Re: Uralic Continuity Theory (was: Meaning of Aryan: now, "white peo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > Wow, Uralic loans into Indo-Iranian. I bet the OIT
> > meshuga-wallas are dancing in the streets
>
> You liked that, huh? And I didn't even say that. But Burrows did in
> 'The Sanskrit Language', p. 22-24 (the fun part comes last):
>
> "(...) It is usually quite clear that these words have been borrowed by
> Finno-ugrian from Indo-Iranian and not vice versa. We have equivalents
> of the words in other IE languages, and before being borrowed into
> Finno-ugrian they have undergone the changes characteristic of the
> Aryan branch. Even where an Indo-Iranian word has no actual equivalent
> in the other IE languages, its structure and the possibility of
> deriving it from a known IE root will often show it to be an old
> inherited word. For instance Skt. vájra-, Av. vazra-, is formed with
> the well-known suffix -ra (IE -ro), and can be derived from the IE
> root which appears in Gk. (w)ágnumi 'break, smash'. There are however
> a few words in the above list where it is not possible to be certain
> in this way. Nothing like the Indo-Iranian word for 'bee' (No. 21) is
> found in any other IE language, and this makes it more likely on the
> whole that in this case the Indo-Iranians have adopted a Finno-ugrian
> word. Similar considerations apply to Nos. 22 (Skt. s´u:ka-) and 23
> (Skt. chá:ga-). There may be further examples of Finno-ugrian words in
> Indo-Iranian, but the matter has never been investigated from this
> point of view. As plausible equations we may mention :
>
> Skt. kapha- 'phlegm', Av. kafa-, Pers. kaf 'foam, scum'
> :
> Hung. háb 'foam, froth, cream', Veps. kob´e 'wave, foam', Sam. (Kam.)
> khòwü ' foam';
>
> Skt. kú:pa 'pit, well'
> :
> Fi. kuoppa 'pit', Lapp guöppe, C^er. kup, Voty. gop, etc.;
>
> Skt. s´ala:ka: 'splinter, etc'
> :
> Hung. szilank 'chip, splinter', Fi. sale, 3. saleen 'id', etc.
>

Each could be the other way as well, and of course Aryan, like the other branches of IE, has words, whether of PIE stock or locally borrowed, that it didn't share with the other branches, and that it could have imparted to Uralic along with its forms of more common IE words.

> In cases like these, and others could be added, no IE etymology has
> been found for the Sanskrit words. Since it is certain that we must
> assume long contact between the early Indo-Iranians and the
> neighbouring Finno-ugrians, and since there is no reason why the
> movement of words should have been entirely one way, we should
> consider Finno-ugrian to be a likely source of Aryan words in cases
> like the above where striking similarity in form and meaning is found.
>

Actually there is a plausible scenario in which the loans would indeed all be one-way, viz. if the early Aryans who were in touch with Uralic were emigrants from the Aryan centre rather than settled neighbours: they could transmit their words to the settled Uralic people, but what they borrowed did not go back to the Aryan centre or not in a way to make an impact there. Just as they imparted some vocabulary to the Kassites and Mitanni Hurrians (and likewise later to Southeast-Asian languages) without borrowing Hurrian or Kassite words themselves, and without having their homeland in or even next to Hurrian or Kassite territory.

The one most plausible instance of Uralic-to-Aryan is the word for "bee". Apiculture was not native to the Aryan lands and imported there from Russia or so, so the term may have come along with the product.

For all the "voilà" triumphalism, this evidence of Uralic-into-Aryan that should spite the "OIT meshuga-wallahs" so badly, is quite meagre. And for being the official paradigm since more than a century, the close-to-Uralic Urheimat hypothesis ought to have come up with more and better proof from the Uralic vocabulary.

Kind regards,

KE