Johannes Bronkhorst

This is a collection of papers prepared for a conference held in 1999, representing all the prominent scholars of Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, or broadly Indo-European, linguistics and pre-history. The subject, which deals mainly with the theory that the Indo-Aryans came into the subcontinent during the millennia BC, from their ancestral homes on the Eurasian steppe across the Hindu Kush, either as immigrants or as mauraders and conquerers, has now become highly contentious in India itself, the home of the Indo-Aryans, because it seems to call into question the right of the dominant parts of the population to ancestral rights in their own country. However, comparative linguistics, archaeology, known pre-history of other regions, and lately palaeo-genetics, point to some extra-subcontinental links; the Hindutva elements counter with the theory that Indo-Europeans were generated by emigrations from 'Out of India'. This collection of papers, however, is somewhat diverse, and a couple of them seem to be bordering on incoherent, while many of them are verbose or dwell too much on obscure details. The reader may come awaymorre bemused thatn instructed.… (mehr)