Talk:Indigenous Aryans arguments

Split-off
This article was split-off from Indigenous Aryans to reduce the size of that article. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   06:45, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Title
Having run across this in the scope of WP:NPP, I will say that the title needs to be something that's more in compliance with WP:TITLEFORMAT. I'll leave that to those with more involvement in the article to determine. -- Kinu  t/c 08:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "Arguments on Indigenous Aryanism"  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Indigenous Aryanism discourse"  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Arguments on Indigenous Aryans. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:56, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Indo-Aryan migration debate" Kautilya3 (talk) 09:42, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Debate"? ;) But, at second thought...  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   10:21, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This line "Edwin Bryant has given an overview of the various "Indigenist" positions in his PhD-thesis and two subsequent publications" would have to been changed then in "Edwin Bryant has given an overview of various opponents of the Indo-Aryan migration theory in his PhD-thesis and two subsequent publications".  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   10:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Migration debate" is neutral because both the "sides" need to talk about migration in order to explain the spread of Indo-European languages throughout Eurasia. "Indigeneity" is just a stop-gap argument, a tactic, as Rajiv Malhotra made clear. Kautilya3 (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If there is no agreement and it will consume some more time, we can leave this page as a redirect. Bladesmulti (talk) 10:52, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I've just moved the page per WP:BOLD. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   11:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Whole article or you will be inserting more. Bladesmulti (talk) 11:52, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * More?!? Well, maybe the horse-arguments, but it's quite alot already, don't you think? And maybe we can leave the "Warning, this is fringe! It may polute your brain!" to the Indigenous Aryans article.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   11:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I just thought, yes it is a lot already. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:30, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Lead
Well done. However, I have some comments, suggestions and nitpicks about the narrative presented:


