--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> My personal suspicion (which I haven't researched properly, to be
sure) is that <mleccha-> 'barbarian' may be native -- a deverbal
noun. There is also a related verb, <mlecchati> 'speak
incomprehensibly', and since -ccha- is the normal Sanskrit
development of *-ske-, the historically underlying form may be
something like *mloi-ske- with the iterative suffix *-ske-, which is
very common in expressive verbs. There is a potential Slavic
cognate, *mle^sk- (*mle^s^c^-e-, etc.) 'click one's tongue'. A good
verb to describe barbarians who seemed always to be curling up their
tongues to make retroflex consonants. Needless to say, <meluhha>
would be unrelated.
Thanks for the links, Piotr. The Vedic lexicon I cited does
say, 'Slovan'; I suppose it refers to Slovak.
Could mleccha be the people who introduced retroflex consonants in
the languages of India? The Tamil, 'r..' (as in par..am, 'fruit') is
a good candidate for the sound emanating from a folded (clicked)
tongue.
What is the possibility that mleccha were the people who worshipped
moloch as their god of seafarers?