"Peer-Reviewed" Western Academic Indological "Scholars"
and Indian Monkeys.
Shrikant G. Talageri.
Yes, I am referring to "peer-reviewed" (the word in the Indological context is so hilarious that I cannot find it possible to avoid the inverted commas) western academic Indological "scholars" (the same). But I am not talking about the three monkeys made famous by Gandhi (who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil), who are in any case supposed to be Japanese. Nor am I referring to the Indian monkeys apparently recorded on an ancient Greek fresco of 1600 BCE (and testifying to a proto-Greek link with India):
I am referring to the Indian monkeys on the internet (mainly on twitter) who jump up and down clapping their hands in glee and slobbering over the declarations of the "peer-reviewed" western academic Indological "scholars" every time these eminent people make declarations on anything Indian and especially AIT-oriented, and who find fragrance and music in the farts and burps of these "scholars", but have nothing but disdain for anything said or written by Indians like myself who do not bear the "peer-reviewed" stamp. To these people, the emperor is wearing invisible clothes, because the western "peer-reviewed scholars" tell them that this is so, and an Indian like me who points out that he is not wearing anything only arouses their scorn and confirms their faith in their fond claim that I am not a scholar.
I generally ignore what these pompous and self-opinionated, and extremely stupid, unlettered and ignorant, monkeys, say or write. It is their easy way of trying to make themselves important by piggy-backing on the reputations of well-known people by trolling them and basking in the "prominence" and publicity that they feel this brings them. Koenraad Elst, who had been engaged in an endless public tête-à-tête with one such troll calling himself "Team Zenji Nio", finally decided recently to call it a day and to stop:
But the tweet that someone recently sent me for my comments provides such a perfect example of this "peer-review"-and-Indian-monkeys phenomenon that I could not resist writing on it. So here is the tweet:
This mini-Kumbhakarṇa cites Witzel's quotation as a kind of gospel truth or veda-vakya. The fact that I have already replied in great detail exposing the fallacy and fraud involved in Witzel's above claim is of course unknown to this non-reader. But it does not really require anyone to read my exposure of the utter untenability of Witzel's above claim. The untenability should be clear to anyone who reads Witzel's above words and uses his brains and logic, since the answer is present in Witzel's quotation itself — or if it is not clear, at least there is nothing in the claim itself that should lead anyone, however ignorant, to be so completely overwhelmed by what Witzel is claiming as to cite it as a clinching argument. The sleeper (who does not seem to have fully woken up from his 8.5 hour sleep before citing the above quote) does not cite the specific "IE/IA words for local plants and animals", which Witzel specifies before he writes the above: "The hypothetical emigrants from the subcontinent would have taken with them a host of ‘Indian’ words ― as the gypsies (Roma, Sinti) indeed have done. But we do not find any typical Old Indian words beyond South Asia, neither in the closely related Old Iranian, nor in Eastern or Western IE […] In an OIT scenario, one would expect ‘emigrant’ Indian words such as those for lion, tiger, elephant, leopard, lotus, bamboo, or some local Indian trees, even if some of them would have been preserved, not for the original item, but for a similar one (e.g. English [red] squirrel > North American [gray] squirrel)" (WITZEL 2005:364-365). Earlier, he also argues against movement out of India on the ground of "absence of retroflexion" (WITZEL 2005:361).
It is perfectly clear that tricky Witzel is attempting a sleight-of-hand trick here, knowing the gullible nature of his monkey fans. He gives us two different lists of words to prove two different things: he "proves" that the Iranian and other IE branches did not emigrate from India by citing their failure to "take with them a host of 'Indian' words [….] such as those for lion, tiger, elephant, leopard, lotus, bamboo, or some local Indian trees" (i.e. the first list of words). And he cites by contrast the Romany language of the gypsies, whom even he accepts as having emigrated from India 1000 years or so ago, who took with them and kept "a large IA vocabulary alive, over the last 1000 years or so", such as "phral 'brother', pani 'water', karal 'he does'" (i.e. the second list of words).
It is clear that he is giving two different lists to prove opposite points. Using the same materials and the same languages, but by transposing the two lists of words, we can prove exactly the opposite of what he claims to be proving: i.e. that the Iranian and other IE languages did indeed emigrate from India, but that, by contrast, the gypsies and their Romany language did not emigrate from India: the Iranian and other IE branches did take with them a large Vedic vocabulary with them and kept it "alive, over the last 5000 years or so", such as "Persian birādar, Russian brat, English brother (Vedic bhrātar), Persian āb, English water, Russian voda (Vedic āpa, uda)" etc. By contrast, the gypsies did not emigrate from India, as proved by their failure to "take with them a host of 'Indian' words [….] such as those for lion, tiger, elephant, leopard, lotus, bamboo, or some local Indian trees", as also by the "absence of retroflexion" in Romany (the language of the gypsies). The utter untenability of Witzel's arguments is self-evident.
