Aryens Et Sémites: Quel Avenir? Archéologies, Langues Et Visions Du Monde

Abstract

Friedrich Max Mueller thought that the "absurdity" of Aryan myths could be explained by a "disease of language," that is a shift implying that metaphor was taken for reality. Thus, cosmic and m eteorological phenomena came to be considered as human beings living human adventures. He found the etiology of this disease in language, and specially in the polysemy and ambiguity of Vedic Sanskrit which he opposed to the limpidity of Hebrew. W hile the difference between the two languages does exist, the explanation has long been acknowledged to be false.Actually, the opposition becomes understandable if we consider that Indo-Europeans and Semites belong to much wider cultural basins. Indeed, characteristics attributed by Max Mueller to the Aryans also belong to the Altaic cultures, while those assigned to the Semites are shared not only by Hebrews, but also by many other Semitic and by non-Semitic cultures of the Near East. Hence, we can de ne two large cultural sets north and south of the Black Sea and the Caucasus.In the northern one, Indo-European and Altaic cultures share many traits: organization of space and time, society and knowledge, unreliability of the visible world, conception of the human body, rejection of guration, for instance. In the southern one, we nd radically different conceptions shared by the indigenous Near Eastern cultures.Considering that linguistic communication and ways of thinking are only aspects of these two cultural sets, elaborated separately since the Neolithic and adapted to different conditions of life, we may expect mythologies to re ect these differences and understand that the opposition of Vedic Sanskrit and Hebrew is only a small facet of a global phenomenon. La questionAryens et Sémites sont impliqués dans une controverse culturelle, linguistique et raciste qui occupe la seconde moitié du XIX ème et la première moitié du XX ème siècle 1 . En bref, il s'agit de savoir qui est le 1 Olender 1989. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden (2003) NUM EN, Vol. 50 A lso available online -w ww.brill.nl