 * Early European scholars such as William Jones focussed on Sanskrit. They did not realise that the modern Indic languages directly descend from Old Indo-Aryan. Understandably, in light of their great structural divergence from Sanskrit and the strong (mostly lexical) influence of Persian (and indirectly, Arabic) on all registers (especially the highest, which these scholars would encounter most in written form) of many modern Indic languages, especially Hindustani (the Sanskritised and de-Persianised register we know as Standard Hindi didn't exist yet, after all; Hindustani was quite similar to modern Standard Urdu, with its sequence of increasingly Persianised registers as one moves up the prestige ladder, and Persian provided most technical vocabulary and indirect loans, too). The analytic – partly isolating and partly agglutinating – morphology of Hindustani and other modern Indic languages strongly resembles Persian, too. So one can see how scholars saw Hindustani and its relatives as more akin to Semitic and Persian, perhaps even as descended from Persian.
 * At first, struck by the archaic structure of Sanskrit and the wealth of grammatical forms, larger than in Latin or even Ancient Greek, scholars considered Sanskrit itself to be the mother of the Indo-European languages of Europe, initially at least of the ancient classical languages Latin and Greek, and later also of more recent languages. Panini's description of Sanskrit phonology and grammar as highly systematic, regular (if complex) and symmetric, as well as its towering, sky-high prestige and status as a sacred language, certainly contributed to the sense that Sanskrit must be somehow very special and "pure", fit for a role like this. (It must also be kept in mind that the age of Sanskrit was completely unknown and it could easily have been many thousands of years old, which in an effectively YEC worldview, prior to the concept of deep time, was utterly impressive – even if European scholars did not take seriously the native traditions, which spoke of huge numbers and lengths of time, and certainly considered Sanskrit to be even much older than that, the real language of the gods and the universe – and would easily have led back to antediluvian times.) When Avestan was discovered, it was at first considered another descendant of Sanskrit, and in this case, this was even more understandable in light of the obvious close resemblance. As more and more languages of Europe were recognised as similar and related to Sanskrit, descendance from Sanskrit remained the natural explanation, as the idea of unattested ancestor languages was not yet established. In the early modern era, there were all kinds of speculation, often fueled by patriotic zeal, that this or that language was the original language of paradise that (inspired by the biblical Tower of Babel story) split and changed into the modern languages, although the most common idea was that Hebrew was the original language of mankind and there were attempts to show that all modern languages derive from it. A few already known and accepted cases such as (especially) Latin becoming Romance, Classical Arabic turning into the modern Arabic dialects, Old Slavic becoming the modern Slavic languages and perhaps Old Norse becoming the modern Scandinavian languages (although this was probably recast as "Icelandic is the original Norse language and Danish, Swedish, Norwegian its descendants") provided obvious models showing that something like this could indeed happen. But the derivation of languages from Sanskrit was initially only yet another speculation in the Tower-of-Babel tradition. This idea, however, naturally led to the Out-of-India hypothesis.
 * William Jones seems to have been the first to suggest the possibility that the original ancestor language (not of mankind in his case, of course, but only of most of Europe and parts of Asia) was – "perhaps" – a language which is completely unknown as it was never written. For this revolutionary suggestion that proved visionary, his remark became rightly celebrated.
 * I'd hesitate to describe the Anatolian hypothesis as part of the "standard view". Most linguists, provided they have a dedicated position at all (most do not seem to care all that much), appear to accept some sort of steppe Urheimat. Few would actively, explicitly assent to any of the alternative proposals, I think. The Anatolian hypothesis is most popular among archaeologists because of the widespread disinclination towards positing prehistoric migrations that are not strongly in evidence from (or at least greatly suggested by) the archaeological record (and perhaps because of Gimbutas's other, even more controversial contributions). It just speaks naturally to the prejudices of modern archaeology. Geneticists seem to like it too. I'm still mystified why opposition to the steppe Urheimat is so strongly entrenched in these disciplines; I suspect it's a more social phenomenon, and the lack of an acute sense just how long 5000 years are in linguistic history (Egyptian changed radically between Old Egyptian and Coptic, over about 3000 years, and the whole linguistic landscape of the Ancient Near East changed equally radically between the Hittites and now, over the same length of time), so the appeal on continuity is completely unrealistic. Most people who aren't historical linguists don't seem to appreciate this and assume much fewer changes when they cannot be shown directly by the linguistic record (for example in prehistoric North America, so that people may talk about, say, "proto-Inuit" or "early Sioux", for periods more than 1000 years ago), or assume that the available space was filled with various known proto-languages.
 * Witzel suggests (among others) that the Dravidian languages are no less indigenous to the Indian subcontinent than Indo-Aryan, but that the Dravidians immigrated from the Iranian Highlands at about the same time as the Indo-Aryans.
 * Also, he disagrees with the popular speculation that the Indus Valley Civilisation (as a whole) was Dravidian-speaking, for which there is no evidence. He suggests that by the second millennium BC, Dravidian was spoken in Sindh, though. Based on an analysis of layers of borrowings in Old Indo-Aryan, especially Vedic, and various other evidence for substrate languages and the like, as well as the presence of remnant languages like Burushaski, Nahali and Kusunda, he concludes that it does not supported the idea, and that there must have been several languages and language groups that were spoken in the region prior to the coming of the Indo-Aryans that were unrelated to any of the modern languages. Adding up all the reconstructible entities gives an amazing number. Moreover, it has been pointed out (by Blench) that tiny Arunachal Pradesh alone is home to several small language groups whose connection to Sino-Tibetan has only been assumed but never properly substantiated, and which are thus effectively isolates or independent genetic units (these could easily have originally been spoken down in the Gangetic plains but driven up the Brahmaputra by the spread of Austroasiatic and Indo-Aryan). Bronze Age India was evidently a no less ethnically and linguistically diverse place than now. This is the same fallacy I just complained about, and a major concern of mine: overly simplistic scenarios of prehistory (which also play into the hands of ethnocentric, nationalistic and fundamentalistic tendencies along the lines of "we've always been here, and our nation/religion/etc. is millennia old", both for privileged/majority and – in reaction – relatively underprivileged/minority ethnic groups). If there is one lesson learned from anthropology, it's the instability and changeability of human culture. Linguistic diversity in terms of recognisable genetic units has rather decreased than increased over the millennia, due to the tendency of tribal, non-state societies to fragment and diversify (see Ringe). This makes large parts of Eurasia the historical exception rather than the norm, being dominated by only a few major language families as they are, quite unlike the hugely diverse Americas. This should especially speak to you, Maunus, as an Americanist and opponent of all forms of ethnocentrism.
 * Perhaps the re-interpretation of the Indo-Aryan migration as an artefact of colonialism could be could elaborated upon, but this would certainly overburden the lead.

As for the rest of the article, better and more concentrated and complete listing of the evidence pointing to an external origin of the Indo-Aryan languages would be welcome. Readers are certainly most interested exactly in this evidence. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:57, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I dont disagree within anything you say in the above, but am unsure what concrete edits to the lead that the comments would motivate. The lead necessarily must present a condensed and simplified view of the question, which can then be further detailed in the body of the article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Genetics
I've reinserted some of the info on genetics, and added more. See also Talk:Indo-Aryan_migration_theory. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   05:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I would have preferred to wait for the dust to settle. The Indian team is visibly eager to grab as many headlines as they can muster. Supposedly they disproved the "caste theory." But the paper says In agreement with previous Y-chromosome studies,41,42 the Brahmin and Kshatriya from Uttar Pradesh stand out by being closer to Pakistani (FST ¼ 0.006 on average) and West Eurasian populations (FST ¼ 0.030) than to other Indian populations (average FSTs 0.017 and 0.046, respectively) from the same geographic area (Figures S1 and S11). (AJHG, p. 734) While the press reports claim this disproves "aryan invasion" etc., the statements in the paper (p. 739, 2nd column) are quite tentative. Kautilya3 (talk) 09:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep. And, again, show how complicated Indian history is.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   09:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I also think that newspapers make the headlines, not the researchers. Researchers probably are more uptight in their statements.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   09:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As for the dust: there are many such headlines; they need to be mentioned too, somehow.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   09:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Background of the debate?
Could someone please put together an introductory section in which the background of the debate is explained? I.e. provide some systematic explanation why this debate exists at all. The lead section suggests it evolved from enlightenment-era models of an origin of everthing in India. Could someone please summarize where a) that enlightenment-era idea came from, and b) why it is being revived today?

