WI: The Iranian Plateau remains Indo-Aryan

AFAIK, Indo-Aryans were the first into the Iranian Plateau, and their influence spread as far as Syria, before the Iranians moved in and basically split the Indo-Aryan cultural zone into two. What if the Iranians are somehow repelled and never move into the Iranian plateau, what would it mean for world history that there is no Persian Empire and that vedic culture is now more influential ?
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Are Indo-Aryans even real? My understanding was these were theoretical constructs based on language groups but w/o a whole lot of historical or even archaeological underpinning.

And yeh, Iranian is just a variant of Aryan, IIRC.
 
There's not much that can really be said with this sort of thing unless you're a genetics or linguistics expert.
 
AFAIK, Indo-Aryans were the first into the Iranian Plateau, and their influence spread as far as Syria, before the Iranians moved in and basically split the Indo-Aryan cultural zone into two. What if the Iranians are somehow repelled and never move into the Iranian plateau, what would it mean for world history that there is no Persian Empire and that vedic culture is now more influential ?

I don't think I understand this. The Iranians are Indo-Aryans. If the Iranians had never come, I suppose we would call the place Media instead of Iran.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I'm as confused as the rest of you. As far as a ANE perspective goes, the term "Indo-Aryan" is often applied to the ruling class of the Mitanni, who apparently spoke a language that was clearly related to Iranian but does not bear any of the characteristic features of that language. So, for an Indo-Aryan Iranian plateau, you'd need a Mitanni conquest of the plateau and some series of events that prevented Iranian from branching off Indo-Iranian.

There was, of course, a substrate population on the plateau - the Indo-Iranians probably came from further east and north in Central Asia.
 
I don't think I understand this. The Iranians are Indo-Aryans. If the Iranians had never come, I suppose we would call the place Media instead of Iran.

Haha! Except you couldn't because the Medians were Indo-Aryans!

Okay yeah.. he doesn't make any sense. Most of the differences between early Indian and Iranian cultures happened when the people who became the Indians moved out towards North India. Maybe he just wants the Indians to stay with the Iranians.
 
Haha! Except you couldn't because the Medians were Indo-Aryans!

Okay yeah.. he doesn't make any sense. Most of the differences between early Indian and Iranian cultures happened when the people who became the Indians moved out towards North India. Maybe he just wants the Indians to stay with the Iranians.

Well, he said "WI the Iranians are somehow repelled?" If they were, the Medes would have remained in charge, and we would call the place Media instead. Or Medea. Or Medaea. Or Meedistan. Meedovia?
 
Well, he said "WI the Iranians are somehow repelled?" If they were, the Medes would have remained in charge, and we would call the place Media instead. Or Medea. Or Medaea. Or Meedistan. Meedovia?

Except the Medes WERE Iranians. They were of the same stock as the Persians, who are the quintessential Iranians.
 
As far as I know, Indo-Aryans refers to people who laid the foundation for vedic culture, i.e. the culture of ancient India. Indo-Iranians (not Indo-Aryan) split into Indo-Aryan and Iranian. Indo-Aryan, for all intent and purposes is another name for "North Indian" , i.e. a non-Dravidian-speaking Indian. Iranians are descendants of Indo-Iranians, and siblings of Indo-Aryans. Maybe these terms are antiquated now.

Well, here is how I understand what happened (Leo or anybody else who has access to more modern research might inform me better though) - Indo-Aryans were the first to migrate from Central Asia to the Iranian Plateau, and eventually the near east where they formed tribal kingdoms. They had a fairly extensive influence in the region, and is attested to by the fact that the Mitanni, a kingdom in the region close to what is now Syria, worshiped what would become Indian gods (Indra, Ashvins, (or Nasatyas), etc) and not Iranian ones and had kings with decidedly Indian names Tusharatha (= Dasharatha). Then Iranians moved into the regions and basically split the proto-Indian (or Indo-Aryan) continuum into two- The Mitanni Kingdom and North-West Indian Tribes. Then they founded the Persian Empire and the rest is very well known.

My WI was that Iranians don't move into the region, but stay in Central Asia. This includes the Medians who were essentially Iranians. The area that would eventually become the Persian Kingdom and Empire, would then remain Indian in culture and language (or at least have a mutually intelligible language with their kinsmen east of the Hindu Kush). A sort of Uber-India, but only in the sense that a whole lot more people in TTL will be speaking a Sanskrit-like dialect, and worshiping what would become Hindu deities.

