Wednesday 31 July 2013

Indo-European linguistics: the Indo-Iranian vowel destroyers


After so much archaeology and genetics, we should speak of linguistics, which is the root of the concept of Indo-Europeans and has an important role in Indology. 
Actually, the evolution of modern Indo-European linguistics is quite similar to that of the question of the Indo-European homeland or Urheimat. Originally, Sanskrit was regarded as the most original Indo-European language, and India as the homeland, then Central Asia (particularly with Pictet) became the official candidate, and so Indo-Iranian had still the most authoritative position. But during the 19th century, some doubts arose about the fact that Sanskrit or Indo-Iranian were more original than European languages, starting from Greek. It is interesting that this change was contemporary with the passage from a long period of Orientalism (in a positive sense, summed up in the formula ex Oriente lux) to Eurocentrism in European culture. Europe was becoming the imperialistic master of the world, and had no more to learn something from Asia. In the 1820's, Hegel developed a philosophy of history which placed Europe at the summit of an evolution where the East was quite primitive, and Greece was the place of the great leap of freedom and philosophy. As he said in his Lectures:

The Orientals do not know that the spirit or man as such are free in themselves. And because they do not know that, they are not themselves free. They only know that One is free.... The consciousness of freedom first awoke among the Greeks, and they were accordingly free; but, like the Romans, they only knew that Some, and not all men as such, are free.... The Germanic nations, with the rise of Christianity, were the first to realize that All men are by nature free, and that freedom of spirit is his very essence. 
According to Hegel, all European science and art originated from Greece. He agreed that Greek origins should be traced in the Orient, but whatever the Greeks received from the Orientals, they 'reshaped', 'reformed' and 'rebirthed'. He also stated that the Greeks were the bridge from savagery to civilization and the inventors of history (see here).

Theodor Benfey

German culture at that time had a cult for Greece (as is seen also from Neoclassic architecture in Berlin and other German cities), which overcame the cult for India and the East. Is it a case that this is reflected also in linguistics? In 1837, Theodor Benfey, an important German philologist, suggested that the five Greek short vowels (α ε ι ο υ) could be regarded as more original than the 'poorer' Sanskrit system of three short vowels (a, i, u), rather than seeing e and o as a 'clouding' ('Trübung') of a (see here). So, Greek vowels were not a corruption of the Sanskrit ones, but the complete paradigm, impoverished by the Indo-Iranians. However, this view overturned the traditional view, held also by Hegel, that the Orient was the origin of Greek civilization, and that the evolution went from the simpler to the more complex.
In 1848 Curtius still replied to Benfey's suggestion observing that Sanskrit, Gothic and Old Persian all agreed in a system of three short vowels. But ten years later, in a work on Greek, he supported the idea that Sanskrit was given too great a prominence in comparative grammar. Then, the Neogrammarians arrived and 'discovered' the Law of Palatals, according to which two front vowels (e, i) palatalized the velars in Indo-Iranian: in the case of e, before becoming a. A famous example (see here) is the Sanskrit perfect of kṛ 'to do': cakāra. Why not kakāra? Because it came from *kekora, and Greek attests the original vowel with the  reduplication vowel for the perfect tense ε (e.g. γέγονε). But then, why do we never find cited the example of cukrodha, perfect of krudh, or cukopa from kup, or jugopa from gup? Where was there the front vowel e or i? Simply, in Sanskrit every velar is normally substituted by a palatal in reduplication, maybe for euphonic reasons of dissimilation.
The fact that Greek did not have such a reduplication is not a proof that it is not original in Sanskrit, and actually, the Sanskrit system has an inner logic, because roots have reduplication with the respective vowel of the root (a,  i or u), whereas Greek always uses e. As remarked by Kulikov (see here), "Old Indo-Aryan seems to preserve the original Proto-Indo-European system of verbal reduplication better than any other ancient Indo-European language". We can even suppose that Greek has e because the previous palatal palatalized the subsequent vowel, before becoming velar (in ancient Greek palatal sounds were unknown, I guess, because the substratum did not have them). About palatalization, it seems that for the law of palatals linguists had in mind the process that happened with Latin in Italy with the palatalization of the Latin velar c before e or i, but it is interesting that in French we have palatalization also before a, like chat from cattus 'cat' (see here).

Another important example often given is the Sanskrit particle ca compared with Latin que, Greek τε (Mycenaean qe), again explained as a palatalization due to the original front vowel e.
But if Indo-Iranians were so inclined to palatalization of the velar before e and i, why do we have many words with the syllables ki and ke (which however comes from *kai) or with ka from a supposed PIE *ke? Even if we admit that the neuter kim kept the velar because of analogy with masculine kas, why do we have a verb like ciketati, which is supposed to come from *keit-? Or ciketi from ci 'to observe, perceive', supposed to come from *kei-?  When does an exception stop confirming a rule and start confuting the existence of the rule?

However, my objection is more radical. I find difficult to believe that from a system of five short vowels was possible to arrive at a system of three, and particularly that all e and o became a, with a systematic will of simplification that would be an astonishing phenomenon in human history! In particular, while the passage from o to a is not unknown (for instance in Russian, and often in (American) English o is pronounced like a), the passage from e to a seems very unusual. On the contrary, the passage from a to e or o is attested in many languages, including Indo-Aryan and Iranian ones. Sanskrit itself changed as into o at the end of a word and into e within  a word. 
Also English is a good example: German Mann corresponds to English man (pron. men), German waschen to English wash (pron. wosh). If English was not written before the change, we would have now a language with a lot of e and o instead of a, and maybe some linguists would argue that the English vocalism could be more original...
As we read in this page on Indo-European vocalism:
The vocalic system appeared completely destroyed in Indo-Iranian, where two main IE vowels, *e and *o, coincided with *a. But the transition *e > a is not unique here: a few Anatolian languages, Luwian and Palaic, also suffered this feature.
How sad, that those barbarous races destroyed the beautiful European vocalic system!
It seems that the average linguist is not aware of the problems of this theory and generations of linguists did not find anything strange in the fact that 'Indo-Iranians' have transformed every e and o without exception into a, which is also not very useful for distinguishing words. The only justification that I can imagine for such an incredible theory is that the substrate language did not know e and o, like Classical Arabic. But this would imply that the Indo-Iranians were practically unmixed with the original Indo-European speakers and we also wonder why did they develop those sounds later in every Indo-Iranian language. And how is it possible that no Indo-Iranian dialect preserved them? The case of Arabic is also interesting, because a often becomes in many dialects (see here), and in non-Arab Muslim countries like Turkey you can hear Arabic words pronounced with e, like Allahu ekber...
Moreover, as remarked in the quoted passage, you can find a for *e also in some Anatolian languages, which are regarded as the most archaic for some aspects. But strangely, it is not remarked that for supposed PIE *o we find a in Anatolian languages, except Lycian where we have e. Maybe because it refers to Proto-Anatolian, where linguists admit all five vowels as 'nearly intact' (see here). And obviously, the fact that Luwian has only the vowels a, i, u is seen as a 'reduction' (see here).
Anyway, looking at the list given on that page, we see that we have a for *o in Albanian, Illyrian, Thracian, Phrygian, Germanic and Baltic, besides Indo-Iranian. Three of these languages (Illyrian, Thracian, Phrygian) are ancient, and Baltic has preserved many ancient IE elements. Is it not a hint that a could be more original? With such a division among IE languages, how can we determine if one or the other is the original vowel?
The Spanish scholar F. Villar maintains that o was not present in PIE. And he also remarks that 'Old European' has often an a-vocalism. For instance, there is the common element in river names Var-, which is derived from the PIE root *(H)u̯eh1-r- like Vedic vār 'water'. In Luwian, we have u̯a-a-ar, in Tocharian B war. So, also Tocharian has a for *e in some cases, and also a for *ō̆, as in Toch. A śtwar 'four' (PIE *kʷetu̯óres), or vak 'voice' (PIE *u̯ṓkʷs). Meticulous linguists obviously say that all these are modifications of the original vowel, but I find this pure dogmatism. The common theory asserts that PIE *o became Proto-Tocharian *e or , which became a in Toch. A, and e in Toch. B. Is it not more probable that all this comes from *a rather than *o? A change from a back to a front vowel is much more difficult than from the central or almost central vowel a. We should notice here that in the pronunciation of Sanskrit, short a is actually pronounced as a central vowel (see here), and not as a front vowel like a in many European languages. This central vowel could change easily either into the front vowel e or into the back vowel o.

A problem is that many linguists are fond of hypothetical proto-sounds, and they deal with them as if they were real entities. If you raise doubts about them, they react as a Catholic if you deny the Holy Trinity.
Laryngeals are one of these sacred entities. Linguists discuss about their number as theologians could discuss about the number of divine hypostases... or maybe they are more similar to mathematicians, and they think that linguistic facts are object of deduction like mathematical formulas. Platonism often emerges in Western science... Actually, Hermann Grassmann, a precursor of the Neo-Grammarians in searching for rigorous laws in phonetic change, was first of all a mathematician... And recently, as observed by Bernard Sergent, there is a sort of algebraic mathematization ("mathématisation algébrique") of comparative grammar, Benveniste's theory of the root has brought to a decomposition of words and phonemes, and the Indo-European words reconstructed nowadays resemble equations...

It is true that Anatolian languages give us the cuneiform sign for a sound transcribed as where other languages have no sound, like Hittite ḫants 'front, face' for Sanskrit and Greek anti, Luwian ḫawi- 'sheep' for Sanskrit avi, Latin ovis. But even if we accept that this is not an adding but an original feature, and that and (often found in Anatolian texts) represent two different sounds, where is the proof of three or four (not to say 6 or 8 or more) different laryngeals, outside the metaphysical reconstructions (often implying pronunciations that transcend human abilities)?
Ferdinand de Saussure
What is significant, is that the laryngeal theory has its roots in the coéfficients sonantiques proposed by de Saussure in order to explain why the supposed original *e became a or o. But if we admit that a was original, and that it changed easily into e and o also without necessity of any special coéfficient, we do not need three laryngeals. Particularly the 'a-colouring' laryngeal *h2 would be useless. And about the o-colouring one (*h3), let us take the case of English. The fact that ball is pronounced bol is not due to any mysterious laryngeal, but rather to the subsequent l, like in wall and fall. And also the change from a to o in Bengali does not require disappeared sounds, for instance nômoshkar for namaskar.
So, also Brugmann's law, which states that "Proto-Indo-European *o (the ablaut alternant of *e) in non-final syllables became in open syllables (syllables ending in a vowel) in Indo-Iranian" can be reversed. There is another significant fact about the pronunciation of ā in Sanskrit: it is an open back, rather than central, vowel. And the same is true for Persian long a, whereas short a is pronounced as the front vowel æ (see here).
Since Greek is particularly involved in Brugmann's law (Skt. jajāna, Greek γέγονε), we can suppose that *ā in non-final syllables in Proto-Greek was pronounced as a back vowel, whereas short a was often pronounced as a front vowel in a way similar to Persian, then the quantitative opposition *a/ā was substituted by a qualitative opposition *e/o. In the case of final syllables, instead, final was retained in Greek (and Latin too), and interestingly it became easily ē (η) in Ionian dialects.
As regards Tocharian, the passage from Late PIE ā to Proto-Tocharian o is already generally admitted, except in final position (as I have found in an article by Ronald Kim, cp. here).

Another interesting aspect in Greek (and Latin) are the nouns with a stem alternating -es-/-os- like genos-/genes-. If we assume that Indo-Iranian -as- is original, this alternation can be understood as due to two modifications, in different cases, from the same sound. And the same can be said for all the cases where some IE languages have e, others o, for instance Latin pēs, pedis 'foot', Greek πούς, ποδός, or, inversely, Latin novus 'new', Greek νεός.

Here I stop. I have not given a full systematic theory, but I think these hints, that I have collected in some years of observation, should be object of reflection, and maybe of new paths of linguistic research. I dedicate this post to Satya Swarup Misra, whose writings have given the first impulse to these considerations.


Giacomo Benedetti, Kyoto, Japan, 1 August 2013








  

238 comments:

  1. Great post my friend,although i am a complete dummy when it comes to linguistics,vowels,sound changes etc! I would have to read through it again and again to understand the points :)

    Anyways great effort!



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  2. @Giacomo
    Finally i can comment!
    Mark these words-
    This article of yours will be regarded as one of the most significant articles in the history of Indo-European Linguistics studies....
    And of course on a related subject that of Linguistics, please explain to the interested people what is the significance of the Proto-Indo-European Aspirated consonants and their situation in Indic compared to other IE Languages?.
    suvam.

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    1. Dear Nirjhar, I don't comment your flattering judgment ;) About the aspirated consonants, it is indeed an important question in IE linguistics, because they are present in few IE languages besides Indo-Aryan: Greek and Armenian, mainly, although aspirated voiceless stops are present also in Germanic languages like Icelandic, but not inherited from PIE aspirated consonants. And in all these languages there are/were no voiced aspirated stops. Also the Eastern Iranian Khotanese has voiceless aspirated consonants: http://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Khotanese.html.
      So, what is impressive is that the voiced aspirated stops, traditionally reconstructed for PIE, are now alive only in Indo-Aryan: is this a sign that there is the original IE population? Someone supposed instead that aspirated consonants are a creation of Indo-Aryans because of a substrate, but this seems quite unprobable, since they have left clear traces in IE languages. How Lat. fumus, Gr. thymos, lit. dumai, Skt. dhuma- can be reconciled without an original dh-? So, it is something to think about, maybe we can explain it through the law of the lateral areas: the periphery sometimes is more conservative than the central motherland, but in phonetics the substrate is a very important force.

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    2. ''Dear Nirjhar, I don't comment your flattering judgment ;)''
      Nothing to say as what i said is the truth;-0....
      ''what is impressive is that the voiced aspirated stops, traditionally reconstructed for PIE, are now alive only in Indo-Aryan: is this a sign that there is the original IE population?''
      A sign of the original accent which remained with the Aryas....
      ''Someone supposed instead that aspirated consonants are a creation of Indo-Aryans because of a substrate, but this seems quite unprobable, since they have left clear traces in IE languages. How Lat. fumus, Gr. thymos, lit. dumai, Skt. dhuma- can be reconciled without an original dh-? So, it is something to think about, maybe we can explain it through the law of the lateral areas: the periphery sometimes is more conservative than the central motherland, but in phonetics the substrate is a very important force.''
      Exactly! plus as you know if we practically see the situation of the Indo-Arya culture and its depth in South-Central Asia.....
      Now, Lets discuss more about linguistics as my mission is to make this post of yours a great source of true Indo-European Linguistics knowledge....
      Please tell what do you think about the Anatolian Languages and their place in Indo-European Family,What is your conclusion on the suggestions like of the Indo-Hittite proposal and like for example Hittite don't have any definite gender system which is one of the reasons to say it as most archaic?
      Suvam ebam sthiti.....


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    3. About Anatolian languages, I think that the so called 'laryngeals' (like Luwian hawi- 'sheep', Skt. avi-) were glottal fricatives which were lost in other IE languages, which is a common phenomenon, happened in Greek and Latin, for instance. In Sansrit h- comes from other sounds like *g'h or *g'wh, and the visarga (ḥ) comes from -s, so they are not original sounds, and it is possible that an original PIE h- was lost. In this aspect, Anatolian languages would be more conservative than Indo-Aryan, and the same is true for labiovelars in Hittite, although they are present also in Latin. But about gender, already some linguists have observed that the absence of feminine can be a simplification, as is in English where gender is lost, apart from pronouns. And considered the great mass of non-IE words in Anatolian languages, I think it is not impossible that the substrate had a great impact. It is maybe significant that in Kartvelian languages there is no gender, but there is an animate and an inanimate class.

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    4. ''About Anatolian languages, I think that the so called 'laryngeals' (like Luwian hawi- 'sheep', Skt. avi-) were glottal fricatives which were lost in other IE languages, which is a common phenomenon, happened in Greek and Latin, for instance. In Sansrit h- comes from other sounds like *g'h or *g'wh, and the visarga (ḥ) comes from -s, so they are not original sounds, and it is possible that an original PIE h- was lost.''
      How do you describe SKT वैवस्वत to avestan vaivanghat?

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    5. Skt. Vaivasvata (please don't use devanagari, I'd like that the debate is accessible also to those who can't read it) is more original, PIE s becomes h in many contexts in Iranian, like Skt. sapta, Av. hapta (and interestingly, Greek has the same phenomenon at the beginning of words: hepta). I have read that also some Indian languages or dialects have this phenomenon, do you know anything about?

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    6. First sorry for the short reply, there was a technical problem....
      ''please don't use devanagari, I'd like that the debate is accessible also to those who can't read it''
      Sure! but this is not a debate but a true discussion:-)....
      '' PIE s becomes h in many contexts in Iranian, like Skt. sapta, Av. hapta (and interestingly, Greek has the same phenomenon at the beginning of words: hepta). I have read that also some Indian languages or dialects have this phenomenon, do you know anything about?''
      Not in case for examples but i will search.
      BTW if sva- can become -angh then why not SKT.Shata ''100'' become ghanta>PIE *km-tom?
      ''You can find below some other Sanskrit connections... but how do you connect bhOndOr with urdra?''
      Found it from this mans Bengali dictionary ''chalantika''-
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajshekhar_Basu
      But i think the connection can be with SKT.Vanda-भण्ड which means phony or false like भण्डसाधु-vandasadhu meaning false seer or phony seer...
      '' Indo-Aryans are the people of the aspirates, particularly of voiced aspirates, which are lost in all other IE languages. Then, if we don't imagine an unknown substrate, we can say that Indo-Aryans have preserved better than all other IEs this aspect of IE phonology. This does not mean that they always lived in India, but it is also possible that after they had come to India they have preserved better the IE phonology, which could suggest that they mixed less than others with pre-IE cultures, because their presence in South Asia was more ancient than elsewhere. However, their presence in Southern Central Asia should also be very ancient,''
      South-Central Asia was the home when the Pre-Proto-Indo-europeans arrived from Near East and PIE developed in SC Asia, is that what you are saying?
      '' On the other hand, retroflex sounds don't seem to be IE (although they are present in some European populations, but not phonologically), and they are clearly present in Dravidian and Munda languages, so some influence of a non-IE substrate is there, already from Sanskrit, suggesting that a mixing with non-IE happened in South Asia, and was so deep that the retroflex sounds were incorporated in the phonological system of voiced and voiceless aspirates. Or maybe we can imagine that retroflex sounds were lost as phonemes in most IE languages and they have left no traces because they were too similar to dental sounds, but they were there in PIE...''
      Are you talking about PIE getting influenced from South Asian tribal languages or just Indo-Aryan?
      Giacomo, I'm making a list of some ignored or miscalculated cognates between Sanskrit and other IE languages today i give you one the rest i will give in next week-
      Is Sanskrit एकम्-Ekam (one,same,equal) connectable to Latin Eequus(level,same,equal)?
      Suvam.....