ps: there are several sentences that don't follow or are semantically incogruous. Please fix them. Please select one descriptor of a/the theory and stick to it consistently throughout. For simplicity perhaps "pro-migration"/"contra-migration", or "pro-indigenous"/"contra-indigenous", or the like.
 * 'both in support of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory and in opposition to the mainstream Indo-Aryan Migration theory'
 * Similarly, in the dozens of "questioning ...", "critics of ..." constructs, e.g.
 * 'Questioning the IAMt:' (followed by nothing that questions anything) or
 * 'Critics of the Indo-Aryan Migration theory use it to present the Indo-Aryan Migration theory as an "Aryan Invasion Theory"'.
 * 'This rejection of linguistics by critics of the AIT creates the impression that their own pet theory is not resistant to the test of linguistics' (this is supposedly a literal quote. If so, it warrants paraphrasing/elision).
 * Some of the constructs aren't logical:
 * 'he notes that they mostly quote English literature, which is not fully explored'
 * 'Some items typical of later Sanskrit literature are absent from the Rigveda. This is usually taken as strong evidence of [...]' (This is a classic ex silentio illogicism. Also: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!)

pps: the quality of citations is uneven. Please fix these issues, and tag the unverifiables and original research as such. -- 217.50.139.129 (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The Rigveda, Mahabharata, Pancavimsa Brahmana, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana, Katyayana Srauta Sutra, Latyayana Srauta, Asvalayana Srauta Sutra, Sankhayana Srauta Sutra have no value in an ostensible review of a scholarly (?) debate. The same applies to Sacred Books of the East, Indische Alterthumskunde, Oldham 1893, The Vedas: An Introduction, a BBC documentary on a river, Columbia encyclopedia, the Oxford Dictionary of English, the Encyclopædia Britannica, "Introduction to Cladistics", and the Times of India op-ed.
 * Moreover: other than the op-ed, none of these sources allude to the debate, or are participants in the debate. The use of those unrelated sources also indicates that one or more editors here are adding their own conclusions to the brew. Such original research violates wp policy.
 * Several citations are incomplete, or, have no accompanying bibliography, or the bib record is incomplete: Allchins, Rao, Wilke, Ram Sharan Sharma, Oxford Dictionary of English, Sacred Books of the East, "Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate", Columbia Encyclopedia, Roshen Dalal, "Hemphill, Lukacs and Kennedy 1991, see also Kenneth Kennedy 1995", Brockington, Buitenen, Metspalu et al, Moorjani et al. Without proper citation, they are unverifiable, and hence pointless (even if at all participants in the debate).
 * The apuds in the "notes" section are regular citations, not explanatory notes. They lose quality in the junky notes section.
 * 'Chakrabarti 1995 and Rajaram 1995, as cited in Bryant 2001.[200]' could be rewritten in two refs as:
 * Ditto 'Hock 1975/1984/1996 and Tikkanen 1987, as cited in [65]' etc.
 * Why are the "web" sources not properly formatted? Its clear that the editors citing those sources don't yet know how to cite properly, but -- if the sources are legit -- please show the youngsters how its done.
 * Ditto 'Hock 1975/1984/1996 and Tikkanen 1987, as cited in [65]' etc.
 * Why are the "web" sources not properly formatted? Its clear that the editors citing those sources don't yet know how to cite properly, but -- if the sources are legit -- please show the youngsters how its done.

More from Kazanas and please stop making up false Counter arugments, also the debate structure is all wrong
Kazanas' argument have adapted the language dispersal model proposed by Johanna Nichols to support OIT, by moving Nichols' proposed Indo-European point of origin from Bactria-Sogdiana to India.

"Counter-arguments: These ideas have not been accepted in mainstream linguistics.[citation needed]"

(Conclusion) Creating counterargument structures with fake Dismissals seems pretty desperate dont you think, even by wiki editor standards?

You should structure the pattern of this debate in a different view which is in the interest of the viewers instead of interst of the editors and by editors i mean Joshua Jonathan and his partner in crime Kautilya.

