Indo-European revival in the 19th century

The 19th century saw the beginnings of modern linguistics, including the determination that the languages of much of Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia were related as the Indo-European languages. By the end of the century, a linguistic reconstruction of the proto-language existed, as well as scholarly theories of the Proto-Indo-European people themselves and elements of their society like their religion. Many of these theories are of course outdated nowadays, and some of them were associated with scientific racism and the Aryan race theories.

But can we take scholarship on the Proto-Indo-Europeans further and have it become a cultural movement? This would presumably take a form similar to Ariosophy and other early neopaganism, but lacking any link to Germanic nationalism. In fact, I could imagine it being some sort of pan-European movement, uniting Europe based on shared Indo-European heritage amongst others. This Indo-European/pan-Aryan movement would be distinct for reviving proto-Indo-European (using early reconstructions of PIE) and using it as a cultural vehicle for poems, songs, etc. There would also be a neopagan element to this movement as well, with people worshipping Dyeus and the other members of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon, who are ancestral to European pagan religions as well as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. As with everything in this movement, it would be based on 19th century European concepts of all of these religions, so there would naturally be plenty of errors. I don't know what they'd do for the orthography

I think it would overlap with the movement for international auxiliary languages--after all, PIE is ancestral to the languages of half of humanity, and it seems better to use it than Interlingua and Esperanto which seem very Romance-language based. Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European as an auxlang seems very interesting to me, since it could totally serve the purpose even if the reconstruction used was obsolete as far as current linguistic theories go.

One major problem for this movement is the unfortunate links to racial pseudoscience via the whole Aryan thing (for instance, PIE's historic name is Indo-Aryan). This would affect the viability of the movement assuming the world of racial pseudoscience is discredited by something as major as Nazism and WWII and its related crimes. This could leave the Indo-Europeanist movement as marginal as racial neopaganism is nowadays, although even in white supremacist circles it wouldn't attract many adherents (compare how genuine neo-Ariosophists there are versus generic Odinists amongst white supremacists). Or perhaps it could survive, but as some curious remnant of the past like many international auxiliary languages are nowadays.

There's plenty of directions to take this idea in--I like the idea of fusing it with British Israelism. Maybe the original Israelites/Jews were Indo-Europeans, and the Hebrew language as we know it is a later corruption adopted from ungodly people (maybe the Canaanites). Jews wrote in this language because they were ungodly, and later Jesus came to correct the Jews in their teachings. The New Testament was originally inspired by God and written in proto-Indo-European, but translated into Greek (an Indo-European language of course) for the sake of the sinful world which had forgotten the original language. This seems like it could find a decent amount of acceptance in Britain or the United States (more crazy ideas and theology existed), and I'd find it fascinating if a major American Christian denomination became organised along these lines--very possible considering the landscape of American Christianity in the 19th century which was fertile ground for new movements and denominations to emerge. Presumably this movement would use Proto-Indo-European as a liturgic language and encourage praying to God in PIE. They would have their hymns as well as a Bible translation in PIE, and likely incorporate bits of Proto-Indo-European into their speech (the bits which their preacher says in his sermons, bits used in prayer, etc.).
 
Some of the same people who OTL are "Messianic Jews" may become "Christian Israelites" in TTL.

Actually this would fit in with of the odder 19th C. Mormon beliefs. I can see the 19th C. Mormons being at least very interested in this stuff.
 
Some of the same people who OTL are "Messianic Jews" may become "Christian Israelites" in TTL.

Actually this would fit in with of the odder 19th C. Mormon beliefs. I can see the 19th C. Mormons being at least very interested in this stuff.

I think the Christian version of this probably deserves its own thread, since despite how odd of a theology it is, it's something which could have totally existed if the right person (your charismatic preacher/evangelist type) saw the right material (proto-Indo-European linguistics, etc.). It does seem like you could have PIE as a whole religion unto itself (an alt-Ariosophy but pan-European/"pan-Aryan"), as an international auxiliary language (an alt-Esperanto), or as part of a movement in Christianity. Or a bit more outside things, maybe an Indian figure on the level of Swami Vivekananda could help contribute to the spread of PIE-related ideas using Hinduism as the vehicle. It could easily play a role in the interactions between Western culture and Hinduism. Perhaps some people writing Proto-Indo-European would use a Brahmic script as a reflection of the links to ancient India? Although I'm sure some would use Germanic runes or their own constructed script (maybe some bizarre attempt at fusing runes and a Brahmic script) to write PIE if they found their native alphabet and pre-existing orthographies were not suitable enough. Maybe even throwing in the Hebrew alphabet, anything could go I'm sure.
 
