Re: [tied] Re: Indo-Iranian

----- Original Message -----
From: fortuna11111
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 7:25 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Indo-Iranian


Piotr, regardless of the thesis, I think in a translation you could use the
Indo-Iranian languages in general. You use Sanskrit to translate from Old
Persian.
No. When Old Persian inscriptions were first worked out, familiarity with
Sanskrit was certainly helpful, but now Old Persian studies are a completely
independent field. If you want to prove that an inscription is in a Slavic
language, you must interpret it in Slavic terms. The fact that some words
seem to make sense in terms of Old Prussian or Latvian doesn't support your
thesis. The same holds for Indic and Iranian.

> As to Dardic, isn't it a part of the so-called Nuristani, showing some
very old form of Indo-Iranian?
No, although they are neighbours in and around the mountains of northeastern
Afghanistan. Dardic is a collective term for some hard-to-classify
northwestern members of the Indic branch -- their proximity is geographical
rather than genetic. Nuristani is a separate group of languages, usually
regarded as the third branch of Indo-Iranian.

Cf.

http://users.sedona.net/~strand/index.html

(the Dardic peoples and languages are discussed under the heading
"Indo-Aryan-Speaking Peoples")

> There are, supposedly, sources pointing out at the Bulgars coming from
Pamir and Hindukush. Having in mind the quality of the other evidence
presented by Dobrev, one would have to look more carefully at those as well.
One of the souces quoted is the
Armenian "Ashharazujts" (no idea how this is correctly spelled in English).

Oh, Eva, mind if I sigh? I did my best to explain clearly why Dobrev's
"evidence" is worthless. What sources do you have in mind? I don't recall
any serious hypothesis to that effect.

> This phonology is not very clear on Nuristani, especially on the
development of the l-sonance in those languages.

Oh really? What "l-sonance"? This is an extremely naive thing to say, given
your general lack of familiarity with those languages. And what is it
supposed to prove anyway?

> I think Dibrev did not use this dictionary from what I can conclude from
his work.

If he did not use a Bulgarian etymological dictionary or asked any linguists
for help, it was unforgivable negligence on his part

>> For example, <kUs^ta> is certainly Slavic (< *ko~tja, cf. SCr. kuc'a,
Maced. kuk'a).

> This could be a loan.

Pause and read your comment again. _What_ could be a loan? From where? The
reconstruction *ko~tja for Proto-Slavic is secure, and the word is not
etymologically isolated in Slavic; it definitely looks like an inherited
lexeme. SCr. <-c'->, Maced. <-k'-> and Bulg. <-s^t-> (thus already in OCS)
are independent developments of PSl. *-tj-, so Old Bulgarian can't be the
source from which other Slavic languages took the word.

> I owe an explanation about Vassil. He is not a linguist and it was my
precipitated reaction to give the link to his page. On the other hand, I
see at least one positive outcome - that a discussion started and brought
some results (and may bring others). Yet Vassil never attempted to make a
professional page on linguistics.

Vassil is a member of our list and he's perfectly able to speak for himself.
A general remark: if one wishes to be taken seriously as a respectable
source of information, one _must_ adopt a professional approach. There's no
other way. Of course even blatant pseudoscience may ignore reality, fly in
the face of sound methodology, and still appeal to the tabloid-reading
public because of its romantic sensationality, but that's not the level we
aspire to on Cybalist.

Piotr