Re: Witzel and Sautsutras

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@> wrote:
> >
> > At 3:00:03 PM on Thursday, October 25, 2012, shivkhokra wrote:
> >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> > > <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > > [..]
> >
> > >> Among items that I offered, Shiv doesn't tell why
> > >> retroflexed consonant sets do not show up in IE languages
> > >> that are not from the subcontinent.
> >
> > > For the same reason:
> >
> > > a) That British after living in India for many years did
> > > not pick up retroflex consonants. See the hindi spelling
> > > of Pune where the n is retroflex and contrast it with how
> > > british wrote it.

> British were invaders and so were Aryans according to your school. If Aryans, when they invaded, had no problem in "learning"/"acquiring" retroflexes why would the British?

Because Hindustani lacks true retroflexes? (I'm only quoting the Wikipedia article on Indian English.)

Actually, isn't the difficulty for the British less acquiring passable 'retroflexes' than acquiring contrasting dentals? English has alveolar stops.

Where did the retroflex in English [t`ri:] <tree> come from? (Actually, I tend to use the affricate /tS/ in such words rather than a retroflex stop.)

Like some varieties of Irish English, Indian English often has a dental-retracted contrast <three> v. <tree> and <then> v. <den>, though aspiration also plays a role in the latter.

Indian Aryans developed dental-retroflex contrasts internally - the question is rather what stabilised them and made the contrast primarily dental v. retroflex.

Some contrasts are stabler than others - /s/ v. /s./ took a hammering (completely lost in Pali), and, if I remember aright, the Hindi contrast of /n/ and /n./ reflects single v. geminate rather than Old Indic retroflex v. dental. Sanskrit borrowings will complicate the picture.

> > > b) That people in south east asia (thailand/burma/cambodia
> > > etc) who were taught religious texts both in Sanskrit and
> > > Pali did not pick up retroflex consonants.
> >
> > Not comparable: they weren't living amongst large numbers of
> > native speakers of languages with retroflex consonants.
>
> No. Have you heard of Cholas? Do you know if they ruled over Cambodia?

Is that a settled issue? There's not a lot of evidence for it, though I wouldn't rule out a port being controlled for a while.

> Amazing number of Sanskrit inscriptions have been unearthed in these countries.

There are a lot of Latin inscriptions in England. More seriously, in Cambodia, religious matters called for the use of Sanskrit (or Pali), and mundane matters for the local language. However, local linguistic habits can be hard to break. I don't think any language has borrowed voiced aspirates from Sanskrit or Pali, and while Lao has a letter for Indic <r>, the struggle to distinguish it from /l/ was lost long ago. Have you looked at what Khmer does to Indic loanwords? Vowels are dropped all over the place, even when the Cambodians would have no problems pronouncing them. I don't think foreign retroflexes would stand much chance in such an environment.

> You need to get a good book on Indian linguistics. Gypsy alphabet lost *all* retroflexes. This implies people who moved out of India could easily loose their retroflexes because these were tough sounds to utter.

Look at what they turned into - /r/ and /r^/. Are there similar correspondences in non-Indic languages?

Richard.