Indo-European Languages and the Aryan Fallacy

In 1938, J.R.R. Tolkien (left) received a letter from a German publisher who proposed to publish a translation of The Hobbit. According to the laws under the Nazi government, they requested him to confirm that he was "of Aryan origin".

Tolkien was livid. He made his opinion clear in a related letter to his British publisher, where he said, "I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine."¹

In his reply to the German publisher, he feigns innocence at first. "I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects."²

Tolkien had no truck at all with the Aryan Fallacy, but many of his contemporaries embraced it enthusiastically, including several other fantasy writers active at a similar time — very notably Robert E. Howard. So how did it come about?

The word Aryan correctly refers to a group of nomadic tribes that moved into northern India about three thousand years ago. It's also used for the linguistic family descended from Sanskrit, deriving ultimately from the language(s) spoken by these tribes. Lastly, and with extreme caution, it can be applied to the people who speak these modern languages (most of the languages of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, northern and central India, and the majority language of Sri Lanka). As long as it's understood that this in no way represents a racial identity.

The family, as Tolkien indicated, also includes Romani ("Gypsy"), its original speakers having migrated from north-west India. Ironically, in Hitler's time (i.e. before the mass migrations from the sub-continent after World War Two) the only substantial ethnic group in Europe who could legitimately call themselves Aryan were the Romani — who were persecuted by the Nazis.

The most obviously related group of languages is the Iranian family, together forming the Indo-Iranian group (Iran clearly derives from the same root as Aryan). Today, the Iranian group covers most languages of Iran and Afghanistan, together with Kurdish, but in earlier historical periods Iranian-speaking nomads lived on the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas: Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans etc.

In the late 18th century, linguists began to recognise a clear relationship between the earliest forms of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, and postulated that they might all have derived from a common source. With this leverage to build on, the Germanic, Celtic, Slavonic and other language groups were added to the growing super-family, nowadays known as Indo-European. An extinct family of Indo-European languages, Tocharian, was even spoken in north-west China during the Han era.

In the 19th century, it was proposed that the whole family should be called Aryan, in the erroneous belief that this was the earliest name of a people speaking an Indo-European language and therefore the most likely to be the original. Though mistaken, this was originally innocuous, but a tide of racial supremacism gradually saw the label become more and more equated with the "German Race". Max Müller, one of its originators, was later scathing about colleagues who confused linguistic and racial characteristics, suggesting that "Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair" were as absurd as "a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar".³

The tide was against him, though, and the concept of the Aryan Master Race became more and more widespread, eventually finding its lunatic home in the warped mind of Adolf Hitler. In fact, there have been suggestions that the characteristic differences between the Germanic languages (including English) and all other Indo-European languages may have been the result of an unrelated people abandoning their own language and taking up a broken form of Indo-European. In which case, the Germans have even less right to the name Aryan than most other Indo-European speakers.

The clear pattern of divergence among the languages through various periods has always suggested that it should be possible to trace them all back to a time when a single language, from which they are all descended, was spoken by a community in a relatively small area. The favourite explanation nowadays is the steppes of south-eastern Europe somewhere between 4500 and 2500 BC, but other propositions have ranged from the eccentric (such as the North Pole) to the more plausible (such as Anatolia or the north-western European plains). The image to the left shows one proposed model of expansion from the homeland.

It shouldn't be assumed, though, that these original Indo-Europeans represented a race, or even a "people" as we'd understand it. Archaeological evidence suggests that the communities who probably spoke Indo-European were actually made up of several distinct groups — a people who'd come down from the north, another who'd come up from the Mediterranean, and possibly others from Central Asia or the Caucasus — who can all be seen from their remains to have been very different physical types.

Nor are they likely to have had much in common, including a political or tribal structure, except the language which allowed ideas and customs to spread. They constituted a culture area, but no more.

In terms of the later spread of Indo-European, too, we can't assume any racial connection. It's not unusual for peoples to adopt the language of either the dominant or the "cool" culture, and this often means communities speaking a language aren't racially connected with the those who spoke the language's distant ancestor. If we didn't accept this, we'd have a hard time trying to explain how an English-speaking African American could have derived from the language's source in north-western Europe.

