
>
> I hope to put an end to this surreal sub-discussion:
>
> (1) I think it is fair to say that the progress of establishment IE
> historical linguistics is co-terminous with a progressive de-
> Sanskritzation of "PIE"
Well ... that's in fact what happened in the successive editions of
Franz Bopp's seminal work that laid the foundations of IE philology
early in the 19th century. No one else was publishing on the
reconstruction of PIE at the time, so you are simply wrong:
"establishment PIE" -- i.e., PIE before the discovery of Hittite,
Tocharian, and Mycenaean -- _began_ with a de-Sanskritized PIE.
Berthold Delbruck's *Introduction to the Study of Language: A Critical
Survey of the History and Methods of Comparative Philology of the Indo-
European Languages* (English translation, 1882; readily available on
google books) is a minutely detailed discussion of Bopp's editions and
the work that grew out of his work by Schleicher, and the generation
of greats whose work was beginning to be published at that time. (Like
Joos's Readings in Linguistics [1957] in relation to Chomsky's first
major publication, it has the merit of appearing just before Saussure
on the one hand and the Neogrammarians on the other revolutionized the
study of PIE.)
> (2) This is only consensus theory, that can and will be overturned
> with a re-analysis of currently available data.
How many times have you made that claim? What, exactly, have you done
in furtherance of that claim?
> (3) Within the allowance of sloppiness allowed by usenet, I sometimes
> say "Skt = PIE" as equivalent to PIE >! Skt (! = not) , since even
> establishment PIE grammar is largely Skt grammar (or a subset of it)
> and the comparative phonological and lexical data that put Skt lower
> down the cladistic tree aren't that hard to challenge.
What does "lower down the cladistic tree" mean?
If they're easy to challenge, why don't you offer some challenges?
> > > > We'll nwever know, will we, since your only source for your
> > > > "information" is an anonymous posting a year and a half ago by someone
> > > > who claims to have, at some point, written part of a dissertation on a
> > > > topic having nothing to do with Vedic or Avestan.
>
> > > This is of course depicably false, bilious and stupid since Google
> > > lets you peek at the source - Beckwith's recent book:
>
> > >http://books.google.com/books?id=5jG1eHe3y4EC&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=b...
>
> > How convenient for you that IF he bothered to give any examples of
> > what he's blabbering about, they're on the page that is "not part of
> > this preview."
>
> This is once again vintage Petey using his incompetence in using the
> web and/or dishonesty (or general cluelessness, see below) as faeces
> to be hurled at the "enemy".
>
> From a similar experience Ross had, I am wiling to accept that Google
> books seems to show different pages to diffrerent searchers, but I was
> able to see all the gory details in the book that language hat gives a
> synopsis of.
Then why don't you provide some of those gory details? Details that
would include _actual forms_ in Old Avestan, as well as the _actual
Vedic forms_ they were "deformed" from, as well as the _actual Iranian
forms_ that caused the deformation -- as well as an explanation of
what "Iranian" was, if not Old Avestan?
Note that since no Iranian language other than Old Avestan is attested
until about a millennium after the deduced date of Old Avestan (which
Beckwith cannot challenge, since he bases it on Vedic), the only
Iranian available to identify the "deformation" from is
_reconstructed_ Iranian, which is reconstructed by the very same
methods that you are unable to comprehend.
> <incorrigible, childish taunts deleted>.-
You really ought to stop your childish taunting.
anal...@hotmail.com
petey showing he can make useful points:
Can't use a reconstruction to challenge another reconstruction - quite
correct.
I have never said that Beckwith's astounding claim is anything other
than something to consider. But it jibes with independent analysis by
Talageri - using verse-forms and names in the Veda and the Avesta and
at least gives prima facie evidence that sound changes the
establishment considers did not happen could have.
petey hurling faeces below
Martin Edwards
that it became progressively more elaborate because writers assumed that
what he did not forbid was allowed. There are, for example, few
compounds in the Veda, and those that there are are only dual.
Eventually there were huge compound nouns, which many scholars regard as
a sign of depravation though Coulson, for one did not agree. Okay, I
learned from a Teach Yourself book, but I am trying to edge my way back
into this stuff.
anal...@hotmail.com
> Okay, I
> learned from a Teach Yourself book, but I am trying to edge my way back
> into this stuff
When you do, I am sure Petey would love to have many long discussions
with you.
