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Empires of the Sik Road
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Message 1.Β
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 24th April 2009
On the useful About.com ancient History pages, today I happened on this recent publication which may interest A and A board readers.
It dras attention to Christopher I. Beckwith's Empires of the Silk Road.
Princeton University Press: 2009. 472 pages.
- Beckwith believes the historical indo-European languages emerged when IE nomads made contact with peripheral inhabited areas.
- Says there were 3 waves of IE language development, starting with Indo-Iranian.
- Says there is growing evidence that the Chinese were not isolated. IE people may have brought the chariot to the Shang.
- Supports the hypothesis of the Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
- Calls war chariots (vs ox carts) sophisticated machines that originated in only Central Eurasia.
- Says the greatest achievement of the Scythians was a system of trade.
- Provides compact bios of some of the great Central Eurasian leaders.
- Redeems the reputations of Mongol leaders like Genghis and Kubla Khan.
- Criticizes modern treatment and attitudes towards Central Eurasia.
Some good contentious stuff here I think.
I hope I is of interest to someone - better yet if you have read it already your opinion would be appreciated.
Regards, P. -
Message 2
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th April 2009
Interesting but I have to note that it is very funny when such surveys become pusblished coinciding with US in the locality... referring to gaz projects like the unbelievable Nabucco and US waged/backed wars in the area (Iraq, Afganistan & Georgia/Ossetia&Abkhazia).
There is nothing yet convincing on the Indoeuropean languages and there is nothing convincing on the Indoeuropean theory apart language resemblance which means not much more when words like mother are pretty much common in I.E. and non-I.E. languages. In some islands in Polynesia they call eagle-like birds "aeto" (aetos in greek - and I may suppose only in this I.E. language - is eagle!) and they call "hiro" semi-gods (just like the greek word hero). So what about I.E.? Chariots and horses in Indonesia?
There is indeed a line between Greece and Iran and from Iran up to nothern India, there are similaries with many other languages but no origin and no explanation has been given. The word mother, mater, meteer, mama, ma is common to so many I.E. and non-I.E. languages... why "ma" and non "nou" or "kou"... perhaps the easiers for babies?
One of my first discussions here some 4 years ago was that the I.E. does not stand. Similarities there exist, explanations not because there is always one major details that brings down the theory. -
Message 3
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 24th April 2009
Ah well, Nik, I suppose we just have to read up why this guy has to say on the subject.
regards, P. -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th April 2009
By all means we have to read. I al not against it. I just stated above my own frustration in not being able to find till now any valid linguistical theory to explain all that very interesting but very puzzling problem of language similarities among geographically disparate and very different cultures.
Personally I do not believe in I.E. theories. The only three well-studied in the course of millania I.E. languages are Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. Out of these two only Greek and Sanskrit can be traced at texts of more ancient than 1000 B.C. Both of these two langauges are not so I.E. as we think, with Greek being Indo-European only at 50-55% (add some guesswork they have used you go maximum to 60%). In both cases they have explained that by the "presence of nearby non-I.E. languages" (the usual conquest theories) as if I.E. languages came in contact with non-I./E only in Greece and Insia... The rest is more like "I like this, it fits my theory, this does not so I take this out, let it be "substratum" stuff... On what basis the Greek word "anthos" (flower) is not indoeuropean and the word "karpos" is? On the basis of the presence of the latter in other I.E. languages? Well Greek has around 100,000,000 word-types, then second comes Latin with 10,000,000 so from there one you can start making your own conclusions. -
Message 5
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th April 2009
I hope also you understand that for ALL other I.E. languages apart Greek, Sanskrit and Latin (for which our knowledge starts becaming more sparse in pre-Imperial times and known mostly through other Italic dialects) our knowledge goes up to 1000 years ago, not more. I do not think anyone can do any more with that other than put all words in a list and search for similarities.
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Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 24th April 2009
(add Persian too in the above)
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Message 7
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 24th April 2009
I'm not arguing any point here - my own lihguists knowledge is vague at best. I only speak one major subcontinental language and that none too well - though I have a layman's knowledge of Persian words that are common to it. Other regional languages are understandable enough for me to get in all sorts of muddles in my travels.
The book appeals because I have some background knowledge - of several - silk routes as it happens. The people historicall along the main arteries need a reflective reexamination and I was pleasd to find this book.
Regards, P. -
Message 8
Posted by Sir Gar Hywel dda (U13786187) on Sunday, 26th April 2009
very funny when such surveys become published coinciding with US in the locality..Β
Tourism. Silk road is a very useful subject for me to be able to follow, to learn more about the communities beside it.
Hi Nikolae.
g -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 27th April 2009
So, let me get back to the initial points
1) Beckwith believes the historical indo-European languages emerged when IE nomads made contact with peripheral inhabited areas.
