It seems that large number of Guppies have an in-depth knowledge of ancient history and linguistics, e.g. they know about the Aryans, Indo-European languages, Avestans, Dravidians etc… A lot of these smart guppies seem to be expats.
How did you come to know this? I’m sure they didn’t teach this at school? Do you know of any good books on these subjects?
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
my latin teacher (from 12 to 15 years old in high school) was an old and well learnd man…he introduced us to these concepts, and i am thankfull that HE wwas the one to make my linguistic passsion developp…(though i really hated these latin classes 
)
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
I was doing internet search on Aryans invasion of India.I found some interesting facts like people in India,Pakistan and Afghanistan who are white may be descendants of Aryans who were from europe and were blondes.
One thing I failed to understand and am confused about is the origin of the dark Indians and Pakistanis..who are their ancestors?..are they a mixture of African and Caucasians?.They can't just be caucasians or Aryans as Indians claim to be because they were already there when Aryans arrived in India.Aryans intermixed with dark people of India as a result of which some Indians and Pakistanis are white in complexion now.
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
Dravidians!..the “pure” dravidians are nowadays living in south india and sri lanka…the dravidian languages are for example tamil, …and most brown indians and pakistanese have dravidian ancestors mixed with aryans…hence the various shades of skin from white to black that can be found in north india and pakistan :k:
edited:
hmm i think that you can relate the dravidians to the australian aborigenes and even the melanesian (people living on some island in the south pcific, close to australia)…i think they are from the same early migration and settlements to south asia…they share the dark skin, body hair, small height and large facial features…
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
very interesting...originally there are 4 type of humans then caucasians,negroid,australian aborigene and oriental..the rest may be variations.
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
Aryan invasion theory has been proved wrong …
India Acquired Language, Not Genes, From West, Study Says
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
January 10, 2006
Most modern Indians descended from South Asians, not invading Central Asian steppe dwellers, a new genetic study reports.
The Indian subcontinent may have acquired agricultural techniques and languages—but it absorbed few genes—from the west, said Vijendra Kashyap, director of India’s National Institute of Biologicals in Noida.
The finding disputes a long-held theory that a large invasion of central Asians, traveling through a northwest Indian corridor, shaped the language, culture, and gene pool of many modern Indians within the past 10,000 years.
That theory is bolstered by the presence of Indo-European languages in India, the archaeological record, and historic sources such as the Rig Veda, an early Indian religious text.
Some previous genetic studies have also supported the concept.
But Kashyap’s findings, published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, stand at odds with those results.
True Ancestors
Testing a sample of men from 32 tribal and 45 caste groups throughout India, Kashyap’s team examined 936 Y chromosomes. (The chromosome determines gender; males carry it, but women do not.)
The data reveal that the large majority of modern Indians descended from South Asian ancestors who lived on the Indian subcontinent before an influx of agricultural techniques from the north and west arrived some 10,000 years ago.
Most geneticists believe that humans first reached India via a coastal migration route perhaps 50,000 years ago.
Soon after leaving Africa, these early humans are believed to have followed the coast through southern India and eventually continued on to populate distant Australia.
Peter Underhill, a research scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine’s department of genetics, says he harbors no doubts that Indo-European speakers did move into India. But he agrees with Kashyap that their genetic contribution appears small.
“It doesn’t look like there was a massive flow of genes that came in a few thousand years ago,” he said. “Clearly people came in to India and brought their culture, language, and some genes.”
“But I think that the genetic impact of those people was minor,” he added. “You’d don’t really see an equivalent genetic replacement the way that you do with the language replacement.”
Language, Genes Tell Different Tales
Kashyap and his colleagues say their findings may explain the prevalence of Indo-European languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, in northern India and their relative absence in the south.
“The fact the Indo-European speakers are predominantly found in northern parts of the subcontinent may be because they were in direct contact with the Indo-European migrants, where they could have a stronger influence on the native populations to adopt their language and other cultural entities,” Kashyap said.
He argues that even wholesale language changes can and do occur without genetic mixing of populations.
“It is generally assumed that language is more strongly correlated to genetics, as compared to social status or geography, because humans mostly do not tend to cross language boundaries while choosing marriage partners,” Kashyap said.
