Hi,
I have spent sleepless nights reviewing thousands of the 13000+
messages on this erudite list again. At the outset, I should pay
tributes to the high standards of linguistic insights attained on
this list thanks to many members with an open mind, willing to
consider even outlandish ideas.
As a student of civilization of Bha_rata, that is India, I am deeply
impressed by one remarkable discovery reported, may be it is still a
hypothesis waiting to be tested: Vedic is Masica's Language X. Is it
by Michael Donne's Friend X?
In my view, this discovery is PIE tectonics, comparable to the plate
tectonics which explain the many recurrent earthquakes in the PIE
region and the continuing rise of the Himalayan mountain ranges. The
cultural history of Himalayas has not yet been fully told. I hope
this Vedic as Language X will bring about the paradigm shift needed
in PIE linguistics to advance this discipline further.
The presence of many non-IE substrates in the languages of Bha_rata
is a true indicator of the limitations of many PIE theories and laws
and the need to re-visit them, not excluding the palatal problem of
Sanskrit [Proto-Sanskrit, Proro-Prakrit or whatever] and e,a,o.
For ready reference and rehash, I am extracting below what in my
view, are the paradigmatic statements on the Cybalist corpus; thanks
to Michael Donne, Piotr.
I request Michael to elaborate further on Vedic as Masica's Language
X; the search for early walruses can wait.
--- In cybalist@..., "michael_donne" <michael_donne@...> wrote:>
First, terminology: instead of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (not Schleicher
> as you thought) we'll use your groupings:
> > 1) Anatolian;
> 2) Proto-Italian, Proto-Celtic and Proto-Germanic;
> 3) Proto-Greek (centum);
> 4) Proto-Armenian and Proto-Albanian (satem);
> 5) Balto-Slavic undergoes RUKI (satem).
> ... the disconnect > between Vedic and IE means that pure Vedic is
not a pure IE language. > It has many roots and morphologies that are
unique to it and that it > does not share with IE. Many of these are
shared with Munda and > Dravidian but they are mostly loans FROM
Vedic. Vedic *is* > Masica's "Language X."> ...
> > Now you're beginning to see the light. If you're ready to admit
> that there were some Proto-Indo-Iranian communities in the BMAC and
> sufficiently farther north to interact with Proto-Finno-Ugric, why
> not take the next step and hypothesise that there were no _other_
> Proto-Indo-Iranians anywhere? :)> >
>
> I suppose I should explain why he came up with this theory in the
> first place. He doesn't actually believe it!!! ;-) Well, to be more
> precise, he has been reading the doubts of the archaeologists and
has > come to the conclusion that his earlier belief in the Aryan
Invasion > may have been premature. There is not enough evidence to
answer the > AMT question conclusively at this time. But he decided
to try and see > if he could construct a feasible hypothetical Out of
India theory. > Much to his surprise, the more he dug into it, the
less solid the AMT > looked. He's still not convinced either way, but
he feels it's > important to develop a testable alternative theory in
order to > prevent preconceptions from prejudicing the experimental
designs and > interpretations. Hopefully this will lead to increased
interest in doing the necessary research to finally answer the
question. The > linguistic theory is just a small part of a larger
holistic re-> evaluation of the evidence from all of the relevant
disciplines, > which he hopes to publish in a few months...
I asked an Indologist friend who is doing some thinking about this
(although he is far from convinced) and he thinks the only likely
scenario is that if PIE was in India, it was not Sanskrit but a
dialect that had many non-IA features like centum forms, etc. This
dialect migrated to Central Asia (BMAC) and became what is generally
considered PIE as proposed by Nichols and Lal. Some remnants of this
or its related dialects *might* be seen in centum languages like
Bangani and Tocharian. A different IIR dialect would have emigrated
in order to form Iranian. Sanskrit continued its separate evolution.
Thus you require only one migration (plus the smaller Iranian one.)
This PIE would then have interacted with Uralic/Finno-Ugric since it
is defensible that the loans are only one-way into those languages
families. After it left India, you can take your pick about where it
might have settled to play the role of PIE.
>Areal and substrate studies don't favour an Indian homeland.
Substrate studies could be just as easily explained as adstrate.
Regarding areal studies: It is obvious that IA is unique and that
many words for plants and animals are lost at the Hindu Kush. But
these could just as easily have been lost LEAVING India when they
resided in Central Asia and they no longer needed the words for South
Asian flora and fauna that they didn't see anymore; or at least given
different meanings.