Peter T. Daniels
Since even when you admit that theis "petey" person's points are
"useful" you are unable to provide a single counterargument -- appeal
to (unknown) authority is not argument --, but sink to your (reverting
to scatological) epithets, that you are unable to comprehend is a
simple fact.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Why do you ignore and delete Martin's substantive point?
FYI:
Teach Yourself Sanskrit -- and indeed most of the Teach Yourself
series, at least until they were taken over by some megapublisher --
are usually by extremely competent scholars and an excellent source of
information especially on less well known languages.
Have you been through all 250 pages of Delbruck yet?
Or did you delete the information about that book so that you could
pretend you were not aware that a history of the first decades of IE
study, by one of the participants, was fully available to you but you
preferred to remain ignorant?
anal...@hotmail.com
Your Vedic-Classical obsession and surreal conflation of the history
of historical linguistics with what am claiming would be an
implication of the Beckwith claim are becoming boring.
anal...@hotmail.com
To you,
>authority
No - "Talageri" can be googled and a fair amount of his arguments are
freely available.
is not argument --, but sink to your (reverting
> to scatological) epithets, that you are unable to comprehend is a
> simple fact.- Hide quoted text -
>
What other way is there do describe how you tend to reduce arguments
to insults,ad hominems and put downs?
As far as facts are concerned, why don't you present one?
Let me help you - a relevant fact would look like
"Beckwith is wrong because", XYZ.
XYZ should be something that can be verified as factual and
independent of any insane detonations the claim has set off in your
head.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
"bh" > "b" is not a sound change?
perhaps in Petey-world, but how about the real world?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Aug 29, 12:22 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 29, 12:01 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > On Aug 29, 10:34 am, Martin Edwards <big_mart...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > Okay, I
> > > > learned from a Teach Yourself book, but I am trying to edge my way back
> > > > into this stuff
>
> > > When you do, I am sure Petey would love to have many long discussions
> > > with you.
>
> > Why do you ignore and delete Martin's substantive point?
>
> > FYI:
> > Teach Yourself Sanskrit -- and indeed most of the Teach Yourself
> > series, at least until they were taken over by some megapublisher --
> > are usually by extremely competent scholars and an excellent source of
> > information especially on less well known languages.
>
> > Have you been through all 250 pages of Delbruck yet?
>
> > Or did you delete the information about that book so that you could
> > pretend you were not aware that a history of the first decades of IE
> > study, by one of the participants, was fully available to you but you
> > preferred to remain ignorant?
>
> Your Vedic-Classical obsession and surreal conflation of the history
What does your confusion about the names of the two languages have to
do with anything here?
My obsession is with facts.
> of historical linguistics with what am claiming would be an
> implication of the Beckwith claim are becoming boring.-
You claim that Indo-Europeanists say that PIE = Sanskrit.
You are wrong.
Peter T. Daniels
It might be. What are the data from which you derive the claim that
there was an earlier bh, and that all bh later were realized as b?
Did the words containing bh merge with the words containing b, or did
b also change to something else to keep them separate?
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Let me help you - a relevant fact would look like
>
> "Beckwith is wrong because", XYZ.
>
> XYZ should be something that can be verified as factual and
> independent of any insane detonations the claim has set off in your
> head.
Since Beckwith offers neither evidence nor argument, but only
assertion, there is nothing to say except that his assertion flies in
the face of all that is known.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Since I care precious little what "IndoEuropeanists" have to say about
Skt and "PIE", if you have managed to read that into something I wrote
and that makes you happy, go for it.
anal...@hotmail.com
He does offer reasons and argument that I care little for (My
understanding is that he has some typology of IE stop systems and
claims that Avestan and Indic fall together under that typology, but
not the rest of the Iranian IE languages which fall together in a
different group).
But the idea that the attested Avestan corpus is the result of an
Indic corpus taken out of India that was then subjected to sound
changes due to immersion of the speakers in an Iranian sprachbund can
be agreed with or denied on its own terms.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Your overlookment is unnecessary, as my question is not impolite. It
is essential to clarify your argument.
>
> Loss of voiced and unvoiced aspirate stops and replacement with
> unaspirated stop and fricative variants respectively
In what way does this make Skt=PIE viable?
