funnybusiness2

This brings up the topic of standard of evidence that's considered acceptable in various fields. Successful reconstruction of PIE languages is similar to mathematical derivations in theoretical physics. In physics, successful derivation of mathematical results would not be considered "evidence". Evidence is mostly limited to observed phenomenon. Linguistics as a field seems to accept reconstructions as evidence. Which is cool. But it is interesting to consider the implications of using the standard of evidence of physics as applied to Linguistics, because it would certainly weaken (not eliminate) the case for PIE. It may create space for inquiry into non-PIE-assumed theoretical work.

Assuming PIE existed, you would be right. I am not saying it didn't.

While of course no PIE writings have been ever found, it's interesting that we have also not found references to PIE anywhere in writings in any other languages, from the times of the Sumerian Script all the way until William Jones showed up (or until slightly before his time). Please correct me if I am wrong.

William Jones was a sharp cookie to theorize PIE, no doubt. But for us to believe in the existence of PIE, we have to believe that there was no other cookie sharp enough elsewhere in the world, between 3400 BC (Sumerian Script) and 1786 AD (William Jones) who could have looked at Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, and Persian, like Jones did, and derived a theory similar to PIE, and written about it.

One possible explanation could be that people who came before us considered this idea, and discarded it due to lack of sufficient merit, and we are simply reinventing that wheel.

On another note, all the old assertions regarding the death and follow on artificial revival of Sanskrit have been invalidated. Sanskrit, as a language, has stayed very much alive since ancient times. References:

- Hatcher, Brian A. (2016). "Sanskrit and the morning after". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 44 (3): 333–361. doi:10.1177/001946460704400303. ISSN 0019-4646. S2CID 144219653

- Hanneder, J. (2009), "Modernes Sanskrit: eine vergessene Literatur", in Straube, Martin; Steiner, Roland; Soni, Jayandra; Hahn, Michael; Demoto, Mitsuyo (eds.), Pāsādikadānaṃ: Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika, Indica et Tibetica Verlag, pp. 205–228

- Seth, Sanjay (2007). Subject Lessons: The Western education of colonial India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 172–176. ISBN 978-0-8223-4105-5.

Since I got downvoted and accused of "pointless contrarianism" elsewhere in this thread, I would like to say that I am not trying to offend anyone, nor waste anyone's time with my questions/thoughts/explanations. I am bringing up an issue that I think deserves discussion. I don't see what the problem is. If you don't like what I have to say, scroll past my comment. If you like what I have to say, I am happy to engage.

I think what you are saying is that the existence of indo-european languages could only reasonably be explained by them having originated from a common ancestral language. I agree with you.

The open question is whether this common ancestral language is the imagined / reconstructed extinct language called Proto-Indo-European that does not currently have any supporting physical evidence (cave paintings, stone carvings, Papyrus manuscripts, tablets, and whatnot) proving its existence, or is it one of the many surviving languages still spoken today?

I don't think we know the answer to that question.

My question got downvoted. I wonder whose feathers I ruffled.

Playing devil's advocate here: Given that there is not a shred of evidence that we have found so far that supports the idea of the existence of the Proto-Indo-European language, why are so many linguists (and researchers from other disciplines) continuing to invest in research with a firm belief/assumption that PIE ever existed?

Is it because it would be a career ending move for a linguist to conduct research that assumes that PIE did not exist? We have seen this before in history where researchers are punished for researching topics that go against the leading voices in the field.

Unfortunately, its likely much worse than merely failing to do fact checking.

India has been handicapped by a highly insufficient educational system set up by the British (and later run by its puppets) for a very long time, that was meant to produce robots/slaves/peons, not independent thinkers.

They are finally having discussions about how to redesign the education system, to empower its people to become future leaders, innovators. Given that India has a very young population, if they do this redesign right, it will pay off handsomely in the future.

Of course, there are many parties who do not want to see that happen. So what do they do? They disrupt the public discourse taking place around this in the country by spreading disinformation via publications such as nature.com, that get scientists in India riled up against the education related gov't bodies, instead of collaboratively working with them.

For a good overview of how idealogical subversion of this kind is carried out I would recommend watching interviews of Yuri Bezmenov on youtube.

Are these changes to school textbooks politically/religiously motivated? Debatable.

Do these changes de-emphasize science education or merely reorganize it? Also debatable.

Are these debates fairly represented by this nature.com article in a balanced way? NOT AT ALL.

The bigger story here is the decline in credibility suffered by nature.com due to its publication of such an unbalanced article.

nature.com used to be one of the gold standard for scientific publications. When they publish garbage like this, more people start to lean "anti-science".