From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18921
Date: 2003-02-20
----- Original Message -----
From: <kalyan97@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 1:43 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: "Will the 'real' linguist please stand up?"
> In addition to Misra, there are Harmatta and Johanna Nichols who
hold views different from Piotr's.
Harmatta? The fact that Misra used his data does not mean that Harmatta's views concerning the location of Proto-IIr. are significantly different from mine. They are certainly different from Misra's. I'd disagree with Harmatta's dates, his needless multiplication of chronological layers and other matters of detail, but there are no major problems as regards the general tenor of his work.
Johanna Nichols locates PIE in Central Asia, using pioneering methodology the reliability of which has not yet been tested properly. I'm not persuaded that it works at all, and in any case such "trial versions" of new methods must be treated with caution.
> As I understand the unresolved problem, it is related to fine-tuning
Proto-Indo-Aryan as distinct from Proto-Indo-Iranian.
What unresolved problem?
> Burrow notes that some Finno-Ugric forms are borrowings from Indo-
Iranian and not from Old Indo-Aryan (e.g.Finn. seta, '100; Sanskrit
s'atam, Av. satem; Finn. arvo, 'value'; Sanskrit argha; Finn.
sisar, 'sister'; Sanskrit svasar-, Av Xvanhar; Mordv. s'va, 'goat';
Sanskrit cha_ga). The rule: Sanskrit s' = Iranian s, Finno-Ugric s';
Sanskrit s = Iranian h, Finno-Ugric s. Witness initial h- of Hung
aranya (Sanskrit hiran.ya).
> V.I. Abayev, 1981, Pre-hisory of Indo-Iranians in the Light of Aryo-
Uralic contacts,in: Ethnic problems of the history of central Asia,
in the early period, Moscow. All the forms attested as Proto-Aryan
borrowings are present in Sanskrit (e.g. Saami arjan, 'southern;
Sanskrit arya, Av. airya; Finn. jvya, 'corn'; Sanskrit yava, Av.
yava; Finn. vermen, 'thin skin'; Sanskrit varman, 'cover'; Finn.
marras, 'dead', Indo-Iranian mr.tas, Sanskrit mr.tas, 'dead').
> Misra notes: aj is Rigvedic as the corresponding Indo-Iranian form
should be az' and Iranian az (< Indo-European ag'), as Indo-European
g' becomes z' in Indo-Iranian and j in Sanskrit.
The Iranian shift *s > h is a late change, and the treatment of Satem palatals is not even uniform within Iranian (Avestan should not be taken as the sole representative of Iranian). The forms interpreted as "Rigvedic" by Misra are actually Proto-Indo-Iranian (or even early Iranian, which still had affricate reflexes of Satem palatals). Of course those forms resemble Vedic, since PIIr. is a not very distant ancestor of Vedic, but careful analysis shows them to be pre-Indic. The substitution Satem *g^ --> FU *j (pronounced like Skt. <y>, not <j>, by the way) is very old and perfectly natural, given the limitations of the FU inventory of phonemes.
There are a number of errors in the forms cited in your posting, but I'm not going to correct them now, not at 2 p.m.
Good night,
Piotr