Re: Proto Vedic Continuity Theory of Bharatiya (Indian) Langauges

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:
> >
> > Please refer to the files section for Proto Vedic Continuity
> > Theory.doc, a document organized into the following sections:
> >
> > Part 1: Limitations of Indo-European Linguistics
> > 1. 'Love' of Sanskrit as a camouflage for evangelism
> > 2. Unfalsifiable Teach Yourself PIE
> > 3. Indeterminate laryngeals
> > 4. Aryan race ideology
> > 5. Eurocentrism
> > 6. A fading discipline hangs on to slippery genes
> >
> > Part 2: Bharatiya Language Studies
> > 7. Studies needed to delineate the Indo- in Indo-European
> > 8. Study of Prakrits from Paleolithic times
> > 9. The Proto-Vedic Continiuty Theory of Bharatiya Languages
> >
> > Thank you for reading!
>
> I recommend that those who pay for connections by the minute not
> bother. Further translation to English is needed.
>
> The attack on the recontruction of *snuso-s from:
>
> Sanskrit: snusha Greek: nuos
> Old English: snoru Armenian: nu
> Russian: snokha Albenian: nuse
> Latin: nurus
>
> is the sort of thing I would expect of Kazanas. Where did the
> corruption of 'Albanian' to 'Albenain' come from?

A typo. The argument summarized in the paper is given by McWhorter
(2001) not Kazanas.

>
> The correspondences of sn- and n- are backed up be other examples -
> there is a problem here, summed up by 's mobile', but the simplest
> solution is to start from *sn and assume that other languages, with
> varying degrees of regularity, lost the initial /s/ from such
> combinations.
>
> "The first vowel must be u rather than an o. Russian and Old English
> have muted that to an o. The majority rule applies here. So so far the
> proto word is *snu".
>
> How much of the argument reported here is original? The /o/ in
> Russian and Old English can be derived by general sound change rules

The entire argument is borrowed from McWhorter.

> indeed, there is Church Slavonic _snuxa_, and even an Old High

I Wonder why snuxa was not included in the seven.

German

> variant _snur_. Starting from PIE *o would be very difficult.
>
> Note that the validity of the reconstruction depends on the fact that
> one deals with correspondences repeated through the vocabulary of the
> languages - it depends not on a single PIE reconstruction but on many
> such reconstructions.

The author never says *o--->u is not possible. He only talks about
majority.

>
> Actually, at least 3 of the forms are a-stems: Sanskrit _snus.a:_ (the
> length rather matters!), Old English _snoru_ and Russian _snokha_.
> The point is that there is no reason for a feminine form to change to
> a masculine form, but every reason for a masculine form to be changed
> to a feminine form for a clearly feminine noun. The origin of the
> anomaly seems to be that the o-stems were not originally a primarily
> masculine/neuter declension - many Greek adjectives which were o-stems
> had no specific form for the feminine.
>
> There may be some extra evidence for the word originally being an
> o-stem - I think Old High German _snur_ argues for Germanic also
> preserving the o-stem form.
>
> As to the semantics of the word, I think you mean to say
> 'daughter-in-law', not 'sister-in-law' -

Yes, the Marathi word "soon" also means snusha, daughter in law.
McWhorter must be wrong then.

that is the primary meaning

> of the Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and German cognates and the meaning
> given in Pokorny. However, there does seem a natural tendency for the
> semantics of the word to vary:
>
> Greek: also 'any female connected by marriage'; 'bride, mistress'
> Latin: also 'young woman'.

That explains the illustration much better than my source. Thanks!


But i still feel that the evolutionary way of reconstruction is biased
against more perfectly preserved languages. If a word snusha can be
preserved for 3500 years the time taken for it to evolve from *snusos
must be very little. In the other words Sanskrit should be dated very
close to the time of PIE (6500 BCE).

If OE snoru is thorougly ruined to daugther-in-law in merely 8
centuries then the rules of evolution cannot be assummed to be
uniform. Some people care more about their speech than others. We are
not talking about mute genes here.

>
> I am reminded of the semantics of the similar Thai word _(sa)phai_ -
> although that has the primary meaning of 'daughter-in-law', it has
> subsidiary meanings of 'bride' and can generally mean a female
> relative by marriage (but not of an elder generation), so a sibling's
> wife is _phii saphai_ or _nOOng_ saphai_ and for clarity a
> 'daughter-in-law' is _luuk saphai_. The spelling seems to have been
> affected by association with Pali word _subHa_ 'beautiful'.


>
> No discernible evidence is offered for the notion that Dravidian and
> Munda should fit within the same family as Germanic and Indian. I'm
> not surprised at the lack for Munda - if there were any evidence a
> Nostratic affiliation would have been suggested.

Please refer to the Kuiper and Emanau citations in the paper.

M. kelkar

>
> Richard.
>