--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...>
wrote:
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/rig/ch7.htm
> "...the Dravidian words for camel (Tamil-Malayalam oTTagam,
> Kannada-Telugu oNTe, Toda oTTe, Brahui huch, etc.), lion (Tamil
> cingam, Telugu siMhamu, Kannada siMha, etc.) and rhinoceros (Tamil
> kANDAmirugam, Telugu, khaDga-mRgamu, Kannada khaDgamRga; note also
> the Sanskrit word mRga, animal, necessarily added to the basic
> name), are all derived from the Sanskrit words. Likewise, the
> Austric words for camel (Santali Ut, Khasi ut) and lion (Santali
> sinho, Sora sinam-kidan, etc.)
>
> Talageri (2000)."
I have presently no time to get involved in a linguistic discussion
on terms for 'camel', but, only to put the record straight:
1) Talageri is right in stating that the above Dravidian words for
camel, lion and rhino were borrowed from Indo-Aryan. Indeed, Proto-
Dravidian has no names for these three animals (see B. Krishnamurti,
_The Dravidian Languages_, Cambridge Univ. Press 2003, p. 15).
2) Pace Arnaud (msg. #62026), no Proto-Dravidian word *oNT- 'a kind
of domesticated animal (> camel)', cognate with the vaguely similar-
sounding Sumerian/Akkadian, Turkic or Tibetan words he mentions in
his post, can be reconstructed; hence, there is no chance for such a
non-existing proto-form to have been taken over by Santali and Khasi
(i.e. Austro-Asiatic) speakers in the form Ut/ut 'camel'. A cursory
look at the entry uSTra in Turner's _Comparative Dictionary of the
Indo-Aryan Languages_ at
http://tinyurl.com/54umrn
will suffice to understand that the sources for the Dravidian and
Austro-Asiatic words for 'camel' mentioned by Talageri (see above)
are Middle Indo-Aryan forms such as Pali oTTha, Prakrit uTTa;
compare also Sinhalese oTuvaa. As regards Santali and Khasi
specifically, compare Assamese and Bengali uT, Oriya uTa ~ oTa,
Hindi U~T. All of these words, derived from Old Indo Aryan uSTra,
mean 'camel'.
3) According to Mayrhofer (EWA I 238, KEWA III 652) and Diakonoff
(JAOS 105, 1985, 600), Middle and Late Akkadian udru 'two-humped
camel' is a loan from Iran (not sure whether from Old Iranian us^tra
or from some non-documented Central Asian substrate language -- see
point 5).
4) According to Lubotsky, Proto-Indo-Iranian *(H)us^tra- 'camel'
(> Old Indo-Aryan uSTra, Old Iranian us^tra; the laryngeal is
reconstructed on account of the /þ/ in Zaraþus^tra < *zarat-
Hus^tra 'having old camels'?), not reconstructable to PIE, is likely
to represent a borrowing from a Central Asian substrate language,
although he admits that "theoretically, it can be an IE formation
*(H)us-tRo-/*(H)uk'-tRo-". The two-humped ("Bactrian") camel was
first domesticated by the people(s) of the Bactria-Margiana
Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in the third millennium BCE.
Regards,
Francesco