INDO-EUROPEAN AND THE “ARYAN” DEBATE Adheesh Sathaye University of British Columbia ¡ Languages in South Asia ¡ The discovery of Indo-European and Dravidian language families ¡ “Aryan” theories: AIT, AMT, OIT ¡ The “Aryan Debate” ONE. THE LANGUAGES OF SOUTH ASIA IndoEuropean and the “Ar yans” A d h e e s h S a t h aye , UBC WHAT ARE “LANGUAGES”? ¡ Languages are [naturally-developed] SYSTEMS of [verbal] communication ¡ Language is not necessarily tied to ethnicity! ¡ Language is not the same as script! LANGUAGE FAMILIES IN SOUTH ASIA Language Family: A set of “sister” languages that have naturally evolved from a common “mother” language Four major language “families” in South Asia § § § § “Indo-Aryan” Dravidian Mundari Tibeto-Burman ¡ These are language families, not racial divisions; No strict biological dif ferences between these families, though cultural dif ferences do exist THE “INDO-ARYAN” LANGUAGE FAMILY ¡ “Ar yan” was originally used by scholars to denote a race, but now used here as a linguistic label only. ¡ Primarily spoken in Nor th India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh ¡ Sinhala in Sri Lanka is also an Indo- Ar yan language ¡ All IA languages have descended from common ancestor s, ultimately derived from Sanskrit Major Indo-Aryan languages: (& number of speakers in India, 2001) Hindi/Urdu – 473 million Bengali – 200 million Marathi – 72 million Gujarati – 46 million Panjabi – 29 million THE DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE FAMILY ¡ Primarily spoken in South India, with some northern isolates ¡ A notable isolate in Pakistan: Brahui (near the IVC sites!) ¡ All have descended from a common ancestor, hypothetically named “proto-Dravidian” (or “Old Tamil”) Major DRAVIDIAN languages: (& number of speakers in India, 2001) Telugu – 74 million Tamil – 61 million Kannada – 38 million Malayalam – 33 million THE MUNDARI LANGUAGE FAMILY ¡ S eve ral t ribal lang uag e s fo rm a f am ily c alle d M unda or Mundari ¡ Most ly in t he spar se ly populate d jung le s of ce nt ral-e aste rn India ¡ Many are t hre ate ne d wit h ex t inc t io n, as s pe ake r s adopt H indi/ Urdu and Eng lis h ¡ All would have descended from a hypothetical common ance stor, “ protoMundari” / some have s pe c ulate d t h is to be t h e IVC lang uag e Major Mundari languages: (& number of speakers in India, 2001) Santali – 6.5 million Ho – 1 million Korku – 574,000 Mundari – 469,000 THE TIBETO-BURMAN LANGUAGE FAMILY ¡ Extremely diver se family of languages throughout South and Southeast Asia ¡ In South Asia—found mostly in Nepal and the Nor theast ¡ Tibeto-Burman communities have complex, borderless, “transnational” histories Major Tibeto-Burman languages in South Asia: (& number of speakers in India, 2001) Tibetan (worldwide) – 6 million Manipuri – 1.5 million Bodo – 1.4 million Newari (Nepal) – 1 million OTHER PHENOMENA ¡ Language evolution: Modern South Asian languages have evolved slowly over time from (a) Sanskrit, (b) protoDravidian, (c) proto-Mundari, or (d) proto-Tibeto-Burman ¡ Language intermixture: These modern languages have been altered (to various degrees) by the political/social influence of other languages: § § § § Sanskrit (Sanskritization) (various times) Persian (Persianization) (c. 1300-1800s) English (Anglicization) / & Portuguese, French also (19th C<) Intermixture mostly affects vocabulary & script, not grammar OTHER PHENOMENA ¡ Multilingualism: A large percentage of speakers of South Asian languages are fluent in more than one language ¡ Multilingualism creates opportunities for hybridity or creolization between languages, e.g., “Hinglish” or “Marglish” or “Khicadi” speech, where a new quasilanguage is being created ¡ This complicates our assumptions about language evolution TWO. DISCOVERING THE INDO-EUROPEAN AND DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE FAMILIES IndoEuropean and the “Ar yans” A d h e e s