- Summary
- "The Search for a Long-anticipated Discovery The history of Indo-European studies reads with all the straightforward clarity of a family saga, with its founding fathers, child prodigies and even misguided sons. It also forms part of the catalogue of great scientific sagas, on a par with the discovery of penicillin, gravity and electricity. Of all the discoveries claimed by the social sciences, it is probably one of the few that the "hard" sciences (i.e. sciences concerned with physical matter and nature) are willing to acknowledge. Not only was the recognition of resemblances between the languages that we now term "Indo-European" an achievement in its own right, but the comparative grammar of these languages became the foundation on which general linguistics was gradually constructed as a scholarly discipline over the course of the 19th century: indeed, it is the only social science to have developed, and successfully applied, widely recognized mathematical models, much to the envy and fascination of other social sciences. As early as the mid-19th century, the German grammarian Schleicher made specific reference to Darwin in the construction of his family tree of Indo-European languages. In parallel, biologists taking this biologically-inspired tree at face value are today attempting to uncover traces of the Indo-European migrations hidden deep within the human genome. The Indo-European Golden Legend The saga had its pioneers, those who at the end of the 18th century had the intuitive genius to spot relationships between languages, initially by comparing Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. The best known of these pioneers was Sir William Jones who, in the 19th century, inspired three generations of mainly German linguists. The first generation was led by the German Franz Bopp (from 1816), and the Dane Rasmus Rask (from 1818), who defined the principles and tools of comparative grammar and who extended the corpus to include all Indo-European language families (Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Baltic, Persian, Armenian, Albanian). The second generation was that of August Schleicher, who was the first to construct a family tree of these languages based on the natural sciences model (in 1861, only two years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species); he was also the first to write a short fable in the reconstructed "primordial language" (Ursprache) . And finally, the generation of Leipzig "Neo-Grammarians" who, deeming the methods of their predecessors insufficiently rigorous, defined a corpus of phonetic laws capable of explaining both the evolution and reconstruction of languages, laws "that would not tolerate any exceptions". Out of this century of German scholarship would emerge an etymological dictionary of Indo-European (initiated by Wahlde) and a comparative grammar of Indo-European languages (by Brugmann and Delbrück), two key tools that still remain indispensable to this day"-- Provided by publisher.
- Uniform Title
- Mais où sont passés les lndo-Européens? English
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Demoule, Jean-Paul, author.
- Published
- New York : Oxford University Press, [2023]
- Contents
-
The official Indo-European hypothesis: the 12 canonical theses
The search for a long-anticipated discovery
The invention of comparative grammar
From India to Germania, the return of the wheeled cradle
The invention of "scientific racism"
From comparative grammar to linguistics: a language of leaders?
From Aryan pan-Germanism to Nazism
A circling cradle
Excesses and crimes of racial theories
The return of the Aryan, pagan, extreme right (from 1945 to the present)
From racial anthropology to biological anthropology
What archaeology tells us today
Archeology: what if the Indo-Europeans had always been there?
Did the Indo-Europeans really come from Turkey?
Did the Indo-Europeans really come from the Black Sea Steppes?
From prehistory to history: the rediscovered routes taken by the Indo-Europeans?
Georges Dumézil, a French hero
Linguistic reconstructions and models in the 21st century
Words and things of the Indo-Europeans
Models, counter-models, ideologies and errors of logic: are there any alternatives?
An alternative vision: the 12 Indo-European antitheses
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Cronin-Allanic, Rhoda, translator.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The official Indo-European hypothesis: the 12 canonical theses -- The search for a long-anticipated discovery -- The invention of comparative grammar -- From India to Germania, the return of the wheeled cradle -- The invention of "scientific racism" -- From comparative grammar to linguistics: a language of leaders? -- From Aryan pan-Germanism to Nazism -- A circling cradle -- Excesses and crimes of racial theories -- The return of the Aryan, pagan, extreme right (from 1945 to the present) -- From racial anthropology to biological anthropology -- What archaeology tells us today -- Archeology: what if the Indo-Europeans had always been there? -- Did the Indo-Europeans really come from Turkey? -- Did the Indo-Europeans really come from the Black Sea Steppes? -- From prehistory to history: the rediscovered routes taken by the Indo-Europeans? -- Georges Dumézil, a French hero -- Linguistic reconstructions and models in the 21st century -- Words and things of the Indo-Europeans -- Models, counter-models, ideologies and errors of logic: are there any alternatives? -- An alternative vision: the 12 Indo-European antitheses -- Appendices -- Bibliography -- Index.
