The league would have to include the
Munda languages spoken in the subcontinent, Burushaski, and -- in the diachronic
perspective -- an unknown number of hard-to-identify extinct substrata. Besides,
"Indo-" has somehow come to be understood as shorthand for "Indo-European",
whereas the only branch involved in this particular Sprachbund is Indo-Aryan. I
suppose you mean that many people's intuitive guess on hearing of an "Indian
League" would be that it must be an organisation of native Americans. What
can we do? The word "Indian" has been abused in too many ways through history.
Perhaps we should insist on restoring the historically correct meaning to it,
after all.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Indian League
Wouldn't something like "the Indo-Dravidian Sprachbund" be
better?