"However, regarding homelands, I differ from most Western scholars in that I find myself hard pressed to absolutely eliminate the possibility that the eastern part of this region could be one possible candidate among several, albeit not a particularly convincing one, provided this area is delimited by Southeast Central Asia, Afghanistan, present- day Pakistan, and the northwest of the subcontinent (rather than the Indian subcontinent proper). I hasten to stress that it is not that the evidence favors this area as a possible homeland—on the contrary, there has been almost no convincing evidence brought for- ward in support of a homeland this far east. As we shall see, the issue is that problems arise when one tries to prove that the Indo-Aryans were intrusive into this area from an outside homeland. In other words, one has almost no grounds to argue for a South Asian Indo-European homeland from where the other speakers of the Indo-European language departed, but one can argue that much of the evidence brought forward to document tlieir entrance into the subcontinent is problematic. These are two separate, but obviously overlapping, issues."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historians from the United StatesAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from the United KingdomHarvard University staff
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Bryant
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Edwin Bryant
44 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Edwin Bryant →
Related Quotes
"The Indo-Aryan problem is likely to remain unresolved for the foreseeable future, so we might as well attempt to addr…"
"Since there is a tendency to stereotype any local reconsiderations of ancient Indian history whatsoever as nationalis…"
"One must be cautious about contributing to a sort of Indological McCarthyism whereby anyone reconsidering or challeng…"
"Scholars such as Renfrew and Gamkrelidze and Ivanov can radically challenge established Indo-European homeland theori…"
"This all goes to show that ideological analysis, while indispensable in a historiographical study such as this, must …"
"This raises another dimension that the Indigenous Aryan critique forces us to confront: What constitutes authority in…"
"Philology and linguistics can actually offer surprisingly little to compel disenchanted Indian scholars to modify the…"
"It was the testimony of the Bible that originally led scholars to propose the existence of a linguistically unified g…"
"Although in various other academic fields and area studies, such as race science, postcolonial scholarship has comple…"
"In conclusion, any objective and honest attempt at presenting a comprehensive account of the pre-historic period in S…"