Re: [cybalist] avestan and vedic

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2111
Date: 2000-04-13

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Odegard
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 1:42 AM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] avestan and vedic
 
Mark,
 
They are far from being the same language, though it's true that sometimes whole sentences can be translated from Vedic into Avestan or back without changing the word order or using non-cognate words. However, there are some very important differences as well, and the ancestral language of the Indo-Iranians can hardly have been uniform after 2000 BC. In other words, at the time when the Avesta was composed, the two branched had been drifting apart for one and a half millennia at least.
 
Piotr

 
My understanding is that Avestan and Sanskrit are essentially the same language, very closely related dialects. I'm not sure how to compare closeness, but it seems closer than Danish/Swedish; the differences, such as they are, might be likened to those between Czech and Slovakian.  In any event, the conclusion is that the immediate ancestor of both Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan is proto-Indo-Iranian.
 
As for dates, I've seen dates as early as 1500 BCE for the earliest RV hymns, with the place of composition probably north of Afganistan, at the back-end of modern China. Yes, some seem to have been composed on the eastermost steppe, or at least, faithfully reflects traditional material dating from the steppe period.
 
I really would like to be able to talk as well about the Asvins as I can about Leda's two boys.