The subsequent evolution of the languages is likewise anything but straightforward. Linguists use the family tree model, (eg Latin is the "parent" of French, Spanish, Italian etc) and this is useful, and a gorgeously artistic interpretation of which by Minna Sundberg is shown right. But the influence of other, often unrelated languages is important too. This can be down to extensive borrowing of vocabulary for social or political reasons, such as how English, fundamentally a Western Germanic language, has a vocabulary heavily derived from Latin.⁴ It can also be explained, though, by the wave theory of language change.

The wave theory is a model which suggests that specific changes, whether a sound-change such as a final t changing to s or a grammatical change such as the development of grammatical gender, spreads from an epicentre and affects both related and unrelated languages. The next major change will have a different epicentre, and/or the speakers will have moved, so it won't be the same set of languages affected.

Ultimately, this will create a patchwork, in which it can be difficult to reconcile a language's position on its family tree with apparent similarities to more distantly related (or unrelated) ones. It's inconvenient, but we're talking about human behaviour. What do you expect?

So where did the original Indo-European language come from? If it was being spoken a mere five or six thousand years ago, it obviously can't have sprung from nowhere. The reason it's recognised as the "original" is that it marks the latest point that all Indo-European languages can be traced back to, but its history must have gone back a long way up an unknown family tree.

Various propositions have been made as to what Indo-European might ultimately be related to, the most widespread being a super-family known as Nostratic. At its most ambitious, this hypothesis includes Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Afroasiatic, Elamo-Dravidian and Eskimo-Aleut, along with a few others, though some more cautious proponents restrict it to the first three plus Indo-European.⁵

There's very little evidence for hypotheses such as this, and what has been put forward is strongly disputed. The problem is that it becomes progressively harder to be sure of connections between languages the further back the proposed connection is. It's probable that some, at least, of these connections are correct, but nothing's likely to ever go beyond speculation.

To speculate, though, how far might this process actually go? Recent evidence suggests an origin for language considerably further back than was believed even a decade or two ago, certainly when our ancestors were living in a fairly small area of Africa.⁶ Maybe the invention of human language really was a single event, and we're all speaking variants of the same language.

The Aryan Fallacy should have died in the bunker with the Führer, but unfortunately bigots aren't famous for their intellectual rigour, and there are still white supremacist morons who use it as a keystone for their disgusting creeds.

So take a leaf out of Tolkien's book. Next time a white supremacist proudly claims to be Aryan, point out that they're actually claiming to be Indian. Or even Iranian. You won't change their views, but see how they like it.

 

¹ The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter, 1981, p.37

² Ibid. p.37

³ Quoted in In Search of the Indo-Europeans, J.P. Mallory, 1989, p.269

⁴ That the roots of English are Germanic can be illustrated by taking a passage of average English and identifying where each word came from. It's likely that more would be Latin-derived than Germanic-derived; but if you were to redo the exercise counting each word each time it's used, you'd find the count overwhelmingly Germanic. This is because the most common, infrastructure words (the, and, to, for and the like) are direct descendants of the words that came over with the Anglo-Saxons.

⁵ Uralic includes languages like Finnish and Hungarian; Altaic includes the Turkic languages, Mongolian, probably Korean and possibly Japanese; Kartvelian is a small group whose main member is Georgian; Afroasiatic is a huge group, ranging from Hebrew and Arabic to Hausa, the main language of northern Nigeria, and taking in ancient Egyptian along the way; Dravidian was the main language group in India before the coming of the Aryans, and is still dominant in the south; Eskimo-Aleut — yes, I know Eskimo is non gratis, but there's actually no other word for the whole linguistic group, the Inuit actually being just the largest ethnic group.

⁶ Remains have indicated that Neanderthals shared the same deformity of the larynx that allows us to manipulate complex sounds, suggesting that the mutation took place at least 150,000 years ago. On the "use it or lose it" principle of evolution, it's difficult to interpret this any way other than our ancestors already using language from that point.

 

Images reproduced under Creative Commons licence:

 

Tolkien: Proyectolkien

Dancers of the Shuvani Romani Kumpania: James Niland

Indo-European expansion according to the Kurgan hypothesis: Dbachmann

Minna Sundberg Language Tree: Tom Wigley

 

 

 

Review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Generally speaking, I hate it when stories I love are treated as optional extras in film versions bearing their name.  From a kid who loved Kipling's The Jungle Book and confronted with what Disney had done with it to an adult seeing one of the world's greatest classic stories trashed in Troy, I try my best to avoid such rewritings.  Of course, I accept that these may be great films in their own right for anyone who doesn't know and love the original, but in a way that's the point.  Generations are going to believe these are the actual stories.