This is the level of honesty and integrity, of logic, and of scholarship, among the ranks of "peer-reviewed" (and "peer-reviewing") Indological scholars and their monkey fans. I have already dealt with this silly half-baked argument many times in my books and articles (and even wrote a very short blog article, in, I admit, a sarcastic and whimsical style, when Devdutt Pattanaik reiterated this half-witted argument: "Devdutt Pattanaik disproves the Out-of-India case"), but it requires to be hammered in again and again that this is the level of discussion and debate when it comes to the AIT-OIT question. As I showed recently in my blog on Witzel's lies, all kinds of untenable and discredited lies will continue to be repeated and reiterated ad nauseam by the "peer-reviewed" academic gang and their monkey followers.
It is really up to us whether or not to continue to give importance to such pointless diversions.
Appendix added 24-7-2022: The Monkey Replies:
I don't want to get into the rut from which, as I pointed out above, Koenraad Elst has finally extricated himself, of engaging in endless and pointless debates with trolls and pompous ignorant monkeys. But, my earlier correspondent has just sent me a screenshot of a reaction to my above article, and I feel tempted, just this once, to condescend to reply to it.
This is the screenshot:
The problem is that the admirers of the emperor's invisible clothes just cannot resist the lure of the exciting descriptions of the clothes that the tailors have placed before them, and continue to believe fervently and religiously that there are indeed magnificent clothes covering the emperor — even if they themselves cannot see them.
"Old argument, and easily countered"? Where indeed has this "old" argument been countered before and by whom? The counter is apparently "Romani is heavily influenced by non-IA languages, such as Persian, Armenian and the Slavic languages. But with regard to Avestan, almost all of its lexicon and grammar can be taken back to PIE":
1. If that is so, why did Witzel give the example of Romany and contrast it with the other IE languages, and why did this Witzel-bhakt quote the argument?
2. If Romany, emigrating from the interior of India a mere 1000 years ago can be so completely influenced by other IE languages that it (not only accepts words from those other languages, but) even abandons its original "Indian" words and retroflex sounds, why should it surprise Witzel and his fans that the other IE branches, if they emigrated from the northwest of India 5000-4000 years ago, and been under the heavy influence of the completely unrelated languages originally spoken in all the areas that they later inhabited, should also have abandoned their original "Indian" words and retroflex sounds? To the extent that they actually argue against the facts and against logic to give what they claim is a clinching argument?
3. About the beaver, this is indeed an "old argument, and easily countered", and has been countered by many people long ago. Only Witzel and his fans continue to wallow in nostalgic darkness. As I pointed out in my book 14 years ago:
"Witzel thus, for example, repeatedly cites the name of the non-Indian beaver (Old English bebr, beofor, Latin fiber, Lithuanian bēbrus, Russian bobr, bebr, and Avestan baβri) with the name of the Indian mongoose (Sanskrit babhru) as evidence for the AIT (WITZEL 2005:374).
The common non-Indian word, in the OIT scenario, can have developed in the region of Afghanistan and Central Asia, among the European dialects and proto-Iranian (see figure 3 in this chapter). And there is no case for any movement of the name into India: the word babhru occurs in the Rigveda, and in Mitanni IA, but as a name for a particular horse-colour. In the east, the word (found in later Sanskrit) was separately used as a name for the mongoose, but this cannot be as part of an Aryan movement into India in an AIT scenario, because in that case, the Aryans would have remembered the Rigvedic word babhru (which, seeing that it is also found in the Mitanni IA language, supposed, in the AIT scenario, to have separated from Vedic in Central Asia itself before the separation of the proto-Iranians, makes the meaning quite old and consistent) rather than a long-forgotten non-Indian use of the word in a distant land before an immigration already forgotten even in the Rigveda. And, as Gamkrelidze points out, after a short discussion: “It is notable that the Indo-Iranian languages are split by this isogloss: Sanskrit shows the more archaic situation, while Avestan displays the innovation” (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:448)." (TALAGERI 2008:303).
But these goons (the "scholars", and the monkeys) never read, and so all this is like water flowing off a duck's back.
4. As I said, I will try to avoid getting into the rut that Koenraad finally got out of, of replying to what in Marathi we call "rikām-tekḍas", who can go on spouting venom or nonsense without tiring of it.
But yes, I would appreciate people writing blogs, articles or books claiming to point out all the flaws in my arguments, if they try to make a thorough job of it and not just make silly single points. I rarely ever have to quote anything new: all the answers are already there in my books and blogs and I can cite them in context in one go. Otherwise, it is obviously difficult for other people to remember exactly what I have written on any point, and where.
[About silly monkeys, there is one trolling me all the time on twitter. His points are so silly and ridiculous, and show such a gaping hole in his reading of what I have written, that it is only good for a laugh. Once, completely ignorant of all the data for my conclusion, he opined that I place the Bharadvāja Maṇdala (6) as the earliest because my own "gotra" must be a Bharadvāja gotra, which is why I refuse to give the Vasiṣṭha Maṇdala (7) credit for being the oldest. This gave me as good a laugh as any good comedy film or serial, or P.G.Wodehouse book: actually my "gotra" (if such things matter at all) is Kauṇḍinya, a Vasiṣṭha gotra!].