> voiced sibilants absent from Skt
This is not a statement of a sound change.
> monophthongs to diphthongs arya > airya etc.
Under what conditions does this putative sound change take place?
> loss of retroflexes
Retroflex > dental, you mean? In what way does this make Skt=PIE
viable?
> 5 short-vowels
This is not a statement of a sound change.
As you can see, you have some work to do to make your argument
intelligible.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
If I am confused about "Vedic" and "Sanskrit", I am in august company.
If you look at the "Grammar of Gathic Avestan" by Robert Stephen Paul
Beekes at Google books - he mostly uses "Sanskrit" for the
comparative data. I saw "Vedic Sanskrit" once - and on p 59 he says
"In Sanskrit these nouns are mostly Oxytone in the Rig Veda"
i.e., the Rig Veda is part of the corpus of Sanskrit.
But then, who is Beekes to contradict the author of "Teach yourself
Sanskrit"?
anal...@hotmail.com
> Ross Clark- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Nitpicks. Under the Beckwith hypothesis,by definition, any difference
between Skt and Avestan in cognate words implies that the Skt form is
earlier. In most cases, we see that (voiced asp, 3 vs. 5 vowels
monophthongs/diphthongs and presence/absence of retroflexion) Sanskrit
stands in the same relationship to the rest of IE as to Avestan -
ergo etc.
They say that the standard model was arrived at because a e i o u for
PIE explains the data better - but if a i u > a e i o u actaully
happened in the family and the donor language practically encompasses
the standard model's grammar of the putative protolanguage, then the
"explanatory economy" argument goes out of the window.
It is intelligible, but then has some holes - Avestan suffered s > h
which is not shared by Latin etc. That means that there must have
been waves of Indic-speaking emigrants - to influence European
mytholgy, to impart the ruki rule to the Slavics etc.
Looks like we didn't teach all the grunters to speak at the same time.
I agree that it needs work - but the standard model is now wounded -
the coup-de-grace will be delivered through Avestan.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Please see my reply to Ross.
Under the Beckwith hypothesis
bhratar > bratar
bhumi > bumi
nabhas > nabah
dharaya > daraya
vardhati > vardati
etc.
I don't know what Avestan did if something like a bh > b change caused
a collision with a b-word.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> On Aug 29, 3:56 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 29, 12:50 pm, "analys...@hotmail.com" <analys...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Let me help you - a relevant fact would look like
>
> > > "Beckwith is wrong because", XYZ.
>
> > > XYZ should be something that can be verified as factual and
> > > independent of any insane detonations the claim has set off in your
> > > head.
>
> > Since Beckwith offers neither evidence nor argument, but only
> > assertion, there is nothing to say except that his assertion flies in
> > the face of all that is known.
>
> He does offer reasons and argument that I care little for (My
> understanding is that he has some typology of IE stop systems and
> claims that Avestan and Indic fall together under that typology, but
> not the rest of the Iranian IE languages which fall together in a
> different group).
Yes, on the page you linked to he said he didn't like the labels "E"
and "W" for the two groups of Iranian languages. Fine, call them
Iranian A and Iranian B. Avestan -- Old or Younger -- (Iranian A)
still differs from Old Persian (Iranian B) in ways that show they
belong to the two different branches of Iranian that have been
identified in the languages attested in medieval and modern times.
> But the idea that the attested Avestan corpus is the result of an
> Indic corpus taken out of India that was then subjected to sound
> changes due to immersion of the speakers in an Iranian sprachbund can
> be agreed with or denied on its own terms.
Ok, I'll ask again. What is this "Iranian sprachbund"?
Peter T. Daniels
A contemporary Dutchman whose specialization, IIRC, is Iranian. (Which
kinda goes along with his publishing a study grammar of Avestan.)
benl...@ihug.co.nz
You really have a lot to learn. What you call "nitpicks" consisted of
some questions which you failed to answer, plus the observation that
some of your purported "sound changes" were not sound changes.
Under the Beckwith hypothesis,by definition, any difference
> between Skt and Avestan in cognate words implies that the Skt form is
> earlier.
Not under the very reasonable interpretation that Avestan replaced
Sanskrit morphemes with already existing cognate Iranian morphemes.
