Kalaapa

[Bh.Krishnamurti]

 >Kalyanaraman wrote:
>>>The transform p~~h is common in Kannada. It will be of interest to trace
>>> the old forms of kalaham = disurbance, fight...
>
>however, this Kannada change is occurs only c. 900/1000 AD (Drav.
>specialists please tell us) .  The Skt word kalaha, however,  is attested
>already in the Upanisads, c. 500 BCE... and Skt kalaha thus cannot come
>from Kannada.

Yes. Kannada change of p to h is during the historic period, i.e 10th
century. It cannot be a borrowing from Kannada. Burrow in Dravidian Studies
VII traced
Skt. kalanka- (51), kalaha (54), kalaapa (56) to the group of forms to be
reconstructed as *kal-a (DEDR 1303, 1299). In the last chapter of Sanskrit
Lanaguge, he added Skt. kalu.sa- to this group. Ta. kalaavu, kalaay 'to be
displeased, to get angry, quarrel' have a long derivative vowel which looks
to an underlying laryngeal *kal-aH-wu/-y, in which case h in kalaha- could
be a reflex of a PD laryngeal. Only Old Tamil has long -aa in the derivative
syllable. I have to look for parallel loan words with h preserved in Skt.
pa.taha- (186) is the other in Borrow'a list, but I cannot see anything to
support a laryngeal there.There are several alleged borrowings in Skt. with
aspirated stops corresponding to unaspirated ones in Drav.

>And Burrow -Emeneau's DEDR  1303 Tam. KalaGku, kalApa 'to be stirred up,
>agitated, confused', etc. has only the Kan. entries kala(G)ku 'perturb'
>etc.,   ... kaluhe 'turbidness', not kalaha.
>
>If there is a connection it must be via another Drav. language: for example
>Gondi kallih, Kurukh xalaxnA 'disturb, confuse' etc." (DEDR 1303)>

Gondi -h <-s is a kind of causative suffix; ND x is a regular development of
PD *k when not followed by high front vowels.

>None of which is entirely satifactory for an Up.  time word kalaha-
>Perhaps the Dravidian specialists can enlighten us here?

I wrote a full-fledged paper on PD laryngeal; it surfaces as aaydam  (a
h-type of sound)in Early Tamil and as h in some of the other Dravidian lgs.
Prof. Witzel, see if you can get hold of  a copy of PILC Journal of Dravidic
Studies 7:1 (1997; actually out in 1998 March).(PILC=Pondicherry Inst of Lg
and Culture).

Turner 's CDIAL 2922 returns it only from Mahabharata, and compares Prakrt,
>and from Panjabi and Nepali to Marathi and Sinhala; but note that the word
>even occurs in Nuristani (Kafiri): kelE, keele (here, e= schwa, E = e).
>Should we suppose a Drav. origin of the word in those isolated languages
>as well?

Possible via MIA

>Mayrhofer EWA (new ed. 1986-1996, of  his etym. dict. of Skt) vol. I p. 321
>says :
>kalaha-- Up.+, kalahin- GRhyaSUtra, Up., "not explained";
>and refers to older Drav. and Munda explanations, in part onomatopoetic.

>If the "root" of these words is onomatopoetic, there is little chance to
>pin down the exact source. In addition, the texts/languages in question are
>first attested at different times : Up. 500 BCE, Tamil begin of CE, Munda
>and Kafiri only for the past 100 years or so. --  However, since similar
>words (kala-) occur in all great language families of S. Asia, one may
>suppose an old S.Asian expression,taken over into all languages concerned.
>-- Pretty useless in case of an onomatopoetikon.

I think *kal represents several homophonous roots giving rise to different
groups of words: 'noise' (1302), 'mix, join' (1299), 'learn'(1297), 'stone'
(1298),'to accrue, grow' (1300, 1310), 'disturb, agitate,stir up, quarrel'
(1303)[both Skt. kalaha- and kalu.sa- seem to belong here].

>Last point : if kala- is onomatopoetic, the Tamil etc word kalApa 'peacock
>feather/tail ' may, just may be a loan translation from Munda where
>mara('k) 'peacock' belongs to the root  'to cry'.

Burrow (1948) gives the meaning 'bundle' as the basis of semantic connection
with 'peacock's tail' and compares it with Ta. Ma. Ka. kalappu'collection of
things, mass' etc.(1299).

Bh.K.
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