Also Im sure this debate is the indian side such as nicholas kazanas Contracdicting the western scholars view of the aryan theory Not the other way around. Why not put the date of the debate reply, if you did that you will see that the aryan theory side havent even given a response back after being questioned by nicholas kazanas.

Nicholas kazanas was once in favour of the invasion theory intill he started his own research, he himself has more then enough content to rupture the aryan theory yet on this page we see next to nothing and on top of that we see false accounts of him being wrong.92.236.96.38 (talk) 07:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)BlopBlopbeep


 * Kazanas has received response from scholars; he's totally disregarded by the scholarly community. As for the "background - arguments - counter-arguments"-structure, some structure was necessary to sort out all the arguments. And let's be clear: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a soapbox for fringe-theories. his article is mainly an overview of rguments in defense of the Indigenous Aryans theory, which is fringe theory. Scholarly arguments have a greater weight than fringe theory arguments, and therefor are preferred to "close" the various sections.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * See also User:Kautilya3/sandbox/Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda for the reception of Kazanas ideas.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   20:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Contribution added to the N. S. Rajaram article
The following content was recently added to the N. S. Rajaram article. I am moving it here to see if anything from it can be salvaged.

The Myth of Indigenous Aryans
The theory of “Indigenous Aryans” by Dr. Rajaram and his friends such as David Frawley is not in line with population genetic studies. Reich et al found (1, 2) that all Indians are a genetic mix of two founder groups one Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and the other Ancestral South Indians (ASI). ASI are not genetically similar to any other population outside India and ANI are genetically similar to Middle East, Central Asia and Europe or precisely West Eurasians. On the other hand as Bhils who are in North India are also in ASI and hence ASI is just Native Indians who are in India since 60000 years. The genetic mix up of ANI and ASI is estimated to have happened (3) around 2000 BCE that is a period of collapsing of Indus Valley Civilization and entry of Indo European languages into India (4). The Vedas are said to have been composed between 1500 – 1200 BCE. Thus the people who called themselves “Arya” in the Vedas have ancestry to both Migrant West Eurasians and Native Indians.

Discussing about some flawed genetic studies that gave birth to the idea of “Indigenous Aryans” that is the attempts to show that R1a is native to India Klyosov and Rozhanskii wrote (5), “Some studies alleged that the most ancient common ancestors of R1a haplotypes were Indian; however, the results were flawed by erroneous calculations of timespans using incorrect “population mutation rates” (see their description and discussion in Klyosov, 2009a, 2009c, and references therein), which routinely converted the actual 3600 - 4000 ybp (“Indo-European” R1a1 in India) into 12,000 - 15,000 ybp. This was erroneously claimed as the proof of “origin of R1a in India.” Furthermore, high percentages of R1a in some regions in India or in some ethnic and/or religious groups (such as Brahmins) were incorrectly claimed as the proof of the origin of R1a in India (Kivisild et al., 2003; Sengupta et al., 2006; Sahoo et al., 2006; Sharma et al., 2009; Thanseem et al., 2006; For-narino et al., 2009). The application of the flawed approach resulted in confusion amongst researchers in the field of human population genetics over the last decade”. Further Underhill et al concluded (6) recently, “Our phylogeographic data lead us to conclude that the initial episodes of R1a-M420 diversification occurred in the vicinity of Iran and Eastern Turkey, and we estimate that diversification downstream of M417/Page7 occurred ~5800 years ago”. Summing up the R1a bearing migrants to India from South Siberia to Turkey to Iran entered India around 2000 BCE only.

Thus the R1a carriers are originally from West Eurasia who are Pre Vedic Aryans and thus the proposal of “Indigenous Aryans” by Dr. Rajaram is invalid as it is based on flawed calculations.

Edmund Leach
Some info on Edmund Leach was added at an incovenient place; the section on "Presentation of the IAMt" is on the misreperesntation of the IAmt as an AIT, not on the IAmt as a "Racist and colonialist theory"; I've moved this info t a new section.

The section began with a question:


 * ''"Edmund Leach, questions the pervasive influence of the historical Aryan Invasion theory, and refers to the current theories as being dogmatic out springs of the AIT, which while accounting for newer archaeological findings, kept true to the dogma they sprung forth from:
 * Why is this sort of thing attractive? Who finds it attractive?  Why has the development of early Sanskrit come to be so dogmatically associated with an Aryan invasion? In some cases the association seems to be a matter of intellectual inertia. Thus Thapar (1969), who provides a valuable survey of the evidence then available, clearly find the whole "movement of peoples" argument a nuisance, but at the end of the day she falls into line. (Leach, p.242)"

Is Leach a IAmt-denier? Does he state that "the current theories as being dogmatic out springs of the AIT, which while accounting for newer archaeological findings, kept true to the dogma they sprung forth from"? Reading the quote, it's not clear if he really says.