Its probably more likely if you get a broad PIE movement that has a Christian faction, a pagan faction, a largely neutral faction who are doing it for pan-nationalist/racialist reasons, a Hinduizing faction
 
One problem with this idea right off the bat is that even today, with all the tools and concepts linguists have developed over the years, PIE hasn't been fully reconstructed and likely never will be (as it's build purely through comparative method, without any surviving texts as a foundation). We can somewhat rebuild the vocabulary, but the grammar and structure, phonetics and other very important foundations are still only guesses.

And keep in mind, this is modern day - the people of the 19th century had far, far less to go by.

In addition, as cool as it sounds, I cannot see PIE ever becoming a notable international auxiliary language - even if it was somehow rebuilt, it's just way too complex and complicated for modern speakers to comfortable use.
 
Which is true, but it shouldn't be hard to convince the average person who might be interested in this that the then-current reconstructions of PIE are accurate and indeed how their ancestors spoke thousands of years ago. You just add up a bunch of guesses, and you'd come up with something semi-accurate. It would be especially nice if you speed up the science to have the laryngeal theory developed earlier, meaning an earlier decipherment of Hittite. Any more advanced PIE theories becoming the root of this "neo-Indo-European" would be helpful.

But it's definitely not an easy language, meaning as an international auxiliary language it would probably be mostly forgotten but for the fact that it's a lot easier to attach an ideology to than other auxlangs meaning there will be people out there keeping it alive, even if the language they're speaking isn't even the same as how current linguistics reconstructs PIE (which in turn would have a splinter branch of the movement following current linguistics, going by how auxlangs had and have so many splinter movements).
 

Skallagrim

Banned
One major problem for this movement is the unfortunate links to racial pseudoscience via the whole Aryan thing (for instance, PIE's historic name is Indo-Aryan).

Let's flip this around: the term "Aryan" is actually quite correct. In various regions, it's apparently what the people in question basically called themselves. The word, after all, refers to nobility. When it comes to "Indo-Aryan", it's the "Indo" that has always seemed unwise to me, since the so-called "Indo-Aryans" were one of those peoples who referreed to themselves as "Aryans" (see the same of their eventual homeland in northern India: Aryavarta). I'm not sure, But I think the Indo-Aryan and Indo-European monnikers came from the fact that people initially thought the languages in question originated in India. (Some still believe that. I'm fairly certain they are wrong.)

Anyway, without the historical baggage, I'd like the term "Aryan languages" a lot more than the unwieldy term "Indo-European languages". So if more research into this whole language family is done earlier, and the basic idea of the Kurgan hypothesis is developed further... I'd say the word "Aryan" will become used for these languages, perhaps even replacing "Indo-Aryan". Maybe the effect will be that a bunch of nasty pseudoscientists will be less likely to (ab)use the term, since what it actually means is more commonly understood! (An earlier Kurgan hypothesis also eliminates the whole "non-Aryan subhuman Slavs" nonsense, since the fact that the Slavic peoples are Aryans/Indo-Europeans will be evident earlier. German racists, at least, will be less likely to appropriate "Aryan" as a name for themselves, if the Slavic peoples they feel they need to displace to gain "living space" are in fact known to be.... Aryans.)
 
PIE likely was structurally very complex, but at the same time it was also extremely limited, which is also a problem; it was the language of eneolithic or early Bronze Age people, it lacks Words for almost everything we (or 19th century people) speak about most of the time.

Such movements gain traction where politics can come into play. With 19th century Europe being what it was, this makes little sense.
 
Let's flip this around: the term "Aryan" is actually quite correct. In various regions, it's apparently what the people in question basically called themselves. The word, after all, refers to nobility. When it comes to "Indo-Aryan", it's the "Indo" that has always seemed unwise to me, since the so-called "Indo-Aryans" were one of those peoples who referreed to themselves as "Aryans" (see the same of their eventual homeland in northern India: Aryavarta). I'm not sure, But I think the Indo-Aryan and Indo-European monnikers came from the fact that people initially thought the languages in question originated in India. (Some still believe that. I'm fairly certain they are wrong.)