In most cases, we see that (voiced asp, 3 vs. 5 vowels
> monophthongs/diphthongs and presence/absence of retroflexion) Sanskrit
> stands in the same relationship to the rest of IE as to Avestan -
only in the crudest possible sense
> ergo etc.
ergo what?
> They say that the standard model was arrived at because a e i o u for
> PIE explains the data better - but if a i u > a e i o u actaully
> happened in the family and the donor language practically encompasses
> the standard model's grammar of the putative protolanguage, then the
> "explanatory economy" argument goes out of the window.
You have yet to explain what "a i u > a e i o u" means as an actual
sound change. Much less to demonstrate that it "happened". It's pretty
clear you don't even understand the argument about vowels that you
keep referring to. I would have expected even a B student to get the
idea after two years.
>
> It is intelligible, but then has some holes - Avestan suffered s > h
> which is not shared by Latin etc. That means that there must have
> been waves of Indic-speaking emigrants - to influence European
> mytholgy, to impart the ruki rule to the Slavics etc.
This will make a very popular attraction when Indian Disney World
opens.
> Looks like we didn't teach all the grunters to speak at the same time.
>
> I agree that it needs work - but the standard model is now wounded -
> the coup-de-grace will be delivered through Avestan.
Just your latest dream, I fear.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
Yes they are. "bh" > 'b' is already boilerplate with respect to "PIE"
and "PIIr". Some of the one-to-many and many-to-many changes haven't
been spelt out with the conditioning environments etc.
> Under the Beckwith hypothesis,by definition, any difference
>
> > between Skt and Avestan in cognate words implies that the Skt form is
> > earlier.
>
> Not under the very reasonable interpretation that Avestan replaced
> Sanskrit morphemes with already existing cognate Iranian morphemes.
>
I am realling not able to get this.
The Beckwith hypothesis is that Avestan came into existence when an
Indian corpus in Sanskrit was transferred to Iran. Avestan must have
had only sanskrit sounds at birth. All finally attested sounds by
definition are due to changes that were applied to the original
sounds.
It is totally irrelevant where Avestan got the changed sounds from.
Maybe there were grunting-like IE and non-IE languages already in Iran
which did have 5 vowels but not much of a grammar etc. how does it
matter?
Avestan became a 5-vowel language, is an IE language, and started out
as a 3 vowel language. I don't see why this conclusion cannot be
drawn from the hypothesis.
> In most cases, we see that (voiced asp, 3 vs. 5 vowels
>
> > monophthongs/diphthongs and presence/absence of retroflexion) Sanskrit
> > stands in the same relationship to the rest of IE as to Avestan -
>
> only in the crudest possible sense
>
> > ergo etc.
>
> ergo what?
>
> > They say that the standard model was arrived at because a e i o u for
> > PIE explains the data better - but if a i u > a e i o u actaully
> > happened in the family and the donor language practically encompasses
> > the standard model's grammar of the putative protolanguage, then the
> > "explanatory economy" argument goes out of the window.
>
> You have yet to explain what "a i u > a e i o u" means as an actual
> sound change. Much less to demonstrate that it "happened". It's pretty
> clear you don't even understand the argument about vowels that you
> keep referring to. I would have expected even a B student to get the
> idea after two years.
>
When you explain how Skt "collapsed" "e a o" to "a" and still retains
its astoundingly rich internal structure and coherence we'll talk
about it.
>
>
> > It is intelligible, but then has some holes - Avestan suffered s > h
> > which is not shared by Latin etc. That means that there must have
> > been waves of Indic-speaking emigrants - to influence European
> > mytholgy, to impart the ruki rule to the Slavics etc.
>
> This will make a very popular attraction when Indian Disney World
> opens.
>
> > Looks like we didn't teach all the grunters to speak at the same time.
>
> > I agree that it needs work - but the standard model is now wounded -
> > the coup-de-grace will be delivered through Avestan.
>
> Just your latest dream, I fear.
>
benl...@ihug.co.nz
So why bring it in here? PIE had voiced aspirates according to the
standard view (leaving aside recent revisionist proposals), so bh > b
has happened in several branches of IE. So Beckwith's hypothesis makes
no difference.
Some of the one-to-many and many-to-many changes haven't
> been spelt out with the conditioning environments etc.
And there is the problem.
> > Under the Beckwith hypothesis,by definition, any difference
>
> > > between Skt and Avestan in cognate words implies that the Skt form is
> > > earlier.