No answers are given either; it looks more like cherry-picking. What is this dogma? Why is it attractive? Leach speaks of "some cases"; Thapar (1969) is a rather old case, and incomparable to David Anthony and the recent genetic research. Therefore, I've removed this part. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   06:04, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see: Kak refers to Leach, in his The Wishing Tree: Presence and Promise of India, p.23. That explains a lot.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   06:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Reading through Leach himself, he seems to be uninformed on the topic, and merely 'arguing by statement', without giving any serious argument or reference. Fits with Kak, then.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   06:27, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Indeed, my reading of the Edmund Leach article is that he is analysing the scholarship on Indo-Aryans, not the Indo-Aryans themselves. He is an anthropologist, not a historian/archaeologist. But, yes, we need to read the paper ourselves and summarise it. - Kautilya3 (talk) 13:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Read the paper before fantasizing on the editor - and other's - illiteracy. There is good reason an article written in '91 refers to 'Invasions' instead of migrations. - Akshay (talk) 16:37, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the quote was to include a criticism of the 'Dogma', not particularly to the 'Racism' behind it (which was why it was not quoted). I've removed the reference to Kak; if you don't have access to a library please read the scanned version posted above, before making uninformed changes. I've made a few more edits and reverted your changes. Joshua Jonathan: if you do want to include a section on racism, please move one of the paragraphs on Leach into the section. The quotes are exact, please change my leading sentences, if you must. Akshay (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the pdf; I'll read it. Please read WP:BRD, though. And, without a context, as noted before, the quote is WP:UNDUE and WP:CHERRYPICKING, and in the wrong section. You also removed the year of publication from the references. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   17:54, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Leach is specifically argueing against Max Muller's ideas. Not providing an opinion about the current state of the debate. If anything, it seems to me that if we used his arguments today they would be arguments against the Hindutva view of the primacy of the Vedas and the racial-historical unity of the Indian people as supposed descendants of vedic civilization. Note that he claims that "practicing hindus are not generally concerned wit how it all began because their view of time is cyclical". His argument is that for Hindus the vedas are simply sacred, regardless of whether or not they represent a national origin, when using the methods of Western science. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * So, I've read the article by Leach. He basically argues that there is no hard evidence for an "Aryan invasion," and therefore there wasn't any Indo-Aryan migration. He then asks why linguistics nevertheless still support this theory, and states that it has a 'racist' appeal: light-skinned people with a superior culture who conquered the dark-skinned people of northern India. According to Leach, this narrative appealed to the British, giving them a justifying myth for their own conquests, bringing superior Christian civilisation to India. And, according to Leach, the idea of an "invasion" appeals to linguists because "no attention need to be pai to what was there before; the slate is wiped clean." (p.242) He also states that the IE-speakers "constitute an independent racial stock," implying that this idea is th ereason why the "AIT" appeals to linguists, despite the lack of hrd evidence.
 * Pfffooo. That's a way to argue. Dismissing all the linguistic evidence, without giving any consideration to this evidence, and then stating that linguists are all racists. This article wouldn't bee worth for inclusion at the "IAmt" article, being grossly insulting and outdated. The only reason why it is worth mentioning here, is because Kak refers to it in several publications.
 * Typically, he does so by cherrypicking, just like Akshay does. The questions raised in the quote above, "Why is this sort of thing attractive? Who finds it attractive?", are not answered. Instead, some meanspirited soundbites ra elifted out of context.
 * The "this" in the quote above refers to the idea that those "invaders" were light-skinnend, in contrast to the dark-skinned Dravidians. The way he states this, he already implies that the idea of Indo-Aryan migration is appealing (to westerners) because of this racial aspect.
 * Whic is also what he states; see above.
 * So, if Leach is to be included, this information is to be included. And the notion, at least at this talkpage, that Leach is outdated, one-sided, bad informed, and grossly insulting.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   04:19, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * As I said, he is talking more about the scholarship than the subject. (Or, in layman terms, shoot the messenger rather than the message.) But, "Leach concludes disarmingly that of course no one is going to believe that the Aryan invasions never happened at all."

- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I read the Leach-article a second time. Here are some further remarks:
 * 1. Leach seems to be agitating against the 1960s version of the "Aryan Invasion Theory" (p.237-239), "a race of chariot-riding heroes who conquer a population of servile peasant barnbarians, the Dasa (Dasyu)" (p.236).
 * 2. Leach also seemt to imply that this "AIT" is based on descriptions from the Rig Veda, which are (wrongly) considered as historical narratives (p.232, 234, 236, 240).
 * 3. Leach further makes some bold statements about the scholarly mainstream, without substantiating them:
 * 3A. "There is no genuine evidence that the text of the Rig Veda existed in its present form before about 400 B.C., but no contemporary Indo-European scholar will admit as much" (p.233)
 * 3B. "The Rig Veda [...] could also have been introduced into India at some quite indeterminate date by a few enterprising Persian missionaries. And there are many other possibilities." (p.238)
 * 3C. "It is certainly possible that this is the period when Indo-Aryan languages first became dominant in this region, but we do not know." (p.238)
 * 3D. "And despite the current fashion fashion among Indo-European scholars, there is no genuine evidence that the Kurgan people spoke any form of Indo-European language" (p.240)


 * 4. There are also some half-baked "arguments" on the use of chariots by the Indo-Aryans (p.239-240):
 * 4A. "...the appearance of of chariots as grave goods and the pictorial representation of chariots in other contexts suggests that it was a rare object, a cremonial carriage rather than a piece of normal military equipment." (p.239)
 * 4B. "the question of dates" (p.239-240): follows a desription of the use of chariots in various cultures, but without making clear how this is connected to the Indo-Aryans, or what this implies against the "AIT" (let alone the IAmt).


 * ad 1: this is an outdated version, as is well-known.
 * ad 2: what is conspiciously lacking, is any reference to linguistic methodology. This alone yet makes his argument irrelevant.
 * ad 3: claims should be substantited, certainly claims which go against the scholarly concencus.
 * ad 3A: references? Scholarly concensus? Taking a fringe-position?
 * ad 3B: maybe aliens introduced life at earth, and that happened in India. Who knows. See WP:CHEESE.
 * ad 3C: but there are reasonable arguments, as given by the scholarly mainstream.
 * ad 3B: references?!? Again: reasonable arguments from the scholarly mainstream.
 * ad 4 :arguments should be worked out, not just implied.
 * ad 4A: see David Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel, And The Language. If, on the other hand, soemone wnats to take this serious, "suggestions" are not enough. Adressing the current scholarship is needed, with references and arguments.
 * ad 4B: no argument, since it is not clear how any conclusion is being reached here, or how this is connected to the Indo-Aryans.

All in all, Leach's article is outdated, agitating against an outdated "theory," making claims which are fringe and unsubstantiated. The relevant part is teh second part: after having "established" that there were no Aryan migrations, he skas why the theory still appeals. His answer: because it's a racist theory, whcih implies that linguists are driven by racism, not by scholarly methodology. The obvious alternative, that the IAmt is simply a good theory with a strong explanatory power, is simply ignored, by the logic and the trajectory of the "argument" Leach is presenting here. The "AIT" is no longer fashionable, except for some people who don't know the difference between "AIT" and the current IAmt, and think that a falsification of the "AIT" is also a falsification of the IAmt. So, even in his last remark Leach is wrong: some people do "believe that the Aryan invasions never happened at all." Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   17:24, 19 February 2016 (UTC)