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    7. Hello Nirjhar, here I reply to your questions:
      "BTW if sva- can become -angh then why not SKT.Shata ''100'' become ghanta>PIE *km-tom?"
      Well, ś and s are different sounds, the first becomes s in Iranian, and the second normally h. And 'ngh' is a composite of ŋ+h, a strange evolution that we find also in Nāsatya/Nanghaitya and many other cases, I don't know how is it explained. But PIE *k'm-tom is the result of the comparison of the different languages, to explain Latin kentum, Greek ekaton, Skt. śata. The original sound is considered a particular palato-velar, become velar in kentum languages and palatal in ancient Indo-Aryan, and finally a sibilant, like hindi 'so'...
      "But i think the connection can be with SKT.Vanda-भण्ड which means phony or false like भण्डसाधु-vandasadhu meaning false seer or phony seer..." Good proposal, actually the first meaning of bhaṇḍa is 'jester, buffoon, mime'. Maybe the otter was regarded like that, and do you think it is a false animal?
      "South-Central Asia was the home when the Pre-Proto-Indo-europeans arrived from Near East and PIE developed in SC Asia, is that what you are saying?"
      I am saying that from the equation I made of SC Asia Neolithic and Iranians we find that IE presence there is very ancient. I do not know if the people carrying Neolithic from the west spoke PIE or pre-PIE...
      "Are you talking about PIE getting influenced from South Asian tribal languages or just Indo-Aryan? "
      In the first alternative, I talk about Indo-Aryan influenced by South Asian tribal languages, in the second one, I wonder if PIE could not already have retroflex sounds, maybe because it belonged to South Asian populations...
      "I'm making a list of some ignored or miscalculated cognates between Sanskrit and other IE languages today i give you one the rest i will give in next week-
      Is Sanskrit एकम्-Ekam (one,same,equal) connectable to Latin Eequus(level,same,equal)?"
      I am impressed (but write 'aequus'). I've found that this etymology was actually done in the past. If we suppose an original *aikwas, it would be ok. Suvam.

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    8. Okay! here is the list-
      1.SKT. लक्षय/लक्षन (lakkhya/lakkhyan) 'To aim,To look,To notice/Signs' to Germanic *lokjan ' To look,To spy,See'.
      2.SKT. लम्ब(lamba) 'Long','hanging' to Proto-Germanic *langgaz 'long'
      There is the theory that it comes from PIE *dlonghos but SKT has both Dirgha and Lamba!
      3.SKT. तूला(tula) 'to scale,balance' to PIE root *del- "to recount, count.
      4.SKT. लोक(LOK) 'room,people,place etc. to English Bloke ''large, stubborn person;" related PIE root *st(h)el-?.
      5. SKT. स्तब्ध(STABDHA)'tardy,stubborn,freeze,immobile etc. to Germanic *stoppon.' to stop'.
      6.SKT. ऋक्थ(RIKTH) 'riches,wealth,property' to PIE root *reg- "to rule, to lead straight, to put right" and like in Proto-Germanic *rikijaz (cf. Old Norse rikr, Swedish rik, Danish rig, Old Frisian rike "wealthy, mighty,".
      7.SKT. झम्प (JHAMPA) 'to jump' to we know which word ;).
      8.SKT. मौलिक (MAULIK) 'unique,original,primordial,fundamental' to PIE *oi-no- "one, unique" as in Latin unicus "single, sole," from unus "one'' the SKT. word comes from 'Mool' meaning root,origin,source, 'Mool' can be connected with mono- meaning "one, alone; containing one (atom, etc.)," from Greek mono-, comb. form of monos "single, alone,".
      9.SKT. चिन्ह(cinha)'sign' to Latin signum "mark, token, indication, symbol," from PIE root *sekw- which in SKT. Is 'Sakha' meaning friend,companion.
      10.SKT. अर्थ(ARTHA) 'meaning,wealth,utility etc. to English Worth and Old English weorðan "to become, be, to befall," from Proto-Germanic *werthan "to become" (cf. Old Saxon, Old Dutch werthan, Old Norse verða, Old Frisian wertha, Old High German werdan, German werden, Gothic wairþan "to become"), literally "to turn into," from Proto-Germanic *werthaz "toward, opposite," perhaps a derivative of PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," from root *wer- which is alson present in SKT. as 'Vartan'.
      11.SKT. ध्वंस (destruction) to English Doom 'destruction' and Old English dom "law, judgment, condemnation," from Proto-Germanic *domaz (cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, Old Norse domr, Old High German tuom, Gothic doms "judgment, decree"), from PIE root *dhe- (cf. Sanskrit dhaman- "law," Greek themis "law," Lithuanian dome "attention"), literally "to set, put" clearly related to 'Do'.
      12.SKT. इरा(Ira)'earth' to PIE root *er- (2) "earth, ground" (cf. Middle Irish -ert "earth") related to SKT. Parthiv? from Prithu?.
      This is list 1 the next will be in next week.....

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    9. Now i reply to your thoughts....
      ''I am impressed (but write 'aequus'). I've found that this etymology was actually done in the past. If we suppose an original *aikwas, it would be ok.''
      What is wrong with this old connection?
      ''I am saying that from the equation I made of SC Asia Neolithic and Iranians we find that IE presence there is very ancient. I do not know if the people carrying Neolithic from the west spoke PIE or pre-PIE...''
      Honest!
      ''In the first alternative, I talk about Indo-Aryan influenced by South Asian tribal languages, in the second one, I wonder if PIE could not already have retroflex sounds, maybe because it belonged to South Asian populations... ''
      Sure, but i don't see any Munda, Dravidian influence in Rigved! can you bring some allegations it would be very interesting to discuss!
      '' Good proposal, actually the first meaning of bhaṇḍa is 'jester, buffoon, mime'. Maybe the otter was regarded like that, and do you think it is a false animal?''
      Thank you! well it can be as otter is also known as Udbiral in Bengali meaning water cat due to its appearance!...
      ''Well, ś and s are different sounds, the first becomes s in Iranian, and the second normally h. And 'ngh' is a composite of ŋ+h, a strange evolution that we find also in Nāsatya/Nanghaitya and many other cases, I don't know how is it explained. But PIE *k'm-tom is the result of the comparison of the different languages, to explain Latin kentum, Greek ekaton, Skt. śata. The original sound is considered a particular palato-velar, become velar in kentum languages and palatal in ancient Indo-Aryan, and finally a sibilant, like hindi 'so'... ''
      I think i will work on the issue then reply....

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    10. Quick note:
      words like bhanDa(fake) and bhAnRAmI (mischief) have a medial retroflex unlike bhOndOR which has a dental. I think that the difference is not trivial, if there are transitions then perhaps a pattern can be found. I have not had a chance to follow fully the above discussion will catch up. Nirjhar where are you based in the US?

      regards

      Rajarshi

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    11. Yes, I did not notice the dental in bhondor, so if there are not other instances of Bengali dental for Sanskrit retroflex the connection is probably to discard. Nirjhar is not in the US, but in West Bengal! Nirjhar, I will discuss your etimologies later, about eka/aequus, I did not find any criticism, although the meaning of 'one' and 'equal, right' are not so close, and a problem is that in Latin unus 'one' comes from oino (attested). The root of 'one' is *ai-/*oi (old persian aiva, Greek oios 'alone', Gothic ains).

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    12. Here the list 2.
      13.स्खलन(Skhalan) 'discharge,displacement' etc. to PIE root *skel- "to cut". as in Proto-Germanic *skæla "split, divide" (cf. Old Norse skel "shell," Old English scealu, Old Saxon skala "a bowl (to drink from)," Old High German scala, German Schale "a bowl, dish, cup," Middle Dutch scale, Dutch schaal "drinking cup, bowl, shell, scale of a balance"), SKT. also has खोलक(kholak) which means 'shell,helmet,pot' etc.
      14.गोलक(Golak) 'sphere,ball or globe etc. to Latin cylindrus "roller, cylinder," from Greek kylindros "a cylinder, roller, roll," from kylindein "to roll,".
      15.ईक्षण(Ikkhan) 'look,seeing,view etc to Anglo-French visioun, Old French vision (12c.), from Latin visionem (nominative visio) "act of seeing, sight, thing seen," the theory is that they come from PIE root *weid- "to know, to see" as in Sanskrit veda "I know;" Avestan vaeda "I know;" Greek oida, Doric woida "I know," idein "to see;" Old Irish fis "vision," find "white," i.e. "clearly seen," fiuss "knowledge;" Welsh gwyn, Gaulish vindos, Breton gwenn "white;" Gothic, Old Swedish, Old English witan "to know;" Gothic weitan "to see;" English wise, German wissen "to know;" Lithuanian vysti "to see;" Bulgarian vidya "I see;" Polish widzieć "to see," wiedzieć "to know;" Russian videt' "to see," vest' "news," Old Russian vedat' "to know" SKT. also has Bikkhan 'to see specially'.
      16.आरम्भ(Arambha) 'Beginning,origin,start etc. to Greek alpha, from Hebrew or Phoenician aleph?
      17.भिक्षा(Viksa) 'to begg' to Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, lay brothers of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert "mendicant," of uncertain origin.
      18.कृपण(Krpan) 'vile,miser' etc to Proto-Germanic *kaupoz- (cf. Danish kjøb "purchase, bargain," Old Norse kaup "bargain, pay;" cf. also Old Church Slavonic kupiti "to buy," a Germanic loan-word), probably an early Germanic borrowing from Latin caupo (genitive cauponis) "petty tradesman, huckster," of unknown origin.
      19.स्तम्भ(Stambha) 'post,pillar,column' to Proto-Germanic *stump- (cf. Old Norse stumpr, Old High German and German stumpf "stump," German Stummel "piece cut off").

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    13. 20.स्कन्ध(Skandha) 'Shoulder,division,/स्कन्धा (Skandha) 'Branch' to West Germanic *skuldro (cf. Middle Dutch scouder, Dutch schouder, Old Frisian skoldere, Middle Low German scholder, Old High German scultra, German Schulter), of unknown origin.
      21.चोषण(Chosan) 'sucking' to Old English cyssan "to kiss," from Proto-Germanic *kussijanan (cf. Old Saxon kussian, Old Norse kyssa, Old Frisian kessa, Middle Dutch cussen, Dutch, Old High German kussen, German küssen, Norwegian and Danish kysse, Swedish kyssa), this is against the theory that ''There appears to be no common Indo-European root word for "kiss," though suggestions of a common ku- sound may be found in the Germanic root and Greek kynein "to kiss," Hittite kuwash-anzi "they kiss," Sanskrit cumbati "he kisses".
      22.भूति(Bhuti) 'prosperity,being,fortune,decoration' etc to Anglo-French beute, Old French biauté "beauty, seductiveness, beautiful person" (12c., Modern French beauté), earlier beltet, from Vulgar Latin bellitatem (nominative bellitas) "state of being handsome," from Latin bellus "pretty, handsome, charming,".
      23.जन्तु(Zantu) 'any animal of the lowest organisation' To Greek zoion "an animal," literally "a living being," The theory is that PIE root *gwei- have produced it as in Sanskrit jivah "alive, living;" Old English cwic "alive;" Latin vivus "living, alive," vita "life;" Middle Persian zhiwak "alive;" Old Church Slavonic zivo "to live;" Lithuanian gyvas "living, alive;" Old Irish bethu "life," bith "age;" Welsh byd "world" I will give an interesting thought on this later...
      24.गन्त्रिका(Gantrika) 'cart' to anglo-French carre, Old North French carre, from Vulgar Latin *carra, related to Latin carrum, carrus (plural carra), originally "two-wheeled Celtic war chariot," from Gaulish karros, a Celtic word (cf. Old Irish and Welsh carr "cart, wagon," Breton karr "chariot".
      List 3 next week, Giacomo i know you are very busy but kindly analys them:)...

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    14. ''Yes, I did not notice the dental in bhondor, so if there are not other instances of Bengali dental for Sanskrit retroflex the connection is probably to discard.''
      Discard it or just Burn it;) as the bhondor comes from भाण्डार(Vandar) ' Pantry,storage' bhondu as 'being fat' also from the same word.
      ''a problem is that in Latin unus 'one' comes from oino (attested). The root of 'one' is *ai-/*oi (old persian aiva, Greek oios 'alone', Gothic ains).''
      Beside NO.8 i think PIE *oi-no- "one, unique" can be connected with Sanskrit ऊन (Una) 'less by one' like for example in Una-viMza '19' though Una has other applications also...

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    15. Nirjhar, I have looked at all your etymologies, most are not tenable, but it has been interesting to check the true ones. You should have the Sanskrit etymological dictionary, but unfortunately is in German...

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    16. I discuss here the first list: "1.SKT. लक्षय/लक्षन (lakkhya/lakkhyan) 'To aim,To look,To notice/Signs' to Germanic *lokjan ' To look,To spy,See'." This is not so far, but in Skt. it is pronounced lakS- (retroflex sibilant), really do you pronounce it lakkh-? In Germanic it should have given 'lachs-'. We have a beautiful Skt. root lok- 'to see, behold, perceive', but probably they do not know. "2.SKT. लम्ब(lamba) 'Long','hanging' to Proto-Germanic *langgaz 'long' There is the theory that it comes from PIE *dlonghos but SKT has both Dirgha and Lamba!" Lamba is not the same as lang-, and it comes from the root lamb/ramb 'to hang down', see English limp.
      "3.SKT. तूला(tula) 'to scale,balance' to PIE root *del- "to recount, count."
      The u is short, not long, it is connected with a root tLH-/telH- 'to carry'. PIE d=Skt d.
      "4.SKT. लोक(LOK) 'room,people,place etc. to English Bloke ''large, stubborn person;" related PIE root *st(h)el-?." This is very strange, why sthel? I have seen that bloke means in London slang 'fellow', maybe from Celtic ploc 'large, stubborn person', or from Romany/Hindi loke 'person'. That's why you connected with loka? Anyway, I think the Celtic word is a probable origin.
      "5. SKT. स्तब्ध(STABDHA)'tardy,stubborn,freeze,immobile etc. to Germanic *stoppon.' to stop'." I think here there is a connection, the root is STABH. 1 point! :)
      "6.SKT. ऋक्थ(RIKTH) 'riches,wealth,property' to PIE root *reg- "to rule, to lead straight, to put right" and like in Proto-Germanic *rikijaz (cf. Old Norse rikr, Swedish rik, Danish rig, Old Frisian rike "wealthy, mighty,"." No, riktha comes from ric 'to leave (as heritage)'

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    17. "7.SKT. झम्प (JHAMPA) 'to jump' to we know which word ;)."
      Yeah, I think this is good! 2 points!
      "8.SKT. मौलिक (MAULIK) 'unique,original,primordial,fundamental' to PIE *oi-no- "one, unique" as in Latin unicus "single, sole," from unus "one'' the SKT. word comes from 'Mool' meaning root,origin,source, 'Mool' can be connected with mono- meaning "one, alone; containing one (atom, etc.)," from Greek mono-, comb. form of monos "single, alone,"."
      You cannot relate mUla with oinos and monos, consonants and vowels are not corresponding and also the meaning is not close. mUla is root, and its etymology is not so clear, but it seems that is connected with the verb mU 'to tie, fix', so something fixed and difficult to move.
      "9.SKT. चिन्ह(cinha)'sign' to Latin signum "mark, token, indication, symbol," from PIE root *sekw- which in SKT. Is 'Sakha' meaning friend,companion."
      I have not found cinha. About sakhA 'friend' (stem sakhAy-), it is probably related to the root sekw- 'to follow', that gives the verb sac-.
      "10.SKT. अर्थ(ARTHA) 'meaning,wealth,utility etc. to English Worth and Old English weorðan "to become, be, to befall," from Proto-Germanic *werthan "to become" (cf. Old Saxon, Old Dutch werthan, Old Norse verða, Old Frisian wertha, Old High German werdan, German werden, Gothic wairþan "to become"), literally "to turn into," from Proto-Germanic *werthaz "toward, opposite," perhaps a derivative of PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," from root *wer- which is alson present in SKT. as 'Vartan'."
      In Skt. PIE v- is not lost, and in fact you have the root vRt-. Moreover, Germanic th comes from PIE t= Skt t.
      "11.SKT. ध्वंस (destruction) to English Doom 'destruction' and Old English dom "law, judgment, condemnation," from Proto-Germanic *domaz (cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, Old Norse domr, Old High German tuom, Gothic doms "judgment, decree"), from PIE root *dhe- (cf. Sanskrit dhaman- "law," Greek themis "law," Lithuanian dome "attention"), literally "to set, put" clearly related to 'Do'."
      Here it is explained the right etymology, dhvams is a different root, and the original Germanic meaning is not destruction but judgment. In Christian culture, the Day of Judgment is the end of the world.
      "12.SKT. इरा(Ira)'earth' to PIE root *er- (2) "earth, ground" (cf. Middle Irish -ert "earth") related to SKT. Parthiv? from Prithu?."
      irA first of all is 'liquid, draught', and is does not correspond phonetically to 'earth'. I think that the origin of earth is an ancient word preserved in Arabic Ard, Hebrew Eretz 'earth'. Germanic languages appear to have some words of Semitic affinity, probably because the first agriculturalists in Europe coming from the Near East spoke languages with such words.

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    18. ''Nirjhar, I have looked at all your etymologies, most are not tenable, but it has been interesting to check the true ones. You should have the Sanskrit etymological dictionary, but unfortunately is in German... ''
      Well i'm gonna fight for some of the connections:), I searched all over for the Dhatukosha but didn't found! i'm desperate so give me the link of the German one...

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    19. ''This is not so far, but in Skt. it is pronounced lakS- (retroflex sibilant), really do you pronounce it lakkh-? In Germanic it should have given 'lachs-'. We have a beautiful Skt. root lok- 'to see, behold, perceive', but probably they do not know''
      Yes we do pronounce it with-kk and in Bengali La- beome Lo- as Lokkhyo/Lokkhyon similar i expect in case of German where the second K changes to J as per the rule of sound changes like Perkunas>Parjanya?.
      '' Lamba is not the same as lang-, and it comes from the root lamb/ramb 'to hang down', see English limp. ''
      Yep! but Lamba do mean as Long like for a tall person the term Lambu in Hindi and Bengali is used....
      ''The u is short, not long, it is connected with a root tLH-/telH- 'to carry'. PIE d=Skt d.''
      PIE root *del- have produced Tell and Tale and we know that Vowels are interchanging as in Old English talu "story, tale, the action of telling," from Proto-Germanic *talo but your observation is also right;)...
      '' related PIE root *st(h)el-?." This is very strange, why sthel? I have seen that bloke means in London slang 'fellow', maybe from Celtic ploc 'large, stubborn person', or from Romany/Hindi loke 'person'. That's why you connected with loka? Anyway, I think the Celtic word is a probable origin.''
      The term loka of SKT. is also related to Latin locus "a place, spot, position," from Old Latin stlocus, literally "where something is placed," from PIE root *st(h)el- "to cause to stand, to place."
      The root *st(h)el- is present in SKT as Sthan and Sthal both meaning position and Place....

