----- Original Message -----
From:
kalyan97
To: pieml@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 4:25
AM
Subject: [pieml] Re: IE: likely home, India
> 1. Sanskrit
has both k and c before y: va_kya, va_cya
> 2. Sanskrit has cukopa, jugopa
without a palatal vowel
Such forms result from morphological, not
phonological processes. Sanskrit has innovated by levelling out much of the
original alternation, but enough of it survives (e.g. vakti < *wekWti :
avocat < *eweukWet = {e we-wkW-e-t}, to demonstrate that the levelling
is secondary. Actually, there is no proof that the Sanskrit reduplication of
<cukopa> etc. with *u is older than the non-IIr *e-reduplication pattern.
(*ke-koup-e). Obviously analogical "exceptions" cannot disprove the regularity
of a sound change. We would have a reason to worry if the distribution of velars
and palatals did not follow the expected pattern in forms that cannot be
paradigmatically motivated. But that is not the case.
> 3.
Linguistics does not explain why Greek presents a dental instead of a
palatal when followed by a palatal vowel
What on earth is this supposed
to mean? (Attic) Greek shows <t> rather than <p> for *kW before *e
and *i, and if you have an apical reflex of a historical velar, it's rarely due
to anything else but palatalisation. Greek <t> from *k reflects a former
palatalised consonant. This, however, is an inner Greek development (Mycenaean
still had <qe-> for *kWe-) and I fail to see its relevance to the
discussion of Sanskrit.
> 4. In reduplications, a palatal appears for
a velar in Sanskrit by dissimilation.
So why do we have <gVg-> and
<kVk-> with no dissimilation in hundreds of Sanskrit words? Why does this
"dissimilation" operate precisely in the environment where other IE languages
indicate a following front vowel?
> 5. Gypsy languages researches
indicate that Indo-Aryan a remains a in Asiatic Gypsy but it becomes a,e,o in
European Gypsy. 'This confirms that original IE a was same as Skt a and remained
a in the Indo-Iranian languages, but changed to a,e,o in their sister
languages...Gypsy languages present evidence with the linguistic changes by
repetition of what had happened several thousand years back'.
A vague
parallel like that (splits do happen, so what?) does not outweigh the very solid
evidence that Indo-Iranian *a is the product of a merger. The evidence has
convinced every linguist since 130 years ago, except Misra, who chooses to
ignore the obvious for reasons best known to himself. Even if no other IE
langauges were known to us, internal reconstruction within IIr would still
reveal that fact.
> 6. 'Although Indo-Iranian a (or Skt a) was
retained in Old Iranian and subsequently also in Old Persian, it has
considerably changed in Avestan. The change of Iranian a in Avestan may be shown
as follows: Examples; 1) a > A when followed by m,n,vi_ but preceded by any
sound except y,c,j,z'; 2) a >i when followed by m,n,vi_ and preceded by y,c;
3) a > e after y when immediate next syllable had i_, e,y,c,j or r'jh ( =
Skt. sy); 4) 1> o sometimes after labial sounds when the next syllable had
u/o; 5) a > a in all other situations. The change of a to several vowels
a,e,o in Avestan was conditioned by definite situations. But the change of a to
a, e, o in Greek, Latin and to a,e in several other languages was a change for
which no condition can be determined. This shows that these languages belong to
a much later date.
This is nonsense piled upon nonsense. If Greek, Latin
and "several other languages" owed their vowel contrasts to a split at a "much
later date", we would _not_ expect the conditioning factor to have evaporated.
The more recent a change, the more evident its conditioning context, since it
takes time for other processes to obscure the regular pattern produced by the
change.
> 7."The reconstruction of a as made by Schleicher, Bopp and
Grimm is more appropriate than the later reconstruction of a,e,o as made by
Brugmann etc. (followed by many including myself), if the Aryans hd India
as their home and had gone out to different parts of Europe and Asia via Iran.
The original a (=Skt a) is retained in Old Iranian (with changes in Avestan
under different circumstances) and gratually changes in various historical
languages for which the change of climate also might have been partly
responsible.'
Whatever homeland you believe in, the Brugmannian revision
of the vowel system must be accepted for reasons that have everything to do with
logic and nothing to do with climate. Even assuming for the sake of the argument
that India was the cradle of IE, Misra's historical phonology remains
rubbish.
> 8. Laryngeal theory is questioned. 'The Anatolian languages
were writeen in a Semitic script and the Laryngeal symbol of the semitic script
was frequently used in writing the Anatolian languages. First of all this might
have entered as an orthographic inaccuracy but subsequently it might have been
phonetically established in the
Anatolian languages.'
It apparently escapes Misra that laryngeal
theory was formulated before the decipherment of Hittite. Anatolian evidence
corroborates it rather spectacularly, but the theory is convincing even
without it. The fact that the Hittite "orthographic innacuracy" happens
to correspond to independently reconstructed *h2 or *h3 is of course
another miraculous coincidence. The laryngeals have also left many traces
in Indo-Aryan, but Misra is selectively blind to anything that might clash with
his fundamental conviction that Sanskrit is the most archaic of all IE
languages.
> 9. 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.'
To connect Dravidian with IE you would
require some positive evidence derived from the rigorous application of
comparative method. Arguing from the absence of negative evidence is like
claiming that the moon must be mostly made of blue cheese, because
no-one has dug into it deep enough to prove that there in no blue cheese inside.
Lists of lexical correspondences and typological similarities between Indo-Aryan
and Dravidian prove nothing about common origin; they only show what everyone
knows anyway -- Indo-Aryan and Dravidian have been geographically close for ca.
4000 years -- surely long enough for areal diffusion to produce a good deal of
convergence. To be sure, the diffusing traits (with the possible exception of a
few individual wanderworts) have never reached the non-IIr branches of IE, but
who cares? The other branches "belong to a much later date" and might just as
well not exist.
> 10.Every other language speaker (except Sanskrit) claims that he
came from outside; there is no evidence in early Sanskrit texts for such an
ingress into India.
It would surprise you (and Misra) how
many peoples (including IE-speaking ones) believe in their ethnic and
linguistic autochthony since the dawn of time. The fact that so many people in
India cling to such a belief so tenaciously is of some sociological interest,
but is irrelevant from the point of view of historical linguistics. If you want
to know where a language came from, the opinion of its native users may contain
a grain of truth but is not necessarily more important than more objective
evidence. The Roma people had managed to forget all about India as their place
of origin by the time they appeared in Europe. The spread of Indo-Aryan in
India is unlikely to have looked like a dramatic conquest or "ingress" -- more
likely a gradual process of penetration and acculturation, involving many
semi-nomadic groups and many generations of people.
Piotr