Likely IE home: India

From: kalyan97
Message: 12036
Date: 2002-01-13

Re: [pieml, tied]Dating PIE]--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:In brief, here is my (approximate) timeline for
the history of Indic (BP = before present):
> 7600 BP --- PIE
> 6500 BP --- non-Anatolian IE
> 5000 BP --- Proto-Satem
> 4600 BP --- Proto-Indo-Iranian
> 4000 BP --- Proto-Indo-Aryan
> 3700-3200 BP --- Rigvedic Indo-Aryan
> 3200-2500 BP --- late Old Indo-Aryan
> 2500-900 BP --- Middle Indo-Aryan

For a different view, I am appending a rather long extract from the
concluding lecture of a ten-lecture series delivered by Prof. Satya
Swarup Misra. In my humble opinion, this constitutes a well-argued
statement from an I-E linguist who has, since 1968, written many
books on the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Greek and Hittite (and
many other Indo-European languages).

A work by Satya Swarup Misra and Sushila Devi, 'Dravidian and Indo-
Aryan: A comparative study' is in preparation.

Some major conclusions are: 1. Dravidians are Aryans; 2. India is the
likely homeland of Indo-Europeans/Aryans; 3. After Sanskrit, Iranian
is the second most archaic language in the Indo-European language
family; 4. Rigveda must be dated beyond or much beyond 5000 BCE.

"The linguistic structure of Sanskrit demands an archaic status for
it in the IE language family. Other historical IE languages such as
Avestan or Greek are like daughters of Sanskrit on the basis of
linguistic changes. Greek was given an archaic status on the basis of
retention of a,e,o of IE, but evidence of the Gypsy languages
conclusively prove that a of Indo-Aryan was changed into a,e,o in
European Gypsy. A similar change of a to a,e,o is quite likely in an
earlier period. The change of IE palatal k^ to palatal s' in Sanskrit
is also doubtful because Sanskrit itself shows change of palatal s'
to k as a positional variation.. Thus, Sanskrit deserves a highly
archaic status and on the basis of the archaic linguistic structure a
much earlier date than the date given by the European scholars.

"The Uralic languages present loan words from the early Vedic stage
upto New Indo-Aryan stage. Harmatta has ascribed 5000 BCE as the date
for the earliest loan words, which he has worked out on the basis of
linguistic changes. He has shown the oldest form to be Iir. But I
have shown that the earliest loan words belong to the Rigvedic stage.
Therefore, the date of Rigveda must go beyond 5000 BCE.

"The Indus civilization culturally and linguistically presents a
continuation of the Vedic civilization. The apparent non-similarity
of the rural civilization of Rigveda and the urban civilization of
Indus Valley can be solved by taking Indus civilization as a later
development of the Vedic civilization…

"The study of the Indo-Aryan loan words in Anatolian also presents a
language similar to a very early stage of MIA, belonging to a
transitional stage between OIA and MIA. Therefore, we may ascribe
2500 BCE to 2000 BCE as a date for the transitional stage between OIA
and MIA and 2000 BCE as the starting period of MIA proper.

"Epic Sanskrit, which is the earliest stage of classical Sanskrit may
be tentatively placed between 5000 BCE (the date of RV) and 2000 BCE
(the date of MIA) that is about 3500 BCE. Tentatively we put the date
of Ra_ma_yan.a of Va_lmi_ki in 3500 BCE and of Maha_bha_rata of
Kr.s.n.advaipa_yana Vya_sa in about 3000 BCE, since the language of
the two do not differ much. The theory that Maha_bha_rata precedes
Ra_ma_yan.a is baseless.

"The archaic structure of Sanskrit and the date of Rigveda as beyond
5000 BCE, demands that India, the place for composition of the
Rigveda, must be the original home of Indo-Aryans as well as
Iranians. Iranian literature refers to an earlier place of residence
viz. Haptahindu i.e. Saptasindhu of the Rigveda. Thereby their
original home in India is also confirmed. Indo-Aryans in their
earliest literature of Vedas and Pura_n.as never speak of any
original home and there is no literary or archaeological evidence nor
any tradition in India, which refers to any former place of Indo-
Aryans. Therefore, we are sure that India is the original home of the
Indo-Aryans, and Iranians. I have shown above that Iranian is the
second most archaic language of the IE language family. If India is
the original home of Indo-Iranians, there is a fair chance that this
is the orignal home of Indo-Europeans.