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    20. ''"5. SKT. स्तब्ध(STABDHA)'tardy,stubborn,freeze,immobile etc. to Germanic *stoppon.' to stop'." I think here there is a connection, the root is STABH. 1 point! :)''
      Yeppy!;).
      ''No, riktha comes from ric 'to leave (as heritage)''
      Blame it to the scarce of Dhatukosha;)
      ''"7.SKT. झम्प (JHAMPA) 'to jump' to we know which word ;)."
      Yeah, I think this is good! 2 points!''
      Thank you!
      ''You cannot relate mUla with oinos and monos, consonants and vowels are not corresponding and also the meaning is not close. mUla is root, and its etymology is not so clear, but it seems that is connected with the verb mU 'to tie, fix', so something fixed and difficult to move.''
      The Word Mool has produced the word OL in Bengali which is a Carrot type vegetable and we know the N and L are mutable like Latin Alienus and SKT. Anya...
      ''I have not found cinha. About sakhA 'friend' (stem sakhAy-), it is probably related to the root sekw- 'to follow', that gives the verb sac-.''
      That is interesting! see that in Monier-Williams Dictionary here at no. 31. for searching words meaning Sign in SKT.-
      http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/tamil/recherche
      and here-
      http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=cihna&direction=SE&script=HK&link=yes&beginning=
      ''In Skt. PIE v- is not lost, and in fact you have the root vRt-. Moreover, Germanic th comes from PIE t= Skt t.''
      Then from which root Artha has come?
      ''Here it is explained the right etymology, dhvams is a different root...''
      I knew it was wrong but unfortunately after Posting!:0 very Sorry.....
      ''irA first of all is 'liquid, draught', and is does not correspond phonetically to 'earth'. I think that the origin of earth is an ancient word preserved in Arabic Ard, Hebrew Eretz 'earth'. Germanic languages appear to have some words of Semitic affinity, probably because the first agriculturalists in Europe coming from the Near East spoke languages with such words.''
      Ira do mean Earth in Sanskrit i have a relative according their parents it means Earth though it has other applications also....
      Thank you so much for revealing your conclusion! yes it is quite practical...
      Suvam from Rainy Bongo how is Kyoto of निपुणदेश (Japan) doing;-)?...

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    21. Dear Nirjhar, sorry for the late reply. Kyoto has a good climate now, not too hot, not cold, not rainy.
      About the pronunciation of lakS as lakkh, it is the same evolution we have in Pali, and probably in many Prakrits. Perkunas is Baltic, and it does not seem to correspond exactly to Parjanya, it is supposed there are two parallel roots, perk/perg 'to hit'.
      Loka is not related to locus, which comes, as you said, from 'stlocus', as attested by Latin authors, but to Latin 'lucus', 'forest', originally 'clearing in the forest', as 'loka'... the root is the same as ruc- 'to shine'.
      I don't think that Ol, which is ola or aula in Sanskrit, is related to mUla. See here: http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.0.soas.1437836
      About alius/anya, is a very particular case, and anyway please don't connect a sort of carrot with the word 'one'! ;) Una that you suggest is interesting, I also had that idea, but it is not tenable, because we already know the original root (in Germanic ainaz), Una is related probably to old German wan 'lacking' and Latin vanus 'empty'.
      About cinha, so it is cihna. According to Mayrhofer it should be analyzed ci-h-na, where -h- comes from dh, g'h or bh. 'sign' should be connected with the root of 'say', sak(w)-, Sanskrit ci- is another root, and there is no correspondence between Skt. c- and PIE s-.
      Artha comes probably from ar- 'to reach'. 'irA' can mean earth according to the lexicon, but it seems this meaning is not found in the Vedas where the word means 'drinkable fluid, food, enjoyment'.

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    22. ''Dear Nirjhar, sorry for the late reply. Kyoto has a good climate now, not too hot, not cold, not rainy. ''
      Very Noble then:).
      ''About the pronunciation of lakS as lakkh, it is the same evolution we have in Pali, and probably in many Prakrits. Perkunas is Baltic, and it does not seem to correspond exactly to Parjanya, it is supposed there are two parallel roots, perk/perg 'to hit'. ''
      So we do have instances where S become K!,which root between perk/perg is more authentic?
      ''Loka is not related to locus, which comes, as you said, from 'stlocus', as attested by Latin authors, but to Latin 'lucus', 'forest', originally 'clearing in the forest', as 'loka'... the root is the same as ruc- 'to shine'. ''
      Very Interesting but do PIE root *st(h)el- and SKT. Stem Sth- share the same clan?
      ''I don't think that Ol, which is ola or aula in Sanskrit, is related to mUla. See here: http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.0.soas.1437836''
      I also don't ! it appears Chalantika is not that accurate....
      ''About alius/anya, is a very particular case, and anyway please don't connect a sort of carrot with the word 'one'! ;) Una that you suggest is interesting, I also had that idea, but it is not tenable, because we already know the original root (in Germanic ainaz), Una is related probably to old German wan 'lacking' and Latin vanus 'empty'.''
      Why not carrot type you know it is very healthy!:-), yes your current conclusion for Una is true, I think for the word one there was a vowel type of word like AE,O which later became in the forms of the recorded ones?Actually if that is true then it may make IE languages more older than said!
      ''About cinha, so it is cihna. According to Mayrhofer it should be analyzed ci-h-na, where -h- comes from dh, g'h or bh. 'sign' should be connected with the root of 'say', sak(w)-, Sanskrit ci- is another root, and there is no correspondence between Skt. c- and PIE s-.
      Artha comes probably from ar- 'to reach'. 'irA' can mean earth according to the lexicon, but it seems this meaning is not found in the Vedas where the word means 'drinkable fluid, food, enjoyment'.''
      Yep but interestingly Cinha also exist-
      http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=cinha&direction=SE&script=HK&link=yes&beginning=0

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    23. ''Artha comes probably from ar- 'to reach'. 'irA' can mean earth according to the lexicon, but it seems this meaning is not found in the Vedas where the word means 'drinkable fluid, food, enjoyment'.''
      Can this root ar- be also connected with Arya?,I am gonna search the Vedas....
      Okay i am shutting down my List trend as i need the Dhatu book though today i have some interesting topics-
      Lets see. Skt prakRta/prAkRtika 'Done,original,genuine'/'natural,vulgar' etc to Greek praktike/praktikos"practical"/"fit for action, fit for business''
      My view is either it is a striking similarity or the Greek one is borrowed from Sanskrit as she borrowed Kendra from Grk. Kentron (Centre)...
      SKT. Trikonamity to Greek Trigonometron.
      My view here is also same.
      As you know Giacomo the PIE root for the Word 'Good' is root *ghedh- "to unite, be associated, suitable" (cf. Old Church Slavonic godu "pleasing time," Russian godnyi "fit, suitable," Old English gædrian "to gather, to take up together, in hindi and bengali there is Gher and Gheer of Unknown origin which means 'to Surround, Guard' in hindi there is Girdh 'to come close'.
      and for the last i have Latin vim, accusative of vis "strength, force, power, energy." to Sanskrit bhISma/Bhima 'dreadful,terrible,aweful....
      Suvam.
      P.S. don't forget to analyse list 2 or is it all wrong?
      N.

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    24. Arya comes apparently from arya 'lord', which is derived by Thieme from 'ari' 'stranger, guest', because 'arya' was the one who is hospitable. But I suspect that there is a connection with Greek ari- 'very' and aristos 'best' and 'areté' 'excellence, valour, virtue', which are connected with the root ar- 'to fit' (like Rta): http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=aristocracy&searchmode=none.
      Greek praktikos comes from the root prag- which is found in the verb 'prasso' (prag-jo) 'to do' and the nouns 'praxis' and 'pragma' 'action, deed, fact'. So, nothing to do with the Sanskrit pra-kR-. It has been connected with the Sanskrit root pR 'to bring over, to be able', but also 'to be active'.
      Probably ghir/gir 'surround' is related with Greek 'gyros' 'round, curved'. In Italian, this has become 'giro'='round, tour' (made with bycicles or cars, for instance)!
      Skt. bh- corresponds in Latin to f-, like bharati=fero. Vis is related probably to Skt. viS- 'to be active'. bhI- means 'to fear', but I suspect that your supposition is due to the fact that you pronounce it vi-, isn't it?
      The list 2 I will discuss the next time!


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    25. ''Arya comes apparently from arya 'lord', which is derived by Thieme from 'ari' 'stranger, guest', because 'arya' was the one who is hospitable. But I suspect that there is a connection with Greek ari- 'very' and aristos 'best' and 'areté' 'excellence, valour, virtue',''
      Also i suspect with PIE *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Greek aristos, (as in "aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc. Thus, according to this theory, an Arya is "one who skillfully assembles". Proto-Indo-Iranian rta was probably a related concept of "properly joined" expressing a religious concept of cosmic order as can be found in RV 4.40.5....
      ''Greek praktikos comes from the root prag- which is found in the verb 'prasso' (prag-jo) 'to do' and the nouns 'praxis' and 'pragma' 'action, deed, fact'. So, nothing to do with the Sanskrit pra-kR-. It has been connected with the Sanskrit root pR 'to bring over, to be able', but also 'to be active'.''
      Thank you.
      ''Probably ghir/gir 'surround' is related with Greek 'gyros' 'round, curved'. In Italian, this has become 'giro'='round, tour' (made with bycicles or cars, for instance)! ''
      But it has no Sanskrit trace....
      ''Skt. bh- corresponds in Latin to f-, like bharati=fero. Vis is related probably to Skt. viS- 'to be active'. bhI- means 'to fear', but I suspect that your supposition is due to the fact that you pronounce it vi-, isn't it? ''
      Yes but this kinds of resemblances are unbelievable!
      ''The list 2 I will discuss the next time! ''
      Thik Hai....

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    26. About the word One as I said before i think it was originally between AE,AI,Oi and if we look at Sanskrit We just dont have Eka but We also have Eva which can be compared with Indo-Iranian or early Iranian *aiva; the word can mean ''Only'' and ' just , exactly , very , same , even , alone'etc-
      http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/tamil/recherche

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    27. Yes, eva is interesting, because it shows that in Sanskrit we have also the form *aiva, but with a special meaning. But we don't have the Western *aina, unless we don't think that ena 'this, that' is connected.
      "Thus, according to this theory, an Arya is "one who skillfully assembles"."
      Rather one who is fitting (to the cosmic order of Rta) or has an appropriate behaviour...

      "''Probably ghir/gir 'surround' is related with Greek 'gyros' 'round, curved'. In Italian, this has become 'giro'='round, tour' (made with bycicles or cars, for instance)! ''
      But it has no Sanskrit trace...." Well, this could be another interesting case where only Prakrits have preserved an IE root. But closer to Greek there is ghur- 'revolves', which has in Skt a connection in ghūrṇa 'turning round, whirling, rolling'. In Greek gh- is normally kh-, but I think the connection is difficult to deny, maybe it arrived into Greek from a substrate or a loanword, or maybe the Indo-Aryan aspiration here is not originally IE.

      "''Skt. bh- corresponds in Latin to f-, like bharati=fero. Vis is related probably to Skt. viS- 'to be active'. bhI- means 'to fear', but I suspect that your supposition is due to the fact that you pronounce it vi-, isn't it? ''
      Yes but this kinds of resemblances are unbelievable!"
      What do you mean?

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    28. ''Yes, eva is interesting, because it shows that in Sanskrit we have also the form *aiva, but with a special meaning. But we don't have the Western *aina, unless we don't think that ena 'this, that' is connected. ''
      That's it! we have solved the mystery of PIE 'One' yes Ena is a trillion times connected checked in the Monier-Williams dictionary-
      ''Grammarians assert that the substitution of %{enam} &c. for %{imam} or %{etam} &c. takes place when something is referred to which has already been mentioned in a previous part of the sentence ; see Gr. 223 and 836) ; [cf. Gk. $ , $ ; Goth. {ains} ; Old Pruss. {ains} ; Lat. &72418[232 ,1] {oinos} , {unus}''
      So Sanskrit has all the three forms from a probable root Ae- and it also maybe makes IE Languages more older!.........
      ''Rather one who is fitting (to the cosmic order of Rta) or has an appropriate behaviour... ''
      You are hurting my Ego!;-)....
      ''Well, this could be another interesting case where only Prakrits have preserved an IE root. But closer to Greek there is ghur- 'revolves', which has in Skt a connection in ghūrṇa 'turning round, whirling, rolling'. In Greek gh- is normally kh-, but I think the connection is difficult to deny, maybe it arrived into Greek from a substrate or a loanword, or maybe the Indo-Aryan aspiration here is not originally IE. ''
      I wanted to connect it with 'Wharf' and Whirl' and the theory is-
      ''PIE root *kwerp- "to turn, revolve" (cf. Old Norse hverfa "to turn round," German werben "to enlist, solicit, court, woo," Gothic hvairban "to wander," Greek kartos "wrist," Sanskrit surpam "winnowing fan").''
      I think now it is related to SKT. Ghurnan, Frankly speaking I don't see so far any Other Indian Language family contributing to Sanskrit Aspiration.
      Yes but this kinds of resemblances are unbelievable!"
      'What do you mean?'
      I found the instance a similar that of English Bad and Farsi Vad it is not 'unbelievable' any more;)...
      Shanti Bhava.....

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    29. For a different mood lets talk about Wine;), The aspect is that the word for wine is present in Old English win, from Proto-Germanic *winam (cf. Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German win, Old Norse vin, Dutch wijn, German Wein), an early borrowing from Latin vinum "wine," Old Church Slavonic vino, Lithuanian vynas, Welsh gwin, Old Irish fin.Hittite: wijan(a)- c. 'Wein' Old Greek: ói̯no-s, dial. woi̯no-s m. `Wein', ói̯nǟ f. `Weinstock' suggested coming from PIE *win-o- but what to note is that it is Absent in Indo-Iranian!!
      about the origins it is found that it is borrowed from a 'lost Mediterranean language' word *win-/*woin- "wine." it is present also in non-Indo-European Georgian and West Semitic (cf. Arabic wain, Hebrew yayin), so either the Aryas had a bad taste for it;-) or more probably Non-IE borrowing happened after rest of the IE groups left the common area but the Aryas remained!.....
      Cheers....

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    30. Before we Hunt down the ''non-Indo-European'' words of Rigved, lets discuss and interesting topic the topic of PIE Accent system....
      As you know ''Traditionally the PIE accent is reconstructed straightforwardly—by the comparison of Vedic, Ancient Greek and Germanic; e.g. PIE *ph₂tḗr 'father' from Sanskrit pitā́, Ancient Greek πατήρ, Gothic fadar. When the position of accent would match in these languages, that would be the accent reconstructed for "PIE proper". It was taken that the Vedic is the most archaic and the evidence of Vedic would be used to resolve all the potentially problematic cases''
      But there seems to be a different view emerged by Vladislav Illich-Svitych in 1963 that the Balto-Slavic accent does not match with that presupposed PIE accent reconstructed on the basis of Vedic and Ancient Greek—the Greek-Vedic barytones correspond to Balto-Slavic fixed paradigms, and Greek-Vedic oxytones correspond to Balto-Slavic mobile paradigms. Moreover, in about a quarter of all cognate Vedic and Ancient Greek etymons accents do not match at all e.g.
      PIE *h₂eǵros 'field' → Ancient Greek ἀγρός : Vedic ájras
      PIE *sweḱuros 'father-in-law' → Ancient Greek ἑκυρός : Vedic śváśuras
      PIE *kʷoteros 'which' → Ancient Greek πότερος : Vedic katarás
      And you probably also know that Vladimir Dybo and Sergej Nikolayev have been reconstructing PIE accentual system as a system of two tones: + and − (probably high and low tone). Proto-Indo-European would not thus have, as is usually reconstructed, a system of free accent more or less preserved in Vedic, but instead every morpheme would be inherently high or low (i.e. dominant or recessive, as it cannot be known for sure how those features were phonetically actually manifested), and the position of accent would be later in various daughter languages determined in various ways (depending on the combinations of (+) and (−) morphemes), whereas Vedic would certainly not be the most archaic language. Many correspondences among IE languages, as well as certain phenomena in individual daughters dependent on PIE tones, should corroborate this interpretation.
      Moreover,Dybo lists several shortcomings of the traditional approach to the reconstruction of PIE accent. Amongst others, wrong belief in the direct connection between PIE accent and ablaut which in fact does not actually explain the position of PIE accent at all. Usually, however, it is thought that zero-grade should be unaccented, but that is provably not valid for PIE (e.g. *wĺ̥kʷos 'wolf', *septḿ̥ 'seven' etc.) according to the traditional reconstruction. Furthermore, Dybo claims that there is none whatsoever phonological, semantic or morphological reason for the classification of certain word to a certain accentual type, i.e. the traditional model cannot explain why Vedic vṛ́kas 'wolf' is barytone and Vedic devás 'deity' is oxytone. According to Dybo, such discrepancies can only be explained by presupposing lexical tone in PIE.
      This was the ''Balto-Slavic issue'' i wanted to discuss in our last Meeting as i think it is a significant one...
      Sarvamangalam....

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  4. neutral vowels in british english changed to more fronted versions in american and backed forms in jamaican. No larygeals are needed to explain this. english

    vowels are highly mutable and I wonder they ate given such prominence in historical linguistics. PIE probably lacked retroflex stops and anatolian laryngeals may have been like pharyngeals in semitic. On the other hand an abundance of non IE words with voiced aspirates in central and eastern india indicate a south asian influence on PIE.

    Overall a PIE locus between the middle east and and western India is likely.

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  5. Thank you for these interesting observations, but can you do some examples about the non IE voiced aspirates in India?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. jhagaRA (quarrel)
      jhAmp(bengali for jump)
      bhOndOR(bengali word for otter)
      bhitar(hindi) bhEtOr (bengali) meaning inside
      ghenTa(gujarati for sheep)
      bhEnR, bhAEnRA(sheep)
      bhAnRA(pantry or storage room in bengali)
      bhEl(puffed rice marathim guj)

      I hope my transliteration makes sense. These are common words and the inventory is massive. Perhaps some of these may have sanskrit equivalents but I have tried to avoid that.

      thanks

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    2. postneo, is your name inspired from the film The Matrix and the trilogy's protagonist named neo?
      Thank you for those words, i will verify their origin and then remark....
      Suvam.....

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    3. Not from matrix . did not think of that.. Its more like post neolithic but I did like the matrix movies especially the first.

      Perhaps ghEnTa and bhEnR are Onomatopoeic and not great examples but none the less I suspect there are quite a few that are not originally IE.

      voiced aspirates and retroflex/alveolar phonemes are found in sub saharan africa, the indian subcontinent and perhaps a pocket in southeast asia. apart from sub saharan africa retroflex/alveolars are found in western europe and india, australia

      altogether this indicates an older layer whose survival increases with greater distance from the middle east. the newer layer emanating perhaps from the levant did not have these archaic traits.

      Delete
    4. Okay,
      1.bhitar(hindi) bhEtOr (bengali) meaning inside- has come from SKT.अभ्यन्तर.
      2.bhOndOR(bengali word for otter)- From SKT.उर्द्र
      3.jhAmp(bengali for jump)-From SKT.झम्प
      For the rest i'm searching....
      Suvam.

      Delete
    5. You can find below some other Sanskrit connections... but how do you connect bhOndOr with urdra?

      Delete
  6. works like Dhal with retroflex stop in bengali means slope or a verb meaning pour. In english and germanic you have dale meaning valley or depression perhaps a coincidence.

    there is Dhap slang for steal. jhIl meaning lake, Dhila meaning loose, ghAi meaning hurry. DhEET meaning shameless. The point I am trying to make is that in India vioced aspirates are part of colloquial slang and probably find more frequent use than in sanskrit. Its use spans all 5 stop groups whereas in sanskrit its restricted more to bh, dh, gh and lower usage of jh and Dh

    ReplyDelete
  7. The term ḍhal is interesting, because actually there is a PIE root *dhel *dholo 'curve, dell, hollow', as you can see here: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/X/P0385.html
    And English dale, German Tal/Thal 'valley' (the h is often added in German, I think it reflects the actual pronunciation) is clearly related: http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=dale&searchmode=none

    In Indo-Aryan languages, there is a root *ḍhal- meaning 'bends over, falls', and it is maybe connected with Vedic dhvar- 'bends, causes to fall'.
    But curiously, the Bengali form (with other Indo-Aryan languages, starting from Prakrit) is closer to the Germanic form...