Anyway, without the historical baggage, I'd like the term "Aryan languages" a lot more than the unwieldy term "Indo-European languages". So if more research into this whole language family is done earlier, and the basic idea of the Kurgan hypothesis is developed further... I'd say the word "Aryan" will become used for these languages, perhaps even replacing "Indo-Aryan". Maybe the effect will be that a bunch of nasty pseudoscientists will be less likely to (ab)use the term, since what it actually means is more commonly understood! (An earlier Kurgan hypothesis also eliminates the whole "non-Aryan subhuman Slavs" nonsense, since the fact that the Slavic peoples are Aryans/Indo-Europeans will be evident earlier. German racists, at least, will be less likely to appropriate "Aryan" as a name for themselves, if the Slavic peoples they feel they need to displace to gain "living space" are in fact known to be.... Aryans.)

I agree, "Aryan languages" would be a useful term if not for the historical issues (it's similar to the issues regarding the swastika, although the unfortunate racist aspect of the term Aryan emerged earlier than that of the swastika). But the original hypothesis was based on the Aryan invasion theory, where Indo-Aryans invaded the Indus Valley Civilisation (and beyond into North India) and destroyed it, becoming the dominant linguistic and cultural group. That theory is associated with historic racialism in British India and arguments that high caste North Indians are descended from Aryans. The idea of Indo-European languages being native to India seems to be a counter-hypothesis advanced by Hindutva Indian nationalists. Both theories are unfounded based on what we actually know about the subject.

But I think you'd avoid Aryan being a term abused by Germanic racialists, although Germanic racialists would still exist and go on about the superiority of the Germanic/Nordic race versus the Slavic race. Really a reason why revivalists of Proto-Indo-European would be anti-nationalist to some degree or another since a German and a Pole who were part of the movement would be able to find common ground, although of course the movement can be racialised.

PIE likely was structurally very complex, but at the same time it was also extremely limited, which is also a problem; it was the language of eneolithic or early Bronze Age people, it lacks Words for almost everything we (or 19th century people) speak about most of the time.

Such movements gain traction where politics can come into play. With 19th century Europe being what it was, this makes little sense.

Which is true, but it clearly wasn't a problem for Icelanders when their language kept to its linguistic conservatism and adopted words like "tölva" (literally "number völva") for computer in their language, which is and was an ongoing trend in Icelandic language planning. Or English and many other languages when they borrowed words from Ancient Greek since the Early Modern period. Those reviving Indo-European could use words from daughter languages (probably focusing on Sanskrit, Latin, and Ancient Greek) to reconstruct the language to what 19th century and later people would need to express any concept imaginable. It wouldn't be much more difficult than Esperanto or Volapuk.
 
I agree, "Aryan languages" would be a useful term if not for the historical issues (it's similar to the issues regarding the swastika, although the unfortunate racist aspect of the term Aryan emerged earlier than that of the swastika). But the original hypothesis was based on the Aryan invasion theory, where Indo-Aryans invaded the Indus Valley Civilisation (and beyond into North India) and destroyed it, becoming the dominant linguistic and cultural group. That theory is associated with historic racialism in British India and arguments that high caste North Indians are descended from Aryans. The idea of Indo-European languages being native to India seems to be a counter-hypothesis advanced by Hindutva Indian nationalists. Both theories are unfounded based on what we actually know about the subject.

But I think you'd avoid Aryan being a term abused by Germanic racialists, although Germanic racialists would still exist and go on about the superiority of the Germanic/Nordic race versus the Slavic race. Really a reason why revivalists of Proto-Indo-European would be anti-nationalist to some degree or another since a German and a Pole who were part of the movement would be able to find common ground, although of course the movement can be racialised.



