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Re: REQUEST : Partholan, Indian & Celtic?
Greetings.
I was somewhat intrigued by Jaldhar Vyas's response in this thread,
and hence asked a friend who's a post-doc in linguistics to comment.
I include the response, which I believe to be of interest to SRH
readers, with the author's permission:
Begin quote --
> There is however some connection between Indian and Celtic mythology. Note
> much of the "scientific facts" concerning this are little more than
> scientific guesses but here is what they've managed to come up with.
^^^^
Who on earth are "they?"
This guy is just tossing out an amalgam of various instantiations of
Aryan Invasion theories, in which case, "they" would be every crank, half-
educated historian who believes the random neuronal firings in his head are
an adequate substitute for science.
> The
> consensus seems to be somewhere in the Caucausus Mountains area.)
Consensus among whom? I have seen no consensus whatsoever on this matter
among linguists or anthropologists.
> At one time the theory was they conquered and
> destroyed the indigenous cultures but while there was probably fighting
> here and there, it now seems their superior technology (inventions such as
> the chariot and iron implements) were more responsible for their success.
More conjecture. The theory has been revised only in light of
political correctness. There is no evidence either way; the details
in any version are all equally speculative and unsupported; so there
is no way to adjudicate among them.
Nor has it been proven that they did not borrow their knowledge of
chariots and iron implements from non-IE spekaing cultures.
> These people called themselves Arya or noble (which is the meaning of Arya
> in Sanskrt to this day.)
We have no idea what they called themselves. There is no evidence
which links them to the Sanskrit word, arya.
> Echos of their name survives in Iran and Erin.
I'd have to check this one in Buck. First time I've heard of it.
[NOTE: "Buck" refers to a famous reference text relating to
Indo-European languages, by Carl Darling Buck. -- SR]
> Note there is no evidence to suggest there was such a thing as an "Aryan
> race" as the Nazis suggested.
What is the difference between "race" and "people" (n.b. he refers to this
group as a "nomadic people" above)? The position he is citing differs from
that of the Nazis only in degree, I think.
> Aryan is used mostly to describe a
> socio-linguistic group nowadays.
The term, "Aryan," is not used by any competent modern scholar in any
sub-field of linguistics.
> Alongside Gaelic, Sanskrt (ancestor of
> the modern North Indian languages), and Persian, Greek, Latin, Gothic, the
> Scandinavian languages and Lithuanian are important languages of the Aryan
> group. This gives you an idea of how far they spread.
These languages are called Indo-European. Aryan is not the name of
any linguistic family. Nor is it true that common linguistic ancestry
implies common ethnic or genetic ancestry. Nor has it been proven
that linguistic diffusion entails large-scale migrations of people or
peoples.
> One interesting feature of the various Aryan cultures is the concept of two
> factions of divine beings. One of these groups is "good" and the other
> "evil" but otherwise there is not much difference between them.
In order for this claim to have any predictive value, he must show
that the "non-Aryan" cultures do not have such a concept.
> Similiarly the
> Sanskrt word for Gods, Deva is cognate with the Greek and Latin deos and
> deus from which we get English words like deity.
The Sanskrit word for god in its pre-sandhi form is devas, The word
for gods (plural) is devaas (long a). "Deos" does not mean "god" in
any IE language that I know. The Greek word for god is "theos."
Furthermore, "theos" and Latin, deus are not related. Initial "th" in
Greek corresponds to initial "f" in Latin, both being descendants of
proto-IE initial "dh," e.g. Gk. theeka (ee = eta), "I made,"
Lat. feci, "I made," Gk. theoo (oo = omega), "I suckle,"
Lat. fe-min-a, "she who is suckled."
On the other hand, Latin "Ju-piter" is related to Greek "Zeus" (in
Homer, Zeu pateer), as well as the Vedic epithet, "dhyaus-pita," all
meaning "father of the sky." To my knowledge, this is the only
confirmed relationship among divine names in the IE languages,
although several of the names for gods in the Vedas are metonymously
related to common nouns in other languages, e.g. Skt. "Agnis," the god
of fire, and Latin, "ignis," fire.
> There were similiarities in religious rituals too. To quote just one
> Halloween is a Christian version of the Celtic Samhain which occurs roughly
> the same time as the Hindu Shraddha.
Christianity is not an Indo-European religion. It was borrowed from the Near
East (largely Semitic) beginning in the 1st century A.D. :-)
> The chief ceremony of Shraddha
> involves feeding the worshippers dead ancestors -- the ancient prototype of
> the modern American Halloween custom of trick or treating!
and of the same Confucian practice in China? Again, this is practically a
cultural universal. No predictive value.
> So while it would be a stretch to say India has a version of Celtic legend
> (or as Dhanraj Singh would put it Ireland has a version of a Hindu legend
> :-) there are some similarities between the two cultures over and above
> what can be attributed to mere coincidence.
I have seen coincidental phenomena with more proof of being related
than this fellow has presented.
-- end quote.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
--
http://www.rit.edu/~mrreee/dvaita.html
