Re: Caucasian Languages in India (was: Who can explain the compariso

-
Dear Francesco
Thanks for your reply. Yes I agree with you. But what I have
experienced among the Dravidian linguists(India) is that they look
tribal languages mostly from an angle of the standard language and
try to fix its distance from the dominant tongue and then claim it
as dialect of that dominant language. In this process the
exclusiveness of a tribal tongue is getting neutralised. So the
observation of Zvelebil is nodoubt an appreciable attempt. still we
need to study more about pre dravidian substratum.
I am told that there is enough cognates were observed between
Australian aboriginal languages and Dravidian.I don't have direct
access to such a database. But I found it is interesting. There are
number of groups like, Kadar, kurumba, Irula etc shows negrito l;ink
Moreover, some genetic studies also linking south Dravidians with
Australia. In addition to that the South Indian archeolgical out
comes are also appreciating the inhabitation of people during
paleolithic times.
I personally feel,Dravidian experts have to consider more deeper
level analysis instead of blindly sticking on the argument that they
are the indigenous.
regards
sreenathan



-- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...>
wrote:

>
>
>
> Hi Sreenathan,
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "sreenathan.ansi"
> <sreenathan.ansi@> wrote:
>
> > I hope you are suggesting Nilgiri groups of languages as pre
> > Dravidian substratum.
>
> 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]
>
> Best,
> Francesco
>