>
> > Not under the very reasonable interpretation that Avestan replaced
> > Sanskrit morphemes with already existing cognate Iranian morphemes.
>
> I am realling not able to get this.
The creators of Avestan (under Beckwith's hypothesis) already spoke an
Iranian language, which was closely related to Sanskrit. Many cognate
morphemes would be readily recognizable, and even regular sound
correspondences could be perceived (if only unconsciously). One way in
which the Iranians could have adapted the Sanskrit text to their own
use would be to substitute the corresponding morphemes from their
language.
Consider the case of English and German. If I came across the word
"Weltanschauung" in German and wanted to use it myself, I could simply
attempt to pronounce it as the Germans do [veltanSauuNg or whatever]
-- this is in fact what English speakers do in this case. But there's
no reason why they couldn't create a word "world-onshowing" in English
and use it with the appropriate meaning. Now here there have been a
number of changes, if you will, but the [v] is not "earlier" than the
[w] -- in fact they are contemporary. And there is no v > w sound
change going on in either language.
This kind of re-creation is actually quite routine in borrowing from
French, which is much less closely related, of course, but shows
massive lexical correspondences as a result of relatively recent
contact. So the English word "deconstruction" shows a number of
phonological differences from its French counterpart -- but not simply
because of the demands of English phonology. English speakers could
perfectly well pronounce the first syllable like "day", for example,
which would be a better approximation to the French. But they don't.
This is because the word has not exactly been borrowed, but rather re-
assembled, following the French plan, from components which were
already present in English.
And there is no reason why this process should not be applied to at
least large parts of an entire text.
> The Beckwith hypothesis is that Avestan came into existence when an
> Indian corpus in Sanskrit was transferred to Iran. Avestan must have
> had only sanskrit sounds at birth. All finally attested sounds by
> definition are due to changes that were applied to the original
> sounds.
Well, no. See above.
> It is totally irrelevant where Avestan got the changed sounds from.
No, it is not. Beckwith's theory, just like the standard theory, has
to account for Avestan as we find it. And part of that is explaining
how and when sounds changed.
> Maybe there were grunting-like IE and non-IE languages already in Iran
> which did have 5 vowels but not much of a grammar etc. how does it
> matter?
See above.
> Avestan became a 5-vowel language, is an IE language, and started out
> as a 3 vowel language. I don't see why this conclusion cannot be
> drawn from the hypothesis.
1) Sanskrit is not a 3-vowel language, according to my sources.
2) See above for why Avestan did not necessarily start out with the
same phonology as Sanskrit.
3) In any case, the argument simply cannot be conducted in these crude
typological terms. You have to look at which vowel corresponds to
which vowel in which words in which language -- something you seem
unwilling to do.
The argument is _not_ that no 3-vowel language could ever become a 5-
vowel language. The argument is that a PIE with just the 3 vowels
cannot account for the 5 vowels of Greek etc. by regular sound
changes.
> > In most cases, we see that (voiced asp, 3 vs. 5 vowels
>
> > > monophthongs/diphthongs and presence/absence of retroflexion) Sanskrit
> > > stands in the same relationship to the rest of IE as to Avestan -
>
> > only in the crudest possible sense
>
> > > ergo etc.
>
> > ergo what?
>
> > > They say that the standard model was arrived at because a e i o u for
> > > PIE explains the data better - but if a i u > a e i o u actaully
> > > happened in the family and the donor language practically encompasses
> > > the standard model's grammar of the putative protolanguage, then the
> > > "explanatory economy" argument goes out of the window.
>
> > You have yet to explain what "a i u > a e i o u" means as an actual
> > sound change. Much less to demonstrate that it "happened". It's pretty
> > clear you don't even understand the argument about vowels that you
> > keep referring to. I would have expected even a B student to get the
> > idea after two years.
>
> When you explain how Skt "collapsed" "e a o" to "a" and still retains
> its astoundingly rich internal structure and coherence we'll talk
> about it.
Well I guess we'll never be able to as long as your mind insists that
the two are incompatible.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
Thats not my reading. I think he say somewhere that the preserved
Avestan corpus is largely limited to religious functions and the
language might not have been spoken in daily life at all.
