SV: River Krishna

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Michael Witzel [SMTP:witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU] skrev 18. mars 1999 18:17:
> At 5:30 -0800 3/18/99, Venkatraman Iyer wrote:
> >The name of the River Krishna in AP in old times appears to have
> >been  called something cognate with the Tamil "karum peNNai";
> >'karum' refers to black color and 'peNNai' means palm tree.
> >We have vaTa(north) and ten2(south) peNNai rivers.

Sorry to but in, but I have a more general question regarding river names, and 
this may be the time to bring it up before I forget.

As you know, there is a theory about a system of hydronyms related to Western 
Europe, supposedly going back to the period of the I-E "takeover" (about 2000 
+/- BCE). See e.g. Hans Krahe, "Indogermanisch und Alteuropäisch", reprinted in 
 "Die Urheimat der Indogermanen" published by Wissenschaftliche 
Buchgesellschaft in 1968.

 Is there anything similar to such a hydronymic system in the Indo-Iranian 
area?

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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