--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...> wrote:
> > > Here I reprdouce a message from Dr. Kalyanaraman on the proposed
methodology.
> > >
> > > "[...] Nahali glosses are a stunning reminder (with 40% Munda,
40% indo-aryan and 20% dravidian words) > > > that there was a
linguistic area in Bhimbhetka times."
>
> Please see nahali.doc in the files section. Nahali should be
> considered a language integrate with respect to Bharatiya languages.
The thesis proposed here is that there was a 'language continuum'
or 'linguistic area' in South Asia (viz., 'Bha:rata' according to
Kalyanaraman & Kelkar's terminology) dating back to Mesolithic times
(viz., the estimated age of the oldest paintings found in the
Bhimbetka caves in central India), and that the various strata of the
Nahali language reflect the co-existence and mutual structural
relationships of some unrecognized prehistoric language(s) with
Austroasiatic, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages in central India AS
FAR BACK AS THE MESOLITHIC PERIOD! As put by Prof. Subhash Kak, one of
the (U.S.-based) Indians who caress this linguistic theory, "[t]hese
languages [Munda, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan] may be said to belong to
the Prakrit family of languages. We use the label 'Prakrit' since it
has been traditionally used to describe all Indian languages. In other
words we argue that in general one might speak of membership of a
language to more than one family."
Prof. Kak's linguistic speculations are best illustrated at
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/indic.pdf
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/ary2.pdf
But what have been the *real* linguistic findings made by the
competent scholars who have delved deep into the "Nahali enigma"? Here
are some excerpts from a book written by a historical linguist who has
reviewed a century of comparative studies on Nahali:
From G. van Driem, _Languages of the Himalayas_, Leiden-Boston-Köln,
Brill, 2001, Vol. I.
p. 248:
"Robert Shafer saw Nahali as a language isolate which in ancient times
had adopted many Austroasiatic words, had subsequently been exposed to
Dravidian languages, whence Nahali had acquired a number of loans,
including the numerals `two' and `four', and later became subject to
considerable borrowing influence from the North Munda language Kurku."
pp. 249-50:
"In Nahali, Kuiper identified the Kurku and Dravidian loans, which
represented `the most recent strata of the language', and determined
that they constituted 36% and 9% of the Nahali lexicon, respectively.
Kuiper recognised `the existence of Munda elements in Nahali, long
before it came under the spell of Kurku' and identified the elements
of this `older Munda stratum which it seems hard to identify with any
of the branches of Munda now extant'. Kuiper stressed that Shafer
had `rightly recognized the existence of an early Austro-Asiatic
stratum that is distinct from the later stratum of Kurku words',
although `the identity of this Austro-Asiatic (early Munda) component
remains an unsolved riddle' (1962: 38, 50-51). None the less, about
one quarter `of the Nahali vocabulary has no correspondences whatever
in India', and this `large number of words
, if the Nahals represent a
proto-Indic population _in situ_, may possibly reflect one of the
oldest linguistic strata of India now attainable to research' (1962:
49-50)."
p. 250:
"Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow believed that Nahali could either be an isolate
or represent a distinct branch of Austroasiatic, but that Nahali `is
at any rate not Munda' (1963: 151). Pinnow called the hypothetical
branch of Austroasiatic which Nahali embodied `West Munda', which was
coordinate with `East Munda', consisting of the accepted branches
North and South Munda. The reason for including Nahali in his
tentative Austroasiatic phylogeny was that Pinnow entertained the
conjecture `that Nahali possesses an isolated non-Austroasiatic
substratum that has been partially replaced by an Austroasiatic
stratum which has also provided Nahali with its inflection' (1963:
152). [
] In light of Pinnow's suggestive morphological evidence,
Kuiper expressed the view that `if Pinnow's provisional conclusion
that the Nahali verbal system derives directly from the Proto-Munda
one should prove correct, we might consider the possibility of
identifying the early Munda elements in Nahali with that hypothetical
branch of Austroasiatic which may be called _para-Munda_' (1966: 81)."
p. 251:
"Kuiper's well-known application of the concept of argot or
_Gaunersprache_ to a subset of genetically unidentifiable portion of
the Nahali lexicon was inspired by knowledge of the symbiotic
lifestyle of the Nahali and the Kurku, relative to whom the Nahali
occupy an inferior social position: `
the question arises whether the
Nahals may perhaps have had recourse to the same weapon that despised
social groups have used all over India, viz. the secret language'
(1962: 12). This is not to say that Nahali has ever been spoken
exclusively as _Gaunersprache_ rather than as the native language of a
group of people, or that Nahali do not somehow speak their language
natively. Kuiper's concept of the _Gaunersprache_, for which many
parallels are found inside and beyond the Indian subcontinent, is
intended to remind us `that some of the obscure Nahali words may also
belong to an argot, and need not necessarily date back to a linguistic
pre-history of India' (1962: 14)."
p. 252:
"Norman Zide came out in support of Kuiper's other hypothesis, i.e.
that Nahali is not Austroasiatic, but the only surviving remnant of
something called Proto-Indic which antedates the advent of
Austroasiatic, Dravidian and later Indo-Aryan."
p. 252:
"Adsha Mundlay's Nahali data, consisting of a list of 1,660 words,
many of which, however, are evidently Kurku or Hindi loans, were
finally published in 1996. Mundlay holds Nahali to be Austroasiatic,
possibly with greater affinity to South Munda. [
] Mundlay professes
with candour that the actual basis for her belief in an Austroasiatic
genetic status for Nahali is her adherence to `the axiom that the
language is guilty of genetic contact unless proved incontestably
innocent of it' (1996: 16). Only a detailed grammatical investigation
of the language can answer the question whether Nahali is a Munda
language or an Austroasiatic language at all or represents `a proto-
Indic population _in situ_'."
p. 253:
"The paucity of data on Nahali leaves much room for gratuitous
speculation on the genetic affinity and provenance of the language.
Bengston (1996) entertains the hypothesis that Ainu and Nahali belong
to an Austric macrophylum and adduces two dozen unconvincing
correspondences. Frans Kuiper, who had already noticed the more
obvious of these correspondences years before, more prudently
expressed the feeling that `as for such possible correspondences as
Nah. a:po : Ainu apoi, ape `fire', they will be passed in silence, as
it is impossible in the present state of our knowledge to decide
whether they are anything more that accidental similarities' (1962:
50). Even a Nostratic origin for Nahali has been considered, e.g.
Dolgopol'skij (1996)."
Regards,
Francesco Brighenti