--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:
>
> Please refer to the files section for Proto Vedic Continuity
> Theory.doc, a document organized into the following sections:
>
> Part 1: Limitations of Indo-European Linguistics
> 1. 'Love' of Sanskrit as a camouflage for evangelism
> 2. Unfalsifiable Teach Yourself PIE
> 3. Indeterminate laryngeals
> 4. Aryan race ideology
> 5. Eurocentrism
> 6. A fading discipline hangs on to slippery genes
>
> Part 2: Bharatiya Language Studies
> 7. Studies needed to delineate the Indo- in Indo-European
> 8. Study of Prakrits from Paleolithic times
> 9. The Proto-Vedic Continiuty Theory of Bharatiya Languages
>
> Thank you for reading!
I recommend that those who pay for connections by the minute not
bother. Further translation to English is needed.
The attack on the recontruction of *snuso-s from:
Sanskrit: snusha Greek: nuos
Old English: snoru Armenian: nu
Russian: snokha Albenian: nuse
Latin: nurus
is the sort of thing I would expect of Kazanas. Where did the
corruption of 'Albanian' to 'Albenain' come from?
The correspondences of sn- and n- are backed up be other examples -
there is a problem here, summed up by 's mobile', but the simplest
solution is to start from *sn and assume that other languages, with
varying degrees of regularity, lost the initial /s/ from such
combinations.
"The first vowel must be u rather than an o. Russian and Old English
have muted that to an o. The majority rule applies here. So so far the
proto word is *snu".
How much of the argument reported here is original? The /o/ in
Russian and Old English can be derived by general sound change rules -
indeed, there is Church Slavonic _snuxa_, and even an Old High German
variant _snur_. Starting from PIE *o would be very difficult.
Note that the validity of the reconstruction depends on the fact that
one deals with correspondences repeated through the vocabulary of the
languages - it depends not on a single PIE reconstruction but on many
such reconstructions.
Actually, at least 3 of the forms are a-stems: Sanskrit _snus.a:_ (the
length rather matters!), Old English _snoru_ and Russian _snokha_.
The point is that there is no reason for a feminine form to change to
a masculine form, but every reason for a masculine form to be changed
to a feminine form for a clearly feminine noun. The origin of the
anomaly seems to be that the o-stems were not originally a primarily
masculine/neuter declension - many Greek adjectives which were o-stems
had no specific form for the feminine.
There may be some extra evidence for the word originally being an
o-stem - I think Old High German _snur_ argues for Germanic also
preserving the o-stem form.
As to the semantics of the word, I think you mean to say
'daughter-in-law', not 'sister-in-law' - that is the primary meaning
of the Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and German cognates and the meaning
given in Pokorny. However, there does seem a natural tendency for the
semantics of the word to vary:
Greek: also 'any female connected by marriage'; 'bride, mistress'
Latin: also 'young woman'.
I am reminded of the semantics of the similar Thai word _(sa)phai_ -
although that has the primary meaning of 'daughter-in-law', it has
subsidiary meanings of 'bride' and can generally mean a female
relative by marriage (but not of an elder generation), so a sibling's
wife is _phii saphai_ or _nOOng_ saphai_ and for clarity a
'daughter-in-law' is _luuk saphai_. The spelling seems to have been
affected by association with Pali word _subHa_ 'beautiful'.
No discernible evidence is offered for the notion that Dravidian and
Munda should fit within the same family as Germanic and Indian. I'm
not surprised at the lack for Munda - if there were any evidence a
Nostratic affiliation would have been suggested.
Richard.