What you forget is that outside of Avestan there is no sign of the
Sanskrit-like grammar in Iran or anywhere else in IE for that matter.
Occam's Razor would suggest Indic speakers who migrated bearing the
corpus (and grarmmar) with them , rather than Iranian speakers who
came to India, learnt the Indic content and then moved back.
which was closely related to Sanskrit. Many cognate
> morphemes would be readily recognizable, and even regular sound
> correspondences could be perceived (if only unconsciously). One way in
> which the Iranians could have adapted the Sanskrit text to their own
> use would be to substitute the corresponding morphemes from their
> language.
>
Since pre-Avestan Iranians didn't nearly have the same grammar the new
morphemes they would have had to deal with would have been
overwhelming. In such a a case 'Iranization" would have consisted of
mangling the grammar in addition to sound changes which the Greeks
etc. did later.
who, Petey?
> 2) See above for why Avestan did not necessarily start out with the
> same phonology as Sanskrit.
> 3) In any case, the argument simply cannot be conducted in these crude
> typological terms. You have to look at which vowel corresponds to
> which vowel in which words in which language -- something you seem
> unwilling to do.
>
> The argument is _not_ that no 3-vowel language could ever become a 5-
> vowel language. The argument is that a PIE with just the 3 vowels
> cannot account for the 5 vowels of Greek etc. by regular sound
> changes.
>
dealt with earlier, quoted below.
> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
benl...@ihug.co.nz
How does that contradict what I said? They spoke (in daily life) an
Iranian language. They appropriated (says Beckwith) a set of Sanskrit
religious texts. These texts are all we have of Avestan, and maybe all
there ever was. By the time they reach us, they are no longer in
Sanskrit. The changes that have taken place are (as Beckwith says) to
be explained by reference to the Iranian language(s) spoken by these
creators and their successors who transmitted the texts.
> What you forget is that outside of Avestan there is no sign of the
> Sanskrit-like grammar in Iran or anywhere else in IE for that matter.
Don't be silly. There are plenty of signs of it, even if you consider
them inferior and not worthy to be called "Sanskrit-like".
> Occam's Razor would suggest Indic speakers who migrated bearing the
> corpus (and grarmmar) with them , rather than Iranian speakers who
> came to India, learnt the Indic content and then moved back.
I don't think Occam would support any such conclusion, but it's
neither here nor there with respect to the linguistic issue.
>
> which was closely related to Sanskrit. Many cognate
>
> > morphemes would be readily recognizable, and even regular sound
> > correspondences could be perceived (if only unconsciously). One way in
> > which the Iranians could have adapted the Sanskrit text to their own
> > use would be to substitute the corresponding morphemes from their
> > language.
>
> Since pre-Avestan Iranians didn't nearly have the same grammar
Actually you can't assume this.
the new
> morphemes they would have had to deal with would have been
> overwhelming. In such a a case 'Iranization" would have consisted of
> mangling the grammar in addition to sound changes which the Greeks
> etc. did later.
I don't care if you want to call it "mangling".
No, actually every source I've looked at.
> > 2) See above for why Avestan did not necessarily start out with the
> > same phonology as Sanskrit.
> > 3) In any case, the argument simply cannot be conducted in these crude
> > typological terms. You have to look at which vowel corresponds to
> > which vowel in which words in which language -- something you seem
> > unwilling to do.
>
> > The argument is _not_ that no 3-vowel language could ever become a 5-
> > vowel language. The argument is that a PIE with just the 3 vowels
> > cannot account for the 5 vowels of Greek etc. by regular sound
> > changes.
>
> dealt with earlier, quoted below.
I look forward to seeing the quote, which I must have chopped during
the reply process.
Ross Clark
benl...@ihug.co.nz
wrote:
[snipped a lot]
> > The argument is _not_ that no 3-vowel language could ever become a 5-
> > vowel language. The argument is that a PIE with just the 3 vowels
> > cannot account for the 5 vowels of Greek etc. by regular sound
> > changes.
>
> dealt with earlier, quoted below.
By "dealt with" I assume you mean you are going to show how the five
vowels of Greek etc. can be derived by regular sound change from the i-
a-u of Sanskrit? I don't see such an explanation below. Could you have
forgotten to include it?
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
wrote:
Raeson for boiler-plate model's 5 vowels = explantory economy (after
all, the earliest models did have 3).