    ḍhīṭ is related to Skt. dhṛṣṭa- 'bold, impudent', Prakrit dhiṭṭha-. Evidently, the retroflex is due to the influence of -r-. The same root is found in Greek tharsos 'courage', English 'to dare'.
    jhampa is found also in the Sanskrit dictionary for jump, and the English term suggests that it is IE!
    bhitar is connected with Skt. abhyantara. So, if you dig up, you can find that an ancient Indo-Aryan and IE origin is there, but it is possible that some words with aspirates are not found in other IE languages, even in the Sanskrit dictionary you can find them. And this cannot be attributed to the Munda or Dravidian substrate: in Proto-Dravidian they have not reconstructed any aspirated consonants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Dravidian), and in a Munda language like Santali aspirates are 'almost only' in Indo-Aryan loanwords: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhali_language#Phonology.
    So, Indo-Aryans are the people of the aspirates, particularly of voiced aspirates, which are lost in all other IE languages. Then, if we don't imagine an unknown substrate, we can say that Indo-Aryans have preserved better than all other IEs this aspect of IE phonology. This does not mean that they always lived in India, but it is also possible that after they had come to India they have preserved better the IE phonology, which could suggest that they mixed less than others with pre-IE cultures, because their presence in South Asia was more ancient than elsewhere. However, their presence in Southern Central Asia should also be very ancient, and why in Iranian languages aspirates are mainly lost? We do not know the pre-Avestan state of Iranian, I suppose that this is due to the influence of Near Eastern languages, or it is simply a matter of simplification. On the other hand, retroflex sounds don't seem to be IE (although they are present in some European populations, but not phonologically), and they are clearly present in Dravidian and Munda languages, so some influence of a non-IE substrate is there, already from Sanskrit, suggesting that a mixing with non-IE happened in South Asia, and was so deep that the retroflex sounds were incorporated in the phonological system of voiced and voiceless aspirates. Or maybe we can imagine that retroflex sounds were lost as phonemes in most IE languages and they have left no traces because they were too similar to dental sounds, but they were there in PIE...

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think you did find IE equivalents for most maybe even ghai is derived from skt. shIghra. But do you think that enough diligence has exists in indology to rule out voiced aspirates component outside of IE.

    Some more:

    bhOndOR in bengali means otter. in hindi it is udbilao sanskrit urdra. the bengali form is related but with peculiar use of voiced aspirate.

    bengali DhIpI meaning heap or mound does this come from sanskrit? The nearest sanskrit term stUpa does not contain a voiced asp. whats the direction of inheritance.
    The term also reminds us of archeological site such as tepe yahya etc. It seems to suggest an original pre IE voiced retroflex stop from which tepe and Stupa, steeple came about.

    some random ones:

    JhOl meaning gravy
    jhAl meaning hot/burning to the tongue
    hindi: jhalak, are english glance, glimpse related? is it represented in IE proper?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, you can check Sanskrit equivalents in Turner's dictionary: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/
    But I think you can find in India an etymological dictionary of Bengali or Hindi. Do you live in Bengal?

    About jhal/jhAl, it is surely related to Sanskrit jval-/jvAla-
    In English, glance is possibly connected, and also glitter, from a PIE root *g'hel: http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=glitter&searchmode=none
    Interestingly, also here modern Indo-Aryan is closer to Germanic than Sanskrit.
    Dhipi (according to Turner it's short i) is interesting, because of the similarity with Tepe, which however is Turkish! We should see if this root could be found in other languages too. StUpa has nothing to do, I think.
    BhOndOr is not related to urdra or udra, it is not present in Turner, is the root bhond found also in other bengali words?
    As I said, there are non-IE words with aspirates even in Sanskrit, and this is an interesting fact...

    ReplyDelete
  10. bhOnd is not a root per se. In bengali there is bhOndA --simpleton, dullard, obtuse. the typical hindi equivalent is typically bhOndU (the U ending making the term somewhat more endearing). This does not seem related to an otter.

    there is bhOntA in bengali meaning blunt which could be related to bhOndA

    I am in the US and a bengali and hindi speaker. I am mostly working from memory / instinct and dont have access to formal references.

    In spoken bengal,i even if written, short vowels are never pronounced or differentiated from long vowels hence my spelling of "DhIpI"

    ReplyDelete
  11. Words that describe land features seems to be similar across language families.

    bengali DhIpI, turkic tepe and english/Germanic tip may be related. hindi has TApU meaning island is somewhat an outlier.

    other similar examples related to land.

    DAngA meaning land in bengali probably of tribal origin seem related to english dunn, dung, dune, *dunaz and take part in place names like dunkirk. the words either connote earthen mound or brown colour. The initial retroflex rules out a dravidian origin.

    Its interesting to note that the west european and indian forms don't involve dentals and may hint at an original retroflex or alveolar lost in the middle east. I raise the possibility because mordern indic speakers typically preserve dental stops and don't convert them to retroflexes (except the rare case of assamese)

    hindi TIlA meaning mound may be compared to tell abraq an archeological site (is this semitic or turkic?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ''Not from matrix . did not think of that.. Its more like post neolithic but I did like the matrix movies especially the first.''
      How did you like the 'ASATO MAA SAT GAMAYA'' choir of the final film? aka the name "Neodämmerung"?...
      ''I am in the US and a bengali and hindi speaker. I am mostly working from memory / instinct and dont have access to formal references.''
      You are doing a fine job! BTW I'm also a bengali! or should i say Bong?
      Isn't that is the name of us in US?...



      Delete
    2. Dear 'postneo' (if you like, I would appreciate to have your first name), your proposals have opened interesting perspectives.
      Tip does not seem related, but it is impressive that we have in Indo-Aryan languages a rout Tappa and Dippa meaning 'hill', with some forms very close to 'tepe' or 'tepa' of Turkic languages. However, I have seen that in Turkic, the etymology is related to an original meaning 'top', rather than 'hill', and it is interesting that Germanic 'top/tuppaz' has no clear connections in IE languages... Anyway, in India the root seems clearly Dravidian (and initial retroflex is typical Dravidian, why do you say the opposite?), see here: http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:1:642.burrow

      DAngA is related to the Indo-Aryan root Takka (http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:1:1549.soas), in Skt. we have Tanka 'peak' and tunga 'mountain'. According to Turner, it is non-Aryan and maybe Munda, but the Celtic 'dun/tun' 'hill, citadel', could be related. But why do you say that western European forms don't involve dentals? Because in Germanic languages dentals are pronounced as alveolars?

      And TIlA 'mound' is related to *Talla 'heap' (http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.1:1:1572.soas) and the term Tell comes from Arabic, where the classical form is Tall. It could be an ancient root brought from the Near East to India...

      Delete
    3. Initial retroflex is common and profuse in north India but is alien to dravidian and also vedic. I have asked my Tamil friends to come up initial retroflex words and they usually fail. The tamil word tippai I think is not a retroflex. I will check with friends. Additionally voiced aspirates are absent in dravidian so DhIpI is unlikely to be borrowed from dravidian.

      In western europe the very fact the they have alveolarized IE dentals shows that the substrate language had alveolars. Its interesting to note that subsaharan african slaves and danes have reacted similarly to dental fricates in english e.g. "that" , "this" are simply pronounced as Dat, Dis.

      So bengali DAngA, marathi / tribal word DOngar and western equivalents like Dunkirk could be an older layer that never got influenced by IE dentals.

      My name is Rajarshi I usually go by Raj in the US. I grew up in Bombay and was called a bong even in India !

      regards,

      Raj



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    4. Rajarshi, great name! I have studied the Rishis for years, so I particulary appreciate it. About initial retroflexes, I'm quite surprised. I learned, maybe during the course of Tamil I followed in my university, that initial retroflexes are not normal in Sanskrit, and so they betray Dravidian loanwords. But doing a research, I have actually found that there is the common opinion that initial retroflexes are originally absent in Dravidian. See e.g. here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/600167?seq=2 But here it is admitted that initial retroflexes do occur in Dravidian languages: http://www.jstor.org/stable/605442?seq=2 And you can see them also in the Dravidian etymological dictionary: http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/contextualize.pl?p.1.burrow.284822
      As to 'tippai', it is true that in Tamil has no retroflex, but in some Dravidian languages' parallels there is an initial ḍ. However, I agree that voiced aspirates are not Dravidian, but this can also be a secondary sound change. Santali has initial Dh, and I find that Dhip means 'bank of a river, island', and Dhompo 'lump, mound'. So, maybe there is a Munda substrate, but Santali has often Indo-Aryan loanwords...
      About DAn/DOn/Dun, it's difficult to say, because every dental is normally alveolar in English, and maybe also in Celtic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Celtic#Consonants). So, originally dental sounds could become alveolar.

      Delete
  12. Interesting abstract:

    PLoS ONE 8(9): e73682. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073682

    mtDNA from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman Period Suggests a Genetic Link between the Indian Subcontinent and Mesopotamian Cradle of Civilization.

    On the question of voiced aspirates I think thy were a native component IE but their survival in the subcontinent was ensured by other linguistic groups to their east that also made extensive use of them

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting indeed, although we do not know when this South Asian mtDNA has actually arrived there. About the aspirates, I have checked the Santali dictionary, and I have found so many words with voiced and voiceless aspirates, often onomatopoeic, and certainly not always from Indo-Aryan loanwords. So, it can be that Munda languages had some influence in this preservation of voiced aspirates. However, for Proto-Mon-Khmer aspirates are not reconstructed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austroasiatic_languages), although it seems from genetics that Austroasiatic speakers came from India, so maybe the Munda phonology is more original.
      In the area, Burushaski has voiceless aspirates, as well as Tibetan and Thai.

      Delete
    2. ''I have checked the Santali dictionary, and I have found so many words with voiced and voiceless aspirates, often onomatopoeic, and certainly not always from Indo-Aryan loanwords. So, it can be that Munda languages had some influence in this preservation of voiced aspirates. However, for Proto-Mon-Khmer aspirates are not reconstructed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austroasiatic_languages), although it seems from genetics that Austroasiatic speakers came from India, so maybe the Munda phonology is more original.
      In the area, Burushaski has voiceless aspirates, as well as Tibetan and Thai.''
      About santhali i can give a very thrilling observation! according to their legends their home land is called 'Chai Champa' which was destroyed by ' Bhima and the Pandavas' and according to Mahabharata we know that Bhima went east!
      About the genetics paper Idon't agree that Mesopotemia was the cradle of civilization as such remarks are stupid for any civilization:-).
      Suvam ebam kalyan....

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    3. I know the legends about the Santals, they also speak of a land of the seven rivers (Aeai Nai Disam), but I think this is in the Ganges valley, also there you can find seven rivers... And Chai Champa is identified in the area of the ancient capital of Anga, Campā:
      http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/c/campaa.htm
      I did not know that they accuse the Pandavas, I read that normally they simply say that the 'Deko' (Hindus) chased them from their more western homeland. I went to Santal villages near Santiniketan, and an old storyteller confirmed me that they come from the west. It is quite natural that the Mundas living in the Ganges valley were gradually pushed by the Aryan colonists towards the forests and hills... but I think that the reference to the Pandavas is mythical.

      Delete
    4. Thats a good find. Tribal Mahabharata versions are very revealing. e.g. the bhil mahabharata were Krishna murders abhimanyu ! They give us some clues on how to understand Vyasas convoluted mind where such things are hinted at.

      Do the Santhals have extended detailed versions of the epic like the bhils or is it a stray references. I don't want to open a different can of worms and detract from the linguistic discussion here.

      Delete
    5. Quick note: if Arjuna is considered a proxy for indra or a generic mythic figure that battles a snake. The bhil epic preserves better the situation where the snake over powers the hero as in Apollo vs python or indra vs Nahusha. This aspect is not covered by the Rig Veda.

      OK no further on this from me...

      As for our linguistic discussions perhaps a Venn diagram of word list patterns would be in order. We are chipping away at a vast topic and its hard to get traction.

      Delete
    6. @Giacomo
      ''I did not know that they accuse the Pandavas, I read that normally they simply say that the 'Deko' (Hindus) chased them from their more western homeland. I went to Santal villages near Santiniketan, and an old storyteller confirmed me that they come from the west. It is quite natural that the Mundas living in the Ganges valley were gradually pushed by the Aryan colonists towards the forests and hills... but I think that the reference to the Pandavas is mythical.''
      I have a rare book which shows they even have Folk songs to show their Wrath to the Pandavas specially Bhima and connect the Majority of Bhim Puja which also happens Mainly in Bengal and Eastern India.....
      @postneo
      ''As for our linguistic discussions perhaps a Venn diagram of word list patterns would be in order. We are chipping away at a vast topic and its hard to get traction.''
      Thanks! but Can you show any example?
      Suvam.

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  13. @Giacomo
    Read this research with time though you are the Expert:)
    http://exadmin.matita.net/uploads/pagine/246390155_Martirosyan_PlaceArmen_JLR_2013_FINAL.pdf
    @Raj
    Read this research as it is simpler;)
    http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/RAI_Aug_2012.pdf
    Answer the following questions-
    1.What are the strengths and Weaknesses of the Paper you read?
    2.Do the paper give any new path(s) for thinking?
    3. What you rate the paper out of 10?
    Suvam....

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  14. Hello Mr Benedetti,

    I've just discovered your blog, and i give you congratulations for your work.
    Some remarks.
    Firstly, sorry but my english is poor.
    Secondly, it's a very good job to destroy some theories, but i can't find a new and credible vision to explain the spread of the IE languages.
    Thirdly, how do you explain the fact that there is only one family language ( indo-aryan) in a such extented area in Asia and so much families in the little Europe ?
    Fourthly, it's a little bit dangerous to mix lingistic spread, archeo-cultural spread and genetic spread, isn't it ? Each of them has its own way to go.
    And fifthly, perhaps you could take a look on the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture (CTC), 4500-3500BC.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture
    http://www.trypillia.com/
    In the old kurgan's theory, the CTC was destroyed by the steppe' nomads PIE. But today, more and more authors agree to think the CTC was 'broken' by an ecological and environnemental collapse arond 3500-3000BC ( like others européans culture).
    Yet , the CTC had a lot of arguments to be PIE homeland ( demographic mass, organised society, knowledge of metallurgy, equitation...).
    Do the form and the organisation of the proto-towns remember you something ? Some of them stayed again in 2750BC...
    Soucolline

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Instead of revisiting the trodden path already covered reasonably well by indo-europeanists, I want to focus on what they may have missed due to their narrow focus on sanskrit and preconceived notions.

      I want to test the hypotheses/suspicion that there is an old linguistic link between subcontinent and western europe not covered by standard IE linguistics.

      the best way to test that is to

      1) create an inventory of words common to europe and India with voiced aspirates and retroflex/alveolars or a combination that are missing in greek, latin, slavic albanian armenian etc.
      The voiced aspirates and alveolars gurantees a higher probability of subcontinental influence.

      2) test the existance and etymologies of these words in intervening languages/families both within and outside of IE of regions that lie in between India and western Europe.

      e.g. the english verb deck as in bedeck and north indian Dhek Dhakkan etc.

      e.g. jhAmp <-> jump resemblance. the fact that its in sanskrit is not adequate we need to find it in the remaining branches of IE. If not present then why? does it not point to an older layer within IE or pre IE that was replaced by a newer layer that lost these links.

      Delete
    2. A quick note on IE diversity within europe vs the subcontinent. It can be explained by geography. If an IE home land south of the caspian is imagined. The diaspora to europe get split from each other due to the caspian and black sea. Also a hasher climate would isolate groups temporally. The opposite is true when you look at the Iran mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. You have a continuous land mass fed by massive river systems and a sustained boom with less bottle necks.

      the vedic language has the most minimal loans from non IE languages meaning most of its neighbours seem to be IE speakers.

      This is not at all conclusive though but just grounds for making a conjecture among many others.

      As for genetics I agree that premature correlation should not be made with linguistics. but this is being done by many now due to some apparenly loose correlation.

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    3. You are very welcome! i think Giacomo should answer to your questions when he gets the time, all i can say to you now that you are in the best place in web for such questions, but try to discuss Linguistics here:) we can chat about Archaeology,Genetics etc in the Previous post.....
      Good Day.

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    4. I agree that we should follow the thread of linguistics, but we can also mix a bit the topics. First of all, welcome to this blog, Soucolline, do you write from Ukraine? I suggest to use an account with a name, because when I see Anonymous in my mail I can think that it is spam.
      So, about the 'new and credible vision to explain the spread of the IE languages', I still don't have the elements for pretending to build a general theory of Indo-European spread. But I have not only destroyed, in my last two posts I have suggested that Indo-Iranian was developed in Southern Central Asia and Northwestern South Asia from the Neolithic, and that the Indo-European vocalism is better preserved in Indo-Iranian than in European languages. As for the variety of IE languages in Europe, besides the geographical reasons given by postneo (Rajarshi), I think that it is due to different substrates and different waves of immigration. Also in historical times, in Europe, we had Scythian invasions, Germanic invasions, Slavic migrations... The unity of Indo-Iranian can be a proof that the substrates there were more weak and less rooted, because they had not produced a Neolithic civilization. On the contrary, in Europe I think that the first Neolithic civilization (LBK) was not IE, but maybe spoke a language with Semitic affinities, as we see from the Germanic words for earth, plough, goat... genetically, the LBK people result as different from modern Europeans, but closer to Near Eastern (see also my post on Eulau).
      From the phonetic point of view, Germanic and Celtic languages have sounds very different from the reconstructed PIE, so they reveal a strong and different substratum.

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    5. About mixing linguistic, archeo-cultural and genetic spread, it is true that we cannot simply identify a language with an archaeological culture and a genetic haplogroup, but these are the elements that we have, for prehistory, for understanding the movement of populations and cultures.
      As regards the Cucuteni-Tripillyan culture, B. Sergent speaks of a cohabitation of Kurgan and Tripillyan (Tripolye) populations, and of 'indo-européanisation' of that culture. I remember that Sethna, an Indian scholar, suggested that there was a continuum of IE cultures from northwestern India to Tripolye.
      I would say that Cucuteni-Tripolye is originally non-IE, because IE languages know metal (copper-bronze, Sanskrit ayas, Latin aes) and IE societies have typically an elite of warriors, and not the egalitarian society that you find in Cucuteni-Tripolye. So, only the late Tripolye, with metal, horses, and patriarchal structure, could be Indo-European.
      And this Indo-Europeanization could have arrived from the East, where metallurgy was already developed. There is another aspect: in anthropological comparison, Cucuteni-Tripolye crania are close to LBK, Caucasus and Anatolia, so it appears to be part of the migration of the first farmers from Anatolia.

      Delete
    6. @Postneo
      ''the english verb deck as in bedeck and north indian Dhek Dhakkan etc. ''
      Raj the word Deck has come from PIE *(s)teg- "cover," especially "cover with a roof" (cf. Sanskrit sthag- "cover, conceal, hide;" Latin tegere "to cover;" Lithuanian stegti "roof;" Old Norse þekja, Old English þeccan "thatch;" Dutch dekken, German decken "to cover, put under roof etc.
      Interestingly it missing the H after St- as in Sanskrit.
      ''A quick note on IE diversity within europe vs the subcontinent. It can be explained by geography. If an IE home land south of the caspian is imagined. The diaspora to europe get split from each other due to the caspian and black sea. Also a hasher climate would isolate groups temporally. The opposite is true when you look at the Iran mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. You have a continuous land mass fed by massive river systems and a sustained boom with less bottle necks.

      the vedic language has the most minimal loans from non IE languages meaning most of its neighbours seem to be IE speakers.''
      Excellent suggestion!
      Suvam.....
      P.S. Please read the Research paper of Kazanas i have asked you to read(Focusing on the Linguistic portion only) and answer the specified questions that i have made with your time and comfort...
      N.