Which is true, but it clearly wasn't a problem for Icelanders when their language kept to its linguistic conservatism and adopted words like "tölva" (literally "number völva") for computer in their language, which is and was an ongoing trend in Icelandic language planning. Or English and many other languages when they borrowed words from Ancient Greek since the Early Modern period. Those reviving Indo-European could use words from daughter languages (probably focusing on Sanskrit, Latin, and Ancient Greek) to reconstruct the language to what 19th century and later people would need to express any concept imaginable. It wouldn't be much more difficult than Esperanto or Volapuk.
Doable, yes.
Question is who does the adaptation? With Icelandic, we`re speaking about a live natural language whose speakers come up with such ideas, and they get "negotiated" the same way any language innovations come about (or fail to do so). With PIE, I could see someone doing the innovations, but I much rather see_several_people trying to do it and then not coming to agreement with each other. It´s not like you invent something out of thin air, but at the same time, you have to do lots of inventing, and the question of where you choose your addenda from is likely to be a highly political one. And if that happens, and the quarrel can`t be mitigated, then the chances of even a small minority speaking either of these conlangs really are slim.
 
Doable, yes.
Question is who does the adaptation? With Icelandic, we`re speaking about a live natural language whose speakers come up with such ideas, and they get "negotiated" the same way any language innovations come about (or fail to do so). With PIE, I could see someone doing the innovations, but I much rather see_several_people trying to do it and then not coming to agreement with each other. It´s not like you invent something out of thin air, but at the same time, you have to do lots of inventing, and the question of where you choose your addenda from is likely to be a highly political one. And if that happens, and the quarrel can`t be mitigated, then the chances of even a small minority speaking either of these conlangs really are slim.

It certainly is difficult, since you'd have people arguing about how to best reconstruct the language (in addition to people not associated with PIE as an auxlang doing purely scholarly work in the field). It's fortunate that for at least the European languages, Romance, Greek, Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic share many cognates, although when you expand it to Iranian and Indian languages, you have much more divergence. Certainly you could find a way to harmonise loans from modern daughter languages. Which unfortunately I could see going into pseudolinguistics territory rather quickly as inaccurate PIE glosses are created as compromises between various groups of PIEists. I see several splits as the likely course for PIE as an auxlang, probably several nationalistic-inspired splits as well as one which seeks to be scientifically accurate and thus more closely follows developing linguistic theory on PIE. I'm definitely not saying that PIE as an auxlang would be like what 19th century auxlangers imagined it might be, but I think PIE (a form of it) as an auxlang could have Esperanto levels of success. And as a bonus, it could avoid being pegged as a Jewish language (as Esperanto was) and perhaps avoid at least some of the repression Esperanto suffered (although a successful auxlang may very well be fated to suffer political repression in some countries).
 

Skallagrim

Banned
An attempt to turn "reconstructed PIE"/"reconstructed Aryan" into an auxlang could certainly be very interesting. Because of its historical ties, it is more appealing to me personally than Esperanto. (About which I've always held the opinion "why not just teach kids to speak Latin? Latin is cool.") The inherently multinational, "connecting" nature of a reconstructed PIE is also very fascinating. The very idea behind it is that all the peoples speaking descended languages are truly part of a huge family of nations-- connected, tied together. Reconstructed PIE could be marketed as a possible istrument to bring all these peoples closer together: to strengthen their ancestral ties etc.

The issue of competing efforts could potentially be solved by this "connecting" nature of the whole project. After all, given that kind of an inclusive premise, the various people involved may be interested in setting up an "international Aryan congress" or something (which, and this is beautiful to me, would then forever carry connotations of international co-operation, maybe even getting a sort of hippie utopian reputation). Anyway, the major "split" I can see would be (as @metalinvader665 pointed out) between those trying to accurately reconstruct PIE as-it-was and those trying to turn "reconstructed PIE" into an auxlang (which would likely involve neologisms and compromises all over the place).

An interesting scenario would be one where these two branches of the project work together, keep each other informed, but each "do their own thing". The result would be an academic reconstruction of PIE existing alongside a more usability-oriented "Neo-Aryan" (or whatever it would be called) that serves as an auxlang. Considering the fact that OTL's Esperanto has been revised from time to time (as have several other conlangs), it is quite possible that after several decades, a lot of useful new insights from the academic "reconstructed PIE" project end up getting adopting into the "Neo-Aryan" auxlang, creating "revised Neo-Aryan" or something like that.

I'm not saying it would become the international auxiliary language, but it would be a very interesting project, possibly with fascinating social ramifications surround the things we associate with the word "Aryan".
 
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