In view of that, it's maybe strange that I never had too much problem with the wholesale changes Peter Jackson made to my absolute favourite book ever.  I do have issues with the Lord of the Rings films (I still think the Scouring of the Shire should have been included, for instance) but I tend to think of them not so much as adaptations of the books but a different way of retelling the legends of the War of the Ring.  A film about King Arthur, for instance, might draw heavily on Malory, but would be free to take slightly different routes from A to B.

In general, I felt the same about the first instalment of The Hobbit (reviewed last year) but I have to say that the second stretches my tolerance a good deal further.  I think it's probably fair to say that parts of the fight with the giant spiders, of Thorin's defiance of Thranduil, and of Bilbo's encounter with Smaug are the only bits of the book to make it into this film.

It isn't all bad.  It makes complete sense, for instance, for Legolas to be present in his father's halls, and I suspect that, if Tolkien had ever done a thorough rewrite of The Hobbit in light of Lord of the Rings, he'd have included an appearance.  It also makes sense to give Bard the Bowman more of a story.  I always felt it was a weakness of the book that he pops up from nowhere just in time to save the day, and the narrative backstory given in the book certainly wouldn't work in a film.

Also, as in the first film, it makes sense to use the growing conflict with the power of Dol Guldur as a parallel plotline.  We don't see as much of Radagast this time, but his couple of scenes are enjoyable, and Gandalf's eventual confrontation with the vast, numinous figure of Sauron is stunning.

Similarly, the complexities of Lake-town politics, only hinted at in the book, are presented effectively, if at length, with Stephen Fry excellent as the corrupt Master, and the town itself is wonderfully visualised.  Bard has a role that foreshadows what happens later, although the whole nature and significance of his black arrow has been completely changed.

Beorn and the spiders of Mirkwood, too, are visually arresting, but the film's highlight is, as it should be, the dragon.  Forget the dragons of past films — even the wonderful Draco from Dragonheart — Smaug is everything a dragon should be.  He's visually captivating, and Benedict Cumberbatch (who also supplies Sauron's voice) extracts every nuance of character shown in the book.

Not all of the changes are quite as successful, though.  The film introduces an entirely new character, the elf Tauriel, who has a highly improbable romantic subplot with the dwarf Kili.  I found this not only a very long distraction from the main story but very unconvincing.  Granted that Kili bears very little resemblance to a dwarf (like Thorin, he has the appearance more of a dashing human) it would still be an unthinkable step to take, and somewhat reduces the impact of Legolas and Gimli's later unprecedented friendship.

Another problem is the apparent obsession with turning almost every single scene into action.  This is perhaps most clear in the escape by barrel from Thranduil's halls.  Granted that there's little visual in the original sequence, it seems unnecessary to add an orc-attack and a three-way running battle between dwarves, elves and orcs (not to mention more romance between Kili and Tauriel) to what is already a tense and exciting episode.

Not that the way the escape is presented really makes any sense.  In the book, the dwarves are hidden inside sealed barrels while floating downstream, but here the barrels are open and upright.  Which would be fine if they weren't regularly submerged and tossed around going over waterfalls, without apparently shipping any water at all.

Another somewhat pointless action scene is the battle within Erebor between Smaug and the dwarves, although at least this has the advantage of letting us see more of the dragon.  It's presumably there so that the film can finish in a blaze of action, but it rather undermines Bilbo's role as the party's thief to have the dwarves instantly springing into action.  The sequence is beautifully made and exciting, but I'm not convinced it's good storytelling.

Regardless of the choices about the story, the performances are all excellent.  Evangeline Lilly plays Tauriel well, whether or not the character belongs in the film, and Luke Evans as Bard seems to be somewhat channelling Viggo Mortensen, which is fair enough.  The people carried over from the first film remain strong — Thorin is a commanding presence, and Ian McKellan — well, he's Gandalf, and always will be.

Martin Freeman as Bilbo has less centre stage than in the first film, but he continues to handle the transition from home-loving hobbit to courageous adventurer with total conviction.  His confrontation with Smaug (his Sherlock co-star, of course) is delightful.

