--- "fournet.arnaud" <
fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:
(responding to M.Kelkar)
>
> ============
> How do you account for the river names :
> dniepr and dniestr
> Well-known to be Indo-Iranian ?
****GK: Not the best evidence per se. These names were
not attested until the 4th c. AD. The Indo-Iranian
interpretation of earlier appellatives (Borysthenes,
Tyras) for today's Dnipro and Dnister is not entirely
dismissable, but has been seriously questioned. The
best theory (cf. Stryzhak uploads in the files)
suggests a flumen+flumen solution (lower reaches
reflecting Iranic and upper reaches "Thrakoid" and
even Baltoslavic elements, with eventual contamination
rather than elimination as in the classical
Ister-Danubius cntinuum). Nor is the undetectability
of substrate contribution in hydronyms conclusive,
given the proven "total washout" effect in multiple
cases. I agree with the notion that a thin crust of
newcomers is frequently all that it takes to influence
language change, and that this is likely what happened
in Pakistan and Northern India, for instance. There
are difficulties, but none insuperable. While the
opposite notion (OIT) has no plausibility whatever in
any convergence
(linguistics+archaeology+history+genetics+whatever)scenario.
Indian autochtonists are about as convincing as
Tacitus re the Germans or the classical Scythians
about themselves as per Herodotus.****
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