> > retroflexes. Does Dr Kalyanaraman know a good on-line account?
> > (/s./ has a sound IE origin, but how did /n./ come to contrast
> > with /n/? How did the retroflex plosives of Sanskrit originate?
> > Surely not from /s.t/ > [s.t.]! I know that in generally retroflex-
> > free Europe Swedish and one Yorkshire dialect have developed
> > retroflexes from /r/ + dental plosive.)
>
> How about, from Munda and Dravidian substrate languages? (Who have
> full contrasting retroflex series)?
>
A summary of what possibly happened is this:
Old Indic, or the Proto-Indo-Iranian that the Indo-Aryans brought with them to the peninsula did not have retroflexes. After the pre-Aryan population, the Munda and (Northern) Dravidian-speakers, mingled with the Indo-Aryans, these speakers, under the influence of their substrate began to interpret s, t, etc. at certain positions as retroflexes.
It is surmised that the original Rg-Veda did not have retroflexes. At that point in time when they were composed, the mingling of these peoples hadn't yet taken place -- going by the evidence of the content of the Rg-Veda. But later when these Aryanized Dravidians (and/or Mundas maybe) took to using Vedic Sanskrit, and chanting the Rg-Veda, they introduced retroflexion into it. Initially a second language for them, they eventually adopted the language.
By the time the work was written down, after its multi-generation oral transfer, the fact that the original work was retroflexionless was lost sight of, and the Vedic language had become dravidianized enough to call retroflexion its own. This is corroborated by the increasing tendency of retroflexion in the Prakrits.
So, it might be a little off to say that it was adopted from Prakrit. Rather, the Vedic language, perhaps at the stage when the Vedic culture was limited to the Punjab region, and the language had only different dialects -- no Prakrits had developed yet, incorporated retroflexion.
So, Classical Sanskrit inherited the retroflexion, and this was perhaps reinforced by the influence of the Prakrits.
A very interesting account, it seems to be very likely.
Ash