Nomads? Convenient: nomads use horses, horses travel fast and thus language is spread quickly. Howover nomads pass and leave as fast as they come and language needs something more than that, it needs establishment. No I do not think languages like Greek and Iranian look like languages derived from nomads. If anything, Greek that I know a bit better (only through speaking its modern form and managing to understand bits and parts in its ancient), it does not show any nomad ancestry - that is why it is also the odd kid out with some 50% of it considered as non-I.E. I think people use the nomads as the easy solution. But commerce even in 5,000 B.C. was not only done with caravans but also via the sea so why not sailors? For example Indian populations had jumped via the sea directly to south Arabic peninsula and even to East Africa. Mycenaean structures are found all over the Mediterranean and thus Greek colonisation had started at least 1 millenia before. There are much more movements of people around than merely illiterate semi-barbaric horsemen passing by here or there. For me we have first to look at farming communities in the upper Mesopotamia - lets not forget that wheat, the main staple for much of the world outside East Asia, comes not from Egypt not from India, not from south Mesopotamia but from upper Mesopotamia, what is nowadays eastern Turkey: as we know Kurdish (Iranian-related language) is within the I.E. group. So why would we need nomads here?
2) Says there were 3 waves of IE language development, starting with Indo-Iranian
No idea on that.
3) Says there is growing evidence that the Chinese were not isolated. IE people may have brought the chariot to the Shang
They had knowledge of others, and others of them. It was all a matter of convenience. It was much more easy to sell to your neighbour and let him sell to his neighbours than transverse enemy land to sell far in the west.
4) Supports the hypothesis of the Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent
India (like Europe being invaded repeatedly by turco-mongolic tribes) had been invaded not once but repeatedly by Indo-european speaking people. Even after the Greeks, there came the eastern Scythes (Iranian related groups in what is now Kazakstan-Ouzbekistan), not those that lived in modern south-east Ukraine).
5) Calls war chariots (vs ox carts) sophisticated machines that originated in only Central Eurasia
No idea on that. Possibly yes since the use of horse was very generalised there. But then the chariot was more popular in cultures that were not so much experts in riding (!).
6, 7, 8, 9) Says the greatest achievement of the Scythians was a system of trade. Provides compact bios of some of the great Central Eurasian leaders. Redeems the reputations of Mongol leaders like Genghis and Kubla Khan. Criticizes modern treatment and attitudes towards Central Eurasia.
Well yes, there is much more to Scythes than the fact that formed excellent skirmishers mercenary armies! If only they had left more written texts behind them. It seems that these guys when they enterred India they showed a sincere effort to continue as much as possible the Helleno-indian blend tradition and there they left a few writtings in the Greek language. Scythes also did not live stricly nomadically but I think had towns and cities - most probably there is much more to search and find out on them.
As for central Asia, what can we say? The kingdom of Kaourizm? City of Bokhara? City of Samarkand? What amazing cities they had been! However on Jenkis Han I do not agree that much - this is the man responsible for the demise of central Asia and in the long run of the deceleration of the overal rythm of development of China (of course that was mainly due to later Manjurian (mongol) dynasties). It was not Jenkis Han that established the links between East Asia and Europe, actually he had severed them. It was Arabs and Persiand and Scythians and everybody else in between that had done it much better than whatever trade there was going on during Jenkis Han times (Marco Polo is a small small picture here - Byzantines were trading chinese products ages before the North Italians discovered there is more land east of Persians). Jenkis Han only managed to push more tribes to the west that had as a result the fall of Arabs to Turks who then proceeded in an induced wave to create on the already fallen Eastern Roman Empire the Ottoman Empire that not only totally froze the East-West links but did not even manage to create its own links with neighbouring Iran and India: Britain had more links even if it had to circumnavigate half the world to reach there!!!! So Jenkis' Han direct and indirect heritage was nothing close to forging links, quite the opposite. -
Message 10
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 28th April 2009
Interesting but I have to note that it is very funny when such surveys become pusblished coinciding with US in the locality... referring to gaz projects like the unbelievable Nabucco and US waged/backed wars in the area (Iraq, Afganistan & Georgia/Ossetia&Abkhazia).Β
I think you're reading far too much into the timing of the publication. This area is in the news so historians who've written books and failed to find publishers for years suddenly get the chance because there's now an interest in the area generated by current affairs. No secret US plot, just business cashing in on the free advertising of Central Asia being in the news.
And, as Sir Gar says, tourism is also increasing in this area which gives more demand. Added to which the area is becoming far more accessible to historians to visit.
Places and periods (in British book shops at least) come into fashion and drop out of fashion as modern events or anniversaries bring them to prominence. I'm willing to bet a tenner that there are a lot more books on Sri Lankan history this time next year than there were this time last year. -
Message 11
Posted by Sir Gar Hywel dda (U13786187) on Tuesday, 28th April 2009
Tourism has been one of the great blessings of the last 60 years, but at great cost in fossil and irreplaceable fuels, if you do believe that they are irreplaceable.
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