Re: [tied] The Dravidian Salesman

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> [...] the Rigveda represents traditional poetic language,
> certainly more conservative and puristic than the colloquial
> language, which may have been much more receptive to foreign
> loans.

On the other hand, many of these loans did not survive into
Mid-Mod IA, which use(d) words with IA etymology: For example pa:Ni
instead of ni:ra etc. See the discussion in Bryant's book.

>
> Secondly, I said "Old Indo-Aryan", not just Rigvedic. That
> includes several later stages, such as the language of the
> Brahmanas and of the Sutras, and finally Epic and Classical
> Sanskrit.

Epic and Classical Sanskrit cannot be taken by themselves, but
only in conjunction with contemporary MIA. The oldest stratum of
the Pali Canon is older than either and any chronological
argument that does not fit these in is incomplete at best. [I know
that it is common to proceed as if 3rd C CE Sanskrit is more
archaic than 2nd C BCE Pali, that it is still incorrect when
talking about vocabulary, syntax or mythology.]

> I have no statistics to offer, [...]

Exactly. Overall vocabulary is larger, the range of topics
touched on is much more varied. You need to compare percentages,
not raw numbers.