Hi Rick,
--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>
wrote:
> There is some Vedda substrate in the Vedda dialect of Sinhala,
> from what I read, but I gather it's not very substantial.
> Is there a Vedda substrate in Sinhala as a whole? Wikipedia
> mentions a substrate in S. Dravidian but doesn't state if it's
> Vedda or not. Is there any way to tell?
From M. Witzel's paper on South Asian substrate languages in _Mother
Tongue_, Special Issue, Oct. 1999:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/MT-Substrates.pdf
<< The South is frequently supposed to have been Dravidian from times
immemorial. However, in the refuge area of Nilgiris with their
isolated Drav. tribes (Toda, etc.), we find a substrate, see
Zvelebil 1990, 63-70. Isolated words indicating this pre-Drav.
substrate (Zvelebil 1990: 69f., Zvelebil 1979: 71f.) include the
following Irula words: mattu 'lip', Do"kene, dekene, Dekena,
Dekkada 'panther', ovarakaGku, OrakaGku, OraGgeku, OraGge,
Orapodu 'tomorrow' (unless DEDR 707 Tam. uR2aGku 'to sleep'),
buNDri 'grass hopper' (unless DEDR 4169), muTT(u)ri 'butterfly'
(unless DEDR 4850 miTL 'locust'), vutta 'crossbar in a house'. These
instances should encourage Drav. specialists to look for substrates
in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, etc. However, just like the propagators
of indigenous "Aryans" in the North, Dravidians of the South
frequently think that they are autochthonous. >> [Note:
Anthropological literature says that Irulas possess "Negrito"
morphological features -- Francesco]
<< In Sri Lanka, the remnant population of the Vedda now speaks
Sinhala (De Silva, M.W. Sugathapala, Vedda language of Ceylon; texts
and lexicon. Mu"nchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft. Beiheft n.F.
7. Mu"nchen: R. Kitzinger, 1972). The substrate that they may have
preserved is in urgent need of thorough study, carried out by
comparing Pali, Sinhala and Tamil words. Some typical words,
interestingly many with geminates, that cannot be linked either to
Sinhala or to Tamil are: cappi 'bird', munDi 'monitor lizard',
potti 'a kind of bee', panni 'worm', rukula 'home, cavity' (see de
Silva 1972 : 16; his vocabulary, pp. 69-96, does not contain
etymologies). >>
<< [E]xcept for the few items pointed out for the Vedda and Nilgiri
languages, the prehistoric linguistic situation of South India
(before Dravidian) is entirely unclear: in this respect, a lot of
spade work needs to be done by Dravidian specialists. >>
I recall that G. van Driem treats the subject of the alleged Vedda
substrate in Sinhalese extensively in his _Language of the
Himalayas_ (while I'am not sure he does the same with the alleged
Nilgiri substrate). I think you may have access to that book to
study the matter further.
> Were there any Dravidian languages in Sri Lanka before the arrival
> of Sinhala? Or was Tamil the first to arrive? I'm guessing Tamil
> arrived not too long after Sinhala.
This is also what I am inclined to think judging from what I've read
on this subject, but mind that tens of thousands of people have died
in Sri Lanka in the past twenty-odd years due to the opposite views
held, respectively, by the Sinhalese and the Tamils on this very hot
historical issue; better don't touch it if you don't want to get
burned!
Best wishes,
Francesco