--- In cybalist@..., MCLSSAA2@... wrote:
> --- In cybalist@..., liberty@... wrote (Re: nakha 'nail' in
> sanskrit):
> > ... Is a Dravidian origin for nakhá- possible if the root is
common
> > Indo-Iranian? Are there any Dravidian loan-words in East-Iranian?
>
> I have read a theory about an Elamite-Dravidian family. If farming
> started in the Middle East, perhaps Dravidian started in Persia and
> spread into India as the language of the first farmers in that
> direction, like with Semitoid in Europe. A Dravidian language
called
> Brahui is still spoken in Baluchistan which is south of Afghanistan.
Brahui is a Dravidian language spoken in the Pakistani part of
Baluchistan directly west of the lower Indus. Baluchistan also
overlaps into southern Afghanistan and SE Iran. It was the old
Persian province of Gedrosia. The ancient and medieval Brahuis
inhabited the place until one of the medieval Persian dynasties moved
some Iranians there to help them keep control of the place. I read
once where the Persians originally lived in NW Iran, but moved into
the south in either the Assyrian or Median period. The south was
previously closer to Elam IAW archaeology.
You may be correct about the Elam-Dravidian link. It seems there was
a great trade network across this region to include Afghanistan
(lapis luzi) and probably southern Turkmenistan and who knows how far
into Urzbekistan and beyond? This area was part first settled by
Neolithic farmers coming out of the fertile crescent. We probably
don't appreciate their continuity in culture and language, as
archaeologists look at pottery designs and assume that everything
else about the peoples of the subregions was also different. Still,
there was obviously a trade network that is probably underappreciated
since it's not exactly the safest place to work for archaeologists.
In SE Iran was a trade center called Yahza or Yahya or something like
that. It seems to have been the center of the Indus-Afghan-Elam trade
route.