Judging from this clarification, it seems that a position is being created
that the Indus valley civilisation was the sole active player in the
separation of Dravidian from non-Dravidian communities, and that we should
shun any attempt to use the word Indic, as that might show unnecessary
respect to the Indus valley lot, in comparison. But is this true, or an
accurate reflection of historical events, or is it just blurred hindsight,
or even some agenda?
Here's the relevant excerpt from the page on the Indus valley civilisation:
See also: Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit
The IVC has been tentatively identified with the toponym Meluhha known from
Sumerian records. It has been compared in particular with the civilizations
of Elam (also in the context of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis) and with
Minoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels such as the ubiquitous
goddess worship and depictions of bull-leaping). [87] The mature (Harappan)
phase of the IVC is contemporary to the Early to Middle Bronze Age in the
Ancient Near East, in particular the Old Elamite period, Early Dynastic to
Ur III Mesopotamia, Prepalatial Minoan Crete and Old Kingdom to First
Intermediate Period Egypt.
After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated
with the indigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns
of the Rigveda. Mortimer Wheeler interpreted the presence of many unburied
corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-Daro as the victims of a warlike
conquest, and famously stated that "Indra stands accused" of the
destruction of the IVC. The association of the IVC with the city-dwelling
Dasyus remains alluring because the assumed timeframe of the first
Indo-Aryan migration into India corresponds neatly with the period of
decline of the IVC seen in the archaeological record. The discovery of the
advanced, urban IVC however changed the 19th century view of early
Indo-Aryan migration as an "invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense
of a "primitive" aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of
nomadic "barbarians" on an advanced urban civilization, comparable to the
Germanic migrations after the Fall of Rome, or the Kassite invasion of
Babylonia. This move away from simplistic "invasionist" scenarios parallels
similar developments in thinking about language transfer and population
movement in general, such as in the case of the migration of the
proto-Greek speakers into Greece, or the Indo-Europeanization of Western
Europe.
It was often suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to
proto-Dravidians linguistically, the breakup of proto-Dravidian
corresponding to the breakup of the Late Harappan culture. [88] Today, the
Dravidian language family is concentrated mostly in southern India and
northern Sri Lanka, but pockets of it still remain throughout the rest of
India and Pakistan (the Brahui language), which lends credence to the
theory. Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of
the Indus inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different
languages being used, and that an early form of Dravidian language must
have been the language of the Indus people. However, in an interview with
the Deccan Herald on August 12, 2012, Asko Parpola clarified his position
by admitting that Sanskrit-speakers had contributed to the Indus Valley
Civilization. [89] Proto-Munda (or Para-Munda) and a "lost phylum" (perhaps
related or ancestral to the Nihali language) [90] have been proposed as
other candidates.
The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra
civilization [5] or the Indus-Sarasvati civilization by Hindutva groups,
which is based on theories of Indigenous Aryans and the Out of India
migration of Indo-European speakers.
---------
It seems the jury is still out on this, and there is no value to adopting
polarised viewpoints at this stage, just four months after the latest
information about this issue, which is so ambivalent. Considering the
history is of so many thousand years back, and that there is so little
definitive data about this particular aspect of it, why should we get so
didactic? Do we have a better (ie more inclusive) word at hand?
--
Vickram
Fool On The Hill
"The cameras were all around. We've got you taped; you're in the play.
Here's your I.D. (Ideal for identifying one and all.)
Invest your life in the memory bank; ours the interest and we thank you."
Jethro Tull: A Passion Play (1973)
On Nov 14, 2012 1:02 PM, "Anirudh Bhati" <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
My email was not directed at anyone personally. It
was simply a response
to the observation Srikanth made and from what I glanced from Wikipedia
articles.[1] In the context of linguistics, you will be hard-pressed to
find reliable sources that refer to Indic languages as a generic term for
all of Indian languages.
The word 'Indic' itself is a derivative of the word "Hindus" or
"Indus"
referring to the Indus Valley Civilization, which did not stretch as far as
Deccan India where the Dravidian family of languages have been prevalent. The
distinction between the Indic languages and Dravidian languages is an
important one, and they should not be confused to be one and the same.
As a movement of individuals who are dedicated to the process of building
the world's largest repositories of information, we should be mindful of
lingual and cultural realities and sensitivities. This is not just about
being politically correct, but also accuracy in the representation of
_factual_ information.
Again, this is simply my personal opinion and observation. :)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages
Cheers,
Anirudh
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2012/11/14 Anirudh Bhati <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
<amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
If he didn't explain it, then you can presume that it's wrong. There's
nothing to discuss, and there's nothing wrong with saying "Indic
languages".
The word "Indic" refers generally to the Indo-Aryan family of languages,
which does not include Dravidian languages prevalent in Southern India.
Not necessarily.
According to Meriam-Webster, the adjective "Indic" may refer to
Indo-Aryan and to all of India. Moreover, "Indic scripts" refers to
all Brahmic scripts, and that is the most common term today.
The English Wikipedia redirected [[Indic languages]] to [[Indo-Aryan
languages]], but that was a mistake, and I just fixed it.
Hence, bunching the entire system of Dravidian
languages together with
the
Indo-Aryan languages in India may seem derogatory
to some, and
reasonably
so.
No, not derogatory. At worst, it's ambiguous.
Making up bad connotations for normal words is not so constructive.
--
Amir
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