      Delete
    7. @Postneo
      I think i have found the exact origin Sanskrit word for Bengali bhOndOR from Sanskrit (rare) bhadra....
      As for jhagaRA (quarrel) the hunt is still on....

      Delete
    8. Hello,

      First, thank you for yours welcomes.
      I’m french. So, don’t be frightened, I ‘ll not defend any nationalist theory !
      I’m not linguist. So I can’t discuss about linguistic. I can only read, learn and accept the conclusions of hundreds authors studying this problem since two seculars ( and I know that nothing is never finished…).
      About variety of languages in Europe, I think the reason of geography is a little bit « ledge ».
      The indo-Aryan languages were spoken about steppes to India: it represents very different environments, on very long distances, having known of numerous very different cultures any of the others since the Neolithic and only single family of IE languages?

      In Europe, the Hittite is present since 1800BC, the Mycenaean since 1500BC, the Celtic languages(tongues) since 800BC: you thus owe found several waves of invasions before these dates.
      Good luck, it is already difficult to find one …

      In linguistics still, do you agree to say that the balto-Slavic group is the group the closest to the indo-Iranian group?

      Soucolline

      Delete
    9. ''First, thank you for yours welcomes.
      I’m french. So, don’t be frightened, I ‘ll not defend any nationalist theory ! ''
      Actually i love french people specially for their intellectual philosophy:)
      ''I’m not linguist. So I can’t discuss about linguistic. I can only read, learn and accept the conclusions of hundreds authors studying this problem since two seculars ( and I know that nothing is never finished…).''
      This website is not about decoding a problem but it is about to open your and our eyes and to accept and to hunt what we really have instead of creating theories and just following them....
      Good Day...

      Delete
    10. Cher Soucolline, here I reply:

      "I’m french. So, don’t be frightened, I ‘ll not defend any nationalist theory ! ''
      Ok, so your surname means 'underhill'... but even if you don't defend the Eastern European homeland for nationalism, it can still be for Eurocentrism ;) I, being an Italian Indologist, am quite vaccinated against that disease...
      "I can only read, learn and accept the conclusions of hundreds authors studying this problem since two seculars" You don't have to accept their conclusions! It is a common mistake to think that what is accepted by academics is right. Academics are often conservative, most of them follow what they have learned from their professors without much criticism, when the majority agree. And so, if a wrong direction has been taken at a certain moment (like the theory of vowel change, or of Aryan invasion of India from the steppes), this direction will be followed generation after generation, until someone does not convince the others that it is wrong, but the force of inertia (and personal pride) is quite strong. It is difficult for an academic to accept that he has followed a wrong assumption and has taught it for years.
      "The indo-Aryan languages were spoken about steppes to India"
      How can you say that Indo-Aryan languages were spoken in the steppes? This is the invasionist assumption. But maybe you mean Indo-Iranian languages, in this case I can accept, because the Scythians went to the steppes. And actually there is a lot of variety in Iranian languages, and we don't know much about the Scythian language.
      "In Europe, the Hittite is present since 1800BC, the Mycenaean since 1500BC, the Celtic languages(tongues) since 800BC: you thus owe found several waves of invasions before these dates. Good luck, it is already difficult to find one …"
      These dates are not very ancient, and the first one concerns Anatolia, in Asia. That Myceneans arrived through an invasion is clear, and even the historical Greeks (Thucydides) had memory of that, and also of a subsequent Dorian invasion. Herodotus also recorded that the Scythians arrived to Europe from Asia, which is obvious.
      He also speaks of the Sigynnae in Central Europe, maybe also of Iranian origin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigynnae. Then there are the Sarmatians, the Huns, all coming from the same direction.
      And the recent genetical studies reveal that the European genes have radically changed not only with the arrival of agriculturalists from the Near East, but also later, around 2500 BC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22252099

      Delete
    11. Ah, I forgot to reply about balto-slavic: the connection with Indo-Iranian was based on the satem/centum division, which is no more regarded as essential. Sergent placed Balto-Slavic in the NW group, with Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Balkanian languages... and Indo-Iranian in the SE group, with Greek, Phrygian and Armenian. Actually, Greek is very close to Indo-Iranian for vocabulary and grammatical forms, although it is centum. Greek and Armenian preserve also aspirated consonants like Indo-Aryan!

      Delete
    12. ''How can you say that Indo-Aryan languages were spoken in the steppes? This is the invasionist assumption. But maybe you mean Indo-Iranian languages, in this case I can accept, because the Scythians went to the steppes. And actually there is a lot of variety in Iranian languages, and we don't know much about the Scythian language. ''
      My view is that Indo-Aryas were present in more of Northern and Western areas for example We know of Shortugai and in Central Asia there is a river which has a Sanskrit Name Vakshu/Vaksh the major tributary of Amu Darya..
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amu_Darya
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vakhsh.JPG
      Suvam and Chance....

      Delete
    13. Dear Giacomo

      "Ok, so your surname means 'underhill'..."

      Yes, it’s the name that take Frodo when he leaves the shire to discover the middle-earth.

      "but even if you don't defend the Eastern European homeland for nationalism, it can still be for Eurocentrism ;) I, being an Italian Indologist, am quite vaccinated against that disease..."

      In France, we have actually an other disease, putting words with –isme ( or –phobe) on everybody, meaning his interlocutor has forcing twists or wrong, before any discussion…

      " You don't have to accept their conclusions! It is a common mistake to think that what is accepted by academics is right. Academics are often conservative, most of them follow what they have learned from their professors without much criticism, when the majority agree. And so, if a wrong direction has been taken at a certain moment (like the theory of vowel change, or of Aryan invasion of India from the steppes), this direction will be followed generation after generation, until someone does not convince the others that it is wrong, but the force of inertia (and personal pride) is quite strong. It is difficult for an academic to accept that he has followed a wrong assumption and has taught it for years."

      I know all that. And I know there are a lot of confrontations inside the linguistic world. And I know linguistic is always evolving . I’m open with new ideas.
      Perhaps this one will interest you:
      http://yvescortez.canalblog.com/

      "How can you say that Indo-Aryan languages were spoken in the steppes? This is the invasionist assumption. But maybe you mean Indo-Iranian languages, in this case I can accept, because the Scythians went to the steppes. And actually there is a lot of variety in Iranian languages, and we don't know much about the Scythian language."

      Yes, you’re right : Indo-Iranian.
      In the steppes, in the Caucasus, perhaps in the Near East (mitannian ?)…

      "These dates are not very ancient, and the first one concerns Anatolia, in Asia. That Myceneans arrived through an invasion is clear, and even the historical Greeks (Thucydides) had memory of that, and also of a subsequent Dorian invasion. Herodotus also recorded that the Scythians arrived to Europe from Asia, which is obvious.
      He also speaks of the Sigynnae in Central Europe, maybe also of Iranian origin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigynnae. Then there are the Sarmatians, the Huns, all coming from the same direction."

      The problem is : can you proove migrations before these dates ? Because all the migrations you talk about were made when IE were already in Europe.
      And what about Tarim’s mummies ?
      And do people not speak russian at Vladivostok ?
      But finally, I notice you’re not against the possibility of migrations, just against a west/east direction…


      Cdlt

      Delete
    14. "And the recent genetical studies reveal that the European genes have radically changed not only with the arrival of agriculturalists from the Near East, but also later, around 2500 BC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22252099 "

      I know these studies, and they don’t say the new genes came from Asia ( nor they didn’t come).
      For Bell Beakers, it’s clearly from Spain. For Corded Ware…..we have to wait more informations. Genetics analyses from Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, Sredny-Stog culture, Maykop culture, are missing us. If CTC is not R1a, and Sredny-Stog is, it will be clear R1a came from Asia towards 3500BC.

      "Ah, I forgot to reply about balto-slavic: the connection with Indo-Iranian was based on the satem/centum division, which is no more regarded as essential. Sergent placed Balto-Slavic in the NW group, with Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Balkanian languages... and Indo-Iranian in the SE group, with Greek, Phrygian and Armenian. Actually, Greek is very close to Indo-Iranian for vocabulary and grammatical forms, although it is centum. Greek and Armenian preserve also aspirated consonants like Indo-Aryan!"

      I read Balto-Slavic group is the more conservatist group, with Indo-Iranians group, for prononciation. And they both share a lot of vocabulary and isoglosses, showing they stayed neighbors for a very long time and separated lately.
      I will look for in my books ( before to burn them ).

      Delete
    15. ""Ok, so your surname means 'underhill'..."
      Yes, it’s the name that take Frodo when he leaves the shire to discover the middle-earth."
      Yes! It sounded familiar... :)
      "In France, we have actually an other disease, putting words with –isme ( or –phobe) on everybody, meaning his interlocutor has forcing twists or wrong, before any discussion…"
      Interesting, I didn't notice that disease when I stayed in Paris, anyway I am open to discussion, if you are really Eurocentric the discussion itself will not be possible...
      "The problem is : can you prove migrations before these dates ? Because all the migrations you talk about were made when IE were already in Europe.
      And what about Tarim’s mummies ?
      And do people not speak russian at Vladivostok ?
      But finally, I notice you’re not against the possibility of migrations, just against a west/east direction…"
      No, I am not against any direction, although I like E-W, I confess... I accept that the Tocharians came from the west, and also that the Scythians, before the Russians, spread also to the east. Obviously, many movements are possible, also in India there were many invasions from the west, but this does not mean that the Aryans came from the steppes... about the proofs in Europe of invasions or migrations, I have cited genetics, where R1a appears to be of Asian origin, and I will soon cite anthropological studies...

      Delete
  15. We need to examine if PIE and sanskrit *(s)teg / sthag are reflex of an original loaned form Dhak.

    I bring this up because in english and bengali theres seemingly a verb cluster themed around configuration of objects. a fronted form e.g. deck indicating coverage and and a backed form dock, tuck, duck indicating insertion/immersion. In bengali we have Dhuk meaning insertion and Dhak Dhek etc for coverage.

    inervening IE does not have this deeper pattern perhaps? Interestingly wetern europe has dental fricates and eastern europe has alveolar fricates. the reverse/mirror seems to take place for dental and alveolar stops.

    Thanks for your references. Will read. I am very strapped for time nowadays.

    regards,

    R

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ''We need to examine if PIE and sanskrit *(s)teg / sthag are reflex of an original loaned form Dhak.

      I bring this up because in english and bengali theres seemingly a verb cluster themed around configuration of objects. a fronted form e.g. deck indicating coverage and and a backed form dock, tuck, duck indicating insertion/immersion. In bengali we have Dhuk meaning insertion and Dhak Dhek etc for coverage.''
      Well can you see the resemblance with Durga Puja and Dhak which also means the Drum;)! Yes PIE and sanskrit *(s)teg / sthag has not produced Dhak but it is SKT. Dhakka-
      http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/tamil/recherche
      http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?script=HK&beginning=0+&tinput=+Dhakka&trans=Translate&direction=AU
      Now if Giacomo can tell us Whether This Dhakka has a PIE root or not otherwise we have to consider your proposal....
      Suva Durga Sasthi....

      Delete
  16. DhAk is onomatopic so its not a good word to study. Its origin is the sound that the DhAk makes and thus not a sanskrit, IE or any linguistic origin per se.

    The usage of the words deck(english) and DhAkO(bangla) does not seem to be onomatopoeic and thus have some linguistic significance.

    As an exercise though, you could also interpret them thus: DhAko (interpreted as a leather cover or drum head), DhOkO/dock(a deeper sounding drum!) etc. The verb cluster in both western europe and bengali then become very peculiarly tied to large percussion instruments. It seems far fetched though and hard to prove.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. shubha shashthi

      We may get to hear some DhAk even here in bay area but nothing like WB !

      Delete
    2. ''DhAk is onomatopic so its not a good word to study. Its origin is the sound that the DhAk makes and thus not a sanskrit, IE or any linguistic origin per se.''
      Skt. Dhakka is also the origin of Bengali Dhaako,Dhaaka it is there in the Dictionaries as in Monier Williams-
      ''1Dhakka m. a large sacred building Ra1jat. iii , v ; N. of a locality (cf. %{Takka}) Mricch. Sch. Introd. ; (%{A}) f. a large drum (cf. %{gaja-} , %{jaya-}) Ra1jat. vi , 133 ; covering , disappearance''
      ''As an exercise though, you could also interpret them thus: DhAko (interpreted as a leather cover or drum head), DhOkO/dock(a deeper sounding drum!) etc. The verb cluster in both western europe and bengali then become very peculiarly tied to large percussion instruments. It seems far fetched though and hard to prove.''
      Raj,I think what you say is Quite tenable.....
      Suvam...

      Delete
  17. Dear Giacomo,

    I am ZERO when it comes of linguistics,but what do you think of Indian flora and fauna in the IE linguistic issue?Does Indian flora and fauna have any cognates in any of the IE branches?

    Namaste.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Long time after where were you?
      ''I am ZERO when it comes of linguistics''
      There is nothing wrong in it as Linguistics is a very easy subject just learn from wiki and you will be an expert!......
      About PIE flora and fauna there is nothing distinctive and there are as PIE itself some suggestions which gets us to nowhere......
      I'm at the moment working on the so called 'Substratum In Vedic' and the other IE Languages issue......
      Good Day....

      Delete
    2. Dear Nirjhar,

      Wiki just has the basics ;)

      About flora and fauna,what i have in my mind is specifically the peacock (Skt Mayura),some say it is non-IE word.

      I too am interested in substrate language.There have been many claims about it.Some say the substrate language is Dravidian and others like Witzel claim its Austric and/or some other unknown language(according to this theory it might be from BMAC).So it is really a tough and confusing issue for me.....

      Delete
    3. ''Dear Nirjhar,

      Wiki just has the basics ;) ''
      And the Basic is all you need at first......
      ''About flora and fauna,what i have in my mind is specifically the peacock (Skt Mayura),some say it is non-IE word.''
      The some who say that which language for the origin they suggest?
      ''I too am interested in substrate language.There have been many claims about it.Some say the substrate language is Dravidian and others like Witzel claim its Austric and/or some other unknown language(according to this theory it might be from BMAC).So it is really a tough and confusing issue for me.....''
      let me help you but at first i have a task for you;), try to trace these so called 'verified' Dravidian Words of Rigved-
      1. kulāya "nest"
      2. kulpha "ankle",
      3.daṇḍa "stick"
      4.bila "hollow"
      Your job is to give a possible Indo-European etymology for those words, just give it a try as it is much easier than you think......
      Suvam.

      Delete
  18. "The some who say that which language for the origin they suggest?"

    They say 'mayura' is from Drvd 'mayil'.

    "let me help you but at first i have a task for you;), try to trace these so called 'verified' Dravidian Words of Rigved-
    1. kulāya "nest"
    2. kulpha "ankle",
    3.daṇḍa "stick"
    4.bila "hollow"
    Your job is to give a possible Indo-European etymology for those words, just give it a try as it is much easier than you think......
    Suvam."

    This is exactly my problem!! I don't have enough sources to search the entire IE lexicon for the cognates :) I don't know much about the root words either....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ''They say 'mayura' is from Drvd 'mayil'.''
      Thanks i will analyse it.....
      ''This is exactly my problem!! I don't have enough sources to search the entire IE lexicon for the cognates :) I don't know much about the root words either....''
      1. http://spokensanskrit.de/
      2.http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/tamil/index.html
      3.http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\ie\piet
      4.http://www.etymonline.com/
      So, start trying;-).....

      Delete
    2. For Mayura the classical etymology is मी+उराण (mI+Urana)= to move+extendingly...
      So It seems to have an IE Etymology....

      Delete
    3. Dear Nirjhar thank you for sharing your opinion on Mayura :) I think linguists should look more into your conclusion.Like said,i'm total dumbo when it comes to linguistic matters so i cannot comment on your conclusion,sorry.

      Thanks for sharing your links,i already know spokensanskrit and etymonline.I will look into the other links:)

      Delete
    4. It is accurate and is of Panini...
      Suvam.

      Delete
    5. Panini is an authority for Sanskrit grammar, but not for etymology, because he did not know the IE comparative linguistics. It's true that mayūra has some Dravidian similar forms, but this is not a proof obviously because they can be loanwords from Sanskrit. The form of mayūra- looks like quite Indo-Aryan, with the suffix -ra like vip-ra, dhI-ra, and actually there is a Vedic noun māyu- meaning 'bleating , bellowing , lowing , roaring'. So, it seems that there is a shift of the length of the vowels, but it is the animal who 'lows', who makes a very typical cry... it is quite onomatopoeic.

      Delete
    6. Let me give you a very detailed reply by analysing your points-
      Lets agree to agree....
      Suvam.

      Delete
  19. I don't know if you guys know this- but the celebrated "*ek'wos" for horse with almost universal representation among attested IE languages may not be a PIE word - because the PIE had broken up by the time the IEs knew horse domestication. The horse word is a borrowing from Altaic - the first IEs to know it were Indo-Iranians whose "asva" (from altaic "osu") became "ehwaz" in Germanic and then on to Latin "equus" etc.

    Lo and behold - there was no velar palatalization - but velarization from a sibilant - sh > h > k/kw.

    Once "*ek'wos" falls - everything is up for grabs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ''I don't know if you guys know this- but the celebrated "*ek'wos" for horse with almost universal representation among attested IE languages may not be a PIE word - because the PIE had broken up by the time the IEs knew horse domestication. The horse word is a borrowing from Altaic - the first IEs to know it were Indo-Iranians whose "asva" (from altaic "osu") became "ehwaz" in Germanic and then on to Latin "equus" etc.''
      That is very interesting, thank you for the knowledge!
      ''Lo and behold - there was no velar palatalization - but velarization from a sibilant - sh > h > k/kw.

      Once "*ek'wos" falls - everything is up for grabs.''
      Can the formula be also applied with Centum-Satem division?
      Good Day!
      P.S. On Vedic horse issue please see this link-
      http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2011/11/about-india-and-central-asia.html
      N.

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    2. I am not convinced about this Altaic borrowing. First of all, I would like to know what is the exact meaning of 'osu', and if it is reconstructed Proto-Altaic or it is attested in a particular language.
      The ancient Indian word has a beautiful connection with the adjective āśu 'quick, fast', which is also an epithet of the horse in the Rigveda. The idea that from osu comes aśva and from it we can have equus is quite improbable, the common PIE ancestor could have been something like achwas (using English conventions), and in Caucasian languages we actually have similar forms, probably borrowed from ancient IEs. See here: http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=M2aqp2n2mKkC&pg=PA478&dq=caucasian+word+for+horse&hl=it&sa=X&ei=TqJ3UuKpFKnpiAfkiYCYDA&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=caucasian%20word%20for%20horse&f=false

      Delete
  20. Giacomo,

    You seem to be linguistically versed and it is interesting that you seem to question the PIE vowel system. It is based on the notion that velar palatalization before front vowels is "natural" and the reverse almost never occurs. If you buy that then the establishment has a good case - apparently when Sanskrit shows a palatal/sibilant and Greek/Latin a velar, Sanskrit has [a] as the following vowel and Greek/Latin [e]. However, Sanskrit usually does not "palatalize" when Kentum shows [o] against Sanskrit [a].

    They said 'aha' - the "palatalizing" impulse, namely [e] is present in Kentum and therefore it must have been the original. [o] got a free ride and they made [aeiou] the source vowel system.

