| Telageri
puts his finger at the source of much of the trouble when he
challenges the common assumptions that the Vedic language was the
earliest form of Indo-Aryan, that classical Sanskrit developed from
the Vedic, that the Prakrits developed from the Sanskrit, and the
modern Indo-Aryan languages from these Prakrits.
According to him, the earliest from
of Indo-European speech was spoken in the interior of India, in
prehistoric times. It spread out as far north and west as Kashmir
and Afghanistan; the original language developed into at least three
Proto-Outer-Indo-European (in northern Kashmir and Afghanistan),
Proto-Central-Indo-European (in southern Kashmir and Punjab), and
Proto-Inner Indo- European (in inner India). This is Telageri's
point of departure. And this is the crux of the matter. For if it
can be established that the movement of the users of the
Indo-European speech in India in ancient times was from the east to
the west and not vice-versa, the invasion/migration theory, as it
has been propounded, cannot stand.
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