method of dating RV, III

[Michael Witzel]

On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, George Thompson wrote:

> A general point might be made here: I myself have tended to look at the
> large number of phraseological parallels between Vedic and Avestan as due
> largely to shared cultural inheritance. I had not given much thought to the
> possibility of fairly regular contact at RV levels.

I agree. I wonder even about grammatical innovations shared across the s/h
IA/Iranian "border" (I think, a few hints in my paper in : C.Caillat, les
dialects indo-aryennes, Paris 1989). Things of that nature can happen
between such closely realted "dialects", e.g. Low German (more like Dutch,
Anglo-Saxon) and High German, or now between Dutch and Frisian (inside the
Netherlands only), and I would guess between Provencal and Paris French
(Dominique, maybe you can tell us?).  -- More in a forthc. paper for the
1997 Erlangen conf. of the Indogerman.Gesellschaft, due this year, ed.
B.Forssman.

And as for George's comments on book 8: his combination of IA, Old
Iranians, and non-IA tribes ... I agre; more in the next S.Asia conf. at
Madison (Indus Civ. panel) in Oct.... too early to tell now (I am working
on it right now) : A quite complicated picture but one which might inject
more reality, again, into our preception of the (later) RV period...

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Michael Witzel                       witzel at fas.harvard.edu