The Joke That is “AI”: The Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers

 

The Joke That is “AI”: The Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have already pointed out the utter stupidity, inanity and un-intelligent nature of AI when it comes to analyzing issues involving the “Aryan” problem. Here is a classic example of this stupidity, inanity and un-intelligent nature:

A reader made the following comment on my last article. He should have made this comment on my article on the numerals, but nevertheless I am grateful to him for bringing this idiocy to my notice and thereby enabling me to give a fitting reply to it and to expose the utter uselessness of “AI” in these matters:

“I ask AI to analyze your work titled "The Irrefutable Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers". What do you make of this?

The Flaw: The "Regularity" Paradox Where Talageri’s argument departs from scientific consensus is his underlying assumption: Sanskrit is perfectly regular, therefore it is the oldest.

 

In historical linguistics, this assumption is practically reversed. This brings us to a foundational concept called The Principle of Archaic Irregularity.

Irregularity is Ancient; Regularity is Invented. Language naturally creates messy, irregular fossils over thousands of years. When you see a language with a perfectly logical, seamless grammatical or numerical system, it is almost always because the speakers (or grammarians) regularized it at a later date to make it mathematically consistent.

Think of English verbs: Play/played is a regularized, newer invention. Go/went or sing/sang/sung are chaotic, irregular fossils that survived from thousands of years ago.

English eleven and twelve come from the ancient Germanic roots ain-lif ("one left over ten") and twa-lif ("two left over ten"). They are weird, isolated, and irregular—which tells linguists they are incredibly old, localized Germanic innovations, not a sign of a decayed Sanskrit system.

Sanskrit’s numbering system is brilliant, but its flawless consistency is the hallmark of a language that was actively streamlined and polished (which, as discussed previously, is exactly what the ancient Indian grammarians did). It is a perfected system, not a raw, primitive one.

The Steppe Model Fits the Same Data. Talageri argues that the European base-20 contamination proves the languages traveled from India to Europe. However, the mainstream Steppe Homeland model accounts for the exact same data without breaking the rules of linguistic evolution.

If the homeland was on the Eurasian Steppe:

1. The Steppe nomads had a pure decimal (base-10) system.

2.The branch that migrated south into India (Indo-Aryans) kept the base-10 system, expanded it, and eventually polished it into the perfect, infinite mathematical series seen in Sanskrit.

3. The branches that migrated west into Europe collided with indigenous European hunter-gatherers and early farmers who counted in twenties (vigesimal). The migrating IE speakers absorbed this local habit, creating the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today.

The Verdict

Talageri’s data collection is excellent. He correctly identifies that European IE languages absorbed foreign counting systems, while Sanskrit retained a pure decimal framework.

However, his conclusion relies on the idea that "perfectly regular" equals "oldest." By the established metrics of historical linguistics, a flawlessly logical system like Sanskrit's numbers is the result of later refinement, while the messy irregularities found in European branches are the ancient, unpolished fossils of tribal migrations.

The data he presents is completely valid, but it does not uniquely prove an Indian homeland—it simply proves that ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties.”

 

The reader will note that this utterly un-intelligent “AI” seems to have not even glanced at, let alone read in detail and analyzed, my articles on the Evidence of the IE Numbers. This un-intelligent “AI” is not replying to my article, but to all those Indians who claim that Sanskrit is the most perfect language for computers. And then it is juxtaposing that claim to its “verdict” on my article on the IE numbers without paying any heed to what is written in that article, almost as if it has not “read” that article at all.

 

Note the two fundamental fallacies that AI un-intelligently assumes that I have made in my article

 

Fallacy 1: “Most Regular is Oldest”.

To begin with, please someone should start out by pointing out where in the article have I expressed, even indirectly, the “underlying assumption: Sanskrit is perfectly regular, therefore it is the oldest”, or “However, his conclusion relies on the idea that "perfectly regular" equals "oldest." By the established metrics of historical linguistics, a flawlessly logical system like Sanskrit's numbers is the result of later refinement, while the messy irregularities found in European branches are the ancient, unpolished fossils of tribal migrations.”.