“Although few of the earlier studies have shown that language is a good predictor of genetic affinity and that Y chromosome is more strongly correlated with linguistic boundaries, it is not always so,” he added.
“Language can be acquired [and] has been in cases of ‘elite dominance,’ where adoption of a language can be forced but strong genetic differences remain [because of] the lack of admixture between the dominant and the weak populations.”
If steppe-dwelling Central Asians did lend language and technology, but not many genes, to northern India, the region may have changed far less over the centuries than previously believed.
“I think if you could get into a time machine and visit northern India 10,000 years ago, you’d see people … similar to the people there today,” Underhill said. “They wouldn’t be similar to people from Bangalore [in the south].”
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Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
its not completely denying the influence of aryans on india.
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
what about white looking afghanis,persians and pakistanis..they did'nt come from africa or asia for sure
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
Who were these aryans? How are they related to the europeans?
THe aryan story doesn't tell the whole story of india. It is actually used to tell us that these aryans came and destroyed the indiginous indian cultures (indus civilization and ganges civilizations) but are used as part of class and racial warfare (for example, aryan races so-called in Pakistan and the caste system in India).
If you look at the whole, you see that there was also the influence of huns (germanic tribes). Though their western attacks against the roman empires are more widely known and read about (for obvious reasons ;) ), the white huns also invaded down to afghanistan (traditional gateway to india) and before that the greek invasions which affected Pakistan and Afghanistan (peripheries of the Iranian empire back then).
I don't know how much truth is into this but this might be true as the power elite ends up dictating what the masses do. For example, in the mughal india, persian was the language of the court though persians weren't even a majority fo muslim population let alone the population of India. It depends how you try to take all these theories..
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
europeans and north indian, pakistanese and afghani (aka aryans descendants) share the same ancestors: the indoeuropeans:
Between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, in the heart of Eurasia, lived a populous tribe, which, already from the beginning of the 6th millennium, had reached an advanced state of civilization. The Indoeuropeans (as this tribe was named in the 19th century by the scholars who rescued it from obscurity) had succeeded in domesticating the dog and, with its help, the horse, the sheep and the cow. They had invented the decimal system, the potter’s wheel and maybe also the cart wheel. Their bards had composed lengthy odes to preserve the glory of the warriors. However, in the beginning of the fifth millennium, the tribe began to spread out and fragment, with the westernmost branch reaching the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. All European peoples, except for the Proto-Bulgarians, the Turks, the Hungarians and, perhaps, the Basques descend from the Indoeuropeans.
The easternmost branches went as far as the foot of the Himalayas. In India, the Arya (nobles) formed the core of the aristocracy, which, under the leadership of the Brahmans, developed the caste system of social hierarchy. One branch of the Indoeuropeans, the Greeks (the name came, of course, much later), wandered for many centuries in the plains of central Europe and the northern Balkans. Nevertheless, at some point around 2000 B.C. they began to descend, in waves, into the southern part of the peninsula. Greece must have appeared to these travel-worn warrior tribes as the Blessed Land of poetic lore: clouds were rare, winters mild and the Aegean light shone all year round.
The gradual fragmentation of the Indoeuropean tribe resulted in the evolution of several dialects originating from the same roots.
source:Home - Elia.org.gr
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
edited:
hmm i think that you can relate the dravidians to the australian aborigenes and even the melanesian (people living on some island in the south pcific, close to australia)...i think they are from the same early migration and settlements to south asia...they share the dark skin, body hair, small height and large facial features...
Excellent post!
I will extend this discussion based on your ideas. If you people are interested in learning about human migration and ancestory over millenia, I recommend the book called The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. It's written by a genetisit who tracked human migratory patterns based on a unique genetic marker. The first wave of people -- members of San bushmen tribe in South Africa -- left their lands due to drought and settled in South India about 40,000 years ago. The subsequent waves of emigrants settled in Australia (today's aborigines) etc. It's a rivetting book based on 10 year long study and I highly recommnd it.
Re: how did u learn about Aryans / Indo-Europeans?
people, we're discussing HOW you learned about Aryans, not WHAT you learned. I already had to close a few threads because you all couldn't discuss the latter in a civilized way. Don't make me close this one as well. (this time I will have to issue warnings then)