"Although there is no evidence that Indo-Aryans have come to India
from outside, there is enough evidence that they have gone outside
India again and again in pre-historic times. The loan words in Uralic
languages provide evidence of Indo-Aryans going to Uralic area
beginning from the 5000 BCE (i.e Rigvedic times) upto the New Indo-
Aryan period. The Caucasian languages also speak of the going of Indo-
Aryans to this place several times.

"Indo-Aryan loan words in Chinese and Korean also give some evidence
that Indo-Aryans were going out to various other places in
prehistoric times.

"The Indo-Aryan loan words attested in Chinese and Korean, are placed
in the 2nd-3rd millennium BCE by Harmatta, who however wrongly calls
them proto-Iranian. He says `Finally we still have to give some hints
about the migration of Proto Iranians (= Indo-Aryans) towards Eastern
Asia'. The loan words although small in number are quite significant
to attest the presence of Indo-Aryan speakers in those areas. The
loan words from Chinese and Korean taken from Harmatta are cited
below. The Sanskrit forms are supplied by me, to show they are more
Indo-Aryan than Iranian:

Chinese:
Forms shown below are archaic Chinese forms reconstructed by Harmatta.
*k'an `cut' cp. Skt khan `dig', Av can
*g'wan `martial', cp. Skt han/ghan- Av nan-/jan
*dz.cwan `create', cp Skt jan `create', Av zan
*swdn `grandson' cp Skt su_nu, Av hunu
*akk^ `bad, evil, wrong' cp Skt agha `evil, bad', Av ana
Korean:
Pad- `field', cp Skt pada-, Av pada- `foot', `place'
Yoka `bind', cp Skt yukta `bound', Av yaoXta
Sul `wine', cp Skt sura_ `id.', Av hura_
Sena `old' cp Skt sana- `id.'

Although Harmatta has taken the source of borrowing to be Proto-
Iranian and Proto-Indian (=Indo-Aryan), actually the forms are mostly
Indo-Aryan and a few forms may be Iranian, out of these, Indo-Aryan
forms may be early borrowings and Iranian forms may be late
borrowings.

"These loan words clearly show that Indo-Aryans were going out to
various places in various periods. Thus, this helps us in taking
India as the original home of Aryans, by supplying evidence o people
going out to other distant places like China and Korea in ancient
times.

"In this way Indo-Aryans have gone to several parts of Europe and
Asia in prehistoric times. In historical period which is
linguistically the starting period of NIA, the Gypsies had gone out
to Asia and Europe in the 4th century BCE. Therefore, we have enough
evidence that Indo-Aryans were going out in prehistorical and
historical periods, but we have no evidence which shows that they
have come from outside. ..

"Classification of Dravidian as a separate race or as a separate
language family is a hasty conclusion, because no proper linguistic
comparison of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian has ever been attempted. The
Dravidians are also Aryans.

"There are many common words in Dravidian and Indo-Aryan which are
taken as loan words from one to the other, since no proper comparison
is made as yet. There are phonological and morphological
similarities. The structure of Dravidian as examined by me is to a
great extent of New Indo-Aryan type. Therefore, there is no question
of Indo-Aryans driving away the Dravidians. Thus, there is no doubt
that India was the original home of Indo-Aryans (including
Dravidians) and Iranians and there is a possibility that it was the
original home of the Aryans i.e. Indo-Europeans since there is enough
evidence that Indo-Aryans were going out in historic and prehistoric
times.

"But other branches of Indo-European, on the contrary, present
sufficient evidence that they have come to that place from outside.

"The Greek people have come to Greece from outside…

"The Hittites have also gone to the later Hittite empire from outside…

"The Germanic people also show evidence of coming from outside…it is
quite likely that the Germanic people first of all reached South
Scandinavia and North Germany and spread in other parts at the cost
of the Celts.

"But the Cletic people were in turn also outsiders…

"The Slavs also reached the Slavonic area coming from outside…

"The Iranian people were not originally in Iran. They have gone to
Iran from India…

"India presents the oldest record of the Indo-European languae
family. The language of Rigveda presents archaism unparalleled with
any other branch of Indo-European…it seems quite likely that India
was the original home of Aryans (or Indo-Europeans). The date of
Rigveda as shown above must be beyond or much beyond 5000 BCE."(pp.
73-77)

Source: Satya Swarup Misra, 1999, The date of the Rigveda and the
Aryan Migration, Pune, Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit,
University of Pune [Based on ten lectures, delivered during August
1997, at the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit in the University
of Pune by Prof. Misra, Department of Linguistics, Banaras Hindu
University provide details of the linguistic evidence.]

For extacts in pdf format (NB: each URL is a very large sized file),
email kalyan97@...