The film ends with Smaug flying off to attack Lake-town, and I'm sure we're in for plenty more action in the third film, what with the dragon-slaying, the attack on Dol Guldur and the Battle of the Five Armies.  And, presumably, a lot more of Kili and Tauriel.  I just hope there's a bit more of the book present than in this film.

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I first read Tolkien ― Lord of the Rings first, then The Hobbit ― several decades ago, and it was one of the great turning-points in life of my imagination: an explosion of inspiration.  I approached the Lord of Rings films with a mixture of hope and trepidation, having experienced the less-than-stellar animated version in the 70s, but overall I loved them.  I have some issues with the changes Peter Jackson made with the story, but far more of it worked than didn't.

I'd heard mixed views about the first of The Hobbit films, and the fact it was being stretched out into a trilogy gave me misgivings, but I found myself loving the film.  I saw it in 3D, which I generally enjoy, and it seemed to enhance the experience, without becoming all about the 3D.

It's apparently filmed in a new format, and the technical film buffs argue about whether that works or not.  I know very little about these issues, so all I can say is I didn't notice anything different, good or bad.  It just looked great.

Of course, like its predecessors, the film largely starred the New Zealand landscape, but there was plenty else to enjoy.  Martin Freeman was perfectly cast as Bilbo, approaching his adventures with a dazed determination.  I could completely believe he was dreaming all the time about Bag End, but also that he chose not to turn back.

There were several returns from Lord of the Rings ― some a little out of context ― Ian McKellan, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm and Elijah Wood all picked up as if they'd finished the previous films mere weeks before, and Andy Serkis (or at least his CGI version) made Gollum's one scene unforgettable, as well as doubling as 2nd Unit Director.

Still, much of the film focuses on the dwarves.  I've seen criticism that most of them don't come over sufficiently as individuals, and certainly some of them fade a little into the background, but it would be difficult to avoid that in a group of thirteen characters.  Seven of them have enough to do that they're memorable: Balin, Dwalin, Dori, Bofur, Fili, Kili, and of course Thorin, their king.  As played by Richard Armitage, he's an arresting, complex character, and has enough charisma that it's believable he can persuade the others to follow him, and his relationship with Bilbo was a welcome extra dimension.

The film has considerably more action than the equivalent part of the book.  In fact, very little happens in the book until the party reach the Misty Mountains; but, by making the conflict between dwarves and orcs more personal, Jackson has set up the possibility for chases and fights at more regular intervals, and those in the book ― the fight with the goblins in the mountains and the stand-off when the party take refuge in the tree ― have been turned up to eleven.

On the whole, the additions to the story make sense.  The film starts with the older Bilbo writing his book, in between preparing with Frodo for the Party, morphing into a flashback to Erebor, Dale and the coming of the dragon.  It's a different approach from the book, where we gradually learn with Bilbo how much the quest means to the dwarves, but I think having that up front works better in the context of a film.

As mentioned above, an extra strand has been added between the dwarves and orcs.  This takes the form of the orc-chieftain Azog, who in the book was killed long before, having been maimed by Thorin and being out for revenge.  Azog, portrayed in CGI by Manu Bennett, is a chilling figure and provides a contrast with Barry Humphries' Great Goblin, a gross, disgusting figure.

The biggest strand of additions, though, concern the events leading up to the White Council and its confrontation with Sauron, which here is treated as a parallel plot, rather than as background.  The party's stay at Rivendell is complicated by Saruman and Galadriel's presence and discussions with Gandalf and Elrond about the presence in Dol Guldur, which here is presented as a new development.

The best part of this strand, though, revolves around Radagast the Brown.  Ironically, Radagast's appearance in Lord of the Rings was cut from the films, whereas he's added here where he was only mentioned in passing in the book.  He's splendidly and eccentrically portrayed by Sylvester McCoy, who has the advantage of a character where there's no such thing as being too over the top, but who still manages to balance the insanity perfectly.

Not everything works perfectly.  As in Lord of the Rings, the history behind the story is simplified, and not always for the better.  For instance, the reference to the Witch King of Angmar having been killed and buried makes nonsense of the whole "no living man can kill him" that's so important in The Return of the King.

On the whole, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I look forward to the next two, although I'd still be intrigued to see how they manage to stretch it out into three long films.  Some of what's to be come has been foreshadowed ― glimpses of the halls within the Lonely Mountain and the elven king Thranduil, for instance ― but we still haven't had a good look at Smaug the dragon, who's going to be voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.  I can't wait.