--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...>
wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@>
> wrote:
> >
> > > What is the scholarly consensus about the classification of
> > > Nuristanilanguages?
> >
> > To the best of my knowledge it's classified as an Iranian language.
>
> No, it's a separate branch of Indo-Iranian. The classification of
> Nuristani languages as representing a third branch of IIr. besides
> IA and Ir. was first proposed by Georg Morgenstierne in "Dardic
> Regards,
> Francesco
Strand's views about the classification of Nuristani languages (which
is also the mainstream view) must be reconciled with his view about IE
orignins:
"The phylogenetic position of these languages within Indo-European was
disputed by earlier scholars, until Georg Morgenstierne of Oslo
University established that they formed a third branch of
Indo-Iranian, in between Indo-Aryan and Iranian. I can add little to
his view, except to flesh out a best-guess scenario for the history of
these languages, based on native traditions, recent archeological
syntheses of scholars like Marija Gimbutas, and my own observations of
phonetics in the field.
Around the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., some 800 years after
the first Indo-European peoples expanded out of their Volga Basin
homeland into Europe, new waves of horse-mounted tribesmen who called
themselves Aryas expanded south and east around the Caspian Sea from
the Volga Basin, driving other Indo-European speaking peoples before
them. Those Aryas who spread south into the region between the Caspian
and Black Seas bumped up against the Caucasus Range, which for some
fifteen hundred years served as their southern border. These southern
Aryas were the precursors of the Indo-Aryan speakers of the Indian
Subcontinent. By the beginning of the third millennium the remaining
Aryas to the north had expanded to the west around the Black Sea, into
Europe's Danube basin, and to the east around the Caspian Sea, into
the basin of the Amu Darya. These were the precursors of today's
Iranian speakers. Ahead of the eastern Iranian expansion were driven
the precursors of the Nuristânis."
M. kelkar