Re: [tied] Re: Dravidian in Persia?

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 9750
Date: 2001-09-24

Any family reconstruction must be based first of all on regular sound correspondences in cognate morphemes and words -- there is no other secure starting-point. Working with semantics comes later, when we have a firm formal foundation to build on. Lexical similarities don't mean much in themselves, especially between neighbouring languages -- they may be due to borrowing. Take an English dictionary: for any 5200 entries there will be at least about 4000 loans from French or Latin. This doesn't make English a Romance language. Proto-Dravidian is harder to reconstruct that PIE for the very good reason that IE languages are more numerous and their historical attestation is exceptionally good. But the genetic unity of the Dravidian languages is not doubted by any serious linguists. You confuse areal convergence with genetic relationship. Both produce affinities between different languages -- but they are DIFFERENT KINDS OF AFFINITIES.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: S.Kalyanaraman
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 5:21 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Dravidian in Persia?

I hope linguists see through this. If 4000 of the so-called 5200 etyma have IA cognates, how can Burrow and Emeneau claim that they have reconstructed Dravidian Etyma? What is the rationale for claiming borrowing from IA > Dravidian or vice versa? Had grammar of
Proto-dravidian been constructed? Working with sounds is one thing and working with semantics is another.