Retroflex sounds

George Thompson thompson at JLC.NET
Sat Jun 20 13:55:30 UTC 1998


In response to the recent post of Sandra van der Geer:

>in Australian Aboriginal languages.
>
>Consequently, it may be wiser not to conclude anything on the ground
>of presence of lack of retroflex sounds. It seems to be intrinsic to
>human speech.
>

While it is very useful to have the evidence of retroflexion cited by van
der Geer, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, and Lars Martin Fosse, -- reminding us
that such phonemes are widespread in human language --, the *particular*
problem of the origin of retroflexion in Vedic remains an open one. This is
the view also of Hans Heinrich Hock in his recent overview of the problem
"Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian? A
Survey of the Issues and Controversies" [in the volume edited by Jan
Houben, *Ideology and Status of Sanskrit*, 1996].

Leaving aside Subrahmanya [who appears unwilling to agree with anything],
perhaps we can all agree that the problem is this:

In the Common Indo-Iranian period there is no retroflexion [at least no
phonemic retroflexion]. Then after the two branch away from each other
retroflexion appears in Indic. It happens that retroflexion also appears in
Dravidian [even if the phonemic system of proto-Dravidian is quite
different from that of early Indic [e.g., Vedic].

Now, either retroflexion arose internally or it arose as a result of
contact between two distinct language families in the Indian sub-continent.


As far as I can tell, there is still no definitive argument in favor of
either one of these alternatives.

Is this something everyone would agree to?

Best wishes,

George Thompson





More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list