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

--- "sreenathan.ansi" <sreenathan.ansi@...>
wrote:

> -
> 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
>

My instinct is that most large language groups spread
out after the development of agriculture.
The exceptions, of course are mainly areas where
agriculture never arrived until recently --South
Africa. And where a specialized technology performed a
role analogous to agriculture --the adaptation to
Arctic life among the inuit and the introduction of
the dingo and the boomerang into Australia about
4-6,000 years ago which probably accounts for the
spead of Pama-Nyungan.
But it's just my intuition. Someone else will have to
back it up or discredit it with evidence