 

This “AI” preaches to me (which, in this particular instance, is like “carrying coal to Newcastle”): “In historical linguistics, this assumption is practically reversed. This brings us to a foundational concept called The Principle of Archaic Irregularity.

Irregularity is Ancient; Regularity is Invented. Language naturally creates messy, irregular fossils over thousands of years. When you see a language with a perfectly logical, seamless grammatical or numerical system, it is almost always because the speakers (or grammarians) regularized it at a later date to make it mathematically consistent.”

 

Not only have I nowhere claimed that Sanskrit has the most perfect and regular number system (let alone used that as an argument for it being the oldest), I have constantly, throughout the article, pointed out places where Sanskrit has irregularities. or irregular features, which have been regularized and improved in different other later IE branches and languages:

1. The practice of placing the unit numbers before the tens number (catur-viṁśati, instead of viṁśati-catur, for 24, which, continuing in all Indo-Aryan languages, leads to confusion; whereas many other IE languages have reversed the order).

2 . Having a minus-principle (ūna-triṁśat, for 29, instead of viṁśati-nava, which, again, has been corrected in most other IE branches and languages).

3. Having irregular forms because of its rules of sandhi. (a characteristic which has resulted in extreme irregularities in the later IA numbers, even when those late IA languages don’t have rules of sandhi, and making the modern IA languages of North India the most irregular and difficult numbers in the world).

 

The simple fact that I place Sanskrit, along with Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese, in an earlier stage of development (and only because it does not form the numbers 11-19 in a different way from later sets like 21-29, 31-39, etc), does not mean that I am implying that Sanskrit is the most regular (let alone that this makes it “older”) – regularity and oldness are not issues at all – and in fact even a child should be able to see that, within that stage, Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese are more “regular” than Sanskrit.

 

If this “AI” is not able to grasp even this basic point, I am frankly speechless.

 

Fallacy 2: “Sanskrit has a Pure Decimal System, European IE Languages are 20-infiluenced”.

 “AI” fatuously writes:

“The branches that migrated west into Europe collided with indigenous European hunter-gatherers and early farmers who counted in twenties (vigesimal). The migrating IE speakers absorbed this local habit, creating the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today.”

“He correctly identifies that European IE languages absorbed foreign counting systems, while Sanskrit retained a pure decimal framework.”

“The data he presents is completely valid, but it does not uniquely prove an Indian homeland—it simply proves that ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties.”

 

This un-intelligent “AI” totally fails to understand that I have nowhere made these claims. Nowhere have I claimed that Sanskrit has the most perfect decimal system, while European IE languages alone have been influenced by the vigesimal (20-based) number system.

 

1. All the later IE languages of stage 3 and 4 (other than Sanskrit, Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese have been influenced by the vigesimal effect) including the  Iranian languages and the later Indo-Aryan languages in India. [Surely, even this un-intelligent “AI” understands that Sanskrit is older than the modern IA languages, and that therefore the vigesimal effect is a newer phenomenon as compared to an older decimal system!]

 

2. I have pointed out in detail that it is not only in Europe but in India itself that there are many vigesimal (20-based) languages in every corner of India which caused a vigesimal effect on the IE languages in the third stage.

 

3. The vigesimal effect, which this “AI” calls “the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today” has definitely come about due to a very late effect because “ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties”. This is much later, and a completely different effect from the vigesimal effect which is found in all the IE branches (other than the earlier named three languages, and therefore presumably also other than Proto-IE and Anatolian), and is just a later aberration which has to be pointed out but which plays no part in the general  process of the development of the numbers in other IE languages.

 

In short, “AI” flops again.

[Incidentally, spoken Sinhalese is in the second stage, while Literary Sinhalese adopted the third stage from the Prakrits. But it simplified the irregularities, and therefore, even as it represents the earliest recorded stage, it represents a regularized developed form over the ages]