Natl Geographic: Indians Indigenous to India

[Guest guest]

indicjournalists, "N.S. Rajaram"

<nsrajaram@v...> wrote:

 

January 13, 2006

 

The fuss over Witzel's antics in California schools should not

blind us to the emerging story-- the continuing erosion of the Indo-

European theories that have held the fort for well over a century. As

the report below shows genetics has dealt a death blow to these

nineteenth century ideas.

 

But note how they are still trying to protect the linguistic

version of the Aryan-Central Asian origin theories even though the

biological version has collapsed thanks to genetics. I draw attention

in particular to the last statement:

 

"I think if you could get into a time machine and visit northern

India 10,000 years ago, you'd see people . Similar to the people

there today," Underhill said. "They wouldn't be similar to people

from Bangalore [in the south]."

 

How does he know, when he doesn't have any such time machine? Is

this supposed to be science? And why does he think that the

distribution of languages 10,000 years ago was the same as it is

today? When ecology was quite different and North India and Eurasia

(including Central Asia could not support much population?

 

And why stop at 10,000 years, and not 15,000 years?

 

How did language come then-- and why did it have to come from the

West and not go the other way? This is an attempt to preserve the

Eurocentric Indo-European theories in the face of scientific

contradictions. Not so different from the tricks they used when

Harappan archaeology brought into question their Aryan invasion

theory.

 

So attack comparative linguistics as phoney. A creation like

the 'Aryan' theories. I will accept Indo European only when they

produce some ancient examples in Indo european-- not their own

creations.

 

It is full of holes.

 

Languages like people moved from south and east to north and

west. The same is true of agriculture.

 

We need a new model for the evolution of languages in India, to

begin with. Drop all these invasion/migration ideas and look only at

data, ecology and natural history including genetics. comparative

linguistics has collapsed. All its assumptions are false.

 

N.S. Rajaram

 

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0110_060110_india_gen

es.html?source=rss

 

India Acquired Language, Not Genes, From West, Study Says

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

January 10, 2006

 

 

Most modern Indians descended from South Asians, not invading

Central Asian steppe dwellers, a new genetic study reports.

 

 

The Indian subcontinent may have acquired agricultural techniques

and languages-but it absorbed few genes-from the west, said Vijendra

Kashyap, director of India's National Institute of Biologicals in

Noida.

 

 

The finding disputes a long-held theory that a large invasion of

central Asians, traveling through a northwest Indian corridor,

shaped the language, culture, and gene pool of many modern Indians

within the past 10,000 years.

 

 

That theory is bolstered by the presence of Indo-European languages

in India, the archaeological record, and historic sources such as

the Rig Veda, an early Indian religious text.

 

 

Some previous genetic studies have also supported the concept.

 

 

But Kashyap's findings, published in the current issue of the

Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, stand at odds with

those results.

 

 

True Ancestors

 

 

Testing a sample of men from 32 tribal and 45 caste groups

throughout India, Kashyap's team examined 936 Y chromosomes. (The

chromosome determines gender; males carry it, but women do not.)

 

 

The data reveal that the large majority of modern Indians descended

from South Asian ancestors who lived on the Indian subcontinent

before an influx of agricultural techniques from the north and west

arrived some 10,000 years ago. (Sic: This is pure conjecture-- no

evidence that agricultural techniques came from north and west.

10,000 years ago, agriculture was possible only in tropical Asia, not

temperate Eurasia which was too cold.)

 

 

Most geneticists believe that humans first reached India via a

coastal migration route perhaps 50,000 years ago.

 

 

Soon after leaving Africa, these early humans are believed to have

followed the coast through southern India and eventually continued

on to populate distant Australia.

 

 

Peter Underhill, a research scientist at the Stanford University

School of Medicine's department of genetics, says he harbors no

doubts that Indo-European speakers did move into India. But he

agrees with Kashyap that their genetic contribution appears small.

 

 

"It doesn't look like there was a massive flow of genes that came in

a few thousand years ago," he said. "Clearly people came in to India

and brought their culture, language, and some genes."

 

 

"But I think that the genetic impact of those people was minor," he

added. "You'd don't really see an equivalent genetic replacement the

way that you do with the language replacement."

 

 

Language, Genes Tell Different Tales

 

 

Kashyap and his colleagues say their findings may explain the

prevalence of Indo-European languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, in

northern India and their relative absence in the south.

 

"The fact the Indo-European speakers are predominantly found in

northern parts of the subcontinent may be because they were in

direct contact with the Indo-European migrants, where they could

have a stronger influence on the native populations to adopt their

language and other cultural entities," Kashyap said.

 

Sic: There is a simpler explanation-- there is no such thing as Indo-

European, either of race or language. All the contradictions

disappear and go back to the drawing board without any of this

nineteenth century baggage. Start from scratch.

 

Sic: A preposterous contradiction-- there were no Indo-European

migrants but Indo-European languages evolved because the natives came

in contacts with these "migrants" though there was no migration?

 

He argues that even wholesale language changes can and do occur

without genetic mixing of populations.

 

 

"It is generally assumed that language is more strongly correlated

to genetics, as compared to social status or geography, because

humans mostly do not tend to cross language boundaries while

choosing marriage partners," Kashyap said.

 

 

"Although few of the earlier studies have shown that language is a

good predictor of genetic affinity and that Y chromosome is more

strongly correlated with linguistic boundaries, it is not always

so," he added.

 

 

"Language can be acquired [and] has been in cases of 'elite

dominance,' where adoption of a language can be forced but strong

genetic differences remain [because of] the lack of admixture

between the dominant and the weak populations."

 

 

If steppe-dwelling Central Asians did lend language and technology,

but not many genes, to northern India, the region may have changed

far less over the centuries than previously believed.

 

 

"I think if you could get into a time machine and visit northern

India 10,000 years ago, you'd see people . Similar to the people

there today," Underhill said. "They wouldn't be similar to people

from Bangalore [in the south]."