The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.25

v2.c41.s1.25

Hertel³ accepts as proved Ipsen’s effort⁴ to establish the theory that the period of Indo-European unity lasted until the period 2000 B.C. The evidence, however, for this thesis is inadequate; it rests merely on the view that the prototype of the Indo-European variants of the word star⁵ could only have been borrowed then. It is, however, obvious that, even if we assume that the word was borrowed, the evidence is quite insufficient to establish either the date or the unity of the Indo-Europeans at the time of the borrowing. What is fairly well established is only the existence in the latter part of the first half of the second millennium B.C. of dialects which may generically be styled Aryan, and which have developed beyond the hypothetical language, which may be regarded as Indo-European.