Re: [tied] Re: Dravidian in Persia?

Here's Iravatham Mahadevan's critical assessment of Asko Parpola's admittedly ingenious attempt to decipher the Indus script:

http://www.harappa.com/script/maha15.html

Retroflexion is of course characteristic of Dravidian, but if Rigvedic Indo-Aryan had the retroflex series before it began to borrow words from Dravidian, one has to consider other substare languages as the possible source of retroflexion -- perhaps in Dravidian _as well as_ Indo-Aryan. Retroflex consonants occur also in Burushaski (a linguistic isolate), in Dardic, Nuristani, and in the Iranian languages of the Afghan region (Pashto, Parachi, Ormuri, some Baluchi dialects, most of the Pamir languages). As these languages do not form a genetic grouping, only a geographical one, retroflexion must be considered an areal trait, possibly picked up from a pre-IE substrate of Central Asia.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: naga_ganesan@...

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Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 1:26 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: Dravidian in Persia?

Regarding the question of when Dravidians reached India, Bernard Sergent has an answer: In Indology@... archives, Dr. L. M. Fosse wrote << The latest theory I have seen concerning this matter is given by Bernard Sergent in his recent book "Genèse de l'Inde". On the basis of physical anthropological material as well as cultural and linguistic, he claims that the Dravidians migrated from Africa and ended up in India after a stay in the Mediterranean area. The alleged similarities between Dravidians and Uralian languages is supposed to have come about through the mechanisms of area linguistics, indicating that at least some Dravidians and some Uralians lived in the same area for long enough to influence each other's language. Incidentally, Sergent does not believe that the Harappans were Dravidians - that is, except for the population in the south of the IVC area. Again, his reasons are anthropological. (He does not suppose that the IVC culture was monolingual). The Dravidians are supposed to have reached India before the 8th millennium. BTW: anthropologically they are Mediterranean, and therefore what we might term black whites. >> Note that most scholars proposing the Dravidian entry into India dates, do not know not only any Drav. language, and definitely not the oldest dravidian texts, the sangam texts. For analyses of Dravidian being the high Harappan language, refer to Asko Parpola, Deciphering the Indus script, CambridgeUP, 1994, and esp. his articles after 1994. See also the interview by Iravatham Mahadevan who cracked the code for reading the earliest Tamil inscriptions from 2nd century BC available in Sri Lanka and S. India. One point to be considered in Dravidian language family's antiquity is drav. relations with any other language family is so remote pointing to the remote times when it has reached India. Munda languages of the eastern India are tribal languages who have no writing. No texts prior to 100 years! And they have close relatives in South East Asia. Vedic is related heavily with old Iranian. But none for Dravidian. Retroflexion is strongest in the South, and linguists point to the systemic retroflexion in Indian languages being originating in dravidian.