Re: Indian Retroflexes

From: shivkhokra
Message: 70295
Date: 2012-10-26

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@> wrote:
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> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > What are the boundries of retroflexed consonants in and around
> > > the Indian Subcontinent? My understanding is that Pashto picked
> > > them up. Wiki says Baluchi did. Any languages north of the
> > > Himalayas?
> >
> > Tibetan seems to have mostly lacked them, though they seem to have
> > made an appearance *after* the adoption of writing. Tibetan
> > reverses letters to represent Indic retroflexes, just as it
> > reverses the vowel <i> to represent Sanskrit syllabic laterals.
> > Austroasiatic is reconstructed without retroflexes, so it is by no
> > means certain that they are ancient for Munda.
> >
> > Dravidian is of course quite different to the Indic dental-
> > retroflex contrast. It has a dental-alveolar-retroflex contrast,
> > and it has been suggested that this contributed to the *loss* of
> > some dental-retroflex contrasts in Prakrits.
> >
> > Going farther afield, retroflexes are reconstructed for Tai-Kadai,
> > though I don't know the details.
>
>
> See again Witzel:
>
> http://azargoshnasp.net/history/Aryan/EJVS-7-3.pdf (pp. 58-59)
>
[..] In sum, retroflexion affects all those moving into the E. Iranian borderland, the Indus plain and the subcontinent. but this does not work vice versa: those who move out of India, sooner or later, loose it. >>
>

I am afraid this is just plain uninformed. British did not learn retroflexes even after staying in India for hundreds of years.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Shivraj