That was what I meant. Most of the misunderstanding comes from my usage of Indo-Aryan which I meant in the sense of (proto-)Indian, rather than the Ancestors of both Indians and Iranians. Apparently, wikipedia uses the same terminology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryans

Elomire said:
Most of the differences between early Indian and Iranian cultures happened when the people who became the Indians moved out towards North India

Most of what I have read tells me that the split happened way earlier. For instance, what you have just would have have a hard time explaining the Mitanni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_superstrate_in_Mitanni (Wikipedia identifies Indo-Aryan as the substrate language, not Iranian, and note the Sanskrit correspondences.)
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Well, here is how I understand what happened (Leo or anybody else who has access to more modern research might inform me better though) - <snip>
That's highly speculative. The fact of the matter is that we simply don't know enough about population movements during this time to say with any confidence. While it is true that the Iranians were probably latecomers to the plateau, we don't know much about the linguistic situation prior to their arrival, with the exception of Elamite. Tantalizing remnants of the languages spoken there (and the evidence of Elamite itself) suggest that it was home to an array of language isolates. I don't see any evidence for the Uber-India you posit (and I'll explain myself below), which makes this TL highly speculative, IMHO. That's ok; but before posting a WI on a highly speculative topic, you should probably outline your position more clearly.

Most of what I have read tells me that the split happened way earlier. For instance, what you have just would have have a hard time explaining the Mitanni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_superstrate_in_Mitanni (Wikipedia identifies Indo-Aryan as the substrate language, not Iranian, and note the Sanskrit correspondences.)
Well, technically you mean "superstrate" or "adstrate" language (that's what Wikipedia says, and the distinction is actually pretty critical to what we're discussing). As far as explaining the Mitanni, it's both less and more complicated than you make it out to be, and here's why:
  • The language of the Mitanni aristocracy is what we call a Restsprache, i.e. it is known only from a few traces, in this case primarily proper names (which are quite possibly the most dubious source when discussing the genetic affiliations of a language) and a few other isolated lexical items (which are somewhat better, but still not ideal - the best data for genetic reconstruction come from the morpholexicon).
  • All of the features adduced as "Indo-Aryan" (as opposed to Iranian) in the putative language of the Mitanni aristocracy are actually conservative features characteristic of Indo-Iranian in general.
  • Sanskrit is a very conservative Indo-Iranian language; Avestan is as well, but already in Avestan there are certain "innovative" features that signal a split between Iranian and the rest of the Indo-Iranian sub-family. Historical and comparative linguists generally appeal to these innovations when classifying languages - if a group of languages share an innovation, they are said to form a subgroup.
  • Most linguists agree that shared retentions (features inherited from the mother tongue and shared by the daughter languages) are of no value when subgrouping (apart from identifying the language as a daughter language of that mother tongue).
  • Furthermore, classifications based solely upon phonological or lexical data (which is all we have in the case of this language) are generally considered suspect. Morphological data are more conclusive, but unfortunately we know next to nothing about the morphology of this language.
  • Therefore, until further evidence is forthcoming, it's best to reserve judgment on the language of the Mitanni aristocracy, beyond noting that there is some evidence that it was an Indo-Iranian language that apparently did not participate in any of the innovations that are characteristic of Iranian - fascinating, to be sure, but hardly evidence of an Indo-Aryan adstrate.
  • Finally, it's fairly evident from the proper names in the archives of the Mitanni empire* that the language of day to day life was Hurrian, and that the educated spoke Akkadian as well. Apart from these texts, there is no further evidence of any Indo-Aryan substrate in Mesopotamia or Iran. Therefore, if anyone spoke this language, it was likely to be a very small group; they could very well have originated in Central Asia, like the Iranians, and conquered the Hurrians, as the Iranians conquered (and eventually assimilated) whatever substrate peoples lived on the Iranian plateau.
So, in short, I can't agree with Wikipedia's account of the data. That's not to say that this isn't an interesting WI, but I do feel that if you want to make a WI on a controversial or obscure premise, you should provide as much data as you can and not take it for granted that your audience here shares your views.

* Believe it or not, but I worked from 1998 to 2004 as a conservator baking, desalinating, and mending the tablets from the largest and most extensively studied archive from the Mitanni empire, that of Nuzi.
 
Thanks for the information and clarification, I shouldn't have taken Wikipedia and antiquated scholarship for granted. But I just thought it might make for an interesting WI.

Well, since this is Alternate History, we can assume that the Speculation that proto-Indians occupied the Iranian Plateau before Persians to be true and go from there. It would be interesting to see more trade and communication between India and Near-East.
 
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