    It is indeed true that velar palatalization took place on a massive scale in Romance and Slavic - but in India it is largely unknown (except that they claim it took place in Tamil in the per-historic period - has not happened for the past 2000 years) . Palatals are used in place of velars/dentals/sibilants for baby-talk ("cho chweet" for "so sweet") and street-lingo - but nobody has any trouble pronouncing front vowels after velars.

    As you well know - if "articulatory ease" alone drove language change - all languages would only have vowels. So - a very real phonetic process - velar palatalization leads to an absurdity of monumental proportions - that Sanskrit collapsed [aeiou] to [aiu].

    Since we say that this collapse did not happen - an explanation has to be found for kentum/Satem.

    Also, It is beyond dispute that Sanskrit and Dravidian are intimately related and since the latter always had short e and o - it is next to impossible that they did not creep back into Sanskrit also.

    Modern day Hindi has developed short e around [h]. [pahlay] "first" has become [pehle] and so forth.

    The horse thing is only a conjecture (*osu I believe is "herd, wild animal" in proto-altaic).

    ReplyDelete
  21. I like your reconstruction and this passage: "an absurdity of monumental proportions" :)
    However, I think that the common present theory for the Centum/Satem difference is reasonable, postulating a palatovelar (k') which in the Centum languages became velar and in the Satem palatal and sibilant. This does not imply palatalization before front vowels.
    It is interesting that in some Caucasian languages all k are palatalized: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatovelar

    About 'pehle', yes, I know, I have heard it, and the pronoun vah is pronounced 'wo', isn't it?

    As to Altaic, I have not find this osu, for horse in Proto-Altaic there is at- and mor-, search here: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?basename=\data\alt\altet&root=config&morpho=0

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi Giacomo,

    http://altaica.ru/LIBRARY/Uralo-Altaica-I.pdf

    gives

    Alt *úsu / *osu / *-i ‘animal; cow’: Tung *us-
    ‘herd, flock; game, wild animal’ || MKor *sjó ‘cow’ ||
    PJap *úsí ‘cow, bull’ (EDAL 1505; R 921).

    [vah]to [vo] doesn't count since it is long o - probably in analogy with Sanskrit visarga Sandhi.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Ok, I had seen yesterday, in the site I have given, 'usu' as 'cow', and I was impressed that Japanese ushi 'cow' can come from there. It is also given with o-, it's true, I did not notice. Well, it seems that it is not used for horses but mainly for bovines, and it is quite fare from ashva/ekwos...

    I don't understand why [vo] doesn't count, we are speaking of quality, not of quantity of vowels. I find quite improbable that common hindi pronunciation is influenced by Sanskrit Sandhi, rather it can be a trend of Indian phonetics that goes on till now...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As Most of the time i think Guru-G is right here;)....

      Delete
    2. ==IE ETYMOLOGY OF THE 4 TAMIL WORDS==
      1. kulāya "nest" TO Proto-IE: *kaw(ǝ) Meaning: tubular bone, pipe
      2. kulpha "ankle", TO Old French golf "a gulf, whirlpool," from Italian golfo "a gulf, a bay," from Late Latin colfos, from Greek kolpos "bay, gulf," earlier "trough between waves, fold of a garment," originally "bosom," the common notion being "curved shape," from PIE *kwelp- "to arch, to vault"
      3.daṇḍa "stick" TO Greek 'dendron' 'tree', and connect the cerebralization with the disappeared 'r' From PIE *der-drew-, from root *deru- "to be firm, solid, steadfast.
      4.bila "hollow" to Armenian: pelemi ''hole'',Celtic: MIr belachi from PIE *bal-
      Meaning: opening, hole, passage
      The No. 3 is From Guru-G and i think they are accurate what do you say?

      Delete
    3. Well, Nirjhar, my devout chela ;), this time I would give you 3 and 1/2 points, the first is not complete. About the fourth, I think that bila can be connected with Vedic vala 'cave', corresponding to Avestan vara. b and v, particularly in initial position, are interchangeable, and i should come from a schwa instead of a.
      For kulāya, Mayrhofer reveals that there are Iranian cognates: persian kunām 'nest', eastern baluchi kuδām, and suggests that it can be ku-lāya=bad hiding place, but a connection with English hollow, hole, is far more convincing: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/U/P0859.html... In Latin there is cunae, meaning 'cradle' and also 'nest', and is strangely similar to the Persian word for nest, and in Greek kalià, kaliàs, meaning 'hut', but also 'nest'... l/n can alternate if we imagine an intermediate dental or retroflex sound like that of the baluchi form: in India often l and retroflex d are interchangeable.

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    4. Hi Giacomo,

      lets not quibble about short/long [o] - after all Sanskrit and Hindi already have long [o] and you don't have to look any further than Bengali for massive a > o changes from Sanskrit origin words. Both a <>0 and a<>e are both plausible changes anyways. And actually a very proper establishment linguist suggested how [aiu] could spread to [aeiou] - if [a] and [e] and [o] are only allophonic and /a/ is said loosely so that it is [a] some times, [e] some times and [o] sometimes - then there might be a phoneme split and [e] and [o] can emerge as phonemes.

      I don't see why 'osu'/'usu' and 'asva' aren't close enough and even the semantic leap is not that large - "wild animal", 'herd" versus "horse". In sanskrit "mriga" means both "animal" and "deer".

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    5. @Guru-G
      ''Well, Nirjhar, my devout chela ;)''
      Not just a Chela but a Brahmachela;)....
      '' this time I would give you 3 and 1/2 points,''
      Actually it was my fault that i lost the 1/2 points i should have been more descriptive.....

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    6. OK I give another short set of ''Dravidian" Words but this time i want all others to give their Etymology (including Akshay):
      1. kūla "slope"
      2. khala "threshing floor"
      AND also i give these so called ''non-IE Words'' of Rgveda-
      1.kākambīra a certain tree
      2.kakardu "wooden stick"
      3.kapardin "with a hair-knot"karpāsa "cotton"
      4.kavandha "barrel"
      5.kavaṣa "straddle-legged"
      6.kilāsa "spotted, leprous
      7."kimīda "a demon", śimidā "a demoness
      8."kīnāśa "ploughman"
      9.kiyāmbu a water plant
      10.kuliśa "axe"
      11.kumāra "boy"
      As Mayrhofer identifies a "prefixing" language as the source of many ''non-Indo-European'' words in the Rigveda, based on recurring prefixes like ka- or ki-, that have been compared by Michael Witzel to the Munda prefix k- for designation of persons, and the plural prefix ki seen in Khasi, though he notes that in Vedic, k- also applies to items merely connected with humans and animals.
      So Guru-G show us another instance your Satya Medha! though others are also free to analyse;-)....
      Suvam.

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  24. Since unfortunately no one has answered i think i will give my Etymology step by step,today i give the last Dravidian ones....
    1. kūla "slope" to probably Proto-IE: *k(')Anǝm-, *k(')nēm- (~ -ā-) as in Geek knēmó-s (~ -ǟ-) m. 'projecting limb, shoulder of a mountain' we kow l and n are mutable but i'm not sure here unfortunately, Guru-G?
    2. khala "threshing floor" to Old Greek: hálōs, gen. -ō 'threshing-floor in that case it appears as we know Aryan,Greek and Armenian shared a common home for some period SKT. has retained the more correct form.....

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  25. 1. About kūla, I have found in the old Mayrhofer dictionary an interesting (and funny) proposal: Latin 'cūlus', which means 'bottom, ass'. Yes, in the anatomical sense. Also in Celtic similar words are found, like Irish 'cūl' 'bottom, back' and according to Monier-Williams 'guard, defence, back part of anything', and in Sanskrit there is also the meaning of 'rear of an army'. Moreover, the main meaning in Sanskrit is not 'slope', just reconstructed for a Rigvedic verse, but 'shore, bank', which has often a curve shape and is the bottom of the land. Other meanings are 'mound' and 'pool', so probably we have the same root as 'kulaya' for something curve, round, with lengthening of 'u'.
    2. how have you found the Greek word? Anyway, the modification is not regular for Greek, but I think that it's likely, we should search for other parallels. Also Armenian 'kal' 'threshing floor' has been proposed, although I don't know if there are other examples of PIE kh->Arm k-, normally it is x-. Actually, the modern theory is that there was not PIE *kh-, but at least in the group of Greek, Armenian, Indo-Iranian, voiceless aspirated occlusive consonants (kh, ph, th) are reconstructed.

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    1. ''How have you found the Greek word?''
      Tower Of Babel of course;)....Where it is said-
      ''Old Greek: hálōs, gen. -ō 'threshing-floor; disk (later: halo) of sun or moon'; alōǟ́ Hom., Hes., Opp. 'threshing-floor; halo (of sun or moon)''
      About kula thank you for revealing the truth,yes often we see the meaning of a word change on the basis where it is situated....
      Sarvamangalam.

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  26. So we evidently see that the Certain Dravidian Words Of Rigved Have IE Roots! and on Munda influence we already know that Ancient Munda is not documented and Reconstruction is Misleading plus as Munda linguist Gregory D. Anderson states: "It is surprising that nothing in the way of quotations from a Munda language turned up in (the hundreds and hundreds of) Sanskrit and middle-Indic texts. There is also a surprising lack of borrowings of names of plants/animal/bird, etc. into Sanskrit (Zide and Zide 1976). Much of what has been proposed for Munda words in older Indic (e.g. Kuiper 1948) has been rejected by careful analysis.''
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substratum_in_Vedic_Sanskrit#Munda
    Now is the Turn of the ''Non-IE Words'' They will be our next Victim......

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  27. ==Etymology of the ''Non-IE words'' in Rigved Part 1==
    3.kapardin "with a hair-knot'' can be compared i think with the Latin capillaris "of hair," from capillus "hair" (of the head); perhaps related to caput "head" (but de Vaan finds this "difficult on the formal side" and "far from compelling, since capillus is a diminutive, and would mean 'little head', which hardly amounts to 'hair'"
    "karpāsa "cotton" there is the classical etymology of the word as Kar 'To do'+Pasa 'Cord' though i'm speculative....
    4.kavandha "barrel" It is interesting that i haven't found any reference which suggest that the word mean ''Barrel'' but only '' having the appearance of a headless trunk'' which surely can be a composite of Ka 'Head'+Bandha' Infertile/Blocked aka Absent?....

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    1. kūla. In Bengali and I think panjabi kOl means lap. kulA in gujarati means lap.

      A possible parallel between dravidian and IE is seen with *pel. derivatives are metropolis etc. in Andhra and southern india we have place names ending with palli. e.g. tiruchirapalli. North indian pura is perhaps related ? but seems more of an outlier and less conservative. Welcome your input.

      regards RB

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    2. Thanks for the info on Kula!, yes what you say is correct.
      About Palli in bengali we have Paraa which means a small place or settlement of some group like Muslim Paraa, Bamun(Brahmin) Paraa etc, i think it is related to the dravidian Palli but at the moment i think Palli and Pura is not related but i will investigate.....
      Cheers...

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    3. Actually in bengali you there is palli(polli) geeti

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    4. Yes, Palligeeti, do listen to them they are indeed quite philosophical....
      But Palli in Sanskrit and Bengali is applied only to Village or Small settlements and i have found indeed Paraa is derived from Palli which probably has the Drvidian origin...
      According to Onlne Etynology -
      '' Pura has come from PIE *pele- "citadel, enclosed space, often on high ground" (cf. Sanskrit pur, puram "city, citadel," Lithuanian pilis "fortress").
      I don't know if we can imagine a common Nostratic origin for the word though....
      Suvam.

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    5. The IE root is rather *pl (with h1 if you like), meaning 'filling', from the same root comes 'full', Latin 'plenus', Sanskrit 'pūrṇa'. It should mean originally a fortification made by filling with earth.
      Why Paraa should be derived from Palli? it is rather different!

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    6. I think paraa can derive from पद्र Padra which means Village, road in a village....
      About palli i think it is obvious that village with developments become big cities so Rajarshi probably was affected with the change....
      Suvam.

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    7. the accepted view seems to be that palli *pele, pura lare related. The point I make is that dravidian speaking areas and eastern India preserve a form closer to PIE whereas the form is either lost or innovated in northern India. If you place much significance to vowels(I don't) then the spoken form of palli in south India is in many cases pelli which would make it resemble PIE.

      about pARA. I dont think its related to *pele. The original sense seems to be a division, subdivision some times of land but also applied to any entity with area (cloth, wood etc)

      pARA(area, neighbourhood) with a retroflex flap is close to paTTI(strip or band in hindi). pATh(fold in bengali), pAR (border of sARI in bengali, river embankment), pATh in sanskrit means repition, place names like vishakhapatanam

      I have wondered about resemblance with latin/english words like part, partition, port, portus, portion, portugal. It is to be noted that port has the notion of an embankment or a border between land and water. Is the r preceding the dental stop a reflex of lost retroflexion ?

      It's hard to be certain since syllables starting and ending with p and ending with t/T are highly utilized in languages. It would be good to obtain a statistically reliable pattern reinforced by other examples.

      RB

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    8. Nomoskar Raj,
      ''the accepted view seems to be that palli *pele, pura lare related. The point I make is that dravidian speaking areas and eastern India preserve a form closer to PIE whereas the form is either lost or innovated in northern India. If you place much significance to vowels(I don't) then the spoken form of palli in south India is in many cases pelli which would make it resemble PIE.''
      After checking the Nostratic database of Great and Impressive Tower of Babel-
      Eurasiatic: *pal
      Meaning: settlement
      Borean: PVLV, Meaning : settlement,Eurasiatic : *palVHV
      Sino-Caucasian : *bŭ́lƛ̣
      Austric : PAN *balay 'public building, guest house'
      Indo-European: *polǝ- Meaning: fenced settlement, stronghold
      Old Indian: pūr f. (pūrṣú, púram, puráḥ) `rampart, wall, fortress, city'; pura- n., puri-, purī f. `fortress, town'
      Old Greek: póli-s, ep., kypr., thess. ptóli-s, -eōs, ion. -ios/ēos f. `Burg, Feste, Stadt, Stadtgemeinde, Staat'
      Baltic: *pil-i- c., *pil-iā̃ f.
      Altaic: *pi̯alag from Proto-Altaic: *pi̯ắlag Meaning: fortress, group of houses
      Uralic: *palɣ from *palɣ meaning village
      Dravidian: *paḷ- which means village
      So the root is universal and majorly village but what is interesting that It is probably missing in Avestan! i think it probably indicates their more Nomadic life?....
      The peripheral areas have the tendency to be more conserving! So what you suggest can be a fact!
      ''pARA(area, neighbourhood) with a retroflex flap is close to paTTI(strip or band in hindi). pATh(fold in bengali), pAR (border of sARI in bengali, river embankment), pATh in sanskrit means repition, place names like vishakhapatanam''
      About pARA it is suggestive that it came from Padra, thank you for the interesting proposal i will search deep!
      Suvam..

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    9. So in general it seems like words for place or land features tend to have an older history than IE. e.g. *pel. Earlier I had brought up dale, thal in western europe and Dhal, pour (slope in begali), tell in the middle east, tepe in turkic DhIpI in bengali. These could be examples of common inheritance rather than an out of india trajectory.

      Are there other examples similar to padra -> pARA
      there is sanskrit shrotra (ear) and shARA (call) in bengali. are they related ?
      curiously sound in english derived from latin sonus (missing a dental) seemingly resembles bengali more than latin are these related as well?

      I bring up some other examples somewhat similar but not quite.

      grantha and gAnTha, node, nodus, knot (english spelling with silent k implies closer kinship to hindi/bengali than latin)
      vriddhI, vriddha, buRhA, buRO, wide (english, german)

      in general theres a dental associated with an additional r sound on one hand and a retroflex/alveolar on the other. Is the direction of sound shift established or assumed?

      some curious cases english moat, mound, hindi mERh

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    10. ''Earlier I had brought up dale, thal in western europe and Dhal, pour (slope in begali), tell in the middle east, tepe in turkic DhIpI in bengali. These could be examples of common inheritance rather than an out of india trajectory.''
      No because Indic in those words have something prominent and undeniable which is the Aspiration!
      1. paTTI has come from Proto-IE: *pelt-, -d- Meaning: a big piece of fabric, linen as in Old Indian: paṭa- m. `woven cloth, cloth, blanket', paṭala- n. `roof, thatch, veil, cover'
      Old Greek: péltǟ f. 'small light shield of leather without a rim; horse's ornament' Proto-Baltic: *pel(t)k
      Meaning: coat
      2.pATh has come from PIE root *pent- "to tread, go" (cf. Old High German fendeo "pedestrian;" Sanskrit panthah "path, way;" Avestan panta "way;" Greek pontos "open sea," patein "to tread, walk;" Latin pons (genitive pontis) "bridge;"
      3.pAR i think is related to *per-
      Meaning: prep./adv.: around as in Paridhi but i will look more...
      4. ',pATh in sanskrit means repition, place names like vishakhapatanam'
      I think it is not related to pATh as it is Pattan from the imitative sound pat to 'fell on ground'
      related to Patan 'downfall' here it is related to establishment 'Pattan'.
      ''I have wondered about resemblance with latin/english words like part, partition, port, portus, portion, portugal. It is to be noted that port has the notion of an embankment or a border between land and water. Is the r preceding the dental stop a reflex of lost retroflexion ?''
      1. Part as OE suggests-
      ''mid-13c., "division, portion of a whole," from Old French part "share, portion; character; power, dominion; side, way, path," from Latin partem (nominative pars) "a part, piece, a share, a division; a party or faction; a part of the body; a fraction; a function, office," related to portio "share, portion," from PIE root *pere- "to assign, allot" (cf. Greek peprotai "it has been granted," Sanskrit purtam "reward," Hittite parshiya- "fraction, part")''
      2.Port has come from from PIE *prtu- "a going, a passage," from root *per- (2) "to lead, pass over" (cf. Sanskrit parayati "carries over;" Greek poros "journey, passage, way," peirein "to pierce, run through;" Latin porta "gate, door," portare "passage," peritus "experienced;" Avestan peretush "passage, ford, bridge;" Armenian hordan "go forward;" Welsh rhyd "ford;" Old Church Slavonic pariti "to fly;" Old English faran "to go, journey," Old Norse fjörðr "inlet, estuary".

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    11. ''Are there other examples similar to padra -> pARA''
      Probably, but i have to look to the Bengali Etymo dictionary, there is Rarh,Rarhi which has come from Rashtra here is an interesting article -
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rarh_region
      ''there is sanskrit shrotra (ear) and shARA (call) in bengali. are they related ?''
      shARA is suggested to come from सज्ञा sajJA cue,sense there 'SajJa harano' in bengali which means becoming senseless.
      ''curiously sound in english derived from latin sonus (missing a dental) seemingly resembles bengali more than latin are these related as well?

      I bring up some other examples somewhat similar but not quite.

      grantha and gAnTha, node, nodus, knot (english spelling with silent k implies closer kinship to hindi/bengali than latin)
      vriddhI, vriddha, buRhA, buRO,''
      Yes it is quite interesting earlier we found Resemblances of Germanic with Bengali!
      ''in general theres a dental associated with an additional r sound on one hand and a retroflex/alveolar on the other. Is the direction of sound shift established or assumed?''
      I think Giacomo will give the answer on the question you want!
      ''some curious cases english moat, mound, hindi mERh''
      It seems Moat and Mound don't have known IE Etymology! i have to search...
      Suvam.

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    12. Thanks for looking into this.