@·maunus: ... which is a valid view, but you likely can't prove either way (which, conveniently, is the part you seem to have not read). You also don't seem to have read the sentence previous to the one you quote. How convenient. I have no affiliation to 'Hindutva' (please don't send the witch hunters after me), but I don't see how that's relevant here; although I do know exactly why you brought in that particular line of reasoning. Thank you. Leach seems to criticizing theories which owe their origin and most of their arguments to Muller, not Muller's specific theories. You'd know that if you read the paper. - Akshay (talk) 04:55, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: You'd do well to read WP:CHERRYPICKING & WP:BRD yourself.
 * I didn't remove the dates. You really ought to check the logs (or read!) before making uninformed statements. I in fact added a note in the paragraph stating that this was an article published in 1991.
 * Given the dogma which has been perpetuated over scales of centuries, I'd doubt a few decades mean much. There haven't been 'radically' new arguments put forth other than the 'neo-invasionist' elite-migration theories. [p 233] "With only slight variation, the general argument has been repeated over and over again, almost without criticism, so that it has now become a dogma".
 * Muller's theory involves an invasion of a 'lowly uncivilized' people, not of the 'dark-skinned' Harappas. Leach notes how Muller theories transmogrified in the face of new excavations at Mohenjodaro and Lothal... How a wandering tribe, which barely left a trace, magically takes on a high civilization (culturally) has not been answered even today. This is partly the reason, why the use of 'Invasion' for rhetoric or otherwise is completely valid. Your arguments, and much of the lampooning generally, rests on semantics, not on mechanisms. You can't subordinate Archaeology, Anthropology, Astronomy ... and everything else to a bunch of man-made rules-of-thumbs in Linguistics (although you seem to wholly favour this).
 * You make no mention of his examples on the migration of Latin vis a vis People into the British Isles; IaMt may have explanatory power for being simple enough, but as Genetic studies have shown and as Leach predicts, Philology is a terrible tool to extrapolate on these processes. Of course, you will not agree. Wikipedia is after all an embodiment of the normative processes he is criticising. Sigh. Perhaps this should be included in the section which questions Linguistic methodology.
 * Leach in [p 237] mentions how easy it is to manipulate translations of ऋक् to suit dogmas. Indeed, having seen some, I'm appalled at the banality of European translators (apparently the 'Aryans' have no real imagination!).
 * The article is indeed dated (which is why there was a note in the paragraph), he also seems to be able to guess what the next theory will be [p238, penultimate paragraph]. I'm surprised no one here picked up on this.
 * Yes, his quotes on racist underpinnings may make *you* uncomfortable, but I'm certainly glad the quote by Bryant, on how Indian scholars are all essentially idiots who are talking to the 19th century, seems to have made the cut. How very Normative. Thank you very much. One also wonders how Bryant's quote fares with Elst having access to KU's library... I say this again: these are criticisms of schools of thought running over centuries, this has been so obvious (from Leach's article and Elst's books) that I'm beginning to wonder if this is but a strawman. Of course, this notion coming from Witzel's 'Indigenous Aryans', the darling of this article, is not wholly surprising.
 * I know you lot are keen on dismissing this former Provost of King's as being a quack (yes, yes, how very un nuanced of me...), for he too, much like those idiot Indians, talks of 'Aryan invasions'! Again: please read before inferring on the illiteracy or anachronisticity of those you clearly dislike. "The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan - Allchin and Allchin" (1982), which is extensively quoted in the book already accepts evidence about Indo-Aryan / Harappan co-existence. He can't possibly refer to Muller's moronic theories, and also quote Allchin and Allchin's book in the same breath, except as a criticism of the entire school. The latter though are not too keen on straying of the dogma that keeps on giving (tenures ?), are nevertheless found with an entire paragraph quoted by the very article we're discussing. I'm surprised you missed this. [p 241] Read, if you will.
 * Thapar, too, who is quoted, is also not from the 'Invasionist' school (this in the 60s, is a full 20+ years before the article was penned); which is precisely why Leach's criticism of her work is quoted (why do you keep removing them ?). Again: criticizing Leach as being stuck in the 19th century, while being very convenient to your tastes, merely betrays a lack of understanding on your part (cherry picking eh ?). It is a theory which has a history, and must be seen as such; to criticize those who elucidate this aspect as being anachronistic is well, plainly stupid. I have very little belief that you've either read the paper, or even understand what is being debated. Simply harping on his lack of linguistic skills, which let's be frank is what all you're criticisms can be reduced to, is really putting Linguistics on a pedestal such as Mathematics or Logic (or any of the hard sciences). Yes, I know Sudeshna Guha talks about how Archaeological/Astronomical 'evidence' can't be objective and must be subordinate to history, but at this pace she may as well quote the 'scholarly consensus' in Astrology....
 * Anachronism of IaMt 's Horse/Chariot non-sense is also illustrated vis-a-vis Harappa's contemporaneous cultures. [p239-240]. Not surprisingly, no one in current India cares about Chariots or Horses. It's cows, of all the "Aryan" creatures.
 * If you made it past [p 242] you'd find clear evidence that he is not criticising Muller or Wheeler or Witzel's (or even your!) theories, but the whole school of thought. I can't imagine how this could've escaped anyone who has read the article.
 * There is also a criticism of the meaninglessness of "consensus" when it rests on so little [p243]: 'Because of their commitment to uni lineal segmental history of language ...". One would imagine, the consensus would be noisy and chaotic, because there is so little evidence either way.... that the covariance will be high and Darwin will not be so cruel. One would imagine scholars not being so cloistered, and so fad-conscious, but alas, the Ivory tower's miasma affects us all. Probabilities, and some Logic would do the humanities a world of good, but it's probably too bourgeoisie for their tastes.
 * Leach, being an Anthropologist, also picks up on the descriptions of 'caste', which were also explained away originally using IaMt/AIT schools [p 243]. No doubt, contemporaneous accounts continue to map jAti to class as understood by the Europeans, even though there is clear evidence against this available even to lay Indians. This again, is very much in line with the thoughts put forth by authors such as S N Balagangadhara in his 'The Heathen in his Blindness', and also in Nicholas Dirks' book. Leach also picks up on many other chimeras which were used very conveniently to suit assorted dogmas: 'Vedism', which of course was corrupted into 'Brahmanism'.... This paper is a treasure trove of blasphemy.
 * On the whole, this affair has been really disappointing. I scan the paper for your perusal (knowing all too well what would happen) and this is the 'scholarly' response I get ? That it's irrelevant because he is talking to a ghost ?! Eck. You'll forgive me for the sarcasm herein, but I find this discussion quite comical. My edits may or may not be accepted (and you lot will 'ban' me surely), but this will remain for generations to see and sneer at. Good day, messieurs... a day wasted on idiots is not a day spent well (which is what I imagine Leach means by 'inertia'). May you and your Aryan cousins live happily ever after. I wish I wasn't one, but cursed I'm.
 * Finally, can someone fix the English in the article ? It looks like something that a simple Neural Network generated (one with great 'scholarly' abilities no doubt). I see no merit in continuing this, and have consequently reverted the article to the pristine condition it was in before this doomed 'debate', thus saving you the trouble of entertaining uneasy questions, and me the time it takes to defend the truth. - Akshay (talk) 04:55, 20 February 2016 (UTC)


