--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "kishore patnaik"
<kishorepatnaik09@...> wrote:
> Indic is much bigger than Indo Aryan, as is the Aryan. Indic can
> include Dravidian and Munda cultures, as well as scores of other
> cultures which are not listed. In short, the term Indic can
> constitute Aryan and Non Aryan cultures.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/42/I0104200.html
" Indic
ADJECTIVE: 1. Of or relating to India or its peoples or cultures.
2. Of or relating to the branch of the Indo-European language family
comprising Sanskrit, the Prakrits, and their modern descendants,
such as Bengali, Hindi-Urdu, and Punjabi.
NOUN: The Indic branch of Indo-European. Also called Indo-Aryan."
You see that, as a *noun*, "Indic" only means the Indo-Aryan sub-
branch of Indo-Iranian. As an adjective it can also refer to South
Asian peoples and cultures other than those speaking Indic/Indo-
Aryan languages, yet this meaning is not applied to linguistic
studies.
Those who lump together Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Munda languages
under the label "Indic languages" are usually Hindu nationalists
and/or crackpot scholars who aim at disintegrating the recognized
language families of South Asia in the name of a
misunderstood "Linguistic Area" concept -- see Shubash Kak at
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/indic.pdf :
"We argue that based on genetic classification, both the Indo-Aryan
and Dravidian languages have had common parents and these languages
share many typological categories."
(Kalyanaraman also adds Munda languages to the mix.)
Regards,
Francesco