@jricole @shahanSean There's a real issue with the vedic corpus that historians seem to not quite grasp, and is really notable to linguists... shoemaker in his latest book comments about it too, and makes a really embarrassing mess of things...

@jricole @shahanSean Shoemaker wishes to dismiss the massive historical archaisms in the vedic corpus by saying that it's normal for oral traditions to have archaising language. That explains the *classical* sanskrit corpus -- which when composed is clearly an archaising register.

@jricole @shahanSean But the Vedic corpus is full of archaisms that are even archaic compared to the classical corpus. Full of things no longer understood by the transmitters. Metrical irregularities that can only be explained by linguistic memories of thousands of years before being written down.

@jricole @shahanSean None of this entails *true* perfect transmission unchanged from 2000 BC, but it also entails significant verbatim transmission of material, and not complete recomposition every time time it is performed.

@jricole @shahanSean I have *no* idea why this ancient thread suddenly showed up in my mentions! But well, strikingly relevant anyway