Tamil as an Indic language

[WeepingElf]

I would love to have I, A, and IA. But noooo, we can't have nice things. We have I, I, and II. Stupid.

Well, "Aryan" is pretty terrible as a word to distinguish Indic, as the Iranians called themselves Airya, and in fact the word is cognate to Iran.

But wasn't arya the Indo-Iranian ethnonym, even if Āryāvarta was restricted to the domain of the Brahmins, and ārya specialised to 'noble'?

It was. AFAIK Iran comes from Old Persian Aryanam xšarya (or something like that), 'Realm of the Aryas'. The whole unfortunate story about the misuse of 'Aryan' started in a quite harmless way: from a combination of confounding Sanskrit and PIE with mistaken assumptions of cognates in European languages (such as Old Irish Ériu 'Ireland'), some scholars concluded that the Proto-Indo-Europeans called themselves Aryas, and named the whole IE family 'Aryan'. And because 19th-century scholars liked to equate "races" and language families, the "Aryan race" was born. The rest is gory history.

At this point, I have to think of the letter to the Nazi Reichsschrifttumskammer Tolkien drafted in 1938, when they asked for an Ariernachweis in connection with a planned German translation of The Hobbit. In that letter, Tolkien wrote that he regrettably did not descend from "Indians, Persians or Gypsies" - the latter being the only Aryans that have been around in Germany for centuries! I don't know whether he actually sent that letter (AFAIK he did not), but the translation project did not take shape until well after the end of the Nazi régime.

[zompist]

Well, "Aryan" is pretty terrible as a word to distinguish Indic, as the Iranians called themselves Airya, and in fact the word is cognate to Iran.

But wasn't arya the Indo-Iranian ethnonym, even if Āryāvarta was restricted to the domain of the Brahmins, and ārya specialised to 'noble'?

It's precisely because "a(i)rya" is shared between Indic and Iranian that it's not a good name for Indic alone. Schleicher's idea (as in the diagram I cited earlier) would be reasonable enough-- use "Aryan" for Indo-Iranian-- but history has passed that one by.

(FWIW I think the Brahmins pulled off a very long con. The idea that they were the topmost varna is, unsurprisingly, a Brahmin idea; the Kshatriyas could certainly contest it. Things like the 'Laws of Manu' are idealizing fantasies written in a time when rulers were not only not Brahmin but not Hindu.)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Well, "Aryan" is pretty terrible as a word to distinguish Indic, as the Iranians called themselves Airya, and in fact the word is cognate to Iran.

But wasn't arya the Indo-Iranian ethnonym, even if Āryāvarta was restricted to the domain of the Brahmins, and ārya specialised to 'noble'?

It's precisely because "a(i)rya" is shared between Indic and Iranian that it's not a good name for Indic alone. Schleicher's idea (as in the diagram I cited earlier) would be reasonable enough-- use "Aryan" for Indo-Iranian-- but history has passed that one by.

It's only from this thread that I've come to understand it DOESN'T mean that.

[Travis B.]

My view is that Indo-Aryan is actually an apt name, because it specifies languages which are both Indian and Aryan, i.e. Indo-Iranian and not, say Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, etc.

[WeepingElf]

My view is that Indo-Aryan is actually an apt name, because it specifies languages which are both Indian and Aryan, i.e. Indo-Iranian and not, say Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, etc.

Yes. It is clearer than "Indic". And when it comes to translating into other languages, the difference between Indian and Indic would be hard to maintain. In German, both would be Indisch (unless one resorts to such contortions as translating Indic as Indikisch or something like that) - ouch. And there are enough people, as we have seen in this thread, who confound languages and writing systems.

[Creyeditor]

Turksprachen (Turkic) -> Indsprachen (Indic)

[rotting bones]

At this point, I have to think of the letter to the Nazi Reichsschrifttumskammer Tolkien drafted in 1938, when they asked for an Ariernachweis in connection with a planned German translation of The Hobbit. In that letter, Tolkien wrote that he regrettably did not descend from "Indians, Persians or Gypsies" - the latter being the only Aryans that have been around in Germany for centuries! I don't know whether he actually sent that letter (AFAIK he did not), but the translation project did not take shape until well after the end of the Nazi régime.

Doesn't Jászság count?

[WeepingElf]

At this point, I have to think of the letter to the Nazi Reichsschrifttumskammer Tolkien drafted in 1938, when they asked for an Ariernachweis in connection with a planned German translation of The Hobbit. In that letter, Tolkien wrote that he regrettably did not descend from "Indians, Persians or Gypsies" - the latter being the only Aryans that have been around in Germany for centuries! I don't know whether he actually sent that letter (AFAIK he did not), but the translation project did not take shape until well after the end of the Nazi régime.

Doesn't Jászság count?

I haven't yet heard of Jászág in Germany, only in Hungary.

[rotting bones]

I haven't yet heard of Jászág in Germany, only in Hungary.

Oh yes, "around in Germany". Sorry, I thought it was talking about Aryans "around Germany".

[hwhatting]

What, more sinning over Sindh?

Are you from Punjab?

[zompist]

What, more sinning over Sindh?

Are you from Punjab?

I think Richard W is referring to the story— probably more familiar to English than German speakers— that when Charles Napier conquered Sindh for the British in 1843, he reported this by telegram with the one-word peccavi— i.e. 'I have sinned'. The story is apparently apocryphal, but the pun is just clever enough to be repeated for decades.

[hwhatting]

Are you from Punjab?

but the pun is just clever enough to be repeated for decades.

Ego quoque peccavi