--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:>
Firstly, "substrate" refers to non-PIE languages - and yes there
have been> studies in these words in PIE, but I don't think that's
what you mean. I'm> guessing you mean the language(s) that develop
into PIE.
Thanks, Pete.
I mean both. Because, I am mainly looking for glosses of the parole
in vogue (say, in Anau or in Yahya Tepe or Nausharo or Mehergarh),
of a period prior to formation of PIE.
I am proceeding on the assumption that there would have been
movements of people out of and into sites such as Mehergarh circa
6500 BCE. This site seems to have been in contact both land-based
and coast-line cultures since there is evidence for acquisition of
raw materials from distant sources: e.g., carnelian bead resources,
copper and turbinella pyrum (shell) -- the latter quite likely from
Makran coast (Karachi). There is evidence precisely dated to 6500
BCE of a woman's burial with ornaments made of turbinella pyrum.
I would assume that the word for this shell should have been
something like kon:gu or s'a~k (s'an:kha).
Similarly, if Sumerians had adopted a word for a (copper) merchant
as tibira, it is likely that the word was cognate with tam(b)ra,
since these people acquired the resource either from Dilmun (Persian
Gulf) or through Meluhha colony merchants in the Gulf sourcing the
material further north-east or east (a source is Khetri mines in
Rajasthan). It is intriguing that a Sumerian word san:ga means a
priest; in Gujarati, sanghvi_ is a leader of pilgrims.
Similarly, if they had depicted an elephant on some epigraphs, they
might have called it, say, ibha (recognized as a PIE word).
So, I am looking for words which were in use at about the 7th/6th
millennium in this region now noted as a PIE area. It is likely that
some of these words might have been used by those who later became
PIE speakers.