But if 3 >5 actually happened and 3 is a pretty good candidate for the
whole enchilada to start with, then truth > apparent explanatory
economy. Everything has to be re-analyzed, explaining how 3 became 5
in all other cases.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
At any rate, many of the changes that took place in Romany on
emigration from India - 3 > 5, replacement of most retroflexes etc.
offer a strong parallel. What you are suggesting is possible but
highly unlikley, the standard model is totally unviable, Hindutva-
Beckwith the most plausible explanation of Avestan if it is true that
the language originally consisted of a 100 pct Indian religious
corpus.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Oh dear, this is pathetic... I really was expecting a little more.
OK, you have declined the invitation to progress from your mud-pie
version of linguistics to actually specifying how sound changes happen
in particular languages.
And (to revert to mud-pie talk) you have not established that 3 > 5 in
the Avestan case or any other, or given any reasons why 3 is a priori
a "pretty good candidate for the whole enchilada".
Amazingly, you are still at square zero after all this time.
Ross Clark
anal...@hotmail.com
The Petey inside of you has come out. Shouldn't you be working on
that?
The above is sad.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
No, take off the Mr Sad Face mask and think seriously.
Once again you have been suckered by your standard modus operandi,
trawling the net looking for flashes of fool's gold. This time it was
Beckwith who was going to demolish IE for you. But you failed to
understand Beckwith's proposal, you wildly overestimated its
consequences, and the discussion revealed that you still didn't
understand some of the basic issues. Invitations to raise your game
were refused.
It's you that should be working on it.
Ross Clark
Martin Edwards
Your prose is becoming opaque. Look that up in your Funk and Wagnal.
Harlan Messinger
> Your prose is becoming opaque. Look that up in your Funk and Wagnal.
<nostalgia/>
anal...@hotmail.com
Opinions vary as to how the debate went.
But I would like to understand what difference the two following
models make:
Fact:The Avestan grammar is very close to Sanskrit's
Fact: Cognate Avestan and Sanskrit words can show significant sound
differences
Assumption:
The source of Avestan is an Indic corpus composed in Indic.
Model A: Avestan resulted when Iranian speakers, with a well
established language and sound system, attempted to incorporate the
Indic material into their native tongue ( I don't believe that could
have happened but BTAIM).
Model B; Avestan resulted when Indic speakers took the source-corpus
to Iran, were immersed among Iranian speakers whose language they used
in daily life and eventually "convergence" of their everyday language
and liturgical language took place in sound, although not much in
grammar.
In either case even if there was a PIIr that was the parent of Indic
and (non-Avestan) Iranian - Avestan itself would have been the result
of a convergence process - it cannot have one genetic parent. The
*words are Indic, and cannot be called borrowed, since the foreign
corpus pretty much is the language. Under model B, the proto-sounds
are indic also - and whatever it took, eventually those sounds changed
to Avestan sounds. Under model A, Iranization was simultaneous with
the adoption of the corpus and the protosounds are Iranian.
In either case the tree diagram breaks down.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
From what I've read of Beckwith's proposal, he seems to consider the
changes to have taken place subsequent to the initial formation of the
corpus, but doesn't mention that the transmitters of the corpus were
exclusively Indian. Perhaps this is Model C.
>
> In either case even if there was a PIIr that was the parent of Indic
> and (non-Avestan) Iranian - Avestan itself would have been the result
> of a convergence process - it cannot have one genetic parent. The
> *words are Indic, and cannot be called borrowed, since the foreign
> corpus pretty much is the language. Under model B, the proto-sounds
> are indic also - and whatever it took, eventually those sounds changed
> to Avestan sounds. Under model A, Iranization was simultaneous with
> the adoption of the corpus and the protosounds are Iranian.
>
> In either case the tree diagram breaks down.
It breaks down, if it does, only in respect of this language, in that
it may be hard to assign it a place on the tree. The same has been
claimed about creoles, which some think cannot be grouped with any of
their source languages. If Beckwith is right, I think I would be
inclined to classify Avestan as a phonologically Iranized Indic
language -- insofar as it is actually a "language" at all. It might be
comparable to post-Medieval Latin in the mouths of English speakers.
Ross Clark
Martin Edwards
Say goodnight, Dick.
Harlan Messinger
Goodnight, Dick!