      4. ',pATh in sanskrit means repition, place names like vishakhapatanam'
      I think it is not related to pATh as it is Pattan from the imitative sound pat to 'fell on ground'
      related to Patan 'downfall' here it is related to establishment 'Pattan'.

      I did not mean path, but pATh with retroflex which means recitation and repetition as in pAThsAlA(school). In hind sight though, this is not a good example to connect with pARA (portion of land).

      but bengali pAT(folding cloth) and hindi paTTI are, since they denotes areal subdivision. Again we notice the L in pelt. Did the "lt" shift to a retroflex or is L(some times r) a reflex of a retroflex.

      coincidentally in germanic and english like pATh in indic you have prattle or prate meaning lengthy speech but its origin may be onomoetopic.

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    13. Hello Raj,How is the weather there? Here is fresh and cold due to unexpected rain....
      On .pAR i searched the etymology and found that it is derived from पाटक pATaka which can mean Shore,Bank,Divider again similar to 'pat':)...
      ''Again we notice the L in pelt. Did the "lt" shift to a retroflex or is L(some times r) a reflex of a retroflex.''
      I'm confused:)...
      ''coincidentally in germanic and english like pATh in indic you have prattle or prate meaning lengthy speech but its origin may be onomoetopic.''
      Yes you are right i have checked they are of onomoetopic.
      I also looked for Mound and there is no conclusiveness OE Suggests a theory ''
      to be from Old English mund "hand, protection, guardianship" (cognate with Latin manus), but this is not certain (OED discounts it on grounds of sense). Perhaps a confusion of the native word and Middle Dutch mond "protection," used in military sense for fortifications of various types, including earthworks''
      and for Moat '' from Medieval Latin mota "mound, fortified height," of unknown origin, perhaps from Gaulish mutt, mutta. Sense shifted in Norman French from the castle mound to the ditch dug around it. As a verb, "to surround with a moat," early 15c.''
      mERh i didn't get can you please give a link?
      Suvam.

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    14. मेढ. I heard the word in childhood U.P. It was used by gardeners to describe the earthen boundary around a flower bed. found a link as well.
      http://shabdkosh.raftaar.in/Meaning-of-MEDH-in-Hindi.

      ''Again we notice the L in pelt. Did the "lt" shift to a retroflex or is L(some times r) a reflex of a retroflex.''
      I'm confused:)...

      OK I am searching for patterns where sanskrit dentals are seemingly transformed to retroflexes in other indic languages. In many cases the dental is accompanied by an r or l.

      e.g.

      grantha - > gAnTha (knot)
      vriddha -> bURhA (wide in english)
      part, port, pelt, padra -> pAR, pARA, pAT, paTTa, paTTI (areal subdivision)

      usually you have r/l + dental -> retroflex
      or dental + r/l -> retroflex.

      If english wide is related to vriddhI and knot is reated to grantha. then then r/l seen in sanskrit or latin seems to have been swallowed in germanic similar to indic. Were these independent processes or a singular event.

      in cases like thal, dale(DhAl) or mound(mERh), tuck (DhOk, DhUk), deck (DhEkE, DhAkO) one need not worry about r/l since cognates are not found in latin or sanskrit and the resemblance between germanic and indic is direct without intermediaries.

      rAshTra -> rARha is less interesting since the sanskrit equivalent is also a retroflex -- unless latin region, reign are related.

      More examples are need to be examined though to establish a pattern.

      thanks,

      Raj





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  28. Namaste dear Nirjhar,since you are very interested in linguistics.could you dig out the etymologies of these Sanskrit words found in Dravidian languages?

    Nīla(blue)
    Makara(crocodile or mount of Varuna,some suggest that it is a Drvd loan to Skt)
    Satya(truth)
    Nagara(town or city)

    Do you think these words have IE roots?

    Regards.....

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    1. Thik hai Akshay i try,
      1. Makara with Proto-IE: *mek(ʷ)-
      Meaning: a k. of big fish
      Old Indian: mákara- m. 'a k. of sea-monster, sometimes confounded with the crocodile, shark, dolphin etc.'; Pāli makaro 'a certain sea monster of fabulous fish (dolphin or sword fish)'
      Baltic: *mek-n-iā̃ f., *mek-s-r-a- c., -ā̂ f., *mek-s-er-ia- c.
      2. Satya is derived from Sat which is the present participle of the root as "to be" (PIE *h₁es-; cognate to English is). sattva ("purity") is also derived from "sat" Can't believe it is thought to be of drvidian.....
      About the rest i give the Etymo Tomorrow...
      Cheers.

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    2. Bahut bahut shukria Nirjhar mere bhai :P

      1. Etymology of Makara is interesting,this is a new knowledge for me,thanks a lot for digging it up :)
      2. Is satya also related to Greek eteos ?(root of 'etymology' comes from eteos )

      Curiously waiting for your other diggings ;)

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    3. Hi, I will have more time for replies from tomorrow (I must give a lecture) but about 'eteos' I can tell you that it is not clear the etymology, but it does not harmonize with satya, because it comes from 'etewos/etus' and there is no initial aspiration as a sign for original s-.
      I also cannot believe that someone thought that satya comes from Dravidian... where did you find that proposal?

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    4. Dear Giacomo,i read about satya-eteos connection here:http://books.google.co.in/books?id=RMeEqJ4mBM0C&pg=PA226&dq=satya+eteos&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DXfmUvTbI4i4rgfixYDQCQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=satya%20eteos&f=false and some other source which isn't showing up in the search right now.

      I had a conversation with a Tamilian,he said the early Tamil rulers of Satyaputra tribe bore the title "Atiyaman" (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athiyam%C4%81n)he also said "Satya" is derived from this Tamil "Atiya" so i figured i'll ask to the linguistic experts over here ;) Now i can confirm the case is other way around,Atiya might be in turn derived from Satya.

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    5. 3.Nagara It is interesting Naga( नग) has the Grammatical sense of . `" not moving "' It can mean a Mountain or Even Elephant what is common is that the both have the Height in common ''which can not be reached'' or'' Hard to reach'' Nagara can mean as which ''cannot be cerebralized'' and personally i can say that i recently had a similar city experience but thanks to Guru-G i was saved;-)....
      So Nagara is a composite (Na+Ga)....

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    6. 4.Nila According to this reference it comes from Proto-Aryan root which is comparable to Persian نیلی (nīlī).
      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE#Sanskrit
      The persian word has the meaning of Indigo-
      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%86%DB%8C%D9%84%DB%8C#Persian
      But i didn't found the IE Root though i think it can be related to न्यून (Nyun ) which can mean Less, Inferior due to the type of color Blue....

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    7. Dear Nirjhar,thank you very much for your digging ;) So we can confirm that Nīla have Indo-Iranian roots,if not Indo-European roots.I'm not satisfied with etymology of Nagara :P Recently,i and Guru-G had a conversation through facebook,he said 'Naga' is cognate to 'naked'.So may be he can look into this Naga of Nagara as well ;)

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    8. So, the Persian word should be a loanword from India (like English anil, see http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=anil&searchmode=none), since it indicates the indigo, an Indian dye. But we do have an IE root, see the etymology of neat (http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=neat&allowed_in_frame=0), it is a root *nei 'to shine'.
      As to nagara, 'cannot be cerebralized' in MW is referred to the first 'n', that cannot become a cerebral 'ṇ'... but the metaphor is nice ;) I find quite improbable a Dravidian origin, the word is found also in Dardic and Nuristani, with the meaning 'fort, fortified town', as in Pali. So, the connection with na-ga- 'not moving' maybe is not absurd, I suggest also to derive it from naga- 'mountain', as a mountain fort. Yesterday I learned that the suffix -r-a can be interpreted as IE locative. Another interesting theory cited by Mayrhofer is to derive nagara from nR-gara- 'gathering of men', compared to saM-gara 'agreement, battle'. We have also āgara, agāra for 'house', and Greek 'megaron' for the central hall of the king's palace.

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    9. I also got the feeling that the Persian one is a loan word....

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    10. Hello Giacomo,thanks for the valuable information :) Although i'm still not convinced about Nila.Blue is not always a shiny color,so i wonder how it is related to *nei.

      Also,here is what Jan Gonda suggests about nagara,he compares suffix gara with IE root -ger

      http://books.google.co.in/books?id=LBhe0nMwKbUC&pg=PA209&dq=indo-european+nagara&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7OXoUvr2FsP7rAfH6oDgCw&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=indo-european%20nagara&f=false

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    11. About nīla, it is not necessary that the original etymological meaning fits the semantic developments of the word, and remember that also a black color can be shining.

      The etymology with the root 'ger' is what I cited with nṛ-gara-, maybe we can also think of a simplification from nara-gara-, see also here for the root 'ger': http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/U/P0574.html. In Greek we have also 'gargara' 'crowd of people'.
      Sanskrit 'grāma' 'village, community, troop' comes from the same root.

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    12. Namaste,i did a search about nīla and see this result http://books.google.co.in/books?id=XlJrPvrGfO0C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=indo-european+nila+blue&source=bl&ots=nR3zZbfbVj&sig=14BI0wGAzpSFIDk7jwKMe15YVio&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LGrpUproH8S3rgei14HAAw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=indo-european%20nila%20blue&f=false

      Author compares nīla with PIE *(s)leih. I don't know how valid is this,may be you can analyze it :)

      So,we can confirm that Nagara has IE roots :)

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    13. Thank you for the research, Akshai, the proposals there seem very far-fetched, though.
      That nīla comes from līla is a pure conjecture, rather happened the opposite, for indigo Persians used 'līlak' from 'nīlak' which arrived through Arabic to English 'lilac'.
      http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=lilac&searchmode=none

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    14. Thank you Giacomo,for clarifying :)

      Now,what do you think of Makara and Baltic connection as posted by our friend Nirjhar?

      Also,do you think Sanskrit is as archaic as Lithuanian ?I also read that Hittite,although heavily influenced by other non-IE languages,still preserve few IE archaisms as well.

      Cheers.

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    15. The Baltic root is interesting, it's not cited by Mayrhofer, but here: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/etymology.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/baltet&text_number=++1535&root=config

      As to Sanskrit and Lithuanian, obviously Sanskrit, being much older, is much more archaic than Lithuanian, which is very archaic as living language. Hittite, which is a very ancient language directly attested in inscriptions of the 2nd mill. BC, is also considered archaic for the presence of initial h- and the lack of feminine (but this is rightly debated). It is interesting that both Lithuanian and Hittite (and Luwian) have often 'a' where other IE have -e- or -o-. The similarity, almost identity, of many Baltic words with Sanskrit is also impressive, see avis 'sheep', sunus 'son', vyras 'man', ratas 'wheel'...

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    16. Namaste,

      I wonder if that source is reliable.I did a search for this cognate of Makara and no other site cites it!

      And yes,Sanskrit and Lith have very much in common...almost like Sanskrit and Avestan relations.Also Slavic http://borissoff.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/1967/

      I believe Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian share very close similarities than any other IE branches do.

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    17. I think it is reliable, I can add a Slavic word cited by Mayrhofer, mokr 'wet'.
      About the similarities between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian, they are certainly strong (particularly the satem evolution), but the affinities with Greek, for vocabulary and grammar (augment, reduplication, aorist, optative, compounds...), are also very strong.

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    18. ''The similarity, almost identity, of many Baltic words with Sanskrit is also impressive, see avis 'sheep', sunus 'son', vyras 'man', ratas 'wheel'...'
      Yes and isn't it also true that for example in Grammar Slavic has the perfect 7 Cases best after Sanskrit which has 8! and adding other similarities like the words etc we get the impression that Aryans and Balto-Slavs shared a common ground! But sanskrit also shows as we know significant relation with Greek+Armenian specially the undeniable link of Aspiration! But that is not the end SKT has Affinity with most of the IE Languages though most of them differ from each other!-
      Max Müller wrote early on:
      “[A]s in his language and in his grammar [the Indian] has preserved something of
      what seems peculiar to each of the northern [Indo-european] dialects singly, as he
      agrees with the Greek and the German where the Greek and the German seem to
      differ from all the rest … no other language has carried off so large a share of the
      common Aryan heirloom – whether roots, grammar, words, myths or
      legends”
      Which i think precisely describe the situation of Sanskrit! It is by far the most Versatile child of PIE and probably the most archaic as well.....

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    19. @Giacomo

      Dear friend,thank you for the Slavic root.So now we confirm Makara is also an IE name.

      Yes,Archaic Greece is closely related to Sanskrit.I think Prof Kazanas has a new paper comparing Vedicc with Greek....

      @Nirjhar

      Hello Nirjhar,i think Thomas Burrow also held the view that Sanskrit is the most archaic IE language.

      Anyway,i have a new mission for you if you are interested.Dig out the IE roots of these Sanskrit terms found in Dravidian languages:

      Skt Mukha Drvd Mukam 'face'.
      Skt Phala Drvd Pazham 'fruit;

      Lets see if this mission is impossible or not ;)

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    20. With pleasure agent Akshay;-),
      1.SKT.Mukha with Proto-IE: *mū-
      Which means: lips, muzzle
      Old Greek: mǘllo-n n. `Lip'
      Baltic: *mu-t-iā̃ f.
      Proto-Germanic: *mūlō(n), *mūla-n, -z, *mūlian- vb. To muzzle,snout
      2.SKT Phala with Proto-IE: *(o)pel- (-ph-) ?
      Means to be strong, thick
      phála- n. `fruit; result', phalati `to be fruitful, bear or produce fruit', phaṇa- m., phaṇā f., phaṭa- m., phaṭā f. `expanded hood or neck of a serpent'
      Old Greek: ophéllō, In noun Ophellos 'promotion,benefit,advantage'
      Latin: polleō, -ēre '`fortune, be strong, align ' etc

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    21. Hi Nirjhar,thank you for completing the mission ;)

      Although,i find the cognates "ophéllō promotion,benefit,advantage" and '`polleō fortune, be strong, align " of phala quite unconvincing...i wonder how these are related to fruits!

      Btw,do you think that the term पूजा pūjā have Dravidian roots?





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    22. Sorry if I enter the conversation, I would like to add something. About pūjā, it is a hard work. Recently in the Vedic Workshop a Russian scholar supported a Dravidian etymology, without going into details. For Mayrhofer it is not likely, but IE etymologies are quite obscure. As to phala, the IE root *pel- given by Nirjhar is strange, it's rather *bhel 'to blow, swell', see here: http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=bole&allowed_in_frame=0
      So, it is related to English 'to blow', German 'Blumen' (cp. Sanskrit phulla 'blown'), Latin flos 'flower', folium 'leaf' Greek phleo 'swell', phyllon 'leaf' and phallos (I let you guess ;))
      ophello can be connected, in the meaning 'to make thrive'.

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    23. About puja,Witzel derived it from the term 'puajana' as cited in RV 8.17.12.According to him,the term means 'worshipful'.May be we should dig out etymology of Puajana further.The proposed Drvd etymology is poo(flower)+ chey(do) so puja = to do with flowers(which is common in most modern day temple pujas).

      Yes,i find association of *bhel with phala more convincing :)

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    24. Mayrhofer in the old edition of his etymological dictionary judges that Dravidian etymology with pū-cey- too daring, and cites another one, proposing the Tamil verb pūcu 'to besmear', from the typical act of rubbing or painting the cult object with red liquids.

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    25. ''Yes,i find association of *bhel with phala more convincing :)''
      I got that from Tower of Babel but the Online Etymo root is more accurate oh yes i thing our Guru is the first to make the connection!

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    26. no no, I have found it also in the etymological dictionary of Mayrhofer, new edition, where he gives also a form of the root *s-bhel- and *s-phel.

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  29. Dear Nirjhar and Giacomo,you might want to read this article:
    http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2014/01/crocodiles-help-scholar-link-indus.html

    He links Makara with the crocodile symbols from IVC.He also links the etymology of Makara with proto Dravidian.Some of the claims are quite far-fetched though....

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, I have given an eye to the article, particularly the etymology, and I have noticed the most ancient Dravidian form (tamil Sangam) makaram which should reveal a typical loanword from Sanskrit (like ashramam, sangam itself, etc.), do you confirm?
      He also derives nagara 'town' from 'nakar' 'to move slowly, to creep', which is quite incredible, this shows that it does not have a Dravidian root...

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    2. Namaste,

      \\He also derives nagara 'town' from 'nakar' 'to move slowly, to creep', which is quite incredible, this shows that it does not have a Dravidian root...//

      I believe the author is intending that *nakar itself is a Dravidian root.

      And yes,there are many Sanskrit loans with suffix -am Dravidian languages,both in Tamil and Malayalam! Take for example akasham(akasha 'sky') Deivam(Deva) etc,..

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    3. About 'nakar', yes, it is clear that this is meant by the author, but if this is what he has found as Dravidian root, it is not acceptable.
      Thank you for confirming, another question: -am has some meaning as an ending in Malayalam or Tamil or is it only used for Sanskrit loanwords?

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    4. @Guru-G+Akshay
      '' -am has some meaning as an ending in Malayalam or Tamil or is it only used for Sanskrit loanwords?''
      Significant question and is related to the Etymology of AUM....

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    5. @ Gicomo

      Namaste,i don't know about Tamil,but in Malayalam the suffix -am denotes something we 'must' do.For eg varanam(must come) pokanam(must go) irikkanam(must sit) kazhikkanam(must eat) etc. This also includes Sanskrit loans like jayikkanam(must win from Skt jaya) Jeevikknam(must live from Skt jiva) etc

      @ Nirjhar

      Namaste,
      I wonder how suffix -am is related to the Pranava....

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    6. Thank you for the information, if -am has only that value, which is connected with verbs, for nouns it appears that it is only used for Sanskrit loans. The forms you cite with -kanam are not direct loans but derived from loans with a Dravidian suffix.

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    7. Namaste,

      Yes,indeed,the suffix -am is used for many Sanskrit loans.

      And yes,you are right.Those loans are with Dravidian suffix -kkanam.

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    8. @Akshay
      ''Namaste,
      I wonder how suffix -am is related to the Pranava....''
      No it does not sorry the reference i was talking about appears to be vanished from web....

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    9. Dear Nirjhar,here are few more Sanskrit words that i can think of,found in Dravidian languages.If you are interested,you can look up the IE roots of these words :)

      siddhi (power,ability)
      buddhi(intellect)
      kumara/kumari(boy/girl)
      chandra(moon)



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    10. Priyo Akkhoy, I can't tell you how happy i get when you ask me for the Missions;0-
      1.Chandra has come from PIE root *kand- "to glow, to shine, to shoot out light" (cf. Sanskrit cand- "to give light, shine," candra- "shining, glowing, moon;" Greek kandaros "coal;" Welsh cann "white;" Middle Irish condud "fuel" and of course Candle.
      2.Buddhi has come from PIE root *bh(e)udh- "to be aware, make aware" (cf. Sanskrit bodhati "is awake, is watchful, observes," buddhah "awakened, enlightened;" Old Church Slavonic bljudo "to observe;" Lithuanian budeti "to be awake;" Old Irish buide "contentment, thanks").
      3. Siddha has come from Proto-IE: *sēidh- To direct; to aim
      Old Indian: sā́dhati, sādhyati, sādhnoti, sadhnoti, sídhyati, pf. siṣedha, ptc. siddha- `to go straight to any goal or aim, to succeed; to bring to an end, accomplish', sādhú- `straight, right, hitting the mark', sup. sā́dhiṣṭha-; -sādh- (in comp.) `accomplishing, performing'; sidhrá-, sidhmá- `going straight to goal, successful, efficacious'
      In Avesta:: Häiδišta `best for goals leader, escorting ';-had-` directing, conducting, leading to the objectives', hādrōyā f `desire, desire for attaining the objective'
      Armenian: aǯ `dexter, right
      Old Greek: īthü-'' just, equitable, adv. īthü (s) `straight ', īthǖ-s,-f` Ueos straight direction, gait, enterprise', `īthüō just tackle, attack, seek ',` īthǖnō just do, judge, direct, lead'
      4.For Kumara it is Ku+Mara this Ku_- for many is Non-IE but Mara is from Proto-IE: *mery-
      Iranian: MPers mērak,Old Greek: mei̯rak-s f 'girl', later m. `Boy ', mei̯rakio-n` Young man, young man'
      Latin: marītus,-a `beweibt, married ', m. `Husband, husband ', Marita f` wife'.
      Thank you....

