--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <smykelkar@...>
wrote:
>
> "Munda languages of India are more distantly related to Mon-Khmer,
all together forming the Austroasiatic family. According to the ideas
> discussed at the 2004 South East Asian Linguistic Society meeting
in > Bangkok by Prof. David Stampe (Uni. Hawaii), India may be the
homeland > of Austroasiatic, and Mon-Khmer reflects an offshoot that
migrated > eastward. In this model there is not a simple split of
Munda versus > MK, rather Austroasiatic has perhaps 3, 4 or more old
branches, with > MK one of these, or an offshoot of one of these. In
that case the > identification of a distinct Munda branch is
premature, and it may be > better to reserve the term Munda for just
the sub-group containing > Mundari, Santali etc. The division of
North versus South Munda is > certainly oversimplified, according
David Stampe (pers. com.) 4 > sub-groups are reconstructable, but
how they form a family tree is far > from clear." Paul Sidwell, May
2005
> http://www.anu.edu.au/~u9907217/languages/languages.html
>
> [...]
>
> "Munda structures are far more various and cognates far fewer than
> in Dravidian, and likewise than in eastern Austroasiatic. This
> suggests that the Austroasiatic people may have dispersed from
South > Asia rather than South-East Asia, and that the shift of
Munda from > rising to falling rhythm, after the eastern languages
had moved > eastward, may have been the cause rathern then the
effect of the > profound polarization of South and South-East Asian
language structures."
>
> http://www.degruyter.de/journals/ysall/2004/pdf/2004_3.pdf
> Rhythm and the synthetic drift of Munda by Patricia Donegan and
David Stampe
Dear Dr. Kalyamnaraman,
I have collated this newly-proposed Munda taxonomy and Austroasiatic
homeland hypothesis by David Stampe with other competing taxonomies
and homeland hypotheses in a synopsis I have written on Austric and
Austroasiatic. I have posted the latter as a Winword document in the
group's Files section. The name of the file is "The Austric &
Austroasiatic homelands". This is the base of a discussion I have
planned to start on the Indo-Eurasian_research List with Prof.
Witzel (who collaborates with Stampe in the new online dictionary of
South Asian substrate words).
I am presonally more inclined to the older Austroasiatic homeland
hypothesis, which is still supported by comparative linguists such
as Robert Blust, Gérard Diffloth and others; according to this
hypothesis, the Austroasiatic language family would have originated
in the region comprised between S.W. China and N.W. Indo-China. As
to the new Munda taxonomy proposed by Stampe, I am not competent as
to decide on its validity...
Thanks for reading.
Francesco