 * That's a lengthy response; thanks! And yes, serious, I did read the article twice, and made notes in the margins. So, thanks for copying; appreciated. Nevertheless, Leach is agitating against the 1960s version. His main argument is: the invasion-theory can't be right, so why do people still belive in it? I don't doubt racist issues played a part in the British (and others) favoring it, but it doesn't change the fact that he's kicking a dead horse, and ignores the linguistic research, just like you prefer to do.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   05:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC)


 * My two cents. The Indo-Aryan migration theory has always been fundamentally based on linguistic evidence. Racism might have come and gone, but the linguistic basis has never changed. I don't see Leach either understanding the linguistic evidence or critiquing it. So it is basically a yawn, despite all his highly placed credentials. - Kautilya3 (talk) 12:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * For now, I reincluded the previous lead. It was more conclusive than the new lead. Capitals00 (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Racism #2
There seems to be a lot more available on the idea that the IAmt is a racist theory. See for example Susan Wise Bauer (2007), The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, p.35:


 * "However, the theory of Aryan invasion was distorted in the late nineteenth century by racist assumptions and political agendas, so that “Hindu nationalists” now see any version of the Aryan invasion theory as an offensive racist ploy."

Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   20:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Terrible article: Massive POV and weight problems, terrible writing
This article has really become terrible over the last couple of years. It has degenerated into a list of statements "he said - she said" style, with no attempt to tease mainstream from fringe, or established what is actually known about these things but simply representing all views as equally valid no matter how absurd or demonstrably counterfactaul they are. Even single sentence subsections have been created to segregate "indigenist" viewpoints from "counter arguments" - preempting any attempt at dialogue or weigtinh of evidence. This article really has become an example of how not to write about a controversial topic and should in my opinion be bombed back to scratch.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:25, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Maunus, this article has not even been around for 2 years. It is pretty much in the same shape as it was initially written. Perhaps you are looking for Indo-Aryan migration theory? It is easy to confuse between the two articles, I guess. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:49, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That is not how any article on wikipedia is meant to be, no. Also we don't do POV forks.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * If we are to have a separate article about "the debate" then it needs to follow wikipedias standard content policies just like every other article. That means that it cannot give undue weight to minority and fringe views, it cannot use primary sources, and it cannot engage in synthesis by juxtaposing views from primary sources that are not first related by secondary sources. instead of attempting to be a catalogue of pros and cons used n different sides of the debate, it would have to actually describe the debate and its history, including demonstrating which notable groups and individuals espouse which views, and how the debate has developed over time. It should not attempt to give false balance by making minority and fringe viewpoints appear equally valid to majority and mainstream viewpoints. I think the best source to begin with to write an article about the debate would be Bryants book, and this should be done while acknowledging that Bryant has been argued to go too far in ascribing equal validity to indigenist and mainsream viewpoints. But Bryant is a good guide to which persons groups and viewpoints are even notable enough to be mentioned in an article like this, and it is a good overview of all arguments and of the development of the debate and its socio/cultural and historical background. The article as it is currently is not up to the standards Wikipedia has set for itself through its policies.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Pinging . Personally, I think he spent a lot more effort on this article than it warrants. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:16, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, he did a lot of reading it seems, which is laudable, but not a lot of efforts organizing a coherent article, or sorting wheat from chaff.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:30, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess that most of the contents were added by sympathisers of the OoI-'theory' and Indigenists. I split it off from the Out of India page to shorten that page. So, basically it is an overview of fringe viewpoints. If you want to be radical, just delete it, and let the indigenists promote their ideas at their own websites.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   17:48, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That is the definition of a POV-fork, which is not allowed so basically it should be deleted.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:08, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I won't oppose if you nominate it for deletion; it may be usefull, though, as an overview of Indigenist arguments. Maybe I will copy it into my namespace if you nominate it for deletion. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   05:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently, copying deleted articles into userspace runs into copyright problems. You will need to ask the admins to restore the entire edit history to your userspace. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:21, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * You can always copy it into a text file for local safekeeping if you need it as a reference.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:50, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * As I feared Wikipedia is never in need of editors defending garbage articles from deletion without having the will or ability to clean it up themselves. We will have to nuke the article to get anywhere.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 14:27, 19 July 2016 (UTC)