----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re:
Indo-Iranian
> Dardic is a collective term for some
hard-to-classify
> northwestern members of the Indic branch -- their
proximity is geographical
> rather than genetic.
Am I right, comparing this situation with the
"Semito-Hamitic" family?
At first all non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages
were classified as Hamitic, however later it was demonstrated that they form a
few independent groups in the framework of the Afro-Asiatic family, and some of
them (Egyptian ?) could be closer to Semitic than to any other
AA branch.
If so, a few questions arise.
1) Are there among the Dardic languages some
ones which are closer to the post-Sanskrit Indian (i.e. non-Dardic Indo-Aryan)
languages than to other Dardic subgroups?
2) How should we classify Mitanni
Indo-Aryan?
Variants (D.1, D.2 etc. - different Dardic
subgroups):
Indo-Aryan
/ \
Mitanni A. \
non-Mitanni A.
/ | \
\
Sanskrit D.1 D.2 ...
| | | |
Prakrits
or
Indo-Aryan
/ | \ \
\
Mitanni A.
|
D.1 D.2 ...
Sanskrit
|
| | |
Prakrits
or
Indo-Aryan
/ | \
\
non-Dardic IA D.1 D.2
...
/ \
Sanskrit
\
| | | | Mitanni
A.
Prakrits
3) What is the place of Vedic language in
these schemes?
Are there among the Dardic languages some ones
which are as close to Vedic as the post-Sanskrit languages?
Alexander