Re: [tied] Anatolian and Indo-Aryan: some pointers on chronology

----- Original Message -----

From: kalyan97

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 2:37 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Anatolian and Indo-Aryan: some pointers on chronology

--- In cybalist@......, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@......> wrote:
>> ... The compound <aika-wartana-> (<a-i-ka-ua-ar-ta-an-na>) contains the Indic shibboleth *aika- 'one' as opposed to Iranian *aiwa-. But the same word demonstrates that the dialect is not Middle IA.

> Maybe, but Paul Thieme has demonstrated differently based on R.gveda texts, and seems to lend support to Misra's views.

 

I know what Thieme has written on the subject. Unless he has suddenly changed his mind unbeknownst to me, the above is a gross misrapresentation of his views. I've never seen him claim that Mitanni Indo-Aryan is less archaic than Sanskrit. I think he would fully agree with what I said about the dialect being a very early form of Old Indo-Aryan, closely related to though not directly ancestral to Rigvedic Indo-Aryan.

 

> On the terms, Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian, Misra has views which differ from some others'. He sees a 2000 year gap between Veda and Avestan/OP. Here is why (whatever may be the opinions on Misra's method of doing linguistics): <snip>

 

Well, he sort of abandons the concept of Indo-Iranian, because according to him Sanskrit is to all intents and purposes ancestral to Iranian. That's untenable. His view that Iranian (just like any other IE language) is "less archaic" than Sanskrit is based on a circular argument. First, he establishes a dogma according to which Sanskrit is the most archaic member of the family -- because, erh ... because Misra says so. Then of course any difference between Iranian and Sanskrit must be due to Iranian having innovated, right?

 

In fact however, although Iranian on the whole might seem to be more innovative than Indo-Aryan, there are respects in which it is more archaic (for example, it retains the contrast between *tk^ (> *Cs^ > *s^) and *tk(W) (> ks^ > xs^), merged as /ks./ in Indo-Aryan, and preserves old *z, i.e. voiced *s, vocalised in Indo-Iranian -- cf. Avestan mazda:-, miz^da- vs. Skt. medHa:-, mi:d.Ha-). Misra selects those features of Iranian which have analogues in Middle Indo-Iranian (all of them commonplace developments) but conveniently forgets to discuss those that falsify the view that Iranian "deserves a much later date", to cite his strange locution.

 

Piotr