Events

To what extent can we use a high-resolution comparative linguistics approach to open a window into human history when we lack tangible historical information? The Guaporé-Mamoré region, overlapping significant territory in the Bolivian and Brazilian lowlands, is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions in the continent. In spite of that, we know extremely little about the history of a vast majority of the languages, and the indigenous nations who speak them, before the 20th century. In this talk I will discuss my ongoing research examining grammatical properties in order to triangulate historical information about the nations inhabiting of this area.

Jointly organised with BantUGent. To join the meeting online via MS teams, please contact Nina van der Vlugt.

In my talk I will discuss some minor deities (demons) of the Indo-Iranian pantheon such as Gandharva(s) and their possible Indo-European parallels outside Indo-Iranian. In particular, I will focus on some features of Njörðr and other Nordic Vanir gods in order to show their structural similarities with the Gandharva(s), foremost, their importance for such issues as sexuality and fertility. Special attention will be paid to the etymology of the names of these gods. I will further demonstrate that this comparison may shed some light on the anthropogonic views of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and to figure out how they envisaged the origin of humankind and the role of (minor) gods in this emergence of humans.