--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> When I said that there were quite a few substate words in Old Indo-
Aryan (meaning not only the Rigveda but also the later stages), one
of the list members remostrated using the same numbers as proof that
the influence was very weak. I'd say that if Kuiper's count is
roughly accurate, the early Vedic percentage can be regarded as
pretty low, not higher than the expected average for non-insular
languages.
Considering that R.gveda is neither a neolithic stone-cuttter's nor
an pastoral-agriculturist's manual, I think the perecentage is not
low.
Ain't it notable that as many as 30% of the agricultural terms in
Hindi are from language X? Kuiper has also noted (cf. Zide, A. and
N.H. Zide, Semantic reconstruction in proto-Munda cultural
vocabulary. Indian Linguistics 34, 1973, 1-24) that many Vedic
agricultural terms are from "an unknown third language" (cf. Zide &
Zide 1973: 15).