Re: Elamo-Dravidian

Glen wrote

> Yes, Nostraticists are very open to this relationship. However,
> the exact relationship of Sumerian and Dravidian are yet a mystery
> and definitely not entirely agreed upon. My personal thoughts
> so far are that Dravidian is more closely related to Elamite
> (cf. McAlpin), forming an ElamoDravidian family. From there,
> Sumerian and ElamoDravidian would then be sister language groups.

This is my view also. There are some intriguing connections between
Indus settlement in Oman and even Bahrein (Dilmun) used Indus Valley
weights and measures, not Mesopotamian ones. If the Indus
civilisation was basically Dravidian this would suggest a close
Dravidian connection to Dilmun, the supposed Sumerian homeland
(according to Sumerians themselves).

> I suspect (based only on deduction so far) that Sumerian was
> heavily influenced by a language ancestral to HurroUrartian that
> had come down from the north, bringing with it agriculture during
> the neolithic. There has been talk of agriculture-related words
> that appear "foreign" in Sumerian, however I'm always skeptical of
> such claims unless a source can be reasonably provided and so far
> I've heard little mention of clear connections with HU words
> or words in any other family, to be honest.

I have seen a number of connections with Hurro-Urartian. The Goddess
Innana is non-Sumerian and is related to the Hurrian Hannahannas. I
have seen the Sumerian river names - Tigris and Euphrates are related
to the Hurrian hydronyms, suggesting they arrived in an area where
they already had been named by proto-Euphratean (proto-Hurro-
Urartian?) speakers. There is also evidence that the words related
to copper working and smithcraft were also all Hurrian derived.

regards

John