Re: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language

Someone please explain to Shivkhokra the origin of Indo-Aryan languages. My understanding is that they are derived from Prakrits, i.e. local spoken languages that came from Old Indian, the ancestor of Sanskrit, which was and is, a written language. Sanskrit was used in the court, by the priests, etc. but was a polished artificial language, rather like Classical Latin. Just as Spanish, French, etc. did not descend from Classical Latin, but form Vulgar Latin, Indo-Aryan languages came from the local spoken analogues of Sanskrits, the Prakrits. This is my understanding of the matter. But it is superficial.

From: shivkhokra <shivkhokra@...>
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 7:58 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family

Gurudev,

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@> wrote:
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@> wrote:
>
> > > > Thus River Oder is named after Sanskrit Udra meaning an aquatic animal which in sanskrit neuter gender means water. In Polish it is called wydra (read vedra) and in english/german otter (oder).
>
> > > > Why would European river name(s) have Sanskrit meanings?
>
> > > Sanskrit, Germanic and Balto-Slavonic.
>
> > This did not parse.
>
> I meant that the 'otter' and 'water' meanings of related words are attested in Sanskrit, Germanic and Balto-Slavonic and Sanskrit.
>

Would you know when these words were first attested in Germanic and Balto-Slavonic?

> > But no other European language, including Greek, can clarify all accent related discrepancies in Grimm's law. Only Sanskrit could.
>
> I was not aware that the application of Verner's law matched Sanskrit better than the other branches when there was a discrepancy.
>
> > So why would Germanic not be a descendant of Sanskrit?
>
> Does Sanskrit actually have any descendants?

I thought all Indian languages like Hindi/Marathi etc descended from it.

>There are a lot of minor discrepancies between modern Indian languages and Sanskrit, though Sanskrit was just very similar to their ancestor. The word for 'six' usually (always) does not match.
>

[I've turned escape codes into ASCII. Please use e-mail to post if you must use bytes outside ISO-8859, and advise what encoding you are using if not using Latin-1/ISO 8859-1/Windows-1252. - Richard]

Is this really a problem? In Pali we have many forms where Sanskrit "s^" becomes a "ch". Example Sanskrit s^a:va (young animal) is Cha:pa in Pali. Similarly Sanskrit s.as. turns into "Chah" in Hindi. Other Indic tongues retain the sibilant as Kashmiri has "Sha" and Marathi has "sah" for six.

> Sanskrit itself has far too many changes to actually be the ancestor of Germanic.
>

Is there a write up I can read on this? I am very curious!

> The satem shift has gone too far to have been reversed,
Can you please explain what you mean by this?

>and, gh before front vowels and g^h have simplified to /h/, whereas they yield *g in Germanic.

Can you please give an example of this?

>The denasalisation of syllabic nasals is also irreversible, e.g. English _hundred_ v. Sanskrit s^ata-.

But what makes syllabic nasals archaic?

>Assimilations such as *nizdos > Skt ni:d.a- (Pali nid.d.ha-) are also irreversible.
>

Sorry but can you explain why *nizdos is archaic?

-Shivraj