From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18976
Date: 2003-02-21
----- Original Message -----
From: <kalyan97@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 3:57 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: "Will the 'real' linguist please stand up?"
> If Prakrits is interpreted narrowly in linguistic terminology, I
> will go with the terms, proto-indo-aryan, pre-Vedic indic, pre-indo-
> aryan substrate, assuming the three terms mean the same thing.
They don't. "Proto-Indo-Aryan" = the common ancestor of all Indo-Aryan languages (including Vedic, Sanskrit and all the Prakrits). "Pre-Vedic Indic" = any stage in the development of Indo-Aryan more ancient than Vedic. "Pre-Indo-Aryan substrate" = any ancient NON-Indo-Aryan language of India replaced or absorbed by Indo-Aryan.
> I am looking for the languages of 3500 BCE in IVC region.
>
> Have any studies been done on these, similar to the studies done for
> PIE (which is also not documented)? Do they refer to any PIE or IE
> influences?
PIE is accessible indirectly via its (very numerous and well-documented) offspring. The old pre-Aryan languages of India have died out leaving only substratal traces in Indo-Aryan. They cannot be reconstructed from such data, though some useful information about their structure and vocabulary can be extracted from loanword studies. That's all until somebody cracks the Indus Valley writing system.
Piotr