Re: [pieml] IE: likely home, India

This is of course nothing new. Misra has been doing his thing for thirty-odd years. His linguistic colleagues have refuted his views several times (H.H. Hock did so exhaustively, expertly, and as tactfully as possible in 1999, that is, after the ten-lecture series in question). As far as I can see, the criticism has had no effect on Misra, who keeps on reversing the irreversible in his sound laws (*s' > *k etc.) and historical chronologies. This is why it's impossible to take him seriously.

Misra's linguistics flies in the face of all sound methodology. He puts the cart before the horse by assuming (rather than demonstrating) that Sanskrit _must_ be the most archaic IE language, and then bends the facts so that they would fit this preconceived idea. This is nothing new either. The exceptional antiquity of Sanskrit was taken for granted (and PIE was more or less identified with Sanskrit) by many of the early historical linguists until the 1870s, when scholars realised that e.g. the three-way vowel inventory (*a, *i, *u) was _demonstrably_ an Indo-Iranian innovation, not an archaism of that branch.

Consider a form like <ca-ka:r-a>, which is derived from the root <k(a)r->. The theory that it derives from the pattern *kWe-kWor-e accounts for the structure of the reduplicated perfect outside Indo-Iranian and -- crucially -- accounts for the peculiarities of the Sanskrit form itself. We normally expect reduplication to copy the initial consonant. In Sanskrit, however, velars are palatalised in the reduplication syllable (cf. <ja-ga:m-a> etc.). Why this should have happened before /a/ (or, worse still, only before some occurrences of /a/) is a mystery. Why <caka:ra> rather than "kaka:ra" or "caca:ra" (or "kaca:ra", for that matter)? The curious incident of Sanskrit palatalisation taking place in those cases where all the non-Indo-Iranian branches point to *e can only be a miraculous coincidence, if one accepts Misra's position. Note also that Sanskrit palatalises velars before any /i/ that corresponds to *i outside Indo-Iranian (which strengthens the argument that the "palatalising /a/" reflects an original front vowel), but there is no palatalisation before those /i/'s that do _not_ correspond to extra-Indo-Iranian *i. Why's that? And the fact that open-syllable lengthening as in the second syllable of <caka:ra> (Brugmann's Law) correlates with the occurrence of apophonic *o outside Indo-Iranian is another miraculous coincidence -- needless to say, only from a strictly Misraic point of view.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: kalyan97

Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 6:30 PM

Subject: [pieml, tied] IE: likely home, India

For a different view, I am appending a rather long extract from the concluding lecture of a ten-lecture series delivered by Prof. Satya Swarup Misra. In my humble opinion, this constitutes a well-argued statement from an I-E linguist who has, since 1968, written many books on the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Greek and Hittite (and many other Indo-European languages). A work by Satya Swarup Misra and Sushila Devi, 'Dravidian and Indo- Aryan: A comparative study' is in preparation. Some major conclusions are: 1. Dravidians are Aryans; 2. India is the likely homeland of Indo-Europeans/Aryans; 3. After Sanskrit, Iranian is the second most archaic language in the Indo-European language family; 4. Rigveda must be dated beyond or much beyond 5000 BCE. "The linguistic structure of Sanskrit demands an archaic status for it in the IE language family. Other historical IE languages such as Avestan or Greek are like daughters of Sanskrit on the basis of linguistic changes. Greek was given an archaic status on the basis of retention of a,e,o of IE, but evidence of the Gypsy languages conclusively prove that a of Indo-Aryan was changed into a,e,o in European Gypsy. A similar change of a to a,e,o is quite likely in an earlier period. The change of IE palatal k^ to palatal s' in Sanskrit is also doubtful because Sanskrit itself shows change of palatal s' to k as a positional variation.. Thus, Sanskrit deserves a highly archaic status and on the basis of the archaic linguistic structure a much earlier date than the date given by the European scholars. "The Uralic languages present loan words from the early Vedic stage upto New Indo-Aryan stage. Harmatta has ascribed 5000 BCE as the date for the earliest loan words, which he has worked out on the basis of linguistic changes. He has shown the oldest form to be Iir. But I have shown that the earliest loan words belong to the Rigvedic stage. Therefore, the date of Rigveda must go beyond 5000 BCE. "The Indus civilization culturally and linguistically presents a continuation of the Vedic civilization. The apparent non-similarity of the rural civilization of Rigveda and the urban civilization of Indus Valley can be solved by taking Indus civilization as a later development of the Vedic civilization… "The study of the Indo-Aryan loan words in Anatolian also presents a language similar to a very early stage of MIA, belonging to a transitional stage between OIA and MIA. Therefore, we may ascribe 2500 BCE to 2000 BCE as a date for the transitional stage between OIA and MIA and 2000 BCE as the starting period of MIA proper. "Epic Sanskrit, which is the earliest stage of classical Sanskrit may be tentatively placed between 5000 BCE (the date of RV) and 2000 BCE (the date of MIA) that is about 3500 BCE. Tentatively we put the date of Ra_ma_yan.a of Va_lmi_ki in 3500 BCE and of Maha_bha_rata of Kr.s.n.advaipa_yana Vya_sa in about 3000 BCE, since the language of the two do not differ much. The theory that Maha_bha_rata precedes Ra_ma_yan.a is baseless. "The archaic structure of Sanskrit and the date of Rigveda as beyond 5000 BCE, demands that India, the place for composition of the Rigveda, must be the original home of Indo-Aryans as well as Iranians. Iranian literature refers to an earlier place of residence viz. Haptahindu i.e. Saptasindhu of the Rigveda. Thereby their original home in India is also confirmed. Indo-Aryans in their earliest literature of Vedas and Pura_n.as never speak of any original home and there is no literary or archaeological evidence nor any tradition in India, which refers to any former place of Indo- Aryans. Therefore, we are sure that India is the original home of the Indo-Aryans, and Iranians. I have shown above that Iranian is the second most archaic language of the IE language family. If India is the original home of Indo-Iranians, there is a fair chance that this is the orignal home of Indo-Europeans. "Although there is no evidence that Indo-Aryans have come to India from outside, there is enough evidence that they have gone outside India again and again in pre-historic times. The loan words in Uralic languages provide evidence of Indo-Aryans going to Uralic area beginning from the 5000 BCE (i.e Rigvedic times) upto the New Indo- Aryan period. The Caucasian languages also speak of the going of Indo- Aryans to this place several times. "Indo-Aryan loan words in Chinese and Korean also give some evidence that Indo-Aryans were going out to various other places in prehistoric times. "The Indo-Aryan loan words attested in Chinese and Korean, are placed in the 2nd-3rd millennium BCE by Harmatta, who however wrongly calls them proto-Iranian. He says `Finally we still have to give some hints about the migration of Proto Iranians (= Indo-Aryans) towards Eastern Asia'. The loan words although small in number are quite significant to attest the presence of Indo-Aryan speakers in those areas. The loan words from Chinese and Korean taken from Harmatta are cited below. The Sanskrit forms are supplied by me, to show they are more Indo-Aryan than Iranian: Chinese: Forms shown below are archaic Chinese forms reconstructed by Harmatta. *k'an `cut' cp. Skt khan `dig', Av can *g'wan `martial', cp. Skt han/ghan- Av nan-/jan *dz.cwan `create', cp Skt jan `create', Av zan *swdn `grandson' cp Skt su_nu, Av hunu *akk^ `bad, evil, wrong' cp Skt agha `evil, bad', Av ana Korean: Pad- `field', cp Skt pada-, Av pada- `foot', `place' Yoka `bind', cp Skt yukta `bound', Av yaoXta Sul `wine', cp Skt sura_ `id.', Av hura_ Sena `old' cp Skt sana- `id.' Although Harmatta has taken the source of borrowing to be Proto- Iranian and Proto-Indian (=Indo-Aryan), actually the forms are mostly Indo-Aryan and a few forms may be Iranian, out of these, Indo-Aryan forms may be early borrowings and Iranian forms may be late borrowings. "These loan words clearly show that Indo-Aryans were going out to various places in various periods. Thus, this helps us in taking India as the original home of Aryans, by supplying evidence o people going out to other distant places like China and Korea in ancient times. "In this way Indo-Aryans have gone to several parts of Europe and Asia in prehistoric times. In historical period which is linguistically the starting period of NIA, the Gypsies had gone out to Asia and Europe in the 4th century BCE. Therefore, we have enough evidence that Indo-Aryans were going out in prehistorical and historical periods, but we have no evidence which shows that they have come from outside. .. "Classification of Dravidian as a separate race or as a separate language family is a hasty conclusion, because no proper linguistic comparison of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian has ever been attempted. The Dravidians are also Aryans. "There are many common words in Dravidian and Indo-Aryan which are taken as loan words from one to the other, since no proper comparison is made as yet. There are phonological and morphological similarities. The structure of Dravidian as examined by me is to a great extent of New Indo-Aryan type. Therefore, there is no question of Indo-Aryans driving away the Dravidians. Thus, there is no doubt that India was the original home of Indo-Aryans (including Dravidians) and Iranians and there is a possibility that it was the original home of the Aryans i.e. Indo-Europeans since there is enough evidence that Indo-Aryans were going out in historic and prehistoric times. "But other branches of Indo-European, on the contrary, present sufficient evidence that they have come to that place from outside. "The Greek people have come to Greece from outside… "The Hittites have also gone to the later Hittite empire from outside… "The Germanic people also show evidence of coming from outside…it is quite likely that the Germanic people first of all reached South Scandinavia and North Germany and spread in other parts at the cost of the Celts. "But the Cletic people were in turn also outsiders… "The Slavs also reached the Slavonic area coming from outside… "The Iranian people were not originally in Iran. They have gone to Iran from India… "India presents the oldest record of the Indo-European languae family. The language of Rigveda presents archaism unparalleled with any other branch of Indo-European…it seems quite likely that India was the original home of Aryans (or Indo-Europeans). The date of Rigveda as shown above must be beyond or much beyond 5000 BCE."(pp. 73-77) Source: Satya Swarup Misra, 1999, The date of the Rigveda and the Aryan Migration, Pune, Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit, University of Pune [Based on ten lectures, delivered during August 1997, at the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit in the University of Pune by Prof. Misra, Department of Linguistics, Banaras Hindu University provide details of the linguistic evidence.] For extacts in pdf format (NB: each URL is a very large sized file), email kalyan97@...