h S a t h aye , UBC WILLIAM JONES Sir William Jones (1746-1794) ¡ Graduate of Oxford ¡ Welsh philologist, legal scholar, and colonial administrator in Calcutta ¡ founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, the fir st Indological association ¡ Prolific scholar of Sanskrit, Per sian, and Latin, Greek , and other European classical languages; also, an accomplished poet ¡ Died at the age of 47 in Calcutta from a liver ailment WILLIAM JONES’S REALIZATION “The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.” February 2, 1786: Jones delivers an address in Calcutta to the Asiatic Society of Bengal ¡ Asserts (a) the wonders of Sanskrit as a language, and (b) that Sanskrit,Latin, and Greek (along with Gothic, Celtic, and Persian) have a common ancestor. JONES WAS NOT THE FIRST… In India: ¡ Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu, Urdu/Persian intellectual and poet (1689-1756): “Up to this day, no one has conceived of the tawāfuq (concord/ agreement/relationship) between Hindi and Persian except this fakir Arzu in spite of the fact that there were a number of dictionary makers and other scholars of this guiding science.” (Musmir, c. 1752) In Europe: ¡ Filippo Sassetti (1580s) § Stated that Sanskrit is related to Greek and Latin ¡ Bonaventura Bulcanus (1597) § Noticed agreement between German and Persian ¡ Claudius Salmasius (1643) § Claimed that Latin, Greek, Teutonic, and Persian are related COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS ¡ Three main goals of “Comparative Historical Linguistics” as a discipline: ¡ 1) Compare vocabular y and grammar of cognate languages in Indo-European family ¡ 2) RECONSTRUCT the hypothetical original language (called “proto-Indo European” or pIE) § Note: no actual texts in pIE, purely a theoretical language ¡ 3) Formulate general rules that explain how the various language branches have evolved from this original ¡ PIE reconstruction of words to “know” or “see”: ¡ *weyd- / *gno- ¡ Wo r d s f r o m b o t h r o o t s c o m e i n to E n g l i s h t h r o u g h d i f fe r e n t l a n g u a g e p a t h way s : § § § § Video, vista, visa, vision (French/Latin) Idea (Greek) Wise, wit (Germanic) Know, knowledge (Germanic) ¡ German: wissen, Irish: fios ¡ S a n s k r i t : ve d a , v i d y ā , j ñ ā n a ¡ H i n d i / U r d u , Pa n j a b i : j ā n n ā PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN AND “ARYAN” ETHNICIT Y ¡ European scholars noted that the Sanskrit word ārya ( “noble, elite”) was cognate with Persian “ariya” (< Iran) ¡ They proposed an ethnic/racial identity of “Aryans” who: § Spoke Sanskrit (descended from PIE) § Performed fire sacrifices § Used horses and chariots § Ethnically related to rest of IndoEuropean speakers § Represented by “painted grey ware” pottery and iron in South Asian archaeology Note: (Trautman, p. xxix): “the relation between languages and peoples is not a necessary one but a contingent one.” THREE. THEORIES ABOUT THE “ARYANS” IndoEuropean and the “Ar yans” A d h e e s h S a t h aye , UBC THE BASIC PUZZLE OF THE “ARYANS” ¡ How/when did speaker s of Sanskrit (the “Ar yans”) find themselves in (mostly) nor thern India? ¡ Three answer s: § Aryan Invasion Theory § Aryan Migration Theory § “Out of India” Theory ARYAN INVASION THEORY (AIT) NO HARD EVIDENCE or CULTURAL MEMORY of invasions. Practically no scholars accept AIT today! ¡ Aryans entered India through the northwest ¡ Conquered the Dravidians using superior military technology: horses and chariots ¡ They pushed Dravidians to the South and began to rule over northern India ¡ Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, etc. – remains of proto-Dravidian culture ARYAN MIGRATION THEORY (AMT) ¡ Aryans entered India through the northwest, but in various “waves” ¡ Slow, peaceful dispersals over several generations across Asia and Europe ¡ Arrived in India c. 1500 BCE, 400 years after the decline of the