Re: Witzel and Sautsutras (was: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

> Now, another quetion. Years ago, someone posted that there was some
> Indo-Aryan substrate evidence in Iranian, including areas taht are
> now southerm Iran, indicating that Indo-Aryans were there first. I
> forget who posted that, but it wasn't a crackpot. The person didn't
> follow up with any of the purported evidence, however. Anyone know
> anything about that?

The discussion you hint at is certainly this one (I had forgotten it!):

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/53456

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/53463

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/53468

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/53624

The transfer of river names (AFAIK, *not* in southern, but in eastern Iran) from the hypothesized Proto-Indo-Aryan languages of eastern Iran / Afghanistan to Iranian (*sarasvati > haraxvaiti, *sindhu > hindu, *sarayu > haroyu) is explained away by Burrow (see the article I have uploaded in the List's Files section, pp. 126-27 and 132) in the following manner:

"A possible explanation would be that the Proto-Indoaryan language of eastern Iran (or part of it) in this period had undergone a change of s- to h-, similar to that in Iranian" (p. 132).

However, H.H. Hock has pointed out that the change of common Indo-Iranian /*s/ -> Avestan /h/ may in fact be fairly late. In an article of his, A. Hintze too has argued for the late date of this phonological change, which, according to her, would have take place at c. 1000 BCE only -- a date roughly coinciding, according to the most up-to-date linguistic and philological research, with the supposed period of composition of the oldest Avestan texts (cf. A. Hintze, "The Migrations of the Indo-Aryans and the Iranian Sound-Change s > h," in W. Meid [ed.], _Akten der Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft in Innsbruck 1996_, Innsbruck 1998). Consequently, the incoming Iranians of eastern Iran and Afghanistan could have at first borrowed from the pre-existing remnant Indo-Aryan populations inhabiting those regions such river names as *sarasvati, *sindhu, and *sarayu, and subsequently transformed them to haraxvaiti, hindu, and haroyu following the s > h sound change that characterized Old Iranian at c. 1000 BCE.

There is certainly little linguistic evidence that this sound shift may have occurred at a much earlier date. A. Parpola and C. Carpelan, for instance, hold a different view from Hintze and Hock's and consider this sound change an isogloss connecting Iranian, Greek and Armenian. Consequently, they date the final split between Iranian and Indo-Aryan to c. 1800 BCE and go as far as to place the locus of this dialectal divergence in the Ural river region

I also think Thieme's contention that the missing *s > h sound shift in the Mittani treaties (admitted that is really demonstrable) would overall prove the Indo-Aryan origin of the supposed Indo-Iranian linguistic material included in them, is not really determinant. More important are the other remnants of early Indo-Aryan in Mittani belonging to a pre-Rigvedic stage of Indo-Aryan discussed in great detail in M. Mayrhofer's works and summarized in Witzel's paper at

http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0703/ejvs0703article.pdf
(see §18 -- "Absence of Indian influence in Mitanni-Indo-Aryan")

Best,
Francesco





________________________________

> From: Francesco Brighenti <frabrig@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 5:32 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Witzel and Sautsutras (was: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of...)
>
>
>  
>
>
>
> --- In mailto:cybalist%40yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
>
> > Now, taking into account that the Iranians once putatively
> > worshipped the Indian gods until sometime around the time of
> > Zoroaster -- or so I've read; and that the main difference with
> > Iranian seems to be initial /s-/. Is it possible that Mittani
> > Substrate and Sindes are descended from some branch that broke away
> > from proto-Iranian or from Indo-Iranian?
>
> In my opinion, as well as that of most of Indo-Iranian specialists, it isn't. See the paper by Thomas Burrow, "The Proto-Indoaryans", which you can access through this message:
>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/70232
> (read especially the first two or three pages)
>
> A discussion on the Zoroastrian daevas (demons) known after Iranian names which are identical to those of certain Vedic gods (indra etc.) can be found at pp. 128ff. in Burrow's paper. His hypothesis is that these condemned daevas were never (Proto-)Iranian nor Proto-Indo-Iranian (= Proto-Aryan) gods, but were originally gods worshipped by Proto-Indo-Aryans who had settled in eastern Iran before the Iranians migrated to that region from northwestern Central Asia.
>
> Kind regards,
> Francesco
>
> ________________________________
> > From: Francesco Brighenti <frabrig@>
> > To: mailto:cybalist%40yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2012 10:30 AM
> > Subject: [tied] Re: Witzel and Sautsutras (was: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of...)
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > --- In mailto:cybalist%40yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > > An interesting place to look, which, I believe Torsten commented on
> > > is Crimea, for the Sindos-Meotians (vel sim). They seem to have IE
> > > vocabulary absent from Vedic. Their language also seem lambdic as
> > > opposed to Vedic rhotcisms. The term Sindos, however, seems to me an
> > > exonym, perhaps applied to them by peoples who identified them with
> > > peoples of the Indus/Sindhos valley. Has anyone done any serious
> > > indepth research on this group?
> >
> > Cyril (Kirill) Babaev, founder of this List, once had an online article which also covered the topic of the so-called "Pontic Aryan" language(s) and the former assessments of this question by Kretschmer and Trubachov. It can be retrieved here:
> >
> > http://web.archive.org/web/20060712182124/http://indoeuro.bizland.com/archive/article17.html
> >
> > Sindes also is the name of a river (with persisting, pre-/non-Iranian s-) mentioned by Tacitus (Annales X.10); it divides the Dahae from the Arii, and thus refers to the Merw (Murghab) or Tedzhen river.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Francesco
> >
>