Re: [tied] mleccha-

My personal suspicion (which I haven't researched properly, to be sure) is that <mleccha-> 'barbarian' may be native -- a deverbal noun. There is also a related verb, <mlecchati> 'speak incomprehensibly', and since -ccha- is the normal Sanskrit development of *-ske-, the historically underlying form may be something like *mloi-ske- with the iterative suffix *-ske-, which is very common in expressive verbs. There is a potential Slavic cognate, *mle^sk- (*mle^s^c^-e-, etc.) 'click one's tongue'. A good verb to describe barbarians who seemed always to be curling up their tongues to make retroflex consonants. Needless to say, <meluhha> would be unrelated.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: MCLSSAA2@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 3:25 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Loha, copper, red: any IE cognates? (Meluhha)

Someone wrote:- > It could also be copper-arsenic naturally occurring alloy or a > copper pyrite. So, Me-luhh-a may refer to an area from where such > copper (refined, washed, or copper pyrite) was obtained? and others refuted this. I have read of a Sanskrit word "mleccha-" meaning "lower-class", as distinct from "arya-" = "upperclass". I suspect that "mleccha" or "meluhha" or similar was the Indus Valley civilization's name for itself and its people, before the Indo-Aryans came. Sumeria traded with the Indus Valley Civilization (sometimes called the Sarasvati-Sindhu Valley Civilization) and would have learnt of this name. When the Indo-Aryans took over the Indus Valley, the area's existing natives would have been pushed down the social scale and their name for themselves along with it.