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    11. Dear Nirjhar,thank you so much for looking up the congates.I never knew chandra is related to candle!

      Regarding Kumara,do you think the root "ku" have any meaning in Sanskrit?

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    12. About kumāra I am not convinced about the etymology from PIE *mery, which corresponds to Skt. marya- 'man', because, although ku- exists as a prefix of depreciation and deficiency in Skt. māra- means 'death'. Moreover 'sukumāra' means 'very tender or delicate', and also komala means 'soft, tender', so this appears to be the original meaning. According to Mayrhofer, we can compare with Greek s-kym-nos 'cub, whelp', and lith. kumelys 'colt' (young horse) and kumele 'mare'.

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    13. Thanks for pointing it out Giacomo,so we can say the Kumara also have IE roots.But i wonder how kumele 'mare' is related to kumara.All other cognates seems perfect,because they refer to young animals,just like kumara refers to young boy..

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    14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    15. Okay! the lithuanian Kumeleys is quite close to Kumara, do you think mare is also related as in "female horse," of Old English mere (Mercian), myre (West Saxon), fem. of mearh "horse," from Proto-Germanic *markhjon- (cf. Old Saxon meriha, Old Norse merr, Old Frisian merrie, Dutch merrie, Old High German meriha, German Mähre "mare"), said to be of Gaulish origin (cf. Irish and Gaelic marc, Welsh march, Breton marh "horse"). No known cognates beyond Germanic and Celtic. As the name of a throw in wrestling, it is attested from c.1600. Mare's nest "illusory discovery, excitement over something which does not exist" is from 1610s.?

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    16. ''Thanks for pointing it out Giacomo,so we can say the Kumara also have IE roots.''
      Yes and seeing the result pattern after every Root Search i wonder is there any non-IE word in ancient Sanskrit?:-)......
      Suvam.....

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    17. well, mīna is most probably from Dravidian min 'fish'.

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    18. About kumelys/kumele, I'm not sure that it is connected with kumara, I asked a Lithuanian friend, kumelys is rather the stallion, and kumele is also an adult mare. The root of mare, probably Celtic, is indeed limited, but there are some interesting theories about its origin from the same root as Sanskrit marya, which means also stallion: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/march#Welsh
      And I remember that the Chinese name of the horse, mă, has been derived from the same IE term...

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    19. I don't think that the term "mīn" occurs much in Sanskrit.

      Anyway even if we abandon Lithuanian cognates,we still have Greek s-kym-nos,right?

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    20. @Guru
      ''About kumelys/kumele, I'm not sure that it is connected with kumara, I asked a Lithuanian friend,''
      as we pronounce Kumara and Kumele is similar just vowel change a>e and l instead of r.
      ''The root of mare, probably Celtic, is indeed limited, but there are some interesting theories about its origin from the same root as Sanskrit marya, which means also stallion''
      Exactly.
      ''And I remember that the Chinese name of the horse, mă, has been derived from the same IE term...''
      Well that is worthy to know!
      ''well, mīna is most probably from Dravidian min 'fish'.''
      according to Tower of Babel there is the Proto-IE: *menǝ(w)- which means fish
      Old Greek: mai̯nǟ f, mai̯nis, idos f N. a small herring-like fish, `Maena vulgaris'
      Slavic: * mьnь `burbot '
      Baltic: * men-k-ā,-ia (1) f,-ia (1) c.
      Germanic: * mun-jon-f, f * muniw-ō
      There is of course the nostratic etymology -
      Eurasiatic: *mVnV
      Meaning: fish
      Indo-European: *man-, *men-
      Altaic: *mańu(k`V)
      Uralic: Saam. māńńi (Coll.)
      Dravidian: *mīn-
      http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2fnostr%2fnostret&text_number=+706&root=config

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    21. Interesting, but the Sanskrit form is closer to Dravidian, and it is not a case that the word is found only in post-Vedic texts.

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    22. I don't know if Mina occurs in the Vedas but probably not in Rikveda and Since TOB shows the chance for it to have an IE Etymology and even if it is of Drvidian then out of tons of possibilities the only loan word adopted by Aryas still seems Fishy;)....

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  30. Yes,pūshuka means to smear or spread something.But i think it is quite awkward to connect it with Puja. I would prefer poo-chey instead.Also,i wonder how either 'smearing' or 'doing with flowers' got converted into "worshipful" in Puja.....a derivation of puja,pujya is applied to honorific people,such as leaders of certain maths and ashrams. It is interesting to note that pujya,in Dravidian languages means zero!!

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    Replies
    1. I find the etymology from 'smearing' more convincing, because it is a simple act, if it was an act of worship it could become equivalent of 'to worship'. But still phonetically it is not perfectly corresponding, and it is strange that we have no trace of the original meaning, but only 'to worship, honour'. So, we must accept that pūj- is a root with that meaning, like kūj-, maybe as an extension of pū- 'to make clean or pure' (which can be connected with the act of washing idols). The -j could even come from a form of yaj- 'to worship', which has a 'zero grade' ij- like in 'ijya' 'to be honoured'. So from pū-ij 'to worship by cleaning' > pūj. We have at least another compound with -ij, ṛtv-ij- 'sacrificing at the proper time, priest'. It is quite speculative, but if we find some similar evolutions... it is also interesting that English 'to pour' probably comes from the same root: http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=pour&searchmode=none.

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    2. Wonderful,you really are a walking encyclopedia! I'll call you Guru-G from now on(thanks Nirjhar for the term) ;)

      As for etymology of 'pour' it comes from Latin ' purare' according to that link.May be the root of 'purare' has cognate with the root -puj?


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    3. I do not mean that 'purare' and 'to pour' are directly the same as pūj-, but that the root pū- which I propose to be the base of pūj- could be connected also with the idea of pouring liquids. As you can see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puja_(Hinduism), the first steps of the Puja ritual according to the great indologist Jan Gonda, after the sitting of the deity (as a guest) are all related to water and washing.

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    4. Dear Guru-G,i may be wrong,but i think Vedic rituals also follows same steps...viz inviting deities to sit on the grass,cleansing,given sacrificial offerings etc.

      Pour may be related o -puj,bu we can only speculate as of now,because there is no clear cognates.

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    5. You can stop calling me Guru-G ;) The Vedic ritual is different from Puja, it is true that there is a concept of invitation and of sitting on the barhis-grass, but I have never read of 'cleansing' the gods, there the central element is not an idol but the fire, where you pour the oblations (like ghee) that should be brought to the gods by Agni, who is the intermediary, the priest of the gods. And obviously you don't 'wash' the fire with water! ;)

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    6. But you really are my Guru,i learned a LOT of things from you ;)

      And i remember reading this cleansing part somewhere,can't recall the source now.I think it may have intended for the sacrificial animal,don't remember correctly....

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    7. maybe the cleansing of Soma? He is also called 'pávamāna' for that reason...
      but it seems that the root pūj- is primarily an act of honour of a guest, which started with washing the feet and offering a bath...

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    8. Yeah,entire 9th Mandala is dedicated to Soma Pavamana i think.

      Yes,we do wash the feet of guests.It is also applicable to married couple before they enter the house :)

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    9. Interesting, who washes the feet in that case?

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    10. I don't know about in other states,but here the bride's brother would wash the feet of groom :)

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  31. And yes,Jan Gonda was indeed a great scholar.I'm currently reading one of his book on Prajapati....

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    1. Dear Akshay my Dakshini Brother:) now it is my turn to give you a mission-
      Try to trace these Non-IE words of Rikveda-
      1.kimīda "a demon", śimidā "a demoness"
      2.kīnāśa "ploughman"
      Best of luck.

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    2. Hello Nirjhar,i did a search online for these words and couldn't find any IE etymology.May be i'm not a good excavator like you are when it comes to digging up etymologies ;)

      Anyway about the word kinasa,according to Witzel it is an Austric loan.May be our Guru can comment on it :)

      Btw i recently read that during the Buddha's time,Sanskrit was mainly the language of 'learned ones' or Pandits,Acharyas etc....could there have been another Indo-Aryan dialect spoken by common people just like the Prakrit dialects?What do you think?

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    3. On Kinasa In tower of babel I did find Proto-IE: *kaln- which means Corn, callosity, In Sanskrit there is किण kiNa which means Corn,callosity.
      There is Latin:. Callus,-ī m, callum,-ī n `hardened, thick skin, callus, rind, crust, bone hardening, hard skin of fruits', however i think the root is related to surface or scratching the surface.....
      ''Btw i recently read that during the Buddha's time,Sanskrit was mainly the language of 'learned ones' or Pandits,Acharyas etc....could there have been another Indo-Aryan dialect spoken by common people just like the Prakrit dialects?What do you think?''
      Sanskrit in simple sense was the official language which differed to the spoken ones, but i think it is quite possible that there were indeed other I-A dialects which were not successful like Pali,Prakit or Even were Older to Sanskrit!
      Suvam.

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    4. Sanskrit apparently was not spoken in the common life at the time of the Buddha, when it was called 'chandas', the language of the Vedic verses. From what I have read in the Pali texts, never it appears that Sanskrit was spoken, even by Brahmins or kings. And Panini, probably in the 4th century BC, finally gave a fixed form to this literary language. The first inscriptions we have with Ashoka are in Prakrit. Curiously, Sanskrit was adopted later, according to a source (Solomon 1998) the earliest Sanskrit inscription was of the 1st century BC, but normally an inscription of 150 AD is cited, when the revival started, and so we arrive at the Classical period, the Kavya literature, and so on. Pargiter observed that also the Puranas are translated from some Prakrit text, as we can see from some hints in the language.
      So, Vedic Sanskrit had to be connected with a spoken language at a certain moment, but it was used by Brahmin poets and theologians, so it was a literary language, which remained among Brahmins. Moreover, it corresponded to a language of Northwest India, in the area of the Sarasvati, and other areas must have had other dialects, that evolved into the different Prakrits.

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    5. Just found this on the net,might sound interesting to you....


      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aps%C3%BB

      "literally, ab='water' (or 'semen') zu='to know' or 'deep' was the name for fresh water from underground aquifers that was given a religious fertilizing quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu."

      Now in Sanskrit,the term Apsu means water!!

      http://sanskritdictionary.com/?q=apsu

      I think this probably shows Mesopotmian and Indus-Sarasvati(and thus,Sanskrit) connection.What do you think Giacomo and Nirjhar? :)

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  32. Thank you very much for this post. It was finally providing relief to me with regard to decades of feeling uneasy with the commonly accepted explanations. Your thoughts deserve to be expanded into a full-fledged paper!

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    1. Thank you, I am happy that I can give some relief from the latent problems of the common theories. I think we should found a new school of Indo-European studies. Where have you studied?

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  33. @Nirjhar

    Namaste,

    Here is what Witzel suggests about kinasa ".....words such as kinafa,kikata,pramaganda,balbutha,
    brsayacan by no means be explained in terms of IE: (1) there are no IE/IA roots
    such as kin, kik,
    mag, balb, brsas only roots of the format {(s)(C) (R) e (R)
    (C/s)} are allowed;
    (2) the sound b is very rare in IE; (3) suffixes such
    as -a-f, -t, an-d/-a-nd-, -buth-/bu-th- are not found in IE/IA; and (4) only ș(but
    not s) is allowed in Ved. after i, u, r, k. In addition"

    @Giacomo

    So there is a possibility that there was another variant of IA prevelant during Buddha's times,right?Possibly with less substrate influences :-)

    I think Purusha Sukta also mentions Chandas,however most scholars interpret it as the Vedic meter.

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    Replies
    1. Why with less substrate influences? Theoretically Prakrit should have more substrate influence, since it is less conservative and more recent than Vedic Sanskrit... But for instance mīna 'fish' is absent in Pali, although there is in some Prakrit according to Mayrhofer, and in Sinhalese (which does not suprise). In Buddha's time obviously there were many variants of Indo-Aryan: there is a famous passage of the Vinaya where the Buddha allows to study his teachings in one's own dialect, and forbids to put it in 'chandas', which is normally 'metre' in Sanskrit, but also 'Vedic text', and Buddhaghosa explains that the Buddha forbade to translate his words in the language of the Vedas. Panini used the locative 'chandasi' to refer to Vedic forms, and we have in Sanskrit chandobhāṣā to indicate the Vedic language.

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    2. a question about the quotation from Witzel: what is kinafa? f does not exist in Sanskrit...

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  34. I see that my comments are out of order.Having trouble with reply button again..

    Anyways,i was guessing from what Nirjhar said.There might have been a language spoken by common people which might be older than Vedic itself.Certain passage in Satapatha Brahamana speaks of Mleccha language,this might have been spoken by non-Vedic Indo-Aryan tribes(possibly associated with the non-Vedic Sramanas?)This is of course,nothing but a speculation.Yes,Buddha refused to translate his teachings into Chandasa.I found the Pali text,but couldn't find the English translation so i was unsure of its meaning ;)

    And about Kinafa,i think it is a script error on my PC.Somehow the ' ś ' got converted into ' f ' when i copy pasted....

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    1. Thank you so much for bringing witzels Analysis-
      '' (1) there are no IE/IA roots
      such as kin, kik,
      mag, balb, brsas''
      1. on Kinasa i have given a related root before.
      2. about root Kik there is similar Proto-IE: *keik-
      Meaning: jay
      Old Indian: kiki-, kikidiva-, kikidivi- m. `blue jay'
      Proto-Baltic: *kik-tu-ia- m., *kḗk-š-t-a-, -ia- m.
      Meaning: a k. of waterfowl
      Lithuanian: kikuti-s 'snipe, Sumpfschneppe, sky goat'; kēkšta-s,-ī-s 'Jay'
      3.On root mag- there is PIE *magh- Great,Sacrifice as in Old Indian: mahati, maháyati `to gladden; to esteem highly, honour, revere; to rejoice', mahá- m. `feast, festival'
      Latin: mactus,-a `praised, celebrated, honored by administration '; Macte` healing you! Good luck '; mactāre `sb. glorify by gifts, celebrate '; magmentum n' pieces of meat as an addition to the sacrificed guts'
      4.about root bal- there is Proto-IE: *bal- / -e-
      Meaning: strong
      Old Indian: bála- n. `power, strength, might', balín- `powerful', bálīyān `more powerful', báliṣṭha- `most powerful'
      Ukr. bilshy, Art.-Slav. bolii m, large x., bolѥ, Bulg. Bole "more" serbohorv. bȍљi "best" word. bȯ̑lje "better", Czech. Only Boleslav, Pol. Bolesɫaw.
      Greek: beltíōn, béltero- `besser', béltisto-, béltato- `bester'
      Proto-Germanic: *pala-
      Meaning: firm, steady.
      5. brsas i don't know what is in Devnagari?
      ''Anyways,i was guessing from what Nirjhar said.There might have been a language spoken by common people which might be older than Vedic itself.Certain passage in Satapatha Brahamana speaks of Mleccha language,this might have been spoken by non-Vedic Indo-Aryan tribes(possibly associated with the non-Vedic Sramanas?)This is of course,nothing but a speculation.Yes,Buddha refused to translate his teachings into Chandasa.I found the Pali text,but couldn't find the English translation so i was unsure of its meaning ;)''
      I truly think that SSC Script will be a Variant of an archaic Indo-Aryan which is probably older than Sanskrit like S.R. Rao said that SSC Script is related to Sanskrit though his methods weren't that sound! but he seemed really confident:0
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikaripura_Ranganatha_Rao#Indus_script_decipherment_claim
      Akshay, what happened to your posts?
      Suvam.

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    2. Thanks Nirjhar,for the analysis.You should take a look at Witzel's other claims as well (http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf) regarding supposed Munda loans.

      \\5. brsas i don't know what is in Devnagari?//

      He only provided the English transliteration,i have no clue about Devanagari.Perhaps,ब्रस?

      About Indus script,i think it may have used to write multiple languages.Whatever language it represented,some of the symbols have close similarities with the present day Indian iconography...such as Vaishnava Tilak-like symbol is frequently used in ISC script.


      \\Akshay, what happened to your posts?//

      I deleted,them.Some of the posts were outdated :) I post on Facebook nowadays....

      Delete
    3. ''Perhaps,ब्रस?''
      No! not a trace, did he gave where it is in RV?
      ''About Indus script,i think it may have used to write multiple languages.Whatever language it represented,some of the symbols have close similarities with the present day Indian iconography...such as Vaishnava Tilak-like symbol is frequently used in ISC script.''
      No! recent researches on the script tells it was a same language throughout the civilization...
      ''I deleted,them.Some of the posts were outdated :) I post on Facebook nowadays....''
      But i don't like facebook;-)....
      Thank you so much for the pdf i will surely look into it!
      Suvam.

      Delete
    4. Dear Nirjhar,

      \\No! not a trace, did he gave where it is in RV?//

      I checked the book again and realized that it is a script error.The actual word is brsaya.I think i shouldn't have copy-pasted....

      \\No! recent researches on the script tells it was a same language throughout the civilization...//

      Do you have any source?
      I think we should look at the case of Brahmi.Brahmi script is used for both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages.May be it was the case for ISC script as well.


      \\But i don't like facebook;-)....
      Thank you so much for the pdf i will surely look into it!//

      But many people use it :-)

      You're welcome.If you want another PDF on Indo-Iranian relation with Uralic languages,then let me know....the author suggests that some Indo-Iranian words are of Uralic origin.May be you can analyze the claims.

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    5. ''The actual word is brsaya.''
      Thank you i will check....
      ''Do you have any source?''
      http://a.harappa.com/sites/harappa.drupalgardens.com/files/Indus-sign-design.pdf
      In that research they find that-
      ''The Indus civilisation was spread over an area of about a million
      square kilometres and yet, the sign list over the entire civilisation seems to
      be the same indicating that the signs, their meaning and their usage were
      agreed upon by people with large physical separation.''
      But also-
      ''Indus script has been
      found on seals discovered in West Asia with a different grammar (Rao et
      al., 2009b). The usage of modifiers at almost all sites (Table 4) suggests
      that the manner of sign modification was universally agreed over the entire
      area of the Indus valley civilisation and was not intended for a small group
      of people.''
      So it means that in West Asia the symbols reflect a different language system while here it was spread throughout the vast civilization with a similar language system!.
      ''I think we should look at the case of Brahmi.Brahmi script is used for both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages.May be it was the case for ISC script as well.''
      Why you think SSC had Dravidian folks?
      ''You're welcome.If you want another PDF on Indo-Iranian relation with Uralic languages,then let me know....the author suggests that some Indo-Iranian words are of Uralic origin.May be you can analyze the claims.''
      Absolutely! Just bring the food of amusement:).....
      ''But many people use it :-)''
      I'm not many;) but give me your fb link....
      Suvam.

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