IVC Trautmann calls this the “established” view – most mainstream scholars accept (some version) of AMT § Or, alternatively, co-existed with Dravidian speakers in a multi-cultural IVC ¡ Adapted and absorbed Dravidian language and cultural features “OUT OF INDIA” THEORY (OIT) ¡ No invasion or migration of “Aryans” ¡ The people of the IVC WERE the Aryans ¡ IVC culture WAS Vedic culture, IVC script IS Sanskrit ¡ Vedic culture much older than we think (~7000 BCE) ¡ Continuous cultural development: § IVC crafts turned into painted grey ware § IVC religion turned into Hinduism ¡ Indo-European “homeland” was India, waves of migrants went West to Persia, Europe, Turkey, Central Asia. Trautmann calls this the “alternative” view – most adherents of OIT are untrained as historians or are politically/religiously motivated. FOUR. THE “ARYAN” DEBATE IndoEuropean and the “Ar yans” A d h e e s h S a t h aye , UBC THE GROUNDS FOR DEBATE ¡ A I T: A r ya n I nv a s i o n T h e o r y § Developed out of the 19 t h C. colonial context § Language was seen as inherently connected to ethnicity and race § Ar yans seen as colonizers who invaded and conquered Indian subcontinent ¡ A M T: A r ya n M i g r a t i o n T h e o r y § Slow waves of migration, af ter collapse of IVC cities § Established scholarly model ¡ O I T: O u t o f I n d i a T h e o r y § Ar yans migrated out of India to Persia, Europe, etc. ¡ B u r d e n o f p r o o f i s o n t h o s e w h o w i s h to s u p p o r t t h e a l te r n a t i ve v i ew ( O I T ) , n o t e s t a b l i s h e d v i ew ( A M T ) § Linguistic data demonstrates that Indo- Ar yan languages are VERY closely related to European ones. [And Dravidian ones form a separate language family] § Archaeology shows that IVC culture did not possess key IndoEuropean features: horses and chariots § Textual studies make it ver y clear that Vedic culture did not know about IVC city life THE HEATED DEBATE ¡ T h e d e b a te b e t w e e n A M T a n d O I T p e r s p e c t i ve s h a s l e f t t h e a c a d e my a n d e n te r e d i n to t h e p u b l i c a r e n a ¡ N o n - a c a d e m i c m o t i va t i o n s fo r O I T – c o r r e c t i n g o l d misconceptions about India and Hinduism, as well as r e l i g i o u s a n d p o l i t i c a l c h a u v i n i s m b e h i n d “ p r ov i n g ” t h a t A r ya n s w e r e H i n d u a n d f r o m I n d i a ¡ U n t r a i n e d s c h o l a r s ( o f te n “ h a r d ” s c i e n t i s t s ) , h o b by i s t s , a n d p o l i t i c i a n s h ave fe l t f r e e to m a ke u n r e s e a r c h e d o r p o o r l y r e s e a r c h e d c l a i m s ( a l o t l i ke a r g u m e n t s a b o u t evo l u t i o n v s . “ i n te l l i g e n t c r e a t i o n ” ) ¡ I n te r n e t a n d s o c i a l m e d i a h ave c r e a te d a h o s t i l e a t m o s p h e r e w h e r e s c h o l a r s h ave b e e n a t t a c ke d , h a r a s s e d , o r v i l i f i e d a s b e i n g “ a n t i - H i n d u ” ( i f t h ey ’ r e We s te r n ) o r “ M a r x i s t ” ( i f t h ey ’ r e I n d i a n ) ¡ T h e g e n e r a l p u b l i c r e m a i n s p o o r l y i n fo r m e d a b o u t current scholarly thinking (e.g., the discreditation of the AIT) SOLUTIONS? ¡ 1) Debate needs to be de-politicized and based on accepted principles of academic discour se (evidence-based argument, peer review, mutual respect) ¡ 2) Race and ethnic/religious identity must be decoupled from language (Indo- Ar yan languages could enter into India without “Ar yans” having to enter into India!) ¡ 3) Social histories are not stories, but complex sets of events – no ONE stor y will cover the entirety of what happened over a THOUSAND year period of histor y! (c. 2000-1000 BCE) § For example: multiple phases of migrations, multidirectional migrations, IVC as a multicultural/ multilingual environment ¡ 4) Focus should be on gathering MORE evidence rather than just fighting with one another over theories