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

--- In mailto:cybalist%40yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

> If you just consider the linguistic evidence at even a macro-level, it's obvious
> 1. That Indian-Aryan is derived from Indo-Iranian, which is derived from Indo-European
> 2. That Indo-Aryan acquired loanwords and phonological features such as retroflex consonants upon entering the subcontinent, as did languages from other families including Dravidian, Munda, Burushaski, and even some Iranian languages of the subcontinent.

> 3. None of those loanwords or phonological features show up in the Indo-Iranian ur-language and none show up in Indo-European. It is true that some loanwords left India but this happened in historical times and can be accounted for

These seem to be consistent with Johanna Nichols' suggestion of a Bactrian origin for Indo-European. Is that idea a form of 'Out of India'?

***R I guess it depends on your idea of where Bactria is and what part of  of Bactria. I think of Bactria as consisting of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, maybe a bit of the other "stans." But only if you agree with Nichols. I thnk Indo-Aryan was originally somewhere Crimea and Tajikistan, more likely between the mouth of the Don River and Iran. I agree with Witzel that Indo-Iranian was in contact with BMAC,

> 4. There is a stock of Witzel's BMAC words that shows up in Central Asian languages of the day as well as Indo-Iranian
> This shows to anyone that the direction is from Central Asia into the Indian subscontinent

Please remind me why these words weren't spread from Indo-Iranian to the others.

***R Because Indo-Iranian mainly spread south and east, There certainly were Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages (Sindes) that headed westward but either Western Indo-Iranian was either minimally exposed to BMAC vocabulary or there was a time gap between the time when Scythian and Sarmatian went west and interacted with Slavic et al. Also, Daco-Thracian, with which Iranian would have probably interacted, is dead as a door-nail.  Witzel and quite a few people on the list  can answer that much better than I can,

Richard.