Re: Witzel and Sautsutras

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

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@> wrote:

> > Actually, isn't the difficulty for the British less acquiring passable 'retroflexes' than acquiring contrasting dentals? English has alveolar stops.

> Well Pratisakhya writers do talk about retroflexes as nati which literally means curving of the tongue away from where it produces alveolar sounds to the cerebral region.

I was talking about Hindi, not well-enunciated Sanskrit.

> > Indian Aryans developed dental-retroflex contrasts internally - the question is rather what stabilised them and made the contrast primarily dental v. retroflex.

> What is your thesis?

Old Indic developed sounds that were close to retroflex. When the language was adopted by speakers whose native language had retroflexes, these Old Indic sounds were pronounced as retroflexes. These new speakers were perfectly capable of pronouncing retroflexes where the original Old Indic speakers would not.

> Besides why would the Sanskrit retroflexes fit neatly between palatals and dentals in the series if they were all learnt from some other group?

Now, it may have helped if the 'dental' sounds of Indo-Iranian were truly dental rather than alveolar. Possibly such a clear distinction could have been encouraged by the rich set of sibilant sounds in Indo-Iranian - original IE /s/, the satem reflexes of /k^/ etc. and the softening of the reflexes of /k/ and /kW/ etc.

> > > No. Have you heard of Cholas? Do you know if they ruled over Cambodia?

> > Is that a settled issue? There's not a lot of evidence for it, though I wouldn't rule out a port being controlled for a while.

> Here is a list of kings of Cambodia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavavarman_I
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cambodian_monarchs

SE Asian kings of established dynasties have Indian names - or at least, names composed of Indian elements. I think you'll find that King Sihamoni is more Italian than Indian. Many Thais have Indian names too.

> If we follow the current thesis why do you think Aryans "the foreign invaders" would "learn" retroflexes from the local Dravidians?

The "foreign invaders" appear to have recruited natives. I am sceptical as to the retroflexes originally coming from Dravidians. Burushaski speakers seemed like a good possibility, but I see that there are suggestions that they too are incomers, or at least, have a fair amount of non-Indian ancestry.

Is there not evidence of some of the early Brahmins *not* coming from the Panjab?

> > > You need to get a good book on Indian linguistics. Gypsy alphabet lost *all* retroflexes. This implies people who moved out of India could easily loose their retroflexes because these were tough sounds to utter.

Actually, voiced retroflex stops also take a battering in India, easily becoming retroflex liquids - even in Vedic Sanskrit!

> > Look at what they turned into - /r/ and /r^/. Are there similar correspondences in non-Indic languages?

> Haven't checked . Have you found anything?

I've never heard of such correspondences.

Richard.